Crushing out handclaps like cigarettes
white noise whispering from each speaker
song long over but the melody lingers
codas in my mind, over the reports of car alarms
and muffled conversation
loose plastic groans of the office chair

Another clean night viewed thru slanted blinds
cold feet bare on ashy shadow carpet
smoke in the air, streetlights slit in beams
memory slips, hands type toward
a dreamlike place, some lost day

I set it straight
crippling nonsense intense
packed tight with grilled cheese and avocado
Cazadores and cranberry push back sleep
tiny cardboard boxes fill me
******* fluidity, one brown duck
among the aggressive others
that look on your face
riding a rusted bike on your birthday
your smile luminescent
around the lake and then

perhaps a beer and a hug
potential tumescence grabbed and poked
eating rusty water from an old brown glass
leave a leather letter, a leather gun in hand
garter belt memory, a trombone face
a cardboard avocado, a lost refrain

1
When you extend
time changes into words
reaches toward common history

Inspect your saga
motivations for doing
anything

inflating bike tires
handstands on the grass
riding the night train home
scrawling a drunken note



2
surprise registry
sorrow spreading like dank fire
under the skin of your face
the piano calls

"rattle columbo skee-dazzle"
now wave them around
hypnotic and sincere
you must believe

in the something I'm transmitting
up the live wires
into a collective hive
or down by the rustling dumpsters



3
cast off shells
spent nutrition and supplements
inform a blood ooze
"I can't, I just can't"

gurgling on a blanket of blood
one arm waving
half a pincher bug
electricity still making it happen

another loop of living
purely motion driven
without purpose
the body stays and stays



4
the mind burns and slips
another dark portal
born voyager
bon voyage-r

out of cleaner hands
rough with hairy splinters
combine powers
find a way off this rock



5
vortex of hand-woven sediment
chambray and needlepoint
tiny backstitched leaves, flowers
sang a little song while he did it:

"Ol' brown poesy,
something something Alabama"
"Shut up, Kid!"
waving, eyes wilder

his blood comes out
more and more
glistening cough
thick bubbles of dark



6
paint the hard stroke
his pained face
get back from it, step out
of his way

his oncoming fate
panic burned streets
camps springing up
fingerfuls of air

"I just can't, I can't"
a weak wave, he lays back down
other words too far from the surface
he waves



7
his hands tremble
spent impulses
so natural
the soul slips

gears burn out
the metal whines and snaps
the straps are off and he is gone
rabbit's foot bound

now a blur in cosmic space
flashing toward a diamond planet
inference of his purpose
light-years for comprehension

to the tune of guitars, mandolins,
bagpipes, cheap coke & hairspray
Freighters crest the punk-washed waves
the sun shines out
unaware and uncaring
Our tiny animal foibles
behemoth sub-audible
military choppers
chop the air
The air, no offense, much better
on it's own
sans commentary or guitar-fueled breaks
the promise of returning surf
silent acceptance by rock and sand
Again and again, we return
and it returns to greet anew the day
again the sun and
more importantly, the moon

And here, right here I am
phone calls and photographs be ******
to live, to breathe, and be free
this is the gift we share
the covenant we acquiesce to
life's contract:
Be here now
and then be gone
Good work done
and done again

to acknowledge human order
to rever and accept
to create, not destroy
despite what might have come before
or will come again after
Be ****** or choose not to
This is our secret
our secret treasure
kept right here
within earshot of the bored gods
spread out like bleached wood
our foibles, our suspicions,
our struggles
our gallant moments
in sunlight or in shade
we persevere and
look **** good doing it

Oh, the momentary glory
The ecstasy of our
reciting invincibility to one another
like religion or science
we accept it and trust it
and, therefore, it is true
if only for a moment

the laughter subsides
and what does it leave us?
the exhalation of waves
on shores unnamed

Things we hold so close, so near
clenched with inescapable fear
that this might suddenly end
lights out, curtain down
a dejected sigh, a knowing frown

This great place, this great land
Oh, the metal in my days
and in my hands
There was a time when
I would worry, I would fret
and wonder at what
each gesture meant
But now so much more I know
of the secret songs of our beloved coast

to think that somehow
we can digest all this
parse everything that befalls
such a joke, it is to laugh
in the shade of the cove
far from the mast
It is no joke, but more
to laugh, not to cry,
nor cower back

