Joy in Dark Places

what you've kept stuffed & tucked
away in that closet or in a desk
drawer or in some cardboard boxes
from your childhood, from

those years ago, that
moved with you into every
apartment, every flat, beneath the
staircase or in the attic

It's still there waiting,
and maybe it won't remind you
of the most splendid day
from the then, but it will

hand you something musty and dank,
that violin from middle school
orcestra or the action figure
from when you were in the hospital

that Ninja Turtle toy your mother
gave you during a painful shot,
so you stopped cry. A memory
where pain and cleanness trump

the sludgy hot mess waiting for the
adult-you. So take that photo from
the dance recital or the smurfhead
that was filled with icecream

and dip it in the bronze
of your mind. Make it into
something it's not, a warped
and metallic memory version

to keep it forever, transformed
but still to keep it; then
put it back away, in forgiveness
for keeping you.

Go Away

I don't know you,
but I know this.

I have left the door
to my house open and

you have let yourself
in, to rummage through

the kitchen; to take
the warm scones and tea

the cucumber salad or
the chex mix and to leave a note

"The door was open. Thanks
for the grub; I even liked

some of it. The other stuff
I didn't like, so I noted that too."

When you come back, I will bake
slugs and cigarettes into a pie

and I will leave it on the window-
sill, to ride the winter air.

Mythical Kings and Iguanas

your eighty year old bones
set in that rocking
chair atop your treehouse by
the seasalt lake in boston.

you've had a few strokes
with your paint brush in hand
and man what kind of art my
twenty year old heart can take

with your oversized glasses
and your enlarged bangs
those pangs of honey-desire spun
into wax; into a 1971 LP.

you shape-shifting hollowed out
gazebo of a singer who waits
for the atlantic breeze to brush
bringing British blusters and eddies

and current preserves across on a
teaparty ship sailing your white
washed seatop easel, your left-brain
left and your fertility storms forming

waterless clouds and, in response,
your ship of reason, your pain
paints and strokes along
the top of our concious world

ok, alright, ok alright
goddammit god
deal me in
send that puffy-cheeked wind

to end my song.

cheat code

just as he runs across
the screendoor and the words
are left behind and the sega sound
of coins chings one more time

dadada (quickly)

straight up downpour
when I straight left riteaid &
hit A Bee and start(ed)
my many levels
of existence
and my infinite lives

palm trees and those mechanical bees
springs and superspeed
it's got that hit on the head
that will set your inner-animal free
and knock off those layers of mechanical
robotic two-dimensional armour

a superspedup hedgehog hit
with two-bit music and broken tvs
at backflipped running speed
this spedup game is all we need
to set the animal in us free

Phosphorescent

you are the artist
fashion me as you will
your hands guide the clay
concentric circles like the mill

and the miller on the water's edge
and the snow atop the pines
the ice has closed his shop up
but it will thaw, it will turn in time

1891
with the loom owning his hands
between his finger's dance the thread
of tomorrow's head, of sleeping plans

and the artist on the ocean's edge
collects his clay near the sea
on the mouth where the river meet
that's where he fashioned me

Father let me taste the salt
and the sweet berries of the land
let me roll behind the comet's tail
and show you pearls made from sands
let me show you this world is still grand

and the father on the canyon's edge
will hold warn hands with his clay son
they will sing together and hear their song
the canyon's echo becoming one
it will die like the waining sun
or like the desert wind whispers
"the night has won."

Crooked Cobwebs

before breakfast,
before we show we are
civilized and of enlightened
ilk, we get up and wipe
the sleep away, we scratch
what itches, we stretch
like a cat or a silly putty
filled superhero doll. some of us
wash our faces, some take a shower,
some take out the curlers

we all (should) brush our teeth
and a few of us floss, those flossers
will be the ones who live longest, the
preservers; and
before that grape-
fruit gets sliced in half
or the kettle is put on,
long before the puppy gets walked
with the umbrella over his spotted head,
we each sing a song or
say a prayer or take a full
breath in the recognition
in the unconscious acknowledgement that
we are one day older and one
day more hopeless (helpless?), maybe one day
deader and colder.

at least that's how I am half the
time, and the other half
I remember to floss.

Having Dinner Alone

Having Dinner Alone
on a Friday night
when you have a thousand friends
on Facebook

might be like having
a hot coke in the middle
of the summer in the city
with a thousand icecubes
made of plastic, on a movieset

set, waiting, not to melt
so they can stay perfect for
the shot in the Manhattan heat
and as I eat, alone

my miso soup with slivers of
ice cubes and tofu and saline
broth, I cough and ask for
some green tea on the side

trying to hide what it's like
to be young and without wrinkles
and charming and smart and sparkly
eyed and alone on friday night, in LA.

