A living skin, a skein of green briars
where a half-hinged door is wagged by the wind

Good-natured god, decay’s stigmata-stained spires
nettles paint the stairs splotch patterned, olive skinned

Glass window shards grab a slip of silk curtain
pick-pocket beetles engrave brute luck broadside

Chimney thrushes cabined in ash are certain
cynicism’s growing sums are rectified

Blue jays opine time’s cuckoo clock mocking
worms ply enormous copses, scrawl casts of clay

Autumn gusts and rains whirl detritus stocking
flung colors Pollocked, clutter’s chaos array

Hours dissolve the acorns and soft seeds scatter
as grasses grown tall have turned light yellow

architecture’s flourishes are picked off
crumbled valuables filched and turned to dirt

tumult’s passages dug the driveway’s trough
carrion feeders pull black quills from their shirt

slugs smear a rainbow trail and mice scurry
collapsed walls fall to the slush of leaf slurry

Falling...

That’s the easy part.
It’s beyond your control really.
Like a mat being pulled from under you.
Or tripping over something as obscure as a centimetre rise on the pavement.

And as you fall, you can’t deny the excitement and exhilaration as your heart quickens.
Adrenalin courses through your system in a feeble attempt to heighten your reflexes and realign your senses...

Just so you could perhaps stop yourself from getting hurt.

But you also know that you can’t fight the laws of physics and the fact that you’re not a cat.
So you can’t help but submit fully to that moment of defeat.

Now you’ve slammed into the ground.
Tasted dirt...
And rubbed faces, knees and elbows with the harshness of the earth.

If you do get up,
would you be ever so careless again?




I’d watch where I was going if I were you.

they always say
not to touch the art
but looking at him
how could you keep your hands off
something so enticing

s.s

Forget Portland and Austin and Santa Cruz.
Those famously strange places,
where the tourists gawk at local weirdos.
Here is not there.

Here is the place of advice such as:
“When life gives you meatballs put a wig on a dog.”
—True story.

Here is the place where:
“With all good things in life you just have to wipe the bird **** off.”  

The place where steel and marble Confederate ghosts,
watch the wealthy renovate their westward homes along a cobblestone road.

Where paintings are propped to rot up in alleys,
and buzzing twenty-somethings on their way back from a show,
shake it and tilt it and carry it home.
—Gilded frame and all.

This is the place of painted concrete where walls are canvases,
and red bricks pop out of the ground,
the tree roots poking through to trip you.

Here’s where the People’s Beer comes from Milwaukee,
but we replaced the R in ribbon with here,
and sell it by the caseload when it rains and when it’s Tuesday.

Where young people go to find themselves getting lost becoming someone else,
remixing history to not admit naivety,
before they’ve been sandpapered through experience.
        —To a core.

This is an ink-stained but not splattered place.
Where lines are careful, permanent and abundant,
and on Fridays can cost 13 bucks.

Here is the place where people roam like that restaurant rabbit:
listless and nomadic and stuck.

Where there’s a wild streak in its heart that follows the tracks,
and cuts the city in half.

This is the place that Carvers itself out into cultures,
and you can be from the Bottom,
or proud to be a Rat.  

Here is where you night-drive over the bridge,
see the skyline and feel restlessly content.

Here is home.
—For now.

What was that about ironic?


(sonnet #MMMMDCXLII)


They swore I should be published when my frail
Attempts proved that my alphabet was thence
Down pat, a couple verbs and nouns from whence
I made a twisted bit of nonsense, pale
And certain notes that I owned more than bail
For their now wasted cries of sheer pretense,
Nor would they quiet down 'til their defense
Was trounced when I could speak and **** the tale.
Yes.  Now that I trip off much less obscure
Lines, even sentences which march straight to
The point, I've lost my following as twere.
Come, did they like the early babble?  Few
Can make it past the toddling stage, whence fer
The grand achievement, I'm alone.  Boohoo.


(sonnet #MMMMDCXLIII)


Please don't say either that I was from hence
Givn this quite fair, though transient gift's detail
To hone its more exquisite sense in pale
Excuse for being alone, nor that twas thence
Deemed fit cuz twould be yet destroyed (whose sense
Of worth was fragile in sheer truth's betrayl),
But grant me something more, as if for bail,
And say that love will pay for my intents.
Walk through the library amassed as twere;
Yea, listen as my spirit filters through
The tapestry of lines, until in poor
Reply its voice half alters subtly too.
Did I leave innocence behind?  Twas your
Fault who taught me what life is:  loving you.

06Mar15e,f

I don't know what sprouted this mischief, the first 2 lines teased.



(sonnet #MCMLXVIII)


I'll have me fun in solitude as where
No supercilious frown may cast a pall
Upon my gaity, if't must be.  You all,
Who sniff at silliness, can with an air
Of sensible hauteur drink your despair
In prim tea cups, but as for me, grey's shawl
Cast off as t'were, for brief fun, why sip gall
If laughter tickles sans grim reason's glare?
Its in my blood, I think they said, that sense
Of jolly merriment a thread which'd run
From old to young 'mongst relatives, though whence
It came I can't quite guess.  And when 'tis done
I'll sit with you and be too glum, pretense
Of better ways a front.  Don't you have fun??

10Feb13d