silly nighttime haiku

biting at my ankles--
your food bowl
empty

try to keep your eyes closed
with heart racing--
coffee mug half full

in this orange light
your grey silky fur
is green

blinking into the night
rain pangs on window screen
streaks across my desk

bathroom faucet drips
kitchen sink blip blips
bedtime music

The Grey Fog

my cat's mrrawwl
from the other room
schnitk of claws on rug
whimper and mew
as he heads up the hallway
full tilt at deadly gnashing speed
his tail like shark's fin
cuts the chill night air
passes by my bed,

he's annoyed it's late
and I am ready for bed,
he swings his head
in wild feral torque
races down the hall
gallop and trot of paw
pounding pounding

I shut the light
a moment of unmoved silence
darkness and barely
there shadows--

he rushes toward my room.

Reefer Madness

Seems Jack
got it
wrong;

another
comm-
odity to
tax,

while our
bombs
keep
dropp-
ing,

another
hobby to
peddl-
ing
para-
phernal-
ia,

while our
armies
continue
march-
ing.

weather report

seated under gray sky
amidst disney channel conversation
group of young boys
take the time to
wonder if it's going to rain,

          60% comes the verdict
          from the obvious leader
          of the team,

it's the iphone 6

and
they don't wanna take the chance
of that other 40 or the chance
they'll get wet,

so they head back to class,
before the rain that never comes
comes,
       
          content.

Bug Dreams

Dreamt of robot mosquitoes
          buzzing in Taiwan
hide out in swamp lands,
          hotels, houses, markets
But there was nowhere to go
          Nowhere they couldn't find me
they soared above the tenement roofs
          three perspective views,
one from above, from me and
         one camera face up from ground
I was going to be bitten,
          all I could do was accept my fate,
will I be allergic? I hoped not,
          knowing I would,
"I don't want to die here," a voice said,
          there was ringing in my ears.

Starling, Starlight

Head down reading--shade from tree a bit cooler
than I had thought but no changing places now I'm already
set--it's not freezing just slight discomfort, so I concentrate
on the words on the page tho not enough for them to sink in

          a starling darts out corner of my eye
          at full speed run trailing starlight and skinny
          yellow feet through the wet spring grass

In the city, Stuck

mornings like this  

I am here     I am stuck in a city     cement monoliths

rise skyward to block sun rays     I'd rather have them laid down flat

stretched out into nothingness     the open road     the endless shore

remember pacific coast highway     victory

how the sun was golden streaks through windows
how the sun seemed to sink slower to linger

     music laughter      rolling wheels
     nothing behind      everything beyond

Braided sunlight on cement

gooey night lights
of columbia pike are lit by
morning crisp spring
sunlight, twisted dust
and particles smaller'n
bleary wake up eyes can see
glint and dance reflecting
subliminal views of heaven
into the dreamy visions of
passers-by, a roman à clef
starring the barely fictional
life of gray crumbling streets,
heavy, weighted pavement
wavers, chips, bends, breaks
winters freeze and thaw, 
grizzled fists and battered ice, 
snakes like a dried up riverbed
past homes stacked upon its edges
that stretch and yawn, shaking
of grim winter hibernations
what is real and what is not?
twisted to never know and never tell,
there's a thin film of what's supposed to be,
like what day it is? what time
exact? what faces wait for
green lights, heavenly lights?

in the corner of a book
in the library of the world,
there's a story somewhere
somehow beautiful,
somewhat restrained,
like wispy dandelions in
the celestial breeze,

wssshhhing hwwaafssh frwwsssh
blinking winking fwwssssss aow aow

To you, From me

You're out like
gray lump of clay on
dusty bookcases
of the past--this one
empty sad without
any books just scattered
unwanted memories
just things that aren't useful
unwashed beer botttles
torn posters faded lines
scribbling a red hot madness
of years and years--ignoring
the light that dances above you
the flutter and whine
of plastic blinds in spring winds
lazy cool sundays whatever
day like it matters or simple
recognition of time passes
those orange eyes shut
to the world ears twitching
waiting for me rise to get
going to do something
important but I just sit
here staring typing wasting
no fun not interesting at all.

