(- This is originally a spoken word poem. Read aloud for maximum exposure.
-Asterisks indicate the necessity to pop your cheek with your thumb.
-Answer the two questions correctly and I will give you a hug.)

He fell asleep while traveling time
where a true name
becomes everything else.
So please give me a minute to explain myself
through the doorways
that I see champagne on a windowsill
walking across the room with blue
and fine china feet
saying again and again
drink me.
Until somehow
the words become a song
singing and swinging the bottle like a dinner bell for thirst.
A kind that we've settled to quench
with television
and somebody else's dream.
So don't pour my drink.
I'm trying to uncork it with my thumbs.

POP

It's flat
and I still have a tongue
so I will use it and I
I will dream of a time
where ******
becomes a baby.
Dr. King becomes a baby.
Until the left and the right and every dead genius in between
becomes
a baby.


Tiny feet trying not to crush the wet salad of the lawn
because it is green,
like my heart
that has learned
how to break fine china.
From experience,
let me tell you
it's a lot more tiresome than a blue dream
but he fell asleep on a boxcar crossing Germany
where mustard gas
drowns you in your own lungs
and he tries to breath between the joints in the track

the

click
...                         
click
...
    clack

as years
hurtle by.

Asking again and again,

"Who killed me?"
           &
"Who am I?",

until dinner was served without grace.
Until my head becomes stiff and bubble shaped
having been conditioned by
their
piles
&
piles
&      mounds

of
obfuscation.


So we should tell all the baby Hitlers,
that become children
that become us,
that a lie
is what you become
when abusing language to distort a reality.

And when you make a fist
you are handing worlds out at random on a silver tongue.
But I still have one
and I still have thumbs
so sorry to burst your bubble but,

POP.

Child,
I don't mean to put
barbed wire
between us.  
I know it hurts
to have something so precious as the world
taken away.
But walls hurt worse
and through them only muffled sounds are ever heard
until your world is made of mute prisoners
that have forgotten what silver
really sounds like.

Blessed be
for I also have ears
so give me second place
and I will throw the medal against your walls.
Ringing out,
the universe doesn't look like an ebony tub,
with knobs we can't ever see,
full of infinite shining marbles to everybody.
Your mind
is a library
so free will isn't a book written in just English.
And tourists,
those know nothing infants trying to travel,
belong
where
           ever they
are
                             going.

Belonging like this medal bouncing trying to sing
off your wall
and
falls

into


your world.

Where again it will ring,

we've all been runner up

and somehow
we still can become disappointments to ourselves
when another doesn't enter our library
instead of loving the stories on our shelves.


So,
let me say grace.
Let me set l o n g tables
with the gruel that's been given
served on b  r                     n.
                         o
                           k  
                                        e          
china,
spooned
with sterling silver.

I live in a room where time stands still
I have been sick of late
I have need to take yet another pill
They don't really do any thing to help
But I keep hoping that they will.

Sometimes I think that I am as dead as
I am ever going to be
That is if I still wake up tomorrow
I am bright enough to see
To whom it is I bless
And just where it is I bring sorrow
I keep wishing for good health
For that I would beg steal or borrow.

I dream the craziest of dreams
Last night I caught my mentor mixing metaphor
Watch me go 'round in circles
I've got one foot nailed to the floor
I stand in a room made of mirror
I see myself clearly
Yet I start out looking for the door.

I woke up and started drinking today
That is the only relief I get
When I go around town smelling like alcohol
I'm not exactly teacher's pet
But I will live to uncork another bottle
Oh on that one you can bet.

I'll always give you the truth you see
On that you can depend
Even if I tell you a lie over coffee
While sipping my special blend
Later I will type 'what is what' you see
But I won't proofread before I send.

The time’s may have changed,
days aged our bodies
but you are still wholly
yourself, only more
magnanimously
magical, which says
something, because
your oeuvre was such
already.

An aged wine of light
shining like sacred
grapes made of quartz in
the field’s center.
I remember when
you guided me to
the fox. I can still
remember when you
were sprouting—

sacred knowledge to
me in the back of
the school bus. But now…
dots are connecting,
I’m remembering
my fire ether
name. Your knowledge had  
pollinated me—
sure took time

to take root, and ferment,
but now it is
a very good year.  
It’s time to uncork!
A party army
awaits, clad in such
an iridescent
armor armed only
with <3 - shaped  fire

on torches, ready
to burn down rotten
rickety aged
bridges built of dead
green ink-stained wood, all
converging on a
barren cliff so we
may ignite skies and
shine in darkness.

