You keep shaking at the branches
just like money grows on trees.
I been dealing in these cheap clichés
just like they'll help me leave someday.
And--easy! Easy! Easy.--
We can't let 'em hear us scheming
at the bottom of their hill
while their victories are streaming.

I can still remember days
when sane folks always laid bets on us.
With our mortarboards tilted all smart
and God left sorting filters,
we tilted, tipped all windmills
and we smoked through all opponents.

You'll tell me I once loved you.
I'll reply that, once, I could.
And we'll keep on telling stories
'til our voices clear the woods
and drift on up their hill
and through their windows
to their ears.

I'll tell you you were beautiful.
You were! I ******* swear!
So tell me I was beautiful
and that we can repair
this broken clumsy story
that ****** us all up and brought us here.

Up there atop their hill,
those thieving ******* sip their wine,
while below them, our white facepaint runs.
We plan ahead for better times.

I keep shaking at the branches
as if friendship grows on trees.
Just as though they might accept me,
when the dollars fall with Autumn leaves.
And you been dealing hard in hollow hopes
and flimsy dreams.

But I still think you're beautiful.
So tell me that I'm beautiful.
And then let's clip their flimsy wings.

Those ******* 'crost the town
are eating **** and grinning.
               Cackling,
               orgasming,
while counting out their winnings.

But their music plays too loud
and soon their eardrums will be bleeding.
If they can't hear us breathing, babe,
they'll never hear us scheming.

Goodnight, pretty cannibal!
It's been fun, I guess.
Beats being alone.
It's gotten late and I suppose
     I'll talk to you in the morning.

I mashed up every sad complaint,
playback on loop;
a bad mixtape.
You fell for it, but can't complain
     'cuz we've settled on each other.

Throw me out a lifeline,
               find
a bracket--you could tie it off.
And, maybe once in my dumb life,
I can pull myself to the shore.

I keep pinning all my hopes
on losing
bets
but I won't bother
giving you the benefit
when I doubt my own luck.

I have wasted time on wasted lies
but you don't care.
And we've not wasted tonight
               so let's just say...

You'll talk to me in the morning.

We're two pretty cannibals.
We had our fill
then spit out bones.
The day is here and now I know
     you probably should be leaving.

We played through every easy stage.
Continues gone,
so that's the game.
You're over it; I won't complain
     'cuz we knew that this would happen.

But throw me out a lifeline,
               find
a bracket--you could tie it off.
And, maybe once in my dumb life,
I can pull myself to the shore...

You keep rolling up snake eyes
on losers,
jerks
and creeps like me.
But still you saw some benefit--
thought why not try our luck?

I am wasted time, you're wasting minutes,
but who cares?
And we didn't waste tonight
               so let's just say...

I'll talk to you in the morning...

When I know you should be leaving...

A searing night. A price
tallied out and settled up.
I'm sipping down the size
of the smaller plights of times like these
in towns with bloodshot eyes.

Your coyote grin,
the gravel in
my creosote laughter were paving
the longest paths to saving graces
and filling up deaf ears.

I'm spilling every ounce
of all my guts
on your ears in the alley where I threw
               up last year
when I disappeared from your birthday.

Your coyote grin,
eyes glistenin',
you laughed kinda quiet while walking.
Familiar paths. We're talking crazy
through bitter whiskey sneers.

But I think, this hot night,
               I'm ready to believe...

Between the asphalt and the stars

Between the almost-fights
               and rushing cars

Between the blurring downtown bars...

We'll find some common ground.
The town's lit up, we'll trickle down
to a point of least resistance
where we can bid farewell to arms.

Or I'll find my way back home
to 1130 Longstaff
where my walls can close me in.

Lines drawn.
               Erasers
kept tucked in back pockets.
I'm circled. I'm shaded.
Smudged out,
separated.
You'll redraw the floorplan
schematics are changing
and I've
               got the handbook.
     regulations tossed out windward.
               Wearing out
all the reasons for more sensible feelings.
The seasons change fast here,
I'm sure you'll be leaving again.

               And you'll go
any place
that the latest squall takes you,
expecting I'm waiting.
But I've got blueprints of my own.

"Go anywhere you choose.
I won't care about the news."
The headline that I'm writing
and I wish that it were true.

So roll me up with the rest
of the shabby, used up trash.
Emptied cups and smoked-out butts.
All that's good has been unwrapped.
               I'm cellophane.

Life spans.
               Placeholders.
Not even a memory.
It's notched up. It's useless.
Refused
and ablated.
I'll toss out these blueprints.
**** all these schematics.
And you
               wrote the last word
     scrawled out in constructed language.
               Wearing out
every patience for these senseless intentions.
I'm fenced off. You flatter
yourself and you're leaving again.

               And I'll go
right back home
to my tiny apartment
where four walls await me.
But I still don't want you to leave...

...'cuz it's easy to believe
that you're beautiful beneath
these buzzy, dimming bar lights,
squinting through this hazy scene.

I've seen
               this one before.

I know the script
like the way to my front door.

But, with constructed language,
our meaning will languish.
And I'll fade back to static.
                                   Again.

These punchlines unraveled on an Autumn morning.
My breath and my tension devoured the edges
of yellowed and dog-eared, trusted old pages.
This map's projections embracing me now.
Holding so tight. Pinned me down to the ground
described on the pages regurgitated.
                    Pin me tight to this town.
A flightless bird--I'm a rooster
                     bolted to your roofing;
follow each wind, but I'm never moving.
My phone woke me up on a cold Winter morning.
My uncle had died and they cancelled my flight.
It was only just me that missed out on his funeral.
And it's only just me singing "Midsummer Classic"
alone in this quiet and darkened apartment
                    "...Blue & Gold /
                    our city casts its shadow..." (Sundowner)
No albatross I, but a bird without flight all the same.

Ticking off the time
while the ticks and the flies
creep and crawl across my face,
burrow into my eyes.
And I think my swarming friends
               are feeling hungry tonight.
So I guess it's only etiquette
for me to oblige.

When the fiddler's tune
starts to slow down and waver,
I cling tightly to youth.
But I ain't getting no braver.
And the steps to this dance
still feel foreign to me,
even if I know the words like a fish does
               the stream.

Now this empty dance hall
is quickly filling up
               with ghosts wearing tap shoes;
guess this jig is up. My cup runneth over
with tired clichés. And I'm knee deep in *******
               but I ain't afraid.
          Not afraid to be alone
          not afraid to be alive.
          Never been scared to die
             or to ignore signs.

But I must be

scared of something...

Sunlight so bright
think I'm halfway blind.
Squinting through the days and
sacrificing all sight.
I'm still hanging with the bugs
               while they scratch and they buzz
before I finally pinpoint just
what I have become.

Lay it down, black it out
while water sinks into ground.
Break it up, break me out
and we'll drive into town,
alright?

Well you wanna go out dancing.
I don't wanna leave my pad.
I won't loosen up this necktie 'til my head falls in my lap.
               Then you'd be lapping up my words
               that are
                     curdled,
                     soured,
                     absurd,
purchased with inflated currency
and sold off for a herd
               of sappy sentiments
          for worn-out, bought-up malcontents.
Yeah, you're believing anything these days...

And I'm far too good a liar
               selling real estate
          on toxic, poisoned ground.
Filling in all of these forms
and putting dumpster fires out.
               Standardized.
               Attracting flies...

