Weightless

Toss these heavy rocks up into the clouds.

Understanding weight is how the obelisk was moved.

Time

Time is satire

He has me laughing

Makes me move while standing still

Time is a dancer

Cheek to cheek

We whisper

of infinity

He holds my hands and rocks me

leading the way

But oh, my feet!

I have a few steps left.

The band plays on

Trumpets and saxophones 

On the 1

On the 4

I'm counting 

He says, "don't count"

Just feel it.

Inches

Perched on the precipice of perfection

hard to move an inch.

Blind Faith Cafe

Every time I walk past it I called it the Blind Faith Cafe.

I picture you sitting up there, at a table, behind the little miniature iron fence,

on the cement, just high enough above the sidewalk to look down on everyone,

Smelling their folly

yet perched, silently, at a distance, 

like a canary in a cage, crapping out all your self righteousness.

Keeping your distance from me, as if I were anathema

to your guilded lockets of longing,

you fondle your pearls while I stand in my wet golashes 

daring you to move.

I have no idea how the coffee tastes at the Blind Faith Cafe,

but I imagine it's bitter and in desperate need of cream.

The Sparrow

I wrote a poem about the war

for forty years, it changed

then all the people were the same

they just had different names.

The long forgotten memories of trees

and men who walked along.

The strange winds blow now,

around Christmas time,

but I hear the Native song.

The man he walks with a bow and arrow

and sings with--

and does not shoot--

the sparrow.

Hairdryer

It's amazing how small I am, like a bug, or a beetle, snug under the rug.

It's almost noon and here I am, humming nonsensical symphonies between my teeth.

I do not have the tap water enough

to call Poseidon from the sea.

When you tipped me down the drain,

baby, bathwater and all,

perhaps we should have thought

that I might need a hairdryer.

Car Tires

It was a ribbon in the hair

of a dragon by the sea

Her missing teeth were all I saw

as she called out to me

A siren 

screeching

the car 

pulled 

away.

Corner pocket

 You're so hot.

You got the last shot.

You crime, you dine, you shine, you swine.

You're so cold.

You've got the gold.

You wake, you shake, you make, you create.

You've got nothing on me

You've only got 

Something on yourself.

Hemp

Cupid sat down and lit a candle, shining

In his eyes was the flame, burning 

In his heart was your name.

Black eyelash, FLICKERING 

It's just a LIGHT on a distant hill.

Rubies glistened on her fingers

Her rings told stories and whispered moons

Rummaging their reflections

On the waters of the tide.

Point of Arrival

The face in the window looked weary

The reflection was yellow and thin

The moon in the sky was hanging

Plunged into place 

Like a nail

A nail in a wall

Chilly and bright. 

The train conductor was tired

The train itself had a sparking fuse

Its metal was dark, dead and dreaming

As it clattered and squealed

Screeching, quiet and loud

Along the way

A long, long way

along the track.

The point of arrival was taken

The ticking of clocks became mute

When the midnight rider walked the aisles

In his giant leather boots

The moon stayed there in the sky, firmly like a drum

Silent until it was struck 

struck with the edge

the hard edge

of a hammer.

Time to Shine

I walk upon the street in sneakers which squeak

and lead me to the lamppost where dim light shines

and radiates its soft glow upon the black, flat and barren stretches

on which looms out from underneath the shadows which creep

like the dead rising from graves, their grey hands sprawled

as they are crawling toward the light.

Yet the light shines on, aloof to the calls of the darkness,

deaf to the wild dogs and cats scurrying and lucky rats

quickly escaping the fate of road kill pigeons 

smashed to feathery dust under car tires

creating odd, abstract art,

next to road stripes and pieces of trash strewn next to the drain pipe.

The light knows not these tragedies, but shines on,

simply because it's time to shine.

Hit the Ground, the Story of Seeds

The seeds you plant they tend to grow

whether haphazard or in rows

not caring where they've been thrown

by hand or where the wind has blown

shooting up their tiny leaves

like hands reaching up to touch the air

arriving clean, simple and bare

but--it's not as if they dared

or--as if they arrived scared

it's just what they do!

The lesson that they give is this,

so I will make sure it is not missed,

we can't control how tall it rises

how many branches or leaves abound

if the trunk is rough or round

the only control we have, you see

is where exactly

it hits

the ground

Baby Snakes

The hypotenuse of the many-headed hydra, as she stood at impossible heights. The muses are hypnotic. He filled my ears with constant radio static, about his past exploits and his changed nature. It was impossible to believe anything he said because my heart with breaking, with a thousand baby snakes rushing out. The sky scrapers, with their mirror-like windows, reflect the sky.

1920

Breathtaking, what the night escapes from as the dawn runs down the street, rushing to the taxi and the stolen moments, before the lid of the jar is pried open and the butterflies escape.

Ennui

The woods rush by the window of the train. The girl from Russia stopped me on the street. The coffee now has sugar but not cream. I need to stretch my tired aching feet. I'm taking a big trip to kill the dragon, a vacation to a deserted place, where wheels are still falling off the wagon, and scars from gravel sit upon my face. Where ticking clocks and melted remedies, are poured out in bottles on the table, where fate combines with jilted fantasy, and I burn the bridges if I'm able.

My life is just a fable. And the murmers that I hear...just the people on the train, as they go through their own lives.  

Dear Dagger

Dear Dagger,

I've held you long enough and need to let you go. You've been under my coat as I walk the street, on rainy nights when the train rushed by. I've gripped you tighter than I needed to, especially when I heard footsteps behind me, listening as I walked, to hear if they were drawing near. 

I've placed you in the holster, muscle memory. I've kept you at my side even when I'm having tea, because I didn't completely trust my company.

I've kept you when you're sharp, and kept you for years until you were dull. Yet I knew I would be able to use you effectively with extra muscle.

Now, I want to drop you on the floor, hear it clatter and have nothing to defend myself with other than fists and feet. Moreso, to not live in constant battle mode.

Farewell Dagger, thank you for being at my side. 

Sincerely,

Faith

That Old Dress

Every memory mends itself into this hemline.

Each thread of red silk pulled in the direction that best holds.

Underneath the clean line there is a mess--

made of all the criss-crossing stitches of untold stories.

Big Catch

Flipping nets into the sea in the middle of a hurricane?

over the sides of the boat, just off the coast--do it in a hurry!

There she wobbles, her knees locking and eyes squinting to the spray

She is the subconscious fisherwoman of your soul, eager to catch the day,

join her!

The raging winds and sea merge to make her vision blurry

but she knows the ropes by heart

she's been fishing here before

every coarse thread, every move

is memorized,

and she will show you.

Once memory is gone, then what? The winds die down

and now you are in that raft,

floating on the Trade Winds

towards Cuba, with her,

trying to remember why you pushed the boat from shore in the first place?

Then a large colorful shadow moves under the boat and she jerks awake.

You cry: Bait? Who needs it! 

Let her use her hair as fishing twine.

Rip open her chest and throw her heart on the line.

There is no sense in missing the chance

to make a big catch.

