I am minister to porcupines –
my sermons written in quills 
too barbed for poets –
you will need pliers
to extract my meaning.

I light cigars for whales
in their whisky bars,
pour two flukes of courage on the rocks,
stiffen their resolve – 
whale-roads long and cold around the Horn.

I lay a feast before the pack.
”Who’s a good boy?”
Maybe I am.
That which is owed
to jaw and carcass.

Who am I, Spiritus Mundi?
That vast intelligence of body and beast? 
No, I am who I said before:
Animeax, patron saint
of spit and howl.

I am but seagulls 
flying low
this side of the river.
Listen to them scree for 
bread and circus.

For Desperate Poets

We were dancing on buzzsaws – 
our bare feet on blacktop – 
heat so bad, the tar fierce 

Chasing us across the parking lot 
from our bikes to the 7-Eleven, long before 
"no shirt, no shoes, no service" 

Naked backs, skin the hides of sun fawn – 
tanned and stretched 
from chlorine swimming pools 
 
Into the blue, 
Into the blue of it, the blue freeze 
of the store's air conditioning 

Then swirling in a red, white, and 
blue cup, the sweet blue, blue 
brain freeze 

Like ice crystals 
of jet contrails in our mouths, 
frozen altitudes of the jet stream 

Then riding on 
to watch the planes land 
at Buckley field 

Where the US army 
kept all the country’s nerve gas 
in red, white, and blue tanks 

Deep below the tumbleweeds 
and gophers, 
and we would 

Twist and shout in pretend agony – 
show the younger kids 
how to die

For Desperate Poets