around the tree
the mother puts
down
each gift

in a box
wrapped in satin glossy red paper
a toy gun
batteries sold separately
in another
a plastic race car track
assembly required
and a third box
of tiny aluminum cars
that will never function
as well as the boy’s imagination

the little girl
who knows nothing but sweetness
and intelligence
opens a box, wrapped in soft white tissue,
of new doll clothes
made from whispers of cotton
finely manufactured beauty
her other gifts
a doll’s house, a toy record player,
a pair of faux wool mittens

dad, silently
without acknowledging
he has dreams
without thinking
he has desires
thanks the children
for a new screwdriver
and thick socks

mom, in her absolute role as
the center of all the
Love possible
in the universe
smiles
there is a purple glass figurine of an elephant
the boy bought
with his own dollar  
from a yard sale
a paper card
in the shape of a heart
with stick figure snowflakes  
drawn on in pencil
from the girl
and earrings
of gold and diamond––
love Hank
*          *         *
without a smile
no day of love
trading her beauty and intelligence
the sweet function of imagination
for manufacturing and assembly
today for a dollar

an 8-year-old Chinese girl wakes up
puts on an old khaki tunic, black slacks,
paper shoes
and goes to work

it'll be solar flares,
or nuclear bombs.
famine, plague,  
or madness.
no more electricity.
gone will be the phones,
and satellites
won’t connect us  
to each other,
no more
global positioning,
drones to ****,
or televisions.
we'll still have hunger,
and ***.
art, will begin, again.
no more
gas pumps, charging cables,
or credit cards.
we can stop dying
by cancerous reception tower.
our attention spans will return.
we'll forget
to reach for light switches
as we enter dark rooms.
our eyes will adjust
to seeing the stars, again.
we'll forget all about this life
to remember ourselves.

the city,
brick and cement,
a thousand glass panes
and pavement.
a prism of sunrays
as I sweat through my shirt.

boiling pasta kettle
steam my face,
the griddle’s hot flecks.
scolding fluid,
pocking my skin.

eyeballs and eyelids,
and face muscle tense.
as I drive into sunrise.

iridescence from her
glittering warm canyon,
and my hot heavy breath.
quiet and pleasant
summer nights
pass away.

through a lifetime,
cancer in the pores,
from bright blue
sunny skies.

a newborn baby
radiates warmth.
the still sharing element
from mother’s womb hearth.

hot bullet leaves a gun.
with a hard punch.
like a hot poker through a lung.
here is one thing you can’t beat,
there is no such thing as cold,
only the absence
of heat.

I got the small room.

I am winning the day.

Finally, I can breathe.



except, the walls are stained,

the mattress, too.

thick brown streaks;

a hundred men have sweated

The Fear

in these walls, I think.



the mirror

in the shared bathroom

sees the blood in my eyes.



a fly, a small black, buzzing

fly,

crawls over my fingers

as I am writing this letter.



and the fly crawls

over me,

Over the table,

Over my dreams.



crawls over cheap, thin-soled shoes.

my words on the page.

my whisky, too.



the fly crawls across the dents in my soul.

the handkerchief

I use to wipe my mouth.



and so, what do you do?

I swing my pencil at its soft dark body,

failing,

I flail my arms,

as crazy men do.

would anyone rescue me

from my hell and understand.

the fly and I.

isolated I am.



through the window

pane,

under the full haunted moon,

I undress myself.

to the bed

I lay myself soon.

the single-sized sluggish bed before me.

bed of a hundred men.

one hundred dead men.

one hundred dead-drunk men.

me, now as I am.

it goes on and on like this
a hundred hours
of attention grabbing
feeling you up
life goes on and on
like this is it
a whole game
in my hands a computer, strange
I’ve got a virus
world pollution can’t be fixed with a Prius
numinously vetting
editing, all the Love I don’t know how to give
selfishness
it isn’t what it is
please restore me to factory settings

into the new dawn they went,
technological device
in hand in hand.
though many things will not change,
Love will suffice,
Love is brave.
and though the world is the same,
that also means,
kindness stays,
joy remains,
dreams are still made.
and The End is never finished,
it just bequeaths unto us,
time immortal wishes.

she gives me
just enough,
to keep coming back.
only about
the right amount,
to tell myself
she's real.
real as tornadoes.
real as eyes
on potatoes.
real as
two souls
intermingling
chaotic cosmic chemicals.
synergistic bonding elements.
but how do you transmit energy
over long distance?

we had one big bed,
he was less than a year along then.
we each had the days
together.
the sun came indirectly through the windows,
soft orange and yellow illumination.
king size borders our country,
and we the kings
there was little in the way of trouble and tears.
we both felt so safe.
then, one day,
he decided it was over.
he wanted off the bed.
out of the room!
he wanted the world.
no matter my protestations,
forward is the only way we are Given,
to move through time.

