With dangling shrubs for hair

Pivoting like a vulture
gleaming smiles
You skunk,

Tainting my heart with sweet nuthings,
Blowing my fears into teary inflatables.

It didn't grow,
Because it had to burst.

It burst again
And blend into muck.

I moan the past.

Those goggles
I crave
Your Soda Glasses
I raved

So
I can
Swim again
In the murky depths of our
chaotic evil

past.

Why do we do what we do?
Why do we jump even if it’s a dump?
Why do we turn to wolves for a burn?
Why do we heed to bleed?

When the noise lulls and poise hulls
It’s not staggering.
It’s badgering.
Reason, even of a bison catches the raven by awe.
It lays flat and blaze to plaid.

my birdie inside

She sings and walks
Then wails and stops
She can open the gates,
But she won’t fly far.

She moans and crackles
Then screams and stagnates
She has seen the stars
But she won’t go that far.

She bellows and heaves
Then shudders and drops
She kept dreaming to fight
But she never sword any.

Snarling clues underneath the dollies
Waiting for a nudge to rise up and vanish
And pop back only when the fret breaks into a moan
They will never find
Why else do you think people still talk about the people on Titanic?

Chummy jays
Cockooing with crows saying its alright
Mocking sad a bulge hiding behind the crooked crimson spring
They will never see
Why else do you think Amazon Rainforest is not a Honeymoon destination yet!

I didn't wanna see star-crossed lovers all around me.

I think you’re too sweet
because I like Espresso now.

I found you, in a stack of photos:
the 2D you, I can't touch, taste or smell

the first thing that came to mind was sharing a joint with you and spilling the chocolate ice cream cone on your skin-******* shorts

and sneaking into the Woolworth bathroom, and our freaked frenzied scrubbing of fabric with nimble fingers and pink powdered hand soap

and how we couldn't stop laughing
until a woman older than time caught us
before we could consummate

which we did after running the entire
200 yards to my van, wet white shorts in your hand, with me looking over my shoulder for imagined narcs and other freedom snatchers

when we finished, we shared my last Winston, blowing smoke rings in the gathering gloom

your shorts were dry, and our high
had worn off--you didn't kiss me goodbye when I dropped you off

between your pad and mine,
I hit a black mongrel pup wandering on the dark asphalt

I scooped him off the road
with my hands; lifeless, light he was...

I found you, in that stack of ancient
photos--that was the day we conceived a son, one you had shredded in a doctor's office for $300 in illegal tender

I see the messy ice cream, your naked nineteen year old flesh,  smoke rings disappearing, the poor mutt dying

though not for lack of trying, I can't see the child you had executed in utero--without trial, judge or jury, save an elusive dream
of freedom

Albuquerque, 1967