Every **** time, it makes me cry
“A kanon is a concerto where each verse adds a new element.
Each instrument joining in one at a time;
merging with the main melody.
Making it richer and deeper the more it goes on.
Wouldn’t it be nice if life was like that”

To my never queen, my g-friend
It’s a reminder of a first dance wedding song never played
To me, it was the first thing to make me cry
Feel again
After I was abandoned again
Linked to a preposterous story

It’s a happy song
This is a happy poem
And I guess, that Kanon
Gives us both a reason to cry

Barreling down the highway
Haphazardly spray painted, split down the middle black and white
Grateful Dead bear dangling from the mirror
Cher blaring on the radio
Dented, scratched, rusted- scars of well use
Bed full of broken toys

Second Engine
Second life

This thing was more a person
Than most I’ve met

Atleast this one worked
This one was useful
This one was still here
With me

The next Dr. prescribes me steroids
Because my hand lost feeling
Rushing to create any sort of feeling
Says it’ll take away the swelling
Because I’m too full of it
Say’s it’ll make me stronger
Because I’ve been too weak
Say’s it’ll take away the pain
Because it hurts to make myself
It hurts too much to make you make me

It’s not judgement
It’s more honesty

I still don’t believe any of them

The Dr. told me I had a Vitamin D deficiency.
“The sunshine one?”
Say’s, this is pretty common in Ohio in the winter.
Doc, I said, I never had this issue before
And I always lived in Ohio.
I guess Age just meant I got a little darker

So, she gives me these little round pills. Take 1 a week
Imagine that, they put sunshine into a little pill
Funny enough, they were black
Spongey little black things
Like a micro black hole that bottles up the sun
And when I swallow I begin my own internal big bang biochemical genesis
And suddenly, I’m supposed to be brighter

Like I didn’t spend my whole decade inside
Waiting for you to contact me
Waiting for you to open me up

It isn’t rejection
It’s honesty

inspired by Prison Terms by Diane Kendig

My mother was an inmate at Marysville Women’s Prison when I was born
(Now call the Ohio Reformatory for Women)
It would **** her off to know I’m telling you all this
But I will not live in her cage
She brought enough of those chains home with her
And beat me with them
Until I spit blood from my broken lip

But still, this jail baby bird will sing

I was sent to live with my grandparents
Nowadays, they don’t send the kids anywhere
They stay with their mothers in their cages
Even the babies have prisoner numbers
Born prisoners

My mother got out a year later
Together, my parents got me back
Although I never spent a day inside the reforming cage
I inherited the prison in my heart
My heredity legacy is to be forever trapped

The Jail Baby
Born in bars
I built my own prison

After my divorce
After another woman failed me
I failed her

I built my own dungeon
All that glitters is gold
And my glitter stuck to everything
I trapped myself in shiny baubles
And burned my life to glowing cinders of
White hot unredeemable rage

My catharsis came from feeling the burn
I ran circles in my cage
So I would never catch up with myself
Until I burned out

Slammed myself into the walls over and over again
And broke so many times
Even my pieces were dust
Just so I had a reason to keep rebuilding myself
I became addicted to the forced rebirth

Eventually, I accidently created my own key
Through some act of self-deprecating alchemy
The open says me password to
Finally let me tear down my walls
A reason to be free
A reason to not be safe
A reason to smash my bejeweled cage

The secret genesis codex
Says to me
“Daddy, it’s time to wake up.”
And my kingdom falls

I slam my truck into park
Swing open the door
And hit the ground before the door is fully open
I let the momentum shut the door for me

Here I stand
At dusk
In the empty, silent sunset
Scrounging the encroaching night to create.
Rending from the darkness, the light of imagination.

It’s Spring Cleanup Day
i.e. Trash Picking Night
Where I gather my next year of possibilities,
Where I can make something new
Out of what was left of last year

I hum an improvised out-of-tune,
“Something old
Something new
Something broken
Something blue
Something to love
Someone to love.”

Gloves are a necessity, leather; cut, but never stab resistant -
You may open a bag
But never leave a bigger mess than you started with.

The broken TV will become the next costume piece.
The old dolls; sad, one-armed, legless action figures will become delightful new monstrosities.
The rusty tools
Will build my next dreams…
And wood, Oh so much wood
Enough to salvage for the hodge podge machine that will sail into the next fantasy

There are enough clothes
To shield an entire shanty town,
Enough blankets to keep every animal warm
In the shelter down the road

These old photos have stories -
People in them
No less important because of their age.
Their wrinkles will now become another fold in my story.

Those cans of old paint
Will color my next experiment
Will add a tint of reality to tangible madness.

I don’t see waste -
I see the opportunities we were never allowed
I see the future in your past.
A chain from then to now,
Out on the front lawn
Bags full of history
Are asking me to read them

Sometimes I’m called the Junk Man,
Hanging onto things that should be forgotten
Buried; left to the past,
But, instead I take it all with me
Within me.
I’ll shine your tarnish into something beautiful
Just so you can see, in your reflection,
That you were beautiful all along
You just needed someone to care.

Having lost everything
I’ll still take anything
And anyone
My people are another I’ve picked,
Discarded by a careless consumer
Who could not see their splendor

The clouds begin to gather
But it has not started to rain yet
And I’m still going.

This road only has one way to go.
The only way there ever is to go.
Just keep moving forward
Never go back
Never stop
Just notice what is there
And take all you can use with you.

These discards, useless to their owners
Decided that they no longer had value
I can make them into anything.
I can find a use for anything
For anyone.
Their trash is a treasure
It still has value
I still have value.

No matter how many times I’ve been thrown away
I’ll still make something out of myself.

Finally, the rain begins to fall
Flowing through the rust holes in my truck
Scrambling to soak my pilfered obsessions
Washing all of our sins
Onto the pavement beneath my feet

I see you
Hiding there in the back
Pretending that you don’t exist
Shrinking into the shadows
Trying to get a voyeuristic view
Of what life looks like
Through Coke bottle rims
I see you
You exist
Come up to the front
Into the light
Come let us all see you
At least, your ‘ll see me better
Up here