OOF! WHOO!
sunning & living & loving
just so
It is our way and all that we know
amid handclaps & footfalls
among cliff faces & sheer falls
we shine so solitary
& bright among the world
and its fashions

The thrill of standing so tall
against inhuman scale
its momentary humor
our highlights & travails

So much meat to manipulate
against surf & sail
from the privilege of the cove
friendship against the rocks
winds and darkness
Huddle, you beloved masses, huddle

The schooners schooning
the bay accepting
lucky our lives absorbing
the glory, yes
the glory, I said it
THE GLORY
of living today
like a grown-up
with a robot with its
hand up

Oh, the exertion
of simply being human!
Constructs of strobe lights
& nonesuch!
We claw, we dance,
we construct the armature
of the ridiculous!
We strive, we fall, we climb
imagined walls
What excellent detritus!

And now the chill descends
the shade the cove knows
only as a friend

I sit alone
construct these lines
wishing for lost loves
amid shade, sand & brine
sunken mermaids in my mind

I love the threat
they present
For me, ironically,
it's all in words
I share the secrets
that the tide keeps
in surf & loam

I look at technology
& I look away
that's how I know
I'm human
how I know
I'm not completely lost
not completely
without animal

All we can hope for
a pumpkin at sunset
& not being pathetic
with people that love us

Yes, it's a lot
good weather and foul
beacon of human remembrance
It's all we can ask for & should

(Oh, Dan Langton
how much you've simply
taught me
thru words, sure
but just as much through
sly looks & laughs

Portland you're all
houses and woods
and there's always ****
to do: so tender
to women "Beat me!
Oh Bob, beat me!")

& Motorhead prevails
on the Golden Gate coast
away from the campground
our shared & secret cove

O Demetrius, must you pass
cracked in pieces of
less than half
A stutter-step,
a flourish of anguish?

Is there no other way
to get others to give?
To get away
with a scream
a fake laugh?

O otherworldly psychic
street map of distress
if only your loop turned
and brought you back
from the middle of the street

wild-eyed you shriek
your backpack split
to the yellow-toothed freaks
traffic and flashing lights
an orchestra of heat

O Demetrius,
dance the worst dance
that humans do:
The Outcast
unwanted, misconstrued

Harbinger of discord
unlike the others
the streets hold
You're a dusted angel
with a busted wing

It comes out

or through

holes like eyes

or windows,

film screens or beams

of light that dance

crossing from past to

cars passing, passed

Your footfalls marking

time or distance

paired like wings

moving air

and sometimes light

Nothing seen

but images

like exhalations

left to fill spaces

unseen until now

pens down,

heads out

at the bottom of a stagnant lake
lived a dead forest
black trunks standing
knuckle deep in muck
branches simply armature
for a fluttering array
of gray scarves
blowing in the watery wind
molds and aquatic plant life
growing quieter in near darkness
the forest laid down years ago
gave up the sun and the breezes
the same arguments from the same birds
slid back toward the sandy edge
then gradually leaned over
one after another they followed
under the forgiving cover
of progressively longer nights
a very slow migration
the stars really weren’t watching
eventual full immersion
nothing left uncovered
but the land around the lake
the gray water always present
became all any tree could remember
oxygenating the murk for a while
the contradictions grew
in place of leaves
instead of hopeful young twigs
stanchions indicating nothing
huddled together under the surface
standing sunken in an air more dense
a different kind of time passing
light arriving but
only in soft whispers

what horrors this life gives

so much about taking orders

so little about what we need

our tiny hands swollen since birth

singed or still burning

hitting each other

all of us skinned raw

hurting ourselves with our hungers


so much for what we want

so little left here to live on

this browser crawling around

the dissipating web

like hands together

this browser funding

some kind of hypothesis attachment


our phones our miniature worlds

each of us lives a tiny little bit

in supposition our hands together

our knitted brows turned out

hitting each other

striking out


holding on fractionally

threadbare moments

of bedroom magnitude

bedroom moments

of threadbare magnitude



empty touching

we still live in

no joy left in

simply leaving a light on

pitching our voices thus and so

as if we had any ideas

as if we knew something


alone we can imagine

this is somehow grand

imagine ourselves

acting as if this is all

so impossibly grand