Night Pome

light hides what's outside,
along with dreams
swirling at the glass,
heat against the door
seeps in
mixes with my sweat
my hopeless rot and the words
squeeze out
tonight nothing changes
nothing goes forward
just the sun spinning
the earth pretend spinning
the sky black spinning to blue
me staring sleeping yawning
nowhere to go

A Spackle of light on sky

Spackle of light on sky
knifed across clouds
painted over
instant and bleary
too soon I turn my head
missed; too soon
the night and its
secrets; soundless
the distant storm
approaches; soundless
the wind alters direction;
unforgiving the trees
moan, there out in the
oily thick landscape
sonorous, the lightning
lights like deep breathes
on the filament, collapsing
space, an invisible hand
draws ivory streaks across
chalkboards of the night

on drinking a beer before bed

something to think about

Hampton bops at piano
Dexter blows
Wendell beside him swaying
Mcghee in dark shades
Trummy slides, bays

bottle cap upturned on counter
kitchen light fades
flickers

moon turns
on its heel
shadowed
waxing

brass shimmering
in the past

half cleared

is this what it's like?

dying,
growing old,
watching time

falter

I set the empty bottle in the sink

alone

I'll wash it out

tomorrow.

The Moon is an empty blue sky

eyes reddened,
stirring,
piano keys,
limp fingers,
ah,
walking
followed by
the moon,
it won't go.

Wave to the souls
on opposite shore,
sinking yachts
sift though the
quicksand plots,

they can wait 50
years for the right
foot, marking the
right time and
glunk!

a few deep breathes
to our animal spirit
and no more suffering,

no, no, nothing,
that is where the
sense is, no, yes,
I mean, nothing
you see?

I couldn't even reach out
before your hand slipped
below,

I sat there and watched you go,

took time off to write about it.

There is what is to be said

so many things

I scratch my face

SCAB crumbles
sticks in under my
NAIL

bite it out with
teeth
taste fleshy

chew and mull over

NOW

there is what is to be said

I say it

wipe spot of invisible
blood
invisible to my EYES
dot on cheek
rough skin

curling waves
thinning hair

I watch for movement
out my window
from my perch on sill
I see all
pretend nothing is
going

return to bed

don't forget the light
but I haven't
I never even turned it on

water rushes gurgles
cleans the skin
makes new for further
scaling

moon beams light
waves casts beckons

I twist and turn

remove my clothes
bathed in darkening night

I await the morning

Left Alone

well
there's this sound
like gurgling brook
and gentle rapids
clean mountain
spring, my window
at night
street light
seeping in
half moon
lazy turned up on
it's side
dandelion
butter cup
shining silver
jets streak in black
sky crack silents
generator hurls
last bit of life
water still running,
feel it in my fingers
drilling sound through
my ears, clock ticking
and I am thinking to
no one is sleeping house
all full but empty
no words before breaths
no open eyes
but mine reddening
yellowed and tired
and old now
something that
shouldn't be,
cleansed by invisible
fountain, I'd like to
find my youth and innocence
and most of all ignorance,
my connection to
the still world outside
in here I listen to phantom
sounds, mysterious oasis,
questioning if what
I'm hearing is real.

Ana

Slog through this
poorly paced shit and you'll
run aground on the anagram
generator mechs that patrol
the grammar roads of legitimacy--
like legitimate literature pours out
the academic assholes, like always
clenching tight, ya--
follow the red ambulance
down the street with those eyes
reading further for the answers
mechanically separated dark meat,
light meat, parts and pieces, hell
it's all over hieroglyphs on the
telling walls--they're protected
electronically
from our fingerprints--luckily--

Last thing I want is for them
to be scared.

This was going somewhere but it left early

wind outside is picking up
heard in prison Friday it's gonna
be cold on Sunday, sure feels like
it, most time guards don't lie,
so I trust the intel just so I won't have
to open and window or door,
face the cruel natural world--luckily
there's four walls of radioactive concrete
surrounding me, playing the perfect defense,

I think maybe I'll read some
whitman and drink a glass of milk in
the droning light of the apartment space,
or I'll end up staring at numb letters on numb screens,
eh, either way milk'll go down smooth,
non-homogenized constant of my nightly
deliberations, they won't let me change
the spelling tho, they won't let me in on
what's really going on, what's wrong--
I don't have clearance for that,
it's made clear,

I listen to the leaves touching the balcony
giving themselves to the wind, there's no car
sounds, it's all drowned out, fuck--

I forgot what the last line was going to be,

I'll just fit it with a period and
call it a day.

as Dying

a single plane rising
into the wet night, storm clouds
veering off--why even give them
a name, ya--why waste the
time for headline-thought-line-
hook-line-and-sinker--for the
ratings game, no? for reality
shifting seduction--

please press enter
enter enter enter on the
start menu menu

one button finish finish
once you're in it doesn't matter
doesn't turn off for 70+ - 80+ years

it's why Keats lost it that's why Burroughs
just wouldn't die and why Kesey
disappeared into the ether of
northern Oregon,

I've got in sealed up in my brain too
those building blocks those sinister
ideas planted and watered like
bleak flowers without dreams of sun,

within the
prison system brain funnel fire-hydrant
plan--it's what's moving the storm--I'm
swelling up, allergic to the scene
get the mind-freeze cocktail
recipe out the trash
We'll all drink up under these
no-stars no-moon skies
c'mon there was never anything to lose
and no such thing--

thinking maybe 1,2,3 turn the cold water down

Is this what we do now,

Sit and stare and grow old forgetting?

