brentano strasse in winter

1.

the snow burns gently on colder stone. there's

black wet in patterns on the tarmac where

some pipes under-cross the

road. the

snow burns bleakly and the valley evokes in storm

an open grave of quick-limed forms.

The bleaching snow covers

half-a dozen square miles of

stacked-up black-edged corners, the chimney-tops
steaming like coffee cups, the

sugared fingers of trees

imploring. the snow

burns down in winnowed flumes like

old paint flaking off a

Reich moon.

2.

the unofficial state birds of Berlin, pigeons,
Refuseniks of the sky, those

flying gym-shoes, weep

around their bits of

heat, sit like dirt-of-sleep wedged

in the corners of each of every building's

heavy-lidded, iron-bracketed

eyes. Azizam's cats

bound the brown carpet in

quadrants, use inhuman reflex to eschew affection like

the proffered hand's uncouth and

spring upon sills to gloat the

dizzy views. From behind the

glassed-out pigeon pies, while

two bezirks (of cloud and ground)

collide, the cats are teeth-chattering mad

at the hampering glass that

excludes warm bird but leaks

cruel North

inside. The cat I try to comfort

bites

3.

killing time in a Winter Storm is my reward

for an almost-adolescent dedication to that

old rhetorical formula of

punctuating a statement with a

twice-slammed door (far less impressive in)

(the summer months); (yet infinitely regretted in)

(the cold)