This poem is green
Would you buy this poem?

This poem is do-it-yourself
backyard garden green.
This poem is save the world
give peas a chance green;
this poem is azure sky
squeezing the golden sun
all over the world green.
Could you buy this poem?

This poem is apples and oranges
farmer’s artist market green.
This poem has
leaves as pillows
and blankets as grass;
this poem is a lil’ patch of green
earth purchase me plot;
this poem is  
100%
recyclable
disposable,
sustainable
  (after all it has gotten this far)
You should buy this poem.

This poem is green,
its’ tyro-technics
shooting out of asphalt cracks.
This poem is a snot-nosed brat
full of SASS
(short attention span sentences)
This poem is the hope of audacity.
This poem is fumbling with bra straps
and tongue-tied techniques,
this poem isn’t old enough
to know any better, it’s wet
behind the ears green
petting zoo pellets green
willing to SCREAM green
but not part of
a gang green
this poem is all alone
with its words
Buy this poem?

This poem is green
Its envious of
solar panel studios with eyes on the price
of a venti economy
This poem is the green-eyed monster
of product placement pick-o-the profit
This poem WANTS to make
consumer obedience the easy culprit.
But really…
This poem just wishes it could sing
Won’t you buy this poem?

This poem is green.
This poem has no half-life,
shelf life or
night life.  
This poem exists solely in this moment
of your imagination.

This poem has milk carton desperation.
This poem is begging for change.
This poem was stolen from all of you.
This poem is not for sale.
Buy This Poem!

She swam all over me
and I was fishing in her dreams
and I was fishing in her jeans
for change and sunken treasures

with her pale skin and scales
she sang of the primordial sea
and swelled of the deep
deep inside the levis thin
this leviathan
groaned with pants and moans

and I was finishing in her dreams
and I was finishing in her jeans
So I swam away from her
into the belly of the beast
and she sank
beneath the waves
and left me
in my wake

The Pen
The pick up the pen;
The put it down again
(That sunken feeling, nemesis or friend?)
The pen. The Pen.
The pacing, the pressing up against
The period. Stop stopping
Again. Pick it up to put it down.
Pointless. Pshaw.
Please.
Please me simplicity. C’mon!
C’mon pen lemme pick it up
And put something down.

I’ll plagiarize the flow for a few words of my own.
I’m looking for inspiration from the great beyond.
My muse is missing.
I know the medium is a constraint.
I know inside
The set of symbols paints
Me into a corner.  The parameters
Of my pen’s head worn out. I’m ******. The metaphors
Pressed. The pen is second-guessed.

A literate piece of poetic license,

The defense mechanism
Against the prison I impose.
Me, myself, and I inside
The pen pining for a purpose.
The nexus of picking it up and putting it down
Is perplexing me, is vexing
Me like a sticky keyboard key.
So, I’m putting it all down
With the pen.

The pen.
The picking it up: who cares?
The putting it down: pensive prohibition.
The picking up; what I left out.
The putting it down: polygraph precision.
The picking up where I left off:
The putting it down: priority, what’s left of me.
The picking it up, when I don’t even know
Why I bother?
The putting it down: passion
The putting it down: plea of let me be.  
The putting it down periscope; I’m diving under  
The pressure’s mounting; I’m down for the counting on my muse
To bring me back
From that inky black abyss once again
My personal sonar is
Probing the depths, of what lies
hidden within
the pen.

I bought myself a gun today.
I’ll give you a moment to process the mental paper work.
Is he serious?
Is this guy for real?
Is this a metaphor? Is it loaded?  

Are these questions
you might ask?
Isn’t this supposed to be a poem?

I said I bought myself a gun today.
Do you feel better?
Safer?
Do I
seem more dangerous?
Are my words more weighted now--
with violence?
with virility?
with *******?
Are you looking at my crotch
for an extra bulge?
How do you feel
about me now
knowing that I’m packing?

I bought myself a gun today,
And just like that
I’m a gangsta upholding the second amendment.
I’m a citizen of the constitution
holding up my right
to bear arms,
and raise my hand in a fist--
a fist, that’s gripped in tension
a fist that’s an extension
           of man and invention
           and I really should mention
          I can blow your ******* head off
          without the slightest intention.

