Crimson , vigorous mornings , in disguise , portraying a well to do clear
headed man , off to tackle the corporate jungles of Atlanta ,
cure a debilitating disease in a bustling world renown medical center ..
But it's just me again , soul shot full of buckshot at times , graying around the side burns , combing four years of red beard , chugging coffee till my head begins to clear ..
Checking my hens at the first rays of Dawn , gathering eggs and feeding the hogs .. Greasing my tractor and securing her implements , marking off rows , smiling from ear to ear , relishing my quiet , treasured insignificance ..

Mountain winds carry the church carillon through town ,
hymns echo across sleepy juniper meadows and hamlets for miles around ..
Neighbors gather for Sunday morning service , children laugh and
play throughout city square park benches and monuments , husbands and wives are rather 'chatty' and quite proud in their finest attire ..
Restaurants open at noon , hungry churchgoers celebrate life
and togetherness , one day out of the week the locals swoon jointly
over the month of June , impending harvest , all that is good in the world on a sleepy , thankful afternoon ..

Former hotels and restaurants sit like tomatoes dying on the vine ...
Filling stations are like ghost on this highway , long abandoned but still
advertising ... Empty shells line State Route 29 , Hwy. 42 and 41 for many miles , old wood barns with ' See Rock City ' still visible from the roadside , ancient billboards rusting , antique tractors frozen and left to die , once busy , vibrant thoroughfares now have a car or two once in awhile ..  Antique stores and tourist stops that sold peaches , muscadines and pecans plus other southern treats make eerie noises now with no folks left to visit ..
Owners left to query their insignificance , boarded establishments flapping in the wind , gutted homes now prisoners of rain and the elements , grass struggles , breaking free from it's asphalt jailer , barbed wire fence shredded , no trespassing signs laying beside silent roadways ... What terror befell the people when the interstate claimed her prize , what alternatives were available during theses harrowing times ...

It's not the poison that it's poisoning you
Is the reason why you take the poison

you are alone
in space,
waiting on the edge,
making room
for existence to start, again.

I would text the devil
I might invite him here
to heaven,
I might
ask
why we split, dude?

Invite him to a Nirvanna
concert,
let him peruse my CD collection.

Ask him what he thinks
of Breakfast at Tiffany's,

or where he gets all those
coals to burn souls
and his long ears.

Then I might pull out an
apple split it in half
and say go for it.

lately i've been having these good days
i don't have sad wet cigarette saxophone nights anymore
i watched the sun wake up six times last week
i found a blue bucket of tulips &
gave them to a bald-headed krishna girl when
she sang to me on the sidewalk

i hired a boy to hide in the foyer
& peel a fiddle if i rouse from sleep during the night
or whistle through a harmonica
if i'm wet-eyed during breakfast
i finally got rid of all the pictures you stuck
to your side of the dusty bathroom mirror
except the blissed-out polaroid of us
perched on an old oak tree limb
like a couple of soft doves versus the turreted sunset

i deleted your number because you don't call me back anyway
i stopped mailing letters to your father's house
i haven't listened to the Plantasia record
you bought me since you left
i never feel the gray heat from your
staticky hand warming my shoulder
i forgave you for the blood in my kidneys
& old smog in my mildewed vinyl lungs

i sleep under the running green vapor light
of the moon & stars instead of the frothiest pillows
rippling on an ocean of sheets & project quilts
i finally scoured the lipstick stain from my collarbone
after what seemed like two years
i forgot how your armpits smelled
i sewed all your sundresses into a shower curtain
& i never see your delicate ribcage
peaking through the streams of hot water



i hardly ever notice the noose
you left hanging in our apartment