see no evil.
turn your blind eye
away from the ****** assault victim.
hear no evil.
do not listen to mother earth cry.
speak no evil.
when you justify
polluting the planet
with your GDP,
and give racism power
with your silent complicity.

hear no evil.
turn up your distractions
to quiet the disapproving shouts
of the whole world.
see no evil.
believe the images of brown skin children
locked in cages
for profit
are fake news.
you don’t heed their suffering.
speak no evil.
because in america,
other languages shan’t be heard.

you’re the monkey,
and monkeys don’t ask questions.

be not evil
?

the last male northern white rhino dies.
his tusk and skin, for the first and only time,
out of danger to be stolen in that unfair and clandestine way.
his DNA now in a vile.
he could no longer mount,
and she, though still spring in glory,
could no longer support the moment
his majesty was not able to perform.
a gentle giant is his legacy.
extinction his last and dying breath.

how could we harm such peaceful a creature?
the might of man has torn
yet another
piece of god's only will
from this earth.
will you tonight
dream of the creature?
who among us will know his name tomorrow?
Sudan, the great and gentle.
Sudan, the only northern white male rhino.
SU-DAN, who only in death
is free of man the beast.

I have never seen an apple more red
than my heart when it bleeds
the green grass and my jealousy meet
my soul has been charcoal
all ***** and black
leaving a mess on everything
when I look back
and Love would be like gold
if digging it didn't
**** people
stones
our left over obsession
from our work
when the aliens made us
possessions
i don't go outside
so I stay in the shadows
Fawn lifted me out of my shallow

an idea for a poem
an idea for a storm
a bright shining moment
a burning forlorn
a tightrope
between myself and safety god
a line of hope
severed by my scorn
Her
my favorite reason
focus of my impetus
I should've stayed home
I think it's psychobabble
nonsensical - shallow
to find Love alone
we're meant for together
this is a turn-off
Love letter

jump in the passenger
you can hold the shotgun
and we'll take the tour
in my temple
god's house
I've lost the keys
in the same place I think
as my mental
the cops are just here
restraining order
the limits of my Love
have boarders
who pay no rent
in my heart
they've got squatters rights
I can't kick em out
but I can let you in
a small fee of your time
but in the end
I will pay the price
constantly in life
first stop a cottage
too small for
all my baggage
with her the closest
I came to marriage
she loved every part of me
my biggest supporter
emotionally
saw my damage
I put her in
all my insecurities
became her most
treasured critic
she buried my memory
in the attic and
threatened I'd be arrested
when I demanded passage
I didn't do her justice then
and I can't do it now
she's a stranger
whose last act
threw me out
she's the only one
I'm sure
Loved me back

she's brilliant
and I know
I'm in trouble
the last poem
I wrote
and she never
responded
because the
last poem
before that
was meant to
convey Love
but somehow
I mentioned
the holocaust
of which she's
a third generation
survivor
and now my
poems are tainted
with the blood
and ******
I'm reminded
I'm off kilter
maybe I'll
leave her lonely
and that'll fix her
I'm not being
spoken to
anymore
but in a
moment or two
I'll be reminded
with another fixture
for my attachment
that I'm a ***** loose
neighborhood
of abandoned houses

time's past experience
escaped the general
present on my condition.
impressed, expressing itself
across my countenance
to the perpetual stiffness
of cape cod
upon the horizon of fall.
the ceiling, blended light spectrum.
ceaseless blowing
twine each direction.
enmity, inviting intrepid to traveler none.
quiet prolonged so to take up its own place.
sudden sensing singular
without companion
as the earth comes undone.
absent the orb - one's inward sun.
by the devil's eve
all warmth be shunned.

I forgot the
still of cape cod
at the horizon of fall
it's gray ceiling
and winding winds
inviting intrepid to none
quiet to a din
except to feel alone
absent inward sun
by the devils eve
all warmth be shunned

the girls in the back
of the local pathetic
laundrymat
(where nothing,
none of my things,
comes out clean)
speak ugly slavic.
their loads must be light
as they're only half dressed.
I put my clothes,
all I own,
except the one's on my back,
in five dryers
and go sit
on the paint-peeled
two-tone maroon
bench in front.
today's heat is indefinite,
and I wonder if someone
has stolen my
soap and basket yet.
this is downtown,
the turf occupied
mostly by addicts and foreigners
and the rich,
the richer than me,
meander lazily in and out
of bars and salons.
the beautiful plump brown skin girl
I've been falling in Love with
has straddled her bike and left.
she didn't even see me
smile at her.
now there's the asian man
stereotype, smoking incessantly
like me.
who spends most of his time
daydreaming of some other life.
his thousand yard stare sees nothing
and I'm hungry, but I won't eat
the restaurants are all white owned
and nothing is good or cheap.
there's garbage everywhere
and no one seems to mind.
when my pencil stops moving,
terrible writer's fear
I'll never have another thought
worth writing or bought.
time to fold up
and maybe scrape that
marines sticker off
the back of my truck.

