Ingredients:
Mixed grains, milled cane sugar, textured soy protein, french fried eyeballs swimming in a pool of blood, brown rice syrup, chicory root fiber, partially hydrogenated corn oil, and less than 2% of the following: elmer’s glue, stainless steel staples, gopher guts, tocopherols (vitamin E to maintain freshness)

His mouth moves but no words come out
and I am accountable for not comprehending

but the dictum thus passed down is lost
as he is lost for words it would seem,
though I can make out some mumbling
if I listen very closely.

And when his flesh starts to rot from
his pearly white bones and sloughs off
on to the floor of his pantry,
I will be held accountable for his woes.

And when I refuse to accept the dictum
thus passed down, I will be slotted
to burn with the rest, but at least
my meat will stay virile and fresh,
and stuck to my skeleton until
the moment just before it is
burned away.

I told this guy a story of lost love
and heartbreak so he’d know
what kind of lines to use
when he had to present his list of lies
to the class the next day
but the professor wasn’t feeling it
and it was an unceremonious
‘that’s enough’ that finally
put the fella down and I
wish he’d listened a bit closer
to my story ‘cuz maybe if he had
he wouldn’t have enrolled
in that difficult of a class
in the first place.

before i knew not
to love you
winter was our
season

not by design

it just seemed to
amplify
every
situation

so now when winter
rolls around
it reminds me most
of just down the street

ps2 and coffee
and the gentle tugging
on my shirt
every time
i took a corner
too fast
in
the
snow

none of this was by design

but this year i wont
be searching for drugs in my own car
or biking to work
in the cold of mount pleasant
michigan
finding out the car just
won’t start
i don’t think i will feel
lost
or like i need to take a walk

and that’s why i
am glad i learned not
to love you

or, you could say
thankful.

(i just wrote a thanksgiving day poem)

A kid I knew
dug some old
music out
from a box
he found under
a bed in
the spare room
that his mother
always sort of
hoped he
wouldn’t poke
around in.

It was two tapes
and a record
and he dusted
off the family
stereo and he
spun the albums
one by one while
his dear old
mother held her
bible close
to her heart.

Ten years or so
gone by now
and he still spins
those three
albums and
his mother
is dead but
she died a
Good Christian
and even
though it was
the Devil’s
music he plays
every song
when he grabs
his guitar
for her.

23 years of
feeding pigs
other pigs
and lost
the rhythm

ears ringing,
and somewhere
a metronome
devi
ated

stickman falls
to the
stretching
of a new back
illusioned still

I have a desire to maintain them like some do when playing Texas Hold Em
Or to fold them and/or let them give me another card and then increase the stakes (please don’t fold), I find this enjoyable
Both good fortune and a gut feeling guide me in my decision making process with my cards and frequently I choose to start with a Spade (Because I don’t really understand the game)
But then following obtaining the other’s heart as my own, through deception like in a card game, I will choose to play a card that he wants me to play.

Oh, Ooooh, Oooooo
I bet I can raise his temperature slightly, and demonstrate to him what is that I have
Oh, Ooooh, Oooooo
I bet I can raise his temperature slightly, and demonstrate to him what is that I have

You’ll find that you are unable to discern my, yea, you’re unable to discern my,
Yea, you find it difficult to discern my face which I am holding in an indiscernible way as in a game of cards
You’ll find that you are unable to discern my, yea, you’re unable to discern my,
Yea, you find it difficult to discern my face which I am holding in an indiscernible way as in a game of cards

(better when sung to the tune of “Oh Christmas Tree”)

if you are both happy and in addition to being happy you are also aware of it clap your hands
if you are both happy and in addition to being happy you are also aware of it clap your hands
if you are happy and also find that you yourself are aware of your happiness and you decide that you would like to also make the world aware of your current state of happiness
if you are both happy and in addition to being happy you are also aware of it clap your hands

but
a dog will die if left to it’s own devices
and a dog lacks the help of an army of
writers
and a dog
is not fed on poetry

however
it hurts like a dying dog
to be disconnected from a love of mine
like this pup
when i just want to rock and hold it
but i’m overwhelmed with life
(for the um…. 20th time three years)
children have a way of doing that

All of these photos,
they sort of make you look
like the Devil,
in a strange sort of way.

Perhaps the fangs, always visible,
or the claws, seem like they’re
scratching, or the
hollow, unloved look in your eyes
(though I think, in some places,
it’s okay to love the Devil).

I would offer to help a bit,
but I think you’d
run away, and anyway,
I could be wrong.

