AIRHEAD

of all
the elements
I trust air

let a tornado
come and take me

better so
could have been
standing on a
volcanic fissure
about to blow

and that noisy seismic nonsense
sure to trigger an ocean tsunami

better to
fall, fall, fall

thinking how best
to procure a
parachute somewhere

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PISCES PEOPLE

Pisces people
walk funny

waddle
like ducks

find it
strange
to be
on dry
land

and as for dance,
hopeless there too
unless you count
Nureyev, Baryshnikov
and Nijinsky.

MR TIGER’S EYE

I see you now, Mr
tiger’s-eye,

rock idol long before
electricity
turns the
world fluorescent
into
a
compact disk

and I wonder
if you
can still shepherd us
through those
surreal doors

where everything
devolves

is
ceaselessly evolving

I THINK

I think that time
has winnowed, is
winnowing me
(though I had to
look up the word to
check if it was apt to
speak
in terms of
a kind of austerity via
refinement, a
minimalist beauty)

love that word
as much as the air (always
taking more now
stripping me down
to a core, letting
the solution
evaporate) loves
me

and there I go, bit by bit,
including the bits that
you loved
and loved you

they
will not travel far
or long, I am assured

so great the need
bound to find a home.

STORM

who brewed
this storm
with all its Shakespearean
atmospherics and
theatrics?

what witches seasoned this
thunder, made sure
the lightning forked beautifully

they may
have the appearance
of ancient sisters
but once
I beheld them
(and they me)
differently

STEAM

hate being chivvied

put in a
pot of pressure

observing how when
my water meets air meets fire
(as blessedly I slip out of
myself a microsecond)

it turns to
screaming steam

POEM FOR AIMEE NEZHUKUMATATHIL

there is something dreamily
Classical about her poetry

typical tactic
(with her
aesthetic strategy
beautifully consistent) is
to plunge into
obscure history, dive
deep into lore

to say that there
is ordinariness neither
in objects nor
the people who
apprehend
make lives with them

together so swimmingly
like water
and fish

water and fish
whose perfect grapheme might
be the (with c or
k) the Sanskrit word for Pisces

BECAUSE THERE IS FIRE

because of
darkness
there is fire

because of fire
there is
light and
blood, and
torture

flames kiss-licking
so tenderly as
they consume

AIR

I made love
to a woman
of fire
all I desired

to
woman of
water
the Magdalene’s daughter

to earth
so nurturing
when down
to fundamentals

and air
in flesh and in
head
breath
of a poem
still
beautiful idea

LIGHTNING

I like lightning
it is
what it is

jagged arrow at
the speed of light

burns with millions of volts
as electric as
a perfect kiss