The Staircase

There is a little staircase at the head of my bed, it runs from here to Mars.

I run up it when I am dreaming to go sit at the bar, which is on Mars.

I sit on the stool and dream of school and all the things I have to learn,

while the atmosphere steams and the surface of the planet burns.

I am in a bubble made of glass,

I watch the planets spin and the constellations pass.

Tiny green men with hammers work on spaceships

and tell me things I need to know.

Then I fall slowly, like a fog or a dreary day

back into myself as I silently lay.

I proceed to wake up, 

and generally make some black coffee.

I start running down the staircase at great speed

to meet the day.

Racing Up

How have you been? Has any of the madness stopped? I felt the world stop turning when I hit the bottom of the river, my feet almost sinking into the muck. It was so cold, almost ice cold. I dare not think of what would happen if I got stuck. I raced up toward the surface.

The Fourth Wall of the Glass House

If it looks like a writer and smells like a writer, it's a piece of paper.

After I get about two or three thousand of these entries done, then I can start to find the real dinosaur bones.

Let he or she who is free from ink, throw the first stone to shatter the fourth wall of the glass house.

A Long Road

I have a long road ahead of me. I do not have boots on, that would be too ambitious. I think I will stay in bare feet. Now, it's not meant to be tough, exactly. It's not like the Christians walking through the woods, hitting themselves with willow whips--can you imagine? But it's still a trek for the sake of trekking.

The Tap Dancer

The tap dancer's billowing arms are floating up and down quickly, like a large canvas mast struck by the wind. The weight of his torso leans forward, almost bringing him down to the ground, before he springs up. A grasshopper is no country animal, although he lives in the wheat and the green grass on the prairie. He seems simple, yet is resolute in his hopping, scary almost, the way he reaches top speed like an aerodynamic machine within a short time. He becomes a blur, a blink of the eye.

The big auditorium is empty, except for the tap dancer.

I hear his feet echo in my mind.

Halloween

Like a rabbit escaping from the thicker psychological bramble of the Salem witch trails, Halloween is sugary these days, full of chocolate and fake blood, laughing kids and miniature Snickers bars. 

Our Own Nature (Travels to L.A.)

People are moving to L.A.

in their Volkswagens 

in their cargo pants

dreaming of being an actor

dreaming of being a writer

dreaming of being a waiter

until the lights turn on.

I can see the exhaust of their cars

filtering up off of the deserts 

in Nevada.

I can see their odd smiles

reflecting in the rear view mirrors.

I suppose we all have a little twinge

of ambition.

I suppose we all are like Turner 

ready to be strapped to the bow of a ship

and feel the waves

to get the sense

and the timing

of our own nature.

 

6 Days

6 days and 99 channels, nothing is on, except fear and misery, bottled up in a fashionable trend and sprayed like wildfire and Mountain Dew shook up all over the--

Did you hear that silence is golden?

Let me bite the coin and return again tomorrow.

Lemonade Braids

The lemon of her lips is making this sour kiss sweet.

The sugar king is cradling her broken back. 

He's back out on the street,

sifting through the cans and the Coke bottles

trying to find her feet.

Dance again?

These shoes are old. 

Like ballet slippers from when she was a little girl.

Who cares?

Life is short.

He remembers yellow taxi cabs and lemonade stands.

She tried to sell homemade wine until she was called in for supper.

The street lights were coming on, but she had a crinkled dollar bill.

The transistor radio was sinking in the ocean.

How did he ever think he would find the author of that lullaby

he used to listen to as a child,

hiding the music underneath his pillow

pretending to snore

when footsteps came?

It takes so. much. strength. to make lemonade,

twisting the half fruit and then pouring portion after portion into the jug.

It takes so. much. combing. to make the hair straight,

then smooth it out like Chinese paper before dividing it into three's.

Playing Cards and Crosswords

She ripped the lamp shade, she flipped over playing cards. The Queen of Hearts stares across forever. It would have been better to work for weeks at crossword puzzles, in the newspaper, in the chair, where the light was bright and unnatural.

Liquid

There is no good place for a wet hat.

The books in the bag will get wet and we can't have that.

I shake it off.

I think of the guy from the East Coast talking about how the 

kids toddle down the hallways as if they're drunk, because 

the floors are warped as the wood and the joists 

are from 1890.

When he spills a drop of water in the kitchen

it rolls towards the corner like

liquid mercury.

My sister has a better bathtub than I do,

it's giant like a pool, you can almost go swimming.

I was in a river once, deep enough to swim.

I wore goggles and moved like a fish

watching the rocks change under me.

I wonder what it's like to be water.

To be everywhere except in a stone.

In the sky in a thunderhead

suspended.

In the eye of the lady at the edge of the valley

throwing dirt on a pile of rocks.

In the spit of a cow.

On the sweat of a forehead.

In the boiling water of soup.

In the wine before it silences laughter.

Super Girl

Elastic radio boy meets girl

traffic running into the cave

Bite into the apple

Gold is funky too

Snapping fingers crawling past

wires into glue

Radiator helicopter

restitution wonder hips

fog and juxtapositions

Atomic threats reap benefits

television ceiling fixtures

lead a final life

pry it from your fingers

pry it from your fingers

pry it from your fingers

Touching the cattle fence

electrocuted into a dance

too cute for silence

zipper your mouth

for crying out loud

angelic xylophones are radiating bell tones

summoning you

to the call of duty

The Red Herring

She sleeps so beautifully, your desire for truth, curled up and comatose

while the wolves roam freely, sirens blaring to the call of freedom

while wise men sit in shadows and count beans and rocks

waiting for the return of the potters who will sit in rags

and bare feet and make jugs.

When they are dry from the kiln, and the fire has hardened them

we still put them in the sun to bake

they need to be extra strong

to hold the water from the dam.

Rope

The world was not built by a string. It is rope.

It's Time

It's time to make up for lost time

it's cold outside of the door

I scribbled a rhyme on the paper

hoping you'd forget it on the floor

but you swooped down like a hawk

and stole the tail of the mouse

I ran inside of the wall

I was in my own house.

Double Duty

I was smoking and knew I shouldn't be, sheepishly on the porch trying to act casual, when I see two women and a stroller which doesn't have a baby in it. Their thick hair was dark brown reddish color, and dusty blond, respectively, and they stood in sweats, meandering around the speed bump in the alley, pausing to adjust the load, arguing quietly but respectively, probably homeless, saw me looking. One looks at me and asks if she can please have a cigarette, and says she'll pay me for it. I shudder and say I rolled it and could roll one, and she again insists on paying me. Thinking better of furthering the interaction, I hand her the cigarette from the first story porch and you'd think it was the hand off between God and Adam in the Sistene chapel. She thanks me profusely for the used item and goes so far as to say God Bless You. One person's trash is another's treasure. I got rid of guilt and got a blessing on top of it. She did me a favor saving me from cancer. Even after the light goes out the strange torch of karma burns.

Paradise Found

He says he doesn't deserve his problems and I suggested that regardless, he has to solve them. Listening endlessly to the playback reel of every challenge he has faced is giving me heartache. I need a dose of medicine.

