i am a house with a door
a lighthouse with sand around it
where a man takes a **** at night
away from his friends

i am a cold accidental touch
of the false pinky finger of
a janitor at work at a high school

i am burned to death in my apartment
flipped out on ***** coke
sold to me by a ****** salesman in
an envelope marked "Kotex $$"

i am disappearing into roots
a rusted out minivan in a trailer park yard
that no one drives
filled with fast food bags and baseballs

i am a glimpse into a  lifespan
but only the part of the road that you can see
from your apartment building

i am an adventure
a warm wet raindrop
landing on your face
as you walk out of the door
onto your lawn in springtime

i am not a voice or an expression
like the quiet tattoo of a boat
you keep hidden in your brassiere

i am the cool dry pillow that you dream into
i collect butterflies and stamps
and old shoes from unconscious men
in the alleyways behind bars

and that's how i've decided to make a living

a liar once told me that i write good poetry
i laughed and continued drinking,
the sudden rush of despair, the wicked beast, the dry pages
the man had no credentials
but he persisted, declaring me an inspiration
like seeing a strand of hair attract a magnet
or amber jewels lolling in a dimly lit case

imagination is a felony, i wagered as i poured another
a combustion i know like the back of my hands
i told him i dreamt of a morgue where everyone i ever loved
sat upright as sunflowers, declaring their love for the sun
and of a newspaper rife with disease and the passion of a janitor

there is a raccoon near a river somewhere cleaning an apple
with a heart as big as an artist in drunken euphoria
taking better care of it than me when i sit down at a typewriter
it's wearing a cape just like edgar allen poe
and having better conversation with an oak tree than i've ever had at a party
about the sunday crossword puzzle he completed  

yesterday i drank myself into a masquerade ball
arriving in a limousine being driven by a bearded mickey mantle
i was the guest of honor, sword fighting on table tops
and lecturing the guests about shakespeare through a garbage disposal
while a horse played backgammon with my father's brother
and there was a girl there behind the facade of an owl
who danced like the wind and everlasting light
and no one could stop her or look her in the eye

i am the only connection between my mind and the paper
merely a vessel, a john boat clearly breaching it's depth
either drowning like a fish in a sand dune or
being bounced like a baby on the knee of god
slavery, i call it, and hand him a glass of warm bourbon
as the splashing of my journal pages slap my crushed trachea

the typewriter is padlocked and painted over with cement
the metamorphosis trapped inside a bullet, boiling with sheer fury

the destroyers are out to destroy
they are the heat of the night
******-burned bodies trembling in the jungle
they are bullets nestled silently into the back of one's head
babies dangling from their mother's limp arms as
she builds herself a new body
made out of the countryside & the trees & dynamite
and she will bring the explosion at dawn
i could fit the memory of last night in a wine bottle
i fell asleep in the dumpster and you kissed me with your wine stained lips
in the morning i hoisted the sunrise into a wheelbarrow and headed west.

now i don't know who or what i am
all i need is a soapbox to stand on
or a cliff to climb
a little solitude
i need to be regurgitated as smoke
hanging over three lanes of asphalt
i need a valley with soft green carpet
and a pretty girl's adolescent thighs
i need my face shoved in her *****
i need the enormous bliss of a long afternoon
i need to find the intersection of
our intimate streets.

she brings me pancakes and lights me a cigarette
my ***** are cement and icicles form on my toes

she opens the curtain to a dying dove on the balcony
the banks are closed and the stock market has crashed

the periscope lens, so lucidly balanced, has fallen
irreparably into the crypt of a dream

i take a bite of an apple and stare into the mid-morning sun
after bagging the bird, she drapes herself across my chest

she is worshiped like a cradle, or a gravestone in a thunder storm
in her ecstasies, a prism, a poem fits like a glove

as the sunlight warms her ******* she heaves remnants
of last night's whiskey into my adam's apple and it burns me

the words she struck me with still sting in my ears
her fingerprints remain on my back and my bathroom mirror