Tick-Talk

Father
his unrelenting
breathing, that
rhythm of his
breath

the waltz
that says
"you're leaving,"
the din undone
toward death

that water
waiting there
to boil like
coconuts
are left

upon the shore
from sun to soil,
to bob
and boil
in theft,

their stolen
from the sun
you see, a son
whose father
left

from the fronds
they were cast
out to sea
like fishermen
with nets

the boy, he's boiled
tremendously,
knew island
right to
left

the coconuts
washed out
to sea, where
sailing father
slept

whose messages
those prays and pleas,
watch waves while
widows wept

now time, he's
been a bad father,
no sound while
shadows crept

he's fast asleep
just past the waves,
beyond moon's
waning crest

Faith

Like a prayer,
I believe that
you listen,
you're there

my invisible reader
my invincible god
I trust you with
all of my care

in flippant decrees
we agree on repair,
I trust that
you're there

a fire or heater
or radiator near
the winter the cold
your eyes your ears

you're there
in new york in
Detroit in
despair

Right there
without a
working day's
care

you're belly
full up with
the peaches
and pears

There you are
singing and
there you are
talking and

There you are
reading, on
streets, you are
walking;

something's in
the air, in the
wind and your
hair, a sweater

sweats rain drops
and gum drops
droptop drops
no spare

the snow and
the sleet and
the ice, they
all tear

at the canvas
pulled back
winter wind
whipping fair

In frozen night's
hollows,
we pray for
our share

crown electric
pulled tightly,
we squirm in
the chair

near hot fire
or heater or
furnace laid
bare

Satan's heat
in the open
his warn winter's
wear

Together
for Christmas
with ham in
beard hair

we all sing
we all shout
we all gawk
we all stare

"but who cares
who cares
who cares,"
(junt junt junt)

Reactor

I'm writing this
While driving on
The highway in
The rain

An orange county AM
Rain, 3 days before christmas

That home alone
Miami kindof rain

Hunter thompson
Did drugs on the air
Real heavy stuff
And your mad at me

Oh your endangering
Lives, how could you
With the toddler in
The car next to you!

You must have forgotten
What young tastes like,
Like iron in blood
Like inmortality

Like sex with the
Lights on,
Like fangs, teeth
Feet and toungues

Like risking your life
For fun

Saying profanity
Infront of a crowd
Loud
Fuck

That was fun

The road is red ahead
From wet lit morning
Breaklights

Sit tight son,
There's more to come

Bad Posture

How many poems must a man
write down before you
can call him a man?

The phone rings constantly
off the hook and falls
and falls and falls

a hankercheff rolled
on the outside of
your hands mimicking

a waterfall: blue,
orange, red, green
purple all tied

together, spilling
out from your coat
pocket, your magiccoat

this coast left salt
clean in our mouths
no solution to that

problem, not clear
water, just clear doubt
spouting praise

like cream on cake,
those credit cards
created clout

don't you doubt
what drink has done;
I'm not the only one.

The Devil is Driving

recently, I drept
that I was in a
truck, in the back

this wasn't no
regularry truck
no it was a semi

and the whole
18 wheeler was
made of glass

black glass
that becomes
clearer as you

look at it
read it,
scan it with eyes

I'm stuck in this
glass truck going
80 all the way

to Vegas or Mexico
or Wyoming or some
other american hell

and you, my darling,
you are up in the cab
riding shotgun while

I'm a prisoner in the
back, black glass like
tar and ocean sand

between us. Our america
whipping past, postal codes
are minutes, miles and

I'm a kind-of slave
stuck with a typewriter,
hands tied to the seat

I have to write, while you
sleep and eat and talk,
and I write with my toungue

against the old metal keyboard.
Can you taste these words like
I do? I don't think that metal

taste came from the typewriter;
it came from the blood, it's come
from the driver.

Who Will Survive in America?

We will destroy
them and we will
destroy ourselves

a drip castle that
has peaked and
fallen in on itself

there will be another
and another and another
but no Rome, no America

my blood decided to
put all the poison
in your well, well

don't forget this
smile, cuz it's face
this face, is it.

Rain in LA; Sun in Helsinki

Watching a man cry,
might be as disgusting
as old toothpaste

I'm afraid I have
undone the last
corset strap

Hell is full
of icicles
and heaven is

obscene - no
water, nothing left
but apples and snakes.

Our New Dog

my dog, she wakes me everyday
when I desire to sleep
November morning, burst and brae,
atop the bed she leaps

now I roll-over, pull the sheets
and there she stands and waits,
above my face, she pants, she weeps
she cries out for playmates

"Ok" I say and scratch and yawn
and rise right to my feet,
hops off the bed, as quick as dawn,
she dances with a leap

she follows me, I wash my face
and waits with tail a-wagging,
her eagerness is full of grace,
her groan shows "grace" is nagging

no stillness but with pedigree,
the leash attached to collar,
she dances there impatiently
awaiting morning's holler

and as we step outside to walk,
the sprinklers yet to sprinkle
she pulls me while the front-door locks,
it's clear she has to tinkle,

now this is nothing new, you know,
she does this everyday
like taxes, death or undertow
even bills to pay,

It's clockwork that dependable
on daylight savings time
my sleep clearly expendable,
when she's made her mind;

now squirming on the morning grass
she walks with steps of grief;
then squatting, done! her morning fun,
her fresco, her relief,

And there I stand, wait idly by
as master makes her work,
the grass was green and so am I,
she looks up with a smirk

her look, it says, "Now pick it up!"
(the smell too strong to stand)
as I unfurl the plastic bag and
scoop it with my hand

and hold my breath, this pile of death
encompassed in a thin plastic,
will smell like body bags procured,
enough to make us all sick;

now clearly I must love this girl
awake at this young hour,
to clean her work and smell the world
long before I shower

We seem to do these selfless things
when no one else is watching;
If God is master and I am dog,
I hope my art's worth walking.

ghostdance

the boat with
no oars
rocks on
morning tide
glass tide
long grassy
fingers slide
along the hull
along the side

mist, steam,
air; wispy
streams of
water's hair
gliding down
the lagoon's side

like the
swamp was
never bare,
never there

a ghostdance
of white nothings
on the lapping lips
of shore, clapping
one two three more

that cave that
can't be seen
above,
her water filled
with mouth, her
roof with hanging
moss like chandeliers
we'd never doubt

that underwater cave
exists despite the
morning light and
even when your
doubt persists
just hold your breath
and fight

fight the need to
breathe again,
you'll never take
a breath, like
morning crows to
sleeping hen, the
sun, the air, has
left.

Hard

At 25, the leaning crouching
slump over my laptop has
turned into a kind a manufacturer

an overwhelming fist-clenching
fighting stance - for freedom,
the poison in the veins

I've become a mouthbreather
a form-feeder; a great destroyer
like Kali, her hand holding my head

the computer is buzzing at me
much louder than it should be,
so I unplug it and type

while it's off, hoping
somehow, that these words
are still hitting the page.

Investment

Let's place the
bet on US, and
let us bet that
we fail

we'll make
money on our
own failure
and then we

we, us, will
be a success;
while you
weren't looking

I turned war
into oil, oil
into food, food
into soilders

poof, alacazzzAM
they are rich
for putting the
money on Goliath

Unfastened

my movements might
be simple, like
a bee or a snowflake

a falling fractal
image of its molecule

I might be the copy
of my DNA, a double
helix sitting in front
of a laptop

my fingers hot from
messages that claim
to be the word

oh Father, oh Bother
thanks for your toil
your concern, it's
noon now, won noon
two three for, four
three two noon won
now Lord

undone, unrun,
slung these puns
to grasp at emblems
of the mind; twine
matches and turpentine

"oh I feel fine.
pour me something
real. something I
can really drink - not
that cheap shit. Somehthing
from underthesink.
I had a long hard
day and I want,
I deserve to,

de
com
press"

(If you're as lost as
I am, why, oh why,
did you invest
your time.)

The Window Shade Has Fallen

disappointment,
that itch geared
and locked in
unsettled cells

a molecular and
metaphysical toil,
our snowglobe spun
like water and oil

but wait, without
a force seen or
stured, our window
shade, caked with dust

falls, unheard; she
lays along the desk
with her cables splayed,
her hooks unclasped

Tex-Mex Buddhism

My sister bought me a
little blue Buddha,
mass produced for
a mass culture

the little fella
sits in my guest
bathroom watching
people wash their hands.

He must know, by now,
that soap won't get
us clean and neither
will he, with his

made in Vietnam sticker
on the sole of his left
foot; we cover our hands
and our eyes with water.

Light

just like delicate dew
pulling petals apart
with morning weight,

I bring down the knife,
a butcher's blade, on
delicate cake

the kind that makes
a crumbling seem quite
like the shaver's shake

the edge, so
shear, that van Gogh's
ear would tremble; it would
quake

just to think this
white icing
applied right after bake,

a second's passed
a second half and
strawberries will ache

like morning dew
with spring anew
pull pedals as they wake.

Dog People

I have never considered myself a "Dog Person"
in fact, until recently, I was far from it,

but today, I got a dog; we got a Dog,
you and I did, because now, after today

it's gonna be all I write about
she's gonna be what's on my mind

Mark Twain called dog's
Gentlemen, and the kind of heaven

he would want to go to; but this
dog, our new dog, she won't even

notice me or listen to me, like she
knows that I'm just faking as a "Dog person"

she walks away when I call her name,
she knows when I'm forcing a smile

dogs can tell when you phone it in
and its kinda sad that I'm hurt

because I am a "people person"
and they buy it all the time.

Apply to Teach at Ri0 Hondo College

I've been putting this
application off for more
than a month and it,
it is due today.

