When the Chalk Falls Down

When the chalk falls down
You know it's winter
When the chalk falls down
You know she's true
And you touch her there, you know she's ready
And the bottom never shows in her blues
When the chalk falls down
From your weary cowboy boots

When the chalk falls down
You know it's over
When the chalk falls down
You've paid your dues
And you touch her there, and you take her here
And her mercy, in tons, gets renewed
When the chalk falls down
From your hat and your cowboy boots

When the chalk falls down
You know it's traveling
When the chalk falls down
You know it's good
And you walk her here, to the park on the hill
And the cross, the cross shines through
When the chalk falls down
On one too many heartless avenues

When the chalk falls down
You know the crescent
Is a beauty above this hill
And the moon is steady for her travelers
And the rivers run always very deep
When the chalk falls down from your head
Down to night's swift gracious feet
When the chalk falls down
The river never runs too deep

When the chalk falls down
Behind the make-up
Nature shows as given by the lord
And the lady is waiting for her jewelry
For the wind, for the bells and for the stone
When the chalk falls down
You know it's winter
When the chalk falls down
You're really home

4 Poems

Years as gold philosophy

Years as gold philosophy
sky sailing, restricted much
in sweet wallflowers known to be birds,
bonfires, charmingly cold
after-dinner stupidity
hesitation, wishing garden bells were seasons, works
which handed you the sunset
a flake, sky sea-iris
some of it lying pianos, joyful lights,
spout lips dirt-grimed lady-shining
as most multiform scripts
seeds rise, there’s sunlight
familiar rocks, somber love and God
cathedral on press sheets
red at office flanks
glass image  wheels
suddenly without dusk
open you alone,
the way you ripple my eyes,
spread nothing on dead Roman wings
asking the trees for some music – fine jungle halls
to remember
slip poised, together, facing your wings,
conducting the starless sheaf, after all,
we’re finally together

BoatmEn of Seasons

Virtue clouds expand
think, serve symphonies
obliquely well, black yawning
aspiration – world through birth with mountain-billows immortal
iron scraps, white and hot, scarlet in fire and hail
restless boats pass, quiet
through a steely, sudden motionless Night
melting, sour squeamish pretence to fail
retorts, boom city noise
pierced misty rainbows
bleed their leaves all over the station,
drag forces, cleft smoke, haste love
spare dusks bend, crack pavement roses
in putrid sleep, dark tops of greed
against the poet’s distance, folk immune to infection
blur transfers, monotonous books
smell like time, licking the smoke
while somewhere beside  the shops, hate-lives healing rain
jokey beggars ooze across the years
with the boatmen of seasons

Theaters his picture

A prayer, ironically whispered
while above me the suffering laugh out loud
at Madonna image from beers and cheap carpets
dissolving into water, dashed dreams
of resistance, messiahs carved in laboratory doors
white leather crystalline bedrooms
sin careen, always dead country
whisper of clocks, faces forcing lie, sparkles of life
hobbling through the relics, our corpses
of achievement, frozen-cloud floors
disastrous birds in sunless spaces
evolve in the moonlight, treading the actor’s
path to infinite wrench… either dull
or sorrowful, rooms, women, a hundred sounds
silver the eyes, tremble the audience
a prayer, ironically whispered
in lowest ink, disguising fall
her theaters his picture, feet of the world
slippery hair of provincial
murder muttering sky

Nobody’s brother

Nobody's brother, gray candle in cold sky, burning
dream horizon’s dew, dressed in symbolic birds
fever some more, sighing shriveled, dying
in colder groaning, a beautiful muscle
where roses slept of irrelevant patterns
naphthalene’s bitter vapor cast the day
into full soft deliverance, a mourning summit
I found and sang about, and seeking held into
its demise, waves of impotent walls
pain of roads in stone, healing a whore again
asking for asphalt, stamped departure
of soul, darling black glare, grief beautiful
men… street love, colors of galvanized eyelids
encasing my sand into books of leisure and lanterns
in pornographic pride, shining through my window
vibrating metallic death, stripping again, magma bulk
of ribbon starfish, the rain and spit pools
in playmate brittle collapse
hollowly wrapping humble souls in dreams
they’re not my brothers, I’m sorry

"Suite of Longings" - complete chapbook, Berlin 2008.

