Someone told me today that there was
a good chance if I drove too much
more, my battery would explode. So
we hopped back in the van and
drove the couple miles to the
place that we decided we would
spend our cash on a good meal
instead of a
battery

and then there was this other van
which wasn’t quite as imminently
dangerous as ours, but harbored the
threat of losing all stopping power
at any time. “They haven’t gone out
yet, though,” she said about the
brakes, “so they shouldn’t go out
today.”

And while that’s a terrible sort of
logic, it’s just our way of seeing things,
and anyway,
anybody’s brakes could go out
any time, so what’s
the use in worrying?

He could sense her body shrugging through the dark—
Before she hid her clandestine sigh
By easing backwards, to lay on the September field

It’s not that simple,
She offered with reluctant entreaty

Their bodies formed a ‘V’ shape,
Shoeless feet, teased by the uncut grass
And faces close enough to perceive the other’s breath
Emanating invisible tickling tendrils onto their cheeks—
Her mouth remained interminably open
While she longed for the right words
To emerge in thoughtful and precise utterance
As the scent of cigarettes wafted from her hair

You know, she said, when at last
The silence had become terminal,
I thought it would be colder by now.
Her voice conceded to silence again
And portent understanding hummed
Lucid between their bodies

Broad-leafed branches haphazardly crisscrossed
A universe lit by the trifecta of Orion’s Belt—

He felt the disconnected movements of his tongue
And the surreal vibrations in his larynx,
It’ll get there.

Bald tires spinning
but only in a metaphorical sense
(My Fourbyfour don’t take no shit
from snow, ya see),
with life sort of
ranging out ahead, and everything
at least a mile out,
and no good way to leave
the driveway

But the boots I used to wear
were thrown away the other day
(another metaphor – Red Wings last
forever),
and these new boots just make me
feel like I can
walk across the planet, just to
get to where I want to go,
and worry about the stops
I need to make when
that order for new tires
comes through.

Now where’d I put my coat.

yesterday you could not speak
nor hold a spoon

today you learned to airplane
on my feet
you couldn’t get enough
i got tired

and then you learned to body slam

i’m so proud of my little girl.

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.”

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

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).

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.

two weeks on an ice
cold floor make even
one night on a guest
bed seem like a full
year in heaven, that
is if heaven could
even feel this god
damned good.

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 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

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

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

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.