Instead of working on
the said application
I'm writing you this
poem and I can hear

you screaming at me
through the page:
"Make your life better!
Finish the application!"

but I will wait until the
pressure mounts and I've
literally made myself sick,
I will agonize and displace

I will hate everything including
myself and this poem and, especially
and, this application that I have
left unclean for so long like

dishes in the sink that are covered
with bugs or grading that has sat
undone for weeks, waiting for this
application, just waiting for it

to finish itself off.

Dreaming with No Morning

we are each of
us, a multitude
the seeds from
which the tree
of life developed

the secrets of evolution
are and time and death,
there's an unbroken thread
that stretches from them to
us

those are some of the things
that molecules do; we find
animals doing things that
we, in our arrogance, think
was unique to us

Science

the poetry of reality
the story of humans is the story
of ideas, that shine light into
dark corners

they don't feel frightened
by not knowing things
there's a larger universal reality
of which we are all apart

with it,
we improve our
lives;
from our lonely

point in the
cosmos, we have
for a brief moment
we improve out lives.

Cry baby

So sensitive
The little black dog
Our good wife
Twenty five to life

Anybody who grew
Up in Chicago had a
Dad that used to drink,
Protect our loved ones

Let's just talk,
Gay money
Street money
Nightstand cash

I wore this for Peter,
Did you hear moms divorcing
Number three - brothers
Undercovers, you sound

Like such a bitch. Are
You gonna leave him?
Does everything have to be
About something?

It's a whole new ballgame,
The swans are a swimming
I'll trade everything for the geese,
I'll explain everything to the geeks

Full Circle

seventeen times I've given
you a call, knowing nothing
about simple slurps of
surreptitious serum

sling that gun from
your Texas hip and kiss
the tip of my tongue;
snakes don't love aquariums.

That opening the size
of a star, a black-hole,
a carpet rushed and shaved
with sheers for sheep

sleeping sheep stand,
palm trees and Sheppard
and sand, no water, rocks
and sand, just air and night

raining torrents, a mouth
full of kitty-litter; I
clearly remember your eye-
socket full of sand from

jumping head first off the
swing-set into the box,
the kiddy-liter box and
now your in prison; eating crow.

Rocking

When we wait
for the words
to come, we all

do different things,
some of us drugs, or
writing without purpose

or coffee or something
to get it out and going,
to have our 6 days of

creation, so our seventh
can be for rest; I catch
myself rocking back and

back and forth, the flesh
on my palms moves like it's
attached to the keyboard.

Much like Bill Gates in
this boardroom or a stomach
aching child outside the nurse,

I rock like the words can
be willed out

(phone call)

It's raining now and
the kids are out to PE
and your in a t-shirt, cold

you'd like me to come bring
your rain-jacket. I decline.
I clearly don't have time for that.

This Year

This year outweighs all
the rest.

I'm a homeowner,
a dog-owner, a
little fatter
and older, a little
colder

my new place has
air-conditioning
that I keep cranked
so that icicles form
on my eyes, distorting

distorting reality into
fragments - like fingernails,
into something I can't count
or hold or know, just a

numb feelings, frostbitten
fingers flying on the keys,
uncontrollable and infantile;
"Let's go down to the lobby

and get ourselves an education
some insurance, a treat, a
job and a new liver; a new life."

Restlessness

When I sit, my right leg
will bounce like an
infant in a swing attached
to the door-frame

I move miles with
my right foot on
the gas pedal
bouncing between brakings

I fast-forward through
the commercials and
skim through the footnotes;
I just read the headlines

the facts don't lie, it's
a fact that I move with no
meaning, write with no reading,
sing with no singing; I think

without thinking.

Atop the Eiffel Tower

Viewing Paris from here
is missing Paris, because
your standing on it;

As if the hand of some
God came down and pulled
the grid of the streets

up into a point, like
a white napkin spun
to the look of a ballerina

in a metal chain dress,
twirling and swirling.
The point of viewing

Paris from here isn't
to get a good view of it
no, it's to be your own Napoleon;

to conquer it.

Before Sunrise

I'm afraid, I mean
truly shaken that I've
forgotten how to love
the written word.

This wasn't some
sweet affair or
solipsistic retreat,
some made-up afternoon

No, this is a love that
still sleeps while I
(Here's where my cpu crashes)
I sit and wait for something

something more than this, but
in that waiting I come up
with poem after poem after
poem, where words won't

betray me or flirt with me,
they won't string me along
after ten years or twenty years,
they just lie there, asleep.

Socks

I have this dream
that I will sort through all
the piled things in my closet
the towers of leaning crap

that I will take out, apart,
and look through every item
and that I will photograph it
and label it well and then,

then I will throw it out.

Steps

promises
the promise
of something more
something to stand on
when the ship is un-docked
and the water's lapping licks
laugh like little anchors on each
and either side of the vessel, nestled
deep in the covers, the crests, the waves
submerged cathedrals in your wake, waiting
like waltzing ghosts who step between the beats
those breasty crest on the starboard lips, pulsing.

The Six-Letter Word

"Nigger," the white
teacher says in-front of
his adult-child students,
old enough to drink but
not to make a living

and they look at him
as coyly as he uses
his fingers, like
bunny-ears, to make
a fence around the word.

He's a large man with
blue eyes who looks
much like I do now,
but younger, and he
thinks he can get

away with saying some-
thing that's fenced in
by quotations, like
a swastika behind glass,
not still meaning a swastika

I mean, not still looking
like a symbol for hate and
death and unrighteousnesses in
the veiled name of righteousness,
because the glass gives us distance,

perspective and so do these flying
not-existing quotation marks that
make the students (the non-white
students) sink lower and divert
their gaze. I would fucking

kill him. kill him with his
books to hid behind and his
other dead white friends who
write it and he repeats it. I
know he's got this job and his

house and his pretty white wife,
his pretty white life because of
this lie, this white lie that he
tells himself: "It's ok to say
nigger when I put it in quotations"

and it's fucking ok to write it
too and to take my voice from me!
Bitch, you have never heard or
seen the sound of a screaming crowd
at a lynch mob or while your brothers

and sisters burned to nothing, for
nothing. How the fuck do you expect
to write this fair or to teach this
fair or the let anyone listen to you
read this fairly. Fuck you and your poems.

Chocolate

Brownies, vanilla ice cream
Hot fudge and sprinkles

That was my thought
I've been waiting unpatiently

Look at the dog, so fluffy
Overstimulated

I am now a part of your we
We laugh, we run errands

We are place holders for
Stupidier children

A tortoise shelf covered
In chocolate turtles used

As your icecream shell
The hull of a ship

Wow, its a new location
For poem writing

You squeeze my knee
And we are a we again

The size of a House

Underneath that
Black and white vest
He's got a heart
As big as a house

It's covered in cigar ash
Cubans.they say all native
Californians come from
Iowa.

He's right down there with
The oil field. I suppose
You'd have to think of
Everything in your business.

I have a little allowance of my
Own, and I don't want to bother
Him. Are you crazy! I think
You're rotten.

You'll bet I'll get out of here
Baby
I'll get out of here quick.
Sour ice tea.

Well La- Ti - Da

You are waiting
downstairs
while I,
I sit in the
chair

at my desk
writing this
poem for
the people,
invisible people

You've got your
favorite program
tivo'd, tivo'd
on pause cuz
you're waiting

on me and my
little penis-sized
ego; I will write
us reversed, I
am in my lettermen's

jacket with my crew
cut and you are
deciding if your hair
should be up or down,
while you run the shower

for noise, just for
hot noise, the tv
guide flips and flips
while we wait for our date
my special someone.

Death Becomes Her

A hole the size
of a shotgun blast
in her stomach;
glassy eyes

no bones,
computers that
make your head
spin like a mantis

a young Bruce Willis
with hair and a mustache,
a french kind of look for
our big touch blackjack

and you, a stressed and
fat, balding man stuck
behind the camera with
a crew of 472 and an ulcer.

Make 'Em Laugh

A Car Accident
coming home
from church camp
where the bus driver's
been drinking and
he's the only one that
lives.

A mother who knows
her husband has gone
out with his friends to
lynch a few other men
while she sleeps soundly.

A suburban home,
with ferns at the gate,
that cost less because
but you just don't want
to know why - let's
just live our lives with
blind eyes.

An unregulated island
of swarming plastic
particles spinning out
in the Pacific, with your
fucking receipts and labels.

The death of a homeless
man in-front of a Manhattan store,
a whore in a motel,
a junkie, an infant in a
metal dumpster, an HIV
suicide; our drunk bus driver

on the electric chair.

If I was a River

If I was a river,
I mean if I were a river,
I would wrap the rocks
in eddies and dance with
moss in my hair

If I was a river,
I would bring fresh
water to your salty mouth
and clean it right out like
palmolive

If I was a river,
I would wade through valleys
crooked out to your sea,
singing "HUSH" on the
cliff's walls but hush pleasantly

If I was your river,
I would be named something
arbitrary, un-river-like, like
Colorado or MIssissippi, not
soulful or Godly, or Killer.

Summer Break

Jumping rope with the sprinkler
waving fans from the grass to
the hot asphalt, an eight-year-old

one-piece, the oak tree, the
ice-cream truck nearby, plucking
his digital song from a tanned bullhorn

braces, fifty-fifty bar, cream sandwich,
sitting in the sun on the curb, you and I,
the sky like the inside of a snow-globe

that hasn't been shook or shaken
in six solid months; taste the summer
taste, where noon is nothing like a

desert, dessert in our fingers and hair,
and man oh man, I wish you tried
my ice-cream sandwich before roping again.

