a harpy.

silvered & gilded--

feathered & tarred

in an illuminated manuscript.

yay to the irony of feather

weighing down feather,

uglier than awkward.

forced out of a gewy shower

of pitch black.

as said harpy begs flight to fancy

her, from the humiliation of

chance-posterity.

where she's granted with a sloppy

flop onto the page's margin.

down the main aisles of a movie theater,
cranial malformations of popcorn are
crushed.
the brittle knockabouts of a cannibal's
unstrung necklace--left to the ritualized
red of Hollywood's carpet.
the flashlight of a theater attendant stretches
out its beam, to pinned concentrations.
just as the movie screen becomes the bubbling,
gaping hole of burnt film.
the projector let through, flickering back its raw
form.

inappropriate laughter from caches

of silence--

contextually disembodied.

weird people weirded out,

the pressing matter of face-economy.

stuck to its numbing anesthetic, the

unnaturalness of skin snubbing skin.

while on friendly terms.

a gusty whip of pages,

read clear as a

goat's bell collar.

what deflowers snow--

this stack

of monthly grimoires.

broken open

by penetrative invocations.

as leaves slowly begin to

bake.

lightless cessations

underground--pushing

against the crumpled

lightning of roots.

sparking its sensitive

wires that blow open a

casket like a safe.

a cold spot

in a

bottomless

ocean--

can be felt

more often

than not.

there's always another version to put

out--deny identity among the crowd

one generates.

--are you who you say you are?

is the constant question circulated by the

crowd--one to another, as a version of the

same one.

as one would say: peace be with you, in

church--to the ones nearest.

except this is a multiplicitous self-interegation--

which refuses identication, therefore peace.