Order up
come all the way from china
Music in a little wood box
with a lock on front
and no way to play it
(Key cost extra)

Good music though
they said
when fella picked it up
from the retail outlet
carried them

Fella took his word for it
didn’t buy a key though
so it’s closed up
on his kitchen table

sits next to unopened mail
an old comic book collection
a stack of magazines from ’93
getting older with the rest

Hopefully it keeps

What’s on my mind tonight?
What isn’t?
long gangly fingers gripping,
clutching,
my throat…
the nails they dig and scrape,
and dig and scrape,
till there’s no meat left,
no flesh, just bone…
But I grin,
and laugh,
it’s good to cackle in death’s face,
great to spit in those empty eyes,
who needs it?

What’s on my mind tonight?
What isn’t?
Just thoughts in passing,
synapses firing,
consciousness audible,
cognitive dissonance blaring….
I can’t hear for my own thoughts,
doubts,
fears…..

There is no forgetting
Not even when you broomstick thwack
The back of your hand a thousand times
Each night
And not when it stops hurting
Not even
When you cut all of the old letters into one inch
Strips
And make a paper mâché piñata of them
You do not forget
When you pop the balloon
When the stick finally hits
The something behind you only knows memory talk now. How
the blindfold feels like everything you
used to intimate to other shadows
But you never bleed candy despite
Sucking sweetness straight through every lovers ear hole
You’re all pulp
So you ring in the morning with
last night’s bootstrap bells
While imitating
This day’s first bird call through always chapped lips
Knowing it is not perfect
It is still beautiful
Because you are learning to teach yourself
How to raise the sun
and how to harmonize with it
Knowing fully that if this porch was an island
And everything not on it right now
Was a thick ocean away
You would not forget
You would always still find your small toe
tracing subconscious names in the sand and
the ash would settle looking too much like
the silhouette you define emptiness by
But
You would always find ways to survive

It’s a quiet somber feeling
of safety and security behind
miles of red tape and
piles of paperwork, and
even when the rest of the world
is on fire and screaming,
Here in our little fort
with the shades drawn and
the locks done up,
everything will be alright,
you promise.

We are match heads
In methane gas times

sometimes all we really need is a swift kick to the buttox of our pants
but other times a swift kick needs to followed by several hard blows to the face
and when that is insufficient being threatened with our lives tends to help
though should our own life prove disposable loved ones are always there for threatening

This is my dope,

it fills my blood

and forces these words

vomit on the page….

My dope,

the smoke, it chokes

and burns your eyes.

You can’t cry.

It clogs your thoughts,

it clogs your arteries.

Arteries and areolas.

Blood and milk.

Blood and tears,

blood and semen…

My dope….

it takes me down trails I’ve never been on,

some good,

and some hell…

but I go where it tells me…

trust in something

that’s what I do…

Put faith in something

that’s what I do…

My dope?

It’s my words,

my thoughts,

me feelings…

It’s all from the heart.

It’s all off the top…

Off the top…

And on the subject of hands his
strangled a man once to death,
and on the subject of dogs his
has had a throat or two I’m sure.

That doesn’t stop him from laughing,
though, once in a while. It doesn’t
stop him from being real and flesh
and fragile like the rest of us.

He just killed a man, is all.

And ol’ Fido ate well that night,
I’m certain.

For B.

Before we speak again
We need to acknowledge how precipice close we were
To kissing that night and
That we both wanted to know what
would happen

 

 

 

 

Had we let ourselves fall in

Fought tooth and claw for
a few bits of
scrap meat
and that dog is still
starved.

And now he’s
bleeding,
too.

And now he’s laying down
with that rasp
in his breath
again.

And he’ll get up
to fight
tomorrow.

Clock runs whether you want it to or not and I’ll
smile while it ticks and I’ll grin while it clicks
and I can hang forever, strong as these hands are
so I wouldn’t get too many bright ideas, yeah?

Snowdrifts are old hat, ice is just a challenge,
cold-starting amps this beater’s got for days
and the sun comes out sometimes to help anyway,
and the trucks do their part too, now and again

there’s always change to scrape when scraping’s
on the order, and I haven’t found it yet but I
know there’s an easier way to book a nice evening
so I’ll keep my ear to the ground ’til it shows

And I guess you can drive your 22 hours down yon
every now and then and just to see what shakes
what but I’ll tell you, there’s not much for it.
Strong as these hands are, I can hang and cows
come home.

My mother always asks me to write a poem about her
But it doesn’t work that way
And I told her that
And she continues listening anyways. She says
She’s going to beat up
all the women who have hurt me in my poems
And only half jokingly
And has learned the art of subtly asking who
each new poem is
about
And I don’t doubt that if she could
She would become words from my pen and
On my page
So that she could protect me
Without needing to get on a plane
And though it’s just love
Yes
It still makes me feel safe
And allows me to day dream twice as hard

The winter woods have always been my home.

They do not judge the girl who walks alone.

Their skyward branches lift my spirits high,

the snow is my white blanket when I cry.

The trees have heard my songs and seen my tears,

the rocks have felt my joy and know my fears.

The mountaintops have always been my stage,

they do not judge, or tremble at my rage.

The wind will stop and listen when I speak,

the forest makes me strong when I am weak.

The winter woods have always been my home,

for the embrace the girl who walks alone.

a seashell on a wooden table
inland
so inland you’d never buy sea food here
and you hold it to your ear
because you’ve never been to the sea
and don’t know a clam shell holds
no sound
and wonder at the sand
you’ve heard is like your dirt
but finer
cleaner
less dead-moth-ridden

a book of wisdom
filled with pages
of foolishness
in the hands of many
without hope for
more
basing every decision
on being better
when the best is
nowhere near good enough
when the best is
menstrual rags
before the only One
whose opinion matters

This man cuts delicately
and with purpose

This man has an art to him
and a sight in his eyes

His is a gentle way,
but a righteous way,

but he loses track
sometimes

We have begun counting
his steps down the stairs

We have tallied his
transgressions

He has two ticks on the board,
but the first is smeared a bit

It has been up too long to
remember where it’s counted from.

He smiles mostly these days,
and grips the banister loosely

He cuts with purpose.
He stays mostly on track.

He has two ticks
nonetheless.

He is named Vincent. Maybe 80.
With a voice carved out of cigar smoke
And skin like the bottom of a couch.
He sounds like broken accordion, with hints of beauty
That are subtle. Always subtle.

Everyone looks younger when they’re sleeping
When pleasant dreams settle over daytime woes
Like sunshine drying rain-soaked grass
As heavy eyelids search for peace and flutter closed
And daily worries and their wrinkles fall away
Everyone looks younger when they’re sleeping
When darkness overcomes the fear of night
No child or man can run or hide
From that gentle dimming of the light
As the sky falls from rosy gold to dripping black
Everyone looks younger when they’re sleeping
But everyone looks older when they’re dead

kingdom shakers
fumble when they shake your hand
their mouths don’t work quite
right, nor their memories
and despite their high level of
education they keep copious
notes because of an accident
they had in a car riding off the
side of a mountain 15 years ago
(and incident they don’t recall
personally at all, only what they
‘ve been told)
which left them with a perpetual
at-best three months of memory
but yet they shake
the kingdom at its foundations
and to have stood in the same
room with these people
(let alone to shook hand with them,
or worshipped alongside of them)
never fails to humble me.

I met you
in the parking lot
between the county court
and the CVS Pharmacy

I did not buy your wares.

I did not look you in the eye.

Your coat was torn
but I did not offer you
mine.

I did not hear your sales
pitch or read your
convincing literature.

And now you’re off again
to find another buyer.

Good Luck.