Things don't disappear

Things don't disappear, people do.
Carbon animation, blood, eyes, hair
Air becoming co2
Through and through you

Life is an Indian gift
And god an Indian giver
Like a dollar bill attached
To string, strung along

Things get dusty, decay
But don't people do more
Like water on ice
Destroy, rebuild, destroy

There is no question who
Will live longer, this typed
Document or its author.
Pain is the shadow where

God is the sun.

Stay The Night

Sulking in the sofa
With whisky won't
Make this moment
Much better, not

While he's gone getting
Ready and you, with your
Second date shoes and
Your half drunk breath

Your regret that waits
Like a rain cloud grey
Enough to keep the
Next few days for storm

Where bitter drinks
And little pills liter
The hazy morning
Memory; slip away girl,

Slip away.

A Book Signing

While we were
Together and I looked
Up at you from a card
Table covered in cloth

And I smiled and made
Eye contact, and handed you
Back my book, your book
Your new my book,

Know that I was thinking
About your story, about
Who you are from the
26 seconds we spoke

And why your shoes
Or your smile or the
Cilantro in your teeth
Show me everything

But really nothing at once.
Now, that you are home
In your PJs or gown go
Take a look at what I saw.

diner LAX

Around 1 in the afternoon
Garlic
A metal bucket filled
With ice, tipped into
The trough under the cola

The manager looks
Up at me, nametag
Monica
A mona lisa smile
Knowing

What's really in
The corn soup
The soup of the day
The daily grill
A skylight above the bar

No clouds
Just metals and
Glass above the polished
Cherry wood bar, thousands
Of soups and smiles served

A man with a badge
And a large machine gun
Strolles past with his ego
Of a leash. The gun covers
His penis. I slurp soup

My iowa corn soup
My water with lemon
The 8 dollar warm
Beer that never made it
To the table. Just the hand.

freeway 10

Downtowm los angeles isn't
Really downtown los angeles

A beacon or lighthouse of
Us bank, the library beneath

No, not a city, but a cattle
Called jenga stack superglued

Down to save us from
Earthquakes and aliens

Godzilla, with the haze of
Afternoon in my rearview

Its plain as the nose on
Your face, this is not a city

No not at all.

Crossing Fortune Lake

The King of magic
Near the New York post
Hollywood doubles
Baby incubator
All to find at the World's Fair

Time-space
A clown with children
The Enchanted Forest
Glass Blowers of the World
Little Miracle Town

No sound
Color laughter
The houses occupied by
The midgets
The World's still fair

At the World's Fair.

July 18th (on a Wednesday)

Did you know that every year
Of my life, my birthday falls on
A Wednesday? Just my day, can
You believe that!

Billy Collins wrote one poem
With a date in the title and
It's the exact day my sister
Came here, out of mom

Isn't it odd that we use
The numbers from our birthday
As our passwords or security codes,
That's not very secret.

If you want to hack my sister
And her information, you might
Need to start studying Collins
Or learn how to lie like I do.

Nike Dunks, Reebok Pumps

In truth, I've accepted that
After this life, our moment
In the sun, there is eternal darkness

And not just the ghosts in the closet
Or the quiet between previews in the
Movie theater, I mean really nothing at all,

And it took me half my life to figure this out,
But I would be redeemed if I got it in my last
Breath, "there is nothing next, just death" I say.

So if hell awaits once this is printed, and these
Words are the seal of my fate, know I didn't go
Down swinging or singing, but just existing and then not.

The death of Ben Keith

Neil young and ben
And I sat around a fire
And smoked a joint just
Last year

The conversation wasn't
Great but we knew, while
Peering into the fire, wading
In the flames

That this was by far the
Best joint any of us had
Ever had, and that's sure
As shit saying something.

Three sisters (triplets) of Los Angeles

Three, there
Who have never met
One under, one over, one through

And I'll tell you
They look the same
But they never knew who was who.

The third street promenade
Walking one, she's over
With those shoes, Jimmy choos

The second floor underground
Parking structure teller, she sleeps
In her jeep, dinner of charleston chews

The first in her family to
Graduate high school, she's
Got a scholarship too, the future's anew

So walk tall with your heals
And your wheels and your
4.2. Los Angeles is proud of the sisters

That it never knew.

December 26th

Boxes folded at
The seams, untaped
Cardboard labels torn

The paper, printed
With colors crumpled
Clumped in the corner

Behind the blinking
Plastic tree, whose
Hayday, his day came

And went like a bird
Or the smoldering ashes
Cooing little pops of mourning

Like an almost forgotten
Birthday, a cake bought
In haste, a one-man song.

Imagine an Albatross

Imagine an Albatross
Flying toward Alcatraz
looking down like a bomber
on the pier, harbor;
its guileless eyes float
caught in morning fog.
He hangs - grey on grey -
still above the bay
lining the street hidden below.

Freedom's flying cousin of the sea
Moving miles more toward Tokyo,
Nagasaki; looking down on me
and us like mice, the
Navy Man gliding solo
like Lindbergh with half a
sandwich in his lap;
Consumed by destination.

Modern Mexico

2 seats in front on this flight
to Boston,
sits a boy in his father's lap
looking at me smiling
as we speak, he beams right
through my seat onto this
magazine scrap. to be folded - captured,
brought here for you.

Fiction

I'm 15
I rest on my bed
In my parent's old
Ranch house,

I throw the basketball
Up toward the ceiling
While resting on my back
Like a chest pass against

Gravity. My coach said to
Try and get the ball as close
To the ceiling as possible without
It touching, without getting ceiling

In my eyes. The leather ball
Slides off my fingers like a reverse
Yoyo, spinning back onto my bed.
I set it beside me on the pillow and

Try to imagine that it's you,
And you're still alive, even
After three years, after the
Accident, but I just pick up

Your head and throw it toward
The white popcorn ceiling,
Toward roof, sky, heaven
To forget your weightless face.

Fishing

Idaho
Winter river
Black rubber boots
Nervous air cut calm
Cloads mirror fish, shadows

Ebony eyes, spine
Hands holding eggshells
Swinging wrist lifts in and out
The surface bushed by whipping fly;
A hawk hounds heavy overhead, waiting

For a misstep, a single silver
Sliver, around an underwater rock
Up high enough to hook his claws in,
And the rhythm of that river rings right
Round my resting reel, to feel the first fling

That first fast fetching, with hours in the cold
Your heart, an icicle resting, will all so quickly fold
And spool up all the flaccid line,
Once you feel the connection
The squeeze, that thrill.

Sheep go to heaven

What if I tell you to
Listen, to put your ear
To the ground right next

To mine. To look me in the
Eyes with the dirt on your
Cheek and to laugh,

"How did you get me down here,
Jason?" you ask.
Then I say

You're not here at all,
You are in your home
In Pasadena or the library

In Vancouver trying to dig
Out a quotation for your
Midterm paper, well quote this:

No matter how you slice it
All you've ever done in your life
Is listen to what everyone else says
Is right or wrong or new or different
But it ain't shit, none of it
And you are gonna die
No matter what
It could be in 70 years or
Tonight, and the sooner
You accept that, and I mean
Really fucking swallow it
The sooner you will give away
Your slice of cake or eat
The whole goddamn thing,
But no matter what, then
You'll know what
You're made of.

Just listen close
To the worms whittling
Away at these words.

writing while driving

Atlantic blvd on the
60 freeway heading west
With gospel on the radio

I hit the yellow line
To my left and
Look up and the

White trucks red
Lights in front,
I'm waiting to

See heaven with you
Now I bet you are
Looking down at me

For risking my life
For this silly poem,
Well isn't that it

What its all about?

My House Plant Has Died

Many people, when they go out of
Town on vacation, leave children
Or pets with friends, relatives,
And if
You're lucky; both.

I left my fern with my inlaws,
Though I'm not married,
And while I was away
They put him in the window,
And he died.

They buried him behind the house
Near the large orange tree, beyond
That rusted swing set with no swings.
There he made six more ferns that
Will go onto eventually kill the orange.

I quietly hope the fern will fall in love
With that orange tree, making sweet and
happy saplings, little green bushes to put in the
Window that produce massive citrus fruit,
Fruit that could roll right on the lunchtime table

And down into your lap.

The Wait

Leaning my laptop
On my chest while
I type laying down,

It's old battery pulses
Heat over my heart
For hours, changing

Its tepid rhythm,
Microwaving it into
Digital stanzas

Melting down the flesh
Valves and corridors into
Plastic pumps, vacuumed

Ventricules moving molten
metal, twitches of fiberoptic
Nervous pulses pressing

the underside of these
Very keys, this binary text,
These robotic shapes

On the black and white screen,
Showing pixels of Julie Andrews
Waist high in weeds, singing. Smiling.

Farts

Jesus Dude
That's so gross
Dear Lordy-Lord!

how could you?
here!
Oh My Goodness Gracious.

What? Ohh... ahhh.
yuck. ick. gakk.
bleck. blarg.

man, what the HECK!
come on, really.
WHY!?!

I can't believe this.
that's just vile
rude, crude and completely

utterly indubitably
socially un-ac-ceptable.
(hilarious sweet-heart,

just hilarious)

Fake Dessert in the Desert (*Inside Your Museum*)

Am I
babbling
well?

A babbling
well in the
July hot hot

hot enough to
melt your sunglasses
right onto your nose

known for a slick
tongued tantrum
tantricly numb

trickling hung
done, hum-drum
hanged hands touch

much more melted
than a milk-chocolate
malt mess made

with wet wax,
its lid is stuck-in
so that it's all part

of onesingleunit
like fake vomit
a smattering

non-mattering
party trick,
a trickle that's

non-stick, like
this babbling
well; well-babbled.

