INDEX OF FIRST LINES, FROM A COLLECTION OF FALSE STARTS

diamonds are rotten to little girls who
as the clock struck twelve
palm fronds parted and then
two by two the neuroses marched in
i was twenty-one when i met the first forger
a politician wandered my halls alone until
gibbous wanted to be full
from the street, steam is rising
he had a question that couldn't stand still
the owl silenced the squeal of its prey as it bit
morning's broken switch kept justin timberlake on the radio
it was a congregation spurned
i was learned quiet, a congenital defect of will
the moment turned and left
your candle burned unattended
movies are always wrong
from what strange loom comes such melodious violation
in the mountains, a monk sits
rivers begin and end with this
many soldiers have died on less treacherous terrain:
there are accounts of dismembered doorways in
love ran screaming from the ink
nothing ever really happened on that back porch but
you lit my cigarette
there is a kiss somewhere just waiting for the right people
it was a day begun like any other, with
i'd like to say i didn't like it
relentless rain, a broken open sea in the sky
she found a lonely pawn on the board
like pigs at a trough they leapt
somewhere in this twisted handclasp lies
when a faraway star explodes

PELE AT NIGHT

black mother of broken glass,
i hide in your reflections,
the ghosts of your hips splayed
in faded red ribbons.
what brittle undulation this is:
frozen fissures, a moment
spent dancing in stone.
i am folded in with your unsent letters
to this old blood that's left
no answer.

why is it when i write
about my own sex it's always
sturm und drang of fire
in the veins leaching
from flesh breached
on the shore?

i don't want to know this dark
little need of death
those last steaming breaths
seeking the amnesia of the sea,
the cool marrow of the moon baring
the shine of your sleeping core-
what i ache for is the muscle
of your pulse, pushing
up the floor.

SHADOW

what you throw away
never leaves, is the only thing
that stays through the shifting din
of faces weaving breath
with breathless sky, is with you in the line
of doors without a ticket, pays
the tab you couldn't afford, holds
the family dogs back at the corner
of a wheeling madness you thought
you'd abandoned to the lord
of social standing.

one morning you wake
and it's on your toes, running
marathons on your walls,
it's that edgy whore again billowing smoke
at your window, scattering ash
on your front porch.
for you she is dropping breadcrumbs,
records of checks
and balances, her drawers-
and she's begging you to go
all the way with her down
to where the last horse
of your heart lies buried
in trojan repose.