It happens in town:
            some big rock chunk
            falls on someone, an axis
            for the entire thing, a desperation
            removing ourselves from the cold,
            pretending to be real. Then,
            all of a sudden, a tree is noticed
            that's been standing in the same place
            for years. But back to the movie:
            the rock has been pushed aside
            and the leader's head is bleeding.
            Soon, the blood will congeal
            back into his skull and
            he will save us from ourselves.
            The phone rings, then stops;
            dial backwards and let distance blow.
            Liquid ice, antithetical, melting fire.
            Look at Carlos on U street, pacing
            by the Andalusian Dog, our former
            watering hole, deciding whether to go in,
            or not to go in. Our lives were full of holes,
            chiseled from within mostly, as is crime:
            a disparate thing no matter where you are
            until it strikes. The guy who stole
            my girlfriend's purse switched places
            with me. When I see Helen I think of spinnakers
            luffing, a thousand gallery ships with bats
            crashing through her eyes. Green bats,
            red bats, tonic-colored bats. Bottles expand
            and consume us; we keep drinking.
            Mouths move, and hands suddenly clutch
            the throats of their owners. Wasps
            spurt from the faucet in frantic blue fits.
            Icecaps melt into trunks of seem. Ice-forests
            turn to ice-towns besieged by storms made
            of worms and pencil shavings. Sometimes failure
            builds a house. Sometimes a wave's
            anything but a wave.


Copyright © James Grinwis, 2002.  All Rights Reserved.