The Eyes of the Wolf

A peculiar moon rose in the sky, the last night we were together, him and I.

The black wolf sat in the corner, staring at everything with its blank yellow eyes

I had miles to walk and it felt like years until the sunrise.

I kept going, with a rose in my teeth, a pirate on a sea of soil

The wolf came behind me, I could hear the patter of his feet

but just barely

because he is a hunter

and is used to walking quietly.

After some time had passed which I could tell by

the angle of Orion in the sky

I came upon a small stream and glanced into it

and took a bath in my reflection

my ego rising like the moon

my face wet and stoic.

The wolf stared at me, unmoving.

I dried off and kept going

through the brambles of the night

when we came to thistles and swamp

too thick to move through

I closed my eyes and said a prayer

and rode the wolf like a Pegasus

into the darkest corners of your soul.

There I held a mirror to you.

Do you see your face?

Your shoulder? Your jaw?

I set the mirror down.

I began to write in a journal.

Its words like sinews spread

like vines and roots

ink into the abyss

There, in my mind

dark waters bleeding into 

the clarity

until all rational expanse was covered

in small explosions and all that I could see

was a glaring white light

the day came

and then it was relief

to find that I held it in my heart

a small locket

I opened it and there

was the starry night

and the silent moon

and the eyes

of the wolf.

Baby Teeth

The wrapped up trap of crap stuck between the gaps in the teeth of the talker

The grimace of the bear clawed man who didn't know nature was a stalker

Pressurized tent kept me holy in the last days of my youth

I sat inside the belly of a whale and wiggled my last baby tooth.

Emancipation

Banana peel slightly unreal go funk the bra of Lady Liberty

Sensual garage tire iron went sideways on Loyalty's Holiday.

Your Surprise

Blankets wrapped around my ankles, shackled in warmth 

Hankering for the slow-cooked meals of home

while under a muddy tarp

Thickened ground from rain that will not stop, coming

Sunshine is light years away sweet nothings

whisper to me silent

Famine is my friend, spook me sudden

Dreams of graveyard ghosts with sunset eyes

Dripping honey to the beehive mountain

I've dropped my gun and fell for 

your surprise

Touch my Apple

A burnt piece of art

in a freestanding frame

press me like a button

on a gas tank

A great work of art

in a gold leafed frame

turn me like a knob

on a white door

A sloppy work of art

in a dumpster fire

bleed me like a stone

in a gravel pit

A true work of art

in the heart of God

touch me like an apple

in a garden, man

Elevator

Basket case, string me together

like a line of pearls

You asked me to be mad

but just for about five minutes:

long enough to write a poem

and then catch the elevator. 

Long enough to catch a train

long enough to hail a cab

long enough to watch the storm

from the 15th floor. 

Avoiding Life

As if the death masks on the walls could talk 

a tiny beetle is crawling out of the eye socket of the skull

The ska checkerboard takes a King

wicked into the dawn

she asks again and again

for a light

puffffffing slowly on a cigarette

avoiding life.

Avoiding life is not the same as suicide

to jump in front of a train

is not heroic but there's more action there

than inside of her

as she dances with delight

rings a tiny bell

I hear an echo of this chance at freedom

boredom and ennui are her past times

I picture her with opium 

on a Friday night.

You Had Me Going

There is no sense in firing him, it's been a long distance relationship

between the Sun and the Moon for many years now, anyways.

No sense in asking the Janitor for cash. 

The film in the camera and the film on that old dusty piano

have all become the same thing.

It's his attempt to go back in time

and call the music back to life.

In those old bars, the Grey Ghost played

shapeshifter each key whether black or white

and howled into some bitter majesty in the pitch black night.

Prostitutes and war veterans with prosthetic legs hobbled together

as rats scurried between the fences and the cans

the sharp edges of aluminum

and the dirty nylon stockings

wrapped up into balls on wash day

and the bright white linens slapping the sky

on the clotheslines

between the tenement houses

1939.

Fantastic story, really had me going there.

Calling Me

Testify to my magic eye

I got the apple pie and the war bride

I got the taste test

and the steel vest

I got the insect and the butterfly

Genuflect to my intellect

I got the right suspect

I am lost in pain

up to my neck

the sea shatters me

underneath my glass feet

sandy toes

drowning

Capture my rapture

I am done speeding by

I am slow train coming

I am what you can't deny

I am found in the hallway

the mission bells

and monks walking

I am dust on a mirror

car salesman

fast talking

I am ripe like a cherry

from the long lost tree

I am lost in the seance

I am calling me.

Golden

If silence was as golden as they say

her dancing lips were lead and alchemy

Particular Rainbow

 I often walk under this particular overpass

of steel beams where the train rides above

and there's a mural and shadows and pigeons

so I know the stickers and the graffiti well

I had seen the black marker

that said FREE GAZA

and weeks later I saw 

where someone wrote it

FROM HAMAS

This particular morning

I saw a Streets and Sanitation worker

with a power wash water sprayer

spraying water at such a high force

that the graffiti and stickers were

going to be removed

the spray from the water gun

dispersed into the air

making a rainbow

in the sunlight

on a Monday morning

Removal by force

is ironic here

Isn't there a better way

like writing in--

FREE GAZA

FROM HAMAS

AND THEN FROM PAIN

--or something.

The rainbow told a story

I wanted to capture it in this poem

and not on my phone.

As I write I don't know

who the rainbow was for.