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Now reading
Visionary Elegies
I
A boy was covered in pigeons.
He put birdseed in his hair and crotch so the ghostbird
would descend and devour him.
I saw the brown bird with the yellow breast
smoking Lucky Strikes. Thought she might be the Holy Spirit.
There are no birds only what this typewriter flushes out.
The cliffs are made from stone doves.
And the boys had beautiful lips.
II
The Outside suggests a tunnel to ride what he
says through a tunnel. Geography, animal life, the eventual
human being. Anatomy on the page
is sexier, my ghost.
The page of real thigh, my mister,
opens at the top to be eaten like
the sun you can recognize eats her rays. Greasy misery
covers my hands. It bothers
me to touch a carcass. Dead branches. Bothers me.
III
God's big eye is a pink cubicle.
God's big eye stretches
around me, a great balled gown.
I look for him in the roots of the roofless space.
Mons pubis corresponds to the real bird.
The lung. The wing.
IV
I demand the air beat. The birds scared
up into motion and I expect
revelation. I have my lusty knife.
Left cigarettes on your grave
and chant. J is for Jerusalem. Returns the poet to an invisible
homeland.
Resurrects the liver.
Saying goodbye to a ghost is a hoax.
The birds are still in flight. Unhook the birds.
V
Sick orange sky I hate
I shall see it opened, the sunny aftertomb
and a real poem at the gate.
The erratic footprints of birds upon the sand or lacerations.
No limbs at our disposal, only the desire of limbs to reflesh.
The ghost gestures.
I am filling your borders with letters.
This is the new word—get up and live.