But then,
a picture is traditionally appraised
at a thousand words per,
and with my eye for values
I can only hope you end up
in some place where
it’s okay to love the Devil,

and around here
just isn’t it.

I pray to satisfy that habit
and quieten that impulse
that sends me home rolling with bricks
self, I’m not a railway for your venial faults
I hail from a family of fidgeters
and clumsy dressers
I live without thorns
I’ve shed my fervor and feverish hopes
after all the things I have seen
my spirit is worse for wear,and
my soul is a derelict gallery
yet I pray despite my mild beliefs
and unanswered questions

I’m a matter-of-fact person
an unpolished minimalist
but I have yet to let go of God
for when i go home
I close my eyes to every pretend soul shiner in town
lit the fire inside and
throw away all the blown up situations
that do not go anywhere
every day I hear how the world is going down the hole
how I engineer destruction around the planet
how my greed enable others to exploit and oppress
how my uncanny knack for all things mediocre affect the atmosphere
how my lack of resolution is robbing the ground we all stand on
how my apathetic disregard for others is what will do me in the end
and soon,I hear, darkness will grind the last inspired minds until
all the world is channelled through the fetid cave of a mad clown gobling up
our mashed up bones and marrow

drained and severely unkind, no longer a man,
I turn to the source of good
trying to recapture that image of God
underneath the filth I’ve become
I pray so that I may not be defined by the absence
of God

but if you hear it on the radio
then it must be true.

i think our belief what we read in
a book labelled “non-fiction” should
be taken at face value comes from our
judeo-christian roots where we accept
one book as true, therefore the others
but be as well.

what you read on twitter is probably
false, unless it concerns feces. afterall
who tweets about their poo unless they’re
telling the truth.

here’s where we miss the slacker. one timmy
mc-timster, a friend of mine in college
who took credit for everyman’s farts
and then he actually crop dusted and claimed
it as his own, the crowds didn’t believe him.

brilliance can become incarnate in so many
strange forms.

And every time you take a step
it’s like another one of your bones snap
but you’ve run out of bones to break,
you thought,
and you probably shouldn’t be walking
anyway

and really it’s what you get for
not eating healthy all these years
(there’s a reason they prefix the term
‘essential vitamins’ with the word
‘essential’)

and I’m glad your legs are pulverized
stumps and I really enjoy watching you
drag yourself along like this and sure
I’ll keep pushing your weight around
but I’m not going to help you up,
you evil bastard,
not if I can help it.

most normal people
(when they’ve saved the money)
dont wrestle with wondering
if those who make his paycheck possible
will be offended by the purchase

most normal people
(when they’ve been given gift certificates)
dont wonder what it’ll be like to both ask for money for the adoption
and at the same time spend money
on an idevice

but then i’m reminded
most normal people
are downright weird when you get to know them.

and normal feels more and more subjective
and less and less feasable.

i find a lot of joy in my upgrade
from generation 1 to 5
my old one almost 4 years old.

no one keeps a phone that long.

*tear*

“I’m sorry siri, I’m so very very happy.”

He always did have a strong back
and a temper as slow as the day is
long
and I
never could figure why he up and
killed all those people like he did

Must have been the poison in the well
or some sickness in the livestock
got him twisted up
like a bed spring
and wound up tighter than an
eight day clock

but I’ll tell you, sick or
salve or whathaveyou,
I have never seen yet or since
blood on all the walls like that.
Why,
it’s darn near like he
painted them

and I guess it just goes to show
that folk ought not fool
with other folk’s lives like that.
They’re liable to get all
kinds
of mussed up,

I’d reckon

First, do you have the patience?
To count the raindrops
one by one?
Then pour them all into some overwhelming
question-
Are you cynical?

Does your heart beat faster
than most?
Does your stubble grow slower?
Do you have the right l-o-o-k?
Do tornadoes have a conscience?

When it drizzles non-stop for all of eternity,
how will you go?
The city is damp beyond repair and street
gutters blubber out wails
of the homeless.

Do you have the patience,
To follow cyclones back out to
sea?
To dissolve and resolve a
hurricane or two?
Are you selfish?

When does the drought start?
Where is my breakfast?
Can you touch me like you’re paying for it?
I suggest we read in bed
forever.

There’s a once-in-a-lifetime
storm coming and you’re our only savior.
Where do I stock up, Mr Weatherman?
Haven’t you got this
covered?

Eventually the icecaps fall
apart like teenagers?
The sky will crack open like a
glorious puzzle.
Where is the newspaper?

I’ll do whatever you tell me.
I’m really quite nice when it’s raining.
Read me the forecast and take
off my clothes.
The tropical season is nothing.