Cautious on a couch
we made mild plans
to go to the store
just to come back to bed.

Writing poems
about writing poems
about telephones
about missing home.

Just outside your soul
lies a gentle breeze.
So gently move your soul
toward anything.

my friend bakes bread
then breaks it,
feeds me freely,
and we argue
over which of us
to thank.

I get dizzy daily,
doubting deadly.

I go mad with
breakfast,
and manic
miming,
chaining
choices,
changing
timing.

It's not
choosing one thing
that smalls me,
but refusing
all else,
like a spoiled
king.

The sweat on Sydney Poitier's brow
might just save us all.

How dare he
sell us our own souls
with so sweet a tenor.

Anne so sleepy
so tired of gritting.
Her lungs pulsing
for a decade or three.
Only she could kind enough,
to grant the night off.

Quincy moans and mourns,
but won't pick a side.

Switchboards tie us to each other,
like saxophones,
eventually.

This movie's about suicide.
Telly Savalas stood stone in the wings.

And I guess,
if we're going to just quit,
it's right that
Kojak should be there,

scowling on a sucker,
to call the time of death.

In the desert of south Utah,
lies a staircase of gods.

Follow the southwestern wind
there to the middle,
until you find
the tomb of The Gore King.

The smallest version
of a frightful legend,
five-inch fangs
in sutured jaws,
a skull like a comet,
dragging death forward
to
any
next
new
blood.

How quaint,
how horrible and honest,
to demand your meals,
to roar your lust.

You should have stood straight,
practiced grins
and built museums,
friendly temples
of natural history,
yesterday's dangers
made safe
in cartooning winks.

Now,
your reign of terror
diverts
our screeching young.

Found a fence,
climbed a fence,
wildflowers
ever since.

*

It should be
right around here.
Yep,
see there,
through those trees,
with the gothic points,
that's it,
the one
that I told you about...

Someone built this thing I ache in,
someone got paid
long ago.

Every few hours
I convince myself
all the edges are
sinking
and the air's gone
rotten.

Until the next corner
where some crooked smile
stabs me sober.

Rumi
told me
to talk less,
and now,
I can't stop
telling
everyone
about it.

I sniff old poems
like ***** clothes
to get me through
the weekend.

The Greek, the cowboy,
and the soldier know,
that what we do next
began long ago.

A stranger knocked
on the wrong door,
so I showed him
where to go.

Old men like me
stare at maps,
find battlefields
and forests,
start planning
trips.

You can't clean yourself
with plaster
and tile falls
like water.

I love all things
cheap
bright
and
fragile.

I'm long overdue
for a poem
on her eyes
or her lines
or her
sleepy Sunday smile.

But first,
how do you write a poem
about another
person's
jokes?

A splotch on a map,

spilled ink

that spreads and microbizes

past false edges,

infects other blots,

until we're all stained

with each other

and ourselves,

surprised

horrified

delighted

that we can grow

even inkier.

A friend recalled
some minor news,
that last decade's
daring
moved back into town.

I remembered her height
for most of an hour,
and now,
my skin's a compass.

No matter where I turn,
there's a
buzzing buzzing buzzing,
somewhere straight East.

I like
to pretend,
the dirt
I track inside,
followed me
on purpose.

That maybe,
I'm somewhere,
earth
would like to be.

it was a wood-paneled hell
with two doomed friends,
nicotine-stained,
beginning the end,
the dust of our daring,
the carpet's latest layer.

the shards of glass
we stomped on
were duller than the stones.
we'd crawl out at dusk,
and pace over
and over
our inside jokes,
in that motel cul-de-sac,
circling like trash.

"someone should tear this place down."

*

now the streets seem shorter
and the root beer parking lot
where i read youth to sleep
snuck up on me.

a quick dangerous flick
of eyes over shoulders,
a last-minute dare
for a chain-link slice
of where the ending
all began,

but the ******* tore it down.

I imagine you
mopping,
mad
but determined.

You washed
your hair
in your
dream,
but I
did the
same
just now.

Sometimes it's nice
to flick a finger
and make
pretty heroes
happen.

I know
you have
so much to do,
pretty power things
too big for me to see,
but
please please please,
sometime soon,
breathe a little slower,
and play some games with me.

every morning
boasts its ripeness,
begs a beginning,
nothing cleaner than a feeling,
nothing fresher than a poem.

