Love Song to Residence

— we visualize in-fragment
construct ill-framed home —


1.

I receive breath / steel from
you as startling as a bullet
confused / just having
pierced a trembling artery / and coffee
brews / it is morning in
the desires of paperboys / stale
songs conquer the uplifting
choir of rising
from the night’s wrinkles / I am
repetition once again / this Tuesday
buttered and swallowed
with bus fare / a smile for Mrs. Todorovic
and her brood of garbage bags / the sun
sliced by picket fence / spread
on sidewalk where naked weeds
go suburban uncontrolled
and a past rain / so like
a past lover / has etched
its signature in the boulevard


2.

am I to believe
there was always so much
unknown in this karst body
benign above deep flow / evolution
as hidden as magma / as chilling
and abrupt / beginning crying end
with the entangled mountains liquid
hollow / liquid / bent over
each sunbeam ever shed
by this dying star / abrupt goodbyes
and bills / hurried semaphore
over the bows of storm-tossed careers
and deep to deeper the emotions’ flow
in a hand on hand / foot by foot
at the door / the car / the door / briefcase
and the door with two
confused sides and everything
beneath consumed / am I to believe


3.

I inhale your breath of asphalt dung
and dream / sweet sixteen
on the blacktop ribbon / through the rain
your songs / your words drip down
the throats of down-spouts / gutters
and licentious drains /am I
to dream / each concrete corner
bending to another door and jazz
yes jazz in the dim-lit drifting
cigarette smoke / jazz smile / jazz
frown / jazz chord-ed out
a-chord dis-chord / black and white
keys / night and day / jazz in a crib
crying with a trumpet’s voice / jazz
growing / jazz as choice / safe
jazz / choose jazz / jazz
for the life of it / tour
the USA with jazz
today / jazz lines
in the box / jazz deep
in your veins / karst jazz
on the geomorphology
of an aging face


4.

oh Harriet Nelson / I knew your smile
your home / that Ozzie
would return for ever and ever
just as I knew Donna Reed / played
with her daughter and son / in Mayberry
spring / oh the house was never
empty / I never alone / the rafters
never creaked with the pain
of being / the bomb never fell
and I learned the only difference
between heaven and hell
is the sound of a trumpet through
the open window of summer / the sound
of a trumpet deep in the veins
of youth / the sound of a trumpet
from King Street to Queen / leading
the children’s crusade through time