I bought myself a gun today,
Are you scared:
that I don’t know how to use it?
That it might want to use me?
That I might become
overwrought with emotions,
and respond to an argument
“Arnold” style with, an,
   “I’ll be back?”--
that I might settle things
once and for all
with my noisy neighbor
in a language he might finally understand?
Are you scared?

I bought myself a gun today.
Does that make you worry?
You know what the statistics say,
That I have a better chance of shooting
myself,
than some intruder,
or mugger, or ******
or therapist even.
Are you worried about my self-destruction?
that I might I might accidentally
have an
accident?
Or, maybe, you may think,
that it might be on purpose?
that I might be singing
the, “Barrel-in-the-mouth blues?”--
not just fantasizing
about ‘em,
but singing ‘em with a with my mouth wide open,
and feeling them for real for real:
feeling the cold steel ‘cross
my tongue,
choking
on the taste of cordite,
really singing, “I can’t breathe,”
and how much
this ***** and having
the means to put and end to it all--
Are you worried about that?
If you are
then don’t,
‘cause I’m not thinking about that at all.

I bought myself a gun today.
Wouldn’t it be great
if we all could say:

I bought myself a gun today.

I’ve sewn together a thousand moments
of nothing (butifandorthis) Outis of
sorts and                              ends
                     depressed
         enough to make your head swim
         your wrist spit
         to drown in your own thinking

grasp breath drench and saturate
obsequious regurgitation
prolix asphyxiation
words worlds whirled
LOGOS
spew forth and I choke on
what I can never get out
the
emptiness                within
                                ­                   a
                                                   few
                                          
secondsleftoverste­psout     line
                                            of
             ­                                  curfews ensue
more or less and less is more
of the same (few cures for futures)
                                                  of late
a puddle reflecting and shallow
sole-stomped-n-splattered
I
         Can not help but mis  
s
     the piece( is ) of me that mattered
less than the least of my worries
and the old black boot
            with  a                hole
                    ­                             the one that is always waiting to.
                                                             ­                                             .
                  ­                                                                 ­                       .
                                        ­                                                                 ­  drop.  
                                                                                                             ­                                                                         ­                        I Am 
                                                             ­             still           
                                                           here           
                                       hoping                  
             inre           
   verse              
          
It all fits                                               the tailor-made addendum
but it doesn't                                      the sedentary splendor
change                                                 the worn out agenda


of yet another loop of the clock
fomenting
a grand sutuREDness rending a
torque of tendencies
to ward off the
subversive inertia
of idle thoughts—***—wishes

the edges of that
cloud grapple
with dissolution and
the shaping of my
                                         own                                                 periphery                                            sic
        [i]magination                                           ­                                       

The interior storm
has come and gone
replaced by a wretchedly anxious calm
I then wonder if these
tempests are what is…
or just a fallway of mirrors
I pass through in a tumble
down some hole
feeling it’s too late to know
if I will ever be whole

Alas, another looking glass
I have been
cut up too
to see the half emptiness
of ours
in the hour glass
timetumbling down
the singularity of
How are we?
Relatively bleeding
Speaking of

self
shred-
ding dingbats-in-the-belfry
A  f  r  a  y e d  address of questioning
covered with
s-t-i-t-c-h-e-s
in
this
                                              fourth           ­                             dimension
saves what? 9 lives? No rhyme--no reasoning
with me
                                 …I guess
my wounds are dressed
but only it will tell
                                                            ­                              (What is real?)
                                 (so obviously rhetorical)
it marches on
and it can’t be stopped
but it’s of the essence
and they say it will heal
All wounds
and I say when and how and isn’t now
all I have
to be?
wound up again I see...

And then be left
to the present
tense
out of it,
Up against it.
Who the **** knows?
said the Emperor I
(in third person disguise)
Wearing nothing
(He supposes)
Nothing
But being
                  but...
The scars
Uncovered
for the seeing
Being what scars are
Are they something...
Symbolic?  Systemic? Sympathetic?
That makes seeing is believing
Real for me,
Or, for us all?
Is Being
Beingness
Or is it
Meaningless in a...life…
S
P
A                                            
Not evolving as fast          
As semiotics                      
Or sentient
Robotics
For the rest
Of us
To be
Sure that we are
Individual
Beings at all?