chosen child for nature's creativity
tangoing to the sway of twilight trees
such spiritually sensual sensibilities

hypersensitivity heightening passion
life intensified in intellectual interest
love embellished with emotional empathy

oh, to bottle her elusive essence
to drink in her wistful nights
to infuse my tea with her promise
to scent my pillow with her dreams

uncork the atmospheric aroma
of sepia tinged crescents
wafting in celestial patisseries

sweeten the clear blue skies
with mists of crystallized honey
perfuming the divine aether

oh, fill my breath with her ephemeral
synchronize my life's pulse to the
metronome ponytails of skipping girls
followed by the tails of wagging dogs

Outside, but not so far away,
Missiles are falling;
Early snow has settled
Beneath gray overcast....
Sirens in the distance
Send their low moan
Across the miles...
Echo faintly in our canyon.

Too cold for lightning,
We turn away from light
Flickering or flashing
Upon the bellied skies...
Don't want to think
About the thundering
The light implies.

Muffled sound and muted light
Confirm our living
Away from town.
Perhaps we are
Far enough....
These days, though,
Places to run are few,
And war is moving out.

At least the news has stopped....
Was sporadic
Then...
Stopped altogether
Now.
Almost a relief....

The coal oil lamp -
Her mother's mother's -
Burns a reddish glow...
Diesel's charring smudge...
Comforts us
In a growing dark.

Roast potatoes,
Rabbit stew,
Pickled beets...
No bread this time
As I uncork chokecherry wine...

And it is summer 1999....
We are standing in tall grass
Somewhere between Red Lodge
And Laurel along the road,
Ice cream pails echoing
With plopping chokecherries
Near black and hanging thick
Like miniature clusters of grapes.

We are there to beat the birds and bears,
Knowing choke-cherrying
Is the hurried work of many races,
Some wearing claws upon their heavy hands,
Others flitting in with beaks upon their faces.

And then the kitchen smells of cherries boiling down
For syrups and for jam,
The old ten gallon glass fermenting juice and sugar,
Stands waiting in the corner,
Later to be filtered off and corked away
In twice-used bottles....

Other years and other picking times
Lie bottled  in wooden racks below,
But we have chokecherry wine tonight,
While storms we never thought we'd know
Blow hard against the world.

Symphonic
My fist was first five fingers
Flowing Favonian into the palm of my radiant mother
As cheeky as a sprite, soon I revelled in the
Crisp light of the fridge and all its chilled visitors,

A skin-deep draft last week, a raging harmattan yesterday,
Barren among the fruitless lands of Mesopotamia.
Crawling, my sergeants and I led the way through our childhood fantasies.
Ali Baba's fortress, the ruins of Babylon, and up to the lately perturbed Euphrates.
I dropped my automatic rifle,
hurriedly snatched it up in the unforgiving desolate,
just in time to
narrowly dodge the absent onslaught of enemy gunfire
Only to witness a serpentine strike and an explosive splash
Of metal violating my infantile hand, a hand that was trusted and was caressed
Now merely a bludgeon to satisfy the steel-clawed slash of the shrapnel
A buffer to the skin of my wide-eyed physiognomy.

Waking up in the loose sheets of a completely unremarkable beige bed,
With the deoxygenated breath of the novice surgeon liquidizing in my veins,
It was almost too much to handle (if you'll pardon my pun).

These days it is
The good hand with which I
Uncork, pour, and serve.
It's with the utilizable limb with which I
Ignite, shift, and steer.
It's with my brain that I
seethe
And it's with my stump
That I knock.

In our land of golden wattle,
I'll unstopper a bottle,
Uncork a magic genie,
Appearing cute and teeny,
She looks quite delicious,
Granting us three wishes
For Oz, quite ambitious,
What'll we wish for today?
In this magical genie way,
First, let's wish for full employment,
Then, an end for our youth deployment
In the Middle East, futile beast,
Last, we'll all wish for global peace,
Our wishes the genie does release,
I shall unstopper this magic bottle,
For our land of golden wattle!

I dream
dark and quietly

They bellow,
the twisted sighs of laborers
adrift a midsummer's lullaby,

because their eyes are a collage of uncertainty
I want to scatter them,
find them washed up on a desolate shore,
uncork them
decode the message inside,

The monarch's sea ebbs
black and thick and drips
on a satellite,
a power struggle between stillness
and the busy orbit of our minds.

All the sin the king commits
is revealed in the innocent, sapphire tears
of his children,
dampening his shadow.

Youthful hearts aflame, chasing illusions,

They won't challenge the stories,
not anymore.

We dream this night,
a never-ending cycle.

I feel us here
under the twisting tree of life,
any soul seeking nourishment from leaky roots:

We are your child's laughter.
We are your fear of death.
Let us dance upon your lilies,
let the flies handle the rest.

