the wind was a ruffle in the curtains
and the day went by, unseized
the world was a ricochet in a chamber
and the gunshot bedroom leapt out, inept
the women weep out neglected, knowing
*** is of no value in our promiscuous world
a cigarette is like a god in the skies
the expectation is lofty and leaves us sad
the earth turns me dizzy
my arches have fallen
and the trojan horses have all fled off, torn
each child is abandoned in time and they all
**** their parents with resent, cuckkoos are poets
when they push all the little birdies out the nest
each poet is a cuckoo liar, inflating any kind of truth they've found
in the dotting of their stinking socks.
a beard is a false billboard
a wife is a lie that germinates s l o w a dog is a god if you look with sad eyes
there’s shakespeare in everything
and its all undeserving
there’s drama behind every curtain
and all the best legs
creep around like common juniper
into the fiendish, lonely night
people make soup
and they shoot themselves with shotguns
it doesn’t all make sense.
don't make sense.
make oatmeal
Jun 18, 2021
Jun 18, 2021 at 1:22 AM UTC
Rimbaud watches me lay waste
his eyes like a rat's
from the bathroom tile
Christ watches me defile
atop high throne of bedroom wall
clock face keeps beat
as moans become wails
as ghosts grow taller
women grow older, shrinking
cars breed iron oxide, collapsing
on cinder blocks out window scrapyards
near hole in plaster
I turn to you like a child,
my cement blocks bleeding
"I hurt my hand"
May 14, 2019
May 14, 2019 at 6:37 PM UTC
85 and off the ladder
picking leaves from the gutter
Wife soon after
They found her dentures
on the kitchen tile
A few weeks later the neighbor
still in her sunhat and green gloves
hose running in her hand
Felled by a bee hiding in her marigolds.
Then her dog,
Went to live with someone else
But wouldn’t eat.
Wasn’t long before the flowers went too.
Eaten up in the dried, cracked soil.
The houses went up for sale
Little signs sitting innocently
In the front lawns:
“So & So Realty”
Pretty soon
some lovely young couples moved in
Had children
Bought a dog
Cleaned gutters
Planted more marigolds
Watched the rain run down
The window
And the reaper grinned
A little More than usual.
May 14, 2019
May 14, 2019 at 6:35 PM UTC
father awakened
beckoned by bathroom in night
his death approaching like headlights in
rear-view
in cars he careened into cornfields so
long ago
in women he obsessed over
poured over while rolling tea
in records he flips through
languidly
suffering alone, retracting into song
crucifix still hung over his jaded bedpost
lotion still sits on by his bed
where he lay debased and tempted
by nothing
while his house breaths fissures
and crumbles
where his legacy sits truncated and dusted
in books of song
carpet collecting impressionistic stains
stove top counting days with soot
medicine cabinet reminds of his frivolous
youth
when he was foolish and paid bills
before he was afraid to climb his creaking
stairs
before he delivered flowers to the funeral
home
before the acetaminophen ate his soul
May 14, 2019
May 14, 2019 at 6:33 PM UTC
I reach for the beer glass
but the glass isn't much.
I reach the paper
but the parchment has gone stale
and crumbled
I reach for the woman
for thigh
for small of the back,
but she has taken
into unshaven arms
of sleep
and snores
I Reach for the pill
but someone's hid the bottle.
Whiskey makes me sweat
great floods of violence,
sharp words with dagger tongues.
Beer boils yearning
into my blood.
So I reach
for the words
but they too
have dried, withered,
and no longer make sense.
May 14, 2019
May 14, 2019 at 6:30 PM UTC
America, unveiled in frugal agendas
secreted in roots of regal cypress
terminal in nature, resounding.
There has died and been buried,
a man so little known,
his flock of fledglings, so rarely
returned, echoed youthful
calls and whistles across spirits
of tomorrow. Young men beating
chests of perpetual, salacious sentiments, heralding: patriotic, passionate, eternal,
pestilent, dogmatic, sick. Hopeless aptitude lost
in pits, in trenches, in arrogant proposal,
monuments of soils erected
in earnest, divided in expectation,
by a standard of worthiness.