He is blind to the wild dove which is awaiting entry into his soul, sitting quietly on the wires, waiting for a creeping smile to start. On the edge, he will fly in.

Good Problems

It's a good problem to have, I mused internally, practicing my pleasant attitude.

It is my job to be polite and courteous when declining the demon and reclaiming my sense of intelligence and righteousness, reserved only for myself.

It's a table for one, and if I am unclear, it's because I still can't decide if I have enough meat on my bones.

I've been licking your spoons and waiting for you to drop science in my lap.

However, I've been changed, my blue jeans are dress slacks now.

I will choose my own problems, and if you give me yours, I will offer you my decoder ring, so you too can see the forest through the trees and build your own life.

It's not about independence, that would be too simple, and it's a theory from a document written by slave owners anyways, so I am not giving salt to that Roman Army, not today, and not ever.

Nope, it's a clean line from impressionism to the daylight in your eyes.

The Distance

The difference between the pursuit of the hobbyist

and the call of the professional is a wild distance

not unlike the length a crow flies,

or geese when they are going South for the Winter.

It is no small step, no curb jump.

It is no distance between the car door when it is opened or closed,

not a short distance like the edge of the coffee cup to your mouth

as you take a morning sip.

No, the distance is much greater.

It's the distance of the clouds as they spill across the sky across the lake

seeming to go on forever, stretching their bones

in their hands

fingers tingling toward the horizon.

If I don't make it, and you put a coin in my mouth

when I am buried low, so be it.

When the cold stone sits above my head

I will at least have known

that it was no short distance from here to there.

For the Birds

The panic set in and petals of roses began flying around, poltergeist style through the wet air. 

The frantic energy of power lines started inside the generator then remained in control, until the final moment.

I don't know what that was like, to completely lose balance.

Only the birds, dropping one by one off the power lines, really know for sure.

Electricity itself is panic, we've only recently simply learned to control it.

Plug in a toaster, flip a light switch.

For the bird, he sits there and doesn't turn into Frankenstein soup when the lighting strikes.

He is not connected to the ground.

If his beak was copper, it still wouldn't matter.

He could not peck his way with Morse code back to the source 

of the rain.

Resolutions

Fast and moving, slow yet going, these are the sands in the jar, turn me sideways, how far, tip me over and stand me on my head, now time is moving backwards. The linear haunts of doves stuck in the rafters, let them fly free when the tornado rips the roof off. Destruction is such an odd lullaby. Let me get my mandolin, I will strum it quickly, and the heart of the matter will be resolved.

Sunday Morning

Battered, black and blue, it's just some pancake batter with some blueberries, what did you think it was? I am not injured, I am just a Sunday monring.

Punked out and smoking, it's just a stick of incense, what did you think it was? I am not smoking out by the lake, staring at the stars, judging how close the lighter can get to my nose to catch the last hair of tobacco.

Yes, when the choir starts to sing.

No, when the quiet sets in.

Where do you find it?

Between which pages?

Slipping and Sliding, and Sipping

I am sipping coffee, it is luke warm. Listening to Paul Simon and realizing it's been 20 years since I lent him an ear. Outside there is an orange cone, standing on a pile of rocks, next to a building in the alley. I suppose the cone is there so that no one will back into the rocks. There's a puddle stretching out, a little lake, a sliver of nature, creeping across the blacktop. I wonder if the orange cone can see his reflection there. I won't suspend disbelief today. She is such a trapeze artist, always stretching high and flying and flipping above the safety net. I suppose my ribs can only take so much spinning, sometimes the roller coaster is bound to topple apart, screws are bound to fall out, the grease is bound to stop working, and the screeching cart will come to a halt. I will put my hands down.

Ashes at Dusk

The meadow lark painting...

the one where the woman is looking up

and the sun is bright, burning orange

and the rest of it is brown and muted.

I learned that this dark color was called

raw umber.

There's also burnt umber, and yellow ochre.

Whoever painted that one knows

at the end of the day

there's a moment

when time stops.

The color of the day then, is muted. Not known.

The sun's light is the last strong glimmer.

Three Days

Three days and I haven't eaten any bread, haven't looked in any mirrors, and haven't moved in any shocking way. I've been so busy dreaming that my aluminum foil helmet fell off in the wind.

The Cloth

When night is strung like black cloaks

hanging between the lamp posts

daylight is like white towels and their pristine

clean rectangles.

Like a Christo

The median age for mediocrity is about to come up, panting across the finish line as the hands of the clock tip to 3:45. The fine toothed comb used to brush your hair has found numerous animals living there, and I am going to seize them and take them as pets. The rushing waters of divinity somehow missed me, I was standing there in my bathing suit next to the waterfall, but completely missed the chance to be doused in holy water. I've taken my beach towel and strewn it over the mountain like a Christo.

I inhaled deeply to sense the rain, it was almost sliding off of the tar roofs and plastered wet stains to the brick walls of the buildings. The power lines were wrapped up, choreographed, it seemed, by pure chance, as they swarmed the pole in a game of hand over hand on the bat to see who goes first. All I smelled was the bark of the nearby trees, the piss from the train station steps. I also heard a few birds chirping.

The power fan I purchased from the hardware store was keeping my computer cool, it was overheating with each video project I did for the church choir, somehow, despite all odds, I ended up helping make songs for the Big Source. It looked like a throwback from the 1940s where there were machines and appliances that looked like space aliens. I had lately been thinking of how the story of Eve completely undermined the whole idea of knowledge.

Sipping on coffee was a bitter pursuit, but while looking at the veins on the leaves of the houseplant, I groaned with the morning and came awake. Tiny sticks of burned incense littered the flowerpot like soldiers or scarecrows. I tried like hell to imagine a bird, flying out of the center of my heart.

The Wing of A War

I sat on the wing of an airplane, looking at the night sky. The plane was a WWII bomber which was parked, permanently, in a park, on the edge of town, where the grass was home to bronze statues and a plaque. The wind blew through the trees. As they started to sway, and I closed my eyes. Opening them again I saw the Milky Way, impossibly bright. My heart grew heavy and I jumped off the wing of the plane, and landed in the darkness, careful not to break an ankle. 

Getting Schooled

There is a history to the city which I never knew

About the highway that went right through 

Neighborhoods and leveled the barber shops

About the buildings which grew up from the ground

Thirty stories high

To temporarily contain 

The possibilities

Spraypaint on the wall doesn't do justice

To the missed time in school

The blackboard awaits the chalk

But it's I who walks

To school today 

I Long

I long to introduce you to your better self.

Your artist, your apothecary, your alchemist.

Your architect, your drawer, your painter, your prophet.

I long to help you unlock your treaure chest 

on the desolate beach

and run your hand over all your hidden gems

and pearls

like a rosary

until you pray to yourself when you are weak.

I long to introduce you to your stronger self.

The one that is tough as boot leather, yet welcoming.

I long for you to find kittens in the empty boxes of your soul

and play with them, running yarn as long as your arm

and smiling which each tottering step.

