The Giant Lizard Queen

Shoes clacking on the sidewalk, almost like fish's fins. The small town was a fish tank, and Germaine sat in the fake seaweed, the pharmacy, at the soda fountain, when he walked in with those shoes. The yellow brick was made of clay, from when the land was usurped and turned upside down. The clay was burnt and made into bricks, stacked up tall and protected the people from the wind. The town sprung up on the shore of the lake, and the people like colorful fish just breathed on land. 

Meanwhile in the middle of the lake, there sat the giant lizard queen, her green skin toady and ruined by hundreds of years of floating through the murk. She stuck her long neck out every now and then, scaring a small child on the shore, making an old man think he might be losing it--but it was not a figment of imagination, it was real, it was her.

She too, thought the people on land were fish, and she was hungry. She ate fish and there were only so many in the lake. The people seemed rather stiff and sharp, but like food none the less. One day she swallowed the town.

Now what.

She thought she was simply eating calories--but no, no.

She ate all of their stories.

The stories started coming out of her, pouring out of her pores, even out from the corner of her large, brown eyes, glossy with fish sheen, pouring out almost like tears.

She sat at the typewriter, her tentacles hitting all the keys at once.

If it was a piano, it would make a crushing dissonant chord.

Here, she began to weep, thinking of all the stories she could tell, if only she could type. The man with the shoes walked through her stomach, it was morse code, the way his shoes clacked.

---.. -. -... -- .. - -... - . .. -- .. -. ... ..- - .. . - - . .

Germaine had avoided being eaten by hiding in the soda fountain. She was covered from head to toe with Coca Cola. At night, she stood on the shore. Sometimes, she thought she heard clacking coming from the middle of the lake.

Radical Compassion

Intention and the pegasus both fly

we pull the arrow back and hold the bow

the puffy clouds are rolling through the sky

we understand the why but not the how

let it fly into the air like a bird

shot from a cannon at the brink of war

the road to hell is paved it is not dirt

the movie on the screen is just a bore

commercial suicide is such a flirt

the finest blacktop lines the way for us

we walk awhile then we start to turn

weight cannot be held on a single truss

the architecture sometimes starts to burn

our radical compassion helps us learn

What I Heard in the Museum

If dinosaurs in amber still could speak

and time could step outside itself and hum

the tune and melody of days gone by

when the world was young and buzzing with trees

taller than the skyscrapers above us

I'd lose my mind with curiousity

and lean in to hear the symphony start

If the caveman trapped in ice could blink twice

and tell us of his time and how he walked

the strange brow on his forehead would begin

to tell a story, I'd listen closely

Alas, the museum is silent now

all I hear is the footsteps of the guard

keeping careful watch on all the treasures

a monument to the unknown is here.

Tower of Power

At some point in my youth I became good at "accepting my fate" instead of "affecting my future." These things are very different, and this isn't a poem, it's a thought, and an important one at that. The person in the tower, vs. the person climbing the tower. What does each sound like? One looks out the window and sighs, and one grunts while reaching for the next handhold. 

Coffee and Water

Looking out at the lake where the waves whip the shore

the sand churned up in its belly 

while I stare with steel eyes

It's raining and my shoes are wet but I don't mind

I'm walking by the lake

thinking of Putin, NATO and the war

I have a cup of coffee

which I am lucky to have

considering all things in the world 

chaos could have welcomed me this morning

just as easily as the water

I sip it slowly

in the rain

pacing by the lake

I did not come up with a solution

but I fkn tried.

The Altar

Vases of vinegar make the flowers wilt and moan

meanwhile the honey makes the bees not roam

Best to catch the train before the sun goes down

I'll be on the line, riding out of town

Shake your structure, fuss and falter

lay the wilted flowers down at the altar

Incense meant that the smoke was rising

underwater where the fish aren't biting

Westward expansion and colonization

decimated the beautiful Indian nations

stirrup that boot firmly and pull the halter

pull that wild horse next to the altar

Laying with the stones and twigs hands folded

heartbeat like butterfly wings with bullets loaded

Sit up straight and paste the collage down

spin the globe with one finger, around and around

drinking wine with the dining satyr

you best move your party off the altar

Bittersweet & Busted

Bittersweet & Busted

yellow crocodiles 

shipyard funk

swimming in the ministry

of preaching deaf dogs

shipwrecked junk

Kierkegaard and Kant 

walk into a bar...

