Just Before

poetry

Just before the rain began
The sky darkened
Dismal pewter gray
Sheath of nimbus clouds
Wind chortled wistfully
Tossed leaves violently
Towards nameless destinations
Overgrown grass field
Crippled to will of gusts
An unseen screen door
Thrashed against frame
Oak and maple branches rippled
The air like invisible icicles
Sliced chilling bullets
And the world seemed
To inhale one last breath

Cops

poetry

Turn that damn light
off so I can
concentrate on
creating one
cognizant thought
without your dumb
questions and your
inquisitions
tearing in to
the last bits of
my sanity
at this hour
Jesus Christ.

Just let me Think
for a fucking second.

Mexico

poetry

despite having the best time,
i find a strange ambivalence
thinking about the cost,
not to myself,
no, but to the onlookers,
the waiters and waitresses,
the bellboys and barkeeps,
the deckhands and drivers,
watching me drop in a weekend,,
casually and with unmistakeable style,
the earnings of their entire
month?
quarter?
year?
thinking about what they could do
if only they had the
luck,
chance,
fortune
of a middle-class American.

All Around

poetry

Whistling aurora encases
Ears in a shuddering
Presence of imminence
Sound of sand spilling
From precipitous heights
Hissing as it treads closer
Surrounding every angle
Reaching coarse cement
Smashing liquid bullets
Leaping chaotic harmony
Shifting spectacle of pixels
Translucent humming static
Vibrating peacefully overhead

Soaking Wet

poetry

To recall
for a moment
the absolute
Power
of a storm

the absolute
Terror
as it rips the sky
in half,
and it fools
the street-lights
into thinking that it’s
morning.

the absolute
Beauty
while the world,
for one split second,
is in perfect,
clarified
focus.

The absolute
Sense that,
as senseless as
it would be,
the thought of
dying
on the hood of
a ’91 Bronco
in the middle of a
school-yard,
with your best friend,

Doesn’t seem so bad
when you think about it

Limitless

poetry

From cocoon to brilliantly speckled night
Bursts shooting stars from champagne bottles
A splash of sequins on construction paper
We could count to infinity on our fingers
And hold eternity in our hands
We held forever in our eyes
And each other in our arms
When the distance and time
Meant only when we would arrive
They said reach, and when we were finished
We had stardust underneath our fingernails

Repairs and Other Feats

poetry

It feels dis-correct
that is, it’s probably
incorrect, but I’m
sure I misused at least
one prefix somewhere
but I digress

Something feels like
it should feel right
but it doesn’t,
does it?

Is it time to take a
wrench to these fine works
and hope that
in the process of
dismantling this thing
we find the bit that
made me switch
the ‘in’ with ‘dis’
and switch it back?

Or maybe someone
will just come out
and say something,
like they should have done
a long, long time ago

hang in there good buddy

poetry

the sky was turned a slightly darker
shade of gray as you jumped from
your bike to the railing overlooking
the pond and dance back and forth
yelling fond cries of joy though i

for the first time

feared for your life that you yourself
might take it right before my eyes
that night

a fear i’ve never felt with anyone and i looked
you in the eye and told you i was scared for you
but now you’ve gone and left the only friends
you possessed and now i fear again
your cry

“DO WE HAVE A PROBLEM”

will fall on deaf ears and people will think

maybe you dont.

Last Night

poetry

Yesterday I played a song
that someone else had wrote
about an owl at the nature center,
really freaked him out
and then tonight I spent
an hour on the phone
with my instructor as I
lept upon the tables
and I hoped I didn’t hurt
myself and now,

My legs are tired
and my ear’s a little sore
and my eyes are drooping
despite the POP I
picked up at the store
and I feel a whole lot better
than I did a bit before

But tonight,
I really wish I knew
the owl in the song
that someone else had
wrote, that I had played
last night