Impoverished Summer

In the center of the standing people,

a bird sings in a silent heart.

(the air is sweeter here)

I am chasing the scent, as a bird hanging from a stick
(the flesh: taught, dried like thin jerky pulled over the bones)

quietly noisy beasts
roost in a brain bent by luminous mists.
Hydrobulged clouds

offer our rusted, leaking coffers
seemingly endless rainwater.

Homesteading along the mineshaft- the brilliant seed of golden sprouting

Fly buzzing a bottleneck.
Ice cubes melting on lips.

I feel the quiet green sheet pulled over my humid flesh
and a cool whisper.
Dread promise of
the kiss

of a mosquito’s

delicate mouth parts.

The gritty whirring of metal blades

slicing the skin

of the ground.

Breathing in sighs of summer late blooms,
breathing out gasoline vapor.

Wood handled pliers

(oiled from the hand

of the mechanic
used in hard times),

brooms bound like pictures,

In the distance, there’s the sound of a file raking a woodblock.


Cloud Study in Red and Purple 1, digital photo manipulation, 2015 copyright BHE



Rum pours
through tongues

clicking off

the sounds

of the

human mind.

Sweet promise of

a naked kiss,

rolling in the flora.

gauzy films separate

over the cigarfull ashtray

where the passing of friends

keeps us present and wanting more.


“Rust crawls inward,”

whisper the standing volker.


Despite the appearance of things,

the settlement’s decaying.
The secret word

has just fallen out of the metal box

the SOFT MEN are fond of speaking through.


As their words fall so do we.


From the cages

they’ve constructed for us

out and down


down and into

their wet and gilded



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