Uncork the bottle,
And pour it quick!
It’s been a long, long day
And I need sip.

Wine, oh Wine
I’m glad you’re mine.
Without you, I fear
I’d lose my mind.

Your dark, luscious beauty
And your white gentle hues
Coax and ease
My stress to defuse.

On days like today,
And nights,
Like tonight,
It’s you I turn to
For some bottled delight.

would it be alright if i
took the time to uncork my heart
and spill the contents through its narrow spout—
can i pour out my soul to you?

At a crossroads we write the left
Unburdened and unabashed, we are felt!
As a clumsy hand balancing tarnished copper
But we think it brass and boldly she calls
"Sit for this metallic weight is straining!"
On words we wonder, curious what lies behind.
The ground at our zenith, no wonder
We mislabel worms as stars, praise them great,
Quaking creeks sound as ants in our clogged ears.
"Uncork your wines, fellows; age more yields grey
Though we feel it golden."

Storms inside my head
Rage without an end.
The wind attacks from all directions--
Attempts to strip from me
The little covering to which I cling.
Vicious, stinging raindrops
Are driven sideways by the wind
And assault my naked face.
Rumbling drumbeats of thunder
Creep ominously closer,
Heralds to the storm's mightiest weapon.
FLASH.
A brilliant spear of light is flung
From an unseen hand within the clouds
And strikes the earth.
My eyes are stricken also
And I stumble,
Robbed of precious sight.
Soaked, battered, and blinded,
I seek to uncork this storm--
Allow its wild fury to spread and disperse.
But its only outlet
Is a tiny pinhole of an opening,
And through this aperture
All that can fit--
Two simple words:
Miss you.

Do you remember last cascades of laughter
Till your breath couldn’t take it anymore
Your seams almost opened belly ruptured
From standing you came down to floor!

You laughed first once and then couldn’t hold
Their peals kept gushing like a flood
Mouth hole bared from eyes tears rolled
Laughter invaded your blood!

People wouldn’t know if you laughed or wept
As tears flowed down your cheeks
Such was the fun it did you suffocate
Seemed wouldn’t stop for weeks!

If you remember please pass onto me
I’ll preserve in a bottle that stuff
Only to uncork when it needs be
In the days that I find pretty tough!

I gulped to inhale her soul
as she sighed while it spilled

as the blood of birth

and I cried at the absence of her future

I reached to catch it before it slipped away
but these sin-slick hands couldn't grip such purity

What would I have done with it anyway?
Kept it like a genie to uncork whenever regrets weighed most?
Whenever my shame crept out?

It escaped faster than I had imagined
though no feather fell
or flutter caught my eye

into a spinning growing void in which only one word is ever said
and always in a whisper

I do not know you
Old patriarch of time
Whos gossamer hands turn water
Into my wine

That I uncork with revelation
And drink with great faith
I’m baptized by pleasure
That only you can create

But the blood of your own
Is my liquid of sin
Glass after glass
Through my holy veins, it swims

Lord i’m now by the toilet
The old porcelain throne
And I'm down on my knees
But no prayer is forlorn

So I heave away
Your sacred grapes are wrathed
Deliverance of wine-soaked sadness
Confession at last
Later drunken hymns
Will arise from my bed
I’ll moan out your name
Not my lover’s
Instead

Two hand-crafted thighs
Bound together by grace
Spread open at once
By the devil’s embrace

And the same snake that tempted
Poor Adam and Eve
Slides back in his cave
Slithering with greed.

Turn the page
Start a new chapter
Stand on a new stage
Feel the rapture
Escape your cage
Just
Don't let life capture
Your rage.

Turn the page
Start anew
Begin a new age
Those dreams pursue
Use life to gauge
When to engage, and
When to say 'adieu'
Just
Don't let life capture your rage.

Life is a book
It's pages to turn
Which direction you take
May not always be firm
Be firm with yourself
Follow your path
If faced with a fork.....then
Uncork your rage
And choose.

Scoundrels and rascals
All decked out in pastels
And Brooks Brothers suits
With cufflinks to boot
And five hundred dollars ties
Thinking that makes them wise;
Just one of the rich guys
And nobody to question them,
Never harrumph or an ahem
Because they are above it all,
No boring trips to the mall
They depend on their buyers
And other expensive liars
To tell them how cheap it is
To engage in this dressing biz,
For them to buy for the guy
And never ask why so high.

