Snow Crash and Ruby Passion

this day
shadows away from itself

on a path beaten with bleeding
feet silent

screams and a Declaration of Interdependence

my addiction
lists and sways,

greens under palms
and soft, tender ashes.

Your Passion
has always been too much,

even in binary code
or under moons falsely held

arguably bought
by bidders in disarray.

sometimes a sacrificed swan

in cyrillic,
erstwhile and otherwise,
I compose a host
of praise and development:

most would be surprised
by the family of muscle.

in my entire
misbegotten saga,

there have only been four riders:

father, son, husband and daughter.

The rest
can be swept
as ashes and this calms me

on the edge
of the Great Betrayal.

All who can dance
have no need of Forgiveness.

nostalgia without memory

a Russian curse,
this languid backpaddle
to an era
when leaders of state
sat entranced
at the Bolshoi

and ballerinas
dared not sprout
acidic fat.

defeat

Defeat
wears you down
like the prom queen abandoned
on a sere soccer field

or suicide girl
in political disarray,
ideology akimbo.

Some dare suggest
nothing is linear;
all is in unrest.

I protest.
Your swan song stretched
its servile neck

into aristocratic oblivion.

drowned girl

hello once again,
my eternal darling

Greetings from the dry side,
the sere side

I am safe, but so are you

finally

in your mermaid,
seaweed tomb,
in perpetual death and hiding.

I Danced With A Corpse

and her breath
was beyond laboured

slippage had ruined
her perfect skin.

I thought

Opera Gloves!
Remove Them.

Her stench defied
shit, piss, puke and disinfectant

Ah!

I am reminded of those suitors' stale gifts:

long-stemmed virginal roses.

I invite you to visit my garden each spring:

peppered with the ashes of my beloved;
it is viable;

it dances.

the quality of mercy

the strangeness of my face
as I guide her toward Czech glass light

reminds me of mercy—startling in its green degree

like a blond child
in a stale velvet dress

your need is drastic,
a ribbon slashes your good neck

a Southern belle
overturned and rung
in a heart-pink corset

all undone

everything about you ruined,
family, fortune, fame

your breasts, most of all,

failed and falling

whose telephone number
will you recall

when you can reach
no one at all?

St. Francis, The Argentine & Papacy

my beauty,
your tango strut
upends my virtue:

papal or otherwise,
sequestered with scant Twitter reprieve

Evita would spin
in her unquiet grave

Give me
a populist pope
or a shackled reformer

someone who has known
dishonour and despair.

servat regina colorem

oh queen,
you have been betrayed
and yet

your voice remains
sweet and true.

Your spouse
did not protect you

(as husbands never do)

and in this ebola trance,
you stretch your lovely swan neck

instructing the executioner
to forgive you

your slenderness.

incandescence and the mermaid

false child,
your memory serves no one well

shed those fins
that slippery tail

Repent.

slip between
your beloved river rocks

and sing the tale of the
otter and hippopotamus

or even better!

the mergirl who grew legs
behind her ovaries

and birthed a creature
too closed for openings.

A seamstress and her Czech glass buttons
was seen in Bohemia's last Opera House.

When a glass shoe drops,
high arches escape blood-lettings.

craven shield

old crow, how I longed to protect you,
or at least defend,

the kernels strewn,
winds shift
in unpredictable directions

that only scared ravens know

you refused to die

stubborn lass,
with your copper tresses
and algae eyes

why did you refuse to die?

the life you claim
in shy disdain
is as ugly as vampire veins.

Dollar Store Delight

like the cheapest
dollar store whore

with puffer fish lips
and mudsliding hips

your fossil fuel
and hip-hop gruel

disarm me to the core.

you cannot kill the dead

try as you might,
such doings are impossible
even at godneglected hours
or prophet turnabouts.

the dead are gone;
you cannot cajole them
into false submission.

you cannot steal their clocks.

a little refusal

I refuse
repeatedly to be
what I was not intended
to be

Detractors
mingle languidly,
in tulle and silk,
topaz and citrine

Autumn was chosen
to be my renaissance season

but reason intervened
and suggested

a different kind of  treason.