You think your rising

but dissention speaks volumes

in the tremor of the cable

through the walls,

the floor,

and speaker

sings

in strings

The Girl From Ipanema,

suggesting at

DOWN

As your eyes followed it high,

the building had called you from a distance,

attracting with its solitary and grace,

as it stood in hue

like a figure

against the blue sky

of a Max Ernst painting,

and along the way your car had died

in a cruel neighborhood.

You had been beaten, robbed, raped, maimed, chased by the convict cops.

They would have beaten you some more before not taking you downtown for questioning,

instead you’d be suckered away to the shores of some east river,

to a field where cars pass

sounds, in distance,

and the grimy waters wash debris and sewerage

upon the shore,

accompanied by the coldness

of execution

and a bullet in your head.

The city begged

for your best suit of clothes,

now in tatters,

somehow elegant brown warm wool

that fell against your body

like wind billowing silken standard

and a white linen shirt

vogue in the absence of collar

and neck tied diversion.

Costumed you appear as you had so many years ago --

Your first art opening:

the one where you held turpentine in your breast pocket like a flask,

and the echo of your heartbeat

you saw as

ripples

entombed within

that cold and pleasant womb,

the bottle kept like a childhood secret. --

The night you stole away

to the restroom stall

pouring turpentine like whisky over ice

to drink burning,

wide,

painful

gulps,

lest you see your life unravel

as the past

so many

others had.

You had died again

in-evening,

but immortality speaks to you in volumes you cannot explain

to the cast,

illusion,

derision, and

likeness of others.

But beneath this building,

you found your way to this LL,

this gray garage,

empty and

elevator doors slide aside

at your approach.

You enter,

and aiming high,

press the two-hundred and seventh floor,

but as the button remains lit

but as I say,

once again,

you descend.

Floor minus one,

minus seven,

minus nine

EQUALS = X,

being what you are.

You have since forgotten your

fame,

sex,

your birth,

and name.

The car is sliding down.

Moses descends

In cheap attempts at intrinsic

self knowledge

as a tree ungrowing

you deconstruct your early lineage:

Noah

Lamech,

Methuselah,

Enoc,

Jared,

Mahalaleel,

Canan,

Enos,

Seth,

Able,

Cain,

Until

Eve and Adam fall to mind, and

with an unearthly jolt,

You imagine

The Universe collapsing in upon itself:

into a Post-Pre-Big Bang enclosure.

Is this the past?

The future?

No matter.

When time meets itself.

With a chime,

as this wandering compartment

glide-halts

premature.

and the doors like the sea parting:

level minus twenty-seven-teen --

you now walk upon

The Floor of Whores

The Evil Man

You are a house.

You are a guard.

You are a child.

You’re house is amazing:

Rooms of books

experiments

epiphanies

intrinsic understanding

rooms and rooms

and windows and windows

of grand views.

An attic where history exists

Your child runs free throughout the house

She skips,

she runs

she both ignores and takes comfort in the

experiments

epiphanies

intrinsic understanding

rooms and rooms

and windows and windows

of grand views

with an attic where history exists

and a basement where physics is generated and pushed by enormous fans like heat into the rooms.

she skips

she runs

she falls

she cries

and the guard comes.

The Guard:

is savvy

is tough

she mothers,

she nurtures

she watches

worries

keeps the house clean

keeps the child safe

One day the child is running outside in a field of weed and poppy, and she stops with wonder as a handsome, powerful man walks up the garden path. He looks to her knowingly, with desire. The child respects the man and holds her head steady as the man holds her chin between his rough thumb and forefinger. He kisses her tenderly on the forehead. The guard looks out the window and the man looks to her contemptuously and gives the child a mighty slap with the back of his other hand.

The child goes tumbling down.

The runs to her rescue.

The man vows his return.

The woman no longer lets the child in the front yard. She gets lost in the back, so she sends her to her room. Eventually as the man continues to return she must remain in her room while the guard and the man fuck. Eventually the guard begins enjoying this unhealthy arrangement, she begins resenting the child, she begins using the house for herself. She forgets her place. Eventually the child consigned to a small corner, squeezes through a small round window and runs off free into the woods. Now the guard and the man exploit the house and the child finds a new home, and when she falls and feels new pain, she summons a guard, and drawn to the guard comes the evil man, and the child is born again, and again, running away from the unnatural ugliness.

Not quite Venus

Has anybody said that you have the frame of a goddess?

And if you stand still

so (still) as to have your arms raised

non-yielding, non-abiding

poised

in the guise of a Monalisa smile

your face interested disinterest

immaculate implications

Powder blue shag

wall to wall

glass stirrer clinking

enpitchered and chimes

ice dancing chilled, desert

singing Astrud G’s (The Girl From) Ipanema

walking the line

If you stand still

ENOUGH

you might just pull

a Bottichelli