Wind and Years and Blowtorches

friday afternoon
15 minutes before I shove off
to work
back spasms
suppressed lung
my place
a junkyard
in the fields
of strawberries and
lust
all the rain outside
comes together upon
my roof
it’s a perfect nature
of illiterates
all the pretty girls
gone
all the sunflowers drowned
by the wind and years and
blowtorches
the flames now
scars
set upon my body

upon yours.


















Fall



red eye scream
thorn shadow
cancers
sunlight
stone
we are this and more
the sun shines through
the leaves and
streaks the wood from
where we sit.

warm and waiting.





Insomnia



the ghosts come sideways
diagonal
vertical
forwards
backwards
and up from the floorboards
angry fellows
one holds a clock
the other a ring
one a set of keys
two are cradling a marble coffin
and one has my face on a pole
my heart wedged in my mouth
that’s a new one, I think to myself
normally he just laughs at me
Christ, don’t tell me he’s running out
of ideas, too.






7 a.m.



outside
bright, freezing
hungover
fighting the acids in my throat
steam rising off my forehead
waiting on the WORKTRUCK
so I can roll off to Hell
for 9 hours
No way out of it
I look around
at the frost
I see a frog
banging dope
under my car
I see a deer break dancing
on the rotted riverbed
while I feel my stomach turning
my cells hardening
across the road
an old man waves from his lawn
fine day, he cheers, fine day
it sure is, I say
and he goes back inside
and I can feel the pot and booze
battling all over
inside of me
and I think back to
where I may have slipped up
and lost it
maybe last year, maybe a lot earlier
I hear the wheels rolling across the
gravel behind me
I don’t need to look.

In our youth we were lemmings against
the sun
the birch trees
laughed
and the water
held wonder
green shades
covered our hair
from the teeth
of age
and the captains waved from
cloud scorched horizons
and the wood
of the pier
was fresh
the dust clean
and cool
the girls were beautiful
and bright and loving
our tan
sculpted
bodies
locked together
free of charge
and money was optional
and morning was optional
dying a distanced joke
our skin pure
and uncombed
by addiction
our heart
an easy power
our stomachs
a warm orange
life was a theater
of experience
and the music smiled
and the sky told truth
and all of our
hands
showed
promise.

Untitled # 3,056


the exact nature of the cactus flower
the devils and
pitchforks and tongues snare together
for one long orchestration of heat,
of love once ours.
You are safe there, in your rain, your culture
your absent eyed men
still you are safe and sound
better off there than here with me, in the sole of the desert
sweating and typing
you were here through
time
through the changing of tissues
and metabolism
through the addictions and my
right hand fucking shadows
you were here whether you wanted to be or otherwise,
you were here in my head
while your body fucked other men, told other men your
stories. 8 years now since we have touched skin.
eight
long
years.

The Colors Of Failure



the colors of
failure and the colors of
evil and the colors of love
and the colors of us
wax together
into
a sludge
that slimes
about our hips our shoulders
and within that sludge
I see paths and glories
and
ending
the jade vine
carved through the green
of our bodies
the twisting
hands reach
out and rip the walls
in long lines of blood
and grief
and uncertainty
the colors darken into agony
and they darken down
the slime dripping against
our bodies and hitting the
ground with the sound of ping pong balls
dropping
dripping
I look again
we are skeletal in form.






Bellflower



on the way back from the grocery store
I watched a man throw a grenade at a group of cops
no open fire
no explosion

just a dead bomb
on a dead afternoon

in many numbers the
cops took him down
hauled him away from there
back at the house I stayed inside
and on the TV there were even more
cops
this time in a canoe
paddling into a swamp in Georgia
where out in the middle a large and shirtless
black man, under the impression that
he was Christ tried to drown a baby boy
he held him under while
a deputy cracked him over the head with an oar
snapping it in 2
they wrestled the boy from death
one of the cops appeared to be crying
but I couldn’t buy it
so the tube went off
and I sat back on the couch
while the ghost of my mother
sat behind me
sad, sorry, disappointed
I can still hear her:

YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE SOMETHING.







Scab On The Orient



these days and nights of life
on the shit
-the cancers, the songs and fear
the illusion of minutes
blend like us
the way we were meant to blend
green and yellow
green and yellow and white
us against the beat
you said I was sick
and I laughed
you came out of the kitchen
with my tea
-blew out the candle and raised the blinds
you were without kimono
but as gracious as any of them
and I haven’t spent an hour apart
from the visions
of our old shithole living room.














