the sieve and the sand

I stumbled on a flock of geese this evening
basking in the sun just beyond
a browning stand of evergreens
and it’s cruel insects

The fowl were soaking in the last
and reddest stretch of daylight
and they did not speak or crow
or flap or quack as they soaked.
They soaked and nothing more.

I had not disturbed them
so I watched very quietly
and did not move to lift my hunting rifle.
I scratched away an insect
and I hummed a bit
and the beautiful birds kept soaking
while the sun kept sinking
But as it went, so the stretches of daylight
got redder and redder
until everything finally and suddenly
went black.

There were no stars in
what I assumed must be the sky,
and I could not make out even the faintest
silhouette of my found flock, and when
I turned, I found my stand of trees
had blackened instead of browned.
It worried me, and I began to run.

I left my hunting rifle somewhere in that glade
and my hat flew away as a breeze picked up
and my heart was pounding as my lungs
pumped furiously to keep me whole
and soon, I was overtaken by a thick,
unyielding dread.

It sat in my chest as a 3-year old
thinking he was winning a wrestling match
might sit. It crushed in deep and I,
without thinking, shattered myself
as I raced away.

I was lost for eternity, I’m sure,
as I stumbled through the clawing woods
and strangling sounds of the wild.
Soon I could not breathe.
Shortly after, I could no longer run.
Finally I failed to stand and then,
like the end of every nightmare,
the dark and foul overtook me.

the new degree came.
in laud.
and brought with it a void where i anticipated a feeling of pride
you always look at these other folks as something different. made from something different. and now i’m one of these folks. and i feel of the same substance.

transubstantiation would have made me feel a little better.
but i — master roger — cant live my whole life
acting as though i’m not better than you.
(nor have i).

even if my actions never reflect it, my poetry will be brutally self-serving. my prose overwhelmingly prideful. i will be that unabashed ass. because i can.

today, just a run of the mill guy.
tomorrow, if all goes well,
a master.

they actually write this on a piece of paper
and give it to me.

a master.

thats master roger to you.

It is a trifling spirit and nothing more
that wails across the stones and valley.
It is inconsequential.
it screams and lies without a breath.

I saw it this evening. It spoke to me
with harsh tones and chattering teeth
but I was not one to listen to the Dead.

It gnashed it’s gnarled maw and spat
and sputtered but I would hear no more.
It squealed and boiled over but I
was in no heart to be offended.

I climbed the stones and out
of the valley, and I stood and watched
for just a moment, before I left
that poor, dead trifling spirit
to wailing, and nothing more.

You asked me once
what I thought life was all about
and I didn’t have anything to say
but now I think if you asked me
I’d say something saucy like
‘don’t worry about it’
because Jesus Fucking Christ
I sure don’t much anymore.

i would.

(but it’s spring.)

We swear we’re kings of this world
As a solitary spider
Spins string stronger than steel

spend my life wondering if i’ve made this decision correctly
not with who.
or how or what i did.
but whether or not my plans for this weekend
were appropriate.

You have a crown,
made of twisted-up straw wrappers.
It sits awkwardly and is
sort of getting pulled apart
while you wrestle at the table
with your boyfriend.

You are smiling and
everyone is watching you smile
and hoping you keep smiling
and John, he’s twisting you
a new crown because
we all see that the old one
isn’t going to last.

I heard you got your papers
and you’re stuck here for life.
Or years – close enough to life
for you.

We tried to tell you that this city,
it’s not so bad really.
We tried to keep your eyes
away from travel magazines and
glorified computer desktop
backgrounds. You’ll just right-click again.

And you cry so much these days,
darling, and we don’t know what to do.
You breathe the air and swear it’s
not as good as it was a month ago.
You spit up your cakes and candies
and have nothing to say for it.

But John is twisting a crown for you.
If he has to keep you smiling one diner
at a time, He has no qualms
getting famous in those restaurants.

But I, my dear,
can not stand your self-inflicted
wounds any longer.
I swear, this time.

I wash my hands of you.
I will scrub very hard, at least,
and I will keep a towel with me
for the next time I get dirty,
because damn it,
You never really do come off.

The road was narrow and lined
with beautiful Spruce trees on either side,
and the clouds were thick
as the sun came down ahead of us.

We drove at a comfortable gait
floating around curves and breathing
what must have been the taste
of Heaven On Earth.

We must be dead, it’s too perfect
I chided to Mr. Hugo, and he smiled
and reached in to his pocket and
tapped a couple pills from the bottle
that he’d found in there.

Heavenly at least, he replied
as he took the tiny capsules
and gazed more easily in to the densely-packed
woods around us.

There were mailboxes going by
on the left side of the car,
and a few handsome houses
we could see as we rolled onward.