I long for you to feel the sun on your face, every day.

I long for you to wake up happy, held for a moment in an embrace

just before you wake up, whether I am there or not.

I long to introduce you to your better self, the one that smirks at magic tricks

and is amused but has the real thing in the back pocket.

I long to shake your hands free of the false things 

that comfort you

Shake them out like grass clippings on a blanket

wrap you in wool

give you hot chocolate

and introduce you to the warm fire

of your own soul

which chases away the shadows for once

and for all.

Gratitude

The passionate words I hear from mouths that are not my own

hit my ears differently.

Instead of a cold crack of a bat hitting a ball out to center field, it feels warmer,

like a pitch perfectly landing in a huge catcher's mit.

Eve & Newton

When Eve took the apple from the tree, after the serpent told her to, on that first bite, didn't she think to herself, this should have been a radish, or perhaps raw ginger, to better reflect the sour gravity of the situation? Apples are far too sweet, too tasty, too succulent, to refreshing to be part of such a calamity. The snake smiles and slithers away, perhaps thinking of oranges and lemons. Oh no you don't, thought Eve, why not bring me sour grapes instead? She threw the apple up to the Gods who held it, waiting centuries to drop it and hit Newton on the head. 

I am an Echo

I have no where to go, I am waiting for you to speak.

Then I can move through the room, bouncing off of the walls. 

In prudent silence I exist for all time until my moment arrives.

Tribe of Dragons

 Belong. 

Freedom of the Mind

The ice is slippery, 

I fell

into another dimension

winter of the soul

freedom of the mind.

The earth is dusty,

I stepped

onto the prairie burning

summer of the heart

freedom of the mind.

The stone is sleek and polished

I glanced

at it under the rushing waters of the river

spring of the vision

freedom of the mind.

The leaves are red and orange

I quivered

floating like a piano melody

rise of the spirit

freedom of the mind.

Tempting Fate

I've often made up my mind at just the wrong time

Busy bee with honey lips

Seeing the signs and laughing at the guns.

At Dusk

His black beard was the color of the sky without stars.

Her pen was broken and ink was spilling on the oak desk.

Their rough elements were caught in the door as they started the car.

One's work is never done not even at dusk.

People have a way of loking down the well.

She didn't know the difference between the sun and a flash.

He stopped the train with a loud yell.

It didn't matter when it crashed.

So long to Louisiana with its cypress trees.

If time was a string and I was a bell,

and I make a sound

I cannot tell.

Lucky Roots

The chunky hunk of ravaged bone left after the vultures desceneded from their airy throne was thrown, haphazardly by a buzzard, near a hyena, a paw, a beak, a tuft of fur. This is what had become of the zebra which had been running fast, desperate even, in his final moments. When I try to find a balance, like the zebra's fur, a black and a white, a yin and yang, I can just be, because I am like a tree, rooted in place. I do not run, therefore I cannot be chased.

The Jogger and the Dead

A woman was jogging in the graveyard 

The blacktop paths were clean beneath her feet

Perhaps she felt safer away from cars

While the quiet there gave her some relief

It was still an odd choice to say the least

She huffed and puffed among the grey tombstones

While the skeletons laid there fast asleep

She like them, dedicated and all alone

Her arms moved as she took another breath

More than anyone I have ever seen

She must be at peace with both life and death

Who knew it was in a fitness routine 

It still struck me as a little crazy 

Speech is Speeding By

Speech is speeding by I see the bits and pieces of it, like tornado shrapnel

out of Dorothy's window.

Why do I even mutter?

The Tin Man knows all my worries which stir my beating heart to speak.

The Lion nudges me to get off the ledge.

The Scare Crow he is long gone.

I miss him as he is running through the field.

Make me a big black crow,

make me an apple tree,

make me the flat face of the emerald,

as it gleams.

Sentimental Eye

The tear expands just before 

it falls.

The cello tells my story better

than my words.

Sisyphus has great calf muscles 

by now.

My tear is merely the same as the

sweat on his face.

Sonic Bonding

We laughed at the exact same time. I could tell you were about to tell a joke. You said it was told to you by a mime. Sign language doesn't have to rhyme. We were deaf, both of us, when we lived inside the drum. I surfed on the cymbals, screaming to a halt and falling headfirst into the sand as the waves threw me up like Jonas and I hit the cliffs. The pebbles started to fall like rain.

The Future Missle

Way back in space time, blind to the pigs and the slaughtered rhymes

I found myself slipping into your black holes, wanting to go where I can't go

walking on the piano keys, hitting every black note.

Whispering through the trumpet tones when it blurted out the misanthropic

radio optics of my frequency frequently freeing me from my distress

you thought it was over I was reeling

spilling red thread from my retro dress

you had me so figured out every line in the sand

every moment of my life was a glass tower

but your dreams now are flattery

nothing no more power.

It's a future missle now, a plan of attack

a steroid pumping attitude to get your life back

I never meant to hurt you or cause you pain

why did you have to lock me up in this glass case?

I will burst out

break the glass

I will see you back

in class.

I'll be in the back with a sharpened pencil,

hanging on every word before launching skyward.

Corresponding Parachute

Miles of the madness drawn down threads

spinning on the wheel lengthening dreads

petals of the flowers fixtures on the scene

syllabalic majesty on tough streets lean

People and the papers peeking at the news

nosy to the neighbors sitting on the roof

binoculars and frying pans

shocking to the teeth

the minds of madness grinning while

the bankers and thiefs

keep on 

taking quarters from the pockets of the jeans

the shocking gestures meant a lot of

caught the attention of 

the money changers at the temple funky in their dance

The wedding of the credit cards and the marriage of the damned

I stopped you just before 

you got 

blood on 

your hands

tipping on the mysteries I drank the secret juice

and plotting my demise and jumped

and opened up 

my corresponding parachute.

This prose was written in the fashion of a drum solo.

Maple Trees

Equally efficient in separating the high from the low

her atoms spin silently beneath her crown

growling in the morning light

her sun fighting its way through the forest of her mind

as she chooses which book to read.

She is sufficiently undressed enough to know that the heart

stuck to her sleeve was not attached with superglue

and can be removed, like an errant leaf

in the autumn, stuck to her sweater.

A pile of books makes for a good thing to jump into

she rakes them together with her fingers

she gathers them from the lawns of bookstores

and pulls them from the shelves.

They sit here in a pile of many colors,

fighting their way into the forest of her mind.

Trees make paper of course, and paper makes words

where her thoughts grow, like oak trees

or raspberry bushes, knotty pines and maple trees

swaying silently in the breeze.

The wind is motion and the trees are caught between

stillness and flight.

The decision comes down, the choice is made, her thoughts are split by an axe.

It flows like maple syrup.

This morning everything she reads is part of a tree.

Ode to Black Ink

I thought all of this black ink was going to dry clean

that the paper would remain white. I thought all of this white paint

would splatter perfectly on the black canvas and I would be

here, 

some angel,

some inverse Jackson Pollock standing on the edge of the

Empire State building waiting to swan dive into traffic

and rising like a phoenix with scrapes and bruises

but still fully functioning

and heart fully beating.