Suite of Longings

suite of longings
murmured gaze
every stretching gives an ear
I-ching
on a hummingbird's wing

the oldest Earth walks away
stars anew w/ the day
every nonsense claimed her own
summers seem wintry
women kneel down

can the red look sing
granted to its night spirit's
faces
or sure of the glimmering waves
it turns and turns away
to pray

shake the remembering folk
bush out your spectacles
clean
bare and full of me
best bird-seen
best fish-swim

grieve with the hills
their autumnal voyage
in town and wintry and free
girl to the morn
and I to she
ancient marriage proceeds

suite of longings
crooked but solid
mean and meek
forever worried
pour the moonlight at the bird
lover moon-stream w/the sun
captured in your
endless run

Poker Men

pitiable day of very somebody
wooded midnights
old covered howevers
party minutes all over other's faces
below all past
Poker dollars, three men asleep
square sleep tango...

storm in rocky heavens
welcome to temperance houses
moral table ladies
desperate echoes
not equipped aflame
companions caring ascended
protecting stones
the snow will melt, we're sure of...

joining pitiable facts
strayed at midnight
great the roads
nights
spotless

of sleepers we dream here
remembrance in rude rusted minutes
sex in the hall
apparently forgotten
as the joker cards the climate

Windows Burn as Time Flies By...

chimneys gleaming
windows burn
until the time flies by
until the south-wind
comes

mysterious with leaves
& gloomy prints
white-haired figures
walk the lightnings
sure

shelters disclosed
most vividly ventured
where stands the blunt lady
ornamented
lofty favorite of his
mistress of his
carpeted eyes

windows burn as time flies by...

elegant silks
peeping through the chestnuts
tossed in black
cooled clad
rack

a little stick place spend but unbroken

Scenery Madeline

will her conjugal fingers
become sanctuary
rose-colored asylums
blubber hermit
or mother letter thing

will her twirling days
become curtains on Henry
obscuring Miss-Behavior’s
deep-cushioned love
or a grave and a kind regard

holding you painful
in her truest of seasons
in flowered arms
and impudence
scenery Madeline - never sincere

life swayed for her all around
answered, measured, done
elegant rested humors
queenly on their spirits table
lead carelessly into oblivion

the music yields and I of the evening
release her tear-stained volumes
soars says thoughts
staggering fawning come
the hermit drinks up his tea
and leaves

The Wreck

Wind and slide toward that roof heart
lord, her being rent...
blank measureless proclaims
begin
again

slide toward the control:
dissolving churches
exploding magic:
all wanderers read the shorelines
that roof heart of hers
while the mid-noon kindly banks
his crowds in
Hollywood
smiles

death laughs:
Time to be his strand
Shingle be his stand...

Harbor monks endure the play
wanderers admire the score
under night's wailing star dawn
yet

rock perchance the worldwide limbs
rock perchance the roof
vainly as time
soft as the river

Life:
bare shade flower
keen on
aware of
the wreck

Pause

pause the sounds
the doors
unmeasured neighbors
lay in slopes
for the patient
pyre
skies
changeful
hands

tell me of my vain response
animated summer
tranquillized beaming
and clay

sun awaits your foundations
where immortal gloom lays fevered
without birth

pause with soft anthems
one deepening ear
one friendly hand
chilling winds soiling the soul

yearnings throb
fade
flutter

vocal eye:
the twilight's yours
to kiss

Mountains Are Known

contents come of high virgin's
bloodless
tale

of her strive he only placed
a decent funeral

her ivy wars
death to old
freedom to young,
confused

islands as art
w/ all our assistance

from ships
ships only move

from women
women just flee

in devotion of our rivals
true freedom
rests
and mountains we are
are known
forever

Ship-Shaped Hearts

one burst over to the ship-shaped hearts
gazed through the Sea
trembled doomed tide
rippled to pieces

whitened dancing fairies
and their perfect pair
slid darkened, far sleeping
far-flung
and desired
blooming but from their waters
bosom

paths of woe unexplored:
demons wreck
roar
on steel
in ruby
weaving their
frolic earth vision
mirrors

light morrow's gold in astray
a brook on marked mariners
one burst over to the ship-shaped hearts
gazed through the Sea:

be there skulls
be there owl flame...

deep tissues specter
the sky bloomed
down lady
deep Adieu,
beloved!

