antlers
fourteen points
cernunnos stirs
while the daffodils
reach their thirties
orderly routines
-
stones start skipping
replete potholes, puddle-filled
paving the way
capsizing axles
-
sipping steam from fog clouds low-hanging
not really minding that my shirt is wet from the concrete

hurry boy, don't doze
etch the words before they perish
as the situation once again alters
coiling around your wrist
tugging you to that place
sleep every moment
dwelling in the blankets
soaking in that stale security
false impressions attached/removed
like velcro ripping in the silence
masks on masks on masks on masks on masks on
could spend days pruning in the seabed of potential
while the salt collects on my eyelashes and the days vanish like eons
there are days where the stillness in me quakes my feet
into the fervor of rabbit under moving tire and
I pound the walls for a train to pass and shake the foundation
but the tracks are too far away now, and the stillness creeps
dust collects on the fan blades, then the plastic grating, then the intake
the thing rattles all night now; loose ***** in the front
hardly a substitute for that rumble in your dreams
from an archer daniel's car rushing by at four
the bed is a lot better at this place though
king size, though I'd rather be in california
where the water is warm and the memories catch your falls
I've never been there and the idea is always better than the outcome
kicking sand like a beach bully *** flexing in strut
sun burns within seconds of shirtless self-reveals
the salt is being washed off of the cars
from an illinois winter that the plow conquered to the dismay of
the kids down the block who still waited
at dawn for the diesel yellow groan
the heat is swelling in the season
chirps return with the sting
of rolled up passenger windows
magnifying the clean white light
ninety-eight million miles marched
to a single point on a pale dot
burning that poor gal's cheek
but the medicinal effects
of the smooch are more than known
to generations of the summer awakened,
free-falling, reality born.
here we are again with showers and flowers,
here we are again with cyclones in the alley,
here we are again with cocoons and buffoons,
here we are again with milk in the valley.
this heart pumps as the snow goes rising
to the funnels and pillars east-stretched
where the baby boomers buy plots and
the love begins to reach for an even share.

scattered
individual
like the atma in every pebble
crowd drowning

On Saturn's day, his body quakes,
the lights go out, and the craters form.
He drinks the rye to ease the shakes
and watches as the cicadas swarm.
His records are warped from cellar air,
his walls are stained nicotine yellow.
The night creeps in from beneath his chair
to taunt and **** this charming fellow.

Fifty years of motherless meals
and fifty years of loveless mistakes.
Fifty years of seasonal wheels
and fifty years of screeching brakes.
Fifty years of challenges met
and fifty years of swallowing pride.
Fifty years and not dead yet,
and fifty more before he has died.

He draws in deep from his old cob pipe
and exhales the smoke toward the fan.
Once the orchards are good and ripe
he'll go outside and tame his land.
Until that day, he's mighty content
with sitting back and wasting his time.
These are the last days before his descent,
there is no call for reason or rhyme.  

Fifty years of unpaid rent,
and fifty years of tall tales lost.
Fifty years he can't repent,
and fifty years of permafrost.
Fifty years that won't come back,
and fifty years of worn down soles.
Fifty years of catching flak,
and fifty years spent digging holes.

There is something breeding in the underbelly;
whirling and churning like an epicenter of ******* trends.
Someone found the formula to turn a profit on karma,
while we were distracted by viral beheadings.
Powder white moths opening mental portals
through the dazzling lights of self-immolation
while I trudge block after block through the snow
wearing slippers because I had to storm out.
The classes continue, the mail keeps going out, coming in,
and I'm obsessing over a splinter of worry; unavailing at best.
I keep thinking of how nice it'd be to see Seattle  
and to stand near one of those Sequoia trees I've only seen on Google.
I keep thinking of how I'd like to see The Grand Canyon
and to to walk in the Arizona deserts with no socks or shoes;
the heat of the fine sand sneaking up between my toes
while the sky beats my pupils with that astounding blue.
Why am always alone in my fantasies?
Why is it that I can't handle the day-to-day?
Am I really even searching for answers,
or am I begging for what I want to hear?
My maturity and stoicity are rubber ***** bouncing on a line graph.
I can't go on bottling the venom that pools in my gut.

If she gathers enough sticks,
she'll be able to get the fire going real nice;
enough to see her hand
in front of her face for a change.

She's been scratching around in the dark,
wide-eyed and ravenous,
feeling the ground for wood
for what seems like hours.

Her fingers start to blister and sting
from the friction and the grinding
of her begging and pleading
for just one measly spark.

It's been like this since that day
when everything was still pretty nice
in her podunk town where she
was known as the black sheep.

That day, that day, in late April,
when she raised her hand up
stuck out her thumb and
blotted out the sun.

She woke up with dirt under her nails
and pulled a lock of hair out
that was starting to mat.
She went to sleep with dirt under her nails.

She went to sleep hungry
and now she chews on anything that moves
in the umbra that couldn't be too far
from where she used to live.

Dead leaf blankets-
"Are the trees still alive?
What did the forest smell like,
sound like, at high noon?"

"What were colors?
Light-lovers and their shrieking tears
filled with nostalgic longing for
magical, pretty un-black; privileges".

Sanctum in the murk.
She walks tonight, but not far.
"I am the mother of the moth,
and the sudden ritenuto".


) o ( ●

I. centipede:
-
They come from both directions and it doesn't take long
for me to realize that they've figured me out.
My mind was fast, but not as swift as the hands
of five-hundred outreaching hands; one angry crowd.
Grabbing at limbs, low and high, they don't waste a second
before tearing me in every direction; at least the cardinal four.
My mind takes flight, leaves fancy, but not before
I get in one last swear, and one last spittle in their faces.

