and who's to say...
maybe some tremor
of what you called you
may wield the sceptre
instead of the pick and shovel
on your next orbit

but what you call you
won't be there

don't hope for that

and should this trouble us?
we're barely here
when we're here

we drive this highway
our eyes fixed
on the faraway horizon
or shooting glances
in the rearview
while the low hanging fruit
of the orchard whizzes by
just outside the window

Don’t hide
behind those drapes, boy...
come on out here,
let us have a look at you.

Does he do any tricks?

Shake his hand, son.
Don’t be shifty eyed
or stare at your shoes,
they’ll think
you’re hiding something.

Speak up!
Be a man!
Stand up for yourself,
shout the other guy down.

Maybe you can be
president someday.

All you do is sit
in your room,
playing with blocks,
reading books...

Why don’t you play
with the other children?
Get out there in the crowd!

What are you doing
roaming in those woods
all by yourself?

What will you do
with all those books you read?

Come on...
we’re going to town,
gonna do some shopping.

I know it’s loud,
but you’ll get used to it.

Gotta be prepared
for car horns,
jackhammers,
gunfire...

What are you doing
over there?
Don’t turn that over.
Leave it be.

And smile for the camera!
Come over here,
into the light.
Don't skulk around
in the shadows
like our guilty conscience.

Aww...it’s all right.
You’re just a bit cracked.
Here...a little putty,
a little paint,
and look how you shine!

it's monday
and all across america
we stand in the cold
outside office buildings
and warehouses
shuffling our feet
waiting for someone
to unlock the door

or sit in break rooms
drinking coffee
and waiting to punch the clock
our lips as grimly sealed
as the grey winter sky
or forcing smiles and small talk
but all with the same
bewildered eyes
wondering
how how how
******* it
is it monday already...
and where did the weekend go?

all those Sunday evening glances
at the clock
and counting the hours left
til bedtime
or the morning alarm
as though we could catch it
in the act
with its thieving little hands
in the cookie jar...

useless

and then awakening at 2 a.m.
and again at 3
hearing faintly
the clomp of boots
of an advancing army
conquering our territory
piece by piece

We chant our allegiance to it
in shouted slogans,
and fight ****** battles
under its banner,
ironically chained to it
as we are to many other
shadowy and ghostly things.

But never has treasure
so desired
been so eagerly
given away.

Primitive man
gave his to gods
of sun, sky, and earth.

We give ours
to elected tyrants,
weak and corrupt old men
made powerful
by our faith.

To imaginary boundaries
we lock ourselves inside,
to roles we play,
to straitjacket ideologies
we writhe in,
foaming at the mouth.

There are slaves to
their own bodies,
or the bodies of others,
and ******
for the envy of neighbors,
or strangers.

Collared submissives
who bark like dogs
and beg for the whip.

Workaholics, alcoholics,
pill poppers,
shopping addicts,
and spiritual junkies.

In a thousand ways,
we hand it over,
between thumb and forefinger
like a piece of chewing gum
drained of its flavor.
“Here...take this.
I’m done with it.”

Your characters
are carefully crafted,
your plot lines
well thought out,
and each night before bed
you scribble a bit more
of the story down
and each night,
you turn pages
and think,
“I didn’t write this.”

And now the characters
are running amok,
and the plot twists and turns
its way into dead end alleys
you never dreamed of.

You sit and stare,
scratching your head,
then begin scrubbing
and erasing
and rewriting
long into the night,
until you finally
get your fictional little world
back the way it should be.

This goes on,
day after day,
until one night you discover
a new character
is banging the protagonist’s girlfriend,
a sweet midwestern angel,
and she’s howling
like a **** star,
her ankles behind her head.

“She would never!”
You scream.
“That is completely
out of character!”

You erase furiously
like a man possessed,
then say **** it
and tear out pages
until you are certain
you have rid yourself
of this nonsense.

You drink whiskey
from the bottle,
and with each sip,
the pages burn
and cast flickering
shadows on the wall.
You finally sleep.

In the morning,
with an aching head
and blurry vision,
you open your book,
and find those pages
have regrown,
like shiny white leaves
printed with the blackest ink.

You sigh,
pick up your pen,
and ponder
what happens next.

