soap and water
          dishes
          laundry
          or shower

brick from mortar
boys against girls

urban velvet smog
city vapors clog

this train -- there is a line
        beginners
        quitters

this parking lot -- there is a line
        shoppers
        influencers

open bar pharmacy, bottled water

                  no pity
                  no guarantees

dragon chasers
chin music
        
          lapsed short term memory loss

opening mail for grandmother
                the obituaries
                that ****** fly

a discussion among men
about a woman's voice
           come sit and listen

one last cigarette couple
walking home through the park
               driving alone in the dark
                             on the heels of
                             a reflection
                             of Christ
                             or an hourglass
                             in remission

them or not them
       just arrived
       just married
too many stairs
not enough elevators
worry about it later

them, definitely them
sharing beds
      under the leotard
      under the candlelight

a helping hand
finely manicured fingers
one stationary
        then two in missionary

word upon words need aspirin
            orchestrate
            headache
                            pillow is the threshold
                            tomorrow...soap and water

~
His latest greatest film,
Spa Days Before Life Support,
welcomes back misanthropy,
ventures with vultures
--tasteless exchange--
a depraved ideology
that drains the heaven inside
his lead actress.

Straw men,
watching the storm clock
on opening night,
praise its framework
even if hollow within.

Visits to the ***** carnival
next to the reconstruction site,
leave the pamphleteer
with no options other than
filling silk pockets.

And his trophy wife,
good for the press conference,
bad for the environment.

Let the ladies know
empowerment
is another name for
imprisonment.
~

~
I.
Killing Mary Poppins
with a spoonful of sugar,
the sugar from the medicine
on the other side of town,
the town called Silent Hedges
And A Bit Of Fluff.

II.
Only a display model,
her name is Marmalade;
skin white like the moon,
she wears her ****** stranger dress;
one of her sisters is dying,
the other never lived;
God is a far off concept,
the fuchsia colored ball on
an overhead power grid
points her way to salvation.

III.
Morning became something else:
bright decline,
cold things start to burn,
tragic saxophone
among the beckoning,
everything's a symptom:
tax exiles, imperialists,
girls talking nitrous
--mouths full of soil,
Virginia Reel around the fountain
(do-si-do),
ready to buy up impossibles
as the dominoes fall.

IV.
Memory is a chemical
to the girl who cried champagne,
like ceiling stars
during the prodigal summer,
she played the game
on all fours,
and found a drawer
full of quarantine polaroids,
some with blood in her mouth,
others, of rain on her birthday.
~

Image
autumn
womb

sunset chant

a feathered fog, isle of wight

we all have places that we miss

lie still, sleep long
panoramic dream
snippets
bathed in seldomness

lie still, sleep long
the gentle hum of eunoia
holding their absence

like balloon days
when delightful little occupants
holding adventure
in their very hands

keep them
from floating away