Shots in the Dark

__________I
It was not the wind
but the heartbeat within

that caused the cradle to rock
__________and drop.

No sin was committed
__________yet innocence!

How cruel!  How frightening!
To send a boy scout on a snipe hunt.

He saw them on every rooftop:
Irma Vep_____smiled down at the runt.


__________II
Brown world
__________of the hyena

filtered green
__________nightscope.

To commit to sin wholeheartedly
is so seldom punished.

Abominable cinema by Bigelow
__________tortore on the screen!

Morality is a convenience
and a luxury.

__________End scene.

Nephalist

Slick slap
card flips
_____on speckled pearwood.

Nails click.
Fresh scent
_____ozone -- blue chlorine glow

beyond
glass doors.

_______________refait
she__________hesitates
_____then reclines.

Go_____nowhere_____tonight:

an inauspicious time
__________to drive home.

Incipient__________migraine.

_____perfume and wine

make her ill.

The chandelier
__________(silver wire,
__________mirror-clad bone)
gleams_____too_____bright.

Elegy

Amber_____backlit
_____booze
bottles
_____through_____thick
_______________tongue
__________news was not
passed by
_____thirty-second spot
_____following
an upbeat cat bit:
no one knows_____why
how__________blood
trickled, liquid thread
down the rain
__________gutter.

A perp runs,
returns fire.

_____"Never wore a wire."
_____His proudest line.

Covers doffed.
__________Pour
a round of shots.

Blue Collar Genius

Galactic_____fuzz
incandescent lint
spot_____fixed:
Andromeda.

From here, spit.
Then_____say
"Excuse me."

No one wanted
your opinion
except you.

Hominy, grits;
White Shoulders, black skin
Thank your lucky stars
Your mama ain't here.

slide_____rule
five_____shots
__________school
parking lot

_____fingers
rattle_____fence

singularity
__________drops.

Kraken

Jade green
_____adamantine
__________miles-high
_____curve
from shore
_____shot to the sky
__________it slips
_____back
through swells
_____hill-sized, steel-gray
__________capped white.
_____Storm
burgeons
_____from horizon
__________clouds fly
_____our

direction_____wet
wind looms cold
___________bloat

daughter_____meet_____son

_____from above
falls his hideous, cauliflower divine face
_____to hers, beaten bronze

overcast__________obligated.