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.

progress.
forward movement
with or without
momentum
moves me from
one step back
to one step forward

you know when
setting out for a run
you feel like vomiting
until a mile in
when your system
gives in and stops
fighting and overheats
and then enjoys it

progress.
forward movement
momentum-independent
until the moment i can
stop.

and brakes will do their
thing.
lazy boys on porches
with a bloodhound loud
and lazy as we scream
at children for being too
loud and the weather for
being too tough on our
knees.

yea.

progress. until we
stop.

You looked so good
in your Sunday’s Best
but on a Wednesday night?
I can not fathom why.

You looked damn good,
though. Cruel to say per
haps, circumstantially
speaking. You looked
damn good, though.

I bet you can get
way down in those
wingtip shoes, though.
Boy, I bet you
can get all the way down
in those black heels.

But on a Wednesday night?
I can not begin
to try to fathom
what you’re doing out.

up on the rooftop i hear this
dude in red walking round
stroking his beard and twinkling
his nose

our chimney is small to say the least
and the man can only be described
as “girthy”
so i sit and drink some christmas
flavored schnapps
(something about schnapps says christmas)
christmas schnapps
awaiting the round man.

i’ve got a new game you see
and i hear this guy can get down for a fat guy.

i cant beat my family
but maybe against a round guy with a reputation
for dance moves
i can stand a chance.

i look forward to it.
with my christmas schnapps
and wait for roundy to slip through these
here ashes.

further proof that you can’t trust your nerves well i saw the blood on the cloth last night and when it dried so too did the feeling and when it dried it disappeared and i love and hate and feel like crying all within a cycle of the heart and when it’s gone wouldn’t i kill but when it’s here wouldn’t i leave further proof that you can’t trust your nerves.

They sink their blades so
deeply and if I am to simply
bleed out of my abdomen and
moulder and die I will try to do
so at home so at least I won’t
feel so beat up about it.

sometimes you pack up
your bags and you head for softer ground
made by god not man hands thousands
of years ago when He decided these mountains
should make a baseball glove
(because He’s God and He knew about
baseball long before folks cheered
when the yankees lost)
that would catch sand and then
catch snow on sides and sun
on others to create a perfect

place for us to run and fall
and crash face first into pain and sand
and forget all about that thing we came
to forget about.

and sand in our socks to give us memories
that aren’t the thing we came to forget about

i called you
two minutes from home
because the moon,
low and orange and gigantic on the horizon,
was worth seeing

when you couldn’t see it
you told me to pick you up
so i pulled over
you stepped in
and we drove

no longer visible from
where i had called you
we continued to drive
over the bridge
into the next town–
to no avail–
nothing lay on the horizon anymore

we marveled
at the speed of the moon
(but really, the speed of the earth’s rotation)
kissed beneath nothing but a street lamp
and drove home.

Yes, the wolf,
he bites and does his damages
to prey and plaything,
choking out the beauty
so noble-ly, and until
they die, only to rend
the flesh from bones.

But he, he is a fisherman,
and a catch-and-release man, too.
He deals only so much damage
and just long enough
to claim to have held,
before casting catch away.

At least the wolf,
gory and red though
his work may be,
has the dignity
to mean it.

a hankie is just a way
to carry your snot around
with you and slowly
crust up your pocket

You look down your nose with your
cathedral-colored eyes while your
flapping jowls sling pickling brine
and my hands are dripping from
covering my mouth and my back
is cold from this damp, stinking shirt
and I try to understand your rambling
but amidst the catcalls and birdsongs
of the passers-by it’s hard to
stay so focused on such blitherings
as those of your station tend towards
but God and all, I swear, that
one day I will stand and step and
smack some sense in to you
with the back of my wet hand
and when I drop my quarters in
the washing machine down the road,
I’ll mail you a bill