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Flattened cardboard boxes
A skateboard but no skate
Pogo stick, no Pogo

And stink of garbage
Under the sun

However did I
Respectable I
Get here after all?

I assure you
Ladies and gentlemen
Of the jury

I had no intent
I swear

To be anywhere
But where I was
Supposed to be

At 10:35 on the
Tuesday in question

I wanted a sandwich
But the cupboard
Was bare

So I settled for
just one beer

Just one beer
And now look

Man found wandering
Lost in plain sight
That swamp over there
Next door to my dream
Where I beat and holler
against these things
that fetter me
like religion

Hear the flap
and chuckle
of scavengers
arriving by the dozen

Come a cool bright wind
And blow this
dreaming
away
A random nighttime thought,
something you throw up on the web
at three o’clock in the morning, knowing
knowing you should have waited for the gray of dawn
or even longer

But the truth is,
I’ve got a bone to pick.
I can’t remember the details,
but let’s just get on with it
and fill the blanks in later.
I mean, it’s a little much
to demand particulars
at this hour.

In any case,
here’s the beef
Or at least a snapshot
of its hindquarters
as it goes its bovine way,
without so much
as a thought
to the feelings of others.

It’s gone now,
swallowed
by a gulp of moon
and rattle of buck brush.

But I can still see it in there,
peeking out at me,
waiting for me to nod off.

Sardonic smirk of cow
on its skinny white face.
oh words, come forth
do not be shy

your fear of
being misconstrued
has clamped your voice
tightly shut.

words left unspoken
scream silently to a deaf
audience and
are not compelled
to leap and prance


--bruised orange
oh, Alice!  how could you?

tumbling down rabbit holes
curiously
Order at the first window
Pay at the second

See the man
With the rubber nose
Put your poem in a sack

With packets of modifiers
A napkin or two

Just in case of
Leaking ink
Or escape of verb

And a diet stanza
To wash it down
And that white hole
Quadrangular in every way
Open to Mexico outside

Perspective, as it will
Makes triangles that
Really aren't there

Maybe it’s like they say,
When my hopeful face asks
¿Que onda?

And the answer is still:

*Ni cuadrada ni redonda
*¿Que onda?* is a common greeting in Mexico. It literally means "What wave?" but is interpreted more like "What's your vibe?" The response, *"Ni cuadrada ni redonda"* means "Neither square nor round," and is said just because it rhymes, just for fun.
I was stricken with you
But then I found
That you were stricken too

And I thought all along
it was me, not you
That ached and pined for two

The hard thing for me
Was finding out

Just who,
In fact,
Was who
All those others
Standing around

Sardonic smiles
And obsidian eyes

My back bent and breaking
Under the strain

Of Fender Strat
And Blues Deluxe

And a hundred chords,
And riffs and licks

Earlier, the glances,
The nod.
The flirt

And hints at  even
more than that

But in the end
A key to a room

Where the janitor sleeps

Vacuum cleaner
screaming

Against my thin door
Just before the nod
A glimpse of oncoming dream
But no way to stop it

Or dodge it

Or even slow it down
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