I can feel the lines on my face each time

you close your eyes and say

you're tired...the world outside

is blasting colors at our windows

but we are here wanting to grow up

wanting to die

I don't get it

sleeping soundly for anther day

so what? the sun comes up and 

we can see and superman gains the 

ability to fly, he's younger than we are at

75, he may last forever on the page...the guy against

the window tries to help me, I'm telling

the teller-ticket-taker someone left a phone,

I give it to her knowing she's just gonna

sell the fucking thing, but there's nothing I 

can do, I could take it, steal it, destroy it

I don't get it,

what do they want leaving things on the seats?

herded out of buses, the wrong buses,

idiot buses, he's got thick glasses/Obama beret,

I die each time I see that

Days Inn, with the no cars

and pretend continental breakfast savior...

when am I going to blow it up?

I dunno, I'd like to soon, but there's no 

explosives left in a dying world,

just us, frown on our faces in the shower

leaning against the tiles afraid to pee,

thinking, ah the hell with it, then taking a

breath and starting all over again

I dunno

There's pulsing lights
that work to numb my brain and whit
watches me slowly drowsing, he's
slowly drowsing, into the night
only a touch in front of the morning
like all nights growing darker then suddenly
empty and bitterly engulfed by the sun;

I saw you hail a taxi
somewhere beyond my memory

I crashed, I'm disgusting, a sleeping wasted
soul on these hardwood floors
my mattress barely holds it's shape
tonight

tonight is never brightening night
Whit takes a long breath reflected
in the mirrored glare, re-situates himself
waits for my hand, often he's meowing our
heads off, but now he's in another space,

what am I thinking? eh--
I jump up, my chair squeaks
my chair is thinking these things
by itself, a glass is cleared
and the morning yellow fast approaches;

Evening

It's time to write something pretty
about artificial light shining in my face,
unplug it like god will the sun on some
Mayan afternoon. It's a prophesy I am
sure I came up with and am about to
implement in my mind in the world
I'm still not sure is real on the eve
of leaving and returning--

I'll pack a picture of you
maybe in your bathing suit to remind
me what I've left behind on the road, remind
what's in front of me on the road, but
what do I need that's alright? alright,
what do I need that's real? Real, I'm
not sure yet...I'm not empty yet,
to be ready to fail and laugh and love--
I've got wheels under my feet
and that's just the way I hope it
always stays. Ignition.

wine toast

Can't focus my-
eyes and what's like- inner weaving
cause you don't travel the waves that we-
built, they're too elevated and dangerous
purging likeness and life
so you can pretend to covet death,
it's in your favor, pretend and
you you you,
binge on it and miss it and drown it
cause from here it's only you
and the red and the pain and killing

Upstairs we are thinking

where'd that fucking beetle go?
setting fire to laundry landfills
and beetle trash piles...
can they get any closer
under this light? fuck,
who was she? this bulb isn't
strong enough, everything looks
milky yellow, or cold,
beetle cold and shiny,
ugly scaly wet shiny,
clinging to metal wires,

here first aaaaaand...there,

off to the right, the shiny beetle right,
where we know where
and for-
a single second eternal,
she places her finger
to the fire,

you remember it red with pain
and dancing,
beetle dancing,

buzzing concentrated,
fills the night 100 degree air,
where fans limp slowly onward
toward failure;

where

she ignores stinging
sounds rising above
injured animal screams
out into the distance blue.

Joe, after this a glass of Jameson is required

A new success,
A new religion,
shake off the caked mud of
empirical designs,
starchy and maddening,
sit still and
listen to the herd marching off
into the nowhere,
the stinging light of
an empty refrigerator,
the burning of unladen stomachs/

It's Almost Summer, It's Almost Raining

He stands in the rain,
it avoids him
a barely perceptible phenomenon,
the chance so small
it will not be realized and analyzed
until long after he reaches his destination,

an abandoned home,
an occupied yard,
a girl, struck by every drop within view
a nexus, a return;
rebirth and death and rebirth and birth and death
and it all washes away
little Persephone in the cold,
pulled forth and back,

the road eaten away
dirt mud ugliness impossible,
sucking his boots in
holding hard, fast,
refuses to let go and
drudging through, obscured by a light
refracted, mingling with
the rain's neglect,

a silhouette in the garage,
forged of crafted blistered metal,
a 1965 Oldsmobile,
and it hasn't run in ages,
since 1985 to be exact, it's well kept
except for the engine,
silent and content
to wrestle with eternity,
rain makes patterns on the roof,
pushing through tin and iron,
happily rusted,
a treasure passed in the night
footprint after footprint.