We sat at a table
after work,
drinking pitchers of beer,
telling stories,
and venting our disgust
with the *******
in charge of
much of our lives.

He spoke up,
for a change,
a normally quiet,
mild mannered
worker bee of a man,
and said,
“I’ve got a lot of venom
built up in me.”

We stared into
our beer glasses,
no one saying anything,
except two of the women,
who laughed at him,
then continued talking.

I’ll never forget how his face
looked like a mountain *****
stripped after a landslide,
the naked granite beneath
cracked and grey,
standing silent after
the roar of debris,
but still seeming to quiver
as though a second layer
might soon peel
and fall.

Walking the usual sidewalk,
but something’s different...
could I always see
the mountains from here?

I hear the buzz of chainsaws,
and across the street,
see men working in hard hats,
and the bulldozers,
the piles of trees,
the yellow metal claw
digging at an intransigent stump
two hundred years thick,
a sapling in colonial days.

Unobstructed,
Mt. Rose stands naked
to the west,
all her snow melted,
save one small
teardrop shaped patch
in a shadow near the summit.

The view is glorious,
but it won't be long
until new warehouses
painted in earth tones
block this mountain view
more thoroughly
than oaks and elms
ever did.

But people will have jobs
for the construction phase,
and later shipping
cardboard boxes of stuff
to other people
who desperately need it,
treasure tossed on doorsteps
by overworked delivery men.

For now,
I enjoy the view.

He wants your madness
but at a safe distance,
like spending the night
on weekends.

Seven years now,
and no proposal
on the horizon.
That sun has set.

You’re not getting
what you hoped
out of this life,
no matter how
you squeeze and wring
that cloth.

Not even working two jobs,
buying a new car,
and the house next door,
rented to Bay Area refugees
at inflated prices
is making it happen.

So the hole gets filled
with clothes and shoes
still tagged a year later,
perfume and jewelry never worn,
dishes that won't fit
in the cupboard,
furniture that won’t fit
in the house,
but sits in the garage
thick with dust,
alongside piles of hardware
for half finished,
abandoned projects.

Jungles of potted plants and flowers
thirst in the backyard,
scorched by the summer sun.

Your housemates see
the yard long
credit card receipts
on the kitchen counter
or the coffee table,
and wonder
about the sudden rent increase
you forced upon them.

They smile
and walk tiptoe
when you’re around,
groan silently when you ask,
“Can you guys help me
carry this thing inside?”

Dad and son
play video games together,
spraying their enemies
with bullets,
and chucking grenades,
grinning as the blood
and body parts fly.

They watch movies together too:
westerns with gunfights
and men bleeding,
dying in dusty streets.
Car chase action flicks
with crashes and explosions.

The kid's seven now,
got his own BB gun
he shoots at neighborhood cats,
even killed a few,
and that's all right.
Another year, Dad's
gonna teach him
to shoot the.22

But he got the belt
when Dad caught the boy
in his **** stash.
He squirmed, sitting
at the dinner table that night,
welts stinging his little behind.

He got the buckle end of it
when Dad caught him
and the neighbor boy
trying out some of those
things he'd seen
in the magazine photos.

"No son of mine
is gonna grow up
to be a ******!"

They sing the blues
in shouting matches
with co workers,
with strangers at bars,
with family rarely seen
over Thanksgiving tables.

They play a sad tune
with guns under pillows
and flaming hatred
fanned every day
by radio chatter
and at night
by tv news.

Lonely vibrato from
a street corner guitar echoes
in 2 a.m. tumblers of scotch
as they pace hallways
imagining a country
that never quite was.

Beneath red faced yelling
and epithets
spit like venom,
beneath the scowls
and finger pointing
lie reservoirs of tears
behind locked spillways,
and children trembling,
cornered by the biggest
bully of them all.

If you train your ears,
you can hear
their song of lament
drifting across the land
like a funeral dirge.

From lighter flame
to cigarette
into ash flicked,
and stubbed out.

The bottle poured
into drunkenness
and a dark *******
hangover hiding
from another day,
leaking blue
through dusty blinds.

From one woman
to the next, and
from night to night,
weekend to weekend...

The future becomes now,
arriving like an empty box
abandoned at the door.

We all have that friend...
the endless stream
of cheerful affirmations
across our newsfeed.

