Unpaginated

Orchestrating violins thru whisky sky

clouds slide like billiard balls

a Jackie Gleason-Fats Domino

ricochet off greener velvet;

my pheasant escaping snow.

Jack Ketch the hangman

in brilliant plumage,

a touch of Borgia in

long, murderous hands.

The light of Capone in

steeple-dark eyes

running like a

haunted ship

around the white, facial disc.

Offset. Bold type.

I see you through pages

of my history book

only you're unpaginated.

Unclench the fist,

watch for effervescent islets,

erotic mounds of Venus or

protuberances called Marquesas

off my left hand.

Omens are the cloth

of dreams, scissors

used to open sky.

Work out cosmic debts -

figure stone footprints on Hollywood Blvd.

en route to Tijuana for a start;

I should have been Buddha incarnate

or curator at the Hermitage,

wild shaman for the Arapaho

not a cocoa butter salesman

from New Jersey, nagging

soda-jerk in L.A.

'bout the time

of Marilyn Monroe's

quick magic.

The Almighty unpacking orange crates,

sending Florida cold

unravelling karmic debt,

brass studs in your eye

mowing suckers with your scythe;

Birthpath urge, Father Time,

de-gutting chickens at Pleasure Farms

looking to Hindoos for clues

(placing roaches on a lucky few.)

This hurdle over stones

crass fortitude ensemble,

strange melange

spewing nails,

elbows round thin pain

gutter cathedral looming into view

where there

is more viscera than mirth before

ripples of enchantment

cause vibrations at four

and the phrenology

of universal measure

is a moon

ribcage in light

- gazelle of trees

a dinosaur in height.