Camus (and a Breakfast Burrito)

I
think
my life is

of
great
importance

but
I
also think

it
is
meaningless

Quiet

Such invountary pain
Around the dinner table
New monsters and elephants
Wait hovering over the glasses
And dishes

Why don't men understand
What to say when?

Now I'm off writing and hiding
And you are in the kitchen
Washing dishes louder and closing
Cupboards like chest beating

Cut and cold,
Asking us without asking
Us for
Forgivness

Fear and Honesty

Can you really talk about
The things you want to say?

I have difficulty looking you dead
In the eye when I'm afraid of what you see

Truth and fear are funny bedfellows
Each needing the other for what they

Can't do alone, but she needs to leave his
Conservative ass and stop making hate

And greed and large gunners sitting
In turrets on the prison wall

What does she see in him, other
Than that he makes her stronger?

More attention? Love? Can he
Love the truth? I want to set her

Up with my buddy Anger, then
We'll start getting somewhere.

Four AM

Hot enough to keep
My ticktocking brain awake,
Where sheets swim and
Eyelids sink, computer

With your cursor like a neon
Blue light special, knocking at
The door of silence
write think awake blink

Blink, flash, , , ,

Your pace puts every writer's
Nighttime mind on the same track,
The same flicking tempo
Open, Open, 24 Hrs

Chevron gas station
Lax massage parlor
Walmart super center
Nightcrew drivethru

Pickup hookup
Soldout low price
Discount recount
Rewind, flash cursor

Tell us we are still awake
And it's time to write
at your pace, you are always
Open

On Giving Up

The bumblebee will hover like a child
Above his hive high on the summer air,
Like swing set lifting boy into the wild
The moments before gravity would dare

To steal his weightless hopes with earthly promise
Of "trade your youth for honey and the queen"
Where age and time and reason win regardless,
There hidden in the hive, unheard, unseen

He eats and sleeps without an ounce of love,
Awake when others dream from dark til morning,
He leaves the hive at night to fly above
And see what god has done, but without warning

The moon whose whiteness steals the night for day
Comes crashing down with light lit on the hive,
Exposing honeycomb in wrought decay,
The hours upon hours built to thrive

Were broken in some swift stupendous passion,
Beyond repair, beyond the nth degree
No bees could salvage such a savage action
And soon the hive would crash down from the tree

Our bee, he knew that suffering comes swiftly
Like garden hose or wind and frozen rain,
Not just for him but also for his family,
When structures open, broken, their just stains

All squished in songs of children on the playground
Imagining they have us in their hand,
Before their youth will slip without a sound,
Before the swinger flings his bones in sand.

Now what do bees and children have in common,
When really all that's left to write is pain?
The hands, the hive, the sands and the forgotten,
Are washed away in time, in tides, in rain.

I guess this is growing up

Mortgage payment
Home owners association fee
Walls in insurance
Property tax

Electricity
Water
Gas
Trash
Cable
Telephone

Car
Car insurance
Gas

Children
Daycare

The difference
Is being a hypocrite
And telling yourself
Lies, filling in the
Cracks with paper
Presured air
And trying to find
Innocence in children
But only taking it away
From them on the way

Never land
A plane on
The island

Coal
Petrolium
Diamonds
Platinum
Woods
Cement
Steel
Fiberglass
Tile
Granite
Copper

A new townhouse
Our new life
Don't laugh
At this joke.

Depression

That silent song
Stuck on repeat
Has got a funny way
Of sneaking up on you

Like a toilet clogged
In a gas station or
An out of tune grand
Piano key in recital

It's really not your fault,
But it's now your problem;
Latenight twisting in sheets
Midsummer nightmares where

Your skin is an overcoat
Drenched in salt water
Slung on your back
In a marathon, sticky and

Pulling the life out
Of every crevasse and
Capillary, begging for
Oxygen to hit your brain

Insanity isn't our culprit,
He's just got good seats to
The show, waiting like
Vultures, to grab it

Those black claws will
Never let go.

Just old enough

I'm just old enough
To rent a car in Boston
To fly to Fresno on a
Business trip and
Float past weekends
With beer cans and
Inner-tubes

I'm old enough to vote
To put a man to death
To cook a meal, to
Seal a deal, to make
A moaning breath

The blues sounds good
And so does death metal,
My ears straddle temporal
Lobes like limbo or rainbow

Bending a half circle with my
Fully formed mind, from here
Children look like ants and
Adults like the undead, waiting

To eat the young and make us
One of them, mindless money
Hungry earthsuckers, draining
The colorful world of its potent potion

Like an oil filled ocean, mindlessly
Murky; metallic bloodmoney,
That creole blues is just
Old enough to taste like

Whisky and fermented
Tar mixing in my blood
Making me old,
Just old enough to know

When to stop.

The death of me (Marilyn Monroe)

Poetry might be
The death of me
For fiction replaces
With filigree, the
Voice and vocation
I've led

Writing this meter
So flippantly,
And posing for cameras
Auspiciously
The black and white print
Made in bed

Letters nor words
Never spoken free,
Here written, hear
Beating, say "123,"
For "Three two one"
Now I'm gone. Dead.

On the eve of your birth

Unborn stranger
Who's been giving
Mother pain,
Come out to
Greet your family
We'll have a cake
Waiting

A birthday cake with no candles
Because you have no age
No place but our projections
Or hopes and our dreams,
But as I write this in
The hot June sun,
You haven't breathed

A breath or seen the sea
But you have heard all
Our voices, mother father
Brother,Gongong
I wrote to you, and
You alone, knowing that
One day you will read this,

That day in high school
Or in college on the lawn
With your egg salad next to
Your someone, your book bag,
with those big smart eyes
full of light, then (and now)
We will be family.

Obsessive Images

Fingernails
Napkins (dispoasable)
The Sea
Sweets
Women
Water as Mirror
Alcohol
Clouds

-Origins-

Warped Tour 2003,
Typing with dirt
caked under my nails
about that dirt

My objectivist friend
Gareth saying "Paper
Towels are the most
excessive." Hotel Lobby

Years of closeness
without a view; its
smell, air, character
like a naked woman
(just out of sight)

that part of my brain
is like running your
tongue over missing teeth;
desperate, thoughtless

Mother, Daughter,
Earth, Moon, Unknown
Love, Void, the
smell, smile, laughter

I stare into my hand
pretending it's water,
I see an 8-bit version
of self, metallic, fake

Like an agapantha that
lives in the throat,
hot and limp, desperately
needing a drink; insecure

metaphysical weightlessness
seen in daylight, that move
and breath as one, just
an extension of sea, seen.

(laying on my back with
my step-father before
he was him; making
animals in the clouds.)

Hot Box

Boom, shaak

let it out, baby girl
let 'em roam like
icecream dribblin
down your fingers

those press on nails
stuck up tight like
an overbite bit with
vampire fangs

hot red nails under
that messy cream
stream, sticky icky
iced creme cone

girl, don't
look at me like that
when your stoned.
just clean up your

fingers with your
recycled tan paper
napkin
all the way up your arm

mmhmm

wait wait don't roll
down the windows with
that door-attached
crank, sit back

wait. outside
too fresh, cold;
let's let the
night unfold.

Hu Do U Thnk U R!

Going through the motions

when depression settles
it's like sediment in
the bottom of the
wine; you can
see it there

stuck and closed
but you really
gotta to drink it
to know what it's
like

So, Mr. Self-involved,
does loneliness look
like wine or a hot
air balloon ride
over the ocean?

vast mirrors where
when you look down,
you're only a pin-
prick, a little
prick on the waves

those moving walls
of life's offices
like

-earthquake-

California rears
it's head showing
my little apartment
that it's as alone
at the mountains

moving in inches,
itching it's temple
with the people's pistol;
I had to stop writing
and stand in the doorway

the young, blonde nurse
a few doors down was standing
there already, smoking. I stared,
she had to walk away: the Gaze
is stronger than earth-shaking.

Food, Farms

Tarhill
Smithfield
Busing workers
Treating workers like
Hogs.
The killing floor

Fingernails separate
From fingers

That's what they
Hold over you.

Chaching

A million
Mexican farmers
Out of work

Tar heel
Obsession
Arrests

Your bacon
Your holiday ham

Lust
Hidden cost

Is cheapness everything
That there is?

There's nothing
Honest about that food.

Author, dancer

Tomorrow, I will wake up late
To sound of boulevard songs,
No bird singing sweet where
The tire tread belongs.

I'll write a day and will
Will it to be true, like
Diving off an island
And seeing sea lobster

Well after I wrote
Myself into it. I will
Be happy tomorrow,
Healthy too, I will

Have life-changing
Sex and a steak or
Some cake, time
Enough to play

My guitar and
Clean a little too.
To lay on my back
In the grass, and look

To look up, with my
Hands behind my head,
Elbows out like elephant ears
And smile at the sky in full bloom.

This really isn't a poem at all.

If you are reading this,
I need your help.
I want to put out a
Book of my poems
But I don't know anything
About anything. I mean I
Know something but I'd like
You to tell me which ones to publish
Or what to say

I know you are there and if you are
Please write me. I will make sure
You get a Copy if you want one, I mean
Really all my poems are here
In the past, for free, without
Killing trees
But I know you've been with me
for a while Now and you can change
The future with your words.
Please tell me what you want and
Where to put it

(don't write drunk again)

Drinking Alone

I was told a few years ago
That drinking alone means
You're an alcoholic, well

What about drinking a lot
In bed while writing? does
A reader count as company?

