Come on All You Ghosts

Sad News
We have some sad news this morning

from Mars. But I’m thinking about lions. Someone

said something salient and my head became

a light bulb full of power exactly

the shape of my head.

Houston is full of dead elephants

and empty labs experimenting on silence, open any mouth

and out blows some hope in a binary data stream.

And we don’t have that

technology yet. The scientists

who can dream of building it

have not yet even been born. So

for now I say to her let us live

here in this apartment and make

sounds of love on this futon

while outside the window the orange

extension cable strangles

the white and green flowering branch

and monks cry anciently on the radio.

Truly

I fear animals. Now I am growing

very analytical. A kind of

peacefulness into me carefully

moves like a grasshopper

into a room full of totally believable metal

grass and trees. There is one great bridge

at the edge of the city falling asleep. And another

humming an orange welcoming song.

Today I have the feeling no matter

which way I turn my head I am

into ideas like everyone is freer than me

painlessly bonking whatever

is the mental equivalent of my nose.

Like the little figures in the picture

through the picture we journey slowly

with our eyes closely observing mountain

formations, a waterfall, trees, a village,

and tiny figures of travelers just like us.

I ate blueberries, I

recall they tasted like lake.

If dust is particles

of our skin why

is there more each

time I return?

I know tomorrow

I will sit in that dark

before daylight without

a name, and feeling

the last few drops

of water from the shower

still on her shoulders

she will come and stand

next to me where I am

at my desk pushing

against one word feeling

its hinge creak like wind

would a gate if it could feel

anything at all.

All I know is I have tried

for a long time to be useful,

like everyone I am also

always balancing

on the small blade of not

letting other people down.

I hope

no great watchman comes

with claws to take him

in the night before he can master

techniques of gliding

from tree to tree, so he can

find just what he needs, for that

is what he is looking for.

Or the refrigerator,

keeping the milk cold

and pure. So much

noise all the time

in the city, do you like it?

You must, you stay.