alas, i talk big but know when the time comes
i’ll be incapable of putting that foot confidently
forward into His presence because i know where
that foot has been.
what these eyes have seen.
what these hands have done.
the wrath due is deserved.
and when gone paid by another,
what claim have i to stand?

he drew lines
[I am not happy, but I am not any less alive]
said I owed him loads of money
I offered my skin in the mirror
or heaven in my blood
but he said, he didn’t need any …

he would not crown my love
[some people get unhappy trying to get happy]
‘said I brought him misfortune
folks from my past stood heavily on my eyelids
they said I needed a little lesson
[sometimes,you just need to live with your eyes closed]

for years, I dug a tunnel to him
but he threw sandbags around his heart
‘said love is a thief and it’d cost him his sanity
[don’t wait to be found]
my friends said breathe soon you’ll wake up
with grey in your hair

I looked to the sky for meaning
birds told me what to hope for
‘said you wade in the water or you drown
[don’t wait to be understood]

but I don’t believe what anyone says anymore
I once saw happiness flying with pigs
‘said it’ll come down for me one day
I laughed and let it go
[even pain knows when to stay away]

Dandelion and crossbow, shape of an eternal queen
in a constant brawl against the forces of blah
gesticulating her lack of remission, she was born by comparison
with a disclaimer of all she could be
a poster child for mercurialness and incompleteness,
colorful and blind, hopeful and loud, sultry and brave

Life attendees throw words like spires
in a swift race for her light and desire
before another season comes and withers her
she who isn’t herself yet, she who is dust motes
whirling in a morning sky
half-shy still, she’s got a halo that kills
like a well-kept feline
she hops to places she does not know
diffusing soft light, and

in a tarzanic fervor swings on electrical umbilical cords
landing her static heart green with moss before a cosmic plug
her wiring need repair, her lights are going out
her dreams in hover, all her imperfections and compulsions
roll up a red carpet, in total resignation, to
an organic culture she cannot fully encompass

later to find out the thing
you so wonderfully
openly
trumpeted to the world
was heretical brainwash.
so time to fit for a noose
and letter go.

And sometimes you catch me
singing Steely Dan
into a telephone
at 1AM

but at least it’s not
The Monkees

WHO ARE YOU AND
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH JOHN?

HE WAS HERE JUST A MINUTE AGO
AND YOU SWEAR THE DEVIL TOOK HIM
BUT I’M NOT SURE THAT’S TRUE
AND I’M NOT SURE YOU’RE NOT THE DEVIL

YOU SWEAR YOU’RE NOT
BUT YOU’VE MET HIM, AND GOD,
AND SERENDIPITY TOO,
THEY WERE DRINKING AT A BAR TOGETHER

BUT THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH JOHN
AND I KNOW YOU SWEAR
THE DEVIL TOOK HIM BUT
I’M NOT SURE THAT’S TRUE
AND I’M NOT SURE YOU’RE NOT THE DEVIL,
JOHN

calluses
my pride
when gravel
underfoot
feels like
smooth paved
cement
i have
arrived

Wet
bathing suits and towels remind me
of a beautiful day-
together.
That I musn’t forget the
sweet serendipity of smaller seasons
expired.

But a bowl, eyes
like a chino,
the temptation awaiting
my consciousness reminds
me of moments that
could have been, but,
never were.

I am chewing seeds and
spitting them

I have half a mind to do
anything and I
won’t do anything
because
half a mind is
just enough for
nothing but
chewing seeds

I count the flaws on my fingers
and run out in no-time
and another handful to chew
while I keep counting
and look for more fingers

I taste vertigo but
it is not the same

It is a lack of forward motion
and I feel it in my
muscles and my bones
and I taste it and it
tastes like vertigo
but it’s not

and chewing these seeds
doesn’t make it taste much better

In the flickering lamplight
I listen or your call,
the sound from you returning to
this solid soil.
~
I awoke at 5, whence once
the jazz turned to talk
and I, alone, in my bed,
was reminded of my solitude in the
night. While all others slumbered.
~
Alone I sat, I sit alone. Listening
for that sound, that
single signal showing me you’re
near.
Never knowing if I should return
home, giving up the search.

