verbal corrosives

I wrote a poem earlier. The first one in about a month now. It was ghastly, and terribly depressing. Then after a drastic change of mood, Neil Young's Deadman soundtrack, a fascinating essay on Chinese characters and the poetics of language that my twin brother sent me (whose going to be in town next week!), and the first few pages of Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, I wrote a completely different poem, which is much more to the point, and thankfully not influenced by Joyce's more peculiar word choices (just what are bidimetoloves anyway?).

***

Dead men sense
raindrops on borrowed smiles.
Fall's first tears
joystrike midair explosions.
Feelings? Buried
under God's unmarked tomb,
hollow deer
flyby helicopter stoplights.
Radio tower stars
blink back yesteryear's blues,
whistle slick street
train tracks till tomorrow.

You never come,
home to hungry ghosts in time.
Halfmast eyes
peel off finite consuming:
wretched earth
spit sick break cycle breaths.
Laugh clench teeth
ride skincrash through brainshower,
crumble heavens
to concrete soaked dust prayers.

Taste one now
or never taste again.