It started then with this black ink--mightier than the sword.

Here with this ink I lay into humanity, I lay into posterity

I write the dream into fruition I shape desperate boredom 

with my bare hands into a clay like man.

I write words which state my point of view, my mind, my brand.

I am almost delierious with the drunk power each tiny speck of black has,

becuase together they become greater than the sum of their parts

whether I like it or not they become a legacy

if to no one else but me

so I judge myself 

because the critics are out to lunch and if I come up short

I only have myself to blame as I look into the mirror

looking forward as much as I can despite the reflection

where the distance in the mirror

is just what's behind me.

Funny how that works.

War of the Roses

The roses grew in rows along the road

we picked them up and stuck them in our shoes

The fragrance was strong, the sun shone like gold

we climbed the hill and hummed a honey tune

A tiny speck of red among the green

told us that the artist's brush had painted

A scene of glory not unlike a dream

A summer's day so fine we then fainted

We slept like puppies next to the roses

Oblivious to what time supposes

as if we found a sleepy poppy field

where all wounds of war can now be healed

What a find! Soldier of fortune

spin the wheel

and rest here where your bones and your heavy boots

are wrapped up in the rose's roots

that slip around your souls

like eels

running to the ocean

underground

may your hands rise like a hammer

to hear a thousand birds stammering

as they sing a joyful tune

the roses are in bloom

Vigil by the Lake

The seance started slowly, building up steam

until it fed the demons and the everlasting dreams

the sunsets and the lullabies never heard again

the night that the waters won and stole our only friend

His turtles and his salamanders now will run astray

with no one to care for them and nowhere to play

Everyone's heart is saddened, and heavy here tonight

to watch the boy as his soul silently takes flight

Sugar Water

The pine tree hangs over the garden, its long green boughs falling like curtains while a hummingbird whirs dangerously close to my ear and sticks its long beak into my brain to take out some sugar water. Why not let the alphabet take a break and just write poems with mud today? I would like my hands to be covered in the clay that made Adam, and for lunch I'll have the apple that caught the eye of Eve. It's all water over the damn now, anyways. The Sistine Chapel has already been built, Thoreau has already lived by the pond, what shall I do to find some spiritual corner? Tilt my head and let the hummingbird in?

Twin Invisible Eyes

I've got twin invisible eyes

I see the past and the present at the same time

They meld into one perspective

two halves of one sea

I've got long strong arms that swing

like a pendulum

time no longer holds my face to the floor.

Instead I fly on the trapeeze

back and forth like the tides

each side of the coin shines in its own way.

Everywhere Except Canada

I fell in love with a blue man. He was wearing a black hat. The brim of the hat was custom made. I had a goldfish named Linda at the time and she moved with flowing orange flags, waving her fins to say hello when I came home. It had been a long week, I had travelled everywhere in my mind. Everywhere except Canada. The forests there were too pure, the rivers too clean. Instead I had spent time at Miami's coldest beaches, waiting for the seaweed to be untangled from my feet. I was barefoot as I crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, silent as I walked through James Baldwin's black and white San Fransisco, separate from those lonely South Dakota nights that Cowboy Jake used to tell me about. I was riding in a blue car, thinking all these black thoughts, the orange traffic lights were flashing as I made my way away.

Stones Making Bubbles as They Fall

Her heavy voice sunk down like a stone into the sea

or a riverbed on the edge of the Mississippi

Where toil and trouble was not Macbeth

it was the life that many led

So many hands on so many drums

have made these rhythms which are now

at the jazz club.

Every conga drum and every cajon

every burst of laughter

that bubbles up.

Evidence of Human Life

The bobby pin was bent,

it looked like two fingers making a peace sign.

It fell from her black hair,

and landed on the blacktop in the hot sun.

That is why it glistened.

My shoe stuck to some gum,

which had also landed on the sidewalk.

It was less glamorous,

but evidence of human life nonetheless.

Gravity does not wait

for me to finish my ambitious errand.

The sweating summer street

today is full of fragile life glistening.

The Cynic

I try to keep my cynic in a cage

I guild each bar so she stays

her mouth is foaming with the lies

fed by silver spoons gleaming like war planes

in the sky

Sometimes her mind is buzzing

like multitudes of preachers and popes on Sunday morning

muttering and shouting and searching

like a distant click clack of a train car

humming like a motor, a truck, or powerlines

Other times it is quiet and dark

as black as the inside of a coffin

of a small child killed by an American bomb.

Sometimes she lays there not knowing what to do

sometimes the sadness is so heavy

it's not the weight of the world 

but the difference between worlds

that has her down.

Then she awakes in the morning like a bird

but doesn't sing.

She's mad but it's not the mad hatter mad

from being stoned on the lead of American boredom.

It's a sinking mad, feeling the weight

of the darkness of the caves in Afghanistan.

She rattles the cage. If she wasn't in the cage,

we might not hear her at all.

She trembles the bars

reverberating to the heart of those who have lost

too much.

Hangs in the air like the stare of a young child looking

at the space where his arm used to be,

grunting to do daily tasks,

always thinking of land mines

in the back of his mind.

Even in this one grunt I hear

a whole coughing dissonant symphony of 

foreign policy. Foreign...policy?

Kink the hose of infinity.

The Devil's Palate

It was not red paint but the light of the fire 

which splashed when the embers moved.

The Devil himself sometimes makes appearances.

Stoking the fire brings him out of the coals.

Stirring the salt and pepper of the ashes

one loose stream of light ventured forth

disappearing into the air as he swallowed it.

Half Way There

Eighteen minutes left before we leave.

Didn't you set the car keys where I would remember them?

The earth is moving and I can't see the sun.

Not with these sunglasses on.

Where is your other ear?

Did you hear what I was saying?

This window is not going to go down.

I had it fixed last week.

Are you kidding me?

We're halfway there.

Are you going to get the keys or did you leave them by the gas pump?

Didn't you believe me when I told you?

No I wouldn't have known.

How would I have known that you need shades to see?

No, this isn't a time to argue.

But I heard you say...

One chance to go down to New Mexico in black leather jackets high on the night air, fixing to die on torn blue jeans that hug our knees like the riddles of ancient days. Slapping our thighs in time to jazz, wondering if our feet are too loud as we tap morse code lullabies in time to the pounding piano, heaving and sighing like a whale thrown onto a beach while the ocean roars out with its clattering sticks and snare drums, foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog, it never stops and it's not going to. We will have to head out the door whether we are ready or not.

We have no time left.

Joy and Mud

Joy is not muddy. It is a vibrant river, fresh from the mountain tops. When you're feeling cold, could you be my snow? All I ask is that you melt and run to me, wearing down every haggard rock in my brain until it is fine sand. Let's walk on the beach, shall we? Take my hand. Let's skip stones and talk of old times. I will pick up a stick and we will draw in the sand. Dragging it closer to the water, the sand becomes mud-like. The stick drags, and each new design is erased, as quickly as it is drawn, by the constant lapping of the waters. What then? Will you look at me with wide searching eyes, and say I told you so?