Follow darkened circles down...

To my parlor. Find me cutting up and dealing
               out my cards
and doubling down on all the reasons
I've been feeding you.
               Repeating 'til it's my turn
               to start eating plates of crow.

Now you won't take any chances.
I'm a golem made of ash.
I won't fire up the big band. You won't come sit on my lap.
               I've been dishing out these words
               that are
                    used up
                    barren,
                    burned
far too long. The chafing dishes cooled
and all our vittles turned.
               Buffet line sentiments
          for naïve, hungry malcontents
starving to believe in anything these days.

Well you wanna go out dancing...

I'm not gonna leave my pad...

Who has the keys to this Wednesday night?
I wanna ******* drive, I'll take the exit
               off I-90
  and these bloodshot eyes
  they won't slow me down
  or catch up until bar time.

Greyscale cityscape--it's blurred out size
               can dissemble time
and make a smudge out of our plights.

Not asking questions.
I won't need to lie
if I just keep quiet.

               Not gonna slow
                                     me down.
                  Not this time.

Door to the weekend has started creaking
and leaking light.
But my threshold's high
and we're not on foreign ground.

Dim reflection in your shouting eyes
calls for some more time
so it's one more round
and keep running for a place that's high.

Not gonna stop until these blurring lights
               and my X'd out eyes
can make a streak out of my sight.

No further questions.
I don't mean to pry.
So I'll just keep quiet.

               Deal is, you've gotta
                                     hide                  
                           me tonight.

Let's pitch the keys to this Wednesday night
and ditch this beat-up ride. Let's make our exit.
               Torch these bridges,
             flee through rainy night.
              They can't stop us now
             or catch up until bar time.

I saw your breath race up
to join the smokestacks' sigh.
You'd cried the night before and I
had cursed the coming Summer,
'cuz I've always liked the cold.
You told me, someday, all of this
would be flattened out and bulldozed.
Paved and paved and painted 'til
the grey goes on for miles,
and they'll never know we stood here,
never know we'd sometimes smile--
                                             true or falsely--
in the bitter Winter air.

I don't know about that.
I don't know if you're wrong or right.
All I've got for you are guesses
that all we ever had was time.

So, with the stopwatch spitting seconds
as the calendar frames lives,
realize it looks the same;
it hasn't changed--we never tried.

Sew these moments up.
A patch for one more year.
Won't "cheers" you--all that happened here
was a decade came unraveled,
now I stand by smokestacks, cold.
Told you once I liked the Winter.
It got searing hot and you walked
off and faded to a point.
But the pavement goes on for miles,
and they'd never guess we stood here,
never know the way we'd smile--
                                       true or falsely--
in the bracing midnight air.

Now I don't know about you.
Can't tell if you were wrong or right.
But I will keep on guessing
all we had was a convenient lie.

Fill the hourglass with seconds
as the calendar frames lives.
No. Don't turn it on its head;
the moment's dead: we didn't try.

It's like coming back to an empty room,
filling blanks with my mind
while I look for you.
It's the half-life
of my memories
that betrays me now as I replay through each scene.

Holding the bag
    of fast fading photos
and stumbling home alone past windows
that could've been ours.
Now I can't remember
my getaway plan.
That year's November
     dropped me into cold;
arrested breaths

               sold me out
     3 years, still scared to death...

...that the time'll prove you right,
that no indictment ever left a man so blind.
I'll sit in the dark, then lie on the floor.
But Justice can see you've gone so
               far on your own way
               and that's just fine.

When this empty room echoes,
that sound is mine.

Trip through the doorway in domestic dark
in this sick span of space
where it echoes stark.
And it sounds wrong
to my puzzled ears.
Nothing fits in this vacant place without you here.

What good's a home
     when it's all ghosts and regrets
and one lonely soul resisting egress?
These fumbling hours
spent searching for landmarks
that used to be here,
can't find them so far.
     dropping into slow
arrested breaths

               Won't go out
     3 years, still scared to death...

...that my memory's decayed
that the best of me invested got mislaid.
I'll sit in this room, in the thick, empty dark.
And, now, I can see you've gone so
               far on your own way
               and that's just fine.

Now the silence here echoes;
I'm losing time.

It aches when I smile.
My State's a disaster.
Coal rollers, burnouts and days full of rapturous
laughter and "Red Face"
down in Lusk in the hot days
of Summer--it's boiling;
Winter winds burn up your face.
I first learned to hate
myself in a snowstorm
on Dow Street in Sheridan.
My best friends are the slow warmth
that spreads through the chest,
lifts a cold heart, grabs popcorn and pints
at the Blacktooth on hundreds of nights.
And 500,000 simple souls are a sight.
Still they're just half a million salty
drops in the ocean--
A quick squall of rain on the Bighorns.
They've opened the floodgates for *******,
morons, bigots and rednecks
and rich, ******* ranchers thinking
          everyone owes them.
And their dollars are deadpan
gallows jokes down in Cheyenne.
But I've seen cheap smiles 4 miles wide
out by Sundance.
And I've got good friends that I still carry with me
like the potent, sweet, earthy afterburn of good whiskey,
or the smell of the lodgepoles in the Spring
up in Story.
And it's still my home
even though it's so empty.
It's still my home
though it sometimes seems ******.
That State's in my bones,
I don't think it'll leave me.
So please understand that some nights
when you find me,
you've stumbled across a small splinter
chipped off of Wyoming.

Signed us up. One more round.
Stagger through another year
of attrition, searing heat and self-effacement.
When that black **** bubbles up
                       through every crevice in the ground,
we'll know our heroes finally died
                       down in the basement.

This city's getting small.
I've gotten mean, you're getting old.
But your cold feet won't save you
when you're dancing on those coals.
The verdict's been returned,
it seems they're moving to convict.
And I can't really blame them anymore.

Every Summer it gets hotter
than a crooked priest's Hell.
But we're shaking while we sweat
with too much time that's left to ****,
'cuz it's ****** in the courtroom
when the judge cracks a joke.
But you've heard this ******* punchline before.

Here we go, one more time.
Keep it fluid, keep it light
as you're waltzing through these streets that aren't your friends now.
You've got so much love to give,
                        I won't say what I've done with mine.
But there's no such thing as rest
                        for tired, old clowns.

Light me up, then play me out.
Stumble through another year
of attrition, mounting bills and self-debasement.
When that black **** bubbles up
                        through every crevice in the ground,
we'll know our heroes finally died
                        down in the basement.

Day's last thoughts play
through the creases of my sleepy mind.
Questions pile like the flakes
on the sidewalks outside.
Square of purple light in my white wall,
                               painted night grey,
glimpse of snowfall--a buzzing, fuzzed-out
scrambled teleplay.

Through interference I'll slide
                                      eventually
          ­                                          down into
                                                     dreaming.
and change the program.
For now, the channel remains right here.
The Winter flickers 'cross my face.

And that window's purple
                              square is a small piece
of a tired world just trying to fall asleep;
A single view of a wider picture
that covers miles. Bends lines into a face.

Impulses race through a fading mind.
Snow is piling deeper
on the bike path outside.
Retrace my steps as eye lids close
                                over distance
Still that square glows--a buzzing, fuzzed-out
scrambled episode.

