rake rake rake
dead leaves and shake 
burnt villages at the bottoms of purses 
aborted worlds at their ends 
like Sodom, surgical extracted 
monotheism redacted
because I'm just a man without dirt under his fingernails .
palms smooth and white and pure and seamless
future ironed out with the perfect creases and crisp collars 
jailhouse of the modern man
small cells in the crowds of loose ties
and refusals to shake hands 
hands perfect and pure to build a new world
sterile and impossible and clean 
and impossible 
and gleam
and impossible
Rake rake rake 
Not a leaf, not a lawn 
not a tree not a road 
not a painting or a song
just the stainless steel Ayre
the ascension of me 
on average and by mean
I want to be clean
median and mode 
numbers building rows on rogues 
choking on airs and words obscene
pollutants untie me
I WANT TO BE CLEAN
skin sewn and unsewn
bream whipped, stripped and waxed and peeked
nails clipped to smoothbore nubs
treated and sealed with creams
I WANT TO BE CLEAN 
bleaching down to the bone
harder and faster -- this house isn't home
it's a pile of refuse, what I used to be
sloughed off and vacuum packed, 
picked and pressed Me
I WANT TO BE CLEAN
evaporative cooling into atoms split and tossed 
flippant and chaos and out of order--
STOP STOP 
FUCKING STOP
but my voice is lost, half here and half there
gone into the original recording 
binaries ones and zeroes
to never be whole again 
never be tarnished, inert atoms , unseen
and nonliving in pieces
i just want to be clean