Lunch break

Unrestrained ear-

out to lunch and-

"I'm so smart smart smart
     Look at me me me me me
We all can like learn from what-

relentless unquoted bullshit blah blah
"you couldn't really tell-
    It's very bizarre actually"

high pitch pitch building pitch-
"My friend, my friend,
    yeah, yeah," higher higher "yeah,

and I can see brains forcing their gelatinous way
through eye sockets like the Hill,
with continuing laughter,

"It's not my fault I've taken artist classes"
where they teach biology and interracial coupling,

the brains keep moving,
like melting butter,
watching makes me sick,

"well, I mean, like,"
repeat until the ears bleed cells
filled with everything we tried to know
to remember to forget
to hate

these sounds unrelenting

ears

unrelenting.

Heaven

Blindfolded by permanent markers,
drawling dark black streaks across
your brow- the clouds,

two dimensional and
heavy in my chest, pushing out
and in, simul-at the same time-taneously
pleading to burst forth from angels,

fir tree above the forest looking down
through dense smoke and dancing fire,
instead of from the sinewy organs of man
leering into the heavens-

lovingly and ignorant.

Left-over 3

Now lavender sways in the breeze,
you whistle (conjure) the sweet smell
lying in tall, rich earthy grass,
the sky rises so high it's left us-

someplace wonderful

Left-over 2

Almost knocking down

the door isn't enough,
you have to come through
guns blasting, lights blaring
curses,

make (senseless) noise
and put these demons to rest

Left-over 1

Red around my eyes
Red around my glass,

why do you (Kneel) and peel-

away the layers
built up under wine colored skies,

(torture)

Good News

Might be getting a new chair,
So's I won't be wasting away
any longer, anymore,on the floor,
suffering under the hegemony boxes
and soveriegn staples,
three blank walls one invisible door.

office zombie charade

It's fucking scary
passing all these windowed rooms
with eyes inside locked to computer screens,
feeling the same things and believing the same things,
being bitten must be terrible, but
watching the victims suffer through this
fever induced foggy-made-up-world
fearing you'll be next
might be worse.

The over-over pullover monster

I'm the little mouse
searching for those fallen crumbs,
knowingly searching
for those empty calorie-less crumbs,
kept up all night
by those stomach rumbling fallen crumbs,
pleading (between bites) for a daydream crumb
to greedily consume
never asking from where they have come,

It's messy and moist.
I fumbled with the banana bread left on the table, cooling.
I ate two slices with milk before bed.

Edd Wright made this for me: Raymond Boulevard and Washington Street

RIP

I'll be unknown forever,
and upon my death,
along with pink and white flowers
friends will offer
kind words, sorrowfully-nodding,
"your father wrote beautifully, you know that?"
and my children will cling to eachother
dumbly, thinking inside-thoughts
behind dark brown eyes thinking,
"Oh, but if he only spoke."

A poem A thought A dream

I determined to rhyme
in the diamond night
soaked ruby red cloudy
with wine poured over
our open mouths,
slop-slop-slop
past the corner deli,

I had wished,
dreamed? as I dampened sleeply
under the bus stop roof-less plexi-glass,
to rhyme for you something
like opened skies
that would make you see what
I could never-

under the diamond night sky
growing cold and sharp,
cutting at the purple clouds seeking the sun,
a thick and tangible exorcism,
which we wrought together-

scrawl with blunt pencil
ash gray streaking red across
nighttime paper,
daytime white but filled with the
blackness of the void forever
at war with burning stars

in the diamond night
grown red, I hoped to rhyme
before the waking magnifying glass
sun perched above us
chasing the-

How can I write when the
trees are merely sacred for a cause?
When the phone shines brighter than word?
Where the place supercedes the means?-

blistering cold inhabiting
the core of this being
huddled in the dawn of universes
waiting for- passing hand-outs-
the end of beginnings,

where we start
and create the word and it's
tumbling out of us absurd,
so you yell into the face of the thing-
red- and it shatters the night- empty,
but not so sad,
that we can't laugh and take
another drink and a toast-

to falling stars and the dreams that make-
beginning.