Through interference I'll slide
                                      eventually
          ­                                          down into
                                                     dreaming
behind the credits.
For now the channel remains right here.
Half-smile flickers 'cross my face.
A different place and some different ways
to transmit greetings across this space
and to broadcast all our withheld wishes
                                             would be fine.

                       But tomorrow I'll wake up.

             And these re-runs never stop.

And that window's purple
                              square is a small piece
of a tired world just trying to fall asleep;
A single snowy, interfered picture.
                   A half-formed question:
     Are you watching this same thing?

A swarm of angry gulls
is whirling overhead.
Our breaths both reek of ***.
And there's a fire on the deck.

Baby, grab what you can while the grabbing's good.
We misread all the maps and we misunderstood
the pulling of the currents in our poison blood.
                    So we'll split up
                the spoils in the hold.

     Yeah, then we'll send this ****** below.

I'm laughing in the rain,
drinking in the Crow's Nest.
You're inhaling all the smoke
from the flames down on the deck.

You're crying in the wind.
I'm leaping in the drink.
You're tangled in the rigging ain't ya, babe?
This ship's begun to sink.

You're always ******. I'm sick
            of your ****.
So let's raid this leaky schooner,
then we'll scuttle it.

Baby, grab what you can while the grabbing's up.
We ****** up reading stars and the compass now.
Avowed we'd only drift until the tide went out.
But we're lost and favored winds ain't enough.

Buddy, grab what you can while the grabbing's good.
We misread all the maps and we misunderstood
the torrents and the waves in our raging blood.
                    So let's split up
          all the plunder in the hold.

     And then we'll send this ****** below.

There's a crack in the swollen sky today
We're caught
          standing, stuck, underneath it.
Looking bad for the good guys down the home stretch
'cuz that ******* looks to be leaking.

Sad news from front offices
Sales figures are down again.
So bummed to slash your benefits
but what's best for you is none of their business.

With newsprint leaving light ink stains
on tabletops
          and tips of the fingers,
they'll just dust crumbs from sweater vests
and sling their quarters into cold parking meters.

****! Here comes an avalanche!
Stay still. Just snow. We won't flinch.
Pretend that we can stand the stench
of the bodies on another warm Christmas.

Sad news from the offices
Pension plans are expensive
Have to reap your benefits
You should prob'ly look for work on the weekends.

Hope they like their breve drinks
Hope they won't stain fresh-bleached teeth
When the North Pole melts, the stores will sink
and the roofs of malls will stand in for beaches.

There's a crack in your lean wallet today,
It aches,
          it's nothing money can't fix.
Maybe try and reapply after New Year's Day,
'cuz for now the sky is still ******* leaking.

A blanket
A covered stretch of ground to cross in due time
A blank face
A blank slate
An empty head tonight moves across this white space

I've crunched through snow and Summer
                                                          ­    both.
Fused years, found friends and let dead ones go.
This axe to grind has grown dull, I know--
                    and cumbersome
                on ground yet to cover.
As days splice fibers into 12 month rope,
Hang this warm hat on one thing I know:
                      that I've still got
                   ground left to cover.

Slow breathing
breath steaming off into dioxide cold night
It drifts towards
the moonlight,
ghost of a laugh escapes, leaks into the night sky

A half hour
A half-smile stretching through my creasing face now
I laughed when
you sang me
Chantilly Lace as we walked across that cold town

I've weathered snow and rainstorms
                                                     both.
Fused years, found friends and let dead ones go.
This frown of mine has grown dumb and old
                    and cumbersome
                on ground yet to cover.
As days splice fibers into 12 month rope,
hang memories on one thing I know:
                    that I've still got
                 ground left to cover.

               The rivers,
                               like parks and roads,
          stitch places to times to sew us homes.
  These year-long cords stretch between our doors
            across all this ground yet to cover.
              
               Their names are
                            a cascading brine
        "Red," "Big Goose, "Clark Fork," "Assiniboine."
   The years flow homeward, my pride erodes--
              silt layer on ground left to cover.

Road trip out to the coast
it'd been a long while
and I hadn't seen you.
          So why not
plot a course out westward
and get away a couple days.

I was over being over it all
And you were sick of your ****** boyfriend.
So we packed and got in your new car
and spent the next few days in Portland.

Well, life's a ******' drag
when all you've got are
loan debts and frustration
          At least there's
bad jokes and good scenery
and long drives on I-90 West.

     I wanna drive that road with you again
     I wanna drive that road with you again
     I wanna drive that road with you again
          I wanna drive that road with you.

We spent a day beneath a Bridgetown sky,
walked through the city with Jen and Erin,
got drunk on Pabsts for a dollar-fifty each
at the Star Bar, 'cuz we were talkin'

about
how folks are mostly lame
but can be cool if
they get half a chance to.
          About our
stupid, funny habits--
it was the greatest day of my year.

We were over being over it all;
sorta tired of feeling kinda jaded.
Then the sun set over Oregon
and you and me and Jen and Erin.

We hopped on a city bus and you
were kinda drunk and acting pretty crazy.
As my stomach kicked from laughing hard,
I remember I just kept thinking
                                                 that

     I wanna ride this bus with you all night
     I wanna ride this bus with you all night
     I wanna ride this bus with you all night
          I wanna ride this bus with you.

Trafficking in recollections
                                       trading
neon nights for bygone days.
From ceiling lights to humming street signs
sealed records come untied.

Another time far from perfection
                                        close enough
for mapping smiles,
covering miles and chasing laughs
               out of throats
        and into corner booths.
Grabbing coats, it's back out into night,
sleeves shining tables the moment we go,
then arms entwining. Voices warmed,
               we sang together

               "...seemed so brief
                 but it wasn't / Now
          I know I had plenty of time..." (Weakerthans)

When was it we went out walking,
bundled up through Winnipeg?
Easter Break? Or January, drifting,
                      chilled
through wind or meltwash?

Calendars defy me now, though
every night recall the time,
                           the place,
           the lights of Your Great City
           flashing off your coffee eyes
and through the heavy, falling snowflakes
on a Spring or Winter night.

I'm traffic on chilly sidewalks
                                        trading
CO2 for oxygen.
No cars disturb the late night silence,
shallow breaths or slow footsteps.

And, as I walk against the signal,
                                       late October
snow obscures
street signs, dulling laughs from doors
              of the bars
and late night coffee haunts.
Seems so far to my small West Side home.
Heels hitting pavement and face turned to stars,
arms hanging downward, my voice, drowned
               mouths words, half-quiet

               "...dusk comes on
                 and I follow / the exhaust
              from memory up to the end..." (Weakerthans)

That night we
decided that our streets led nowhere,
so we followed them any place.
Apartments
to grass outside the Molly Brown,
cracking faces, sidewalks, traced our way...

               North on 7th,
             getting warmer.
             Inverted frowns
            are getting larger
                                          Now

I'm wondering if these

               half-formed
               flimsy, brittle life-plans
and
               half-drained,
               dented, warming pint cans
of Schlitz
               clutched inside our fists
               suggest that it's worth it

To pin our hopes on approaching
                                        footsteps of Summer?
Or just halt our frozen
                   progress through the Wintertime
when we reach your front door.