Casting shadows like youthful sorrows upon barren grounds such are souls.
The ringing charges they powdered
in optimistic principle besiege
timeless yods of heroism
laid upon an altar for remembrance.
A Hymn of servitude now sung
there, for those crushed beneath
crops of civility. Lecherous fathers
battling the sick condition of men
harvested on Little Round Top,
down Devil’s Den,
in the Best Western
Quality Inn.
every bone in glory
rest there.
May 14, 2019
May 14, 2019 at 6:27 PM UTC
It is good
to have the eyeliner pencils on the sink,
leg razors in the shower,
yellow underwear on the tile.
It is good
to hear her quietly snore
as her feet barely touch mine.
It is good
to eat chicken and corn,
and leave for work in the morning
with a kiss.
It is good
to make love when we can
and dream about it on the days we can't.
May 14, 2019
May 14, 2019 at 6:26 PM UTC
Secret thoughts like raindrops
on the rings of Saturn,
things forever lost
float into mind
on rivers of golden words
written with budding lips,
scribbled by satirically serious fingers,
or pounded with mechanical keys,
portable, painful, with ribbon tedious to thread.
My darling Olive
with your boxy frame,
sky white skin
and sticky fingers.
how methodical and slow
our fighting dance.
How joyful
the new agonies that await us.
Joyful new crimes, joyfully jogging type bars, joyfully resisting
joyful beneath
Shuddering, trembling,
flowing over with sweat and ********
Pulling men to flame
ripping off their wings
Ripping men into
meandering, lost thought vehicles,
perpetual machines of confusion and shame.
Ripping men into ribcages,
pulling at the sinew
until we actually have become moths.
Flesh turned inside out
With the smallest words imaginable.
Men slunk to sand
With the smallest words imaginable.
Determination set to dust
with the smallest words imaginable.
Women shredding men into typewriter ribbons,
with the smallest words imaginable.
“I Hate You”
pulling cupboards out of walls,
breaking bathroom faucets,
“I Love You”
pulling the skin off
like socks.
May 14, 2019
May 14, 2019 at 6:22 PM UTC
Ol’ Pete
had his youthful strings swaying
bird had its questioning flute
Duck, the sad, wobbling oboe
Cat the quickening clarinet
Kettles made their blasts
And the wolf
Ahhh the wolf
Loomin', lumberin ', and French
That ****** wolf had it all
And I've got my noisy type bars
And My beer caps
A dangerous place indeed
French horn sounds take a lazy drink
Boys like me ‘n’ Ol’ Pete
Aren’t afraid of the woods
Everything was quiet
Then the terror set in.
May 14, 2019
May 14, 2019 at 6:20 PM UTC
Oh Intangible Tabernacle of imagined ****
Oh Great Exodus!
Women walk passed my window
strange nurses, warm and wondrous
something to observe, something to carry.
Daydreams wayward outside my window
Stranded on islands of tile
A Tangent reality, a symptom, something to sift through..
Legs.
Playing the tapes all the way through
to pain, to the dismissal of problems, exiles,
weekends away.
A thousand moments flood my mind
All with different legs and faces.
With bloodstains in her jeans, ***** clothes stacking
Command, control, cuckoldry
Wanton sigh from a hundred imposing thighs
Play out to cold shower days and nights.
Play out to passive aggressive pacifism.
Breathing together, bending together,
Breaking together, with elegance.
Blossoms played out to bloodlettings.
Gone with all the ones who came and went
In befores,
Heads that laid ‘pon my chest before
Sighed hauntingly, trust like saccharine
Played out to stolen hearts dripping strychnine
Wondering now the wandering roses
Hopes laid like Eucharist in them
To only find ourselves sinking
Invested, stuck, separated.
The wondrous women
waltzed passed my window
and I do not wish them to return.
May 14, 2019
May 14, 2019 at 6:19 PM UTC