Your sketchbook, your soul,
given to me to stow for the while,
sits on sheets and somehow I
sense you through it. You will
be back to reclaim what is
yours in time.

when will the world awake from its slumber
and find these cannonball-butts are writing
the most amazing combination of words and
fecal-expressions they’ve ever seen?

it most certainly will be recognized by the
world before the “publishers” catch on.

but since it is still “pre- noticed-by-publishers”
i must assume the time is at hand.
at crusty clasped hand.
(soon to arrive).

we are (after all) brillianceINCARNATE

nail biting
cheaterscheaterseverywhere
and it’s obvious the proctors don’t care
the room heats up till
sweatbreaksoutonmyforeheaddrippingdownmypencil
on to my perfectly formed answer circles
(squares)
they call the test
books close. pencils down.
at least they’re supposed to.
cheaterscheaterseverywhere

a man’s heart is such a worthless thing
that the gutters would give them back
so lowly i feel to your porcelain skin
so lowly that my heart swims with the rest

pity goes, however
to those still encased
in grinning ribcages
gaps from bone to bone
all naive and waiting to
tumble down and go for that
long, cold swim

a man’s heart is such a worthless thing
it has no corporate support
and the porcelain displays reflect
light onto the gutters in the daytime

itchy smiles
scratched
seldom satisfy the urge

Sunlight breathes heavy sometimes
and shakes the windows
and threatens a mudslide
and we cower in our outhouses
grasping at straws
for some kind of salvation

and the White Man upstairs
doesn’t mind us one way
or the other, and his PA speaker
is blown and muffled and
when he talks we listen
but we don’t understand

so we drive to the nearest
freshwater supply and
we pitch our tents and
play our songs and
pray and pray and pray
but there’s still terror to be had:
As much fun as we’re having
the ends don’t meet

So the White Man’s thugs,
they come to us with
billy clubs and megaphones
and we’re fully at a loss
but for every guy that gets away
there’s ten that don’t start running

But boy, if they catch me they’ll
flail me something good and
shout and say ‘didn’t we tell you
to stay put, sir?’ and I’ll be honest
when I say ‘I don’t know’ but
they won’t hear it:
if their megaphones are broken
then their hearing aids are
off alltogether

we feign self sacrifice
laying down our humility
in pursuit of pride,
a great name,
power.

the fire comes and burns away the chaff revealing our work, our building materials, our poor skills at plumbing.
judgment comes.

and you used PVC where you should have used metal piping. and there’s crap everywhere.

power, pride, wisdom, when and where i say.
and bad plumbing

in your locked bedroom closet
where scientists can’t study
old cans of coca-cola
high fructose corn syrup
giving life to what undoes you

when you’re not quite finished
but ready to give up
crack the door, another can
more soldiers for the civil war
the looming corn syrup rebellion

when they found your body
green organic mass about
closet door cracked slightly
scientists baffled over your lifelessness
and your terrible smelling closet

and i could say what ate you
what the scientists don’t know
what the neighborhood watch don’t know
what sugary greenness was growing
if words could move you now.

She clutched her fifteen quarters
for dear life and
if she let go she knew
there was nothing else to cling to
But she was not sad.

The coins played a one-note song
as they hit the counter
and she paid her dues
at the county clerk’s office
before walking across the street
to the liquor store.

Seventeen, fourty-five, eleven, nine
One box, one straight,
and an easypick for measure
and there’s the three bills
from her back pocket.

And just because she’s never won yet
doesn’t mean she’ll never win
at least that’s what she tells herself
when she walks seven miles
because she can’t afford a bus ride
home.

There is a gentleman
complaining of sore legs
and sweating from the stresses
of standing

And it is a wonder
that his back is not broken
and I heard the distress
when he was told he
would get no help from me.

And I saw the relief
when another gentleman,
aged, yet spry as ever,
offered instead to do
the business that the first
ought have done.

Yet his sweat runs like a river
though he did no thing,
and his legs, he assures me
are killing him, and I

am left wondering why
he ever bothered standing
in the first place