So many relationships like bad business partnerships:
green bottles falling from walls; messages stuck in bottles
rotating in great gyres; swallows never at home North or South.
(Anti-Confessional? — It’s a fashionable trend just now
and yet what is it not to confess, when we claim authorship?)

Suburbia’s flat evenness suffocates (but I’ve repeated this
so many times and I’m still here!).
We need to find the cracks in which to grow, in which to place,
our errant thoughts like rude whispers in a darkened room,
and nobody about to hear you anyway!

We express ourselves well in silence but me, I gyrate,
not quite on one side or the other, a kind of even fullness,
or, that’s what I like to think, let’s get this straight:
I’m an uncouth wind against plains that offer no obstacles.
Better to wear me that way — it saves the snap under pressure.

The suburbs are growing all over the wilderness I used to watch pass by from the passener side
The glimmering dream of a generation reborn in the new frontier of romanticized  pop culture
The suburbs weren't made to live in
They were built to sing of and pine over like some lover changed with age
So in this new age
As the generation who swore to destroy them but now idly builds them back up again
We will stand tall in our lyrics
Dreaming of late night rides and sneaking out of our parents home
To distract ourselves to conceal the fact that we are all inherently alone
And I
In my young blood and bravado
Will put another brick into the walls.

ghosts of slumber parties past.
just a haunted betamax & a stack of oreo sandwiches.
sisters braiding eachother’s hair far past the witching hour,
contemplating life without supervision.

blue house. yellow lawn.
silverback gorilla in one garage.
two garage: empty.
three garage: a woman entombed in exhaust.

          [her bloated tongue]

a gang of bmx boys pizza-fed and friday-high,
hopped up on mountain dew and trading card collectible rituals ‘n rhythmics.
they conjure a demon just to **** and dismember it.
     for funsies.
     for keepsies.

a fang for the shrine at the foot of the old oak tree.
history on the skin, long history, long thoughts, long in the nod like a calm dead frog.
bubbled, boiled, toiled, and troubled.

the woods aren’t haunted.
you   are haunted.
you   are the conduit through which the darkness displays its vivid colors.

          [treefort aflame]

the seasons furrow/
                               / the leaves fall.
little plots of land etched out – subdivision and sprawl.
on the avenue, heaven
& hell made tame and tangible.
built, re-built, and refurbished – a lawn and a lantern.
a mortgaged glory of sparkle and decay.

          [dead cat is a new cat is the old cat ran away]

pictograms of morning light display on mom’s face
as she instructs us on the gusts of love       [scrambed eggs]
& teaches us the truth of nettles sprung
from violent pine.
                                      [toast with raspberry jam]
the television.
the microwave.
the blender beverages.
hymnals of an electric kingdom.
one mom dances, the other expires.

          [restless armless girls in orange sunsets]

girl with a gun at the edge of her lawn and selling lemonade.
girl in an old wicker chair.
save her horror story for another day.

boy with a bent frame bicycle limps his way home
from one end of the avenue to the other.
his pockets full of sparkly rocks found in the lime quarry pit.
one boy in a long line of lost planets.
the driveway.
the refrigerator.
the hum of a saturday night commercial-free cassette.
where’s dad?

                         the glow of an eerie crystal
                                                                     (continued…)

Welcome, stranger Sun
we ain't seen in you in
a long time, Daddy
come & sleep in the fields
& re-spark the colors of the city
bless the children
playing with gravity
on the dizzy trampoline
shine on the ragged jazzman
playing Ellington
I don't mind,
if it's just for today
just for today
I'll eat ice cream
& converse with you a little while
& tell you how
Mamma rain's doing
& write you that poem
I promised you long ago
if you're lucky

Babe, where's your smile,
Don't be a melancholy child,
Can't you see
That the summer's come?
                                                                    
Stuck in your room
With your winter curtains drawn,
While the suburbs
Are all bathed in sun.
                                                                    
No more winter time lows,
Only joy now because
We can shake off the blues,
Love, there's no time to lose.
                                                                    
We can go for a cruise
Down the Thames
Or down the Ouse,
Or just snooze under summer's sun,
                                                                    
Find a village green,
Watch some cricket,
Take some tea, as you please,
Summer's made for fun.
                                                                    
Get some sweet summer air,
Feel the breeze in your hair,
Forget that sad old affair,
He's not worth all the tears.
                                                                    
Babe, where's your smile,
Don't be a melancholy child,
Can't you see
That the summer's come?

Hello, Midnight
with your ragged stars
hidden behind clouds

Hello, Midnight
a *****'s salute
to restless thoughts

Hello, Midnight
a girl flashing her skirt
in the red light district

Hello, Midnight
calling with ******* & ket
at people's doors

Hello, Midnight
guarding the silence
in the dim suburbs

Hello, Midnight
whispering poems
to writers & poets

Snatching bats
in street lamp light
such a sight
for the sleepless
in the hollow night

The Roses know
the way the rain falls

the library is shut
today once more

such odd opening hours
& the flustered moms

have nowhere to go
with their flock of kids

& the park is empty
surrounded by red brick

houses as if ambushed
& all the cats are asleep

it's always this way
in the rain before the 6pm rush

straight from the sofa or work
to the Chinese takeaway