Like sunshine
and rainbow farts
blown from
lavender scented
*******.

One read:
“Do what makes you happy.”

I asked,
“What if what makes you happy
is killing and dismembering people,
and storing their organs
in your freezer?”

She’s not my “friend” anymore.

I cringe, reading
some of the memes,
wondering about
the dangers of
that much optimism.

Wondering if I’ll ever
read about this person
in a front page
news story.

I grabbed and yanked at you
like pulling a ****
splitting my concrete path
with thick roots.

I plucked you out,
like they told me to,
but the root
broke in my hand
below the surface.

The crack you grew from
an open mouth,
laughing,
as I dig
until my fingers
bleed.

The piece that’s left of you
already sprouting:
tiny fingers grasping
at what’s left
of me.

We sat on a bench
by the river's edge,
talking and laughing,
then you reached -
toward me I thought -
and with your finger
tore a tangled spider web
between the slats,
freeing a little grey moth
caught there
beating frantic wings.

It perched on your finger
a moment,
until you held it aloft
and gently blew,
smiling as it flew.

I breathed an extra breath
as something in me
soared.

After the yelling,
my fist through the sheetrock,
you emptying the loaded dish rack
onto the kitchen linoleum,

and how we glared
at each other, gladiators
breathing heavily,

you stopped me
at the door
carrying my suitcase
and teary eyed
asked,

“Do you still love me?”

I stared at you in silence,
then put down my bag,
and held you
with that unspoken “Yes”
burning in my chest.

Sat on a stool at a
greasy spoon counter,
being sized up by a
veteran big rig jockey
with road hard eyes.

After hearing my story
he nodded,
stuffed a forkful
of biscuits and gravy in,
and chewing, said:
“What they don’t tell ya at truck school,
driving’s just one kick in the head
after another.”

I nodded,
the way a rookie does.

He wasn’t wrong.

Now, fifteen years later,
I see it’s all like that,
truck driving or not:
one gritted teeth
******* puckered
sliding on black ice
toward the guardrail
moment after another.

And at nightfall,
formerly hiding in bottles,
shot glasses
and blackouts.

These days,
hiding in words,
like standing naked
on a not too busy
street corner.

A few people glance
as they walk by,
and I wave.

Step outside from the cool
and feel a heaviness
to the desert air,
a rare bit of moisture
that brings out scents
of pine and sage
and garden flowers.

White cloud tops billow
high into the blue,
shades of grey underneath,
but no sheets of rain yet fall
against distant brown hills,
no jagged light cracks
like a whip
across the eggshell sky.

At the park I stop to sit
beneath a pine tree.
Three crows glide in,
land in the branches above
cawing noisily,
peering black eyed down
through olive needles
and prickly cones.

No breeze tickles
skin or sways grass
as the clouds darken
and swell.

And I wait.

And the crows wait.

And the desert,
finally,
outwaits us all.

To be more like the machines
and gadgets that surround us,
the newest incarnation of gods
spun from nightmare threads
of loss and starvation
then slavishly served.

To have a memory
like a video camera,
to never be lost
like a GPS map,
to be an efficient little worker
steady as a robot arm,
to crush enemy bones
as relentlessly as a bulldozer,
to weather insults
as dispassionately
as your virtual assistant,
and be as immortal
as photos in cyberspace,
forever smooth cheeked,
outlasting any marble statue.

Not forgetting
birthdays and car keys,
stumbling down dead end
hotel hallways,
limping on a sprained ankle,
calling in sick or hungover
bedridden with shaking,
nose broken by a drunken
bar brawl head ****,
or crushed by that woman
just rolling her eyes,
and walking away.

And not this
trembling skeleton draped
in withering flesh clicking,
ticking like a broken clock,
springs uncoiling,
winding down.

We scramble and race,
controlling and perfecting
and finally break ourselves
against the steel idols
of our own creation,
like John Henry
hammering his drill.

Kicking a dark pebble along
in early slanting light,
it tumbles oblong
clattering and jumping
across pavement cracks.

A final kick
and it crashes
into the bright red curb,
splitting in two
along some invisible fissure.

The jagged pieces
rock momentarily
on their rounded backs
like overturned turtles,
then lie still.