Now if you're here (here-here),
knock three times on the page
Or the screen, and then I'll know

I'm not an alcoholic. Even
When you think I can't hear,
Do it anyway for those with

No voice, those heavy drinkers
Who don't have friends like you,
Friends like I do.

Why food?

I was going to
Make some marvelous
Metaphors about bbqing
And dessert, and Thai cuisine
And French women with tarts
Or something savory

Some old dusty wine
Sitting sweet in it's
Cellar, waiting for
The perfect beef reduction
But instead I'm going
To whip up this poem

Like a bowl of instant
Ramen, high in filler
With overbearing salt of
Chickeny essence in a
Small silver packet;
You sucked it down

As fast as I cooked it.

Us

We do funny things
when no one
Is watching

When God is on his
Lunch break, we
Eat our boogers

We fart in the car
Loudly, we sing in
The shower out of key

We think mean things
And dance silly dances,
We stand around naked even

We might pretend to pay offering
At church or take a sick day
When we are not sick just

To watch tv or go to the
Place that no one knows about,
But that is a place we all know

Even God knows, he gets
Your memo while eating his turkey sandwich
On rye and happily throws it away

with his uneaten pickle and used napkins.

Balding

I was raised
By the
Internet

It taught me
To read and write
And type and play

Guitar far better
Than a human can,
You young things

You know what
I mean man,
Can you imagine

Life any other way?
Where words weren't
Free and worthless?

Suicide is Shellfish

Recently, hundreds of
Mollusks and abalone
In New Zealand have
Been intentionally

Eating bad plankton,
The kind that taste great
But are quite deadly to
The little guys

Needless to say,
These thousands
Of shellfish have been
Found belly up near

The cook islands or
New Caledonia or
Somewhere where
The cross is backwards.

In the car

Tonight on my way
To irvine, with my drum set
In the back of my car

I came up with a smart poem
About something clever
Oh yeah, I remember it was

About dressing up like a clown
For children's parties or for
Halloween. A big sad clown

With tear drops painted and a flat
balloon
Dragging dead behind

Like a red wagon with
A broken wheel. I don't
Paint on a green Gacy grin

No, just a frown and tears for
This ol sad clown who
Can't blow up balloons,

Who makes time disappear.

Christina Ricci

Standing in my bathroom
looking over the tub
in my parent's house
at age 8 or 9, I remember
knowing that I loved you

It's the kinda memory
your can taste like
blood or a birthday cake,
that sits in a film on
your lips for days

I remember trying to
figure out how I could
marry you; what I would
have to do to get you
near me, with me

Would I have to become
a ghost - a friendly ghost
who would turn into a boy,
a real big boy, blonde haircut/

my lust for Lazarus will
could bring me to life
just for tonight, to reunite
us in a sheltered slow dance

Isn't true love just a mirrored
movie-dream? Don't we all learn
how to love by watching our heroes
bigger than life on the screen?

-

the cell-phone buzzing on the
table made me jump, but I had
to let it keep ringing to
write this.

A Profound Hatred For All Mankind

Funny as it seems
there's been a run
on the bank, and
before the robber
got away, they threw
that blue ink bomb
in his bag

packed full of
money, the explosive
went off (!) on the bus
,which pulled up on time,
right next to a group
of school children
covering him, the killer
with mallox blue ink

but those kids, that
sixth grade class on
the way to the tar pits
got bits of blue on them
too, and that ink/paint
that shit, it didn't come
off, not even in the bath;
half couldn't afford the
doctor visit, to sit for

surgery or a chemical wash,
burning the ink like a tattoo.
a few of them knew that then
at the doctor's, life wouldn't
be the same; not because of
the blue tattoo nor because
of the acid peel that feels
like pain. no they knew that
the blue killer had got off
at the next stop and he got

away. They couldn't admit that
to each other - not when they
had to write about it in class
or when they talked to the police
or to the counselor the school had
to hire during a "traumatic event"
No, they spent a youth covered in
blue knowing that robbing a bank
pays off, and it really doesn't
matter who has to pay the cost
(so go work on your Saturday.)

My House Plant

You didn't know this but
during the summer I work
from home, and I keep
the curtains closed to

cut down on the heating
bill. That summer sun is
unforgiving so, in the
morning the shades are shut.

But my house plant, my little
fern (or bush or whatever)
needs light. I tuck him between
the white vertical blinds

and his arms reach out for
the food from the sun, he
is pressed against the glass
like a kid watching taffy pulled.

Onions (crying spheres)

Sometimes when I try to
Write a poem
Like the one I'm writing now,
I put my hand over my face
Without touching and with
My fingers spread it
Starts to move like a jellyfish
Coaxing the words out of my
Mind

Mind you, I've got heavy
Breaths and thoughts like
I need a real paying job
Now that I've bought a house.

This space has been set aside
To distance myself from that:
Some phantom tollbooth
Or wardrobe, my distorted
Lookingglass world and I
Realize now that talking to you
About it is like talking to
My mistress about my wife

These worlds weren't meant
To meet, not at our little girl's
Softball game. Why did you
Come here?

Why did I let you in?

Full of Shit

The hardest part about
Loving someone is
Exposing yourself,

The most desperate
And intimate parts,
Your trueness

To trust and confide,
And knowing all the while
That that freedom has a cost;

Taking that secret and making
It part of your party joke,
A cold and mediated tongue-lashing

Or worse, to have your love
That knows your prayers and hopes
Write them off with a hand wave

I'm sick of hearing about it,
You're full of shit.

Hurt

Today I swam in valleys
Underwater, carved out
By the sea

I broke banana
Splits, like a mocha
Madness dream

I could do everything
And just sleep
But if I still loved you

I wouldn't be free.

Made ya Look

Semen,
Crisp like
Diamonds

On the
Motel
Sheets

As white
As the page
Below

Nightlite

That blue and black
Flannel shirt hanging
From the closet door,

In darkness, turns
Into a motionless ghost
Blackened by frozen tar

Its arms reaching down
To summon other dirty
Laundry ghouls who

Crawl like worms and
Slink across the carpet to
Smother me in sleep.

Island; Lobster

Once you have cracked your knuckles
I am already done

Prepairing your mask for the stage or
A robbery and I have accepted applause
And the loot before you tie your shoes

While you twiddle with your rhyme
And beat out your meter, I've submitted
My manuscript, my opus, my thesis

I eat lobster on the shore of an island
An island I have written myself into, while
You and your characters sit in manhattan
Drinking.

I am the hare to your tortoise,
The electricity to your candle,
The bully behind the bleachers,
An open general store on Sunday morning

I will be dancing in the grave while you
You tuck me in and shovel until
All the dirt sings into your ears
its choir of heaviness.

Madness

insanity must be a jacuzzi tub
too hot to handle
filled with lies, in the middle
of the desert outside Prescott
Arizona

and I'm sweating and I need
a drink so
I dip my head upsidedown
into the burning vat of
chlorinated desert poolwater
and close my eyes tight
suck, sip, slurp
that poison like an elevator
to my guts

as I stand, losing my
balance, I blackout over
the sandy brick spa rim
and fall flailing flat
onto the nighttime

head - ground

I vomit and vomit
and retch a fountain
of spawater up and
over into my eyes;
it burns from the
heat and the raining,
the beating is like
drowning, a thirst
so mistakably sandy

this oasis decieved me,
water made for cooking
fat fleshy oranged-tan
tourist on the way to
the grand canyon, damn
my guts sit hot on my
eyes, a liquid that blinds
and binds to my skin like
lye.

my god what I would give
to be in bed or on the
couch or on the plane
with a fizzing ginger-ale,
flying
to Chicago; sitting right
there next to you, instead
of dying of thirst
covered in puke
outside of Prescott.

For Gabe

the razors edge of fire and romance
destruction and rebirth, an undone
thread of intimacy and insanity.

I'm honestly just trying to
think of ways to write you
like you write you: blackened
dangerous emotive power next
to paradise, love

Instead, I would rather
recount the days when
waves were our ambition

It's funny how many times
you and I were in the water
before sunrise, sliding
our sea-faring sleds,
facing east to see the sun's
shadow
over the shore, the water's
calmness heated with mist

a mist that lays heavy and
thin, that surreptitiously
sleeps on its side like a
snoozing siren surrender,
her slumber before sunrise

that blanket six-feet above
the water, and we are between
sheets; in the silent state
between dreams and awake
the waves won't wait for
the sun

there is one morning in particular
of the dozens, I recall, just
south of the Oceanside Pier
before we could drive, in the summer

the waves were big and light like
an angel food cake, and we
devoured them - no wind, no sun,
no seagulls flying free, just you
and me - and the waves,

the waves
still crash
without us.

Writing For The Ones Yet To Be Born

Hello. Let me pour you some tea. I don't mind if
you set the cup with your cookies right down on the
copy of this poem. Paper is made to be tattooed
with the strokes of your mind and, possibly, your
food. feel free to eat right over me.

Friends; though we have seldom conversed, it's nice
to know you are here. I have faith that your
presence is as real as the saucer stains sitting near
the title. tea tastes much nicer when it's
being talked about.

Enjoy the simpleness of its smell
and let the ink of this page run free.

Heavenly, Celestial Bodies

Your Universe is rich
retching a caricature of youth, a
world spun like yarn - teal and periwinkle
brown and steel - a top wound by an invincible
hand; no man near by. I am the ant in the
soil
eating the sand of your rich universe

earth between bicuspids - entwined within it
each grain growing green inside me. My ant-body chews down
ever-feather-green heights inside
Jason kisses
listen.

MY NAME ON PLANETS
quiet, resting, sitting
toward unspoken vistas
where x/y (chromosomes)
sing.