Fucked



completely awestriking
says the spider
yes
I agree, I shout up to him
-my arms in the air
smoke in my mouth
in my boxers on the couch
bent over this typer
good work, man
says a fly upside down on the ceiling tile
my finest
I say to him
thank you thank you thank you
and thank you, my man
the spider winks
I point my finger at him and shoot
I keep the keys rolling
man, you should be in Hollywood
says a roach from my coffee table
I nod at him
yes, my boy, was there once. almost made it.
damn, he says.
I finish the page and stand. they applaud
I bow to them all, my gut hanging over my
shorts
thanks, boys. you realize, of course, my best work is yet
to be written
of course! shouts the roach, wiping the tear from his face.
there, there
I say,
we have much more ahead of us.
is it true, asks the fly,
that you’ve made love to over 3,000 women?
right as rain, I say, raising an eyebrow at him
and isn’t it also true, asks the spider, that
you are the greatest living writer?
No comment, I say, giving him a devilish grin
and by far, includes the roach,
the most handsome?
cut and dry, I say, pointing at him.
they all whistle
and cheer.
I raise my hands for silence
I sit back down and
roll a new sheet through
look at them waiting
I crack my knuckles over the machine
pause for effect
then start again
the first sentence hammers out
they applaud wildly.






My Heart...



is a black man with a gun in
his back
my heart is a pigeon frying
on the shoulder of a statue
my heart is
a blade against a brick wall
my heart is an unexplained
pain in the groin
my heart is strands
hanging
from a creature’s fang
my heart is Miracle Whip in an Alabama fridge
my heart is green in a dark green world
my heart is an overprotected
pimple
on my eyebrow
my heart is a broken pack of smokes
my heart is 4,000 confusing pages
my heart is a joke at the end of a serious movie
my heart is static on the radio
my heart is a fish broken in half
by a boulder
my heart is an overworked protruding sexual
organ
my heart is dust on the Vegas strip
piss on Massachusetts Avenue
strewn entrails on Ming in Bakersfield
my heart is right in a gay universe
my heart is a human spine at the bottom
of Elliot Bay
in February
my heart is a semi in Tampa
a pheasant’s heart blown to bits
in the shrub
my heart is a pimp at Walgreens
my heart is a long scream
after the slip
on the edge.





Peoria, Illinois.



the wind of the midwest
has finally crushed me
the words the greyness
the lies from the mouths
the greed from the oppression of this place
has turned them crazy
but the bullshit,
all the bullshit
has finally crushed me
every minute meaning
a greater loss
that typer on the table
the ashen ghosts hanging
around my shoulders
the bridges burned of man and nature
nervous stomach
stress aches all over
coughing out anything I try to keep down
everything everywhere stained
I feel for death,
a door in the dark but
I don’t have the guts
for that
I look back to the wires of youth
I look on to the wires of age
I see destroyed power lines of family
and old love
cables now useless
-unstartable, untrusting
so swept up in front of each other
that they can do nothing
a push lasts for seconds in grey wastelands our hearts
cigarettes burning down now
to knuckles
the sun mourning
the devil screaming
under oceans
falcon sized ants marching
cliffs of dark time
weak and hungry
as the flies harvest
blackwater sucking the claws of blackhawks
the heart’s retainment of sorrow
the uncertainty of the midwest has finally crushed me
your heart’s release of laughter.






Choreography



monday afternoon in the warehouse
finally wrapping my mind around
the concept of dying
laundry day
cleaning day
a day of solid dark rain
on the tube I hear
and old cartoon
choreographed
to the Blue Danube
you’ve probably seen it,
the swans strutting across the water
ducking under branches
keeping the rhythm
the little one trying to catch his shadow
across the water
when I was a boy I never thought I’d be here
typing to it
funny how I’m in the same town
I was in when I first saw it
24 years ago
only then I was wrapping my mind
around the concept
of instrumentals.





.

Seattle



the pine needles swing
in the Northwest wind
Seattle-
the bars, the kids, the hair
the work
tired in the afternoon
my head across the oceans
August in the alcove
pen glides smoothly across the page
I look to her dress
and to her tattoo
and I think about the road
crowding over 3 decades of
life
the sparrows outside now fall to death
time makes his move
my engine sits patiently
outside.






Pornography



a picture of a woman
hangs in my mind
she has no particular face
no bones
no paint
just this feeling.






Something Sick



Something sick is inside of me
something that will not
come out and face off
square itself up
knuckle
to knuckle with me
been with me forever
gets me fired
disrespects the nature
of the ordinary
Something sick inside of me won’t
let me love
or hate
but provides me
with plenty of fear
Something sick inside of me
can’t let me live or die fully
but strings me along
like a half torso.