Yellowstone National Park.

Meowing cats and superficial magazines

Yesmen and yo-yo's 

Branches of religions

torn off and scattered

while the tree is unseen

what mattered

when you were mean

tomatoes fell

grimace and fruit flies

loud laughter red fists

pounding Gutenberg type

just

like 

this

.

The Case of the Missing Mojo Beans

It has occurred to me that for a long time I haven't said exactly what I am thinking about anything. My lyrics became some postmodern poetry slam, where I am against the wall, breathing rhymes into the window, making the glass fog up while cigarette smoke curls around me like Medusa's hair, and I can only wish my words would turn people to stone, but when their mouths are open, all they are doing is yawning. Where did my mojo beans go? 

By skirting the issue I may have thought I was being clever, better yet a running back, dodging the oncoming team, jumping over defensive linemen and landing on my feet, ducking, and swaying back and forth to fake them out, but I wasn't moving the ball down the field. If I was, it all would have made sense. No, I was shadowboxing, and all I was dodging was the truth.

Where did my mojo beans go? 

Definitely

Definitely keep the faith I said to him and him to me

Definitely don't let the deal go down and leave you on the stone cold sea

Definitely, definitely definitely

Definitely lift your spirit and hear the birds out the window

Definitely close your eyes and feel the wind blow

Definitely, definitely, definitely 

Dear Doctor

 Dear Doctor,

I wish I had some wisdom to report, since I had seen you last. I wish I had some maturity to show you evidence of, but the truth is, I am exactly the same. I have been eating candy when I am not hungry, and drawing in the mud, hoping that the face of Rembrandt, the portrait he did of himself when he was older, would ooze out of it, and rise, like a serpent out of the deep. Not the serpent of Eve, but the inevitable serpent of Darwin, the one with feet, not quite the Lochness monster but still in that vein of mystery and worry we have when we realize there is so much we do not know. Supernatural, it is called. 

That portrait, it has nothing to do with style. His face, his age, his countenance, is rising up out of the raw umber and burnt Sienna not like a God, but a man, a humble man, made in his own image.

Until next time, 

Desdemona

Havanna, Cuba 1906

Ringing

I will go where there are singing bowls, high up in the mountains

step by step I will take my leather shoes up the rocks 

at the peak there will be nothing but fog and in the fog I will hear

singing bowls, reverberating through time and space to my ears

I'm really hoping it's the guru

about to lay something heavy on me

and not just tinnitus

from watching rock gods on stage blast their solos like grenades into my ear drums

as I sit chained to the work gang of their superego.

Stars

 The.      stars.

    are.   sc.   a

                  t     

   t                      e r

                               e

                                        d

   i    n

                 the

                    sky these days,  

and I am down here

  looking up. I remember doing this sitting by the silo and the barn

watching a large cloud move across the sky, it was really more of a smudge,

but it was moving, slowly. How foolish to measure time with a craned neck

and not busy hands. Are the constellations correct?    

Breath of Fresh Air

I thought that to be unjust was better than to be untrue

but now I am not so sure.

The sun is hitting the roofs

and they are glaring at me, at an angle

as the shadows are bound to disappear

as the morning continues.

The Grim Face of War

It pleases me to no end that the silence on the front is appeasing the gods of destruction who wait quietly with baited breath to swoop in like vultures, the question is, whose bodies will they take? The dictator sat squarely, his back against the wall, avoiding bullets from top advisors. It seems the grim face is not out in the battlefield, but there, on the large white wall. 

Power

I had been trying to write every day and then I stopped.

I realized I didn't want to keep writing only to have it be an exercise in writing badly.

A horrible poem each day. How undevine.

No, I had started the mission because I want my words to have power.

Power must be yielded wisely. 

Now what?