Shamrock

There once was a lady called Leidy
Whose room you could hardly call tidy,
she wanted to sleep
So Her man did not peep,
But except for "I love you; good nighty."


The once was a doctor called "Sanja"
The cheapest of dealers who conned ya,
His qualifications
Were hardly for patients,
His medical love was for Gonja.

There was an old surfer called Smith
Who didn't care who he surfed with,
On many adventures,
He'd rip out his dentures
And dive in headfirst off the cliff.

A little man lives in my ear
He tells me there's nothing to fear
his past occupation
Was dark in location,
He used to live inside my rear.

Hey kids, you should listen in school,
Cuz poetry is super cool,
It let's you write words
That some might call absurd,
A crashendo of "Fart!" "Poop!" and "Drool!"

Birthday

There once was a man from Scotland,
Who had run just as fast as he'd ran
For years he had fought them
And soon he forgotten,
Those years that had made him a man.

There once was a girl for the South,
Whose twang rang in loud from her mouth,
Being sworn into court,
Gave his honor a thwart,
When she mistakenly called it the "ouwth."

There once was a fella named Ron,
Who could never keep his clothing on,
When he got in his car
The police were not far
Because soon even his socks would be gone.

There once was a boy named sue,
Who came down with a terrible flu,
Once his fever had broken,
his voice had stopped croakin,
His baritone made us anew.

We once had an uncle called Sam,
Who was born such an innocent man,
With time he got greedy
He stole from the needy
And still we don't care, not a damn.

At night when my parents are talking
I listen with silence of stockings
Hung over the wreath
With the fire beneath
Wait for Santa, his footsteps come knocking.

When everyone knows you're an ass
Is it easy to forget your past?
To think without scheming,
To sleep without dreaming,
Cuz soon you'll be nothing but grass.

There once was a man named jason
Who took too much effort to pun
With limericks, he struggled
Some ugly, some muddled
Then happily found he was done.

Dallas

A spider
The size
Of the soft-
Ness behind
Your ear.

Flight 1017

Clearly, the flight
From somewhere
To here, this bathroom
Had a meal with a
Side of asparagus.

Tell The Truth

Wasted and
Unreliable

An anthem
for the
broken
bored
slack-jawed
open-mouthed
intentional
blinkers

the colorado
river water
that makes
its way to
my mouth
tastes of
metal disease
that hints
of cancer and
obese dreams

Paul Ruben's
Ladies of the
sky or Pee-wee's
Ladies of the
night, each eats
a Turkish delight
treat and then fly
free into the stars
second to the right.

truth is what I'm
after, squriming
in my hands like
a frog from the street
that I stop

turn off the car and
get out to grab his
green grimy feet and
the headlights make
that color like an
alabaster coat or
abalone insides,

in the car,
he tickles my
hand and I squeeze
just right, tight
enough so he won't
be lost and almost
almost undone,

but I can't
look him right
in the eye; I've gotta
watch the road and then
I realize I've held him
so tight and close that
he has almost almost
died, so I pull over
sharply and set
the truth free right
where he's meant to
go, the sewer with
the everglades poking
free

and there, I don't worry
about the highway of cars
or the streetlight over
the underpass, no

No, just the reserved
and thoughtful hops of
truth making his way
home.

Robbing a Bank

Dear FBI,
Don't be alarmed
this is just a
poem, a harmless
work of art that
by no way, nor
with these
means can
or will
pose a
threat
to you.

I can promise,
this young
poet has
nothing but
good things
to say about
the Man and
his implicit
role in keep-
ing us and US
safe/secure
calm/stupid
innocent/
ignorant

In fact, this
poem, which
may or may
not have
appeared via
Search Engine
or super computer
(whatever mode
you fellows use)
has nothing to do
with you or robbing
a bank for that matter.

It's merely a clear-eyed
reflection on the poet,
his youth and his regret.
Feel free to email me
with questions.

New Denim

a tag tucked inside
the pocket
tells the wearer

to wash it; first,
turning
the legs inside out

outside in and shake
it all
about, do the cold

rinse with no soap
watch it
all around - you yell

about how spin-dryers
weren't made
to be used that way.

Brick

Albeit for me to dismiss
Bad and unattended prose
Cut short like a weed or
Daffodil growing between
Each crack in the bricks
Forgotten and unturned a
Growth known only by its
Heights and limited with
Intuitive natural graces
Just placed in a place's
Kitchen cabinet corner a
Lost forgotten nook that
My mind clearly excluded
On the premise that it's
Perfectly dreadful prose
Quite queerly positioned
Really don't matter here

-Please publish in Couri
er new so that the lines
on either side match-up.

The Unhappy and Lonesome Solitude in Knowing The Discoveries And Progress of Science Will Be Destroyed When No One Is Here To Learn Them

Youth, gone
POOF!

Boulevard

(planting seeds of inadequacy)

for lease.
for sale.
80% off
final closeout.
LensCrafters
FedEx
JR Liquor
Trader Joes
Ralphs
Post Office
Oil-Can Henrys
NaturalWay Foods
Papa Johns
(construction)
-Demolition-
(construction)

Pretentious

In Santa Monica,
near the Promenade,
on our way back from
lunch

I read you a poem
I wrote, from my phone,
in the stairwell of the

parking structure. The
poem's called "Cheating"
and you kindly call it

"Wank-Fest"
"Keats Rip-off"
"Pretentious Bullshit"

Contentment

Pulling up to the
Stoplight
At lunchtime

I turn off the car,
Put her in park.
Red sun, red light.

Windows rolled down,
Hear that breeze -
Somehow all the way

From the sea,
It came here at lunch
To see me.

Cheating

I have Found a new
Lover, and she's just
Down the street, I am over
The hill, but she's still on her feet

She is married and young
over twenty and still,
I wait and I watch her
From over the hill,

Young mistress, do you
Know what sOng is in spring?
Have you heard hollow hollers
The wives were moaning?

Their a fake, a facade from age,
Broken cold heat,
All the night running black
On the white of the sheet,

You're so sweet and so young,
Hardly Innocent still, asleep
There you wait
Against spring's seething will

And I see and I watch
And I wait sitting neat,
One foot crossed on the knee
Shoulders square to my seat,

With my eyes holding closed
And my hand holds defeat,
I pray god is not watching
Our lust and retreat,

So Repeat all these words
As I say them aloud,
"For this spring, it has sprung
Like a rain with no cloud;

The sun's willow's undone
And his nature is proud,"
But your husband, our god
Is heavy handed, heavy-browed

Pray to him, my sweet lady,
If forgiveness you seek,
He will still let me see
Behind bars, lashed and weak,

For if sin is your virtue
And you can't lay there still,
My chained heat will be waiting
Just over the hill.

Dead Writers

To All The Dead Writers,
whom I have never read
I would like someday
to stand in your steps

I would like to be forgotten
as soon as I've been dead
and my words to live a little
longer still, as the figdet

dancing in wake-less dreams,
in those living dreams;
my fellow voiceless writers
come march in my parade

for you have had no cake
though it's been baked
by your hand; man and woman
let us eat our cake

even if I have yet to make
it or it will never be made,
I will serve it first with
tea, lemonade and

hopefully as you
take a bite, the reward
for your trade will
arrive just as sweet.

El Cielo

that Japanese box-square
lantern that sits cornered
on your wooden desk,

it's waiting for
a tea-light candle
to glow-up its pastel

colors, and brush them
against the white walls
like haunting winter

ripples showing snow-
drift reflections
of the northern lights

down on unpainted hills,
on the frozen blown dusted
glacier hills, mirroring

the pastel colors in the sky;
of a tea light lit
atop your craft-desk, burning.

Steam

I'm afraid to capture
in this volcanic ash
the emotion known as
anger

I'm afraid it's like
keeping cancer in
a glass vile in the lab
and knowing it can crack

can crack right open onto
the little lab rat readers
breeding hate and insecurity
but damnit, I'm mad

And if you're ready to listen
I'm sure as shit ready to talk,
see I've got this problem
of feeling prisoner in my room

my body, my mind and it seems
that escape may come with white
sheet down the side of the building
and the guarddogs and bayonets

wait at bay while children in
local parks play pattycake and
I will dance in the rain of
non-existence, once escaped.

Sorbet

Hotwater smoking
from the tap,
running down my spoon;

we smear the wet spoon
in the handtowel
still keep it hot, now

rest it atop the
peach sorbet and
let the heat do the work

oh, that pressure of
a sticky sweet spoon
rocking down into the

robust fruit and cream
in its icy paper carton,
lick your lips for me.

Clean, Offensive Questions

Sitting in my office
at school the other
day, I got into a playful
debate with my fellow teacher

and this question arrived:
"Why is there an English Dept?"
The question seems to
hurt to answer, like some

free version of prostitution.
Why should what we do exist?
simple, honest, above-the-belt,
like a match to kindling;

and my answer, the answer in
that moment, woke me up
in a sweat last night;
Can studying literature

stand up on its own in
our age of the glittering
screen, or are we buggy-
whipping buffaloes?

How do we respond?

National Parks

Are we allowed to
recount our lives
through the lens of others?

Can we use other's puppets
to tell our own story,
the shells on the shore

taken like stones and
skipped across the sea's
surface?

Can Ken Burns bring
me something I can't
achieve alone?

Has he done something
so special with images
that we must give up?

or am I a joke for even
mentioning him; no longer
viewed by critic's eyes

"He's just that kid
who watches a lot of tv
and has nothing else to say."

Well, I dare you to find
a world more neatly wrapped
than his National Parks.

