Pride goes

often on a morning just like this today
I find the coffee mug too far away
full knowing when I placed it there
I had assured that this would be the case,

It was still an accident, I am saying, I really want to drink it
before it gets cold, I am saying, but to lean forward, to reach
between table and bed, ah, there's no use, I am saying

the only thing to do is wait until it gets so cold
I am forced to get up and dump it down the sink
then I will fill another cup from the pot steaming goodness
I'll take it back to the bed and after one great gulp
rest it back on the table where it won't be in danger to spill.

And that's as real as it will ever get from here

bells clang to the hour
voices below
on street,
quiet suburban street,
where no doubt
picnics and bar-b-ques are
planned,

slow drawl of daylight/
sunlight breaking clouds,

grind of plastic on
pavement,

chair legs? can't think
of anything else

somewhere a father scratches his
ass, thinks about relatives,
burgers, beers, wife, kids,
friday off and this is what I got
to put up with?

he grunts or sighs

he heads back into the house

coffee is heating breakfast is waiting

or at least I like to think,

but whatever if it's not and
all the same it's happening
out there in my head
and that's
as real as it will ever get
from here.

Good Morning Rolling Stone

In the morning
I don't have time to
slowly wake, there's no paper
at my door, nor is there
a half finished bottle of wine
at my feet,
there's only time to brush my teeth
if I hurry, and dress but that's a given,
I'm guessing,
I wonder where the morning goes,
and why we've all got somewhere to be...
why not enjoy the sun's rising,
I dunno, it makes sense to me,
'cause I don't really know where the time goes,
or why sitcoms tell me I should
have time to sit at my kitchen table reading
the paper, eating cereal, waiting on the toast,
coffee dripping into glass pot,
that's not how my morning goes,
mostly I roll out of my sleeping bag,
pull on pants, part my hair, blink
sadly out my window, and look
for my shoes.

Thinking a poem out loud

I highly recommend
refining your search

does best

kindling wood

use sparingly or else
cancer causing enzymes
seep into river over world
causing water to run clear
over smoothed rocks
a billion years old

saw god worship some thing
makes you uneasy
on a Saturday
makes you think maybe
you aren't catching on

HEADLINE [place text here]
[name] was found [verdict] of [number] counts
of [crime] and will be [sentence].

OBITUARY [among the rest]
[name] died.

often times it's easier to care about
what's impacting the rich than all the stinking
bodies of the ether piled up in rows
and wasting away

suck a drink from the funeral pyre
make a toast to mankind
we've got a while to go
and the next town is bright
the next press stinks of ink
the roads going on going on
about itself.

Mornings on 19th

Rain on gray street
and gray marbled sky--slow moving
clouds just finished overnight--
with brass band playing somewhere
out of sight, the only other smells
are starbucks and subway and you
can get that anywhere in america
and probably the world on every
city street corner that isn't ignored
or shoved headlong into some ghetto reality
that doesn't exist here, we're living
a choas dream of all the wild stagnant
dreams you've ever heard of in squat
skyscrapers that taper off into block
house hell with the only visible resistance
a pile of wet blankets soaking in
a park that no one else bothers with
until lunchtime fantasies--I get it, no kidding--
and when to cross the
street I'll never tell ya, just watch the signs
that get us there in one piece--

Hold that door!

She closes the elevator
to say sorry, juggle your drink
in formal wear work party
shuffle, sorry sorry
red faced surprised lips
con job,

you wanted to get to your
floor 5 seconds quicker
I get it,

It's the end of the world
dig, it's the end of the world
so don't frequent the elevators
God hits those first,
the cable veins
and blood cells
souless grinding 13 floors
with those colors underneath

but what do they mean?
R O G B
figures out,
it's Gold and subscriptions and payment
increases,

backs of broken
labor shnelling yelling
why don't'cha just drop
the dirt in here! it's six
foot and deeper,
it's the elevator shaft
devils work and lunch
time is no time
is half time is half hour time
is the clicking lock and
the fumbled coffee
is the rush to get wherever whenever
for no reason other than nothing else exists.

I'm out of the metro walking to work

Am I supposed to
write
        about
the fluorescent lights?

I guess when
there's nothing else but
the almost inaudible
radio humming Billy
Joel and the condensation
on my coffee cup,

I'm all but forced to--

what happened to me
walking to work was nothing
worse than nowhere feeling
like the lights should
just all go green
so streets would be impossibly
cluttered with the sick stench
of burning car engines and
burning flesh,

I mean to say
                     there
would be hellish crash
bang Daedalean accidents dragging, and
rolling cartoon wheels cutting into my sidewalk
visions of mangled peace--

not the inevitable
lifeless lights
of heaven's 4th floor above,
broken by the shriek
of copy machines and
water cooler christs,
playing the same humming
soundtrack incessantly

The Drive Home

small gray clouds buttressed
billowy pure white clusters in
the sky repeating themselves
again and over and forever in the crisp blue
of so much blueness that
I questioned its reality in
the autumn like sun of the highway,
each cloud was like an x-ray Russian
doll puffed and shrinking like
the ouroboros never-ending until
the final speck of madness atomized
into the abyss,
                   *
                         I thought of your
body, heavenly in my arms, tanned skin,
soft and moist on my lips,
                   *
                                           the road
poured out at the off ramp before I
lost the clouds and the thought,
rushing for traffic lights to sit
and breathe and focus on the colors,
clear and unbiased,
                    *
I've led a happy life with you
but I've not led a happy life.