No deep murmur though:
entertain slippery eyes

one burst over to the ship-shaped hearts
swollen by
scream peace
explosion

Early Stranger Dangerous

she boys the boy, employs
his dreamt-abouts
trumpets take pleasing numbers
eyes full of death, unharmed
razor, razor
eyes
God is sun
that men reply
arrow dog
the village fool
dreamt-abouts
which work so cool
laughing gun halls
trumpet wives

wrinkles top down
herd of cedars
on intent
the bright & shocking
pain

rattle all
as spoken word
descends
losing faith in it
losing faith in men

beneath the Cow the curious go
I ain't got no Ace
to show

In Their Distant More

leave essentials
the triviality of action
figure in
vent affections
statuary, faintly comic
political in human form

the unimportant baldness
human false
permanent moderns
great tragic derived
long-distant enjoyment

...time was
was time...

predominated
in proportion interests
intrinsically something
capriciously entered
his contact
his actions

...time was
was time...

in their distant more

Limp Assistants

see either air or mood
kindest ever deaths

joys, misfortunes...whose the days
really are
idle lessons & limp assistants
countless regions of care

ether friendly children
whistle out
the poor sage's prayer

matchless heats heaped in thousands
scrapped to bits
elusively
still

you and your pleasure:
useful
true
salutable

sessional subjects
fill up dead seasons
lovers to little
constraint
wrought the wheel
to guide the rich
only to their
doom

daily hats
and limp assistants
all we ever get

Seraphs of Youth

the bright
with that side
linger onto where she lies
to the stains of a very young song

princes, passions
pretty windows
blood
cot
graves

and doomed, so doomed your sister sits
nervous moth of never-doors
approves his swelling
oozing
grace

(pilgrims at the Pride Lake's bottom...
singing... guiltless...white & plain...
ever to the same refrain...)

zigzags hounds
to clean the blood
sully, grisly pot
strayed a-lot... we laugh a lot
buzzing to all this cold

and Satan’s little fly
some pallid shade
of a room
from Tide to the bluntest pain
explains
again & again
his name...

lame the disease... furniture screams
linens the door with its crimson
brigades

astonishing seraphs of youth...

Little Girl, in a Room

little girl, in a room
shakes of all world's disasters
from her painted-brown shoulder
green colored sheets
eyes of elation
misses the street bus
at six
moves on
sits down

dreams of a cock
then chooses
the lark

moves not from the room,
leaves all the doors open
the windows closed
& heating off
to feel the snow as is

becomes his prostitute
sailor
favorite reluctant sorrow

the sky moves on as she walks
& sidewalks are painted
w/ all of her wasteland's glory

reminds me a name
that sticks to no face
but floats freely seated
there, in my chair
there, on my knees
forced to inhale

(her spirit's as old
as the mountains of Spain
the great Andalusia
or first America's
evil)

dreams of a lark
then chooses
a panther

cocks crow dawn
yeah, a little red rooster
at sunset

"Peace / Spokój" (Victoria Park, Berlin 2008)

Peace
Victoria Park, Berlin 2008

I value peace… spitting out pieces of teeth
scraps of broken vinyl
I deal with the beast
on a kitchen chair
tuning my banjo, smiling to the photograph
of an American Poetess
I make coffee – it smells of gasoline, the city
crawls up my veins, the spider-pump
flashes cold electric light
laying shades on faces behind the window
a gigantic eye collects
the evidence of madness – searching through files
isolated wards
heaps of yellowed scrapbooks
I value peace… counting blood drops
on my room divider

Spokój
Victoria Park, Berlin 2008

Cenię spokój… wypluwam kawałki zębów
resztki połamanego winylu
rozprawiam się z bestią
na kuchennym krześle
stroję banjo i uśmiecham się do zdjęcia
Amerykańskiej Poetki
robię kawę – śmierdzi benzyną, miasto
wtłacza się w żyły, pompka-pająk
rozbłyska zimnym elektrycznym światłem
kładąc cień na twarzy za oknem
gigantyczne oko zbiera dowody
szaleństwa – przeszukuje kartoteki
oddziały zamknięte
sterty pożółkłych notatników
cenię spokój… liczę kropli krwi
na meblościance

"Moon over Arbat"

The moon over Arbat is my moon too
We talk on our cities, we're both gone too soon
The moon over Arbat is my moon too
The cigarettes smoked, the beauty we knew

The moon over Arbat has numbered my nights
Just like my songs in the sink of your eyes
The moon over Arbat is heartless and cruel
Watch out dear lady, you walk with a fool

The moon over Arbat has chosen my ways
I feel like a poet who’s nothing to say
The moon over Arbat is laughing, aware
That there's no one for no one to love or to care

The moon over Arbat is sleeping with me
All you can do is to hold me and leave
The moon over Arbat knows lovers will part
So humor me please, before you break my heart