Plummet heavy
through the clouds
or spread a little,
float around.
Pose or timbre,
chosen vow,
home or god
is always down.

Growing braver,
I take big bites,
clean and cool,
with waking-up
dripping down
my arm,
spit out poems
like watermelon seeds.

Scared of nothing
or sometimes
anything,
you somehow know
what's made for
climbing.

Your thunderstorm
of giggles
booms our sleepy
spirits,
insists that it's morning,
and therefore, time to
laugh.

Little girls,
you stir me
with electric
beauty bolts,
shock me into sharing,
then soothe my
scared-of-nothing
with ambushes
of touch.

You have no clue
just how your
brazen
boyish
bouncing
bombing,
dares me to dancing,
demands me my best.

I propose a deal.

Where I would
scrape terrace walls,
would break my vows
to god and state,
Would fall in ****
and climb out broke,
Would cheat you blind,
Would feed you grapes,
Would steal ruby rings
from bishops' tombs,
Would bolt my pottage
with a wooden spoon
to get back to leaving
a painting unfinished,
I would be murdered
by your brothers
and ghost you with my head.
I would fire and **** and pray you.
Would believe myself
a ploughhorse.

All of this,
for ten stories,
each night.

i lost my mind
and hit the walls,
found vines inside
and
very old friends.

My neighbors find me strange
but grow to know me
as another friendly stray,
pacing and glancing,
smiling at my feet,
slumped and
overslept.

I got sixty bucks
and three jokes.

One day all of this
will be yours.

i mourn the joy you gave away,
though you would never think to.

you belong to the ground you stand on.
it never occurs
that your shedded ghosts
could stand somewhere brighter.

you are the saint of gritty teeth.
martyred over meatloaf,
thought it merely dinner.

you polished our crowns of thorns
while we howled like haughty lions.

and in the face of
nuclear
commercial breaks

you kept to your gardens,
crossed picketlines of suffering,
made happy horrors grow.

It's so nice
to be so high
without doing
a thing.

Got up early
beat the birds
found their secrets
sold them all.

My clocks unwound,
I tell time easy,
by the angles of shadows
piercing
my floors.

I let them point me
to how to be
next,
follow them in circles,
chew lip askance
at whatever sun
I'm slowly crashing.

Sunlight may
disinfect,
but it's only just after
the night is over,
that the air
feels truly
clean.

They will tell you that they're happier
than you.
This will be true.

They'll confuse your courage
and limp all your lyrics.

They'll beg you to borrow,
curse the curbs,
gently grief you
to suit yourself,
to buy better guts.

They'll set you up
with the shiny sons
of their duller deeds.

When they ask you
your curfew,
promise you peace,
they will make many
many good points,
and they may very well
be very right.

Don't ******* do it.

all this gravity
inside me,
dragging like bricks,
melting like suns,
where where
what's under there?

I asked someone to kiss me
and they did.

Ofcourseofcourseofcourse.

something pretty
something scary
breaks in me like bread,
i can't stop crying,
can't stop laughing,
or slinging poems
like sticks and
stones.

I want to shave you
'as iron unto iron.'

Let'***** each other
just enough
to scrape new skin,
get real sharp.

When you find the shape,
the dirt,
the light
you need,
you'll want
to give
the same
to something
else.

"What right do you claim,
to mug so little
and swallow yourself,
to make us **** and beg
to find your
thinking guts,
as if you contain
any multitude
that wouldn't fit
on this table?"

"And you?
What right?
To slosh yourself
clumsy,
over paid-for
digestif,
to gorge the air
with your tongue,
and pass on lean,
to leave so drunk and ask
me
to clean my table of you?"

i let three prophets
peek through my window,
and now i glow,
tremble as they chant,
'more, more, more.....'

i make a list of things to do,
then go back to sleep.

i wander my porch to pieces,
counting all my coffees
until my teeth go tight.

i cover my ears with the altos of experts,
then argue with myself
for a while.

i write a poem.
i take a shower.
i eat a food.
i kiss a cat.

about then, i feel content
and start to wonder
whatever happened
to that list.

my favorite coffee mug
lost its handle,
i burn my fingers,
don't look back.

Some secret sooner
day,
there's new jokes,
familiar flashes,
and cutting fresh fruit
to share with pretty people.