Quake

a dead deer at the bottom of the ocean
a compost pile for poetry
I want to make paper out of mists & algae
but I have lost the mother,
a raw chicken-like mass in a Ziploc bag
I forgot at the bottom of everything.

time bites me when I let it
I take steroid dose packs and wait for the fire to vanish.
I am pumped up; daydreams of myself
as James Dean in my white tank,
bending over someone I claim as mine.
would it be stupid to write an entire book
with nothing but images?
you did it, & you, & you.

to be in dialogue across a space-time abyss:
is this a goal worth having?
or rather, should I crumble, and keep
the lights shut off?
at night when I am in my bed
my body turns into a mountain.
I have been known to quake.
what am I to do with all this boredom
stretching wide?
I wanted the world
but all I got was a new barn jacket.
I tried to tell myself that it would be enough.
so: when I go home today, I’ll turn
photographs of the night sky into a sheet of
felt we might lie beneath, for a while.
to sleep like that, covered in sky.