self-transformation, teen fiction
divination
and dreams
religion, christian fiction
bibles and poetry
new releases and posters
of my favorite books
I know they've never read
starbucks, emoji code deciphered
no one here is ever again,
as if they had,
going to swing from a chandelier
a front cover party picture of warhol
he had it easy
to shock with mere queers
who decided to make all
the books coloured beautiful
I'm wading in *****
looking for the girl

I'm old now
though they say I'm not
I only notice when my
back isn't sore
as it is here
reaching for the last
shelf of the final bookstore
the only still standing
woolly mammoth
and it's poetry, the writing worth no money
so no one bought,
silly ideas of love married fraught
all other ideas fall between the lines
of valentine hearts and blood clots

the people vs. my every waking moment
                         me, for every heart I've stolen
                         the lost light given to homework
                         an idea embedded that our souls are
                         search machine engines
                         are we waking, are you my dreams

the people vs. contemporary art of all periods
                         angrier and more painful hearts
                         suicide as a solution
                         recycling factitious pollution
                         no one says a thing about ideas repurposed

the people vs. intelligence
                         truth
                         passion
                         anything other than money as a practice

birds spend
as much time
on the ground
eating maggots,
as they do
in that soaring
we perceive
as majestic freedom,
as we spend
in shopping malls,
online stalls,
buying future trash,
as we spend,
in what we
perceive, as
god's light

did you ever get enough
courage to squeeze
your *****, if that
pain was cancer
it still will be
you left that girl
five days ago
do you still leave your
hate in your heart
did the dream **** you
do I write for the dead
the only words I remember
my father said
don't ever hang your head
if only he'd said something
about the rest of me
and my neck
did you get drunk, yet

what ever it was
what ever happened
things were hidden
and there were lies
there were
***** pictures
and lunch dates
I haven't
seen a spider
or slept naked
in a long time
and when
did we all
stop saying
******
an entire generation
with **** tattoos
whose meaning
has long ago
left fleeting
just dull black and blue
nobody likes to
talk about
nothing forget me's
of yesterday's
sick soul sour empty's
into infinite shreds
taking a sunbeam
and smashing its prism
illuminating my prison
to turn the light
off my
dark heart

I've been through hells
those for whom the bells
and I can hum
you the song and the ancestral
spirit drum
knocked
and pounded
my skull-***
I chose the storm
long black haven
bivouacked and latent
so long I forgot the sun
and that the rains
were drippings from heaven
overflow love melting
and splendid

.         window long and flat
       only just so wide sunlights
            coffin sunlight dies
                         
            but one sky for both
  moon and sun amongst the stars
             the war's little fun
            
            come on you lovely
     shun baby rising cloud clown
          do your fire, blind me

I like it better
when we're by ourselves
where the others
she tells them
she's someone else
by ourselve
the heart burns
and I drink the water
the heart burns worse
when I'm myselvf
the theater's uncrowded
our perch
the dark top empty shelf
absolution
crushing cushion felt
tethered together
left by someone else

the air that often takes me by surprise
at 3 o'clock
the one long after
the sunset dies
just myself and the orbs
the cigarette smoke
that takes the life of the winds
and says there is never any such still as we think
a constant stream, whoosh
off beyond sight
the travelers late on the highway in night
and there ain't no way to know nothin'
out here on alone
even He must got but one eye upon me
if I ever 'ere go on belonging

lamp, in the corner, of the floor
does the on and off
maybe kind of a *****
my stonesthrow
dead and friends
down and out
side broken homes
and store with their unique
hip soon again bores
throw a knot over the closet door
sling slip loose around my neck
swing for the fences
far and away and dig men trenched
and lamp stands flat foot
against the corner, on the floor

I'll dream you fit together
puzzlepiece words
and I'll scribble just for
this moment worlds
we'll mumble out blurbs
mutter hurt and between us wonder
if any ever one is really heard
sentence my thoughts to paper
all along a lonely wordsmith
whispering drift
human complex shift
for the beauty
less it I might miss

odds and ends

a guy with my experience
know the significance
of a little difference

what if everyone
in the world
escaped
while I was
here

I collect your
loose lost hairs
and make garments
I save your lost loose
shaves
to kindle my
five alarm fire
heart blaze
sanitation napkin
tea bags

