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.

i grew me one long and sexy
but the wife
she disagrees
and now i stare down my
buzzer knowing what stands
between me and him is at least
six weeks.

but there are some powers
my wife maintains through
threats of witholding
things i don’t do well without.

she wins.

i’ll miss you my friend
you made me look pubescent
and then sort of kinda manly.
now you’ve grown long enough
to make me amish, or at least
a “fundamentalist”.

i knew thee far too little.

There’s a lot more country road than I thought there was
and a lot less gas in the tank than this trip will take
and the cash in my pocket is hardly worth two gallons
and the watch on my wrist was a yard-sale find
and sometimes the only thing you can do is keep driving
until the gas runs out and at least all this country road
is beautiful this time of year and evening, what with
the sun filtering through the already-turned leaves like that.

You had your claws pressing
against skin and stretching it
so it looked like it would break
but the pain was borderline at worst
though the threat was understood
fully and you hated it but
all it did was make them grin

So now you sit quietly, as
every disenfranchised harpy must
watching your so-near-prey
bounce on unrequited-ly
while you flex your fingers
and make sharp your claws
on the timbers of passing ships

With the weather like it is
there won’t be much hunting –
not this season, anyway –
but you’ll survive I’m sure,
for even the kindest harpy
learns to dig deep eventually,
and a harpy you still be.

sometimes

nothing says

more than

anything.

It is very likely
(knowing the current culture of course),
That a title such as above,
or where ever such things are located
would evoke images of dark, braided hair
(and unusual fashion, no less)
Probably on some celebrity or peer
Or latest Snoop-Dogg video
Or latest Allen Iverson highlight.

But this is NOT how I remember corn rows.

I remember leviathan (if leviathan is three times your height) stalks
which erected themselves as solemn as Gregorian monks
(though I had no clue what Gregorian monks were at the time).
But green monks, at that. And very emaciated.
Very, very emaciated.
None of this matters.

I remember, with a running start,
Diving into the safari foliage
Armed with a machete constructed from hickory
(otherwise known as a stick with a pointy end)
And dis

appearing.

There I would hide out,
With mom imploring that I come out.
She said she knew I was in there.
To this day, present moment, in point of fact
I doubt it!

And even if she did, it matters not.
The principle remains:
I stuck it out.
“Dinner,” she offered.
But I didn’t falter
Despite the teacup chihuahua
Beginning to rouse itself in my innards.
But the hunger stalked me like something much more
Vicious than a chihuahua.

I remember a plan formed itself very plainly
As I stocked the jungles, with nineteen suns hanging overhead.
Sunflowers, clearly.
As they beat down mercilessly, I realized my folly thus far:
Provision lent its ears to me
And I devoured them raw!

Shredding their sheaves
The kernels popped and deflated between my teeth,
the white and pee-yellow carnage lay undisturbed on the moist dirt.
Which is probably what pee would look like if you pooped pee
In little turds.

Satisfied, the minutes passed,
But the poor chihuahua, idiot that he was
Got himself swallowed by a lunatic banshee that howled out of my bowels.

I pooped myself.
Diapers were still in vogue (thank goodness!)

Yet as I recall that moment,
Should my browned mess have contained a more
Abrasive, brillo quality
Then, yes.
It would remind me more of corn rows.

The kind I don’t remember.
Or at least the kind I don’t care to.

every moment of the regular season is spent in anticipation of the
final game of the post season

the final game (or series as the sport may call for) arrives
and we cower in the corner more comfortable in our
anticipation than our excitement at what has arrived

and like that loneliness we’ve come to love and mourn
(albiet briefly and irrationally)
when we marry

we miss the feeling we know more than we enjoy the
moment when it arrives.

in the great scheme two weeks is hardly
worthy of notice

in the six years of agony two weeks
is anything but
unworthy of notice

minute passes slower than each previous
minute

worthy of painful notice

my watch has received more “face time”
than my wife.

and she’s getting mad.

i figure when the hare
(running full speed towards the finish)
had the ribbon in his view,
he sped up saying to himself
“almost there, almost there, almost there”
and doing all he could to hang on
placed one foot in front of the next
and hoped for the best.

i identify in this stage
but beg the Lord when I cross
the line I will not find I’ve lost
the race to a stinky,
slow, slimy, animal who drags
his home with him wherever he goes.