We just kept
decoding all our scrambled rambling
'til we'd set the world on its head.
Keep walking,
keep laughing at our young mistakes,
sober night backdrop to beer soaked breaths.

               X'd out eyes
       and gravel sidewalks.
          Bozeman Autumn.
       Watch out, mailboxes
                                           'cuz

We're wondering if these

               half-formed
               flimsy, crack-filled answers
and
               empty,
               drained, five dollar pitchers
of Pabst
               humming 'neath our caps
               will help us draw our maps

and stick a pin in the Summer,
                                          page turned on Winter,
or just melt our thawing
                                          progress to another time
when later days trickle down.

Are you a wheel
just spinning through your cycles?
          You rolled around;
          my turn today?
Or are you the red-gold autumn moon
          that I howl at?
Am I just a passing phase?

'Cause I've
               been around a while
and I
               can't style up these hours
into any kind of impressive *******
          story that could explain.

Guess I'm an ash-
tray, guts filled up with cinders
               grey faced
     and fouling the atmosphere.
And I guess I'm addicted to this
          upheaval
and a devil's voice in my ears.

Are you a picker
filling up your basket
          chewing up cores
          thrown to one side?
Or are you the grey-green hungry worm
          crawling, curving
through the apples of my eyes?

'Cause I've
               been here so long.
And I
               can't dress up this time
in any kind of inventive falsehood
               or story that would explain.

All those decorations from last season
on your door,
they won't help your fading memories
to last.
Let's admit that we're all ghosts in waiting.
     Knock one back with me.
We can rattle our chains to Christmases past.

Tally up.
Count the sum.
See, I've got a clever face.
But I ain't no plastic monkey on your dashboard.
'Cuz I've done my share of sinning
and I've told my share of lies.
But this heart's built ******* tough like a Ford.

Come again
to the ball.
We can bring along our masks.
We can hide our pretty faces' ugly creases.
We can laugh. We can dance.
We can pretend we're still young.
But we can't deny our dents.
          Not tonight.

No, I won't deny my dents--Not tonight.

Out the door,
night is cold.
Let the band begin again.
Doubt me now, but I am only getting warmed up.
Though you've done your share of dancing,
you're not really wanting out.
Just like me: you never like an empty cup.

Tally up.
Count the sum.
I might be deaf, blind and dumb.
I ain't like the ******* monkeys on your dashboard.
I'm just a ghost in ***** sheets
and I have made my share of beds
and I believe I'll ******* sleep fine tonight.

And you should try and sleep fine tonight.

Well, all those pretty lights, strung up
last season on your door,
they won't help your fading fortitude to last.
Let's confess that we're just ghosts in waiting.
          One more dance with me.
We can haunt this town and recall Christmas past.

Don't you ever threaten me
with a good time.
     I'll show you I'm the favored horse
     4 seconds from the finish line.
Let's see how long it takes me
to upend my life.
     It's been a fun night
     but I am just about to freeze inside.

It's the Fall
          and the way years go
Or it's me; just me
hanging promises from ropes
from this living room ceiling.
          in the dark
searching eyes half-closed around me.

I'm just M-80 careless. Short fuse
          about to blow
all these hopes, all these plans
across this carpet, out these windows.

Small man of stained glass
ribbon feet, slashed hands.
Favored horse on toxic lawn,
grazing glue shop grass.

Fall of 2012.
Cold wind, early snow
blowing in from the North
and getting deep and I know
I'm getting buried here.
I'll never see the Sun again.
And I have made my icy bed,
so let me sleep a hundred years.

Don't you ever threaten me
with a good time.
     I'll show you I'm the favored horse
     4 seconds from the finish line.
The winds have started howling
and the waterline's high,
     but I've made my bed on bags of sand
     so let me wash out at low tide.

Autumn racing red and gold
behind half-open eyes of icy blue.
27th Fall. Step into cold
          and race through
          alleyways I've known.
A crunching stride, solitary breaths.
               Staccato notes
banged out on sidewalks' grey scales...

               ...I'm every inch
          of this softened ground,
these shoe treads, hieroglyphics...

               ...My town appends
                      its runic fate
                                    onto
              my story's granite page.

Crisping air, engulf my lungs.
Ensconce my face in drowsy weather.
Sleepy eyelids, sliding down
to Main & Dow Street. Watch me hover
                                         along the margins.
These last 4 months of quiet aching
engraved in me come roaring out now.
               Autumn streets stay silent.

And Kendrick Park
               has whispered low
                              in bashful rustling;
I climb the boardwalk,
               my thoughts are gilded,
                              responding slowly.

The breeze abates,
               it's halfway warm.
                              Bellevue & Lewis
I am a statue;
               smooth, cold marble,
                              still in November.

And, soon, the Summer comes with angry glares.
And, soon, this stony face will disappear.

These months will always linger in me.
Does my ghost haunt this place already?

I'll return here every Autumn when

October signs off on the Summer's death.

And I'll be tracing all your features with

forgotten footsteps' ancient hieroglyphs...

There's a place for those
like you and me, kid--staring
through this window pane, at odds
for hours. Conversations even out
these nights 'til a year's passed.
A smile of glass that dies too fast
ain't all we're sharing; just the
loudest thing we're sharing, staring
through this silent frame.

There's a place for those
like you and me--where we can go
when seasons roll
               around our guts
               and come back up
in boiling years.
          That place is here,
in this square frame,
with our smile of glass that breaks
           too fast
when dice cast cry out snake eyes;
          ours are blue,
and some are brown.

But she looks pretty
                         happy
                           now.

So it's back into this mirror frame
for debates had through window panes
and scrubbing hard with scalding water
          rinsing off our name.

From distant space in between
                                           spaces,
we watch plotting out the course.
The Human Race blind to its fate,
asleep controlled beyond the stars.

Through eons old and light years cold,
we came with sinister intent.
We've guided history for centuries
toward the doom of men.

We watch from the quiet spaces between
          where no mere mortal has ever gone.
We watch as we always have; still unseen
          and we've been here all along.
We watch for a moment soon to come. They
          have no clue as they drift through their days.
The Moon is full, the stars are right. We rise
          from the places where
                     we watch...

In darkened cellars of old
                            buildings
and in remote mountain woods
exist faint traces of our race;
fragments of knowledge no one should

pursue at all. When darkness falls,
some half-remember our dark names.
Cover of night hides ancient rites.
Our moment's drawing near again.

Our names leak from whisp'ring lips all quiv'ring
          spoken low beneath audible tones.
Foul symbols in air shaking hands tracing,
          memorized from profane tomes.
We wait as the ritual's unfolding
          poised to take our rightful place on top.
The stars are right, the chanting's high. We rise
          from the places where
                    we watch...

World turns through the ages and
                  we watch.

Ancient ones, our time is nigh.
                 We watch.

Don't resist. We're coming through.
               WE WATCH.

Tear it up and turn it grey
for the sanitized miles.
Turn it grey and tear it up
for clean-cut faces' ***** smiles.
That's the uptown style, boy--
                  the predator's call--
so bring your knives and brass knuckles
to the board meeting ball.

I've watched my town follow gridlines

from city parks to parking lots

And I can read the prescription

spray-painted on the Wal-Mart wall

               I'd turn away
                if I could...

