there are five
and a half
blankets
piled on the end
of my bed
and if you're wondering
how i can have
half of a blanket

(well
it's a long story
but rest assured
it's not complete.)

in any case
i've tried all
of them
and none of them
are managing
to make me
feel
any better.

tomorrow
i will turn on
the printer and
attempt to salvage
what's left
of the collective
innocence of this
thwarted generation.

doubt i'll get
very far
but i can claim
what most can't
and that
my dear friends is
a little thing called
courage.

(scratch that
i'm still afraid.)

in fact
i could write
a long and
boring list
of all of my
typical
and irrational
fears.

(but i won't bother
because i trust
that you
have enough imagination
to cook up a few
for yourself.)

i'm trying
to tie up
every hanging thread
but i've been
trying for so long
that i might give up.

i remember this one time
a long time ago
when you yelled
you really yelled
over some stupid
frying pan
that i hadn't washed
or something.

no
it was definitely
a frying pan
i remember that
and i will die by the
fact it was a frying pan.

once in awhile
when someone's
mad
i stand there
woodenly
and feel disturbingly
unsafe
and i think about how
i didn't wash
that frying pan
and maybe
if i had washed that
frying pan
when you asked
neither one of us
would have a few
thousand pounds of
suppressed anger inside.

i know
i just know
you're mad
and i know
you know
that i'm mad
whether or not
i'm willing to admit
that i'm really mad
which i'm not.

(but i am
by the way.)

i'm hitting the
breaking away
but i'm hitting it
late
and i'm hitting it
hard.

like an
overly confident
concrete
wall.

back to the printer
and tomorrow
i would
hope

(and i would also
pray
if i happened to be
the praying type)

(but i am not
the praying type)

that you all know
that the very
stubborn
streak in me that
could turn out to be
my most valuable asset
is also the thing
that will
promptly
and rather
unceremoniously
deploy a
bomb.

*(just thought i should
remind you that
in every strength lies
the ***** in the armor.)

...

There on the corner it stands
Black thicket jacket
Tightly fitted nightmare
Hemmed in borderline madness

Dancing on a fractured curb
Slightly off balance
But never falling as its prey
Watches on, hypnotized

Wavered movements
In sprayed graffiti howls
Wrench a stoic moon
Against fevered night skies

A coin is tossed,
Shining under the streetlight
Rotating on its edge
Carved lines fluctuate

As steak dinner lockets
Hang around the alley
Whistling at red painted fingernails
Leaning in open car windows

Waste finds its place here
Among the silent, the grey
Brick faced contractors
Belly up for the feast

Table cloth capes
Splattered with last week’s gravy
Brown stains sliding past
Iron gate exits

Yet there is no exit
No entrance, no sidewalk
Or city street to sleep in
Cardboard box condos

In this realm nothing exists but it,
Clutching the unsuspecting
Drinking fear on the rocks
Icy glares in frozen glass

So, wander if you will
Past the crow’s stare
Beady eyes searching
A crooked pathway, and you will see

There on the corner it stands

Peered through the ideal imagery
of petty dream-spun avenues.
Brushed the quiet tides that rose
in fluid blends of milky down.
The clamour of the Westbound flocks
that scarred the last in pulsing chevrons
told of lands beyond the lay
of harlequin recline.

The lilac swathes that bled to blue
then proffered airs a saintly glow
cooled in easy idiom, the rapid
pyroclastic flow of dry diurnal doubt.

Aromatic night descended,
petals closed on avenues
to the path, the stars attended
cold eternal retinue.
Far ushers of the dew gilt foot
in concert with the silver seethe,
the mist in supple opulence,
an ***** to breathe.