Sometimes I read
something I’ve written,
and not so long ago...
a couple of months,
last week,
or ten minutes,
and think:

“Man, you are really
full of ****!”

You want them to love you,
to fall into your depths,
dive into you,
you mud puddle,
you pothole full of last night’s
***** rain.

You don’t really feel that way:
you’re hollow...
a gourd,
a dried up well,
a stringless guitar
in a pawnshop window.

But it’s easy
to make something up,
almost as if deception
were a built in feature.

Doves feign broken wings,
Possums play dead,
Chameleons blend,
Anglerfish dangle their bait,
and men and women,
well...

This...."flaw"
carved by necessity
into our bones,
and written in our blood.

Yet we are shocked
when we are deceived,
like being surprised
every time we see
another person’s face
and discover it has a nose.

We watched that couple
in the restaurant,
whispering venom
across the table,
shaking their heads,
then chewing their meal
in sullen silence,
looking away.

I reached across our table
and squeezed your hand,
as we agreed, “Not us.”

And we were right.
We didn't make it
halfway to that...

One must try hard,
not to see certain things:
the rust orange glow
of the setting sun,
a bloated scowling face
casting shadow stains
across ivory columns
and monuments
to former greatness.

Yet eyes are clouded
with enough fear
to believe it rises,
or that our belief
can make it rise again,
even as it visibly sinks
below the western horizon,
and shadows lengthen,
and darken.

A raw beauty exists
in these colors of fading light,
though I shudder to imagine
the long night that awaits,
and the things that
might fill the darkness
to terrify and ruin
a generation of children.

I hope not to witness that.
I hope the twilight lasts awhile,
but that I am asleep
before night
completely
falls.

There are days
when the waves
are too big for swimming.

And days when
you just know they are,
though you haven't
walked down to the beach,
or even peeked out the window.

There's a storm brewing,
you're sure of it.

So you wait in the house
with the shades drawn,
listen for thunderclaps,
and envision the swells growing
under darkening skies.

Man and woman
face off on a street corner,
voices growing louder,
pointing and flailing their arms.

Finally he screams,
“Look, I'm right, ok?
I don’t need validation from you!"

He turns and storms off
down the sidewalk toward me,
as she stares at his back
with her mouth hanging open,
hands on her hips.

I can hear him
breathing heavily
and muttering as he passes,
a slight breeze in his wake.

As I turn and watch him go,
my feet shuffle a few steps
toward him, as though
following on their own.

I look down at them,
shaking my head,
No.

A siren screams
toward death or fire
breaking early morning silence
as creeping sunlight
mixes with long shadows
leftover from the night.

Across the street
a man struggles
to hold a snarling pit bull
which is dragging him
towards a smaller dog
cowering at his owner’s feet.

“No!” and “Knock it off!”
yells the man,
as the animal pulls
at his harness,
growling through bared canines.

The owner of the smaller dog
scoops him up,
carries him
to the opposite side
of the street,
cradling him in her arms
like a baby.

The pit bull stares
as they walk away,
covering its teeth
as they round a corner
out of sight.

Now it is man,
dragging beast toward home.
“Come on, you!” he says,
chest puffed, a strut in his step.

As I’m sitting
on the living room sofa,
eating a bowl
of fish and rice,
my other roommate
passes through
on his way to the kitchen,
asks “What’s up?”

“Not much” I say
as I watch him wobble
through the room
on skinny legs
in his bathrobe
at noon on a Saturday.

The fridge door squeaks open,
he’s in there a minute or so,
then he wobbles back through
empty handed,
goes into his room,
and shuts the door.

After I finish eating,
I wash my bowl,
open the fridge and count:
six beers left in his twelve pack.

There were nine in there
just a few minutes ago.
How...? Did he have them
shoved up his ***?
Maybe that robe has pockets...

I’m going on ten months
as a teetotaler,
and that *******
cardboard box
is always sitting there,
shiny cans winking at me
as I grab an apple
or a piece of leftover chicken.

I hope this doesn’t turn into
another one of those days
where he crashes face first
into the coffee table,
and I pick him up off the floor
and guide him to bed
as his nose drips blood
on the carpet,
and on me.

The phase is turning grey,
I’m afraid....
Unlike the pink hair
of the woman at the store,
about mid forties, like me.