TAKE TWO A DAY
TWO A DAY
WITH A BELLY FULL OF MEAT
WHEN ASPHALT COVERS ******* FLESH
AND YOUR DREAMS ARE ALL CONCRETE

TWO A DAY
TAKE TWO A DAY
Then try to get some sleep
where the wires and the tenants wear fatigue.

Turn it up and tear away
all the sanitized grins.
Watch the businessmen play checkers,
watch the crocodiles win.
That's the uptown game, kid--
                  the alpha wolf's goal--
lap the blood off boardroom tables,
let the necktied heads roll.

They used to watch their kids play there.

Trees, voices, playgrounds are all gone.

And you can see the prescription

spelled out above the mini-malls.

              can't run away;
              wish you could...

TAKE TWO A DAY
TWO A DAY
OR A MOUTHFUL ALL THEY CARE.
WHEN LIONS LEAVE THE BALLROOM,
THERE WON'T BE ONE BONE TO SPARE.

TAKE TWO A DAY
TWO A DAY
WITH A BELLY FULL OF MEAT.
AMBITION RIPS THROUGH ****** FLESH
AND BLEEDS DOLLARS FROM CONCRETE.

TWO A DAY
TAKE TWO A DAY
Then try to get some sleep
where tenants and the wiring are fatigued.

An orange Canadian city shines
outside beneath frostbitten sky.
It's almost January, I'm
               locked in with you
in your parents' house and the basement lights
gleam bright off your brown, wine-soaked eyes
          we're singing loud
          all alone in here
          on this frozen 3/4 night.

And outside
     all the voices ring out
     at the turn of an hour,
out of freezer-burned throats
     while they clutch their coats closed.
In here we've
     got each other and your speakers,
crowns of construction paper.

My drunk American smile shows,
we watch 2009 approach.
Your maple flavored laughter rose,
               stars in our eyes.
Hear the tape tear, glue flow, scissor cuts
and our separate fibers folding up;
          these paper hats
          we made together
          fit a flawless size.

A long farewell to sad goodbyes,
to Leaving Day and "cheers" to eyes
as big as mine on the River Walk
and firm footing on thick ice.

And outside
     all the voices ring out
     as the year greets an hour,
out of freezer-burned throats
     while they kiss out in the cold.
In here we'll
     kiss each other by the speakers,
crowns of construction paper.

12:10 a.m. Floor's alive
with our shuffling feet...
Our voices laugh through songs,
we catalog each other's faces
as if we'd only just met...
          I swing through the amber light
          with a stifled
               grin
to cover times like this.

1:10 a.m. Golden Rose.
Watch the sidewalk rise...
to meet my falling feet
as the night swells up around me.
I'm one of 10,000 lights...
          that drag their way towards dawn
          with a coyote
               smile
I cover miles of
               haunted streets.

I've taken time untangling years. I find
that the kindest fill up dents
which the uncouthest leave behind:
               the shapes of
          hard and sharpened edges?
               They're still present.
                But covered for now.

It's 2 a.m. Long stumble home
and my burnt voice sings...
its way through gravel songs
that we've kept in our back pockets.
So long they've kept us all warm...
          Nights like this are golden notes
          in a pyrite
               tune.
Keep me like I keep you.

If you're keeping watch,
then I'll trade you shifts now.
I've been awake for hours. Almost light out.
Sleep is the distant, departed pal who
                                   never comes around.
'Cuz I've got a skull
that's filled up with dead ends,
false starts and last tries and lost friends.
I'll be awake so I guess it's useless
                                    standing guard for me.

Who's standing guard for me?

Ran out of cards to play.
Folded at the table
          this apartment stays small.
The ceiling's falling in
                                              again;
all that I can say is that
           it's alright
   though these nights
       will close tight
'round my neck, it's what I'm expecting these days.


When you change your mind,
you know where to find me:
locked up inside or on dim streets,
out after drinks and sifting through memories
                                   I just can't let go.
The sounds of the night
are drowned out by your voice--
--circles my head like halos of streetlights
outside the liquor store on the corner
                                    where they know my name.

Just don't forget my name.

Game's up, my hand is laid.
Folded at the table
          this neighborhood stays small.
Sidewalks' destinations
                                              are the
same. All I can say is that:
           it's alright
    though these nights
        will close tight
'round my neck, it's all I know anyway.

My tired heart revives
when Fall arrives
and Summer dies.
Yeah, it comes back to life
at least part-way, sometimes.
               So paint me
               red and gold
       and washed-out green
                  in sunset.

The year seeks sleep
                              I'm piling leaves.
A breeze on evening,
                              Autumn flesh.
October's weary, ragged breaths
time out these restless, rustling footsteps.

               I can smell the solemn things
               the dying year would say to me
               if it could force its sibilant wind
                                into shape--
--if it could speak in consonance
to my own alliterative silence
and I could keep beats
               as stresses released:
"Where were we          when water froze
for the first time          in the fast waning warm?"

I seek out the sanguine;
                              I've been too combustible.
                              But I'm finally comfortable
with speaking dead language
with tongue all languid.
                               Let languish
cloying heat and raise bumps
               on the skin of my arm
                       like you did
                   when I was four,
playing alone in the rain in the Langleys' yard.

Held up under heavy arms,
buoyed by cool Autumn breath,
I found a way to quiet alarms in my
                              chest
           when I was 27...

Nothing's ever real red gold
except for in the Fall.
So guild me slow and let me go
               if all you've got
               are Summer arms.

It's 2 o'clock in the morning now.
I'm on a late night drive to the Acme pit mines.
With muddy thoughts in a midnight mind,
a mound of gravel in my guts,
I'm churning up
                  The last 4 years
and knocking back a cocktail
                   of wins and losses.
Wyoming night in the early Autumn.
Do you wanna come for a drive?

Take me back to that Winter night
when we walked outside
and filled cold air with our voices.
We set the icy, empty streets to rights,
and just talked all night
until our frozen throats thawed out.

3:10 a.m. It's still warm outside.
The gravel speaks, with each step, under my feet.
Tally up the feet and miles I've gone,
the feet and miles we have lived.
A memory walk
                  is vignette stops:
Those nights we spent drinking wine
                  on your rooftop.
Wyoming night in the heat of Summer.
Do you wanna come for a drive?

Thinking back on that April night
when we stayed inside
and hid from rain in the Springtime.
We let our favorite records spin all night
while it soaked outside
until the red wine sky dried out.

An empty ghost town. 3:45.
Imprints of gravel on my legs are a star map
I'll follow back to the times we had
through mounting years and empty space.
A distant place
                 I'm dredging up.
The one laid down; woven thick
                 in our fibers.
The map is laid out but I know my way.
So do you wanna come for a drive?

Hissing hydraulic brakes
your face
          was hiding.
April wind was howling.
Empty streets at 6 a.m.
A song of dust in squinting eyes.
You hunched your shoulders,
pulled your hood back,
smiled sunrise. Bus doors closed.

We'd always leak away
and trace these city limit lines
'til the night bled into day.
Bend footsteps back t'ward sunburnt lines
          that cross the map
          of the town we lived in
for all these sun-seared years.
Sat South of love and East of friendship,
but we feared nothin'!
Yeah, we were pirates,
          with smoke mouthed muskets
in hand. With full sails. And bold grins
          inscribed across each face.

