The poet signs his words to the deaf.
The screen behind exposes his faulty hands.
He is silent.
His hands a fire.

He knows there will be unintended words,
new meanings to old and familiar lines.
The muddle is his creation,
their new meaning, new poem,
both treachery and rebirth,
their dawn and twilight, their light and moon,
both hawk and silver fish gliding, swimming
high in the silent moonlight clouds and sky
of the noisy rewrite of their imagination.

He reads his words on their shirts.
Cloth sells better, than ten thousand books.
The swift river of lines comes in their colors too!
His restless words settle in for the show.
He feels like a naked stranger in an open door.


When his hands stop, the applause comes.
The deaf are enthusiastic clappers.
Something about getting off on the vibrations
created by their hands, he figures.
He’s happy when they come up to him,
signing new syllables
to be printed on upside down books.

There will be a time when God leaves you.
Maybe summer. Maybe winter.
The last thing he will say:
Keep searching.  Keep finding.
Seek me in the trash, the womb
lungs and heart.
He will leave you agape and stirring,
just a memory prayer
to say as the sun rises
and you wonder whether
winter or summer
has the holiest months.

The long way to heaven is to dig through the earth.
Walk with me.  Fall with me.
Be the helmet light in the tunnel.
Hold my feet less I fall into the abyss.
Shackle your friends to you,
foot to foot, arm to arm.
The long way to heaven is to dig through the earth.
Pull me from hell, while all the others
**** us to heaven’s salvation.

Mommy, esta di descubrí el lenguaje de los fantasmas

Ghost talk? What are you talking about, Jonny?

Si mommy.  En serio descubrí.  Escúchame.

Ghost talk? What do they say?

Para saludar dicen: hoo hoo.

Para decir que sí, dicen: Hoo

And how do they say goodbye?

No lo sé.  They haven’t left yet.

Mama, today I discovered the language of ghosts.

Line 3:

Yes, mama. Seriously, I discovered it.  Listen to me.

Line 5:

To say hello they say: Hoo hoo.

Line 6:

To say yes they say: Hoo.

Line 8:

I don’t know.

Writing poetry for me is like fishing in the wind:
You shoot your arrow-net into the air
and after many failures you snag an ugly bird
that you make beautiful the more you see
that it really resembles you.

The world is the ultimate trick
It grants man thunder yet steals his lightning
every time.
It makes him think he has the sweetest smell
of every thing
even that his **** does not stink
that taming fire was his best theft
of all time
that a caged dove heralds peace
in our time
the best of love
that time is a curse and not a gift
that the wolf is the enemy of pigs
that the world spins straight on its own axis
that he has a mind of his own design
that the red rose blooms for him to smell
that cancer is part of its mortal revenge
that nature taught man how to frown
that it would steal his nailed smile, if it could
The world is the ultimate trick
and it poisons him to think she’s his motherland

I gawked at her nine mind years
hooked three heart weeks later btw
f’ed a year before the day btw
three dogs, no kids
but she can really cook
so we lived happy btw
friends, church, family, dogs, house,
night, day, time all slipped away btw
yes, we aged, grew old-er btw
fell into cancer,
bad weather, lost it all, but well insured btw
no perfect couple, marriage but still around btw
until our slow last gasp,
last glance in the sun’s cast btw
on our old back porch with no one