Anchorage, Alaska
a seasonal
vacation destination
for the
vampire states

what if the moon landing
was fake
because the astronauts
really went to
heaven

Burnt
as a
first
name

I can't live with you
and I can't be without you
I want to slam my pen now
right through this paper
to put my hand
on this pad
slam my pen right through
this paper
pin my down
light this table
plastic four-ways
on fire,
fire of the truth I tire
light this table
on fire,
fire laugh to the winds
outside my smoke fill window
laugh to the thick
outside blowing every
kind of wet
and anger
sweet swell
my alone abandon anger
come hold dear love my temper
I can't cry
I can't call
I cannot even
try

and I can't just forget
no more
I can't run go get numb
no more
I cannot today fill a dead man's shoes
with my own ghost
the sorrow shows
head to heel
flows and grows
lost ourselves a soul
a kind so tough to find
in the world you've left behind
unimagined states
tug and pull
those of us with ties that bind
blind leading the blind
we'll walk forth
ahead again where it shines

my friend is home
always arrives at
the appropriate times
I hear his smooth stride
hurry up in a clamor
on time storm hammer
he knows the right
way goes slow
my friend by
his misnomer
a common name
often heard in
silence, shout, whimper
claim of infamous fame
welcome again Pain

they
are
to
publish my work
yes, they'll
stick it in this book
I think it's a scam
$69.95 300 pages
everyone's name in bland
but they must go somewhere
and one day maybe
this book will be opened
by a young man
and he'll read my poem
and he'll say, yes
now there, that's
the stuff
and it'll stir his sirens
sing song sweet
death rattle
and he another now
will know our battle
to truth
to feel
to live
in you
creating blue

I'll have you know young man
there is a table with my name
in a hell that whispers soft
*FIRE!

look at all the words
so many all the
*******'d words
I'm the poet
of someone else's generation
the men, the women,
space aliens and
turnip truck drivers
my age,
embrace being the same.
there's no soul
in pretending to be insane.
around the world
in
8
seconds
video
clips
baby birds and oreo vests.
return my cut out
Native tongue.
the words have
all gone numb.

today they've surrounded my chair in the bookstore
with trash
used tissue for snot
and selfish sized candy wraps
someone's been tearing from a spiral notebook
here where I sit with Johnny Cash
long polyester threads
was she teasing her
******* one stitch in time
is this where she comes to unwind
nowhere in here can you find the decimal system
if they ever fix the armrest I'm never coming back
they say inspiration is for amateurs

the rest of us get to work
hours at a whack

and I shook as I
tried to roll
my cigarette in public
they all seem to know
I'm the honest and culprit               Stealing in all their experience
who walks alone amongst it
recovering my distance
can't see my words are lonely                                   not me
working to build bridges
I don't want to know you

knit your own dinosaurs
pick pocket dilemmas' guide to the city
trendy handbag rocket queen pretty
the children dead bright flashy colors
of tremendous yearning to earn their let-downs
here's all the information you need to know
scuba gear doesn't float
jewelry was torn from the flesh of your mother
that your father paid for with his blood and thunder
and now you'll rub paperback thumb and hover
we all remember, for now, and on, to linger
till here comes ‘Love of…’ with the biggest stinger

and we all need you
to bring cigarettes

I'm write, where I'm to be
in the corner
brick & mortar
bookstore
lone hard chair
my right arm broken
with all my problems
I'll bet again sorrow will solve them
toboggan mountaineers
harden before me
in sections of books
that seem to only
be About poetry
they're already dead
the story for them
is on the dustjackets

I, and the wise
throwaway in trash baskets

if I had
hair red
if I had
hair
I'd think to grow it long
my fire
and walk fast
to let it fly
a streak
like a pheonix bird
in your midst
I'm only going
to **** myself,
slowly

I found a million miles of river
run from the lakes of eyes
through the desert face
absorb in oasis pool of taste
pain like leaves falling in grace
will bring new life trees of great

the fountain splashed my face
and was warm in my mouth
a child is calling
a young father and one old are talking
they are taking turns saying "*******"
there's a guy here I use to work with
he was a girl then
a man named Octopus just told me he has dreams for himself
that he'll never have the courage and/or talent for
a child is mumbling loudly

I remember calling the librarian mother
she didn't mind
I already knew books were better than people
so did she

on the side
off the mall
I found in night
the alter of a drunk
a stuff green frog
wet cigar ****
impaled his red throat
and not enough empty liquor
a straightened up cup
four fifths with rain
colored with ****
long left us with his abyss
he'll never get anywhere
with worship like this

but still there is a space
like a secret

maybe, does
Neil Gaiman know about this

She wears a crown
One foot ham-hock alley-cat bully monster
Her legs spread
She wears a crown
One high-healed furry buckled boot pump
She has two faces that both stare at you from different direction
Oh pareidolia girl who lives in the floor
Who's princess is it that's who of you adores
She wears a crown and she lays all mismatch jigsaw pieces of broken childhood, ugly leftovers, lint and trash
Of real disgust
This is just my eyes, my twist of tale, to hold my moment out of time