Given

I found Given
waiting for the bus
on his way to work

I took the 429 bus
past riverside to
my grandmother's after school

and Given, since dropping out,
had started waiting tables at
the IHOP on radford.

It was clear that he hadn't
been getting much sleep, what
with his baggy eyes and large pupils

he kind of swayed as the bus went
by and stopped to pick us both up,
all of us up.

Though the bus had many open seats,
I sat next to Given because he
still had something, like a

roman ruin with only its columns
still standing; plaining seeing
his grace and power with no roof.

He didn't notice when I picked
his pocket or went through his
backpack, he just stared out the

window. His drivers licence said
"Given Name" and them his dorm
number and address. brown eyes,

brown hair, 6'0 165 pounds. I
must have stared for a while
because he asked me why I had it

"Why the fuck do you have wallet!"
I had never been caught before,
I was too good, but why Given Name

Well it's not like there's anything
to find in here anyways; Fuck that,
give it back. If you weren't a girl

I would beat the tar out of you.
I know I could smell good and
that my clothes were black,

but tar? Tar? I've been beat
before, but I'm no tar-baby.
As soon as I knew it,

I had my knife out and
the bus was puled over
and both Given and I

were off and yelling

The Man with No Name

My laundry, being spun dry
down two-floors below the
apartment, can wait and wrinkle

while I try to catch this
slowly dying firefly that
flashed green, bright last night

-

A college friend of mine only
had a student ID number and
a social security number, but

no name. As a child, with no
parents, he was told what to
be called by his teachers, they

asked him "Timothy?" "James?"
"Zach?" "Clarence!" and each
name sounded wrong like a song

in a minor key playing home
the football team in the town
parade; a sad shadow of identity.

Instead, he liked what his class-
mates called him more: "Freckles"
"Porkie" "Stupid" and later "Fag"

because these names were about
him, like words on a t-shirt or
a bumper sticker, they fit even

if they weren't really him nor
the best thing to be called
while hitting a home-run

"Run it all the way to home-
plate, Fatty!" wasn't the way
he liked to win. Regardless,

as he became a man, he would
sign his name with an X and
when he walked at graduation

they just called him by his
accomplishments "Our All-American
Baseball Valedictorian" and

as he made the graduation speech
to his high-school, to his friend's
and their families, he didn't

talk about what it was like to
have no parents in the baseball
stand or what kind of study habits

it took to beat out all the other
honors students. No, this young man's
speech was about how having no name

made him so much strong than the
rest of us: "I didn't have the crutch
of Identity that inhibits personal growth.

Looking in the mirror, I saw and still see
everything out of my making, no parents to
have claimed me, no reflection to answer to."

The applause was limited, like a golf-clap
and a few students cheered cat-calls like
"You go, dude; fuck the system!"

Inside, he knew that even with his
perfect grades and baseball records,
he had missed something big and

that a name would be the way to
find it. He decided that, in college,
he would never tell about growing

up with no name and that he could
make a new identity, with an imaginary
family and place to return of Thanksgiving.

When printing his name on his registration
card in September, he decided that instead
of an X, he would make "Given" his given name,

It was easy come-up with because that what it
said in the box right there; "Please write
your Given name" and he wrote "Given"

Now that the man with no name had a name
a Given name, he stopped attending classes
and couldn't hit a baseball, he lost

his scholarship and hardly lasted through
the second semester of school. Girls would
ask "How did you get the name 'Given'" and

he would coolly respond, "you know, it was
Given to me." Of course, this was a lie,
it was all a lie, his new face, stories, world

a construction that was packed with nothing
but bullshit, and then, suddenly he decided
to let go of his name; and that's when he met me.

Sold.

Something in me has snapped.
I cannot consume the way
I used to; the way I am used to.

It's hard to watch television,
or to read signs on the highway
even a magazine, without feeling

cheap, cheated, preached to,
attacked. I've had years of
a steady diet consisting mostly

of hours upon days of advertising,
commercials, information where the
sole purpose is to sell something.

I was weened on such a diet of
consumption. Years that tell me
"you are valued by what you own"

"Your beauty is based in objects"
"Your worth comes from our perception"
"The more you have, the better you are"

and now the sounds and signs of
"THIS WEEKEND ONLY" or
"GET AN EXTRA 10% OFF!" turn my

dreams into a poisoned pool of
two-dimensional flashcards that
draw the eye to an object for sale.

Invisible Jesus

Sometime I make jokes
in front of my catholic
private school class,
that invisible jesus
is "watching" them

then, the agnostic public
face that I present
later melts on the
car-ride home, the
freeway traffic

mixing with meditated
window time and I realize
that patronizing my
students, my catholic
students, on the day

that they are doing
teacher evaluations
might not be such
a great (especially
with the economy) idea.

While We Wait

I will stamp you out
On an inches high keyboard
With just my thumbs
While we wait at the salon,

Or the barber shop or
Whatever we call youngs on
Washington and lincoln in
Venice. Don McClain's

American pie sings savory
On the station, socal soft
Rock. The woman to my right
Flips her magazine and

Each page smells like cologne
Strips unstuck, she plays with
Her hair like religous beeds
And we, we watch while

We wait in the long lunchtime
Line to get our 12 dollar hair
Cut. Don't make that mistake,
You are indeed here too.

Pinback

Note: please take note
that this note is not for
nothing, nor for no-one.

I hate you rob crow
I shout out at the band stand
that del mar friday free show
the race tracks way to get
us youngs to come like
horse's glue,

then, right then
he knew that this
one, this merry-go
- round show will
be a good one,
and even though

one of his best
men was leaving the
group tonight, that
yell, that seemingly
uninteliagable scream,
made the night.

so bring the beer bottles
flying, the road manager
whining, the spit and the
sin and the ocean's star
covered night; delight in
this guitar and the red sky.

Egg, Over-easy

heat the pan
medium heat
take one egg
out of the
fridge and
place it
near the
hot pan

crack the
egg with one
hand and let
the clear
whites turn
white, flick

your wrist
to cook
both sides,
you may have
to break a
few yokes and
have a few
tries before

you get it
right.

Regarding Illness

sickdays seem like a twisted
time for reflection;
where there is no work
to be done and outside
the sun still shines

like a workday, and
the windows, they show our
neighborhood with its
swayed-back crop-top
spread open, quiet

while you were gone
at work, I stayed
sick in bed and I
wrote you this poem;
the sprinkler's on

a timer; one is busted
and shoots a four foot
fountain of free reclaimed
water right up-down on-top
of your used car

the car you left so I could
buy hot chicken soup or
orange juice, so I could
buy something special, but
now it's all covered in shit.

To Wong Foo

The 1990s, if you weren't
there as a fully-formed human,
may seem perplexing, but I promise

if you were a boy, and
you watched "sex in the 90s"
and "showgirls," "kids"

and then you expect the
rest of life to be that
life, where New York is

gay and a set for the
real world, an MTV set,
then the 21st century

where all the newness,
color, has been swept
under a digital rug

makes that flash, that
freshness, that purple
eye-shadow drop like

a glittering flaming
times-square twin-
tower ten second ball.

Rash

I think that in 1966
my father and his mother
went to France, to some
costal village and my
Dad, he saw a man sit out on
a cobbled street near the sea.

The two of us, we basked outside
his San Diego home with a half-
bottle of champagne and a half
lobster each to show that we,
us men, had become the vision,
his boyhood dream.

That man sat, dressed exquisite,
in 1966, and ate his meal of
1/2 lobster tail, 1/2 bottle of champagne,
and my 14 year-old father exclaimed to his
mother that that's who he was inside,
who he was going to be.

But that lobster, from last year,
it gave us both a week-long rash
that reached its redness into
our ears, eyes, noses, our belly
buttons; a dream undone with
its contrition. my poor father.

it took us days to figure it out
because we hardly see each-other
and we had to corroborate the story
on the telephone. "Dad, I have a rash"
is hardly the thing I would say to
the man. Now, he avoids lobster

and I avoid him.

Drip Castle

I plan to write about you again.

Let's walk down, you and I to where
the tide comes up and licks the side
of your foot, the blade of your foot

there we will sit-down and get sand
in your diaper; where the water rushes
up not 3 feet away, there we play

with that not-yet-solid sand
that gets stuck in your hands
your little hannies between fingers;

we let it flop-flip-plop down
one drop down on-top of the other
to make a freckled pancake

like an arizona delta whose
face was just kissed with water
17 thousand years ago

this hand-made sand-cake
slinks up high like a running
ballerina, up the stairs with

a dance in her step and as she
gets close to the door, the tower
falls in on itself and you, little boy

you giggle and squirm and shriek
as the water rushes up and
pulls at your heart's strings.

Hello Nurse

It's rare when I step foot in a
department store, but Bloomingdales
brings out something ugly in me,
the green greed that grinds teeth;

while sliding through racks of shirts
I will pull out the arms of each shirt
and feel the material between my thumb
and index finger, rubbing it like it's rich

sometimes, when no one is looking, I dip
my head down to smell the shirts, the long
sleeved shirts, like they are indonesian posies
or a rolling-boiled Cambodian stew, made by

foreign hands, and man do they smell sweet,
a sweet sweat sticky sewn puzzle piece placed
hung hanging right in its place, with that tag tucked
neat next to the neck's collar, so sweet smelling

and that's why I will never buy it.

Bad Sex

So a minute ago, i was laying in
Bed and I had to get up
To write you and tell you, someone

That the neighbor beneath me,
My downstairs neighbor must
Have brought home a man

And man, they must not
Have paid attention in health
Class or watched any tv for 20 years

Because they really really suck
At Sex. I'm no expert but alcohol
A good dinner, chatting, laughing

Being enemies even and just getting
It all out there; this makes for
Ok sex, maybe even good sex

But bad sex, when you are
A thirty something junior high
Teacher, after a long week,

That's inexcusable. Say something
Dirty. Let's hear some passion,
Some action, a bed rock or something!

