Come on, Lady Luck
Throw the dice, spin
the wheel or draw a straw

tell me which way to go
which of these verses
would make his heart sing

for we poets are sirens
driving men to the rocks
& the clock waits so patiently

in the corner, in on the plan
& the city is a memory
sketched in teenage graffiti

& I'm Iggy's ' Passenger'
on a never-ending train
seeing my youth calling again

passing by me
behind cracked glass
beckoning the imagination

laughing, teasing:
' Are you lucky, Miss'
the answer comes : silence

like before the beginning of the world

/|\   °
            °
                 •
                     '
                          ¤
Can't freeze a caludron with only witchbone and cigarette dreams.

No sir; I live in the city not a
surreality.  The smoke can kiss my collarbone, not my vexed mind.

The only thing I am is the color of lightning and all I have to offer is my glass.

As in hour, not luminous wine.

                  ....

I can’t say we’re the same but I too have lost large parts of me to greener pastures
Your dark bricks turn to dust and paint the snow a red maroon
“The stories they’d tell”
Says everyone sad to see them crumble but not sad enough to do anything about it
“Someone should do something”
Someone, but not they
Milwaukee I too am a lot like you, if you only knew
How far I slid sickly over the Kinnickinnic oil slicks
Past fallen trees and draining pipes
Until being caught by a shopping cart
Left on the muddy banks by some poor poor impoverished soul
Who also didn’t really care enough to return it to the Pick & Save
From which it was taken
I’ve sure seen better days and I too have come a long way
Like I got on to Fond Du Lac Avenue and kept walking
Until I reached
Well...
Fond Du Lac
Like I ascended Kilbourn Park with a pick-axe
Defeated the yeti on top and shoved your blue flag
Through his heart, cracking it open like a Pabst or Schlitz can
and dropped a quarter in a homeless guy’s jar
And he told me I was just like you
I can too burn bright like the foundries in the valley
Or roar like railcars and rattle the south side
Or be courageous like the captain
Sailing to Muskegon
Over choppy freshwater treachery
I can shutter in peace like your factories when I fall asleep
And never wake back up
I can drive all my loved ones away
Just like you have
For the past five decades
I’m exactly like you
Because I too
Wait for a sunnier day

In the dullness of the day
There comes a flood of red.
The color showers down
Pumping life into the dead.

Within seconds they embrace the red.
The red drives them quite insane.
So much red all at one time!
But the red will come again.

The red will show no mercy.
The red will be feared.
The raging red will feast on even
The innocent while it's here.

But still, the red will bring them laughter.
Red's brought them joy from the start.
This very red reverberates
In their violent, ****** hearts.

The red will be forgotten.
The red will be ignored.
The ruthless red will ruin some
While others go on as before.

To those who prance around
And join in on the rumble,
Know that when you play with red
You're also playing with the devil.

When you go camping,
and the world lifts itself from your shoulders
and the problems back home seem silly and irrelevant
human life, and
what you may have been trying to achieve
in your leather black ergonomic chair
and your dark polished wood desk
seems silly and irrelevant
The world is here, in the wood-pecker’s tap-tap-taping in the trees
the checkered calculated lines of the water being pulled to shore by the wind,
viewed from above
like the birds that push themselves into the tide and float
back to shore then push themselves out again.
the world is here, 
forgotten by the city, and the construction worker’s crack-crack-crack of the hammer
the calculated system of traffic guided by flashing lights, turning signs and abrasive horns
from behind the wheel 
where the man sits in a satin black suit and smooth leather car seat
sipping at his morning coffee, purchased for $2.25 and cradled by spring-loaded cupholders,
until he reaches for the silver handle of his glass office door, and stops
looking down at his brown-leather shoes that cut into the rounded bone on the side of his ankle
and decides,
time to go camping

Her fingertips loosed the glass
bottle, which had
of late
gathered rain like the
hands of paupers.

Glitter in a heartbeat.
to be collected by old battered shoes
or car tyres
and streetwise magpies.

it joins a city evensong
this oceanic roar of nothing
fusing chords of cars and smoke
and lonely dogs
with hacks
and throngs
of perambulating suits
and suitors
trampling athwart broads of concrete
As swifts in summer.


We swim in it
through open atriums
and barren rooms of
magnolia and magnolia and magnolia.

All the while if you look harder
you see through chinks a sepulchre
in each greying tower
ranging higher and higher still.

Machines and machinations
stacking life upon life to
build pyramids
to gaudy kings
in pinstripe or herringbone.

Flumes of fumes ***** like floods
Into and out of train stops
and bus stands.
Circling lungs like hungry crows.
Crows which haunt
Bombed out chapels made new
resuscitated with waxen ivy
and ivory lilies.

And the leaves of saintly oak trees
chatter in shrinking crevices of green
story telling
Of how people and things grow old.
And you can walk these streets
And dive too like cormorants into
The platitudes of city living.

Soaked to the skin in sound
to tell your story
like the shards
of a broken bottle.

The monumental smile
on your continental eyes.

And the impossible question they pose.

I pine in sweet denial,
and build cities from goodbyes.

And reminiscence paves the road.

I want to wake up to a new sunrise every day.
Let me taste a culture, let it be bittersweet on my lips,
As new terrains scar the soles of my boots.
I want a map with faded, ravished, old ink,
To guide me where to go, where to be, who to be.
Let it erase my regrets, let it create a new person.
All the past is gone; here’s to new beginnings.
I want  magnificent, sweeping adventures with my eyes open,
Waking to unfamiliar words, an unfamiliar life.
Give me restless cities, petite villages, rocky terrains.
As long as I am everywhere, my eyes will not sleep.

I.
Grab my suitcase from the carousel
Lead me through the baggage claim

Take me by the hand
Tell me you would take me anywhere

Hail a taxi and rush
Because he's already got the meter running

We're like Chicago
I love the city but you hate the hustle

II.
Walk the suburbs with me
Hold my hand down the sidewalks

Drive the BMW to brunch
Come back in time to give the cleaning lady a key

Sleep on a field of feathers
And wake up to coffee brewing

We're like Wheaton
I despise the deep pockets but you love the atmosphere

III.
Take the train from city to county roads
Drive and drive until traffic is nonexistent

Show me your favorite spot by the lake
Dare me to jump in when I fear the blue waters

Stay up with me all night
Hold me while sunlight floods your room

We're like your hometown
I'm your family and you're the charisma

IV.
I'll drive north through sleet and snow
And meet my mother for a warm embrace

We'll make the couch our home
Nesting under a blanket and promise

Ice cream in January is nothing out of the ordinary
For you and me

We're like the town I grew up in
You're the summer breeze and I'm the familiarity

V.
Together, we're a city
We're the ups and downs

You're the broken windows and I'm the noise
We're the wineries and over-priced pastries

You're the quiet and I'm the prying relative
But together, we make any city an adventure