4

helmets hang on stakes
loll like empty soup cans
spill their contents on holy ground
mix with mud and oil to dilute
boil in the glorious sun--

3

split fragment of an empty grocery counter,
powerlines run on blue light back-up lights,
digital mementos
--generator flicker
fabricated--kid looking to pocket 5$ in candy bars,
leaning up along counter, shelves underneath
hands buried in, brushing pockets--no guilt blush--
asking to know where the public bathroom is
--on every camera the authority sitcom alerted--
only the supermarket's part will out and
be vindicated and will be remembered
--cherished for its virtue

im sorry i never told you i found it

tossing my soul into the street

typing with one hand

i had an epiphany, she said, but the uber never showed,
i deleted the app there on the street 
i used to be so vindictive, it's funny
to think about

i found the discarded paper

folded a thousand times

at the bottom of your pocket

i crumbled it was one look

in practice these rituals come off empty-handed

you escorted me home

waiting for the word

never found

She was of dying

'take me behind the barn doors' she said
                                                   'and fuck me where you have no cock'

so hanging from the exposed wood she said,

'this is rape'

I know.

'and you are scared,' she said and I had already said I know.

it was too dark to find the gash
                                                   at my waist

she pulled her nails across my eyes

there were eyes in the next stall rolling

a faint sound

from my lips or
                          from hers

'you can't do anything right,' I whispered.

Green Eggs

'Shelter,' said the green man, under the green roof, 'is in place.'

then the lights awoke, they were motion sensitive,
there were many more little green men now, they
twisted and walked into each other's faces, I looked down on them,
they grabbed at my cock, 'fuck you' they said,
          'fuck yourself' I said, 'a man once asked why didn't
you just drop jeeps and kitchen appliances into vietnam? why
all the agents orange, guns, steel?'
                                                      'we don't have any women
around to fuck,' they answered, 'what did you expect us to do?'

'surveillance,' said a disembodied green voice, 'is a state.'

then the lights dimmed, we had been still for some time,
there were many unseen bodies around me, they
vibrated in their rigidity becoming each other's faces, I could feel them,
they filled my lungs with their hands, 'we know' they whispered,
          'who told you?' I said, "I was going to say something eventually
I only read it in a book, I never thought to do it myself, it was my
favorite Twilight Zone episode is all.'
                                                             'we don't have finks without
dismembered cocks,' they hissed, 'where should we stick this end?"

'lies,' carved the green hands in green stone, 'bury the dead.'

Welcome to Concrete

for the walls they turned them on end
out over their axis the old globes spun

when you were left there with the other bodies

and the angle on the camera
facial recog fade

no amount of etching on your grave
was enough

everywhere a misdiagnosis
not one single doubt

for the roads they abandoned all their cars
under above their shoulders the fields of rot

where you were left with all the evidence planted

in your lap divided

 

manufactured gestures wrapped about

the intestines of the prairie falls

 

a blue light at the end of it all encircles

the verifiable prophets of confirmation.

Skirmishers

Sitting out in the open
on an undefended park bench
I was pretending to read
Lucien Zell's The Salmon Cafe.

Really tho, I had stuffed
another novel inside
its paperback covers.

This one was one of my own.

I am determined that nobody should read it but me.

At least, if I can help it,
for the next one thousand years, or so.

disgraced professors of paper towels

I
feet many walking about the concrete fields
many souls many unacknowledged

II
there was a man full body scar
outside paper wrapped food pusher's windows
defaced cereal box cardboard turned inside out in his right hand
lifted up till the end scratched his chin
the words underneath

III
economically the anthill was booming
a dropped banana peel three days old materialized
on the doorstep of the great citadel
there was much commotion and rejoice
the much would have some
the short would have many

IV
I wish more people would learn economics
he typed onto his facebook wall hitting enter and left it there,
'this,' as he marveled at its clear understanding of subjective ideology,
'will show them I understand'

V
souls many unable to pass on sink desperately into
false monoliths and uncountable number of cubicle walls

Between Finger and Mountain

matcha mix of waterfall springs
                                           green from my cup

     the coming days melt like algeaic glacial springs

valleys carved
                        and spun from what had ever been
     mountains of never summer rolling thunder rain

above the tree line the clothesline of root wire fall

ranging boulders smothered and scalded
                                                                  by driving wind
     below the crawling scarred bellies
plastic wrap and tuperware joints

the plastic castles and the reached for sky.

