loaded pipe
perique, latakia,
winter time

Following a dull roar
halfway up a mountainside

We don’t finish but
we don’t keep going
either

That water would cure
anything, I’m certain

Lights are out and
none of us are home

Rocks for beaches and
the General Store for
everything
else

Superior really is

You can not go up forever
without first going down
forever

You can see forever,
though,
when you get to the top

Beauty is absolutely lake-deep

Toes in ice in fire in front of
the great Superior Sea and
all the stars are smiling just like
I was told they would

Stones cut so violently to and from,
but there will be no stopping

This is how we settle ourselves,
after all

We sink forever
in to the threads of a stranger’s bedding

We will set the sheets back
as we found them

We hope they will never know

there is a piano, i’ve noticed,
playing slowly in the background
as you walk through this city
in the snowfall and it’s playing
something perfectly suited for
the mood. the sun is down and the
notes are slow and probably in
some minor key. the snow covers
the ground, but is still thin enough
for the cobblestone to be obvious
enough it adds to the ambiance.

but i think i hear an electric guitar
fading in and
i’m fairly certain we all know what
this means. what’s coming for you.
when you turn that corner, it’s like
you don’t know you’re in a movie.
but every viewer is painfully aware
of your fate.

Huron whispers in my ears
though I can not understand her

I will listen nonetheless

A siren is a terrible thing to waste

flimsy
arguments
make for
awesome
excuses
to be
expounded
upon
regularly
in prose

sun shines through the glass on the porch
on a deflated pink balloon
i’m led to believe was never popped
but nonetheless lost all it had
and withered into nothingness

you could grab on to some shrubbery
during your fall and attempt
to brace yourself from something
terrible.

alternatively you could turn around
before you reach the edge of the cliff
and avoid the fall altogether and thus
the need to brace yourself.

but lets be honest that you’re not
reading this while still running towards
the cliff, you’re on your way down and
want a way out.

so grab some shrubbery. hope for a trampoline
at the bottom of the valley. or just simply
brace for impact. for sometimes the inevitable
is just that, and acting like it isn’t coming
isn’t going to make the splat any less painful.

Sometimes someone comes and knocks, something like two or some three times.
And then sometimes you have you kick out that someone, or do something like punch that someone once or sometimes twice, somewhere like in the face.
But usually it’s not a problem and you can just sit on your couch and continue eating your onion rings without worrying about it.

Is life summarized in empty soda cans
or stacks of boxes of fine old clothes or
the silences of long car rides after funerals
and tragedies? In movie quotes? In filing cabinets
in debt collector’s offices?

You are a book with a table of contents
and and an index in the back
and your best friend indexed a lot of it,
for you, until he got bored and did other things.

Then you spent your time with a beautiful woman
or an electric guitar or
both, but neither for long enough
and so your reference notes grew more confusing
but less meaningful, really, with
every passing day.

Now you tend bar in a seedy town
and the money is pretty good and you haven’t
seen what’s her face in years but who gives a shit.
Your guitar was sold at someone else’s rummage sale
last January.

There isn’t much fight in you these days
and you pour as much for yourself as for
everyone else, though you haven’t had soda in months
now.

The cans are still scattered near the kitchen door.