DEMENTIA LYRIC :: unbeknownst

a short film on engram theory called the forgetting

was confusion substrate
all

along :: dispossessed

of memory he
basks

there now ::

a pre-death
uterine

clutching at nothing’s
wall ::

still
some part of what

I recognize
as him

wondering :: how did I get here ::

what purpose
is

contained
in next :: he roils in damp

covers saying this :: I watch him
roil ::

not even a bird
of

prey anymore :: there is no
grand

seeking :: he has woken ::
immediately

desires sleep ::
wants

to know how it is
he knows

me :: whatever constellation
of neurons

I am to him
dead-sky locked ::

as for emotion :: it is mine ::

I rub his neck and shoulders
as if to say

you possess
a body still :: this is how

blood moves ::
this

is a muscle :: I am
indicating

care with thumb and fingers
which

you will forget ::
it has

relaxed you
which you will forget ::

I have flown here I am

leaving
tomorrow before you wake ::

it will be
as if

I were never here :: gone ::

not even ghost :: memory
of ghost ::

therefore :: never grieved

TU•MOR•SE•QUENCE

(near the Palisades Nuclear Power Station)

that line from Whitman that still resonates in bone ::
that’s the chemo ::

as for the rest:: the world :: it drinks
its own urine::

it will drink its own radioactivity soon ::
lifestyle loaded to the edges

even now
with future :: children screaming

in warm water discharge ::
thyroid

still butterfly either side of the windpipe
pulsing

as they swallow ::
they

may have to love cancer
again :: fission

needs lake to survive ::
it happens ::

it’s accidental ::
if not here then… somewhere ::

spent rods
(that other malignancy) piling ::

how
dune sand dry-sizzles when I piss ::

eroding as poem erodes :: lines
(its cell walls)

that break and
break

until all I see are black trunks
uprooted ::

tumorous veins exposed ::
meanwhile

this language-stare ::
I have driven 100 miles in rain

to confront
the site :: and so I stand :: in rain ::

sky fallout ::
collateral damage :: feelings ::

I had them :: they needed burial somewhere

RE•AC•TOR•SE•QUENCE

cloud-turbine churning of moisture

high in the troposphere ::

wind off lake

drizzling clear
plastic ::

I think the

poem is big
enough

now it has sky in it ::
brain

still a field :: summer
dusk :: fireflies sparking

neuronal

gaps :: it would like to live
in the world

forever

the brain would :: its demise
will be

death of fresh
water :: the body

aquifer :: I can feel it
as self-

shining
dries :: handbacks leathered ::

spotted :: the cerebellar
pinching

at memory already
beginning

maybe :: neural nets

tearing :: knots
(that

kiss in the dark) ::

coming
undone :: I am

forever
‘twixt the wings of it :: wanting

to ride the overwhelm
and let

quantum purring ingest
this better

Eucharist :: body
and blood

of me :: raised by dogs ::

it can chew
and spit

the rest :: it can play
and bite

at fingers
until I am mineral

blown through hollow
bone ::

anonymous
(I

embrace this) cave-wall
portrait :: death

the portal :: death

yellow

and feral :: uranium-
pellet

spine loaded
to the

skull as I feed
atomic fracture to the air