May 2nd goes by

flipping through heavy metal sheets
outside the storm spits blue against my window
keyboard over my cock and 99 luft balloons on radio repeat

I have as yet to digest my dinner
hair still twisted dark with rain
that falls like car wash waves over my windshield vision

tonight has come and thunder has gone
lightning still hangs static behind the tri-horned god

the power has not gone out
nor have the lights once flickered weak

nor have I uncrossed my black whiskered legs
to grip and grope and knead
beneath a blanket of restless caffeine sleep.

this place, they call the useless

nestled between competing mountain ranges,

painted gray under the shadows of roaming clouds,

wherein you'll find nothing but crumbled homes,

scattered wood, cement and red brick partitions partitioning none,

homes left abandoned for five years or more that might as well be 100 years,

there are no rivers etching across the unmarked plains,

where only the sagebrush survives the scorching days,

from the highest point you can see the bottom and the top of the sky,

below, the desert in the heart where nothing grows, nothing grows.

To Watch

fumbling for the switch, your nimble fingers
in the cold look so different, changed, rearranged,
tiny charred pitchforks in the monster hunting night,
can't grasp the tongue soaked metal of an afterthought,

some say it isn't right for the winter come,
and darkness is the right frame of mind to take,

I've no opinion either way,
outside a disinterested observation,
or so this narration says

and a rhyme.

the darkness is on time, to go or who to when next
we meet, with the ilights on, I don't know.

in the summer perhaps,
when you can flick the switch.

I'm not sure why I can't help you
in this task,

is it because I'm standing here, one legged?
lost.
maybe.

there's one thing to be sure;

You'll have to stretch out and shut the door
or the light will escape, and all your work in the cold
will be for nothing

once again, just my simple, ascetic observation.

Arlington Bop

Rock music
from cemetery stoop--
white domino rows of the sacrificial lamb--
odd feedback
guitar strings,
tour bus buzz
announcer drawl mix
vibrations off the back wall--
turf renovation in progress--
selling the national memorial of death
     to the old
     to the current
     to the new
generations.

Telephone Poll C1017 HJ6

Berries grow but won't
                    be eaten

Grass grows but can't
                    be cut

10:17 am
                    the time I was born.

Papal Vacation

dressed in white
my naked pink whiteness
typing from home
from my prison across river
listening to kaddish
allen ginsberg voice
strange nudity
accumulation of data files
telework cables
draped over me
nothing
cloak of immortality
cock
sweat
autumn
keys
work mad
god on earth
for a day
for a year
for eternity

Silent in the glow of a yellow roadside

a street and its cars;

I am alone
     unknown

a sidewalk splits the road
     a wooden porch
          fenced off
               splits concrete
                    removed

sun breaks the horizon
     yields to night
          oh the day is lost
               silenced

I am silent
     I will not speak
          not ever
               not now

Green street signs face me
     respond in weary silence
          no directions
               they will not speak
                    not ever
                         almost never

bad deal

you really like fish
     and I can't even remember what year it is

most of the time
you like fish
     I can never settle on the year

or;     I mean

I can never get that last number right
     and you like all non-white meat fish

mostly

     lobster is seafood not fish
red when boiled

dyes my hand     slick and red
     buttery

I wipe them on my shirt

the dark figure in the dank archway     by the dock

turn out yer pockets     wallet
     purse

stink of fish     brown water     machine
     gunpowder     oil

the slow moving clouds as the sun sets

a drifting thought

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.

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.

Rolling Bridge Road

timeless cross on that
last unknown road to nowhere
before split to bay bridge
and frozen wasteland
Chesapeake scenery,
where there's a boat cutting across,
slashes through beautiful
static sheet of ice
not unlike shattered glass
floating on caps of slush and white,
two hundred years ago
there were oyster breakers on
those waves, scuttling ashore,
broken hulls, gray aged hands
 on tired washed out decks,
carrying food
for the poor.