My first car was a Pontiac;
Winding down
County Road 577,
Hand atop wheel,
A boy and his machine,
Letting snow swoop by like
Hyperspace.
I miss those quiet rides.
But dreams dissolve, evolve,
And I’ve another tangent
Upon the tip of my
Tongue –
Something, somewhere,
Somewhen, fitting,

And prior another attempt at sleep.

It’s not often I relish the sun,
But did so,
Come one almond eye’d glance –
And “awkward.”

It’s not often I gaze, the stranger,
But did so,
Come the little silk doll, snoring –
Curled upon her back.

It’s not often I hate, putrid,
But did so,
Come man, come companion –
And the trash she’d burrowed.

It’s not often I speak, I only write,
But did so,
Witnessed smug, and a
A smoke, cradled poignant, “husband.”

It’s not often I blush, nor often I fold,
But did so –
Come a mother and son,
Climbing mountains, cursed, and trash.

It’s not often I scamper, tail tucked leg,
But did so –
Come her freckled red ménage,
And the man who’d snapped his fingers.

It’s often, and ought I point a finger,
But to did so –
Never knowing love, never knowing angst,
And never knowing them.

“One’s” ok, but “two’s” illegal come a night whispered,

“Run,”
Or so the grass spoke –

     Run like the wind.
     Run,
          But always look back.
     Run,
          So to liberate all you’ve loved.
          So too, awaits a home, only dreamt.

And she ran,
From village to village –

     Blankets wrought pollen.
     Carrots,
          For another’s eyes.
     Our baby,
          The outlaw prior even born;
          Hot on heal, the “department.”

And we ran,
Hopping continents –

     I, so to support.
     Our son,
          So to survive.
     My wife in wait,
          Our second miracle burrowed,
          Just beyond the world I’d promised,

A land, so help me, and shore we’d arrive one day.

I’d ‘ever be your tree,
     Come the pull of your arm.
I’d ‘ever be your tree,
     Come the push, two gentle feet.
I’d ‘ever be your tree,
     Come the wind, come the rain.
And’d ‘ever be your tree,
     Come beginning, come the end.
Son, I promise, I’d ‘ever be your tree.
     So roots spoke, “the leaves never die.”

I spot a drone today;
No bombs,
But with plenty o’ potential –
A will to malice,
To malcontent, to ******.

I seek it south
And at its zenith,
Above dissent,
And the bastion that’d never know
Better, from worse.

So too, I spy it over the sands
And over cave,
Over Manhattan, over perdition,
And over “god,” over greed,
Over "great," and *******
Guaranteed;

A glistening, wrought silver teething,
“Dead,” come one wrong,
Word, or whatnot,
Anything antagonist “corporate,”
Our contradictory content,
Blessed, this,
“Complacency,” – indiscriminate.

Unbeknownst and melancholy-ridden,
The bombs have dropped,
And for some time now,
A sooner to be eternity
Whilst we’ve managed nothing but
The simplest of slumber;

We’re lucid but one second
And sheep more so the years.
The flock afar-critical,
As abstained become the hours,
The minutes, until, “then,”
Atop, “when,”
Whilst we learn again to breathe,
Maybe even dream,
And relieve the nooses continually
Knotted by others –

It’s an imaginary rebellion. Sure.
And I’m sure you’d agree;
Yet still, I soak a nightmare’s sweat
Whilst we gladly assume our
Peasant’s role
And as long as we do,
“They’ll,” gladly assume their
Thrones.

The landlady pounds, one door left,
And my “Momma’s” chopping chives in the kitchen;
So I wince when
My black hat’s conquered wrought wool.

Right, and right out the window, the workers break,
And my “Uncle’s” feet crack, crack come the chemical grass;
So I concentrate when
My chopsticks carve pork.

“Up,” cries the baby, starved are the mice,
And my “sister” bids farewell to her soldier;
So I grasp when
My feet twitch to understand the cold, cold concrete.

Diesel cooks, so down goes the neighbor,
And the “Missus” smiles with our son atop lap;
So I admit when
I try to smile, I really do.

Herein lies the endurance, the rice paddies ancient,
And we’d all bliss ignorant, come the table we surround;
So I reconcile when
Again, I try to smile, I really do.

‘Round the world and pieces of me,
So speaks one body come a –
A bad night’s blood spatter in Sioux City,
Lonely little toenail clippings swept Dubai,
Whiskey scented stubble, London nigh Paris,
Oh! The calloused skin round bend,
Wrought broken, my lovely Kyoto,
And maybe, just maybe,
A heart or five elsewhere.

So when the tooth-clerk barricaded
Dusty Chinese counter-top asked,
“Do you want to keep them?”
I responded and with haste, “yes;”
And with a thieves hand,
Snatched my two molars removed.
For I’d already left one too many
Pieces of me here, and though
It was only a tooth, I hadn’t much left.

Hanging turtles and
Netted birds of amenity
Dangle from her
Left hip like jewels ‘neath a,
“Ming,” ear as she traverses
Mountains beholden kitchens
And one more rise come setting splendor.
Supper may be atop the right, pelvis,
But opposite and left,
Rests the flask, bitter in chase of sanity.

I’m sure the scant pebble
Rattling in between
Her stomach and sorrow
Was nothing more than
A desperate thirst opposed the
Blister born benevolence,
Thirst opposed execution
And a coin converted spirit opposed,
“Xie xie,” (thank you), a platitude,
As heads clip pavement,
Blood pales a gutter,
Or soon-to-be feast’s final throes,
A bleeding and breeding for other,
Leading jitter-beholden mice to flee,
For they may be next
So future’s victuals arrive
Unhindered.

All and assumptive, assistance and rendered,
She walks away with only this –
Everyone’s emaciated
And the butcher on the street is still a butcher,
A peddler, a savior, and butcher again;
A source, be it left, right or wrong,
In need of a drink, as we all are,
With only the means, “take me to the sip,”
And by dollar come pocket born you.

Mao’s on the wall.
Mao’s on the cat,
Mao’s the cat,
And Mao’s on the truck.
Mao’s tucked text.
Mao’s still the cat
Mao’s on the hat;
And Mao’s rendered stencil.
Mao draped in red,
Mao embalmed vacuum,
Mao smiling dirt
And Mao in slaughter;
The good, the bad,
The, “godly,” great
The ’89 slaughtered, ugly,
And as putrid as the scholars
Being spat upon.
So Mao’s tempered glass
And Mao’s tempered solemn,
Surrounded a spectacle,
When I, Mao and I,
Author and other, other and
Away, gaze eye-to-eye with,
“Before.”
His are closed,
Mine, unblinking.
I think of heroes,
I, “tinker,” butchers,
And ponder,
“Just,” and to the right of,
Right,” what is, “right?”
Would he have been?
Would she have been?
Would I have been?
“Right?”
Just what the hell is,” right?”