I planted flowers
  Fixed the floor
Worked for hours
  Painted the door
Re-grouted the tile
  Sowed some seeds
Rested a while
  Then pulled the weeds
Painted the halls
  The carpet is new
Washed the walls
  And baseboards too
Removed the clutter
  granite counters were bought
Replaced the gutter  
  'Cause the old ones were shot
I stand back and see
  the results of our work
mumbling softly, Gee
  You're a stupid ****
Shiny and new
  The house is a show
Prepared for a view
  By people we don't know
Our home's at it's best
  And everyone can tell it
So now we can rest
  And the realtor can sell it!

elephants stomping on my head
laugh as they draw blood
fragmented ideals scatter in the wind
as trampled dreams mix with dust

cemented in 'supposed to'
hiding behind other people's 'shoulds'
jackhammer disappointment
crushes bones with broken boundaries

play me a song
to make it look pretty
and I'll pretend to dance
with you in foggy yesterday's

karaoke soundtracks
to a stranger's tears
that leave the heart blind
tripping acid just to see in forgotten colors

breathing bacteria
from the soles of shoes
wiped on my forehead
as they said, 'hello'

a mosaic of skull puzzles
grouted in the remnants of the ****
left behind as everyone
just walks away

shadows smell clean in dark corners
where colors are left to die
in clouds of expectation
leaving truth buried in the ruble

...of who they thought I was

I can sleep with you,
but I can’t be asleep with you.
I can drive you mad
bent over the headboard
of your expectations,
but I can’t meet them.
What you are looking for
does not hide between my legs
panting for salvation;
it hides trembling in the bend of an elbow,
tucked away in tracks that mark the spot.
Treasure coves lie in the hollowness
of my sunken eyes
and under the thickness
of my bitten tongue
until the only thing I can taste is
the bitterness of my laughter
like a hangover
from too much sweet talk the night before.
Some nights,
the holes in our conversations
"with the lights on"
leave me crucified between
two lines I should have never crossed to begin with.
Other nights,
I am stretched out across the entire room
and your eyes touch nothing
but the bathroom floor we grouted together
with our spines.
The backbone for this poem
isn’t your unattached vertebrate,
but the committed soft spot
behind my promising kneecaps
that give out each time
you ask me
when I’m coming to bed
because a mattress
may be the sole platform for this love,
but your sheets
can’t cover the indifference in my touch.

i am planting seeds between tiles on the bathroom floor.
fingers bloodied,
ceramic grouted dust caked under nails
as I dig inch-deep holes
into the cracks and place,
oh so gently,
small dark seeds into the soil of
this apartment's skin.
i am on my knees
praying,
i am on my knees
planting,
i am just
on my knees.
I use toothpaste to bury them,
i caulk them into place with
my own ingredients.
i take a shower
water puddles under my feet
and i imagine the seeds drinking it up,
gorging themselves on my
***** water.
***** because i haven't showered in days,
***** because i sweat,
***** because i am me, and it has touched my skin.
and i imagine that one day
i will walk into the bathroom
to find a field of blue mums,
marigolds, lavender, daisies, and
clover
bursting up through the seams in the ceramic,
staining the walls, reflecting light back onto
my skin and i'd feel-
god, i don't know-
i think i'd feel alive.

life fends its ache in a solid state of lumber
stretches grouted brawn
and sets its stresses on duty

gaseous pollution meets the daylight
a warming flatulence of the productivity byproduct
labour

orb
parching an arc over the brow
and easing an erase into the eve

then to
the night solution
a fluid of festivity
*** excite in arts and the conduct
a canvas of tincture
to suspend our culture
                        in-bedded

the witching hour is only a blink
a jiff and a wink
a humour in the plasma state
break
the process is reignited
and for that brief movement
cleaned out of heads
we are simple
guided

I’d hold your hand
and whisper beauty in words
no one could ever understand
a galactic language
a super-meta linguistics
denser than a diamond
carbon copies of trophies and bronze medals
won a thousand years before
soar above love and you will never get burned
by treetops in agony
sanitized with mahogany
soldered and grouted like a tub
the earth is a bathtub overflowing
i am a madman and my heart is showing
freedom silhouettes
consciousness has no regrets
words are magic spells
so remove the chambers from the heads
levels of lightning in silent burning
hunted for beauty
though its always been yours truly
fortunately we made love in a lifetime of goddesses
husbands and promises tossed out like *******
juxtapose for a second or strike a pose for ever
i am music removed from instruments
like a hat off of a child
the mild fathers walking outside
while their children fly above
so high in the sky

he waived cross examination
innovation had suffered a ******* head wound
and the Mossad was after my ***
a post Ragnarok pre Utopia picnic
with a cozy camp fire on the ice
hot enough to fry a penguin steak
code breakers grab your lapiz lazuli
it's the Florentine Colonnade Dancers
and gravy covers the spuds
the beaten man fears to drink his fill
swallowed the shiny faucet handle
in a messy near suicide by drowning
tried to live on borrowed time
and die a minor hero with a minor following
followed by a banquet of boneless chicken
and seven times seven bags of Cheetos
we are all either the ruling class
******* things up for generations to come
or clowns in the cross hairs
because they are still here aren't they
megalomania may well be a survival mechanism
where the ******* Adonises are grown
with a suspected core of infinite malice
the gatekeeper only wants to know your symptoms
my life was a waste of time I replied
words being contours as well as baskets
I screamed turning up the gain
with them we explore the human psyche
like branch monkeys swinging in a cage
I sang because it's the smart thing to do
since I never learned to spell i-m-p-e-r-i-a-l
as I rambled onwards and zoomed in
thank you one and all and everything
and I grouted my stones with a la la la
while the streets filled with rubble
a vast line of gate crashers not waiting
dinner forks ready bye m'bye eatum
a final exit from the crazy maze
it was the best he could honestly do
even when they upside us like **** *******
up one side and down the aether
he dodged the repo man one more time
with the compass of compassion
while trying not to be a morale problem
the specimens in my cognitive laboratory
confide and call it symphony
yet in the end the neurons
played a starring role
trying to stir from the trance
he knew the risk
but had a mouth to feed

From "Pageant of Naked Mischief" available on Amazon