The Skyscrapers of Henry Miller
Airplanes streaking across the sky
on the same warm summer day
wrecking balls sexing up dirty brick walls all in the name of pain, windowpane
Torqued.
Tortured.
Treasure.
Henry Miller twisted the valve
He spoke of animals and wet love
with the voice of a typewritten angel
Big Sur.
New York.
Paris.
1930-style suffering in a cup,
a golden flask
a Barbados map
all channeling the energy of my road.
Red tilt-a-whirls spinning madly
in some garden of red
on a warm summer day far North
where the ice cream vendors bleed blue
and the bank is some giant morgue
Airplanes streaking across the sky
on the same warm summer day
wrecking balls sexing up dirty brick walls
all in the name of pain
windowpane
holding robotic Christmas cheer at bay
with a knife
or a guillotine
or a child’s empty tear.
Christmas morning glories
gory stories
of long lines and the word ‘bitch’
Clicking consumers all a bedazzle
by the gold and green
and other colors unseen
the underscore
of black and white dreams.
But what of Henry Miller then?
His days in Albuquerque long ago,
walks to the park
with children not his own
the desert blur
sparkling with real country dark.
3:38 a.m.
in the den
with the TV rhyming with the buzzes of saviors
and someone old
is having difficulty breathing
on the wrong side of town
on the wrong side of this dimension
Someone … Don’t be afraid
the solid background isn’t black anymore
it’s white
in the night
of Christmas lights
and the snow
that blows
up the alleyways of this city bright
The skyscrapers are needles of light.