And, back here, I still roll
through days
          on waves of
Autumn wind and memory.
Empty streets at 3 a.m.
Walk with our ghosts; still haunt this town.
You took your chances,
and a Greyhound
just past sunset--headed West.

We'd always leak away,
drive out past city limit lines.
And we'd drive until the day-
light bent rays back to eyes' red lines
          that crossed the map
          of the talks we'd lived in
for all those wondering years,
West of white lies and North of silence.
Guess we feared something.
But, now, what was it?
          And, now, where are you?
Out West with full sails and clear eyes
          inside a sunset face?

Another silent homeward
walk across the Orange Street
                                          bridge
and I wish someone were walking with me.
                               These nights grow long,
                               and the days keep blurring.
My hurried steps wander over seams
of the self I have stitched
                     together from the pieces
of the last few years and the friends I've made.
                     And I'll defend my route
                     until the curtain drops
                                                       again.
                     Awash in quiet, I wait in the wings.

Cast my eyes North and East.
Spring breeze half-waves and passes too quickly.
Cast dice and hard clenched teeth.
Losing bets and snake-eyed bitter apologies.

Now it's a warmish Wednesday
night. I swallow hard. Just
                                        then
turned a bend and halted in my footsteps.
                                these thoughts reach back.
                                Your face at my fingers.
Scars from a car wreck when you were young.
I know they always made
                     you feel kinda self-conscious.
I really liked them. Did I tell you that?
                      It's a moot point, sure,
                      but that shot still smarts.
                                                      Aga­in,
                      feeling like the awkward Oxford Comma.
Showed up late to the party.
Just a mark too far...
                     ...sentenced to revise.

Cast my eyes North and East.
It's gotten late. Guess I should keep walking.
Drink down this history,
losing bets and snake-eyed bitter apologies.

Cast my thoughts North and East,
and I wish that you were walking with me.

The weather's getting warmer
there's still static in your snowy eyes
and moonlight waxing pale shines
               a searchlight
          through this night's
humming summer city haunts
frames your face and splashes mine
with the truth that lies behind
a well-intentioned whitewash lie
                         that we care where we're going,
                         that we know what we're doing
                       and daily life don't scare us blind.

The Warden's got his dogs out,
our feet barely touch the ground.
And we're not looking back until
we hear no chasing sounds
               so sound the fox horn
and catch us napping if you can.
'Cuz we're just killing days,
running all night and foiling plans.

The silver night was spilling
quiet rainstorms on your dark red hair
and my resolve was waning there
               against those
             smiles we wrote
in that crumbling concrete hour.
'Cuz we'd never been that close
to divorcing deceased ghosts
and coming clean from mud-caked boasts
                          that our chains never rattled,
                          that we never felt saddled
                        beneath our heavy, self-sewn cloaks.

The Warden's got his dogs out,
our feet barely touch the ground.
We're never looking back again,
and we won't make a sound
               so sound the fox horn
and catch us napping if you can.
'Cuz we're just killing days,
running all night and foiling plans.

Tunneled under the walls now
it's high time we put some ground
between us and our yesterdays
that howl like baying hounds.
               We'll pound the pavement
and catch a few winks where we can.
And we'll be living days
and sleeping nights and making plans.

Fell asleep under clouds and I woke up here.
Fell asleep under clouds and I woke up here.
With a timestamp expired under looming storms.
The bleeding Spring never leaves
the rainy shores,
When I only wanna
                         live in the Autumn
of two-thousand-and-twelve--
in the days and the hours
before my guts soured.
when my hollow heart leaked down
                          shaking legs
                   into small town streets
                   and I forgot myself.

In the dregs of my doubts.
In the bouts of a cowardly man
                                unqualified
to carry your baggage
                         from the airport in Billings
to the bottom of my parents' stairs.

You stared hard that night
through the North Dakota Winter
and suburban blight.
November air
chilled my lungs and my breathing stopped.

In my Lillingtons hoodie,
I stood sad and shivering
and watched you drive away
through an assaulting army of falling snowflakes.
                            the last words
                  that you'd say to me were--
the last words that you'd say to me were

"I hope you're happy, you stupid scumbag.
No one will ever love you again."

"I hope you're happy, you ******* scumbag.
No one will ever love you again."

Fell asleep in a glass and I woke up here.
Fell asleep by myself and I woke up here.

In the space between paychecks,
walking back and forth to nowhere
in a post-wage, first world shooting gallery,
                         we make
bland backgrounds,
                                dull grey blurs
from miles of stretching, chain link work weeks
                       sore legs stride fast
                        all the same.

Think of climbing but your lead feet won't play.

Blaming long nights for stiff necks,
wax poetic. Piling losses
pin each stanza to our thin, unrav'ling sleeves
                            we'll take
our chances
                        with cheap drinks,
cheap thrills and priceless conversations
                       swelled tongues talk fast
                       all the same.

We're taught to pave the roads to our own graves.

Reached in and picked a winner
from your box of stock phrases.
Finding ways
to roll zero on 2d6.
You ******' missed
                        "**** the bed!"
I guess you're no Kenny Rogers.
Longer losing streaks familiar
to the wisdom of a betting man.

"Carpe Diem" on your calf,
laugh your way to the bank.
But put a stutter on your chuckle
'til the day they seize your wages.
If it "happens for a reason,"
fold your cards and hold your tongue in.
                           Hold your tongue and
                           clamp your teeth.

"What it is is what it is."
That's a "tautology."
They taught me that one in college,
when I took critical theory!
If you seek an explanation,
you're just critically faulting
                           on your dice rolls
                           and your debts.

Reached in and hit the bottom
of your box of stock phrases.
Finding ways
to keep afloat on empty words.
You ******' missed.
                           "Feeling blessed?"
Turns out you're no Kenny Rogers.
Longer losing streaks familiar
to the wisdom of a betting man.

These streets knew feet in days gone by,
bustling sidewalks, crowded storefronts,
laughter, light and dancers leaking
out of smoke-filled bars.
Cars would wind through intersections,
blood cells between neighborhoods.
From The Corner came The Roar.

He remembers how the Autumn sounded
                       back in '84
when Alan Trammell brought The Series home,
the arcing shot off Gibson's bat,
the rolling wave of soaring voices.
                      Old English
                             "D"
              tattooed on the hearts
                        of a city
     who's been hurting since the 50's.

Bless You Boys.
Ya did it--
went and Sparked up Michigan
and lit a dimming town again
in Corktown's widening eyes.

In 20 years, though, losses pile up.
55 and starved for signs
of trends reversing, luck upending,
impending relief or just some kind of
                  something.

Sickening, cloying rapid decay
       as neighborhoods die.
These streets know crumbling cinderblock
walls and blistered paint coats don't
cover ribcages starting to show--
steel girder bones--and windows blown
out, like teeth lost from a well-spoken mouth,
allow the Lake Michigan wind to howl
                      out the tale--
            through oxidized bones--
       of just what it looks like
      when economic war hits home.

Heartbeats still find footing
in Motor City streets, beneath
         the Old English "D,"
but mind the scoreboard smart;
the Tigers lost a hundred games
                    in 2003.

You say you spent two years sleep-
walking all around here,
past convenience stores and dead ends.
Steering blind while the suburbs blurred,
your sneering eyes grew tired
like my slurring verbage

                                           Now with our words just circling 'round
                                           we'll shout right into the drain
                                           blaming newer faults on old targets...
                                            
         ­                                               And I can only say...