(it's a shrug or a sigh and a chin
held high and I, I knew that's
what tonight would be like
like any other, phoneing my mother.

the clever drother of writing in
the dark, without legs, without eyes
without a heart. now, hm, that melty soup
tastes just right.)


NOTE: that's how I figured out I want sushi for dinner. fin.

On the (un)intentional misreading of Black Flag

is satire like a
hooker posing as your sister
or your love? Does she
creep up behind you to
scare you or to smell your
shoulders. or has she just
come quietly to steal the
cash from your wallet and
the intention from your
will. maybe the goodness
from your chest or your
breastpocket. the picture
hanging on the chain in
the heart around her neck,
is it of Jesus? or of a Sacagawea
dollar coin

flipped to show her bending
over to plant the corn kernel
down. the two-sided mother
playing as the fertile power
missed in your prison desert womb.
the land of many men. the land
of dying life and wetless loneliness
only half of what it takes to
make it.

or is the locket filled up
with a picture of me? my
heavy-handed cursing brow
kerneling down the blue-corn
seeds of my eyes. like white
corn dipped in blue dye; my
eyes from the side and she
likes me simple and washed clean
quiet. not drumming on the table
not navel-gazing. not knowing the
answer without knowing the question
just there, in the picture around her
sweet applejuice neck.

no. not them, not me, not even
the indian three. it's just the
picture of Charlie, the beagle.
on his way to the fence, she
says "look up Charlie!" and
he swings his head around for the
picture
tail in full wag. waiting for
her moment, then, to go chew on grass
or runaway or disobey or some-
thing else wonderful.

TV PARTY TONIGHT

it's 5:23
and I'm still
at the key
board of my
office computer
when i get
this message

WE'VE GOT NOTHIN' BETTER TO DO
THEN WATCH TV AND HAVE A COUPLE BREWS

and i know that means
we're gonna make some
pudding pie and watch
the office and 30 rock
and let the day melt
off us like wax on the
hood of your brown
candled-eyes. right
ontop of it all. heaps
of coolwhip and
nonfat sugarfree
jello in a pie crust
and beer. light
right nite beer. and
a couple of laughs.
oh 24 years old.
sing in loud and
sing in free, open
the windows and scream
the youth of love for me

the 42 blues are comin boy
so eat that puddin' pie
like it's your last taste
of a woman and smile every
little drop while you still
(drink it from the) can.

Smoke on my mind

jazz and fingers snap
tap a quick flinching
tip toed touch

hush that little baby
don't say it. not a word
girl, no wait say it
tip atop the tingling

fickle eardrummed
timpani dancer
prancer blitzing in
the pack of cards
cigarettes, scarves,
wolves, redtide,
hide or hid with
miles gone by
byebye to the niles
of winding mississsippi
quit the only job you knew
you could do on that street
walking tightrope talking
flit of a dance you ran
your hands down my
granddad's hand and
clapped a little
face, my mother's
head your shoulder's
spilled like a drank
drunk mess. I guess
we can start it over
and replace the needle
cuz this records gonna
skip any second now
pow here's the gun and
we've raced and we've
won done gone never begun.

Hearing an airplane over the sea

watching a video of
yourself on stage with
those warmed colored lights
on your face is to forget
what the blackness of being
on stage looks like, with two
feet planted, hitting their mark.

Those lights make you the puppet
and the master at once, they intentionally
make your body an object, a separate thing
from self/existence. you just pull the strings
onstage, enough where you have to watch
a homevideo of it to make sure you've fashioned
yourself right. it must be the opposite of a mirror

it's the mirror with no image, the bloody mary,
the horror or unspoken darkness of
simple strangers getting away with watching you.
they could be doing anything, because you can't
see them seeing you. Imagine getting naked in front
of those lights, and seeing that blackness dissect
and quarter your every cell. that's all it wants
to do. tear you apart.

Death on stage must be the way to go. You're
already stareing the darkness in the face and
your being judged and your smiling and
you are separated from yourself and your
naked and alone. It's like training wheels
for death - but hey, dying with two feet in the
grave and training wheels ain't a bad way to go.

I hope I can watch the video after.

Lights and Sirens

a hyper-sexualized
touch of a fore
arm against the knee
wrinkling the shirt at
the elbow, that spills

a bit of chemical
release of hot
chocolate heat from your
frontal lobe down into
your pink and white spine

dancing hairs like alfalfa
leave a taste of wanting
more on the lips of your
brain, and again we touch
we push that nagging need

for dopamine in and pull
back again; all of my feelings
are feeling and my brain's
mouth is filled with a cow's
tongue. purple and wet and still

waiting for that moment of
inspiration to lightening down
and knock over the trojan cup of
cocoa, flinging it onto the white
polar bear rug of realists.