Lock me in my room before I do something crazy

Put a safety on those
staples now, so the kids
won't be able to collect their
papers now, hang the loose
leaf lessons on the roof
in favor of them glowing screens,
they'll erase easier we hear,
work faster we hear, burn
brighter I see, warp those
little hungry minds with
flashing advertisements and
pretty apples a bit sooner,
so we're clear,
get rid of the pens and ink
that scrape and snarl on mashed
trees and go green with
heat sensors and budding rays,
put a safety on all those pencil
sharpeners please, think of the
all the fingers and the kids and me

The Raven

The specials at the Raven
fuck
1930s bar and cheap drinks
I'm
taking in the lights
blue
red, green, water in the
orange
gatorade cooler and 2 dollar
natty
bohs, c'mon I drank too much
for
a tuesday in some part of old
DC,
the ride home was faster than I thought
it'd
be on the slow as hell (usually) yelllow
line,
I watched the sun set outside
bleached
window panes, I stumbled into the bathroom
a
few more times than I'd
planned.

Where I can find a home

Ah man, sound of cars
reluctantly head north
over the old bridges
at a new angle, crossing
the river--God's river--the
ol' Potomac, that's one of those
ancient arteries drives right into the heart
of the dark American soul, the mighty
rushing waves too far away to
hear over heavy planes
that scorch the sky with businessmen,
stewardesses, free drinks and first classes,
I'm in a new room, that's again,
not my own, tip-toeing uncertainty,
wondering when these sounds
will be mine again, when these sensations
will be private, when I can finally
let these bones rest as the
door closes

clasp collapse conundrum

dumb under the
volcano of time like I
stood August 30th, 1967
foolishly contemplating the uni-
verse before my birth awaiting the
coming eruption that wouldn't hit for
another 300 years that I wouldn't even
make it to see because I'll be on some other
island in some other dreary corner of my own
private cosmic milky way spectrum slide;
All this leaving me dumb on the moutain
top blabbering on about nothing of
interest to the swarming scores
of man all dying beneath me
and in front of me shroudy
skeletons of the mind
sharing the same
unavoidable
fate

Pledge

I hear your heartbeat
America,
in the rain and footsteps
crunching through the sad night
where I rest my head upon your
steely breast
unembarrassed
unashamedly
born to write for you,
to die unknowing, unknown, poor,
broken, foolish,
to leave as a true testament
my very heart and soul
America

An accidental vegetable pome

cucumber lady
this is the veggie aisle
you've no cart
you look lost

cucumber lady
casting empty faces while
carrying your prize
what're you searching for?

cucumber lady,
Your husband has the vinegar
somewhere

I swear
we'll find it

cucumber lady
don't be afraid

they'll be more of us
in the future
cucumber lady

Trinities

Hey, Walt I think of your voice
in that wax cylinder
long ago
what were you thinking about, well
if you ask me, I think
you were thinking--
could it work?
ah, out under your stars

the civil wars, the campfires--

And, Jack what kept you
going really, after seven years
and nothing to show?
falling apart in mexico
and california and all that
shit and Allen losing
what was left of
his reality,

taking several phrases from you--

Fuck, Hem, when it got to
the end and it was lost--
the dream, was it black under the
florida haze when you showed us the way
it's eventually got to be,
our hands and the rifle
and our life's work
moldy on the shelf,
dusty jackets and illustrations
we didn't okay, thrown away,
asking god because we can't
remember ourselves--

did we ever get that shark?

The First Night

We stood
six spectres
confronting infinity--
death, rebirth, life--the passing
of time as we buried memory
like the old dinosaurs that slumber
beneath unsteady feet--
the stars fought the
light pollution of the society
mechanism,
the night a growing
purple abyss--
we were obscured in
what could have only been
oblivion's complete oblivion,
wind howling, waves
white capped, invisible
but for the crashing force,
we existed in the void beyond
worlds, beyond truth,
possessed of chaos,
living on and on
without fear

Collapse, play, get-up, fall

magnetic story piece
dedicated to nobody
mr. nobody blank face
homeless man speaking
in monotone desperation
several phrases over over
take the under on metro
bus maroon seats seated
but not enough for 15 dollars
bed at night the machinery
whiring above or spitting
sputtering doing cunning
cuts/ unhinged story piece
scattered on napkins
thrown together with caring
unloved spiral black eyed
blind abandoned terror
to get it right to make sense
to bring about the senses
required to burn in the endless
night of highway sounds
to finish what I started
all the lies congealed in the
conception of night the
night we'll both be subject to
in seperate disparate parts of
worlds unlike the merging
of idea and loss the finite
story piece collapsing
on itself.

Hey Jude

watched that guy
go
gone
goodbye
said nothing really,
just see ya around

a
flourescent bulbs
kinda lie
that you gotta
tell every now and then
or every day

he walked out
past file cabinets
like he was forgetting
something
slowly
each step
exaggerated
elongated
s-l-o-w

I listened for
lock click
of ugly green door
leaned back in my
black office chair
sealed in alone
thinking
about
how long
it must have taken
him to reach the elevator
reach the front doors, bus,
pavement, front door, home,

I wasn't gonna try to
get anymore
work
done