Miles to Heaven

wherever I flew a precambrian chamber orchestra—molten screeches, erupting pyramids

music split like a virus and cried like a critic “what’s with this excess?” they loved me i hated it

the questions cobras coiled to project the hiss like sad-ass executive pickpockets asking for another hit

the lightning’s path was all i saw, jagged ways of moving out into utterness

out into utterness, hiding in elevators afraid the moon would kick me to the streets again

where food and light and conversation go illegal and you smile like you like it get over it

legs emaciated to bamboo-bones half sand-dragon breathing bromeliads of fire-blood blew on the morning mirror

sudden invertebrate sound-out-of-nowhere spun by the cherries and planets for eyes

icthyosaur on trombone, aftershock drums, slave ship on bass, birds follow the course

with the sherbert-pink wings of the dead, blood-diamond-trade-galore dripping from their wrists,

took me through jungle and carnival down to bacteria, split visions, cell motion—

into the mouth of an overgrown seraphim and under the chassis of a broken Lamborghini

with the doe-eyed stupor of Liberty on my motherfucking face the coke was pure evil

i told the flood to save its power in the clouds, huge heat-blowing kisses off the mouth of the Amazon

and the waves made love to the sound of me

i said you got to stay with me always but it left and returned and left and returned

my storm was gone my children failures our smiles meant different things

and the walls white as mushroom clouds, conquistadors with pity in their eyes

all dressed up in blue-hot wings, all the way to cathedrals made of flames

fuck you and I made my seamless departure