II. snake
-
Tail and head aren't in sync this morning, I tell ya.
No rattle, no bite, just a lot of traffic and heat shimmers
in the one place I don't need to be today.
The people here act like they don't know me,
but they still turn their noses up when I empty my mug.
The waitress answers when spoken to,
but just stares in the time in between wheezing breaths.
I've got to get out of this county, this state.

III. scorpion
-
Ronny hasn't been on a roof since a couple years after we got married.
He wrapped his ankle in some gutters and took a spill;
his thigh popped right out of it's socket and he just dangled
like some kind of prize in one of those crane games.
Doctor says he can still have kids, and I know he can still get it up
from how he watches that ****** **** on t.v.
But he wont touch me; hasn't in fifteen months, I've counted.
He's in for a surprise once the settlement clears.

IV. lizard
-
Wallflowers never get anywhere with their mouths sewn shut
and I cut my stitches well before my teens;
I got what I needed and I made sure of it.
But there is something to be gained from
basking in the naivety of youth and ignorance.
Trouble doesn't set in as well, and boredom comes
as some kind of waiting period, rather than the norm.
These bars are a reminder of why they don't let me make the rules.

V. toad
-
Invulnerable, incontestable, unphasable, archetype.
I listen for the right words to drop the shields,
but I'm only met with the silence that accompanies
asphyxiation through means of wet wax paper.
The touch of phantoms tingle along my skeleton's core
telling me the time for lollygagging has long since passed.
Stand up, giant, you're running hot and the moon
keeps calling out, "follow the lit road home".

Lost in the fumes of a cloudy exhale
I search for a glimpse of myself in grimy water.
My remains are scattered somewhere
between boyhood and gutter trash.
The present is hardly of concern
when the blankets of mud offer such astounding
silence.
This swamp was flooded with the prosperity of quitters.
-
The face of the street I grew up on
has been radically warped and distorted.
Leave a good thing to the elements long enough
and you’ll see it begin to degrade.
Dust gathers and mold begins to creep in
from the moisture lingering in the air.
It happens to our childhood toys
just as easily as it happens to the people we know.
-
Everything still holds the same shape;
the same structure that casts a shadow in memory,
it’s just that now the cosmetics have worn off
and you can see the tired lines start to show.
You can hear the creak of arthritic wooden steps
to front porches where old kin with liver spots
sit and drink a shared Ice House 40 oz. while spitting into the wind.
Cavities from a candy coated childhood.
-
There are strangers in my old home,
that place where my uncle lives
surrounded by VHS tapes, pictures of Brett Favre,
and reminders of dead cockatiels.
The biggest struggle is trying to recall
if he was always this way,
or did it take a forty year dope binge
for the hoarder to finally stir?
-
I wrote my name in the sidewalk at the foot of steps.
I search for a glimpse of myself in grimy water
and check under the bushes for garter snakes .
My stomping grounds have been wiped of footprints
and grandma’s violets don’t come in very well anymore.
They cut down the walnut tree, and got rid of the porch swing.
No time for whimsy, no time for strays.
The cicadas will sleep for ten more years, ‘til summer.

ambiance amplified and gravitas dead inside
drink alone, danger zone, shot the Jekyll, saved the Hyde
cut my seat belts so my doors wouldn't beep, though
I creep with a fleet of conceited banditos
to the park, skip some rocks, play the shark, shuffle birds
find the narc, go and knock, make it bark, no one heard
a million reason to stay awake wide-eyed tonight
ninety-nine *******, one problem: you're in my line of sight
black & decker woodpecker, fur-trap chop with my power-drill
trill wagon, cool dragon flagon of honey mead on the window sill
unseen fiends mean for stones out beating streets to smithereens
you only live nine times: shake the earth, **** the silver screens
pair of sweet, pear-shaped tweets for you to meet in the suite,
they can show, you can see that they know how to greet
enough throwaways to keep boost mobile open
enough light reflecting princess cuts that they think my neck is frozen

You can't safely have a cigarette outside of the bus terminal
without a couple of folk asking for one.
You can't safely have a cigarette in general.
But, if five of them have to last you a night and a sunrise,
you don't really mind turning down a few nameless hands.
Some of the bus drivers like to talk about football, weather;
others complain about management or the patrons;
a few don't say much at all, avoiding sympathy.
They're probably the smart ones.
They don't want to learn the sad stories in between stops.
I usually like to just sit in the back and ride out the best bumps.
The handrails jiggle and crash with every pothole.
-
The men who work at the metal scrap yard
usually get on in front of Debbie's Diner on 22nd street.
Bundled up for warmth and firm of face, they only speak to each other.
Small talk about who almost missed the bus, broken crane joints,
and who moved the most barrels of copper piping fill the blocks.
They tend to pick on the guy who runs the aluminum can crusher;
big guy, they call him "Boose" and he couldn't be much older than I am.
His hands and lips are dry and cracked from exposure,
but his face still shows ember of teenage years, though jilted.
There is a bar that serves three-dollar chili across the street, spicy.
The workers go there when they miss the first bus, have a beer,
down a bowl of boiling chili, and catch the return bus in better moods.
-
The railroads on Brush College road tend to hold up traffic.
The ADM plant doesn't really mind if a few twenty-something mothers
are late to their practical nursing and phlebotomy classes,
but they voice their complaints out of a cracked window to the side
of a ten story soybean silo nonetheless; steaming ears and all.
I stare at the graffiti on the laggard train cars, each unique
in color, quality, style, and message; the industrial Louvre.
These waits sometimes last a half hour or more.
In the days before Pell grant rewards come in,
when students still feel like they're working toward tangible cash,
the seats are all packed with heavy breathers.
The air becomes thick with community college carbon coughs.