Munch saw a screaming sky
in what I may have seen as an unwritten poem,
                 that gnarled viscera
                               of apocalyptic heaven.

Artists do it all the time;
assign pain to what simply exists
because we exist & feel so much pain.

                & then all I can think about are sailboats
peeking out from behind the rubble of ruined light
because I’m living in February today
                                             & no one can stop me.

It is an importance. Harmonious
                 solely because of theory.

If I am sitting on a chair in a picture,
I am not sitting on a picture of a chair.
                 So yes, please clarify. The words matter.

“Patriarch” should be the name of a beautiful bird.
I would put out seeds & nectar for her.
She would stay only until she is full.

                 Which invites the next quandary:
What is a man? Why must he stare like that
                 down his nose at impostors like me?

Dancing is a funny way of living,
but it’s the kind of practical chaos I survive for;
                 two-straws-in-one-milkshake type shit,
                               songs fading jaggedly into other songs.

                              Impossible.
I’m a streaky fabric marker of a boyfriend,
which would make you a cheap cotton shirt
if I bothered to follow the metaphor through.

             Pathos is a Pisces rising’s favorite sport.
Privacy is I was naked alone but she happened to be there.
I mean this on all sides. She was happening,
                               my favorite movement.

Fear doesn’t happen twice, more or less.
It is euphoria anyway. I flatten for outside,
play catch with my breath in the backyard.

When the scream of nature pierced me,
                 I did not paint it,
                                  but right now I’m writing the poem.

Light fades to blue
& bluer, bluet & blur,
                 all in a day’s good work.