1,000 Tuesdays

The pigeons and I under the viaduct

see the faded colors of the mural

I touch my hands to the paint

The trains don't come here anymore,

the last train to pass here

was 1,000 Tuesdays ago.

It raced there on the way to a black coffee boardroom

I was commuting in blue jeans

to the last creative ramp to board the arc

not realizing I was a unicorn

and that there are often free tickets to the Titanic.

It's hard to explain if it was a sense of ambition

or just a sense of purpose which drove me then

but I know it's something else now.

The color is deeper, even the black of the mural

although faded, is more opaque

than the coffee ever was.

Moving Through Time

(3)

Flip a dime, the world itself is a gamble.

It took decades to meet you 

now that you're here I hardly know you.

Let us talk over tea, my consciousness and I.

I will wager that the wheel is round

and you will say just wait, you'll come around.

(2)

Flip a dime, you're bound to win.

It took decades to meet you again

now that you're here I hardly know you.

Let us meet again, as if for tea,

I can talk with you, and you with me.

Let the sunshine fall into the window

and give us the stillness of the day

you, my consciousness and I.

(1)

Basking in the warm glow of the unknown

betting my last dollars that wheels were indeed round

and all I had to do was spin.

The minimum wager was the whole of existence

and the funny part is that once you're in

you're bound to win.

It took decades to meet you again

now that you're here I hardly know you.

Let us meet again, as if for tea,

I can talk with you, and you with me.

Let the sunshine fall into the window

and give us the stillness of the day

me, my consciousness and I

moving through time.

Cupid's Cello

When cupid begins to play the cello

and art becomes a sky of rising suns

clouds of color soft as feather pillows

stretch up like fingers reaching for a drum

The humming of the birds and crickets too

join in this joyful melody we sing

The steady hands begin to strum the lute

and Cupid's bow goes deep into the strings

Composer's notes, nah, he doesn't bring it

He follows closely the rise of each kiss

What sheet music does Cupid use for this?

None I've ever seen, I think he wings it.

Exodus Street

I live on Exodus Street. Things are always moving. Last night I saw the Northern Lights richocheting off of the lamposts and hovering silently above the clouds, their rainbow fireshow heaving glowing darts higher than the sky could hold. The light seemed not to run out, but to simply go towards infinity. We were in the tenement buildings, pasted to the walls were the cut-out pictures of fashion girls and stock market reports which we had painstakingly removed from the magazines and newspapers with the sharp, tart taste of temptation and then cut with the dull scissors of addiction. The office boys had circled the word "Sell" in red pen, and we had picked up all the extras in the mail room, back when messages reached their destinations and when radios had knobs and rock stars had hair and--what? Where are you going? Not you, too? It seems things had just been waiting to fall off the ledge. The lemmings were out, the zoos were full of politicians and their tiny feet were creating dust storms as they ran closer and closer to the cliff. It seems everyone was running from a bum deal, getting the "bums rush." He had been on the park bench for too long, with all of his things, and the. Falling, falling, falling. 

Train Wreck in Kansas

I read a poem that made me think, I cannot write a poem at all.

It made my words just birds ramming into windows,

it made my ideas just fists busting into walls.

No, seriously, it was quite good.

It was thought out in metaphor and each piece lead to the next

I realized I have a far way to go

to lift the sideways steam engine

from the Kansas plains

and remove the debris from the prairie 

and find beaty in the

sundrenched metal

and find soul in the

tipped over coal

in this 

train wreck.

The Way of Things

Basking in the glow, the ember rolls and falls

into the cool water and goes out.

I suppose that this is the way of things.

Which One

Skirting the issue, sifting through tissues, tamping the coffee grounds before making cappucino.

Sucking the life out of the balloon, mangling the mud before the monsoon.

Crimping the hair before the big dance, stamping the letter and taking the chance.

Her odd choice of clothes echo and fold, she is wearing the mask on her head.

Why not put it on her face? Instead she lifted the sheath of papers, stuck between the pages of the books she was constantly rubbing the ink talking about how it smelled. I wonder if in her mind is a series of bells, hanging on strings, and she never knows which one to pull.

Cafe Lighting

At the cafe, all the corners of the napkin were upside down. A girl with orange hair placed a steaming cup of tea on the table while above me I heard a bird rustling, then taking flight. Later, in the dark, almost asleep, my mind was counting the shadows and the thieves.

When I read a book in private later, on the train, the musty smell of the bookstore rushed into my nostrils. The clerk laughed, which stirred his short beard, when I asked if the book was fiction or non-fiction. The letters on the side of it read "Titian."

I wrote my number on the napkin, in ballpoint pen, next to the incense. Love was a 10-sided dice. I hoped he would call, yet I didn't want to talk. I wanted to hear the radio frequency in the bookstore again, to undress my intellect and bathe in the static of a thousand minds humming on the shelves. With the pictures stored in my mind, even with my eyes closed, I could write an entire novel on a napkin, if the light was right.

No More Sirens

The tender time to test my fate has come

The pirate ship has sunk and I'm adrift

The jug of rum is unstuck from my thumb

the world still wiggles underneath my ship

The Earth in all her curves looks flat to me

Perhaps I've spent too much time on the sea

Looking at the far-off curved horizon

Each slip and swell taking me ever near...

yet I can't reach what I have my eyes on

The harbor of my home she will miss

She's in Hades with her cape of chaos

The monks in saphron robes are not so far

eyes glisten as I listen to the stars

my elbows perched on the crow's nest up high

I almost hear the Heavens start to sigh

So close am I when tunderstorms let go

torrential rains then chill us to the bone

we are safe just by the skin of our teeth

when skies clear and sunlight offer relief

yet the moment I feel like I'm alive

is when I listen and I hear the storm.

Her and I speak through some ancient channel

A conch shell to the ear the static calls

Mysteries of the sirens and stone gods

The blue-black ooze of her blood now runs cold

All I see, a constellation shattered

Romance in the stars that never matttered.

True North?

I wandered on the sea foam sprays.

Posiedon's trident driven in her heart.

Her madness echoes into the coral

My sadness comes out through the darkest cave

The lips she once kissed have become

her rage.

The Calendar for the Meek

The meek will inherit the Earth. 

The sleek and slender fashion model will inherit the stares, when she is tilted on the magazine rack as I am buying brass tacks. 

I speak like a fish out of water, bubbling to the surface I argue with the cashier about coupons.

Capitalism lives to see another day.

Keep me posted when the ruthless don't win.

Keep me posted when your postcards show flowers and not strange fruit.

Keep me up to date, I want to see the world that is behind the sunglasses

of the blind piano player.

Bird of Paradise

The bird of paradise stopped on a tree, hung out on a branch, then flew away from me.

I watched him as he flew, and disappeared into the sky.

I wonder if that is paradise, whatever is out there.

Wherever he is flying to.

College

They said to read Shakespeare, Milton and Freud, 

and for life I would be better prepared.

I could go into Accounting or Law,

and slay boredom with a sword made of glass.

