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.

there is never anywhere you
can go without there being
things on your face,
they put them there to remind
you of tax day.
truth is, we live in a
glass bubble and are all
slaves to the things they
put on our faces.
little
pieces of
paper
with ones
or tens
or twenties
on them.
and if you ever stop thinking
about them once you’ll be crazy
or homeless.
or goddamn both.

The facts of life is
a TV show and, can be
summarized as thus:

Everything important
in life
(probably)
has it’s own TV show,
or at least a special-
event miniseries

itsa been a bit
since’n we dun
hangyid out
yidiot
tiggerjerbs

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

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

Sometimes I forget what words like
‘propensity’ mean, yet scarcely do I
find a need to find a definition for a
word I use so rarely that I sometimes
fail to understand its meaning.

Although, I often find your own
propensity to using words you hardly
have a handle on quite aggravating,
particularly when often times, I find
you missing quite a couple little ones.

these are you tears
i’ve kept them in my
jar of a memory
to pour out on your ashes
as you pass from this
world to the next
the imagery is unclear
and thats how i want
to remember you

knife and pistol at the ready
homeward bound and moving steady
all in all the surest path
was got by fate alone

seven tried to turn me back
seven now dead on the track
well I may not know where I’ve been
but now I’m going home

after the day a million nocturnal Things
begin to run around in my head

all of the Things and their parents
make such a loud and awful racket

although I am told the Things are
me and I am them and we are all
together,
I have a hard time thinking when
the Things are running their mucks

the Things fight and argue a million
little Thing things,
leaving me all around my room
on different corners of the globe and
so-on

and
when you hear things come out of
my mouth sometimes the Things
slip out and I can’t explain how
it is just
not
me

the birds are sleeping somewhere
around in bushes and hedges along
the sidewalks of michigan,
and today was the first day that the
snow snuck it’s way down in the
rain…
tomorrow is the day that we all sit
and pray and say thanks to the real
big Thing upstairs and for all of the
little to medium-sized Things we have
permanently made in our 3d world
or in our heads, or for the people
that we think we know or that think
they know themselves. and every day
is another that the Things in my head
will spend erasing my memory.

for wife and children
for home and warmth (or something close to it)
for hope
for futures
for friends
for american freaking awesome football
for donuts
for beer
for the hope of better beer someday
for You
for today
for bikes
for health
for comfort
for parental units
for the interwebs
for peace
for quiet
for joy
for the written word
for Your word

Stepping firmly in a long black coat
and a wide-brimmed hat when it’s raining,
refusing to bow his head to any man,
woman, or precipitation, even
if the wind picks up just enough
that his hat is caught up and flies
unobstructed through fresh, wet air
down the city streets.

He’s looking ’round at everything
and everyone that’s looking back at
him (and that is everyone, as no
one dares to try and look away),
taking in the truth of life
and every other little, relatively
unimportant detail.

and the Illustrious Mr. Wilson knows
exactly what is weighing on the mind
of every soul in every crowd he finds,
people swarming over little pieces of
blacktop and garden and existential
bullshit wondering why they’re really
swarming and how long they’ll all swarm for.

Seeing all things reconsidered, Mr. Wilson
wanders through the rain and swarm
and wind, ignoring flying hats and
all the heavy things on peoples minds
and smiling, always smiling, knowing
all the while, he’ll find his way to
sunshine

There’s something to be
said
about
being
sick and tired
of being
sick
and tired.

The main problem
being, however
that the
thing
to
be
said,
is sure damn
tiring to say.

Difficulty phrasing
can be more painful
than the worst Indian Burn you ever
got from your uncle
when you were a kid.
But only, I suppose,
if you fancy yourself as
having a way with words.

I went through those tran
sitional phases, where you
stutter just a bit because you
haven’t quite calibrated the differences
in the speed at which your
brain thinks, and your mouth
moves.

Now things are all lined up,
though.
Now I talk just when
I want the words to come out,
and not an instant
prior.

But even now,
it’s hard to
bring
myself
to use up
all that
(precious)
energy
saying something
that I really don’t
have
to say.

Somewhere in the middle
It becomes difficult
(Impossible)
To tell
Right from Left
And once consumed
There’s really no escaping—
At least, until,
The damage is done

Like a fog and underwater—
Still able to breathe
But unsure if it’s air—

Equilibrium                            thrown

Off/On?

Decisions suspect
Inhibitions to surely distrust
Questionably dubious—

Choices to be made—
Short supply/limited quantity
And are they even right?

There are times when I don’t need your
patronizing my every
word or move or pensive stance.
Times when I can carry my
verbosity and end up landing on
my own two feet.

And there are times
when the strange thoughts
I tend to string together make
just enough sense to just enough
of us, that it wasn’t such a complete
waste of everyone’s time sitting
around and listening ’till 4 A.M.

Do you remember when we used
to think we knew each other?
I keep looking across the room at you
hardly believing you could ever
be the same person I went to school with
all those years ago.

Do I know you? I must.
Because even though you
look a little different, you smell
just the same, and I guess my
face will have to be sore,
‘cuz goodness knows
I certainly can’t stop smiling.

these bags of yours
you drag around
dumping pieces you’ve collected
on all your friends

i’d say we like your crap
but i’m sick of lying