Only half is pink actually,
the other half shaved smooth.
Earlobes dangle, stretched
like basketball hoops.

Her teenage son tags along,
appearing quite normal.
His rebellious phase
will include heavy doses of church
and young republicans meetings,
screaming “Libtard!” at his mom.

As for me, I still maintain
my long mane,
brown with grey strays now,
hippie on the outside,
misanthrope within,
my outrage at life’s injustice
and people’s greed
still intact, though I lack
a revolutionary spirit
and I despise crowds
so marching in the street
is out, though I applaud
those who do.

I squat here and there,
usually online,
but occasionally
at family gatherings,
leaving steaming piles
of opinion and rage
for white shirted men
in shiny shoes to step in.

At the grassy park
where I sit scribbling,
dogs on leashes
are leaving piles of their own.
The owners walk them
clockwise on a paved loop,
sticking mostly to the path.

I shed sandals,
stroll barefoot in the dewy grass,
my eyes scanning
for squishy land mines,
walking counterclockwise,
a true badass.

"Wipe that smirk
off your face!"
You will hear this often,
though you are not
aware of smirking.
"Lose the attitude!"
Though you do not speak.

In your face
and body language,
they read their own
not quite swallowed lies,
their self betrayal
in the service of a futile
and shallow existence.

Their own misgivings reflected
in your rebellious twinkle
and shuffle,
must be erased.

Their hands reach
from schoolbooks,
from newspapers,
from billboards and screens,
with gleaming spoonfuls
of stinking horseshit,
their lips humming airplane sounds,
"Mmmmm-mmm."

Keep your lips pinched
in disgust, boys and girls,
and seek out
your own brand of futility.

After several knocks
I opened the stall door
and there she sat,
folded in half and snoring,
head on her knees,
jeans and *******
pulled down to her ankles,
oblivious to the gift
her boyfriend had left
after unsuccessfully trying
to wake her:

a single red rose
in a vase at her feet.

From behind the bar
I'd seen her stagger
into the bathroom.
He'd run to the store
after asking if I'd watch her
while he was gone.

She was a working girl
he'd rescued from one of the brothels,
and they were getting married soon,
but he was uncertain...

He'd returned proudly
with the flower,
asked where she was,
and I pointed.

A few minutes later
he'd walked out,
said she'll probably
come around soon,
tell her I'm at that bar
across the street.

He'd gone out the door,
and here I stood,
in a women's bathroom stall,
me and the shadow
between her thighs,
and the rose,
and several petals
it had dropped
on the ***** tile floor.

I sighed, bent down,
picked up the vase
with one hand,
touched her shoulder
with the other,
and gently shook her
until she stirred.

A tap on the shoulder,
I swivel in my chair,
leaning back,
fingers stroking chin stubble
as I take her all in.

A pale leg
protrudes through the slit
of her long black dress.

A glance,
and I raise my eyes
to meet her blue gaze.

She ***** her head,
looks quizzically at me,
as she leans back,
strokes her smooth chin
with slender fingers,
mocking my pose,
and whatever expression
I’m wearing on my face.

A dare in her crooked smile.

I shake my head,
like a dog shedding water,
break the spell,
ask how I can help.

With her hand
she beckons me
toward her desk,
her English still too broken,
my Russian even worse,
though I do try sometimes,
as she gives puzzled looks,
and occasionally giggles.

She sits,
points at the problem
on her computer screen,
as I lean over her shoulder
close as I dare,
breathing her in.

And seeing only
the reflection
of our faces together
in the glass.

Unable to not peek
where I shouldn’t,
fingers clicking,
stalking fibrous cables
at light speed
in the wee hours,
seeking clues
to your disappearing act
as I toss back
beer after beer.

Deciphering posts
like a savant reading code.

Aha! a photo:
you with a new boyfriend,
some *******
with a face tattoo.

I think I recognize
that neighborhood behind you...
that street sign there,
but it’s too blurry to see.

He won’t last, anyway
do I warn him about you?

Let’s check out
his page....

A gun nut? Really?
AND a big diesel pickup
with chrome stacks like a semi truck.

Compensating, no doubt.

I smile at the thought
of you, after,
unsatisfied
by the thing
he’s compensating for,
with your lying pillow talk.

He leaves, and
you reach in the drawer
of the nightstand
for your little blue toy.

