the old world

poetry

oh what a tangled web we weave
when first we practice to deceive
hiding love beneath the leaves
so night will steal all that we see
forgiveness fails set as a seed
and grows a crooked unbalanced tree
which birth’d an apple gave to eve
then consumed by shame and greed

the choir boys and choir girls
yellow with their hair in curls
refuse to fully recognize the plot
with their shit like molasses
and their heads in their asses
they all wait to see jesus get shot
through centuries of neglect
they most surely forget
oh jesus, oh jesus who wept

AND IT MAKES YOU WONDER SOMETIMES
if Brutus or Judas made it to heaven
if a man who knelt and pray to jesus
is saved after holding up a 7/11
none can debate in this horrible age
that both light and dark are brethren
so where do you go when your hearts not
a home it’s a cage filled with rage
and venom?

that all real conflict is internal
that you and i are not to question
it’s i and i that is the focus
eyes and ears they can be tricked
but you can never hide from yourself
and save marriage or siamese twindom
you are alone in your head with only
yourself for the rest of your life
and there is absolutely no debate that
if you look in the mirror you can
attain that there is two of you
we have two of everything
except our heart, alluding to the soul
which you can only believe exists
you can never see
god is like logic and logic is like
a cat chasing it’s tail

words are fanciful and fun
and belong to everyone
but actions are guns
you need only fire them once
and things then are done
not your place on the sun
or the pace of your run
can undo what’s become

and when based in deceit
with ill will in your teeth
no matter what you speak
you’ve planted that seed
death will then creep
the apple she eats
this ignorance runs deep
these ignorant sheep.

flame in, flame out.

poetry

bowl of red
boiling spice
to dip our delicacies
boil, entice
our senses with

cow throat
cow heart
pig intestines
         –  ‘my friends,’ i ask, ‘do you not realize what was squeezed through this?’
pig stomach
(among other things)

6pm I ate you down
4am you woke me up

climbing back into bed with
an arse afire

i’d be a novelist

poetry

if i had a
longer
attention
span
and could
stand my
characters
beyond
two pages
or
maintained
interest in
the plot
beyond
the exposition
or could
write
more than three
words per line
i’d be a
novelist
and you’d read
my novels
keep them
at eye level
on your shelves
quote lines to
seem erudite
recommend them
to friends

too bad
the distance
between
IF and your
shelves
has already
defeated me.

waits, bukowski, kerouac, eliot

poetry

in the thorn valley where
the trees are made of needles
and the rivers are made of
fire i saw a man walk once
without breaking his stride
humming a tune something about
the blues

the

blues

got him through the valley
and i thought to myself that
i would one day endeavour
through said valley and maybe
sing a tune but i figured
i’d have to put it off ’till
i found a suitable song
to sing

robots, paranoia, leaving

poetry

once they decided to extend the day time
due to poor productivity during the night
he knew it was time to get out, time to
pull the plastic metal machine out from
his neck. not knowing what to call it,
or how exactly he was going to live
without plugging into the dock every
night before his stasis period was
beyond him. but as the tension
was building in the others who at
first held signs and
threw fire at the robots holding them
down he now saw taking jobs. the spirit
had ended, the game was over, they had
lost and it was apparent.
so he’d head out of his house and
never stop until he saw what
he could best guess was the color green.

Sometimes someone else has to rip off the band-aid because addiction is a bitch

poetry

The new beginning of tomorrow
will also be an ending
in which I’ll no longer have a reason

towatchcnninthemorning
whilstmunchingoncereal
tolistentonpronthedrive
whilstavoidingawreck
towatchnbcnightlynews
whilsteatingmysupper

and while I’ll miss the chatter,
filling my life with incessant white noise,
I might welcome the peace
and the opportunity to wallow
in civil apathy once more.

boxers, long underwear, pants, shirt, sweater, jacket, gloves, hat, hood, and then maybe more pants

poetry

sun gave way to mist
to missing your midst

wind up and made me cold
pictures of bitter tea, rice wine

gloves gripping my hands
unnecessarily warming digits

hopes lost to crashing dreams
but not without celebration

the crust gathering on my thoughts
thick like the ground peas dried
on your otherwise pristine forehead
moving hand to face so as to miss your
mouth

with your hand knit green and yellow
booties we’ll make this the best winter
ever

without end.

fall back

poetry

give me an extra
hour two cups of
coffee and stand back
i transform into
a domestic superhero
vanquishing tasks
that have been
delayed for weeks

i slept in
mowed the lawn
cleaned the house
washed both cars
bought groceries
and it’s only 3:30pm

give me one more
hour and the world
would be mine
(or at least there’d
be a clean toilet).