PI

carefully I'm writing these crime novels, setting my heroes up

on tv they'll cast them all with square jaws, thick red lipstick

the atmosphere will be brooding, dark sets, city streets

I'll spend the first ten chapters, three episodes, explaining private eyes

sunglasses at night will be the theme, both series and book

a QR code for song download will be included on the inside flap

there will be well tailored suits, complicated relationships

it'll all end in a urban street fight after a car/subway chase

villains will sneer, die, men will cry, fear,

women will live happy ever after, alone,

commercials will air on the last page and every ten minutes on the dot

On Writing

now and then
with this book on
my mind, sitting and
staring into the silver
horned crown on the
blue flat horizon,
I imagine each chapter
perfectly, each sentence
formed, each idea truly
unique, the words fall
so easy from my mind
to mental page, it's all
complete in the end, edited
submitted, published,

stand up, finished,
I am finished, there's
a film of coffee
left in an old cup,
enough to reflect a sky,
but only those pieces
that are brightest. and

I can no longer fight the urge
to shit my failures away

First Draft - June, 2010

Looking at you
I see into the past

diamond sky
and the goats head

long hours
sleeping cats

          D
          E
          F
          L
          O
          W
          E
          R
          E
          D

    THINGS

an empty house
creaking in its floor boards

scent of lamb cooking on stove
bitter taste of coffee

click of key
and mark of pen

sleepless hours hours
sleepless hours

things that are dead.

There's too much paper left

three months since I finished
the last draft of that novel, that
first novel, and I can't really get
anything else going at all,
long, tremulous hours of writing
and deleting--
all I've managed...

a few measly pages
a few hundred words

I fear I may not have
enough blood left inside me
to stain a page

Throwing insults at the wall

fuck the staring screen
burrow at my soul why don't you
writing ground to a halt, breathing
oxygen-like-desperation too close to
depression and meaningless pounding
the keys kack kick kack ti--  poems
are an escape from responsibility to the
words I've missed putting down (afraid
to put down) for really I fear they aren't in my soul,
heart, blank space stuffed with beer and memory
and dying and age and fetid fuck angels gawd
I'm pulling myself up each day later and later
I won't see the sun soon, waking at night
drowning at night, sleeping at night,
a muck ah man god beast whatever
stop listing oh iris-ed vomiting corpse, stop
listening for good so I can let it all go

Round 3

Finished edits today,
baked chicken with potatoes
on 400 degrees and the whole
place smelled like rosemary, it's
70 outside and sunny, tomorrow
I'll be in the archives reading
Revolutionary War pension files,
it'll be raining like it always does,
I'm in DC again, scrawling in red and green
ink, I've got all these sketches tucked
away in my journal, part of me wants to
post them here, but I can't bring myself--
I watch the cleaning crew outside my window
5 stories below...they're speaking Spanish
and I don't get it, I don't get
much--

excerpt

Where are we now? Where am I—? How—

            You say, oh, There’s just too much time slipping since I’ve been out wandering, and, oh, there’s just too much time passing since I’ve been gone—and I think that maybe if we all stayed young without noticing that would solve it, but I know somehow our minds would die finding a way back—

Here—

To the big round ikea Raymor container, glowing life urban outfitter’s bulb, where there’s just too much wasted time to empty out; eventually—

It’s scattered ashes everywhere where we’re going.

Sound Visions

The Westminster chimes
and that sound(wordssoundwords)
sad killing time sadly hilarious
is the basis of what I believe we(youmeIwelovingly)
created as an afterthought an accident
and it built a novel in my head, buried deep
you were(are) all there tucked away under
my forgetful musings scribbled in notebooks
seven years old dust covered(new) a
cycle of five permutations repeated- occurring
twice ever hour setting our lost endless lives in
concrete and flesh,  my pen tears at (those)our words

O Lord our God
be thou our guide
that by thy help
no foot may slide,

but why?

$4.85; A Novel

He lit his cigarette,
took a drag and threw
the match to the ground.
In between these lines
there are pages to read,
You can never touch them all,
there is no ink to dry
and no corners to bend,
Bukowski filled a book
maybe several books,
I haven't got the time,
So I'm leaving the novel up to you
Because I'm sure
if you're reading this
you have even less
to do.