Jake's Flea Market

it never comes out the way it went in


  • ask nora if you can watch

    ask nora if you can watchher unbind the ribbons unwindif you can watch her unbraidask if you can describeher hair as gilded silvertell her the sky’smade of filaments of spun goldthat it’s rooted in her headthat out of her head growsgilded heaven askif you can watch her hair fallcascade down the length of herlike a…

  • your offering of wine poured

    your offering of wine pouredout the window into mudreturn by the lane through the wheatfieldwith hands takensand skinned from the plow pull strawswith fingers takencallous skinned from the sickleweave a basketreturn to the vineyardfrom the grapevinewith a knife sharpened on a field stone cut a clusterlet it fall in the basket like a baptist’s headreturn…

  • build a house to nora

    build a house to noracall it a temple she’ll becomeinannaishtaraphroditemagdeleneput her hand in the hand of the shepherdin the hand of the groomin the hand of the priest to the temple

  • be emkindu

    be emkindube cainbe the farmer whose offering is declinedoffer tammuzoffer ableoffer the shepherd of antwerphis meadow is the altarhis lambs are the sacrifice

  • let a lesser habsburg softened

    let a lesser habsburg softened by the memory of nora’s beauty sighlose sleep daydream bankwith an absent mind lose fortunesgive him that stallion raisedin your father’s stablethat one you rodeinto wittenberg let him saddleride to the low countries to searchto find nora to be soft eyedto a faster meltingsoft voiced into a liquidlet him be…

  • on the warm days of summers past

    on the warm days of summers pastand on the warm days in the hope for many summers to comemy crutch is leftin my chamber and i strollalmost old to market square to buy a pound of wheatnow on this cold and winter day i agemy bones ache and the meetings of my bones paini lean…

  • the status of the royal blood of rome

    the status of the royal blood of romethat of professor of divinity at wittenbergof pastor at the stadtkircke st marienpray pray that i leave the dignity of all i’ve beenon the corpse when i departthis body in the chamber where i’ve livedlived for so long that everyone here calls ithoratio’s chamber when iexit from this…

  • the eyelid of blind heaven

    the eyelid of blind heaven pulled back from the eye’s winter squint at dawnfrom the horizon to the eastto the west the sky is eye white to the northto the south look up for the german blue irisfar as your eye seesthere’s bone white cloudlook up for the coal blackpupil that’s caught sunfirethe sky’s all…

  • prove the man in the moon’s

    prove the man in the moon’sthumb and his finger that pointsat the sleeper’s eye pinchthe cabbage leaf edge of the eyelid argue that he pulls the eyelid up the forehead of a cabbage pulls the waker’s closedeye open to a widened squintconclude the caterpillarbrain in the head of cabbage seesa line of fire across the…

  • blame the man in the moon

    blame the man in the moonwith your finger flippages and turn the days of the calendar whilehe prepares to bury his face inthe dessau you don’t seeyou can’t see jerusalemyou can’t see what you pray to or whohis thumb with his pointer he peelsthe eyelid back from the crack of dawn