by Jim Dunn

Running the numbers
After the numbers have run
In the wake of great and
Costly errors
Tallying up the scores
In a divine equation;
A long division
Carry the One
Something doesn’t add up–
Counting the beans
As they jump to their death
Leapfrog leaps of faith
Landing in hot water
Boiling to a point
Logical conclusions
Are also a form
Of tiny deaths
Like dreamless sleep
Or interrupted ecstasies
Count the losses
Measure a bottomless hole
Run your tongue over the
Absence where once was
your missing tooth
The numbers continue
To climb like acrobatic
Aeroplanes over the sea
It all comes down
To this—
The missing variable.

by Jim Dunn

In no uncertain words
I am three
The descending dove and the flame
Only in the two
Do I become
the third

The mother of all ships
Is the following sea

Touched by flame or finger
Or white bird’s wings
The flood of fantastic words
Twitching spouters
Spewing ancient chatter
On carpeted dreams

In two, I am three
In every, I am each

One

Dream in delicious animation

Tongue and cheek to the moon
Pressed against the snow

To show the hollow glow

Fingers twitch in somnambulant surprise
Electric currents running towards the night

Sleep is a silent language dreams punctuate

A white silence with teeth
And a clucking tongue

Stuttering prophecies
arrive in twisted pistons of
Spewed words not of this world

An ancient language rolling on
Waves of heavy breath

nocturnal oceans of blue wreaths
internal circle of soul’s halo
searching for the divine in the darkness

by Jim Dunn

Through the window as dreams go
Lightning in the assassin’s scope
Now death stays on the other side of street
Freedom from fear
Filled with mountains of air
dirty secrets
with jets of holy water
Hammering me home
The lioness leaps and becomes an acrobat on loan
His message obvious to his captor
upon vessels unburdened & free
Broken chains of some
Freeing strains of deep space.
I am a common man
A man of time
Choking on the sweet
Syllables of God
The splintering plank of hate
Where ashes floated like dreams
Above blue flames.
The day starts as an ocean
And ends as a star
Like the sure shadow of sin
billowing with bursts of angel fumes
Carry the one through the maze of eights
It all adds up to long division
The ringing bells of the throng
Inside your clocking tides
Now the season of the furnished dream
The murderer holds the lantern
Soft pillow of abandoned hope
Tudor City trash trucks eat

green doors at daybreak
We’ve got this time,
The eruption of volcanic souls
Standing upon the bare knuckles
Of the holy coast
It is what
We feared
Miles of beating wings
No measure: a circumference of infinity
The sun is born
To align ourselves
With the stars
Like dreamless sleep
Or interrupted ecstasies
Count the losses
Measure a bottomless hole
Led by glorious horses
frozen in mid-gallop
A crucifix switchblade
The knife of our Lord
Around your ascending star
Showing you the pleasure
Of the golden path
Angels rise at your soul’s request
They dance on the clouds
Of your baby’s breath
Shine heaven, darken and shine,
that the process may stir
as things emerge
Play it by ear
When it hits the tongue
Rejoice in its hosannah
In the highest register
Of angelic voices
In heaven’s symphony.
From the empty

Vessel we now
Sail aimlessly upon
On troubled waters
Searching the horizon
For the magic words
Whispers Carry
The seeds
Of a new tongue
Home
Each echo
Fainter and sadder
As the spirit
Ebbs and flows
Eventually
At last
Into the sea
Of silent souls

by Tim Carrier

On warmer days, July or August, Jean & I drive into the village in the little blue truck to see a matinee at the Lobo &,

if it’s a Saturday, we stay for the music & dancing at the Hall.

In the Lobo, the swamp cooler wheezes & whines over the score. The teenage couples disappear in the dark,

& we laugh & eat our licorice in movie bliss suspended.

Outside under the Russian olive trees on Guadalupe, the little birds open & close their beaks.

Above the Hall’s tin ceiling, & thin zinc roof, the night reaches—between two or three worlds—& in wonder

in the dark between the people.

Ghost elephants, Jean says, of the thunder in the valley. We love everything about the rain & after.

The band takes ten & I roll cigarettes under the tear-streaked, tired beams of the portál on the side street., & when

the dance lets out we drive west to look at the stars lying down in the pale black hills.

Juniper nights, Jean calls these. Salt cedar nights & sage. The little blue truck hums softly in the soft tracks in the dirt.

We’re in a time-path. The stars lie down along the table hills. They long to return to being trees.

An airplane crosses heavy dragging something in the dark. Heart of one, Jean sings, to the radio, in her soft cicada breathing.

My last door, she sings. We slip matter, then time.

Love is its dream, she sings. The night is all around us. We open & close our mouths. Drink the soft dirt line.