PALMS

                     First a green opening,
                     mottled apples
                     viewed from above.

                     Was time of recovery.
                     Rain, that's life, on a bed
                     of red Mission flowers.

                     But when the danger passed,
                     dozens, but dozens, of more
                     insignia grew, the appetite

                     for comfort, went looking,
                     inner, tonal,

                     for where the green begins,
                     to where there's nothing,
                     but nothing

                                  •

                     The wounds were balmed
                     around a palm and lizards

                     froze on one of two
                     two-by-fours.
                     Walls, but access
                     where salt off excess

                     pain was held, like a head
                     holds in what it can't get out.

                     Some algebraic thinking
                     spiked the shock of suffering.

                     It's when too much has happened,
                     more must be done.

                     Reason for the palm
                     leaves moved too fast to see;
                     and the question's out a candle.

                     Wind leaned its atoms on my cheek;
                     it's all Greek to me:

                     how motion is
                     like comfort's
                     only goal -- to prove. where I was,
                     I'm not now, is all I know.

                     Same as love & work,
                     much time's spent,
                     splitting a vacuum

                                  •

                     Zeno saw, in his law,
                     an immortal immobility.

                     Birds succumbed to the regimen
                     of dots & found they were nowhere.

                     Worries & also words
                     bump through such dots, and blow

                     stark emblems on dangerous naughts.
                     Once stopped, they seem to be

                     gone, like an angel's position
                     is motionless. Can't see it once,

                     or only always.

                     I have to say it: character's no rock,
                     not after all's uncovered, wild

                     & tragic in its disappearing logic.

                     So much calumny is auto-

                     mechanic, it's victim wearies
                     of the traffic, changes course too.

                     You enter history
                     as words come into the air,

                     first letter first, and so on,
                     backwards

                                  •

                     Caught in a war of yes against no
                     stands pity. It never moves
                     is why you can't see it.

                     There's some hum
                     as up from a grassy serpent,
                     makes pity look & look.

                     Dread's at work,
                     against, not for it.

                     Dread's out hunting pulses;
                     but pity's the one
                     that doesn't bat an eyelash:

                     more static than static.

                     About lonely angels
                     after a war: they carry candles

                     and the night street clicks
                     with wings, jokes & little heels. On a

                     banner: INRI, in regard to, Ah,
                     you know who. Still coming

                     till then. Of poverty's course
                     if you keep working, it feels worse.

                     Sore shoes on soft feet, as if
                     more's always too much, but less.

                                  •

                     Stamp the Logos on the air,
                     father, next time, now.

                     Simple faith's a way not given
                     statement. Wonder sinks to golden
                     silence. Children

                     are abundant, ripen,
                     and some fall.

                     This way
                     order's order's all hidden,
                     or left to formulation:

                     pyramid & graph
                     scrawled on a diagram's dare.