creeping on the slow feet
erosion employs over centuries
to carve icons from the residue
of human ideas reduced to sand
contained within the hourglass shape
of a lover
of a guitar
or the mistrust
of eyes the color black
that same sand once a mountain
that mountain once a star
squeezing light across the galaxy
for our pinpoint and incredulous eyes
finished navigating oceans
finished exploring galaxies
to fear
our eyes wide open fearing
I am a drill bit in the jaw of a crocodile
A lottery check winner in triplicate
I'm waiting for a sign from the casket maker
The flag slaps against the battleship gray of my solitude
Sparks fly in the wake of midnight nightmare visions
Skulking brim pulled low against my specs I hit Washington Square
Pop over to Stockton for a pinched apple as the Buddha glares
I'm traipsing through the Broadway Tunnel happily fumigated
With tax-paying law-abiding poison melee of exhaust
I am paprika on the proboscis of a dragonfly
Cracked ribs shoulders of granite and intrinsic arteries
Mimic of the City a creeping crippled crow
Drink of paralysis shot of defibrillation crack of starlight
And the yawning omniscient entirety of nowhere left to go
As the sand-blown decrepit walls out by Ocean Beach
Hem in the Pacific Rim a Colossus there's no escape from
I am a butte on the spine of the Sierras
A saxophone bottled with inverse propaganda
Dictator of Jazz wooing Oceans
And girls with seaweed cut short behind the ears
Jay Passer's work has appeared in print and online for 24 years. Themes of anarchy, delirium, antiestablishment ethos and bawdy street survival all cast lots in the spectrum of his vision. A new chapbook, At the End of the Street, from Corrupt Press, is due out in late 2012, while Only Human By Definition, his most recent collection, is currently available from Crisis Chronicles Press.
del.icio.us
