“the violently shaking house”
“the undoer”
“corn syrup baby”
“i wish i could eat different food”

when i read through, i remember
the police laughing
“this house doesn’t shake so bad”
they said
he must’ve not had the spirit for it

everyone thought

when i read through, i remember
how he kept repeating
“i wish i could write different stuff”
“everybody wants to read different stuff
but this is all i feel”

and i wonder what happened
to the corn syrup baby
growing in a stagnant puddle in his shower
i wonder what came from that cesspool
if it killed him or if he killed it
if so he didn’t say so
in his journals.

He did not come here looking
for acceptance or unity
or your love or affections
but he will take them
and store them away
for sale at a later date
with the old tags scratched off
and replaced with hand-written
sticker-and-sharpie ones
with a price a bit higher
than the price they were had
by him.

i am getting better sleep than you
and i will tell you why
because man has split the atom
but you can’t wake up on time.

this thing or that
i’ll never know which.
you smoke, you drink,
and we’re best of friends.

our kids keep us humble,
the focus can’t be ourselves.
and life each day is given
away
instead of taken in
one sip/puff at a time.

But the ones that really matter,
the unquantifiable bits,
those ones always seem to work out,
somehow.

i wrote me a headline
(something to flatter you in a “i bet you think this poem is about you” kind of way)
and found it constricting
(in a “this underwear is a little much for my ‘wee ones'” kind of way)
to the point of destroying
my creativity
(in a “i should use the word ‘like’ a little more” kind of way)
and so i dropped it
wrote this for you instead
and then gave it the same title anyhow.
sorry.

She walked along the riverside with her hand on the railing
that had been installed many years ago to keep the people
from falling to most certain discomfort

She was distressed:
Her spirit had died
and had left her with nothing but a distant feeling,
a tingling in her fingers,
every time a conversion van rolled past

She contemplated leaving this town forever
but it hadn’t worked the first time,
so she contemplated ending things for good
but the river she stood by, it certainly was not deep enough
or strong enough to carry her
and the parking garage had a guard on it now
with express instructions to watch for people like her
ever since the fiasco last February

She thought for a moment of leaping in front of a bus
but surely that would ruin a great many other people’s days
and that’s not fair to them.
She was considerate.

So she kept on walking along her riverside
until the wind picked up and carried to her
the smell of a nearby housefire
which she ran, full-tilt, to the scene of.

There were six fire trucks and two ambulances
and she was sure no-one would be inside
so she ran past the fire-fighters
up the front stoop and through the door
and between the extreme heat and smoke inhalation
she did not come out again,
and with a dead soul and everything,
that may have been the best thing for it.

we can forget birthdays
people
wedding vows
names
dates
things which often we will say
‘mean the world to us’
anniversaries
socks
appointments
grudges
schedules
debts
we can forget the things which we say
we will ‘never forget’
lights
numbers
friends
keys
promises

but I can never forget
that dirty joke,

and the bounce of headlights
as wheels tumbled over his body
at fifty-five miles an hour
in the rearview mirror

a gazelle in a shopping mall
eventually, ragged from stress
finds a common state where
the mad feels ordinary
before it’s eyes glaze over
and it gets washed away in a river
of people.

page after page
after page after
page.

applications for more?
maybe i’ll think again.

I chased a bright red
sunset to its shore,searching
for its end.
When last I caught it, it had vanished.

The juxtaposition startled me when
I realized I’d been chasing
our own brightly-colored ending,
only to find it
gone.

Yeah,
there was this sonofabitch named Benny.
Played the drums real good,
like they was goin’ out of style.

Had a big ol’ set and flying saucers
up on poles that he hit with sticks
and he paid a lot of money
and he did it, boy. He sure did it.

Benny couldn’t add though,
ain’t never read no books or nothin’.
Failed the 9th grade and didn’t go back.

But he can tell you all ’bout drummers
you ain’t never heard of, but you sure heard.
An’ he can sing every word to
every song the Beatles wrote,
and get’s ’em too.

And Benny, that sonofabitch,
he can tell you about life,
and Charlie, let me tell ya
that’s good enough for me.

blue sky spattered
with frames of trees
through which we spot
clouds.

the kind which don’t bring
rain.
never ending this drought.

I heard the words aloud
clear and thick and sultry
like a mad man’s last speech
and it touched me just so
with my fingers tight on the steering wheel
the headlights were bright enough
to make the tall trees glow
but we were rapt and hypnotized
so when we burned alive
we did not feel it
but we understood that we were dying

our conversation concerned
beer
cigars
that’s how we knew we’d be friends

what parts of him left strewn
accross the ground
looked like spares
and that put together
they felt unique and
part of a whole and
where significance was
placed there was no
longer
you could see
naught but
extra

but spare

skin,
arms,
period.

there was a chill in the air
sweeping in from the cities
where all of the breathing
organs felt best
and prime
but could’ve had just numbers
and definitions attatched like one
and two or lung or liver
but they had names
and had for moments the light
of interest shined upon them
and they all swelled and
burst and felt significant
and unique

for they had not yet felt
the chill come sweeping in
from the cities,
and the worms crawl around
them and the totality
of being a spare
or an extra
or skin
period.

the proof cant be in the non-existant pudding
when it’s you who stands by and stares at the
packaging of powder
knowing you have milk in the fridge
unwilling to mix and see fruition content with your
pure
solid
potential

They have a word for people like you,
‘vegetative’ it is, I think.
You have not moved in sixteen years.
You have not thought for yourself.
Your bones are breaking under your own weight.

I know another fellow though,
real live gentleman, stuck in a rut is all.
They’ve got him on a breather and
a big folding bed and he’s intubated
like a science project but god damn,
when they get him back on his feet
what will be your excuse?

The Hell with you, I think.
I think the other guy though,
after a few good sits
and a few more colorful dressings-down,
he’s gonna be alright.

I move along
harvesting fruits of my youth
pulling weeds off my back
Quietly resisting the itch to
pull my heart between my teeth
tune to the echo of eternity within
but my blood hummers like a debt I owe
and Nothing covers me

On my one-way journey
I dance an inch above the ice
lie on grassy mountains
hum with birds
howl with wolves
feed off the surrounding glow, and
in a flow of wonder or sadness
in hues of blue
I dig through the sky till all the light comes through

To the bitter end
I water the fool within
watch her restlessness grow
trying to decipher shadows and sounds
and grate the pavement on her passage

So it is
when black crows caw for my flesh
my bones will grow bigger and
fill the frame of happiness