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.

Plaid Shirts

and this guy stands up
reciting from memory
the last paragraph of a book
to a book called a book named
on the road, and Joe looks at me
taps me on the chest with his
finger taps me on the chest
and i lean in lean in to hear
what he has to say leaning in
to hear him and he goes
he taps me on the chest and
he goes hey can you believe
this guy he says can you believe
this guy what the fuck and I laugh
not sure yet if this is a real memory
or a dream memory or if either is
either or if they are any different
after you dream them and the
guy keeps on going until he trips
up on that line that line about God
and Pooh Bear he trips up on the line
saying and wouldn't you know
and it's not and wouldn't you know
it's and don't you know he screwed
it all up and there's a sense of who cares
but we laugh anyway laughing
in wonder why are we standing there
or how we got there and who is
this guy and what's his big hang up
he seems to be hung up and reciting
but for no other reason but to recite
and it's like that argument between
memory or melody in a song by
Billy Joel and I still think it's memory
I'm pretty sure it's memory.

Look for me, I'll be out THERE

those vibrant greens of georgia
snake and wind around fresh
cool rivers, bubbling springs,
manmade bridges, creaking &
flimsy under heavy foot tread,
those green fields cut by
wire fences, shrinking barns
lead right up to foot of sprawling
brawny mountain ranges
stretch from here to here and
from the corner of your eye
to the end of the earth,
those colors of the high hills
and nothing like it as cars wind
on winding roads a silent
rumbling slumber of easy
curves and dead man's curves
and drops and rises, steep and
rushing switchback elevations,
battered trunks and
faded rucksacks in back,

how many lands have you seen, hey?

Look out for me, catch a flash in thy windowpane,

I'm flying along, breathing it in,

here and now, foreverbound.

Saints

There were three saints lined up against a wall
it was old brick, cracked and decayed, and they were standing there

a bullet was fired at each, from three separate guns,
they were facing away from the wall, toward the shooter

the first saint was struck and died instantly,
he died with a strained look of acceptance on his face

the second saint stared back indignant, nostrils flared,
he struggled on the ground for hours, chewing and spitting dirt,

the third saint bent to shake his killers hand,
he fell like rags and withered on the floor at death's feet,

three bullets from three guns held by three hands recoiled
against the same body same hands same steel

three body bags were dragged into the gutter
blood like rainbows followed the trail.

Night Light

typing naked by my window,

keyboard covering genitals

I wait for rain or the whine of my cat

he is somewhere under bed,

the rain is moving slowly east,

he is silent, sleeping, dreaming,

the clouds are heavy, sinking, bitter,

he wheezes, exhaling, purrs,

the night is humid, dreary, long,

sky dark, wind gust,

my cat sleeping soundly, still,

ignores the coming storm.

mountain whispers

wet mud
white squares
650 miles
13 hours

a sinking valley
smoke colored
strewn in washed
blue/gray/green
vibrant flashes

frozen stems
of dew reaching south
turn along the
mountain's edge

three thousand and
some feet up
crack of boots
and slop of trail

southern terminus
out swinging gate
an arch among the crag
a door upon the mount.

Nothing ever happened, not even this

-Ack I'm continued
from the last strain single
last puzzled thought of night
drip drop drooping oozing
to inarticulate mass
hallucination, what's behind
our refrigerator doors?--but
same old stuff--same old
slattern shit--hang man hangman
what's it gonna be? this is all
a dream anyway, dig? this poem
is last stanzas of a bridge before
of a poem underground of
some mish-a-mash of words
you haven't all but have read--
this preternatural whisk, this demon's
door, this horror drawn 'cross time,
this sad lost, lost happy memory
eulogized, all that has
happened, all time and the universe
has been leading up to this
moment, like birth, like crystallized
embryos shattered and reaching
from out explosions died
aeons ago, died and archiac,
gone and gone and gone
and never-ending, never-here
never-where, in this dream
never-finished, where
there's no one left
to save, no one left
to wake up.

Connected

scratch that permalink
for the smell-O-vision
mark up-poison-tipped
shortcut for the next
internet reality next
one thousand minutes
and lost goes our day
for tits and dick in hand
waiting for the perfect cum
shot goes sunset midnight
early morning what's been
gained but there's so many
days 'gene so many days
not as many as there used to be
but still but still my sonny
soon there won't be more ahead
than behind and without and
within over darkened rooms
and just as big as you please
computer screen lights
glare out rainbow strobe lights
tag our mind to the clock
same odd dangling fear
of yesteryear
off go the lights
blank goes the porch
broken blue-back underlined hi-ways
click click clik cli cl--

The Mountains were his masters

For Mike Gabow

Appalachia, come freeze on those ancient mountains
with me,

Appalachia, come drain the green blood
of the green fairy's nose,

Appalachia, come puff thick clouds of smoke
sent steaming into chilly air,

Appalachia, come sleep one last night before
I go,

Appalachia, come dream another dream
of where you'll know,

Appalachia, come climb the rusty hills of
georgia heading north,

Appalachia, come dawn the oaken branches
and scarlet birds will sing,

Appalachia, come dusk the footsteps and the
struggling fire will fade,

Appalachia, come spring on the
trail led by rains,

Appalachia, come summer and rolling fields,
fleshy green meadows,

Appalachia, come fall I'll be home again
flush and fresh faced in the great white north,

Appalachia, come winter I'll be gone from you
and your endless white summits,

Appalachia, come 'round the mountain
to sing your haunting songs,

Appalachia, come with me all my life,

Appalachia, Appalachia, I am yours.