On the wrestling shows
the muscle men grow
bigger by the minute, I
wrestle with dessert
promising exercise after,
hoping to mold myself
into their stern shapes,
capturing their hard work
in dizzying arrays of push-ups,
the results always hidden
under gentle burn and fatigue.

Church

The adults stood mouthing lyrics
and hearing the wailing pipe organ
singing the drone of an angry God, I
trembled in the pew, curled
cowering beside my mother's coat,
the congregation's chant lifting
the brazen angels' clinched fists
over guilty hymnals on Sunday morning.

On A Monday Morning

The sky melts from blue to
tangerine near the horizon line;
sprinkles of stars
struggle, fading back to night
so they may sleep
on the other side of the globe.

The sun rises and stretches,
throwing majesty at all corners
of the morning, and announcing
its blinding ascent to
Awake with bird chirp-songs.

I absorb the breaking day
in waves as the ground drinks
the dotted dew off the wet grass.

I have not slept in the night,
hungry for the clockwork
potential of an infant tomorrow.

The Whitehorse Winter

I chose Whitehorse because of the blistering cold and hour-miles of seclusion. I pioneered myself a cheap, forgotten miner’s cabin and hermited there for a winter, encouraging myself to write. Often, my eyes wore tired of the pale blind of the empty white page, and I sauntered—caped deep under an itchy flannel blanket—to the porch I kept shoveled and cocooned into the old oak rocking chair there. I tended over my wounded words while I rocked, pretending my steam-breath was perique pipe smoke. By spring, I had mustered a thick beard and not much else. I spent no other winters in Whitehorse.

Leaving Again

I tell her
crackling-stream eyes
and twittering frown
I am leaving again.
She believes me
each time I lie
about finally going.
I have turned her
into my younger brother.

I teased him on purpose.
He asked me to play,
plot our new adventure
excited after I agreed,
then frustrate and sigh at me;
I built clusters of mini-chores
between my yes’s and our playing.
I made him wait,
stuffing the in-between
with dozens of ‘just let me’s
and ‘right before’s, tightening
the tension of his trust.

Now, I tell her
drooping brow and
blank slate cheeks
I am leaving again,
toeing the tight-line
of her frail faith in me
to actually leave her.

Cartoons

I have turned your name
into a sort of music,
a jingle for a smile shop,
and lost in you merry melodies
I turn into a cartoon
stereotype. Suddenly
your skin is milk-cream
and I am a starving cat,
but there are no saucers
waiting at my midnight door.
After we say goodnight,
banished to the solitary
staleness of my bed,
my eyes spill under the sheets
looking for the stains
of you left in my mattress.
I linger awake, hungry to smell
your scalp and sleep-sweat
soft across my pillows,
clutching at even the giggling
ghosts we have planted here
deep inside the box springs.

The Morning Fence

The snap and lock
or doors outside
muffle through
the morning fence
we built from sleep
and our own closed
bedroom door.

In my roommate's black
tempur-pedic bean bag chair
we watch Ben Foster playing
Eli, a special kid, on that show.

You sigh and nuzzle closer
to my gray, sweatshirt-covered
chest, readjusting your neck,
trying to get comfortable enough
to pay attention and relax.

Neglecting the screen, I move
to notice the new space
for your head. You bob
with each breath I subdue
like a confused puppy on its side.

I want you to hear my heart
alive in me, drumming along
aloud in my ears, burning
for attention with its eagerness
for your delicate attention.

I am nervous, wondering
if I am breathing too hard,
hoping you hear heartbeats
resounding through me.
I wait

until your breathing slows,
you collapse in a line,
dropping still from head to feet,
relaxing into me to sleep.
I stop watching your head
to find Ben Foster has left
the scene, ending the episode.

Paranoid and nervous with the drunkenness of a crush,
I hope only that you have not decided to ignore our splashes
in quiet chemistry through flirted looks and stabs at intimacy.

We stumble on the brink of conversation,
the veins in your cheek burn and bulge,
I slide my hands against each other
trying to easy the corpse numbness there.

A red LED display burns
numbers into the dark
of the sleeping bedroom.

Night has sprung again
upon the restless,
limping through heavy eyes

and the sore mistakes
weighing on the rest-worn.
Tonight we ignore the blazing

race of time, together
we will curl into sleep,
dreaming without burden.

