The open casket sang --
what force an oak elicits
encasing a body

Reminds me of when I was a boy

  And you’d wake me to a punch in the gut

Say

“Sometimes life knocks the wind out of you”

So when I finally got to scatter you to the wind

   You managed to catch the wrong gust

So that I could choke on you one last time

  Made me hold my breath till my eyes watered

What no one knew

  Was that your mouth was full of firing pins

And that spit sizzled off the empty shell casings you capped over your teeth
  
   *******

If I had a nickel

For every potential broken rib

Or bruise so big it could’a’ been a hole

For every day I looked like dying fruit

  I’d have enough nickels to win your well every time

I look so much like you when I am angry

  I have to remind myself

This is not him when I’m angry

This is me when I’m angry

Reminds me of that time I grew *****

Shot out so fast their weight flung me forward

And I accidentally punched you back

What no one knew

Was that it felt amazing

  And it scared me

  Still scares me

So much that I have to remind myself

This is me when I'm angry

And I can stop

Fear of not is.
The unknown is.
One side.
Failure.

Love is company.
Absence is company.
One side.
Failure.

Failure builds.
The the unknown builds.
Success.

misunderstanding flows, like beer on tap
and as we drink it down, pint after pint,
all reason is spilled onto the table,
wiped up by the ***** bar mop
that stinks of yesterdays brew

the proprietor of this establishment
stands at counter, smiling his knowing smile

that sadness in his eyes which can only come
from seeing pantomimes like this one play out before him
on every night of his long, long career

I wish I could but am grateful I cannot
find the perfect word in my dirt-edged dictionary to describe this feeling
because all is not perfect.

I have lived and relived one hundred moves and counter-moves
not knowing black from white, simply wanting to need
to trap your affections beneath rock or steel as fits my schemes.
One hundred moves for every star in the sky of each wilting night,
and in the midst of a single breath –

a breath like one I swear we’ve shared
on couch or on fencepost in awkward happenstance

– this mind of mine manipulates
  all inadequate allegory, all incomplete comparison
  trying to condense into a single sentiment
  the breadth of that which my chest can rarely contain
and disposes of each in turn.

For words,
the countless words I know by sight and by sound,
would rather not comply.
If only they'd meet the demands of such a meager man,
this torment, this voiceless howl
calling me to blissless inaction
could find solace in this feeling.

They claim and they have said
over again for the misty-eared among us:
Love bears all things.
Yet the beast inside contests:
Bears love all things.
For this is not Love but an Eternal beast
a beast, a Bear, which thrives regardless
of my pain or pleasure
– striking out from the rotting memory of your chiseled touch.