John Nòto

JAR OF RESPIRATION

I'm writing you from below the belt, 
my pain a seized engine          I live within 
this flesh-schedule, gauze-in-trance, 
shifting sexual vapors at all times 
till only a debilitating whine is left 
to run my heart down like an atomic clock

Some half-life machine dying of its own spasms: 
"I break for love"— 
the road-kill reconstructs itself 
in the driver's gut 
bloated spores          spawn an alien 
presence in the middle of dinner

And turning to my partner, I expire, 
saying, "the lost subscript 
with directions in Japanese is under
                                    your hood."

The Paradox Programmer reaches down between her legs 
and revs the motor 
through the underground floes;

A deep river is 
the perfect frozen asset to be thawed 
in a climate of wealth without pride 
uncorked for Summer by the cartel 
and spread across the kitchen table 
left for the baby to die slowly
                               in the Sudan

"Have a Blood Light"          with motor oil 
and barbs in its broken jaw.

If you are to survive 
you must make of your lungs forever-pumps, 
clear the register. 
Real-time is spent sleeping in the throes 
of Beirut's rain-soaked gutters 
with torn shirt-tails
                     and a star-chart 
peering out from under burlap to see 
that the minarets all point North.

Exhale in the mist          decimate the Poles, 
pulse and                          come.



AT THE CREST OF THE SANTA CRUZ RANGE: ACQUISITION

The sun races with portable cellular abandon 
below the visit-counter; 
languid and blue, the backbay accepts any form 
of payment; 
the Ocean sparkles like a crumpled P&L statement 
examined under halogens; 
climbers rappel down a smooth rock wall, 
gnats on molded plastic;

The muffled twitches I hear in sleep 
are of terminal wax-spiders, 
rain-ghosts who were once willows 
in the primeval forest;

Though it's late afternoon, there's a brightness 
suggesting the strength of Pacific Rim exports; 
the trail I walk leads back and down 
in a leaf-swirling ramble made for television; 
a slave-labor moon rises slowly 
as the sunrise must appear through grimy windows 
on a sweat shop in Malaysia; 
Colorwatch pine cones fester like sores 
and knots are as sprains in the backs of day laborers;

Arc-lights claim Winter's sleeping germ 
and tune the late frost's crystal radio, 
a signal combed from bursts of tanglewood 
held together by invisible water witches;

I close then open my eyes 
merging two projected worlds' static 
onto a flat fax-modem 
implanted in dusk's catheter;

"Condition your mind and your hair will follow 
without noticing"   the valve-cock 
shut on everything you've known or scored, 
must decanted in sorrel and fir, 
a piped broadcast leading upstairs— 
I have a sworn deposition etched on blue sodalite by 
the attaché in charge of altered jay call-repertoires 
scrambled and glowing in the chaparral;

The fog which covers this canyon 
is a kindled spirit 
licking the canopy's shingles 
for the last time:        Grow!

The stars pitch their arc over a shopped creek-bed, 
crevassed Chunnel of embedded tears cascading from 
crimp-edged mountains toward a sea of almost tangible
    ARRAYS CHARMED BY INDIRECT LIGHTING
    WORLDWIDE TO REVEAL NO SECRET

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