What?
Time’s up?
                         At least for the
                                              Time being…
                                                          ­           Nothing to worry about...

I’ve quit the meaning and let the end fall
my subscription to America has just expired
and the soundtrack of furniture echoes down the hall

Oh lucky day in the shadows of this pall
this war of regrets is truly uninspired
I’ve quit the meaning and let the end fall

I’m fearful of this symmetry and the mirror on the wall
slept in stolen moments without even being tired
and the soundtrack of furniture echoes down the hall

I no longer need a lover I bought myself a doll
Hi-def latex silicon chip wired
I’ve quit the meaning and let the end fall

Ring tone homily I don’t want to take this call
practicing excuses and the will of being fired
and the soundtrack of furniture echoes down the hall

TV dreams for me and I swear that that is all
folks at home getting idols of the mired
I’ve quit the meaning and let the end fall
and the soundtrack of furniture echoes down the hall

Mirror mirror on the floor
why am I such a *****
for bitter feud and drink
and fantasy come true
this pauper’s purse is empty in pursuits
of waggin’ tongue in cheek
and bait your hook in me

Emperor patriarch enemy family
encyclopedia room flamboyance
and the minions of civilization bow
creviced foreheads etched
with hieroglyphic concentration
pantomiming the harmony of
banana splits dripping
on fireplace slippers
woven into the stories
your neighbors greeted you with
from the other side of the hedge

on the night the great comet arced
into our living rooms
and we kissed oh so
TV-like with the laugh track
clapping in time with the sprinklers
cha cha change the diaper ditty
after supper over done
under the influence
and in a fix
me another martini
extra olives
the smell of negligence
on her creamy pampered thighs
and the aromatic evidence
of lawn mower trim
on her teddy
bareness slipping away into comfort

the children wagering battle
plans with a mouse clicking
crayons left in box
cars matched tickets scratched
windows latched
onto
hobo toxic shock n awe
to see abandominiums
littering lots in crackopolis
virtual and simulated
between the in laws
and the outlaws
the grand apparentless routine
on display

could I borrow a toaster
or waffle with your wife
over the last stick of butter
backdoor banter about
Soldier of fortune
your last subscription
to the mercenary position of
the cul de sac coup d’état
taking place in spinning
class conscious of the fourth
estate third world second
generation first born zero
down home subdivisions
of the disenchanted
evening news is on excuse

that the whole thing is fixed
mortgages futures the lottery
tuition and everybody wins
army navy air force marines
corpses floating cross culture
reference guides to prescription
medication of futile society
Jonesing with the keeping
ups and out of product till
prime time reminds us
why we’re all here

waiting for the aliens
to excavate us.

In a city
In a room
With no thing
Save a rescued
Chair
There’s
A windowpane view
Without reflection
To the streets
Below

Sits
A man without
Purpose
With Determination
Broken
By

A Notion

You see
He thought himself
Conspicuously unusable
Sentenced
To Be

Some detached observer
Surfeited with suffering
Posing
What
Could be
Apart
From the pain

The bubbling bits, the melted crayons,
the wads of cellophane,
the loogie hocked up,
accidentally,
on the face of a loved one.  
the picture booth refrain.
The K mart moment, the screaming kid--
your kid (your screams) your blue light special in aisle
number nine, #9, no. IX.
The bar code ritual,
the magazines, the chamber, the Better Homes
and Gardens, the tomato worm majesty and sci-fi reality;
the 45 that skips, that skips,
that skips
the rubber cement execution.
The antiques, the answering machine genius,
the message,
the quit.
The key that would never fit
(even though it was really the right one after all.)
The said and done, the leftovers, the flat screen TV,
the belly in effigy, the remote,
the space in between
her ears and her heart.  
The cards, the paper cuts,
the canopy of foil on an ancient afternoon.
The bar room, the bare room, the broom swept
corner of the attic.  
The memories, the empty frame,
the carousel stare into the light.
the left behind,
the clouds in the sink,
the feeling you get
when you let
the microwave
be
a weapon.

a spartan room

you on the futon
me on the floor

flashing lights
from the street

from the shadows
you blinked in

and out
soundlessly

your toes curled
the ceiling rippled

without words
we were  

caught in between
I saw you

seeing me
not in those splashes

but in those caverns
of absence