My friends were dressed in black and sulked a lot,

they were hip to the culture of changes.

I was caught in a dream of Cubism,

on the edge of perspective, awaiting hue.

LIFE

 

Sometimes I grab an egg that I think is hard boiled, and it's not.

BENT METAL

Bent metal rusted scraped the blacktop with a fist

Busking for the coins I dropped inside the well

Did I blow my fortune just to trade it for a kiss?

Only time knows and only time will tell.

The rats in the alley are smashed under wheels of trucks

Their bones completely flat they end up like

bear skin rugs underneath my shoes

Am I roadkill on your alley boots?

Why Do Stars Fall?

(2) Stars are tiny shards of glass, thrown from the windows of a tall building in the sky. Many stars together make up a window, and there are many windows in this giant black skyscraper we know as space. The word skyscraper is ironic as it doesn't scrape the sky, it covers the sky, and bends with the arc of the universe to cover it entirely. 

What is more is that each window glows with an office light. There are many many beings who make up the workings of the Universe, and they work here. Each window of stars, or galaxy, has an office behind it. Beings works there, on their computer, drinking moon coffee, for Infinity Corp. 

We can't see them during the day becuase of the blue curtain with the clouds on it. This is where the beings work, making the meaning behind the curtain. During what we call night, they take a rest and sleep, yet the office lights are on. The cleaning crew is there, running the vaccuums, which sounds like thunder. Once in a while, the vaccuumers see the light bulbs are burning out. They change the bulb and have nowhere to put it, so they throw it out the window. It is just glass, but it catches the light, just for a moment, as it falls. We see the falling star, and we say "make a wish."

(1) Why do stars fall? They are tiny shards of glass, thrown from a tall building. The stars are actually windows, to a giant skyscraper which is black. It is so tall that it covers the sky, and bends too. Each window is an office light. Each light or sparkle has an office behind it. Someone works there, on their computer, drinking moon coffee, all during the day. We can't see them then becuase of the blue curtain with the clouds on it. This is where the people work, making the meaning for all of the universe behind the curtain. At night, they take a rest, and are sleeping, but we can see the office lights are on. The cleaning crew is there, running the vaccuums, which sounds like thunder. Once in a while, the vaccuumers see the light bulbs are burning out. They change the bulb and have nowhere to put it, so they throw it out the window. It is just glass, but it catches the light, just for a moment, as it falls. We see the falling star, and we say "make a wish."

When the Stranger

When the stranger looks at you strangely, for he is a stranger, as he passes, you catch a spark of light. The shield on his blue-eyed cornea, the concave lens, brimming at his eyeball's edge, glistening.

It was just a sideways glance but now your mind is choking like a bent garden hose, then a faucet runs clean, and there is an undercurrent of thought rivers, polluted by his sympathy.

You feel a pull as the ego magnet is multiplying, a sunrise above a lake, the sliver blossoms into the fat sun of fire then dips down like a roller coaster into an ember when he looks away.

When was that moment, when you thought he knew you?

HEROICS

There's no standard handbook for heroics.

You climb the building and sit on the ledge,

looking out over the land below. 

Simmering butterflies line your stomach.

Calm your nerves with nicotine, when they start to fray...

No one wants to clean up this crazy mess.

"Jumping is not an option!" the birds say, the clouds mutter, "put your heart back in your chest."

Sew up your sternum and just sit, for no war was ever won in one day.

Justice seems to move, but move just a little bit, like when the clouds move over the sun, 

the day is grey but who notices? Your vision is behind your closed eyelids. You see sun spots.

You stand on the ledge, stoic. Up here, your feet are as planted and firm

as if they were on the earth.

PLASTIC MARJORIE

Plastic Marjorie, you live your life in a jelly jar

never looking at the stars you're always in the cupboard laying bare

Plastic Marjorie you are destined to be full of vinegar at 

inopportune times

and say the wrong thing at cocktail parties.

Plastic Marjorie, won't you let me take you to the dance, one more time?

Let your black dresses flow, your silk hats taper into the windstorm

up on Broadway street where the rats and the tapdancers step in time

to gravel 

Hurtle across my space time, ok Marjorie?

Put your hair in curlers, trip out while staring at the wall

many dinosaurs died to make you even...plausible.

The Rim of the Cup

The smooth circle has haunted men since Leonardo's time

as they tried to draw it and divide it and make it square inside

How will I believe the sun is merely an echo

of the top of my coffee cup?

This circular line, the orbit of us all.

Did you feel the heat of the sun today, cascading down your back?

Burning your skin with its piercing, as if jealous of you

down here on Earth while she is stuck in the sky

hanging there like a chandelier, burning for all time,

do you ever think of how SHE feels?

No I just crept into the shade

to dream and inhale the darkness

The corners were all so sharp there

the sidewalk, the curb, the edge of the buildings

The power lines, now those were a mess

strewn up on the pole like my Aunt Jenny's jet black hair

as she piled it up with giant sea shell clips

How did electricity ever get through that yarnball

to power the refrigerators and the washers

or start the day when someone plugs in a toaster?

It comes down from the pole in a straight line.

It's Literally Happening

A girl plops down next to me, 

then shuffles

          to the side, 

A stone gangster glances no

 glances, he is staring straight ahead    while

 the train is zipping by 

the background blurrrrrs,

silly chatter fills the train car tonight

the elevated train in Chicago...

 For now, the stakes are low

 it is early--there is no cigarette smoke or rowdy boys wanting to make it into a dance

The homeless men who will sleep here at 2 a.m. have not yet boarded. It's because they are on the streets yet with their old coats, which they will use as pillows when they come.

Photo by Hannah Frank: Photo of unidentified commuter

 

A Bomb From Mars

The circuit board was cracked and splintered, there

on the steps by the alley where the lit

cigarette was thrown before the car drove

by with the package in the trunk bumping.

It was a bomb from the planet of Mars

with the whole thing ticking...waiting to blow.

The cops were hovering around like bees

their tan raincoats flapping as they looked down

surveying the scene and writing in books.

The grime on the foot print near the tire track

was going to crack the case wide open--

if only they could see it. 

Infared glasses might help, or x ray vision to

determine it was brought here by a man

who was just a travelling alien.

He was here from Mars, fresh from Mercury,

carrying a bomb that would blow up,

proving the aliens are just a mob

and they saw us here on earth and they thought

us humans are not doing a great job.

People are dying underneath the tanks

factories are blowing out the black smoke

we've had all this opportunity...

Let's not make our chance at beauty a joke.

Our Time on Earth

The storm is coming, it will start to rain

We will bathe ourselves in the new rivers

The sparrows know the secrets of the clouds

they whisper words that fish and turles hear

We bubble up not knowing where to go

Gurgling like babes fresh out of the womb

These drips will drop down to the hard, dry soil

Our time on earth is over far too soon

THE TRAIN

He walked through the woods, through the alley in the city, through the dreams of his mind, down the tunnel of where she was. He was in the subway tunnel but felt displaced, unknown. The late night train would be rolling through soon, and the rats would scatter and the billboards would shake for an instant, before the magazine ready models went back to their plastic gazes, staring at nothing for eternity. His lips felt dry and wanted a cigarette, a taste of a salty kiss, but it was no more. He grasped the leather strap of his bag and slung it across his shoulder, harder than he needed to, and waited for the train.