Is this better than
driving by your house
at three a.m.,
counting the number
of cars in the driveway?

Or banging on the door,
drunk, or smashing a bottle
through the window
like I would have
when I was still young
and really *******
alive?

It sits tall in the lobby
with curves like
a woman's hips
under a tight fitting
evening gown.

Blue as lapis lazuli,
streaked with white veins,
flecks of gold
and shot through with
jagged hairline cracks.

It's been broken,
perhaps more than once,
but someone
gathered the pieces,
and with patience
and trembling fingers,
glued every one
back into place.

Now it sits
reflecting the light again
in fragile wholeness.

It’s Art Fest downtown
and I’m wandering
along with many others,
among the white tents
set up in the street,
looking at metal sculptures
like mangled insects,
and paintings of fragmented people
with chopped up faces
and body parts strewn
like puzzle pieces.

A shrill voice
draws my gaze:
a woman with matted blonde hair
sitting by herself on the sidewalk,
having a conversation
with at least two
other people.

“What did you do to my son?
Where is he?”
she yells,
turning to face one,
then the other.

I’m watching this,
unsure what to do,
unable to look away.

People walk past,
headphones in,
looking at their screens.
Two cops show up,
begin talking to her
and for once,
I’m glad they’re around.

Walking on, I turn down
a quiet side street
away from the main drag,
back toward the lot
where my car is parked.

A man covered in
faded blue prison tats
is walking toward me
with long strides,
looking around,
arms swinging in big arcs
with fists balled at the ends,
his jaw working sideways
like a crackhead on a ******.

The back of my neck tingles
as I take my hands
out of my pockets,
remembering the video
I saw last night:
two scumbags in the Bronx
knocking some poor guy
out cold just for kicks,
high fiving as he lay
unconscious in the street.

A few steps away,
he nods, says
“What’s up bro?”
I raise my chin, “Sup.”
We pass.
I throw a glance
back over my shoulder
as he rounds a corner
and disappears.

Here’s my car.
I get in, turn the key,
and roll the **** out of here.

Last night,
before sleep,
your picture glowed
on my little screen.

You were out with friends
at a concert,
smiling, laughing
and dancing.

Later on,
the pangs I felt
when I saw your face
became a dream gateway
back into your world.

We stood there
listening to the music,
smiling and laughing together
as we did many years before.

Then I put my arm around you
and you pulled away.

You can’t do that,
you said.

It’s true.
I can’t.

Not without the help of others,
each of us builds a fortress,
like building walls
around a desert mirage,
or a mist rising,
evaporating in sunlight.

And the world teaches us
we must guard these walls
that surround our
misty treasure.

Some great souled men
have claimed
that the walls
are not really there.

Some even lived
as though this were true.
Usually they were killed
for daring to do so.

They say
if we sit still
and silent long enough
to tame this wild ox
of a mind that yanks us
from one thing
to another,

we will see this truth.

I long to see it.
Sometimes I think I glimpse it
for a moment,
but then it vanishes,
just like that mirage,
just like that mist I defend,
with my sword drawn,
standing at the gate.

I was sitting
at the front desk
of the gym where I worked,
when my friend Bobby
walked in.

We chatted awhile,
until he grimaced,
stepped back from the counter,
lifted a leg
and cut a loud ****
of the earth shaking variety.

“Jesus!” I said,
as we both giggled
like schoolboys.

Just then we both heard
the click click
of high heels coming
out of the locker room
and down the hallway.

He looked at me, wide eyed,
grabbed his gym bag,
and bolted
into an adjacent room.

Leaving me there,
in all of It.
****.

And it was the one
I feared it might be,
she of the goddess face
and statuesque figure,
whom we both coveted.

There she was,
click clicking her way
toward me,
right into It.

She smiled, said
“Have a nice day...”
“Day” trailing off
as she reached the
cloud’s odiferous perimeter.

She snorted somewhat,
looking at me
with furrowed brow,
then turned her head
and click clicked quickly
out the door.

I sighed,
hung my head in defeat,
but was unable
to suppress
a creeping grin.

Well played,
you *******.

Many times
I have felt the history
of fang and claw
written in my blood
rising to greet
the civilized world.

Triggered by
body language,
a certain look
or snicker,
a trespass
over an imaginary line.