Novella

I'll shred through the thoughts
of these thousand lifeless poets,
so as not to steal a single unkept thing,
I won't even pretend to leave
these breathing staples in,

fuck if I remember their names if you asked,
or if I'd taken the time to read,

I've decided 80,000 words isn't too much yet,
it might be just enough,
if I'm rejected correctly,
to brand this life onto someone else

and help me forgive the flies that
gather hungrily along the walls.

parking cones

"Where'd you get those cones?"
s'gettin' colder,
world's jumping up and down
with his lights off and cars slowing down,
"huh?" wha..
"you heard me." bald and
oh we've been drinkin' and we're
"If there's anything written on those"
don't tell me there isn't
but it's rising outta me and I can't stop it,
don't wanna I can't hide it when it's coming
"you laughing, you better stop laughing son because"
trying to jesus, now he's gettin outta the car
and mad, bald and mad, and comin for us
up a slope
fuck beer flying fuck sliver bullet crashing soundless
at least before it spills
the whole things bleeding in-out
like my attention cause we gotta tell him,
"Home Depot?" that makes sense, right?
he should just "what?" leave us
cause we bought these "Home Depot"
so we can go? GO. put that shit down
and Go. the beer? no that's already gone
cause we lost it when we dropped the cones,
white car lights off boots walking toward
in your face holding laughter while it's
burning PUT IT DOWN burning up
outta me like the beer flying somewhere outta sight.
like the cones and the cops
in the cold PUT THEM DOWN did he see?
can you believe "Home Depot "
how'd he know? HOME DEPOT
funny then and now
c'mon man, he must'a seen us
walkin' like pioneers on Broad's four lanes
with those orange trophies slung over weighted shoulders swinging
off into the reflective night slowed him down
blue and angry coming toward us and
the worlds spinning smashed cranberries
QUICK a PLAN bury the bubbling PLAN hide the rising mirth
drop that shit like he says and walk the fuck away.

Morning

where can we hide the alarm clock sun?
tempting us with truth,
wondering bouyant truth,
boiling red then coming on mid-morning gold
truthfully resembling the spell you hiss between
perfect teeth ...

why when the words won't come
do they drip into buckets of
crumpled paper and deleted files
stoned at your feet,
drawing scattered portraits above the floor;

pour that cup of coffee
and I'll add my own-

life to the mix,
a sick mix of powder and
cold liqour,
lanquidly burning,
thick and slack,
against the back corner
of your eyes,

I've longed, I've remembered
to submerge those eyes I longed for
as long as-memory

for them,
the sun draws itself up
taller than the tallest tall being
in any tall distance,
melting every everything in its waking heat far-off stare,

now it's too late for the moon
and darkness to cover their hearts,
together with shadows reduced to smoking fools,

when the coffee leaves sad rings around your
fingers, when

a babbling sun revolves now before
your simmering room,
blinking at the prostitutes lining the beach,
sweat forcing its way
on your marked brow,
couches receding into the distance,
distance receding before out stretched hand,
truthfully before the wave crashes,
tell me, do you understand
somewhere,
somewhere?

God forbids.

Thumb

I'd be grateful if I could feel my thumb,
biting down on these business casual scissors,
then the paper cuts and staple punctures
decorating the blue-purple oil-paint midnight sky skin
wouldn't just be a mishandled decoration,
emerging from the pock-marked snow,
appearing like forgotten christmas lights
glowing under a February band-aid.

Forgetfully

This is
about the time
dreams let go
like rain drops
disfigured by
windshield wipers
and speed,
rolled up
under,
over, beside,
longingly-lovingly
pleading for
the driver,
watery fingernails
husked away
by two-dimensional
plexiglass barriers,
landing sickly
behind you
lurching rolling tossed
backward along the dissipating pavement
blackened by the rearview mirror,
transparently
bleeding away

Shout

Eyes over here,
on the inky horizon-
turn your head to the sound of-
to the sound of- crumpling metal
like it was aluminum in his disfigured hands
and the beer gold and cool bending in the sunlight,
drips like rain falling like blankets
onto the crisp golden grass,
grass wet with dew and the night,
noctornal ash borrowed
in the rusted creases of funeral pyre radiators,

BAAAAAAHHHH-AAAUUUUHHH
the train's whistle questions,
BAAAAAAAAAHHH-AAAUUUHHHH
"where?'" "where are we headed? Where have we been?"
"just where?"-
"Where is anything?"...but the tracks and forward-
but the race-

transforms the fumbling dawn into the insides of an oil drum
beaten with a baseball bat,
spattering our brains like an obstruction
before the cow catcher,
where it gets to bellowing,
layered over sounds of hands scrapping together,
searching for warmth and a place to rest
now that history has
run us all off the road,
paved, cracked, and cragged,
the road
that becomes a point in the distance
becomes it and resembles it and forcefully gives to birth to that-
that question the train meant to ask-

pushing it's memory back a ways
along those tracks by the cornfield wasteland
where we can never again find it-

shouting.

