I smile when I can
about good news,
sunsets,
the faces babies make
in super markets,

laugh in the evening
with a girl
who laughs back
and smiles over
dinner while we watch television.

In the evening, we sleep
together under blankets,
touch skin,
hold each other
until we both go to work
in the morning.

I work,
pay bills,
earn simple man wages,
enjoy simple man pleasures.
I drink bottle beer and
smoke workingman cigarettes.

Sometimes late at night,
I watch my alarm clock
and feel time is running out.

Other times, I regard the moon tattoo
inked in galaxies of freckles on her shoulder
and listen to her weak snores
while distant sirens moan
like banshees yawning
midnight sorrows
on blank streets.

Trailer park loves are the saddest
and no one knows this more than Jesse.
A young lesbian with no money,
crazy girlfriends,
skimpy furniture,
a hole in her bedroom wall.

She smokes her last cigarette,
smiles over ***** dishes
and unpaid bills.

Tomorrow the power gets turned off
and we will sit by candlelight
laughing in cheap dark.

The discount Daisies
are no longer fresh
and the rot continues
on the dining room table.

Stale stalks stir
week old water
like straw skeletons.

Brittle crowns bend,
slouch,
curve skinny blossoms
from a vase.

Petals fall,
crumbs of yellow
and white
wrinkle like
tired confetti.

Lucky flowers,
they got to know your smile,
surprise,
skin,
and fill your fist
like ripe wands.

I smile when I can
about good news,
sunsets,
the faces babies make
in super markets,

laugh in the evening
with a girl
who laughs back
and smiles over
dinner while we watch television.

In the evening, we sleep
together under blankets,
touch skin,
hold each other
until we both go to work
in the morning.

I work,
pay bills,
earn simple man wages,
enjoy simple man pleasures.
I drink bottle beer and
smoke workingman cigarettes.

Sometimes late at night,
I watch my alarm clock
and feel time is running out.

Other times, I regard the moon tattoo
inked in galaxies of freckles on her shoulder
and listen to her weak snores
while distant sirens moan
like banshees yawning
midnight sorrows
on blank streets.

"Praise the meek
Praise the timid
Praise the unwanted!"


He knows toils,
the street hymns,
secret bungalows
of the tattered,
the terrors
of being invisible.

The sidewalk cracks
under ***** boots
and yields to the weight
of his woes.

A floppy hat crowns
the colored face,
yellow eyes and teeth,
that suffer climates.

Stains scar a gray sweatshirt.
If only they had mouths.
What gospels they would sing!

"This is when I became lost.
This is when I hungered.
When I shivered,
when I bathed in moonlight!"

Tiny radio shrieks
cheap jazz from
worn speakers,
shouting horns and piano.

He is blues
and knows what it's
like to be broken
with nothing but hobo dreams
that few will hear.

He struts,
limps,
shrugs,
SURVIVES!

Faint music and a yellow backpack
fades around the corner
and he looks like a
champion songbird for the forgotten.

Run!
Fly!


A dollar deal
fun for all ages
cartoon wood owl
fights flight,
forsakes ascension,
lingers shallow sky
like a feral flag.

Black disc eyes
startle,
scorn,
rattle plastic sockets.

Faster!
Higher!

Painted plumage surges
fast ripples that
shiver synthetic feathers
and crinkle wind.


Orange streamers whip,
kink,
furl
and twist like crooked ribbons


Out of breath!
Out of shape!

Oiled families point
and laugh,
my stepdaughter blushes,

I gallop like a madman
barefoot,
splash over seashells
and crab holes,

dragging a stubborn symbol
of childhood,
I cannot wrangle
or tame.

The leash has snapped!
My body fails!

Broken nylon falls
like tangled web,
frail,
flimsy ,
my handful of slack
spills like silk
when i trip in sea ****
and accept this refusal
knowing we share
the same fates,

crashing into white sand
bruised, tired,
a folly for sunny strangers.

Amanda's skin opens
a red yawn,
empties stuffing,
and bleeds
for the love of her father,
to protest a twenty third birthday,
because God has forgotten her.

This girl is no good at dying.
The razor missed.

The emergency room is serious
with news magazines,
coughing children,
and the panic of families.
All night the hurt comes.

We leave at daybreak,
white gauze strangles
her rip,
and clings to her like a dove
scared of flight.

"sitting on the wrong side of heaven
sitting on the wrong side of hell,
sitting on the wrong side of everything"

Two truckers talk miles
weight stations,
and *******

as the barmaid coughs up
a sharp,
wet,
smokers laugh,

at the racist joke
an old man tells
while he rolls up a cigarette
cracks with wrinkles,
and upsets

the heavy middle aged woman
feeding dollars into the slot
of a game machine,
trying to beat her own
high scores.

My draft mug sheds frost
into a soggy napkin and
I notice how useless
everything is.

The empty pool table
with a warped stick on it,

the display of snack food
behind the bar
that look old and dusty

The man coming from the bathroom,
coughing as he passes
a twinkling electronic dartboard,
a powered down
Creature from the Black Lagoon
pinball machine,


and a hi-tech jukebox
that will never be used
because the patrons here
are low-tech with no interest
in the cyber-generation's toys.

Too early for happy hour,
too late to go in for work

We are all just waiting,
killing time,
trying to remember
or trying to forget,
and hiding from the world,

Of course,
we all could be drunks,
losers, the **** that lives
in **** town, but the latter
seems more romantic
and truthful.
Eye of the beholder
I guess.

Sometimes I steal
from grocery stores.

Nothing serious of course,
sprigs of cilantro,
basil,
snap garlic cloves,
sleeve a single strip
of green onion,
occasionally, palm a jalapeno

I think it is the tiny thrills
of being a petty villain
that provokes me.

The warm slick sheen
of salty palms,
brow sweat, and
the shivers of pulse
that drums
my heart
when door greeters pull me aside to
verify receipts,
and never notice my aroused pockets
tight and bulging
pickpocket produce.


I'm no outlaw
nor bandit,
I do not pillage or
plunder,
I know the gray lines
that divide
good and bad,
because I'm at one of their
thresholds.

The cashier checks my driver license,
and address before feeding a worthless check
into the scanner
where it gets tagged and stamped

I feel no thrills,
no bad boy euphoria,
I am too numb for elation,
and too numb for shame.

This crime Is justified.

I have three more days
till payday
and hope the check floats

Last week was a short paycheck,
gas prices are high,
rent is past due
cigarettes aren't cheap,
and then there's that drug habit.

I could only write it
for twenty five over.
It's going to be a hard stretch.


I stuff easy cash
into my front pocket
and try to catch the eye of a pretty cashier
an aisle over.
She drags barcodes through laser red eyes
that decodes sale prices


She doesn't notice me,
but she might not be into bad boys

A small girl waits
in a shopping cart
with pigtails
and new teeth,
holding a children cereal that comes with a prize.

Her mother does not see
her kick off her shoe.