It rises, a vibration
hovering in my chest,
gurgling low in my throat
like a bear growling.

And I am taken
out of my body
in a flash
to some psychic
killing field
where my hands
are around your throat
as I spit out the words,
“Laugh now!"

I breathe,
and return,
smiling at you
tight lipped
over what is left
of my canines,
devouring you
with my gaze instead.

I am human,
not animal.
I tell myself this.
I tell the vibrations
this truth,
hoping they’ll remember
next time.

But they have
a truth of their own,
and no ears
for mine.

Who am I to say?
Depending on the darkness
of this new age being born,
they may yet be a blessing.

I'm sitting on the curb,
I see a rusty old bolt
laying on the pavement.

I pick it up,
turn it and feel
its heft,
its cold edges,
my fingers
now stained orange.

I run fingertips
over threads
still sharp,
not stripped.

It once held
something together,

and still could.

grow thicker skin
like us
they say

also...
calm down
snap out of it
and let it go

advice
from friends
who seem to think
I'm someone else

they love him
this someone else
they've painted
this potential me
created in their image

while the flesh me
fails to explain
the experience
of this pulsing
straightjacketed
brain

the drop of errant blood
that pollutes the rest

what it's like
treading water with
concrete shoes

and how I tiptoe
like a cat burglar
around double helix
spiral staircases
trying to avoid
the mischievous child
who hides in dark corners
lobbing sticks of dynamite
in my path

I explain all this
but they are not appeased

they trumpet laughter
through their scaly trunks

I turn and walk
out the door into
my daily hailstorm
unprotected

Always pretended
at being a stone,
especially when crawling
on the floor yet again,
searching cracks
for broken pieces,
never quite finding them all.

But now here it is,
here it really is.
I've pretended it
into existence.

When I can't imagine
sitting across from you
(whoever you are)
at a little table
ever again,
and feeling the tickles
of tiny currents flowing
between us.

The invisible strands
that tug at me
as I lean closer
smiling, laughing,
and searching your eyes
for traces
of what I've lost.

covered with drywall dust
and shards of glass
one knuckle split
dripping red

some grains of sand
nestled inside
from a foggy grey
New England beach
where we once stood
gazing at our ship's torn sails
flapping in the wind

they'll find them
when they find me

they'll find them
spilling from the creases
of my still warm hand
as it opens
slowly

I was fifteen,
Jersey boy, displaced
from green suburbia
to a sagebrush sea.

I tried to drop my accent,
got a job at a horse ranch
shoveling ****,
wore cowboy boots.

Finally made a friend
in that dirt road valley,
taught me to sideways slide
and countersteer,
joyriding his mother's car
down rough roads
we shouldn’t be on,
sparks flying,
rocks bouncing
off the undercarriage.

And he had guns too,
pistols and rifles.
We hiked up into the hills,
shot at rusty
abandoned cars,
empty beer cans
or anything
that crawled
slithered or hopped.

Killing that jackrabbit
was a lucky shot.
I got him right through the eye
with a 22, on the fly,
just for fun.

We laughed
and high fived
as that black crater
in his head
did not stare at us
from the dusty ground.

I was in.

****** into the desert sky
from sage leaves
and pine needles
from lizards sunning
themselves on rocks
and raptors preying on them
from above

and from us
walking by the river
and all the people
on the sidewalks
and city streets
sweating and breathing

from the last exhalations
of dying grandparents
in hospital beds
and later
from the crematory chimney

it rises
once part of us, and
what is left of them
and mingles
enfolding dust
in its crystalline embrace
and falling softly white
over mountains shivering
in howling winter winds

they cannot hear
the laughter of children
resurrecting them as snowmen
with cold red fingers
later abandoning them
in the meadow
under the merciless sun
soaking muddy green fields
of springtime

they percolate through soil
into channels
small and large
and finally down the canyon
roaring grey green
and foaming white
over rapids
through eddies
swirling into a pool
cupped in a grey granite palm
ancient yet smooth
as newborn skin

where I dip my hands
shatter that harsh yellow eye
into a thousand fireflies
and splash cool water
on my face

I thanked him,
the man in charge,
for his astute insight
into my personality.

He scowled,
a head taller than I,
peering down under
eyebrows thick
like blonde pushbrooms.

