aunt carriage-horse gapes grumpily.
Winds, skinny dogs, run weakly.
Their skins squeel on sharp corners.
In a street a crazed man groans: You, oh, you--
If only I could find you...
A crowd around him is surprised and grins derisively.
Three little people play blind man's bluff--
A gentle tear-stained god lays the grey powdery hands
Of afternoon over everything.

The World

(Dedicated to a clown)

Many days tread upon human animals,
In gentle oceans hunger-sharks fly.
Heads, beers glisten in coffee-houses.
Girls' screams shred on a man.
Thunderstorms come crashing down. Forest winds darken.
Women knead prayers in skinny hands:
May the Lord God send an angel.
A shred of moonlight shimmers in the sewers.
Readers of books crouch quietly on their bodies.
An evening dips the world in lilac lye.
The trunk of a body floats in a windshield.
From deep in the brain its eyes sink.

Prophecy

Some day--I have signs--a mortal storm
Is coming from the far north.
Everywhere is the smell of corpses.
The great killing begins.
The lump of sky grows dark,
Storm-death lifts its clawed paws;
All the lumps fall down,
Mimes burst. Girls explode.
Horses' stables crash to the ground.
Not a fly can escape.
Handsome homosexuals roll
Out of their beds.
The walls of houses develop fissures.
Fish rot in the stream.
Everything meets its own disgusting end.
Groaning buses tip over.

Winter Evening

Behind yellow windows shadows drink hot tea.
Yearning people sway on a hardened pond
Workers find a soft woman's corpse.
Glowing blue snows cast a howling darkness.
On high poles a scarecrow, implored, hangs.
Stores flicker dimly through frosted windows,
In front of which human bodies move like ghosts.
Students carve a frozen girl.
How lovely, the crystalline winter evening burning!
A platinum moon now streams through a gap in the houses.
Next to green lanterns under a bridge
Lies a gypsy woman. And plays an instrument.

Girls

They cannot stand their rooms in the evening.
They creep out into deep starry streets.

How gentle is the world in the streetlights' wind!
How strangely buzzing life melts away...
They go by gardens and houses,
As though very far off there might be a light,
And they look upon every horny man
As a sweet gentleman savior

After the Ball

Night