To recall
for a moment
the absolute
Power
of a storm

the absolute
Terror
as it rips the sky
in half,
and it fools
the street-lights
into thinking that it’s
morning.

the absolute
Beauty
while the world,
for one split second,
is in perfect,
clarified
focus.

The absolute
Sense that,
as senseless as
it would be,
the thought of
dying
on the hood of
a ’91 Bronco
in the middle of a
school-yard,
with your best friend,

Doesn’t seem so bad
when you think about it

From cocoon to brilliantly speckled night
Bursts shooting stars from champagne bottles
A splash of sequins on construction paper
We could count to infinity on our fingers
And hold eternity in our hands
We held forever in our eyes
And each other in our arms
When the distance and time
Meant only when we would arrive
They said reach, and when we were finished
We had stardust underneath our fingernails

It feels dis-correct
that is, it’s probably
incorrect, but I’m
sure I misused at least
one prefix somewhere
but I digress

Something feels like
it should feel right
but it doesn’t,
does it?

Is it time to take a
wrench to these fine works
and hope that
in the process of
dismantling this thing
we find the bit that
made me switch
the ‘in’ with ‘dis’
and switch it back?

Or maybe someone
will just come out
and say something,
like they should have done
a long, long time ago

Yesterday I played a song
that someone else had wrote
about an owl at the nature center,
really freaked him out
and then tonight I spent
an hour on the phone
with my instructor as I
lept upon the tables
and I hoped I didn’t hurt
myself and now,

My legs are tired
and my ear’s a little sore
and my eyes are drooping
despite the POP I
picked up at the store
and I feel a whole lot better
than I did a bit before

But tonight,
I really wish I knew
the owl in the song
that someone else had
wrote, that I had played
last night

aching gnawing
pressing joints squeezing
cartilage free from places
it was never meant to leave

Green light
And I can’t move,
Asphyxiated by fear
I’m hardly breathing.
The glint of the street light
Reflects off a basement window.
The signs say, One Way
And Do Not Enter.
Red light,
Breathe and let go.
The headlights shine into hazy dusk.
Turn signals flashing
I’m not going,
Green light

in jail they slip your
food under the door
and the gaurds only
walk around as many times
as they absolutely have to
and
i lie on the floor,
points of pressure failing
to pad the solid concrete
that is my bed.
keith has a wife,
he’s lying next to me
because he beat in
her ex’s door because
he was keeping her kids
and they called “breaking
and
entering”;
tony is from detroit and
got caught driving without
a license and all of his
people left him here,
he tells me about his
cars
and
females
and
houses
and how they caught him slipping
caught him slipping and
he shouldn’t even be stayin’
here for no three hunnid dollas

god,
aint this some bullshit?
this phone only calls who it
wishes,
this cell sits harder than
all of humanity…
lets no light in
lets no one leave,
lets no statements
be made of it or on it
except for “help me!!!”
which tony wrote on his
concrete bed with the pen
that i stole from the clerk
that we also made playing cards
out of with our pieces of
papers given to us by the
man;
these papers containing important
information about the number
of dollars we are to give
to the man for our offenses
against public safety.

Despise
is such a strong word
yet I like it in this instance
no, I love it in this instance
as you’ve created for yourself
an enemy, and I insist
that if you make one more mistake
you’ll make a meeting with my fists

so please be wary
as I despise you
very much

if i sit here another minute,
i very well might explode,
littering the surrounding computers
with little bits and pieces
of what was once me:
brain matter, bones,
flesh and blood,
and of course fecal matter,
coating the ground
and hopefully making it to the ceiling,
that i might rain down my essence
on friend and foe alike,
bestowing a final blessing
on all these other working stiffs.

there’s something simply perfect
about the cold kiss of cut blades of grass
on bare but caloused feet
around a country fire ring
in the middle of the night

How it cuts,
but doesn’t cut you;
how it chills you just enough
so you remember just exactly
how alive you felt that morning
when the sun rose up above your bed
and ice cold water sprayed down
like a demon from the shower-head
incititing,
nay,
demanding,
that you rise.

You didn’t like it then,
and you’re not quite fond right now,
but you must admit,
the main effect was
perfect.

Sultry, almost plentiful
the star-specked sky sits,
becoming,
only partly blurred from the
toxic city lights beneath it

We lay on the concrete
pretending we know which
sets of stars have names
and which stars are just
stars

The air moves slowly over us,
cool for one,
cold for another,
and thin, webbed clouds cover,
just for a moment,
the sultry, almost-plentiful
star-specked sky

In those moments I miss you