3

The Delaware gurgles brown and slow,
limping along beside me, its banks
rotting wood and greenish-slosh
so dark it takes on the sucking terror-color of tar,

harrassed by the steady continental decline
its bitter and stinging waters are forced
out into the far-off sea, to be lost
forever and ever, continuously, infinitely forever
under the weight of ocean salt and kelp,

I can follow its sad movements,
lost among smaller names and twisted channels,
until the heavy tread of the Potomac,
rushing torturously through mountain passes and crumbling hills,
violently floods out its memory,
sending fish and heroes
rushing deaths ahead past Harpers Ferry,
emptying the carriage and its legend
into a muskets wet and gunpowder caked ambush,
Continental army soldiers in dometicated suits and how-do-you-dos,
playing a waiting song
at a broken horse rest-stop far from that iceberg bounding Christmas Eve

Last night

You dreamed a dream
where I walked away forever
drowning in frothy seas,
misty and sea-greened eyes
cast away from the shore,
cemented in a place
so close and gray with...

the distance falling backward to--

and from my sand heavy pillow,
tucked silently under your hair
I dreamt a dream that brought you back.

Ken Kesey

The rain outside finds the smallest crevice
and expands, he pushes the boy aside to find his
way, into the elevator packed with the well-to-do
and the never-to-be-done, the toy hits the ground,
and this little Leland Stamper makes no move to pick it up,
just stares at him with little clouded hateful scared eyes,
fogged under too wide brimmed glasses,
the boy wipes his right hand on the curdoroy sleeve
of his left arm, mouthing something-or twisting his mouth,
he doesn't know what to say..."sorry" "i'll get that?"
but nothing comes out in this jammed up hot elevator
and the kid just keeps looking back, through him and over the moon
and back at him from behind- and all sides-
to tell you he's coming not now, not in the future,
but he's coming with the moon at his side,
tucked in his pocket, casting black and yellow shadows
lying in wait,
like a carnivorous plant on the hunt
predatory and immobile
patiently waiting until he grows old and feeble
is free of the elevator,
to strike ungodly and wreak his terrible narrative revenge.

You know

Careful LOOK careful careful
CHEW quickly now quicker
get it down and move on
no time for taste
pick the biggest and QUICK
FAST look around THERE
now MOVE chew chew
swallow WHAT nothing
nothing relax NO relax NO
never can't relax one more green plant
grass weed flower LOOK
pretty flower filling flower
MOVE to the shadow to the shade
under the TREE tree NO
not there FAST the SHED
under the shed and SAFE
and SLEEP and today today today is...

(cool enough
to rest these tiny legs and
tired mouth
from the dark winds and
the ever sneaking
fox and the cat.)

like a stream on digital paper

Dependent on how fast the cars are driving and here's another thing darlin' they either try to miss you or crash (shattered glass and flesh and bones and plastic all) through your thoughts indignantly washing away the ill pleasures we create every day create and need create for some reason (beyond reasons) behind the kindle where you frown (and an almost pretty face becomes ghastly coated by a thousand years) but unhidden unprotected by such small electronic devices made to spin words out in flat lifeless pages (blinking) page 1 page 2 page 3; has page 1....gone? it no longer exists... to where...I can see you dying or living alittle pixels meet pixels and I blend, wishing to know (if we could lie to each other a moment) or find each other a moment could we- play tricks to see how gray (sad) your eyes have always become.

Hi-resolution

the collected layers of light
pile up like manure on the street,
a cracker-fold progressive wall
stinking of secreted iphoneless ambiguity,
the parcels delivered to each deteriorated door,
fuse with the recipient, glowing green
under false moonlight, exonerated moonlight,
MOONLIGHT and identity,
causing that miniature voice,
what's left of that little animal inside you,
to scream and burrow with red fingers deep underground
into the cool brush, where the clean rivers still run,
unencumbered by grizzly cybernetic veins and
dreamlike memory, that
FADES Fades fades
so quickly away,
and the decisions are calloused surprises
that cling momentarily
to blue flat calming television screens
blasting--follow me--
in HD.

Rally Time

In the dustbowl black mud mall
running straight through the bleeding heart
of Washington DC,
between his obelisk and their senate seats,
the traveling evangelists spoke,
softly, politely, loudly,
in comic satire, sometimes in feigned anger, or the
occasionally copyrighted song,
everyone of them like their forefathers before,
seen through the pearly white clouds
perched above, nodding
from Wallstreet, 300-stories to the ground,
forever and ever and ever,
dressed in the home of the free-land of the brave
business causal liberal sheep's clothing,
red-white-and-blue-leading us on.