The ancient carny jargon
spins tired ticket promises

of stuffed prizes for cheap
kids' games, there is a winner

in every family filtering down
the dusky neon blitzes and

torn awnings of the faded midway,
each pregnant with fraudulent hopes

for something classic or genuine,
their wallets bleed to satisfy

the side-show hunger and
candy-apple curiosities.

On a Picture of an Ex

Now, months after, I notice
every corner of your face is a museum
stuffed with sculptures,
mounds of memories
from buried cultures, reborn
with every coy smirk, carving deep
basins into the camera lens.
You flood the photograph
with ancient emotion and
a secret nudge of progress.

It is wrong to think
your plagues are alluring.
The dead litter
your pale lips, kissed and preserved
in the heat of your breath
and the dune-glazed sand
in your stare.

I pack the picture away,
humbled and full of spite,
into a dusty crate of distance,
sending your discoveries
to some fortune-hunting fool,
blessed and ignorant of
the curses in your artifact eyes.

Ignorance crawls in
the corners of Alabama
and scurries, ascending
to the surface on the drive
back to my transplanted home there.

She told me in Paris
'goodbye' is like coffee,
as a true adult
you are expected
to develop a taste for it.

Sick?

Why won't I call myself sick? I wake up in sweat drenched sheets, filled with a cavernous soreness, my stinging breath stale in the fresh air of morning. I collapse out of bed, subduing patches of floor to walk on while my closed head leads me toward the bathroom for the day's first piss, more uncomfortable than relieving. My throat tingles with a blunt stiffness, flaring indignant when I swallow. My heavy eyes cascade over my bedroom and I soup myself back into bed. I fold myself under a familiar linen shield to sleep with the lie that I am just tired, refusing this sickness.

Dark winds whistle
missiles at my trembling windows
while maelstrom clouds swell,
twining soft, white fluff
into looming sky-shadows.

I stare out from the rattling
view, the bleak storm maturing
outside. I am half asleep, spralwed
across an age-stained leather loveseat,
the lights off inside the dead house.

Inside, natural purples crawl up the walls,
the storm tints and sparks the room,
craming a devious, secret strength in the house.

If You Are Falling

If you are falling, howl,
splinter the sterile silence
jailing us, your sturdy bones
will not survive this impact.

Howl, and I will gather
oceans of my numb blood,
drowning your blunt decent
and washing the initial slip.

So howl, and I will fold
the drop deep in my marrow,
enduring resounding leaks
only when I need scaring.

Dear Friends--

Friends;

We are the new rock'n'roll. We are the sonic energy of a bored generation. We are kittens with claws. We are the morning star in an uncertain dawn. So, let us march toward something. Something grand, something true, something genuine. But, and this will be the most important quality, something from ourselves. Let us write love letters to the universe. Let us say something, anything, about our lingering here. Let us smile. Let us cry. Let us tell stories.

Happy writing,
-CPH

I am a carousel of stars
spiraling without a sky,
elastic graces of breathing
binding me in shocking gasps
together toward the clean
comfort of an evolving tomorrow.

I am a stream of ripples
pulsing without a shore,
alive with the gift of you
and pushing past feting nows
through to the innocent
ignorance of an evolving tomorrow.

Three Secrets

***

Did I ever tell you it's always the cheap suits that make me the most remitted? I will find myself spending a weekend in meetings full of attractive associates, all adorned in fine-fitting forms of business-appropriate perfection. Meanwhile, I sit fidgeting, wishing I'd spent more money on shoes and had better fitting pants, wishing they could see the cuffs of my shirt outside of the sleeves of my jacket. I tremble, my stomach spins into stabs of self-doubt and I want out and away. I slip privately into a crisp fall afternoon where the sharp chill mandates another body to cuddle and keep warm. I daydream about overcast skies and low temperatures while blabbering bits of well-dress information spill over me. I dream of leaving to bowl alone or watch a movie, pretending that I listen, sitting fully erect with a shotty pride in what I am wearing, in who I am. I have to. They have all the other advantages.

