Friday, May 7th, 2004

poetry

Do you remember the day
that you and I
met God?

He was drunk, as I recall,
and the sun was barely
setting,
just behind the stand of
buildings
where the galleries
all hang their works of
art, and such.

He walked with a hobble,
and a cane
to fight the hobble
as he hobbled up
and squinted;
with a five in hand,
he shouted:

“I got a five dollar bill, and
I’m going in to that building
right there.
You’d better be playing
when I come back out.”

I asked him, just for
the sake of
politeness,
what he particularly
wanted to hear.

Do you remember the day
you and I
met God?

Because the
next thing he said
was,
is,
has been,
life:

“I dunno,
Play some jazz.
Fuck ’em.”

i miss you

poetry

its harder now
though you’ve not been gone so long
i know you wont return
and i miss your touch

i took your skin for granted
too seldom gazed into your eyes
held you as often as i could
still it proved to little

its harder now
i know you wont return
and i miss your you

and the smoking hot package in which you came

Poem

poetry

There’s a crumpled up poem
at the bottom of my briefcase –
or maybe there’s a crumpled
piece of paper at the bottom
of my briefcase with a poem
on it. Either way, within the
decidedly-less-than-delicate
folds of that piece of paper,
words that I, at one point,
thought would go well together
are stored, just beyond
the level of consciousness
reserved for more pressing things,
like reading and eating and
singing and playing and driving
and breathing and everything
except pulling that poem out
and letting it out so that others
can read it and see, with their
own two eyes and their own two
heart-and-souls, weather all those
words really go together after all.
(I hope it’s not too crumpled).

nowhere to go

poetry

on this saturday evening
when winter has finally
arrived
i’m sitting in the cafe
reading a book
admiring falling snow and headlights through
the foggy storefront window

while behind me
a disheveled man
unshaven
sits on the couch talking
to himself

Sam. You can’t sit in here and talk to yourself.
You need to get out of here, says the barrista
to the man

but Sam continues
sitting there and talking
to himself

Sam. Beat it, says the Barrista,
with words thrown like punches over the espresso machine

Sam slowly stands
and amidst his perpetual babble
says something quiet and coherent:
I’ve nowhere to go,
then without missing a beat slides back into gibberish

he shuffles by my table and
out the door (which, when opened, jingles
and lets in ephemeral snatches of hissing tires)

through the storefront window
Sam’s lips continue moving, muttering
curses
incantations
or

prayers.

Yellow

poetry

the damn yellow fairies
they don’t like the rain
or the snow.
they thrive in the sun,
but they keep you on your toes
by coming out on the less pleasant of days too.

they rarely are seen
in their yellow act
of dusting the unprotected.
but even sometimes
when you think you are safe,
they find you between the wrong colored lines
and leave their wretched yellow present
securely resting under one of your motionless arms.

Oh how I wished it had been blown away
by a gust of wind with tornado-like-strength,
or that a sudden small rain cloud burst over it
and melted away all the scribbles
making it soggy and irrelevant.

Or maybe some kind stranger
would just take it away
and grant me innocence by ignorance.
Oh damn you yellow fairies,
my wishes have not come true.

I rush around corners
nearly destroying my peers and faculty
in a path of destruction
searching for a safe spot to rest.
you fill me with such anxiety
and then call me a criminal.
but I refuse to pay up—
for the real crime is
the square footage of the parking lot.

you

poetry

you are a big black monster that is
the color of a black hole and loud
as hell standing behind everyone in
some sort of transcendental fashion
but our ears are dulled to the point
to where your incessant sucking no
longer piques our interests.

but you, you are hiding everywhere
and your energy makes everything
work.

it makes the engines turn with
heat your energy flows through
the veins of us all packaged in
pretty bows. but in all of those
pretty bows also is your loud
screaming and your lack-of-color.

and you, since you do all of these
things people will say that, when
confronted with your existence,
that this is reason enough for you
to still be alive.

sucking and poking and prodding and
demanding and taking and ripping up
the earth like slurping noodles or
pulling the fabric off of the top of
the table but all of the things on
top of it falling down. all of the
trees and buildings and things just
falling down and making the loudest
sound only comparable to the one
you make at all times that we,
as a people, under god, indivisible,
have decided to ignore with our
utmost and purely sincere American
dreams.

