furry furnace

you were young
a thin black cat
feeling fire between
his eyes
a giddy mutant
smelling of smoke
and orchids
a mangy dancer in
moon dust
they threw bottles
at your head
threw spears of light
at the dark side of
man you never see
the face of man
on forest's floor
leaves of grass
bought by the ounce

then
through the sand
castles in their mouths
from the angelic
whispers of jesters
you heard the king's demands
you owed them guts
and fur
the fur your ancestors
wrapped around silent machines
in the night
and you gave up a thousand dream
bodies to gentle laughing lions
shaped your unbridled
entropy and
sniffed out alien mischief
in scorched fields
read horoscopes to particles
read sutras to lizards
but you couldn't shape
the world of squares

it busted up
the stars in your eyes
reeling in moebius ten strips
in a rollercoaster blooming
strange flowers all
the way down
no one really saw it
the distant planet
all it had was motion
and time
beauty blew through you
and swirled crackling
around the others
but you couldn't shape
the world of squares
the corpse of the Illuminati
still dancing on
strings held by
scared children

woe is the freakyheaded
child who loveslovesloves
even the boot heel pressed
into his heart
wild is the burst of light
the inflation
of smooth starry blowoffs
the byzantine puppets
of stardust grokking
how stars died for their
sinlessness
long gone lights of
true benevolence
asking for no penance
for they gave what
they came to give
and yet they called
to you
to pledge fealty
to beauty

you couldn't shape
what has no shape
you know it now
why you couldn't change
what is only change with
a face
you couldn't see it
until the faces all changed
giving generations
to the earth
life to the tomb
the mask dissolved in
its own energy
and you saw the true face
the face of nobody
the cool water that
a long year's desert
concealed in transparency
it was zen
and the bald-faced
love of a woman
of nobody
you are nobody's fool

now
you are young
a thin black cat
feeling fire between
his shoulders
nowhere to go today
but something's always
happening