After all, it’s Armani, not Guess
So why should they confess
That they are smarter than him
The guy they work for is so dim
He pays whatever they say.
After all, he can afford to pay.
Even the water his maid gets
Is so high quality, one forgets
It is only hydrogen and oxygen
Not something created by men;
Probably bottled from the tap.
He never knows he is a sap
That falls for the television ads.
He will die completely glad.

It is so ****-hardening for him
To sup in restaurants so dim
He hardly notices how small
The costly portions are at all.
He lets them uncork the wine
And brays about how fine
The taste and the vintage,
Not caring the damage
It does to his Diner’s card.
This kind of life is not hard.
Plus he gets to go tomorrow
And wreak more sorrow on
Constituents and other peons
And wreak his own opinion
Even though he is but a minion
Doing exactly what he is told.
As long as he rakes in the gold.

Later, a bit under the influence
He'll revel in the confluence
Of a lack of conscience, and
Socially accepted concupiscence
At an appropriate gathering
Where there is a smattering
Of propriety and morality
That allows rented geniality
And permits him to rise up
And drink too many cups
While he beats his chest
Just like all of the rest
And call for the dancers
To come and surrender
To their oh-so rightful rapine
That won’t make the magazines.

My love was casked and aged in heart
It was soft and hard and sometimes nought
It drew breath away from sunset eyes
It left me in the gladness of goodbyes
I can only accept the memories bliss
Of sweet and sour honnied kiss
And all the last second of your sigh
Written across the tears of eye
And I become a vapourous ghost
Of time lost to pillar post
Tis now time to uncork the cask
And take off my weary mask
And savour love
I make a toast to love's hollow boast

I awoke in the morning
slid out of bed
and went through
my usual routine of
staring through my
office window
watching the deer
and other wild life
as I devoured a
*** of coffee

the sun was out

afternoon rolled around
and so did the clouds:
big
dark
grey
******* of clouds

I was sitting at my
desk in my office
jotting down thoughts
to begin work on my
next set of poems

I can burn many
hours brainstorming
and writing

and I did

evening fell
and finally so
did the rain:
heavy
chunky
drops
of rain

pounding the roof
and the windows

there was thunder
and lightning
and my desk lamp
flickered a time or two

then
a bright flash
of lightning
and a loud
crack of thunder

and the
power went out
in the house

I hadn’t done much
of anything
so while waiting
for the power to
come back
I thought
that I should
get off my ***
and do something

and I did

just long enough
to find a flashlight
and uncork a
bottle of wine

and then
I went back
to writing

I will forget the blue jacket you wore
when our lips met, tongues curious
behind closed mouths. I will forget
the way my pinky slipped between your
middle and ring fingers as you took
my whole palm. I will forget
just as the blossom holding witness will
shed its petals.

They will return, bound by the warmth
of your ear kissing my neck while our
hair tangles together. They will return,
awakened by that passionate storm
you pour as I uncork a bottle
of neuroscience. They will return,
just as the blossom that held witness
grows its petals.

They will wilt, soured as a year leaves
the three months we shared behind. It was
my mistake.

Days went by quietly.
Finally, life seemed to uncork with ease.

If we could bottle souls
(Like petrified coals
Of past lives and future sparks),
When would we uncork
The energy of the living?

A yearning beneath the seething
Of untapped existential angst.
A rush to restore
An end to eternal suspension
Entropy's 2nd law.

And if you won't go down,
can I at least get you in my down line?
Let me appoint. Fast food crown.
The children are sleeping. Uncork the wine.
Slide a ******* under the gouda.
Glasgow smile and Instagram this opportunity.
I could recite the medication, but I shouldn't.
You want to watch something? Ever seen Community?
There's an art to being 30 and single.
There's cream for every wrinkle.
There's a sin in need of a kindle.
There's, for everything, a fee--it's simple.

Half a bottle in and well on my way, to far gone tonight to care of consequence.
Through blurry eyes I see the clarity of it all.
Constantly guided as ever by a moral compass and inner fortitude. Ah, but to tare down this inner sanctum and free the caged animals within.
Like a deranged ****** of the human condition I remain a fly on the wall of the world.
So far hidden in self imposed shadow, the light stings my eyes. Filled to helplessness by another days worth of wading knee deep with the Haves and Have Not’s…
.. Still I wonder, who holds the key to my undoing?
Where lives this keeper of the passage to true life so well hidden…
.. Who drank my last glass….?
But I digress…
and regress ,
and obsess still over the smallest of things . I am but a tiny profit of immobility.
**** these thoughts that throw me asunder.
Cursed am I.
so caught up in my own brain.
Unable to enjoy a bit of well earned fun at the expense of my liver! Perhaps a proper mix of chemicals will lay to rest this angst,
this mind so full…
..this body…
or shall I uncork a new friend and simply try again….