But, I had to get up and turn on my
Computer to tell you about the rocking
Horse rodeo downstairs. The riveting sex

That is so vanilla, I wouldn't dare
Call it french. Kisses like with your cousin
And moans from a looped tape recorder.

I'm sure when he's done, she's done.

Ball and chain

We are the kind of people who don't take days
Off
The kind that don't give up
While walking during a marathon,
Just as a subtle reminder,
I'm playing for keeps

I'm not here just to make your day
Or to make you smile or think
No no, I'm here for guts and glory
For fucking medals and prizes
And the real shit that comes with
Being a real poet, the kind of real

Writer that can write about being a
Writer and still get away with it;
The kind who walks out to the
Lake and tells a fish to come
And it appears there is his net
And he doesn't have to cast a line.

Clever

Writing, in twenty ten, has
become a tool for getting
attention on a micro-level

saying something funny (haha)
on a status update makes you
the talk of the digital town

finding a way to put into words
the answer to a problem on a message
board might make you the most mentioned

so when we type that flippant response,
the attention-grabbing stanza
let's not forget, the public is watching.

The Pantry Cafe

Waking up at 6am on
Saturday to take you
to Union Station after
only sleep for 3 hours
wasn't half-bad because

I planned ahead of time to go and get breakfast alone.
Two eggs, runny scrambled with ketchup, liquids warm
Five long strips of Bacon sweating sweet down in that soup,
sided by hot-old oiled potatoes; two texas french-toast,
extra eggy, that go in a white thin styrofoam box to-go.

butter. coffee. newspapers.
no menus, call yer number, brill cream.
at the counter, Kentucky-derby-sized men
and I bellied up for moment of morning worship;
obesity seems like a new friend waiting just

around some night-time corner, to meet me
in the mirror, to wake me up. Bang! yer 40.
Boom, you are obese.

The waiters and cooks, on the otherside
of this 50 foot counter, each wear white
crisply starched and pressed shirts, that
only wrinkle beneath the waistline, and
everyone. I mean everyone. is almost dead.

Advanced Open Water

we are having one of those days
where the smoke from the night
before still seems to hang still,
like that cigarette is a ghost

or a phantom, some woeful spirit
smelling of cologne and tar, some
American Spirit still lingering
into the afternoon; alone, the

party's cups still wait half-full
and silent, growing thin films on
their surface, the kind that can't
be tasted, but will stick to the

roof of our mouths. I will open
the windows and dump out all
the plastic redcups, but there
is no breeze and the cups stay full,

they full-up and up, never half-empty
and they remind us still, the lonely
shoegazers, that soon enough, we will
all face the afternoon, with no night.

On Teaching Billy Collins

The twisting and spinning steps
Of the lanyard between the ears
And on the eyes of the students,
We couldn't see the sex underneath

The surface of the Atlantic, not in
This catholic school, not around that
Hanging cross or those small smiles,
All the while the Osso buco morrow

Of erotic flesh hangs in each of our
Teeth, and each of those tasty
Lusty licks of bloodily baptized
Bone broken, right in the desks

On the white and black pages
Like a butcher's loin tucked
Into newspaper, sent home to
The icebox. Take him home kids.

The (M)other

I am a woman
that works in
the office, the gym, that
restaurant; I'm the clerk,
nurse, check-out girl and you,
you are the man

I am a woman
who played with you
in daycare, making minimum wage
and sleeping on her cousin's
pull-out couch and you
you are the man,

I am a woman
that avoids pumping her gas
at night, because of your gaze
those eyes and that tongue,
I will grit a smile; there
you are the man,

I am a woman
who will build schools
and lift cars off her
children, who will hold
her tears for times alone,
you are the man

I am a woman
that waits up with both
eyes open for her husband
to come home from the bar-
alcohol or perfume, still
you are the man

I am a woman
who sings with her mouth
open and kisses with her
eyes closed, who breaks
doors, world records, naively
you are the man

I am a woman
that won't take shit from
her teacher, her boss, those
fucking police, that broken
judge in his hollow box; proudly
you are the man

I am a woman
who washes her hair, blow-dry
eye-shadow, lips, brows, bangs
at the club, church, casting call
waiting, praying, hoping that you
you are the man

I am a woman
that watches him walk in the door
with a face like God expecting
my praise, when I am the only
one working, bathing these kids,
you are the man

I am a woman
who wears black sunglasses to
the graveyard; I won't cry and
I don't plan to miss you, and
I will bury this one with you.
you are the man.

I am a woman
strong in her step,
built to love and stand
arm in arm with her fellow
woman; look me in the eye,
you are the man.

See-saw

In the backyard of the
old house, rust and ivy
covered our rickety seesaw

and that ol' thing wasn't
regular, I mean it was a
see-saw, but it also turned;

it spun circles around its
center axis, helicoptering
above the overgrown grass

and when you and I would sit
on either side, eyes and thighs
pushing wood, nails, splinters

we would giggle and whoop as
our froggy-jumps spun this
make-shift masterpiece, this

old and unsafe, this broken-
down thing that made us
stare at the other's smile

while the world whirled by.

XY

Once you find out how
simple every man is,
you'll be sorely disappointed

not focused on building
a better world or a better
self, but on food, on sex

on power and greed, on
hunting and fighting and
flesh: the pursuit, the kill

our eyes aren't set on
each side of our heads like
grazers; no, we can read

because divinity has
made us close-set in
eyes, the head of a hunter.

Sea-Frost

The white of snow spun on the path
no footstep laying trodden black
and sunlit West against my side,
the horse quickens while trotting back,

and as we pick up pace Northward
to hear the sound of ripping sand,
the slinking tide sips cliffs of time,
they melt in mother nature's hand;

Pacific moon! you've shown your face
against the mirrored ocean's glass
like dolphins spinning in the waves
while jumping toward the ever-last,

solemnity defines her smile
without a wink to me or mere,
those golden rays of mist, so while
we gallop home, she guides us there.

(so sleep my moon, while horse is tied
don't shower me with your dismay,
my window's tight, my eyes are wide
your fullness tricking night for day

those cracks that glisten from the waves
around and through these wooden slates
will keep us sleepless all the while -
the Sun, he comes galumphing back)

Open Fly

when we dance, I make it look
so easy and effortless like
a fake-haired Fred Astaire

but no, this is a pain-
staking labour-driven process,
that you don't seem to care for,

you bat an eye and thumb a nose
at the process, you snot-nosed
24-year-old, who thinks poems

will fall like dice on the table
or like crystals made in a cave
stars in darkness dancing free

doing what they were made to be.

Ooga Booga

The Nightmares comes, my hotel room it brings,
the ceilings high enough for minds to sing
cerebral core-text jumping, switching spheres
night terrors aren't the only cause of tears

a phone call in the alley way of droves
the call-box rings and rings. the door is closed.
that muffled sound of ringing under sea
a dream that picks its knits relentlessly

like molten parrot locked inside a cage
who squackes robotic meter in outrage:
"I am the voice of death with flapping wings,
the black-eyed soulless creature who won't sing

my master taught me how to say these words
and once he's gone, this poem won't be heard"
So as I wake and see the parrot's won,
he disappears, evaporates, undone.

Say "From Charms"

My God is a Stage Manager
with a list of queues as long as time,

the kind who says "house-lights up"
over the headset every morning, and

who counts the beats for the curtain call
between sunset and darkness;

She has a short purple haircut
and a "Mama Mary" tattoo heart,

She gives great hugs after the show
even when your sweaty and unbelievable,

great big hugs that smell like Dr. Pepper
and Gin mixed in a Carl's Jr. cup;

My God reads every moment and every line
from her clipboard-script, mouthing all the words

She doesn't cry when Willie kills himself
or when Hamlet sees his Father, No She

saw it coming all along, and though she
doesn't take a curtain call or clap once,

She will be there with her hugs, right off the wing
with sparkling eyes, a smile and a Dr. Pepper kiss.

Sister, Mother; Asleep On The Sofa

tinkling snowmelt sings little
pitter-padders on the steel rail,
spring wind's across our mountain-
top lake; and there you two sit with your
legs-scrunched
up like slinkys, inside the thirdfloor condo
with a lake view.

with the camera on the ceiling, we see
the two ladies laying perpendicularly
across with there steaming-heads almost
touching, genetic copies of the next
(folded half envelopes tucked neat near
blankets)

a small gas-fireplace is open and
unlit, the shadow of its dance glazed
still in the brick
with each page turned your eyes get
heavier and heavier, the sofa softer

there we are - the three of us
in 2010
laying there on the sofa, alive and
careless - undone and uncoiled

from above still, the viewer can
see the two ladies and me, us three
each with our brains simmering

I rock on the glass kitchen table
whilst among the tree and the two

ladies - the sound of snow sings on the rail.

Nervous

A funny feeling
like a piece of surgical
tubing is pushed into your throat
like a permanent plastic lump
impossible to swallow

today should be a day of liberation
of moving up and onward, but no
I am afraid, and my stomach can't
keep food anywhere near it and
I fear that with these hairs being

cut off, I will forget a piece of my identity
I will give away something more than me
that my power will be gone
mr. young, the barbor, will be my
Delilah and I will cry a single tear.

Long brown and blonde to my chest like
a lion, a zion-breed warrior, a tribal
chief or some other "other" of my imagination
all those men I love with long hair, I won't be
I won't be in the club anymore. Just the men I hate.

I will be the men I hate.