regarding several snapshots in a small gallery

These photos, Mr. Death,
represent a startling departure from any previous series, the diversity of which,
over the years
shared the singular quality of an unselfconsciousness.

It is redundant to except your environmental studies;
some metal church chairs and a bloodshot colored coffee cup;
even as they progressed
from utensil portraits through the most tender conversions,
until one realizes how you've both confused and empowered the Astonished
to reveal the most austere abstractions
for concealing enormous pathos;
a cipher of the light which caught that spot inside your wretched intellect,
unteased by the inevitable, reflexive meddling’s
of a mildew-yello'd syntax.

A padlock hung from a chain;
a pig colored pipe and a burnt shack on a beach.
The Vertical series . . . Nights of Madness, swallowing fire and stripe-sleeved Sirens; the world caught on the tip of a pin, unsure if it must swallow itself in pieces
or wholly explode.

These portraits which seduced me with their sensuous violence;
the fetal shapes you poured into the disenfranchised prism glass, still now uncurling in the dimness of your licorice lighted box;
you did not script these things
and simply shared a sense of title for the very confirmation
of their existence.
You were a hunter, I was the cook.

It were a time before the first synthetic invention;
when dance still swept a ghostly stage
like the magnet covered moon; there,
inside its fluid mask, a pair of raw emoting holes;
the soliloquy still years away;

the script now sits in the envelope on my desk.
my fingers roll like drumsticks on the countertop;

words through the half open window;
a voice says, "come to the altar now, come give the bride away."
You are a roiling water on the stove, immortal sleeplessness;
a restless eye;
I am your true friend. 

Permit me time enough to wake from my dull considering;
roll my dense psychology across the round and jagged edges of your newest sentences.
Truth, I would hardly know the lion by its claw, yet here you are;
and I am Sancho, by your side. 
Understanding always comes later to Sancho;
and there can be no truthful satisfaction of this glorious ceremony
(festooned in vases overfilled with ivory lilies
and forget-me-nots )
before understanding.