He was sitting at the bar,
not a nice bar at that,
when she walked in
uplifted by the draft
as she let the heavy door
close behind her
draped in a black dress
with black hair
like a shroud
and pale skin
like bones
she sat two stools down from him
and ordered an old fashioned
and necked it down
before ordering another
and another
and another
losing none of her poise
and no sign of flushed cheeks
she made eye contact with him
and for the first time in his life
he knew fear
and he knew he wanted to be scared

He ordered two old fashioned's
and slid a stool over
and told her his name
holding out his hand hopefully
she took it
with dainty fingers
her skin was colder than the creek
that he had been dared to swim in
during the winters of his childhood
"I think we've met before" she said
a voice like a funeral dirge
"so you must come here a lot" he replied
"you could say that,
or you could come back to my place"
he was more than happy to oblige
together they trudged off into the inky night
and he was never seen again,
and the next night
she was back at that bar
drinking old fashioned's
and waiting to be approached

i threw the stone and it went however far
and my arm grew tired; puckered at the rotary cuff
like a cannon ball in a poached egg of oak sap...
i threw the stone and saw my breath thread
through the placid brilliance of immovable calm.
i watched how the aphids were gone
and kept a journal in braille and short-hand
in Kubla Khan's Garden.
i longed for the valleys i had never swept away
by descending from such heights
as i pondered the yonder god
of a misplaced
dream. so exhausted,
i stood in the damp muck
legs apart, straddling -
odd rocks and thin grass.
i wavered in the stillness
of ceased motion
and tarried in the Calliope
of throbbing in the Sun.
a fawn in the furnace
of a loving
lost.

They stole the night
out from beneath their feet
and replaced it
with endless painted black billboards
with cosmic advertisements
that read: tired of those pesky feelings?
then come on down to the real world
and the stars were switched with
fluorescent bulbs and Christmas lights
the clouds are just moving back drops
and the moon a search light
they stole the day
replaced vibrant blue with
coral blue #64
or baby blue
but mostly gray
they beat ambition with baseball bats
and left it for dead in a ditch
on the side of a high way
they took life
and made it banal
a product
Honey I've shrunk the conversation!
they took the world
and all of it's people
but don't let them
mean you

in the basement
where we keep our little gravities-
apparently the earth gave way
and hell announced a cavity.
allow for strange attractors
to collapse before they're intimate.
and never take the stairs
until you've locked the room beneath it.
according to the rule
there may be echoes from the chamber
a misery of wraiths
or a raven in the manger.
or a hackle of contempt
the very air, a shrike of drone.
an epistle from a hornet's nest-
at the back of our throats.
in the very, very quiet
where we keep our little maladies-
apparently the basement is as good a place as enmity.
allow for cain and abel
and perhaps you have the half of it,
swinging from a hook in every room we've heard it laughing in.
according to the rule
there may be black so black it's blackening
and everywhere the hoards of wane
dispel the moon
because.

this is love and i'm not less.
i'm more alive
when you give me the  sky and leave me glitter in the careless -
you are not the one.
you are the one that matters
to me.

Wear your heart beneath your sleeve
don't buy into the hype
people become a lot less interested
once they've seen your heart,
instead,
let them see your sleeve ripple
with each passing beat
so that the people might say
"what was that,
beneath your sleeve"
and you just smile back
"I have no idea what you're talking about"

There is something within the heart
of western society
a voice of sorts
a frothing, thrashing, screaming voice
which knows only one word,
west,
for some people it's god,
the west is the American holy land
a brand spanking new Canaan
it reeks of hard work
and tastes like the dust
kicked up from an eternity of tires and wheels and spokes
it smells like fresh prairies
and feels like a worn leather belt
and emaciated happy xylophone rib cages
and it looks like  how adventure feels
the west, the endless west,
spurs and sunshine and simple life
always calling
always howling away in the warm humid south eastern nights