I dreamed of fresh-mown lawns last time I slept,
and there were no tracks and no trees and no
yellow spots to mark the dandelions and no matter
how far you looked you couldn’t see the house this
yard belonged to.

It must have been a nice house with a three car
garage and at least three stories. There’d be
pillars out front, I bet, to hold up the balcony
that walked out of the master bedroom so
the gentleman that owned the place could always
watch his guests and enemies come and go.

There may be a fence off in the distance,
making a long, unbroken circlet about the yard
and lining up the property with everyone else’s,
so there wasn’t any question as to who’s grass
was who’s.

Perhaps it was a magnificent stone wall instead,
so as to keep this perfect green as beautiful
and lush as possible, however untrue it may be.
Then, it may have been a picket line, but why
would the gentleman spare any expense?

The drive out front had to have been cobbled
and clean, mortared every spring to repair the
breaks and cracks from the winter season. The
traffic would be sparse, of course, as the
Gentleman only has so many friends who can
match his stature.

The pool would Olympic-sized, weather Olympians
swam in it or not. Or perhaps the gentleman
forwent the swimming pool, and made a glorious
fountain instead. It would be gilded with gold,
I can only assume, and would sit at the mouth
of his great, fine, shrubbery labyrinth, the
aisles of which he has never wandered.

Or perhaps it was just the perfect field. After all,
I tend to dream silly things when I’m having these
dreams of mine.

what is there, really,
but chess with joe?

he’s got your back
to the wall
and you say
“fuck you,
man!”

he’s got you coming
and going
both ways
but you’ve still got the
fight in you

and it goes like this
all the time
on under the blanket
of night

on an occasion or two
you might win
joe might grin
then you will go on
again

on still under the
blanket of
night.

strings of light
we forgot to turn off–
deflated santa in a heap.

the need we have for our friends,
seems a high value and then,
one of them foots
in small enclosed room
and we take our clubs and beat them

I feel crisp footsteps under my soles
as my soul attempts to search itself
I always make this walk so long
but what is there to find, turning out
all of these empty pockets?

Is there worth in lint? In so much lint
to fill these empty closets with?
Each turn finds naught but lint and
each closet fills so slowly and I’ve
got so much of this worthless stuff.

But maybe it will catch fire.
Cause it’s own fitting end to a life
spent stuffed behind faux-wood doors.

The latch doesn’t even fucking work right.
Though maybe that’s okay.

Sometimes soulstuff needs to breathe,
I reckon.

Maybe that’s the problem all along.

I asked about your politics
and you leaned in real close
so I whispered I wouldn’t tell a soul
and now here we are. Days later.

Though they could be simplified
into smaller terms, These days I
only count the days exactly.

And even though I promised,
I only know the politics you tell me.
And that’s a shame too.
And that’s a shame.

once two ghosts were talking on the phone
it was the saddest conversation in the whole world
then one said to the other “well,
i’m going to hang up now”
and at the dial tone the pain engulfed them both
and on each end neither could really handle it
so they disappeared as the first snow hit the ground
and the dial tone played on
to homes haunted no longer.

I bought a watch
and your face replaced its face.
Your face: on my white arm
on the third seat back
of this bus.
Your face like an oversized freckle
with plans.
My room is cold and the things
in the roof are jumping in rhythm
with the tick
tick
of your night-time
recital.

Your face: down the
backstreets of
Brunswick, where graffiti leaps
from the walls
with thick sets of Achilles.
Where gutters slip and
buskers quote Chaucer
verbatim.
Click
tick
your face in my arm
like a swelling drip.

Uninvited like a brick lying on a seabed
Hole-heartedly wasting away
never minding god and men,
mulling over fishes’ easy swims in dirty water

I came in here to you alone
you sat, you frowned, at your cell phone.
A message on the screen was clear
your wife has left. She’s nowhere near.
So taking you for burritos
we talked, you sobbed, you blew your nose.
Beans, and rice, pico, and fat
I’d think could solve any lover’s spat.
But…
The truth is mexican can’t solve
Issues like two missing balls.

clear day through
a cracked window
with focus you can
truly see
how the smoke rolling out
of your head
now dissipates in the
sunlight

My lips are chapped and cracked.
They are also inconsequential,
as I should not be speaking. Pleased
if you do not let me speak.

I will foul things up I’m sure. These lips
don’t work so well to speak so chapped
and cracked and inconsequential
as they are. I will foul things up.

I will sit and wait this whole thing out.
I will let you do the fouling, if fouling
must be done, for these lips are chapped
and cracked and inconsequential.

dreams
(like poetry)
dont always make sense.
i’ve written enough to know
random symbols tied together
does not symbolism make.

metaphor followed by allegory
does not deep meaning create.

words in order randomized
does not a sage produce.

i’ll express vulnerabilities
as the rest has been
torn away through a slow
peeling as though dipped
in a lemon butter sauce
and pulled – each bite – slowly
through the teeth
filtering the meat from the
leaf.

tree scatters leaves like
ashes over sweeping grass
surging ocean waves

All the things you cannot count
are adding up around us.
And all the things you cannot change
have a oneway ticket to my pillowcase.
My pillowcase: the kamikaze.
The warm pancake of a thousand nocturnal
addicts. The night has figured you out. The
beer in your hand has figured you out. Your
bedside lamp is thinking. The moon is watching
you closely and there is nothing you can
do about it. But the moon is sick tomorrow.
The ticket inspector is sick tomorrow.
My shoes called in sick tomorrow and are
hiding in your pillowcase. Your hair is knotting.
Your wrists are swelling and clicking like
metronomes. Don’t expect to dream of angels
dear. I’m back in your bed and I’m back writing
poetry. Kiss me three times and roll over.
Sincerely, Kamikaze.

You are pent up aggression
yet you hardly move a hair,
Laid out and on display
like another used up metaphor
that no one consults anymore.

Though your fingers twitch to
scratch the ink to paper to scratch
the itch of lust of blood just
beneath the chin, you have not
made to move your mouth.

You could make bared teeth,
but faulty teeth too. How to
break the skin when those incisors
break upon it, really?

But though the rabid dog may not
deliver his pissoned gift, he still
will be put down and directly and
by any means requisite to keep
his faulty bite at bay.

Though hardly can we credit you
as a rabid dog. The dog, you see,
like his cousin the wolf, has the dignity
to mean to bite what he bites.

Your nibbles do naught but
cause to order up
an execution.

lets just sit
and allow water
to feel our curves
and wrinkles (as they may be)
and iron them out
or add to them
until we can no longer
stand the sand between
our toes
creeping up between
our ‘lower cheeks’

then lets stand,
run like children,
and body surf until the morning comes.