Portraits

Amniotica

She travels in a bubble of familiar thoughts

and sees us through that screen, but only dimly,

as shadow puzzle quaint incomprehensibilities.

She tags our surface features with her recognition marks,

                   and will interact politely, if she must.

Gliding smoothly and serenely thru the bustling roar of chatter

she can hear us underneath the beating of a distant drum.

The bubble softens everything that passes to or from her

longing for the real has been deflated to a vague and transient hum.

Across her thoughts an instant shade of restlessness may shiver

but waters here

run deep and still

til running's end

has come.

Hard-on Her-shelf

to be read aloud- not for the eyes alone

She's

clearly stated,

lamb-innate-dead,

full-did, stay-pulled,

mute-ill-aided.

Her

over-raided

hair is plated,

care-full color

punk-chew-ate-id;

thin, sharp loins

suck-singly sated.

Tho'

she in her-nest

met-hid-dated,

won-tied meat-who

fill her jaded

cave-urn up, she

weak-need hated,

met-dick-ate-head,

then be-rate-dead.

In

steel and glass her

heart/womb crated.

Now

from her four-tress

priss-on fires the

flaming bolts of

quenched desires

and suffers more than

lone-lie-nest

Freedom, Bound

to Bryan

There is so little comfort in your life;

you have not spent your

self

on comfort.

Naked madness

          howls in empty lots

                   on moonlit borders

                             of my thoughts of you

Your search continues

          in exile.

Eating garbage and dandelions.

          for years.

Sleeping in the bus depot

          while the buses leave.

You, who hear the music

          of plants and mountains-

who know the feel of wood in hand

          and shovel sunk in dirt-

and see the patterns

          of the stars

                   and molecules

You spend your time

amid the greasy peeling Formica,

among the moths and mosquitoes

on streetlamp peninsulas,

overlooking tar-river streets

or walking out along the strand

of the interstate ocean,

and harboring in

dusty over-used slum rooms

with too many coats of paint

unless you

sprout like a mushroom on some morning lawn,

awakened by dew settling

to sparkle on your

stubble-bearded face

or root through mountain forest floors

for grub

and stride across the desert.