LO-FI TRANSMISSIONS (FOR TWOMBLY) a fragment

by A.J. Kaufmann

I didn’t know whose house I entered
thought it was some ragged old beggar, planting
resistance, realized I killed the mastermind

Adam of fatal soil, son of the void, painted matter
ghost of oil and mirrors, supporting the roof
of nebulae island, the place of birth and revolt

Different chick every day, sketches of sci-fi machines
walls white, bold with anger, the holy kind of
fury, the one fueled by fire, immortal

I reached out and I saw, from history’s dawn up to
day, the weary mammoth walk the trail
marked with napalm and silent weeds

While the night leaned on her crutch
the wounded veteran, perfect lover
sipping wine from crashing ships

The movie then cut to a city, webbed in sudden
twilight, uncensored, laid back, grooving
to a summer melody

We were strapped to our chairs, like awaiting
execution, the poverty row at its finest
we wrote scripts on the spot, on napkins

Songs were weaved faster than light cut down
the hostile cannibal heads, infidel policy
running with the Jokerman

Smiling only when I’m told to, don’t like that new
grimace, don’t like my haircut at all,
the shirt I’m wearing was yours in the first place

And the shoes I’ve had for two hundred years
the grizzly bear on a lulled Capricorn sea
pass the equator, Sicily virginious

Ice cream cracked moon on the highway
dawn visage on the rising storm
breathing inside of hitchhiker’s patient womb

THE FLOWERS OF VESUVIUS

by A.J. Kaufmann

Can't pick the flowers of Vesuvius
anymore
they've become golden gypsy rings
for death's slick
elegant
fingers
the ones which wrote all my
poems
they've become stones on the road
to nowhere
they've become the road's
cruel
crowning
achievements
they've become the pointless
wanderer's
trophy
the Polish man of the mountain's
legend
can't pick the flowers of Vesuvius
any more
then why I still madly hold on to
the empty
clandestine
vase
in other people's
hell
corridor
of long-gone lava
shadow of dawn

THOUGHTS ON SONG

by A.J. Kaufmann

You thought that vapor
turns towards song
in the end
a pulling dance of man to boy
moonlight land of heart
thought that world could slip
as we performed
another number
peeling our ears

Laughter lays on abandoned
years, progress inexistent
those who knew a wonder
better than song
had flowers ship steered
from it, blows and fear
towards their
fingers falling
life sights blowing a trumpet
after midnight

Headlong into love
flashing with tears
bright brings song of stillness
ocean-wards and rosy
still swelling nights
keep slapping the treasure
no-one feels united
in a monstrous all-seeing eye
no one feels rewarded
dying in sterile sorrows

LAZY FLY

by A.J. Kaufmann

Lazy fly
my ugliest side
nights azure
down in the dumps
steps to nimble bore
up patina trees
fretful in the snow
never feeling this
roughly in the steppes
tides assembled grief
mantles of your psyche
vigils on their ridge
done, forever strange
was her music’s touch
skeleton placentas
rode around the stars
aged lands unending
hope that life proceeds
into territories
vast of answered birds

EMBRACE YOU

by A.J. Kaufmann

No reparation – you countermand
these mountains, hold another height…
follow his mind
enough of hierarchy waves
implore and sacrifice, twilights outwearing
stop signs, with sluggish bells bawling
of broken sunshine, nipple-studded
summer graves

Life’s too long, defend it now… swinging
up and beaming thru speechless seas
on heaven’s footsteps, swift and wild on the wing
till moon appears a reflection of feathers
tired cerulean arteries
kneel at humbling walls
and hundred hands of night
embrace you

THEATERS HIS PICTURE

by A.J. Kaufmann

A prayer, ironically whispered
while above me the suffering laugh out loud
at Madonna image from beers and cheap carpets
dissolving into water, dashed dreams
of resistance, messiahs carved in laboratory doors
white leather crystalline bedrooms
sin careen, always dead country
whisper of clocks, faces forcing lie, sparkles of life
hobbling through the relics, our corpses
of achievement, frozen-cloud floors
disastrous birds in sunless spaces
evolve in the moonlight, treading the actor’s
path to infinite wrench… either dull
or sorrowful, rooms, women, a hundred sounds
sliver the eyes, tremble the audience
a prayer, ironically whispered
in lowest ink, disguising fall
her theaters his picture, feet of the world
slippery hair of provincial
murder muttering sky

BOATMEN OF SEASONS

By A.J. Kaufmann

Virtue clouds expand
think, serve symphonies
obliquely well, black yawning
aspiration – world through birth with mountain-billows immortal
iron scraps, white and hot, scarlet in fire and hail
restless boats pass, quiet
through a steely, sudden motionless Night
melting, sour squeamish pretence to fail
retorts, boom city noise
pierced misty rainbows
bleed their leaves all over the station,
drag forces, cleft smoke, haste love
spare dusks bend, crack pavement roses
in putrid sleep, dark tops of greed
against the poet’s distance, folk immune to infection
blur transfers, monotonous books
smell like time, licking the smoke
while somewhere beside the shops, hate-lives healing rain
jokey beggars ooze across the years
with the boatmen of seasons