three selections from the snow poems

smiling over the waves

smiling over the waves
I saw god hanging up the telephone
laughing adios
in a pale fuzzy coat
his face was a flower
stuffed with snow
I decided to take a bath
but went to the movies instead
& all the bathtub
hair in the world couldn't
save us from drowning

august days

clamp ink-shaped morning to your forehead
roll it around on your tongue &
go for long walks
in january air
where proper hungry wolves
are pawing their noses in the snow

the sky grows a hand

thoreau himself reportedly decided before kindergarten
he wouldn't go to heaven, because he couldn't take along
his lemonade shed. this squared the question: the city of
sleepy angels had lemons of dreamless hands, and a finger
for each ring, but was it art? like so many fickle gods the
sun felt its face on the snow. there was no bad weather.
there was only different kinds of good weather. henry
was four yrs old that day & shook his hammer at the sky.

from louder than numb

always in fisted steel city air
I'm in the weather
slicing clouds into little green hats
the size of an emotion
bites of thirst sing
through my round head
feeling local
& the slumber of ancient rain
here I habit my divine
walled with wisteria & funerary oils
this is the garden pillbox
of new orleans
the country of furious Rex
where hours
& the many waters
are liquid firm eyes
arranged by a brilliant jester
I speak butterfly
filthy pigeon
southern moon stuck with light
& eat them one by one
my mouth is stuffed
with feathers
& seasick
with the despair of pearls
your mother is my mother
whose fever glows blue
& slightly wet
easing her muddy
lump into the gulp
of mexico
where she ends
in a brine of moan
tired of being ancient
tired of knowing too much
tired of carving the earth into dumb
logical patterns
& playing mother
to cities
that live and barely live
looking down
with towering eyes