To afternoons

big sun up on hills
over my imaginary
sandcastles put-put-
puff-smokers on the
balconies of the past,
huff and spill smoke
on bowed heads, laugh
for some joke dead
long ago, no connective
tissue to the current
be-speckled
reality, I scratch whispers
into the filament saying all this,
saying nothing, each mark
a pencil gash on my notebook
page, each gash a woman
I've loved, each gash a'
sailing into universal void
oblivion, each microscopic
ash a truth fading away,

oh quail egg sky

you're a thousand years old
you'll never change

you'll never go on and die
          you'll never--
                    never--
                                will you?
                                will you?

University Yard

workmen in navy blue
t-shirts navy blue hats denim jeans
hoist hollow aluminum metal scaffolding
with thin white rope, cracked dry hands
in the afternoon in-n-out sun pull beige
tarps over heaving calling one-two
pull on two breath on one repeating
one-two-one-two until metal rungs
jam on the line and foreman untangles
going hey hey wait wait okay okay
now one-two again one-two and it's over
and covered and now sits like little A-frame
houses, colorless carnival tents and
blue workers scatter silently off to
further work zone problems and I
am there reading on a bench facing
whole scene 2:15 bells leaning
elbows on knees skimming prose
solid immobile phantasmal
taking down lost moments
depositing them here.

Old Glory

a horror vision of Old Glory
flash front in my windowed agony
blaring red white red blue whipped
o'er my tinny head, clang of rope
on sheer metal drop, fills my lungs
hallowed howling into coming night
a sign of death's head agony

I am scrambling back

thin hiss of compression breaks
rabble of rabble of voices
on the shores of fallen south american kings
african kings world kings
jack boots ground beef faces underneath

all this on my dying bed

fading spring sky thinning blood
tearing at the tears running from
wasted veiny dry eyes sandpaper eyes
stumbling stammering washed out
in gory gory grays of twilight horror

a hell america a demon banner
a stalking army a lusting flag

At night you're not real

at night, in purple hued gold ribbons,
transformers play catch
atop telephone poles in
animated unrealities,
I imagine they say:

"these things you are writing are not unique
but they are life they are frozen sad bits
they are left to static belief they will be
forgotten long after you are dead."

possessed, I am, and feverish,
can't feel the air hissing and
shouting and knocking through
my window, against the soaking rain
the blinds rattling,

it's there, it's there--

my view is a painting on a backdrop
my fame will never come before old age

I am caught in a foolish race

and the sounds
the sounds
god, the sound,

I don't understand why I have to listen--

Typewriter heroes

a thing the typewriter had going for it
was that it was probably harder,
tho not impossible, for a cat
to sit on it while you were writing.

Columbia river pk. st. rd.

'ey kid these fingers work too

fast to worry about which comes 

first g or n or what thought makes sense

corner coffee shop

side of columbia pike

buses pull up at regular intervals

16H 16J 16X rundown 

character wait on saturday 

head for part-time shit-time jobs

at the other end of the pike

maybe skyline city whatever 

that is of where I don't know

Barista tells me his just

found some books and records

he'd lost, been lost for 15 years

that's a hole in the heart

too think to imagine--I think

of my copy of A Farewell to Arms--

still not sure where the damn things gone--

coffee breaks my reverie his triumph

spring wind wails woutside where

wallowing well I walk to the car can't

stomach the microwave mecca masterpiece

of Bob n' Edith's shit slop spectacular

calls itself home cooking in the atomic age,

tv dinner relative reality neon orange vomit cheese

masquerade. I can't even turn my head disdainful 

I just wretch, but the coffee helps the ice the blue sky damn

just fuck it and blow the red, no cops no yellow no light

I don't stop I don't give a fuck, I can't stand that rotten smell

coast on home sailor squid down the hill

tunnel under 395 cars swish silent saturday swell

I'm almost relieved at the stop, I take it in stride

bus' break sput sput swush psssssssssss

I'll be taking that gig come monday

either way the world ends--putz--I got a book 

waiting in this here mailbox, a cat at home,

coffee in hand--Now I wonder,

ya know, I'm thinking, just about 

what some of those lost book title were.