I mentioned that these Heavenly bits
are a fine piece to spend a lot of
hard-earned cash on.
He questioned the part where the cash
was ‘hard earned’, but we could only
make assumptions of the virtues
of the owners of these parcels,
and so as the great, beautiful sun
set before us,
we digressed in to admiration.

your overwhelming enunciation does nothing to
numb the pain of the words you’re speaking.

a call to inconceivable action is nothing but that —
inconceivable. and you must know resistance to
the painful truth yields unquenchable discontent.

I heard him call you a
clean cut kid
paying no account to those
things you did

I saw the blood stains when you
washed your sheets
I see you size up every
girl you meet

I got a phone call from your
Ma today
she just don’t understand those
tunes you play

And we don’t know where you
go at night
but we never tracked you
down, in spite.

seems like whenever that
news comes on
they got a longer list of
folks that’s gone

While I havn’t proved
anything true
I got a feeling that
the problem’s you

I know you never say the
things you mean
but I bet you make your
cuts real clean

Don’t you?

Rode a back-draft to a bad part of town
and kept my hands to myself when I was down there.
I didn’t sing too loud. Nobody knew me.
Nobody knew I was a singer either.

Had a necklace on my chest,
under a black T shirt that I’d stolen
in my younger years. There were moth holes
and a paint stain on it. The color was faded
and the cloth was sheer but it fit right.

Some guy, he looked at me, didn’t ask for money.
He saw me a bum too. Saw down deep.
We’re all bums, I bet he thinks.
We all just want change.

There was a diner on a corner and an alley just behind.
Got my sandwich from a Spanish-speaking man.
He dressed it well and fast and took my last 5
and I ate out back. I drank the coke too,
that it come with.

I smelled that smell that garbage has
and figured it was time to head back northerly.
The buses don’t run down that way so late
and there wasn’t no bread to score no cab
so I waited for the birds to stop singing
and I caught another backdraft.

Those birds didn’t know I was a singer either
but they would.

A gun is all you need
and you’ll be whole again
and ready
to do what must be done.

You’ll fight the good fight
and send them marching home.
You’ll explode characteristically
and run yourself ragged.

You have no spirit
but a beautiful soul
and I met it once in a bowling alley.
It rolled perfect spares.

When I asked you what you wanted
you didn’t have an answer
only a shopping list
and a phone book with
numbers circled here
and here
and there.

When I gave you what you needed
you shied away and I thought
that you might cry but you didn’t.
You ate your greens and you
worked your shift and damn it
you took your medicine.

If you plan it right
your coffers will never run dry
but that gun isn’t loaded
and your pantry’s still empty
and I don’t know who the hell ‘Amy’ is,
but she’s not calling you tomorrow,
that’s for sure.

sleep was supposed to come and instead
i got a racing heart
like when cheese was suppose to satisfy
and instead i got a rapacious fart

at times my mind feels akin to driftwood
and good words like the tide
washing up the sand to touch me
alas, again, not today.

just a few days at home on kid duty
and my brain has begun to atrophy
if i have to change one more “kid duty”
i may resort to blasphemy

i envy these men who dodged cannon balls
and bullets for their faith living every day
on the edge in the places they weren’t
allowed to go speaking to people who feared
them for the color of their skin, and while
i was born for this time here and now and have
come to the same place, these people are
no savages, and they respect me for the color
of my skin. and i can’t help but think my
choice in a very old and ugly vehicle for
transportation is not at all equal to a cannon
ball flying inches away from my head.

it does not require or yield the same kind of
faith. i labor every day wondering if i’m doing
what’s right rather than wondering how i’ll live
through tomorrow, and with my family this seems
wiser, but that part of me deep inside – that part
all of us men cannot seem to shake – that part
of me just wishes for a little more excitement
sometimes. all the while wishing my wishes don’t
come true.

I fished a nickel from underneath the couch
it was a buffalo nickel. It was worth five cents
and I threw it in my nickel bottle.

I got downtown at 8pm and wandered
with nothing but a dime in my pocket
and a set of keys
but I couldn’t buy nothing from nobody
and that nickel at home wouldn’t help.

So I got down to the viaduct
out South street way and I
tossed a dime in the murky waters.
I made a ten-cent wish, then,
and headed on my merry.

They hadn’t processed many
wishes that day, you see,
so those odds were probably
stacked up for me and I’ll
take what I can get
and nothing more than it.
And it it won’t be much
‘cuz after that nickel
I’m fresh out.

yesterday’s morning tea garnered public fame
and doubled in price overnight
making this morning’s tea worth its’ weight in
precious, delicious gold.

I hold my dagger
Traditional Florentine
for to cut and parry
while the other blade
does the dirty work
and I keep them on edge
by means of my edges
and thrust and push
and slice and stab
so you stay just out
of harm’s deadly reach
but somehow with
my dagger held Traditional
Florentine you snuck up
right beside me and
you’ve been inside my
deadly arc for years now
and I don’t think that
I’ll ever cut you now,
just as long as you don’t
cut me,
first.