to detect any enemies
here heretic there

fundament here
heave to one dread redeemer and bark

it was only a ghost
of his own bloody making

burnt magus forum hermetic still
whisky rich shadows

cat cats and bland Caesars
sun spiking the bronze head

brazen head of one brute
uncover the mystery of

that faceless rider
one on one teevee kinda shoppa

scratchy skull hardens in freezer
dulcet bone sung to common tune

called biting the bullet called
flouting the first Pharisee

and so stylishly dying in this
story about a murdered

murderer one
should be so lucky to

harbor an infatuation with that
witch in a holy no tone reversal

civilization having an origin
in some alpha male gone violent he

becoming then a locus of control how
a cycle of decay and

a distribution of power
to puncture a yard so littered

at every step spotting glass shattered
shovel crunch and prying loose brick

no blade slipping in
rather it cracks into a proliferation

items tossed onto the ground
a sequential violence

as a cumulative surface
thin layer of leaf matter fallen organic decomp

collect then and cover
items imprinted

not meaning to leave
the ground subsequent used

to wait for the explosion the
big crash the sudden

chaos that
would destroy

the neighborhood
instead

things unravel gradually
disintegrating bit

bit by bitten bit an
accumulation of voices

speaking both out
of the past and out

of the future
Saturday

Saturday Saturday
two thousand twenty six nine

and the remnants
in this yard of a cinder

block foundation
sixteen ounce

light bulbs malt
liquor brick

quarts and mound kitty
it's litter
 

where “the city” chooses
to place sidewalks

and where such pavement
is lacking

naturally coincides
with property values within

the general vicinity and
appears anyway

to have little to do
with issues

of safety or the level
of pedestrian traffic
 

the guy on the sidewalk
who exhibits his shin

the neighbor with one horse
hidden

within the city
his secret corral

tucked into an
isn't it dead and

then end free with debris which some
one otherwise tosses
 

to write
to say something stupid
I have sifted and continue to do so

through the (a) wreckage
see diagram
of these words

and then too
through those of the others
and then spoken and written about

that
as salvaging
as if that

send something send
send something sent
how

to communicate to
say
send a message as

if
that as if
that were even possible
 

the ambiguity of claiming the world confounds me and I suspect
it does too for the guy with the wrap bandaged right shin
as he incoherently babbles

I’ve forgotten his stated intent
his opening gambit his
desire for us to associate his infection

with a need for money distracted as I am by
his graphic description which I refuse to repeat
I ponder his acting ability

and grow confused by my own desire that he speak honestly
as if that were possible while he uses his words
as a psychological tool to construct a sympathetic response and

while I decide instead that he is more simply pathetic
Mark gives him the dollar I save for the next guy
who just wants a beer and who likewise claims that I am a liar
 

I threaten a word
tantrum

fact logic as
a spatial consistent

and so am in this world
suspect heretic

an atomic
combination of objections

nonshopper seen
ghost some guy

who dies brain dead
in this house

twenty some odd years
past and so

tended by mother
after plowing his car into

the front of another
nod looming dodgy teen drooling

suspecting he’s fried
an urgency of chopped onion

this morning moist
Paul Drake Jimmy

and his secret file
and his common obsession

convincing the photographer that
a battering ram was used

on the door
see display

the broken frame
shattered by deadbolt

one entering then and
speaking

with contempt for the biosocietal
design
 

an indication that the place
designated by the name has moved

or rather that the place remains
stationary within an inconsistency

of naming adjacent to where something
once stood that name said to differ

conflicting within an alternative
naming names numbered for one

place the same and the movement
of that cerebral constant what

it is isn’t that to which
it’s commonly referred
 

better a heretic than
what doesn’t matter

everyone wanting everyone
as if that word

were inclusive though
a shopper

that as a manner
of thinking

the little ones sacrificed
to the greater good

god corporeal
capitalism my heart

was a synecdoche
that seasonal chill which

a big house and a clean car
fail to fill