Poetry is poking through the ashtray
for the lost word I spit away
on the the last cigarette to make sure it was out
(because I sicken from smoke of burning cellulosic filters,)
distracted, tapping another growing ash
into a glass I'll surely sip from later
It'll cough out dry and chalky
from my fingers
they all go to the same place -
whiskey, cigarettes, words -
and presume to have meaning
when it's late,
making a game of speeding clocks
until they're bored and stagger home
to their closet under the stairs,
leaving me to wash their empty glasses
and sweep off the dusty pretensions
they've left on my desktop,
wishing I'd gone to bed earlier
or repotted some geraniums instead.

when he took words from me and stole my voice
i had given up the notion of having any choice

my life became a muted scene
i lived each day in a nightmarish dream

when he stole my words from me

reaching down into my throat
he pulled them, one by one by force

my words lay in a puddle on the floor

i left them there, not knowing how to get them back
one day he simply swept them away, they tumbled into a dark crack

now that he is gone, i've pulled them out, washed them off.
i arrange them on a page. but some words, i've noticed, have gone missing.

i wonder did they blow away in the wind? never to be found again?
or are they broken in the dust, waiting for me to find them,
to mend them with my hand

or perhaps they are smashed beyond repair,
and i will have to live my life as such
never being able to say all that i feel,
unable to find the words that can mean so much


--bruised orange

Silence is the memories of late night truck stops
Some sticky September serenades of noise
And just legal cleavage
The dawn rises too early
With the whipping snap of a bitter wind
Romancing the trees, grass, and man-made nightmares
Of construction, pavement, and steel
We are alone here some voice echoes
Reassuring that no one will ever be with anyone
And the dying days of our light is just that
Left hanging in the whimpering breeze

*Traveling to foreign shores with seaside shanties
Of mermaids, sirens, and demons of the depth
One day we will rest in Davey Jones’ locker
Telling stories of our youth to rusted seashells
Waiting for a sun to rise beneath the trenches of dead whales

0623
           yeah, mom's sleeping still and i have to go out. i keep throwing my bone at the cage and she keeps telling me to lay down and go to sleep, but mom, I HAVE TO ***!!!

0630
          ok, moms up now and she took me out. i peed three whole times and sniffed a few other dogs' trails. i wish those other dogs would stay out of my yard. don't their parents know this is my yard? maybe you should tell them

0800
          Woooooooooooooooooooo, Yip Yip Yip! it's time to eat! nom nom nom nom!

0825
         mom is annoyed with me so she gave me a new bone to chew on. she calls it a bonut because it's shaped like a donut. i'd rather have a real donut.

0940
         i must've been good because mom gave me a treat. i'm so good when i sleep. <----Hey dad, look, i'm a poet just like you!

1134
        how am i texting you? i have no thumbs...or no phone for that matter

1500*
        Yip Yip Yip! you just pulled up! you're home! be prepared, i'm gonna attack you once you open the door and slobber all over your face!!!

Time is an idea of the over-ripe mind
The sky bent dries the earth
Did you achieve anything more than

Pain

Wreath for the eyes

Rumble

Ghostly reflection left of
“Us”

life lost new words
like old eyes bereft of light
and work of thought
comes at painful price
a man's mind dreams old air, faces stars
and remembers real flesh, lips, love;
the lightness of falling leaves

and knows their memories
of a watery day in spring,
when past beauty used red steel
to hide a child shared with rain,
his face unseen, body gray
under waves kept closed to wonder

sky, loose at the fine ends
of dark death’s skin
has seen years, the trees
now sleeping peacefully
relieved of the burden they’d borne
embracing the coursing winter winds
where a son might live as breath-thoughts,
the little cloud of wild hope passing
giving purpose to the heavens

I’m lying on a beach, sun-punched subconscious
not too hot as a briny breeze still blows ashore,
but warm and melted onto the ground
like candle wax spilled over

nearby recumbent girls, unmoving as statues,
**** Aphrodites raised of sand and sea foam
splay across loose opened chitons
unfurling scents of oils and lotions,
awaiting their animation from kisses of salt mist
or ocean tide come in too close

they’d vanish by next glance
lost in minutes or hours passed
the impressions they’d left filled with glistening sparkles,
constellations of miniature stars fusing
then extinguishing by pairs to gray flatness

ascendant on gulls' laughter, wind-stretched,
entangled among broken waves
in an endless silk scarf god once made
but left behind in his dream at dawn
when light then carved each grain its shape -
this beach for me to sleep on

as if by artist’s craft, that sky,
a painted bride blushing
her blaze of blistering crimson
like a blossom opened to
a blue black ocean’s kiss
colors bled in slender fingers
caressing wind-blown waters
and united, they melted into starlight

Shameless moon
blind white
motionless climbs
above a sleeve-worn stone

Limb by naked limb
night -entangled trees
release queer shadows
on bare bone
distorting memory
and the tainted foliage



KMC @ 2011