A rich city's
streets are bright. Light
tonight bleeds
brilliance
from neon signs. Light
quivers
in wet-face pavements
after rain. A faded
man-shape in shadows
has a dark mouth;
he's not eaten
since last week's
treasure in a bin. His drink
has been drops
of water from drainpipes.
This man's mind
is a black coal, the stove
of his skull cold. His dark
gob is open,
with a black leather clanger
of tongue clacking
in the dull black bell of his head. This dark
hole to his bowel is wide,
but his eyes
are closed. A vision
has this man. His black mouth bites
into light; feels & tastes
fibrous photons
(as if someone
had succeeded in weaving
with sand);
his black mouth is blasted bright.
Some firmness
of what-we-see-by yields
to the pressing
together of his jaws. His throat
is hot as a soft
impossible solidity slips
beams into his gut. His blood
vibrates
orangely through his veins; a faint
glow fizzes off
his stained skin
and through the threads
of his clothes. His intestine
& its shit is illumined;
gold & coppery scrolls & oily
silvery coils throb
against his backbones & pelvis. He squats,
trousers at ankles, and now blobs
like light bulbs, on, drop
from the hot gold hole
of his arse, as feeds on &
on; his mouth
open, pulling in light, now
closes, now opens,
he chews
illumination; dark bright, dark bright,
black&light. And so
each of a rich city's lit streets bleeds
its brilliance into the bell
of his head now
cathedral-bright, where inside
the coal of his mind
is diamond because of night.