The Soul Gems

10 months ago
I had the same amount of money
the same house
different pants
and no job
I tell everyone about a dream I
had when I was younger, I woke up
the morning it happened and ran
downstairs to check if anything
had been real,
it wasn't.
The game I'd imagined did not
exist, the promise wasn't there,
I think about that morning
often,
and promises and
things just not being there.

In the spring

last night I knocked a bottle off the balcony
and it fell two stories and shattered in the
darkness of the alleyway below and I forgot I did it
and even threw two other cans off the building next door
after that Matt wanted to show me his poems but I got lost
and someone was cutting Joe Rossi's hair, there's pieces of
it everywhere, I kicked a book down the stairs and
Tommy pulled me across the floor, in the morning I woke up
shuddering and blearily walked outside to the balcony
drinking a glass of water and looked over the edge

in the universe down there where it was pleasant and sunny
the bottle was sitting unbroken on its side,
I laughed to myself, turned to call Joe but stopped
and instead leaned over and spit through the heavens
down onto the cool gray earth underneath

there wasn't even a sound.

Attention

Whit took his time cleaning himself

on my keyboard, focused on his left 

ear, his (there's something off about them)

orange eyes focused on a thing

I couldn't see, the light

from my window wasn't enough--

I was wrapped in a blanket and flannel and

plaid patterned pajama pants, I wanted to

continue my edits--Whit kept cleaning,

left leg scratching his face, tapping keys

underneath his feet--now he wants

in the closet, now he's out and mewing 

and mewing and meowing and rawling

and laying down and jumping and typing himself,

I rest my forehead on his and he snorts,

bites at the wires on my desk, I push him off

I bite his ear, his stomach puffs and he opens 

my door

untitled

I don't hear much but the church bell
it's 10 o' clock, my eyes are adjusting
to the light, does the void consume us
in lonely hours when sitting alone I think
maybe there are countless parallel universes
where each time we die one linear thread is
created, and each of us lives one life until
old age and thousands of deaths, until
the final death we can't escape and in trying
waste our life on worry and regret, never
understanding that only to others do we ever die
horrible deaths, early deaths, unfair deaths, we exist in the
greater dimension, the suffering, the sadness,
we are one cog in the universal machinery of death
and rebirth, I fear the moment of realization
when I'm dying, I've lived it a thousand lifetimes,
I've seen all my threads, I've broken the wall, I've
been an old man on a porch watching the sun fall, a dying car
crash victim holding his chest thinking "no", a young father
clutching his heart thinking of his abandoned family, the years
he's left behind, In those dreams the church bells never rung,
in those dreams without blue sky, it's 10 o' clock I hear the
echo of silence, and the clanging, ringing, life
outside.

Disappears just white enough

Hey, if I cover up my shirt (bright Orange)
no one could see (but it's cold or it seems to be)
clear and wispy cloud sky disappears just white enough
to obscure god, like my glass (I washed) only to pour
some milk, (it's neverending that cycle of human understanding;
it has to be washed/someone ought to wash it/drink it) left in
metal tasting gray sink to wash and rail on stainless steal,
a dog yelps under clever powder blue somewheres past the dryer pipes
and unused chimney grave yards, I hope he's okay invisible...
I change and remnants remain looking up at me, bubbling,
thoughtless-- I'll take a page from the book,
look it over, plaster it on the sky wall, the deep horizon pillowman,
the America that keeps on rolling, the text that reads like water,
silently waking toward better mornings

7:05?

I go dizzy all this sudden cgi blue cloudless sky (fuck) wither call me joking
with princess darkness over hanging building (gardens) granary ancient blah
fever nausea glass of milk painted tree limbs leaning stained-glass gentle morning

separate the electric blue paranoia from me sleepless eyes and headache

Morning on 17th

By the way there's like a whole bunch of names
beginning to pile up outside this fluorescent light
cubicle space, shit sh-sh-shit two dimensional
unnecessary shit, and I'm pretty sure they're serving
scrapple down the street little corner street off M
with Mexican voices crowding in and breakfast smells
like a great busy truck stop coffee stop truck smell in the city;
eggs on the griddle yolk running over bacon grease toast,
I walked by, hours ago now, to the sound
of engines stopped at  red quiet lights and morning,
bland sunny bright DC morning blended mosaic
recycled folders and post-it notes

Balloon Time

Been lately absorbed in dreamless sleeps
and visions only when I wake and the clock has
mishandled 5 hours or jumped ahead, head punch-drunk low
I'm picked up by Dorothy's balloon and, it's-- real-- colorful-
blotted out cornfield nightmare city-lines later,
forgotten the entire ride, or curled in a ball beneath windy flame,
eyes tight darkness un-watching, blinked ephemeral

time-lifting-jerked-dancing-shadow cast walls-howling- forgetful-
forever-foggy-time-stretching round-timeless-nothing-globe-

however--

Mornings on February Cool

White week-older t-shirt
draped, arms wrapped underneath, over
radiating thermal coils, pulling on
my cold, sleeping overnight on back of computer chair,
corduroy pants, grayed from use;
the sun's somewhere, blinds down
stomach empty morning drowsy lights, baying towards
thundered rapt daydream fantasies
(women)

Mini-Mini

Light forecast New Years day
Early rain, wino dream
pink lace waiting star
still in baked Earth sky,
my fuchsia iris dove,
we dance moon showers
blink.

You Know... (October 2, 2009; 7:20am)

I don't like (him)

so 
why 
does it seem to be
that
(dude)

all the time?
(duality)