From the 2 Train Journals: Pursuit/Elusion

the nature of this mystery i pursue
makes me wonder who's stalking who
rakish basilisk basking naked
adjacent to the azaleas,
brazen and emblazoned with
razored blades arranged
like blossoms that could be eyes;
this whole synthesis could paralyze
any system of allegory
that endeavored to tell its story.
fearful distances render feral dances
into microcosmic storms, atoms and
mad planets translate eternity into
something the senses can almost grasp,
grappling with the vatic beast
that sinks its teeth into my heart
and turns back into the night
with a scrap of me caught in its jaws.
it will not bear the locks and bars
of language's cages, passing
through my fogged glass like a whisper,
like a ghost, like smoke.
sleep eludes those who pursue
this dream that walks awake among us,
stung with wonder, sudnered
as if by thunders paws rending me into surrender
until hunger pains only remain
to entice me to chase it again.
beds and friends alike have fled
before the sligthest glimmer of it
in the eyes of those who've seen it--
it forces me to translate the oracular
by embracing the vernacular
without having an incestuous relationship with it;
and no matter how i make the verbs cavort
and nouns contort, the right words
forever elude my cages . . .
all i can do is show you
the holes it's torn in my soul,
and say,
"it's shaped sort of like this . . . ."