That you won't see me
playing Kings & Creeps
when the whiskey's gone
and this here card game's out of reach.
When the fingers point, it's nothing doing,
stated bluntly.
We're saying nothing again.

Now I've been eating crow with
a side of consternation
through a swelling, allergic throat.
Choking down all my dumbest thoughts.
My token frown flips up
when your smile turns caustic.

                                             And with the tension boiling down,
                                             bubbling up from our heads,
                                             we'll pour it out on old targets...

                                             It seems we've spilled again...

But you don't hear me
crying, "Kings & Creeps"
when the music dies
and we stand, staring at our feet.
With an unhinged jaw, even a snake can
swallow some things--
digest them back in the den.

We're saying nothing again.

Slack-jawed, wide-eyed
          tongue-tied
          and terrified
of what went left unsaid,
                I froze,
a feature of the static night.
From Summer's boiling tension
to December's weary ice
                               we'd drive
                        and count the times
             we thought we'd finally got it right.
But then
          the weight of discount decades
wrapped our chests in dynamite--
              criss-crossed trunks,
        and slant-grinned garlands
      blowing up the Christmas Tree.
Apologize later for ******* up the party;
     we were gone already anyway
with frigid wind flaying fingertips and ears.
                   Back to the car.
                  One more drive.
       One more night to half believe
           we'll get it right this time.
But what's so new about a New Year?
Still can't swallow all this scary size.
Guess we'll always be here, shrugging
            Slack-jawed, wide-eyed,
                      tongue-tied
                    ­ and terrified.

Plot a course through downtown doors
then drift along the concrete shores
of asphalt oceans navigated
          under stars
          imitating
     broken curbside glass--
     over crunching gravel miles
          measured in half-hours
and meted out in heavy, fogging breaths
          and squinting, midnight eyes...

Counted out the blocks, counted steps
and concrete squares by metered
three-four thoughts dancing across
     reflected skylines, just behind the eyes.

Each step's a held breath,
each footfall a prayer on crumpled paper,
each set of shoulders, a hanger for...

                                        coats are homes
                                             for hands
                                    rolling up in pockets
fishing for some solid anchor,
sinking into years of walks and silent words like these.

                                   * * *

Listing hard, adrift for years
     water-logged and pocked--
                    no anchor--
shredded sails and leaning masts
                    tell stories
                  of deck fires:
                   leaping rats,
             and charred strakes

Clear deck,
               empty hold,
                              abandoned helm.
                     this coat's Atlantic fog.
Frayed rigging like cobwebs stretch
          down and across
like lines on faces aged by the frost
          on midnight walks.

Strike the colors, mate...
Admit you're lost.

I wouldn't say I wasn't hoping--
wondering what it'd be like--
to strike the band up, strike a spark
and set your amber eyes alight.

The night was warm. I almost froze up.
You flowed through my awkward ice.
We walked home laughing,
                             I was fading.
                             Drenched...

Your voice was red wine on the night...

                                           I'm alive;
                           I guess the Winter lost one.
                Scraping frost off a tarnished record, now.
                                     Spin the season.
                          Warming up to Springtime.
             Pour out beside me under iron purple clouds.

I kept a cask of my best stories
fermenting for nights like this,
to fill your glass, distill the tension,
drown the thirst of shots we'd missed.

The night wore on. You told the Winter,
"Smiles're mine--you keep the rest."
We thawed the town out
                          with a buzzing
                          warmth

spread through our drunk and laughing chests...

                                                      ­              Orange Street
                                                          ­          bridge.
                                               ­                     Melting in the dark.
                                                           ­         Lots cast:
                                                           ­         two stones in the Clark Fork.
                                                           ­         Walk back,
                                                           ­         we're
                                                  ­                  run-off from downtown.
                                                       ­             Four sheets,
                                                         ­           after
                                                                ­    breezes, get turned down.

                                        I'm alive;
                           I guess the Winter lost one.
                Scraping frost off a tarnished record, now.
                                     Spin the season.
                          Warming up to Springtime.
             Pour out beside me under iron purple clouds.

                                 Nothing gained
                       worth a ****'s assured, so
                tip a glass, tilt a grin and angle home.
                               A thousand lights
                       pinned to night, 6 blocks left.
     We're catching up. Where'd our mislaid footsteps go?
            
                       Led us right here, I suppose.

Settle down
I'm sinking in
     to this dingy motel tub.
Stain the water
     with the paint
from my sardonic, smiling face
now, babe, I got a flower in my hatband and
a sloshing bottle in my white gloved hand.
     Do you think we'll still be laughing
                              in the morning...?

Blinking lights and bleary eyes
in a neon wash for a bloodshot lifetime,
and a swallow
     is all I wanna take.

     Besides, I'm still holding the bag.

Puddle up
pull the plug
     colors circle 'round the drain
Pollute the night
     with a laugh
from inside this facepaint bath.
And, babe, I been swirled 'round the world's full glass
and, for a bit, I guess, it was a helluva gas
but, ya know,
                  nobody makes it in the end...
                  
                  so where's the joke end or begin?

Reddened nose and ***** jokes.
Life's a vacation, I'm a pig in a poke
and a mouthful
     is all I need to take...

     We all get left holding the bag.

You said I had a face like
                 cinder blocks at sunrise:
Ash grey staining
                 red in the ending night.
The late winter cold
leaked down into my bones.
You pulled my hood up,
kissed me once and walked home.

                                I was a weak
                                 kneed floater
                                 that night.

It was a month to forget buried heart dents and debts.
You let me ride on the back of one more losing bet.
                                 The deck's cut,
                                    it's raining
                                       outside

If I had
       one more card
tucked up my sleeve, I'd lay it down
                      you wouldn't play
                      'cuz your hand's weak
Game's no fun. Folding. Heading straight out the door
                   Cashed in your chips and that's fine.

                   I'll take off and try to stay dry.

Your living room was greyscale
                 blue and white at midnight.
Ash on my tongue,
                 had X's in my eyes.
I'll choke down the bile
building up in my throat--
this mouth full of crow.
I'll walk out, grab my coat.

                              from your couch
                             turn the **** and
                                       I'm gone.

It was a month to forget buried heart dents and debts.
You let me ride on the back of one more losing bet.
Kick up my heels, over pavement, walk home.
Half-rain and half-snow. Half a mile left to go.
                                    the jig's up
                               and our steps were
                                      all wrong.

Let's take this
      time to find
some ground for standing. Thawing out,
                      I'll leak away
                      with the meltwash.
One more week draining to the Columbia
                   and your front step'll be dry.

                   ...and your front step'll be dry...

Keyring's clinking on my cut time stride
under lights, buzzing islands in the ink sea night.
Slink away from my murky years,
                  they're piling up
and I'm hunched, walking dumb
          across the hazard yellow lines.

Behind me
          the night just rolls up
almost outruns me to my front doorstep.
                                                The hungry
hills enclose
                    our mid-size
                    opaque town.

Old partners,
          forgotten crimes we
did and left trails of clues, all gutshot
                                       creep hunching
through this skull
                      beneath a
                      fraying cap.

Keyrings jangle like anxieties
in my chest, humming static in the core of me.
Sinking in to familiar tones;
                  shades purple grey.
And it's cold, striding slow
          through the west side warehouse lots.

