War of Currents

1. 60 Hz

                  Stars are just stars –

          At night       walking the dog
          the one over that tree is cycling – red
          white
                              then red

          And the mood is smeared across the sky

          It hides – fully
                  behind the clacking branches

2. Skin Effect

                  It’s January –

          The other day – or night       in bed
          the universe explained how things were expanding

          How they were moving apart

          Hide tensed over a drum –

          The echo that is a voice on the internet:

                  Edison invented the lightbulb
                  just so he could throw shade at Tesla

3. 12 V

                  – Edison killed animals in the park
          He pressured the invention of the electric chair – all to
          discredit one man –

          And     he     still     lost

4. Transformer

          I’m unable to explain it – and yet –

Samuel Clemens

He stares into light – suspended between his fingers
enraptured – the glory of invention –

The phantasm – flickers – it
breathes – those respirations illuminating his face

It is a sea creature – amoeba – the pool from which life itself…

          In the darkness beyond revelation – Tesla –
a wraith – his body slashed in glare –

stands – watches Clemens watch – the moment of creation
the moment after God was done – and man took over

Faraday Cage 1

The locking of the door
Three times the locking

Safety in that
          quiet               dark
                      encased self in that

At night the sound of people out on the street
causes a panic to rise – a dream of invasion

A sort of scratching at the window

A face in the darkness without eyes
          where do the face's tears go

But the thought erases a realization

They are here to take
everything not nailed down
          pots      pans      televisions

The reflection in your eye

The memory of that reflection

Faraday Cage 2

In the bathroom there is a Jewish prayer mistaken for Elvish

I wash my face           take pools of cool clear cool water
          and      pour it over the cheeks red with heat and boredom

Then stare at the eyes staring at the eyes staring at the eyes

Hand towel to face      a gentle dry      eyes to mirror to mirror to

          a twisting serrated leg stuck on my chin

More on my hands      in the sink      eight twitching yellow limbs
without a body without blood

Faraday Cage 6

When they went to pick the new Pope – in 2012
they built a room-sized Faraday Cage

          I unspool the mesh – like chicken wire – like wrapping paper

Cover the inside of the walls of the bedroom we used to share

It glistens – mica – quartz – fractals of light on fractals of adobe

And I static myself in the center
Knowing full well that I have crossed the threshold of sane
Into something – else

There will be no phones – computers – electricity
          I write notes on torn napkins – roll them into canes
          and float them into the darkness beyond the windows

May they wash on some shore – be found by birds or scorprions
unreadable – but useful – everything
becomes smoke eventually