you, nameless, horrible wretched
demon of the conscious or subconscious.
you are on the face of everyone at
all times, you are on the cusp of
every feeling, the tip of every tongue,
the parenthesis to every sentence,
you ooze and seep through cracks like
smoke or the oily-creature-thing from
the animated film fern gully.

you, it is not possible to kill you.

taint

poetry

16 and probly still innocent
by most accounts
upon showering i discovered a
track of land (if you will)
about 5 centimeters long
perhaps 3 wide
and crusty as can be

14 years (if we discount those
in diapers) of build up can
leave quite the impression
(i remember to this day after-all)

when soap first met your crusty
surface and you were wiped clean
you were as fingers after a 14 year
venture through the hot tub

and i don’t know who to blame for
failing to teach me my own anatomy
if the public school system or my
own creative-less imagination is responsible

for a memory i’d entrust to words
a decade later.

Ice-Cold Wind

poetry

ice-cold wind and it’s ilk chills
– nay, freezes – the landscape
and every man, woman, child,
dog and windshield wiper in it,
slowing all things (except maybe
some excitable folks’ blood pressure)
a comparable fraction, though
everyone in the frozen landscape
can just barely feel it, even if they
can’t quite tell.

That’s the place we are these days,
shuffling around outside, not standing
still for fear of turning in to
whatever would be the closest thing
to stone, cast for our eternities
as statues on the sidewalk, only
freed once all the ice-cold wind
has blown itself away

A Full Day Spent Watching, Just Beyond the Boarders of Paradise

poetry

counting every moment, every movement captured
shivering in starlight, all the sunlight chased away
until the heavy morning after, candles burning fast
as night-time finds it’s way, not to endless shining
evening, but back in to brightest day

Cities squandering their acres of development
as every soul and surveyor inquires to where
the money’s spent, and something calling, pointing
towards the landmark centering the dream; it’s
hardly heard as blueprints roll to cover up it’s scream

And listless! Like a tiny floating ship atop
the widest sea, the serpents swimming ’round
until the churning waters cause the crew to
flea, least they capsize and be swallowed by the
demon that does surely do it’s worst if just
to do the whole contingent in

Though sleep must surely come to even perfect
places such as these, with fires burning finally down
and breezes whispering through the trees decrying,
as much as any breeze may that Paradise is usually
not more than one day’s drive away

probably not a classic

poetry

my hope for the future
burns outside my loins
slowly annoying another
part of my already aging
once invincible body reminding
me that where futures lie
therein lies failed dreams
and strived for things
i could merely ever hope

obtainment is for the weak
strivement is for the strong
these words are for you

The Siege

poetry

Defeat me, oh Lord,
Tear down my parapets,
And break apart my iron gates.
Splinter my balustrades,
And scale my stone walls.
Storm my battlements,
And crush my fortifications
With your battering ram.
Release me of imprisonment
And recapture this city.
Siege me, oh Lord,
Sever the snares of my soul,
And purge me of myself.
Unshackle my chains,
Ransack my courtyards,
And pillage my keeps.
Set flame to my resistance,
And burn my idols to ash.
Rescue me, oh Lord,
From my spire of defiance.
Rebuild the aqueducts,
And construct the irrigation.
Declare your conquest,
And proclaim your triumph.
Assemble your mighty reign.
I have surrendered, oh Lord,
The crown belongs to you.

Adventures

poetry

We’re living in the country where
the West had to be won before
the rest of us had somewhere nice
to drive to on vacations.
Two full days will get you to the
coast, or so I’ve heard – two more
days will probably get you back,
unless you’re waylaid by
a  band of countrymen who
aren’t content to coughing up
pay-outs for your little clay chips
at the end of a long, drunken evening
of pulling levers and shooting dice.

By Wire

poetry

Connection points are often stressed
when maintenance is cast in to the bit
where items not maintained are cast,
and then the irony sets in.

Stress causes tension, which can
sometimes create music, but more
often than not it’s easier to cut ties
than to pluck strings, so we go for
the former, rather simpler way about
things

When strings running over long
distances, true or perceived, snap
is when you find out how hard it is
to get those lines to run again

nope it’s beer.

poetry

i want to romance you
from the freezer to my hand
to taste you after i pop
open your lid
wrap my lips around
your tip
take you in

i want to feel you
slowly work your way
through my blood
to my brain

and let you romance me
before i reach for your friend