Behind me
          the teeming sidewalks
shout half-slurred spears at my back retreating.
                                                The half-light
spills itself
                    on wrinkled,
                    trenching brows.

And out there
          the night just rolls up
to darken the mat by your front doorstep.
                                                You're just a
single thought
                    and several
                    miles away.

Maybe it's two years feeling lonely,
or I'm juiced from drinking way too much coffee.
But, when the Springtime shows its Joker's face,
I'm less likely to sneer and turn away

                                                           ­               Than I was this time last year,
                                                           ­     when I had lost all ******* bearing,
                                                        ­            while I was swearing at the stars,
                                                          ­                    aping Oneida's* navigating.

And, now, I'm on the eastern side,
I'm walking slow, it's early morning.
I don't even want a brush,
          to paint a blackout on the sun.
Well, I've had a few false starts,
I've made an art of second guessing.
Finally don't need a crutch
          to clear the days of all their must.

'Cuz I think I'm aware, now...
          that the frost is gonna thaw real fast
          and trickle down
          into the topsoil 'neath my feet.

Well, maybe we should lay off the whiskey,
or maybe it's two years in this city.
But, when the Winter creeps down 'round our heads,
we should welcome her just like a sneering friend.

                                                        ­                      'Cuz the other shoe will fall
                                                          an­d we'll be walking halfway barefoot.
                                                       ­                  Frozen roads'll get gridlocked,
                                                 we'll ***** for months that we can't stand it.

For now, I'm drifting through downtown,
I'm striding fast, it's early evening.
Ask a stranger for the time
          and wonder what's been on your mind.
And I'm always running late
but make an art of playing catch-up.
I'll catch up with you next week,
          we'll kick the pattern off repeat.

'Cuz lately I've been thinking...
          that the frost is gonna thaw real fast
          and trickle down
          into the topsoil 'neath my feet
          and green things up!

From the top of the Terminal,
your size was splayed out,
a grey **** carpet for the Red River Valley.
And The Forks right beneath
                      our weary walkers' feet
was a thick drop setting up in the center
of your ash grey forehead.
Traced a thumb down Taché and St. Mary's
to the peak of your left cheek on Fermor.

Your traffic light glance blinked us
                    right to a stop
as blue bomb thoughts and temperatures dropped
at the base of our minds
and your wide, widow's peak sky
formed a cold iron bruise 40 minutes past 5.

I've held your muddy diamond eyes
in mine, how many times?
And you'd sigh, sometimes
         from your North End scar,
but the Assiniboine bends around Wellington Crescent,
a stifled, spiced laugh from the failed rebellion
of your Province's youth.
          And you know I'm no novice
to the uncouth barbs of the Winter,
'cuz you wrapped asphalt arms
                                       nice and tight
'round our shoulders.

Osborne & Morley for an A-frame embrace.
The face of a city, its wrinkles a sketch
of laugh line drives for donuts and coffee.
Crows' feet stretched through The Exchange.

We followed your grin
                from
corner to corner,
from Richardson Airport
to Transcona Yards; one earring a lifeline,
the other, steel bones.
From your St. Norbert chin,
to your twin St. Paul crown,
we would wander,
kiss your River East temple
                  then call it a night.

I have names for every smile you gave me:
Vi-Ann in the Village,
The Toad in the Hole,
St. Boniface Cathedral, that first time
in deep snow.
                 I want you to know,
               you frozen Great City,
your terrible beauty is written on me.

Each side-slanted grin I shared with your sidewalks
               encircles my history now,
                          even still.
Fill an eye with 5 years
                of joyous, drunk laughter
which seeds your purple sand sky with fog ghosts.

Still-frame your patchwork, frostbitten face--
the Perimeter Highway's a jaunt-angled toque;
                                           keeps you warm--
I still wear you
           when late Autumn light takes me back.

Checkered choices rise some nights,
play chess with all my frightful failings.
Queen's Pawn to Rook 5.
          Nail my footsteps
          to the concrete season.
          I'm losing pieces it seems.

I'm a sardonic grinner
     and under these eyebrows, it's nuclear winter.
Wending my way through the last
three years, I find no release valve.
The pressure will build and place
its long arm along my shoulder,
pull me far from my friends.
One.
                                         Two.
One.
                                         Two.
                   Step
                 by step
      by hammer blow step
a story is crafted, installed with a lock
          in a circular book.

Queen's Pawn to Ryman Street
                  1:45 a.m.
simmering skin over ice armored innards,
the freezing rain sends up my curses
                                               like steam
                                  clouding off of my shoulders
and into the skyline.

I've castled my way out of checkmate questions.
Not my move to make,
                     so I won't life a finger.
Queen's Pawn to front doorstep,
          then straight on to bed.

About a million prairie miles
roll out slow from sparkling eyes.
Each night, beneath a blanket
of melting white noise
that distance wraps around your
toes and takes its sweet time
          with every
          aching inch.

If I could sell you a story
from pursed lips a half-inch
beneath my reddened, runny nose
who knows if you'd believe it?
But I might get rich if you
were buying
          my slurring, supine words.

I could buy you.
               A new coat.
               With your coin.
And I'd borrow it for the winter.
'Cuz mine's all full of holes
that breathe too hard.
          Like me,
on my long walks home
through streetlights and snow.
          Like you,
in your bed tonight
carving words in your wall,
in the dark, with tongue tucked
tight behind your crooked,
perfect, lovely teeth.

A coat's no good in Summer
(save to improvise a pillow
when I sleep on friends' floors).
But you can sell me back my story,
                                   (half-cost, I'd hope...).
And--just maybe--I could swallow
your million prairie miles,
and stomach five more months
of Sundays...
               To read your wall.
                       Aloud.

City limit space expands,
it's threaded through with veins--
grey-black dendritic strands
                                     span
                        across this moldy brain
of a city.
Our rotting nights spray hits around
           the places players play.
The impulses will whitewash all complaints
'til the glaring day.

I wanna spit-shine every storm drain,
stain the cracked sidewalks in white,
take this town to Sunday morning Mass,
though she was born for Friday nights.

We're gonna trickle past addresses
                                                   now,
Electroshock through habit streets
these crosswalks sneer with snide expression.
Mildewed thoughts we'll hardly think.
A conversation you're repressing
I'm smoothing out my wrinkled brow
Another weekend's blurred out
blank confession
melts off the tips of tongues,
          I can taste it now.

Circulation space expands,
we're threaded through with veins--
this bio-asphalt plan
                           spans
              all through this molded frame
of a body.
But rotten thoughts, like ships aground,
                   teach sailors how to pray
when impulses have buried all complaints
'neath the foaming spray.

I wanna shade out every bruise now,
paint the dumpsters all in gold.
Missoula, listen: You're a lady.
I don't give a **** what you've been told.

A moldy brain dreams slattern makeup
for a prizefight town each night
so let's take up every artist's brush,
paint shadows on these barroom eyes.

We're gonna flow right through these boule-
                                                          ­          vards.
Electroshock through habit streets.
These dim lit yards and spoiled thoughts
are hyphens placed between each week.
A conversation you're repressing,
I'm smoothing out my wrinkled brow.
Our city's made-up face is running
off the tips of winter and I taste it now.