UNFETTER

The rim around the coffee cup tipped up then down I took a sip

It stung like bees criss crossing on my fingertips like a hush up to my lips

what was this silence? Dark and mellow strange but never bitter

the pitter patter of tiny feet, these long lost demons running down the hall

I stopped and counted them all

I scooped them up like stars in my hand

and shouted to the wind as I released the sand

Now, now, NOW! Do I understand? 

Do I unfetter?

I do understand.

I do unfetter.

I lose my better half to become whole.

STAYING LOCAL

He is in Katmandu sending me letters about the colorful trash

I thought we might reconnect like on a rotary dial phone

The way time has passed has been less like a banana peel slipping under my foot

and like a hood around people kissing in that one Magritte painting

She is in China, explainning the training to the people there

she said they live in shacks and the sunrise coming up through the smog

is other worldly.

I meanwhile took a trip to the grocery store.

Later in the rain I walked by it again, soaking wet, and bought a poncho

made of plastic from a homeless man named Alvin for $6.

It was a good purchase and I got what I needed, and he would get supper later.

A TREND CAME

 

The polite way to freak out 

The silly way to speak up

The bright way to stick up for a friend

The old way to drop a line

Did we stop doing those things

we used to do because a trend came?

HAPPENSTANCE

 

Happenstance was the way things used to be, they danced then set me free.

HOT WATER

(2) Hot water makes tea, you steam up with soliloquies

ghostly moving through the locked gates

you spill suddenly, I am standing on the ground

pondering the make-up of your soap box

Why do you talk so fast?

Rivers always get where they are going.

(1) Hot water makes tea, I am so sick of your soliloquies

as you reverberate through the locked gates

Oil makes black top, I am standing on the ground

pondering the make-up of your soap box

Why do you talk so fast?

Rivers always get where they are going.

CARPAL TUNNEL

Careless carpal tunnel tips my hat to the hedonistic viewpoints of my feral 

cats, drawn like sticky tar spooled into spider webs

careening cars down the alley

don't slow down

for speed bumps.

Geese flying laps to the powerlines, drink the destitution like its wine on a spiral

day, sling your arm into a trumpet and play

rock, scissors paper at least twice

keep it going

until you win.

Typing into the computer, I felt flat.

The day had just started to wear on me.

I squinted at the sun and felt the birds singing.

Where was the crystal ball?

Persistent people pleasing will launch your lurching soul into haywire

radio static, muscles make a myraid of strong singing voices

airplanes flipping through the sky

like flapjacks

cooking on the air.

Inside of my wrists

was the secret to the universe.

I just had to pull the cord

on the parachute.

HORACE SILVER & THE T-SHIRT

Somehow Horace Silver is connected to this. I threw away the shirt I was wearing, as if I could throw away the mistakes I made while wearing it. Hopefully the hype will take your high heels and throw them over the hills. Hard work will be waiting for you in the valley of your visions.

I will not be the one

that freezes.

THE NEW NOMAD

(2) 

The orange fire raged inside the barrel

its heat competing with sunrise

(1)

The new nomad shook her feet

the dust settled into the metal scraps

the wild dogs sniffed her robes

the rags started falling off

as she ran

The old man shuffled the cards

the joker peeked out from behind the clubs

his hands were covered in rings

which started coming off

as he slept

The orange fire raged inside the barrel

the homeless warmed their gloves

the odd smell of factories covered the air

but the smog began to roll away

with sunrise

The blue guitar played a lonesome jig

in the small cafe next to the tourist trap

the passports and the wallets wailed

the money started at the fingertips

and fell into the tip jar

as they listened

The man at the casino grew intense

he had never met

anyone that made as much sense

the journalist kept explaining

that the rage was real

but like a dream 

all these stories

would never connect

the nomad, the man and the fire

I awoke with the sun in my eyelashes

thinking of factories

and a dirt path

and someone running

through the smoke

Dark Poetry

I thought I'd write dark poetry

to take all my darkness and put it into line

but I didn't want my actual self to be dark, just the words.

I thought I'd take my cynicism and lay it out bare

but I didn't want to actually be cynical

I didn't want to actually not care.

Yet here I am brooding like a fool.

I thought I'd tell a white lie

to take all my darkness and cover it with a sheet

but I didn't want it to be the undertaker of my word, just a shield.

I thought I'd take my honesty and stir it in a pot

but I didn't want to cook it completely,

I would not be able to eat it.

So here I sit and nibble on the truth.

I thought I'd get a blue mood

to take all my rhythms and groove them into the dawn

but I didn't want to get a hangover, just to hang out.

I thought I'd sit by the window with my hand in my chin

but not let myself go completely.

I thought I'd let my imagination run

but I wasn't going for Olympic gold.

TRIANGULAR JUGULAR

(2) The jugular falls in a triangular way,

on that window sill

where my elbows sit

and they make 

a triangle

hands on my chin.

An A flipped upsidedown.

A V waiting to be redrawn. 

Lines are boundaries, lullabies

Lure me to my dreamstate

sleepwalking foggy down the hallway.

Perspective merges then radiates

the doorways and the staircase

windows are now stained with color

they used to be clear

we could see each other.

(1)

The jugular falls in a triangular way

the plans we made when the stars were bright

flipped upsidedown 

Lines were drawn boundaries

Crossed eyes and lullabies

lured me to my dreamstate

sleepwalking foggy down the hallway

messed up with guns and the occult

felt squares and grandma's quilts

lit cigarettes on the edges of the ledge

that window sill

it's such a small thing

it's no big deal

it's just chipped paint

that window sill

where my elbows sit

and they make 

a triangle

hands on my chin.

The Junk Truck

 The

junk 

    truck

    is coming

    I can HEar it

    it is 

      

     coming.

The side doors are beat up and

the bed of the truck is full and the gleaming metal in the 

avant garde stack looks like robot parts. The copper and the magnets

in the old refrigerators and washing machines will be traded...

perhaps the mattresses will be sold and the other things

melted or smelted--but for now they are a mountain

he is carrying. It is definitely epic. The frame of 

the truck is bent yet it towers proudly up

like the first skyscraper

this rolling testament

that trash is treasure

he looks in dumpsters

and is patrolling 

now he is not

just looking 

for 

wooden

pallets.

He keeps on.

I see

him time

and

      time

again

    usually

it is

             the same

stuff

in the truck

but

I 

hope he hits

 

  pay

   dirt.

He

is

go    

   ING

   by

    now

down

the

alley.

 

(2)

T

h

e

ju

nktru

ckiscoming

Ican hear it andnowI

canseeit, coveredfromheadtotoe

withmetal and piecesof parts

andparts ofpieces

itstartsto pull

away and

I wond

erwhere

he will

go

he 

is

g

o

i

n

g

.