1
Tonight my friend is a priest
among ruined architecture.
In a bombed-out chapel
the candles still smoke
though no one but my priest saw.
God help us it was so easy
to fool them all said the stones
until one stone blew us apart
too soon, too soon.
Give me a parsnip,
with one end I’ll satisfy those over there
and with the other pry
the nails from Jesus’ hands and feet.
  2
It’s touch and go all the way.
Sometimes I think I have
plenty of change and it’s only pennies,
the very same pennies that got me here.
By nope and yup I prevail.
But if I were pressed to speak straight
like whiskey or God or love or failure
I’d say it’s that instant of recognition
and the rest is palooka,
whispers under a yellow streetlamp
while the police are further along their beat.
And what marvelous things there are to say!
Grasshopper pastrami!  Wheat Judaism!
  3
There’s no poetry in this country
because there’s no death.  A moth
rose against the moon, clouds rappelled
down her wings important as aphids.
Each moment was another
thousand dead babies to the petrel
dying on a beach of gems.
  4
So what’s wrong with terrorism anyhow?
What have you got to lose?
Plenty you say, your room, your car, your stereo,
your girlfriend?
Ha ha ha (if you’ll pardon an old keening)
that’s almost worse than losing a tooth.
Now listen to me:
stars shaped like a .32
appeared over Bakersfield last year.  A few
saw the gun move south
till its muzzle nudged the Bear, fired
and dissolved.
The Bear reared and swiped at hundreds of thousands
of miles of heaven but the gun was dust by then,
swirled behind blind claws.
The bullet was a passenger.
  5
But my love says, yes we were there
at the healing ceremonies in Oregon,
in Washington D.C. and in Boulder.
Our van broke down and a lady
gave us her car.  The universe
heals and helps us.
I the antibody, the tarnished dogface
arm myself with names and red paint
like blood to spill before the policestation,
on the freeway and over my priest’s head.
If I had love like God I’d cause a frenzy
of terror and kidnap Jesus from his dads
before they know right from left,
only the twinkle of a silver horse,
then I’d drill that sheen and sparkle
into their children cunning as a wolf.
Heal me!!?  Please, this isn’t a joking matter.
I embrace you while people are watching!
  6
The buses were in the station, sleeping,
motorless, defenseless,
dreaming.
I entered at dawn, dubiously.
Never before or after
have I been so alone.
I opened lockers,
I remembered the fine red creek
melted from my friend’s temples.
I opened milk cartons
and saw him set a dove on fire.
I remember tornadoes of honeysuckle
when our bicycles swirled
into a woman’s voice, a girl’s neck.
I reached for hair, for safety.
Goodbye, I’m almost here.
The girl whose hair was penises
gave me a dried flower.
Catch me I’m fainting.
My throat is cut.
She never lived there.  Never!
  7
Here, sprayed with witch spit,
surrounded by hyacinths,
is where I must stay
because I feel like a man.
I understand what a wretch I am,
what a joy to God who feels nothing.
And if I worship a dead man
it’s only for a little while,
don’t worry.
It’ll all turn up in the end,
like a little nose.