I found a skeleton of a bus
so far into the pines, I knew it had been
dropped from the sky, to save me  

they had to be far behind,
the other side of the stream, where those hounds
lost my scent    

Jed and Tonto didn’t follow me across
the shallows, and I’d bet all the money I ever stole
those curs and the posse ate them up    

there was almost half a moon, though
inside the bus was black; outside was freezing
drizzle pattering on the roof  

the coat I filched was soaked    
my trousers too--nobody told me
Alabama got this cold  

if they had
I wouldn’t have believed them
until that night  

I curled up in a ball
behind the driver’s seat, shoved
my frozen hands in my shirt    

then I heard that hiss, and saw
those eyes--I stayed quiet, more quiet even
than when I hid from John law    

then she growled, deep, slow
but I kept watching her eyes--emerald and still, still
in the place I first saw them    

then we were both silent  
I’d  *** my drawers before I’d move
freeze outside... get ate inside  

the hours passed fast; I drifted,
dreamed a little of being back inside, and woke
when the sun hit the cracked windshield    

she was still there
with two cubs nursing, now used to my smell
I suppose, since she didn’t jump  

when I slid down the bus stairs
into the frosty grass, where I saw a doe
chewing forbs, close to the roots  

lucky the lion had her babes stuck
to her teats, lucky I was between the cat and prey,
lucky the bus was in that grove

anonymous winds
bend tall Timothy grasses,
wake rabbits napping
in the brush

they ripple the surface
of the stock tanks, tickle the haunches
of the beasts who wade there
to slurp the tepid waters

they birth red dust devils
for my eyes to follow, as they scud
through mesquite, and hopscotch over canyons
older than time

one day, soon, they will blow
over a shallow earth bed; I will not hear
their sibilant song, but my sleep will be deep,
unperturbed by their mystic music

the white coat lords,  
the army of nurses, the aides, didn't think
he understood their language

nor did they know
he had been a warrior in his homeland
and bore scars, inside, out

they paid little attention,
as he buffed lackadaisical linoleum, scrubbed porcelain *******,
making them ethereally white

though the amputees,
the hobbled, the battle burned, would wake
to the sound of his labors:

his broom swaying to and fro,
a softer metronome for their ringing ears
a cadence of condolences
for their beating hearts

late at night regrets pile up
so much ******* soaked in regret
it's hard to read the words any more
the codes of others are
jumbled static, a station difficult
to find. trying to tune into
some kind of future
a living severed by
a cruel taskmaster who beats the brow
smiling assassin
thinking of ways to cut the wine
already stripped
back to the marrow
the essencse of living is distant
stars in a stormy sky
you refused to respond when
compassion was called for
elements all out of balance
and it's too hard to know
where to go from here
the street map is so out of date
the money refuses to allow a better version
in a cul de sac a man spins
wearing glasses too dark
to find the way out

faces grin from too much slim
& I try & I try
to stick tyres to bitumen
imaginary angels

float & judge & claim
to save but sell
seminars & books & arrive
in inexplicable palaces

where there's no chance
of access. the bishop spews fiction
Buddha knows
as I scratch & ink & I can't even

think he cares for desperate
shoes get the blues
& can't touch the ground
trying to fly

they all wonder why
these eyes are so distant
focused on
lost metropolis souls

screen dwellers
avoiding a sky full of ghosts
sages tell us
their truths

to take or leave & I
bite their fruit & swallow
it whole. spit out the
essence. where the juice

lies are real. nobody feels
how rubber treads without contact
how shoes last longer
how we stick to a grounding

tilling of dirt
plants sprout
flowers grow food
these muddy boots

the scarecrow loving puppet put a pop gun to the head of the soundman’s lamb.  

-

my last meal
was my mother’s
voice.

and in dreaming
of what to use
for its body
and its blood

the devil
began

to starve / when it snowed
it snowed

on a tooth / this was in

the same
Ohio

where brothers
ruin
now

with hiccups

games
of hide-and-seek

/ anyway, sister said the crow had it coming

and I made this face we called

god
as a boy
tasting
a star...

MRI, or the stickman’s

first
snowstorm.

a telephone called depression.

we can no more save
the alien
that died
for jesus

than we can write
the dog-whistle
bible.

I’m sad because I’m circumcised.

the scarecrow
has dreams
of becoming
a surgeon.

I’m no expert on sleep. I’m being followed

by a coat hanger.

ask my hand if it’s true that all the babies had to stay in their mothers to survive.