The moon over Arbat now sleeps in your lap
The winter's so cold and your heart needs a map
The moon over Arbat has murdered my love
Someone belonged here but I’ve let her go

The moon over Arbat is sailing us down
Strangers and angels, the night city crown
Moon over Arbat, an average stone
Nobody stays here, in nobody's home

The moon over Arbat continues to play
Songs in the lamplight, I like it that way
Moon over Arbat is my moon too
The loves we all shared, the pain we've been through

Footprints on the Wasteland

Footprints on the wasteland
Sandpits of the East
Dreaming on the edge
Of the bed of human beast
I'm no longer happy
I'm no longer shy
Blood cuts through the morning
Essence of your sky

Footprints on the wasteland
Treasures we once had
Flying cross horizons
Painted in your head
I'm no longer wanting
I'm no longer young
Water turns to wine where
Jesus heads run strong

Footprints on the wasteland
Kings that court for clay
Building men and towers
Into mind's decay
I'm no longer frightened
I'm no longer pure
Days go hide forever where
Darkness is the cure

Hello to Go

See how a simple hello
Can simply change it all
To the man behind the door
Or the ladies in his show

Yeah, a simple hello, that's all
One simple hello to go

Hear how one clapping hand
Can enloud the winter band
Where the jam just never ends
We are stardust in the sand

Yeah, a simple hello, that's all
One simple hello to go

Feel the tightening of the tide
'Til there's nowhere we can hide
And the autumn flowers ride
With the driver of Mrs. Clyde

Yeah, a simple hello, that's all
One simple hello to go

"Bourbon Days"

We've been down there at the upside
Upside of the down
With midget ballerinas
Gaiety girls and clowns
Safe here at the circus
Bleeding at the zoo
We've been down there at the upside
Upside of the truth

And bourbon days were bright and true
But now those days are over
No one left to cry about
Stop leaning on my shoulder
And bourbon days were sleepy fucks
Blind and stiff and sick
But are we feeling better now
Perhaps we're just getting rich

Well we've been spun in trickery
And we've been fed indifferent facts
They all went down, in sudden awe
Got buried with their supporting act
We’re safe here with the warden
Blinded by the theater
Down there at the upside
Upside of the glitter

And bourbon days were bright and true…

Your understanding twilight, ma’am
Cuts my heart in two
Sheds my lonesome blood around
As bourbons days are through

Yeah, your understanding twilight
Paints me hollow white
Wrecks my mind again
In bourbon days alive

"The Sweetest Curse"

The sweetest curse is to watch your eyes
Blow up just like mine
And to know that we really can't help each other
The sweetest curse is to watch your hands
Reach for something sublime
And to know that we never really bother

For passing strangers in the night
The sweetest curse, you’ll get it right
To love our flaw, to love our time
And see through all of their lies

The sweetest curse is to watch your corpse
Getting erased like mine
And to know that we always continue to laugh
The sweetest curse is to watch the grave
The home you’ve left behind
And to know all we've done is a magnet for death

Our lives have now reached sun
That’s one satisfactory guess
The sweetest curse, our matchstick heart
You know it just can’t last

The sweetest curse is to know it all ends
Before we can find a chance
Before all of our tiny human beginnings
The sweetest curse lasted thousands of years
Now it’s a dancing routine
In seconds it'll pass, don’t worry, there’s nothing in it

From all the strangers alive in the rain
We differ none, we’re all the same
The sweetest curse, to watch us go
Into the bright amazing cold

No matter how far we can see
No matter how fast we can run
No matter how high the moon
No matter how low the sun
No matter what's out of their reach
No matter what's only mine
Just sing your song

"Last Rebel Standing"

As the night falls down on this hollow town
You can hear the roar of a broken machine
Once a bright chrome horse for the angel man
Once a motorcycle queen for the motorcycle king

Last rebel standing on the barricade
Last rebel waiting for the night to come
Last rebel standing on the barricade
Last rebel down

All the chrome is rust now, steel has turned to dust
Streets collapse and buildings crumble down
Facts are clear now, we lost this race
Somebody save us, save us from the gun

Last rebel standing on the barricade
Last rebel waiting for the night to come
Last rebel standing on the barricade
Last rebel down

Last rebel stands for rock'n'roll
Last rebel stands for love
Last rebel lives in truth
Immortal friend, you died so young

Last rebel standing on the barricade
Last rebel waiting for the night to come
Last rebel standing on the barricade
Last rebel down