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.