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

“I’ll take it as one, anyway.”
I said, staring up at him,
lips grinning
over grit teeth.

He looked at me,
blinked,
then turned
and walked off
shaking his head.

His dress shoes
clomped across
the warehouse floor
like a legion of bullies
marching in retreat.

And I think I glimpsed
my *******
reflected in his
shiny bald spot.

"Take another drink!"
he'd command
in his mellow baritone
when I began whining over
the betrayals and treachery
he'd probably seen
a thousand times.

I first met him
as I was lugging boxes
up the stairs
into that shabby
rooming house,
home to eight of us
castaway bachelors.

He and I became friends,
fifty years between us,
and we'd sit
in his cramped dingy room
lined with bookshelves,
drinking whiskey
talking about philosophy
and telling stories
of battles fought.

Mine were of
drunken nights,
bar fights,
trashed apartments
and fingernail marks
from skirmishes
with crazy women
with wildcat eyes.

His were of Normandy
and his army buddy
ripped by shrapnel
bleeding out in seconds
as he watched helplessly.
His voice cracked in the telling
as I shrank in my chair.

And I remember now
that he wrote poetry.
Poems I didn't understand
but how could I?
They were written
in bombs, bullets and blood,
and camping under bridges,
pedaling north along the coast
on a rusty bicycle,
after leaving a mental hospital
when the war was over.

He's dead ten years now.
When I last
said goodbye,
we shook hands
standing in the hallway
of that sagging old house.

He looked at me, said
"There's no easy way
to do this, kid."
Then he turned
and walked into his room,
closed the door
he usually left open.

I still have a poem of his,
written down somewhere
I can't find....

I'm rambling now...
there's no easy way
to end this either.

earful of mosquito buzz
disturbs reverie
a wave of the hand
brings silence

then
the quick sting
and slap to the neck

tiny mangled body
wings twitching

a drop of blood
trickles down palm's
lifeline crease
wiped on pant leg
forgotten

until
it swells
and itches

as we scratch
with nibbled fingernails
whispering curses

It was good, you know...
in the dream
I could taste the ice cold beer
that fizz and bite
that I miss so much
that pleasant floating sensation
after the first two

I should probably run
to an AA meeting, but...
strangers
cult like eyes
are you new here?
clammy handshakes
held too long
hugs with my nose
inches away from
malodorous armpits

And this morning,
at the coffee shop
stray bottles of beer
on a table
outside the bathroom
leftover from the owner's
weekend bbq

I'm going in to
take a ****....
and my hand
wants to reach for one
no one's looking
take it in there
uncap and guzzle it
lukewarm
big belch afterward

Then I'd be ready for work...

She wasn't shy
about telling her friends
she was banging him
for his bank account,
hundred grand and change.

A retirement plan,
of sorts.

She met him
while pouring drinks
at some biker bar dive,
a pseudo Vietnam vet,
beer belly, mostly toothless,
his battle stories
straight outta Hollywood.

And it wouldn't be long,
she said
with him looking
a bit yellow
but still hammering back shots
at the casino bar,
while she played
slot machines two at a time
a handle in each hand.

Occasionally, he'd yell,
"Let's go get a room
so you can **** my ****!"

I saw her after the inevitable,
said sorry to hear about Tommy.
(You never know...
there could have been
some human feelings)

And she smiled,
said "Yeah..."
her tone chipper.

She got the money,
and it was gone
in about a year.
She fed that flock
of fair weather friends
like a mama bird
and then they flew.

Now she’s looking
for another sucker,
and taking shots
at gold diggers
on social media.

"******* ******."

I found the secret to happiness
he tells me

his cheeks are red
and his left eye blackened
his arms a patchwork
of purple bruises
I take the bait and ask

I dont think anymore
he says
Ever?
If I do I slap
or pinch myself

A moment of silence
while I consider this
and then
Slap!

I flinch at the sound
look over
as he turns toward me
grinning
a tiny crack
in his lower lip
leaking blood

He does seem happy though

I hear only
static from the tower
muffled voices
see only
grey clouds below

I grip the stick
with both hands
knuckles white
swallow hard
at a lump
that won’t go down

and point the nose
of my little craft
as I dive into the storm
hoping for a runway
or even solid ground