*

Did I ever tell you once, stepping onto the porch to grab the chunky Sunday edition of the morning paper, I found a murdered tabby cat hanging limp from my brass door handle? The cat's wispy white fur matted against its rust-stained skin in places, and the dangling paws wobbled hollow in the breeze. The horror and general shock of the moment stunted the easy morning, and the scene lingered, twisting in me. My eyes welled and reddened with the threat of tears for a tardy and desperate catharsis, but I remembered I didn't have a cat. The murdered tabby simply wasn't mine. I remembered I had never had a cat at that house. Nor a dog. And the morning started moving again.

*

Did I ever tell you I buried a sack of Brazilian voodoo bones in the backyard? The pearl inlay was fake, but the magic seeped into the soil somehow. On that day the grass blurred and hissed, and the rose bush your aunt loved so much withered and bloomed in loop for a full week after. I buried the bones because I was afraid, after stealing them, that the proper owners would want them back, find me with them, and shrink my skull, leaving it as a morbid souvenir for brave tourists. Somehow I thought the ground might hide the bones like it does corpses. But these were Brazilian voodoo bones, and those tricky spirits die hard in this soulless American soil.

***

The Brazilian Voodoo Bones

Did I every tell you I buried a sack of Brazilian voodoo bones in the backyard? The pearl inlay was fake, but the magic seeped into the soil somehow. The day I did it all the grass blurred and hissed and the rose bush your aunt loved so much withered and bloomed in loop for a full week after. I buried the bones because I was afraid, after stealing them, that the proper owners would want them back, find me with them, and shrink my skull, leaving it as a morbid souvenir for brave tourists. Somehow I thought the ground might hide the bones like it does corpses. But these were Brazilian voodoo bones, remember, and those tricky spirits die hard in this soulless American soil.

Cheap Suits

It's always the cheap suits that make me the most remitted. I will find myself spending a weekend in meetings full of attractive associates, all adorned in fine-fitting forms of business-appropriate perfection. Meanwhile, I sit awkwardly wishing I'd spent more money on shoes and had better fitting pants, wishing they could see the cuffs of my shirt outside of the sleeves of my jacket. I get nervous, anxious, my stomach spinning into stabs of self doubt and I want out and away. I slip privately into a crisp fall afternoon where the sharp chill mandates another body to cuddle and keep warm. I daydream about overcast skies and low temperatures while blabbering bits of well-dress information are spilled over me. I dream of leaving to bowl alone or watch a movie, but look as if I am listening, sitting fully erect with a pretended pride in what I am wearing, in who I am. I have to. They have all the other advantages.

Tabby Cat

Did I ever tell you once, stepping onto the porch to grab the chunky Sunday edition of the morning paper, I found a murdered tabby cat hanging limp from my brass door handle? The cat's wispy white fur matted against its rust-stained skin in places, and the dangling paws wobbled hollow in the breeze. The horror and general shock of the moment stunted the easy morning, and the scene lingered, twisting in me. My eyes welled and reddened with the threat of tears for a tardy and desperate catharsis, but I remembered I didn't have a cat. The murdered tabby simply wasn't mine. I remembered I had never had a cat at that house. Nor a dog. And the morning started moving again.

Cary Grant

A manufactured charm,
genuine enough to cradle
hostage audiences over
two hour romances, soared
over the closeted real man.

But velvet rouge lips and
dandelion hair compelled you
like magnets on the screen,
laughing for Deborah Kerr
or fucking Grace Kelly.

The part in your polished hair
perfected aside the image;
a half-cocked grin relaxed
onto the boyish face of
a silly-handsome Scotsman
sitting spitefully crosslegged
in a tuxedo, your hard chin
daring the world not to be enamored.

So, as I kiss cellophane
goodbyes to Archibald Leach,
I wish that I could be you,
the ironic pounding of that
shared wish playing us to black.

A Blood Red Barn

Pa built a blood red
barn far out in the north woods
away from the house

and worked on it every night
for two and a half summers.

We watched him build up the frame,
and fill it in with cheap wood.

He did it alone,
never once asking for help
from any of us.

While he worked his eyes were mean;
we didn't ask what it was

but watched it take shape
and figured it was a barn.

When he painted it,
we knew not to go out there.

That's where he'd do the killings.

Explaining Myself

I called the dogwood,
shedding in the autumn wind,
a blizzard; she laughed.

Looking at the tree
and seeing snow again, I
tried to explain it:

"The flowers burst out
into the flustering breeze
like a tidal snow.

First, the white pedals
bound in the air, playing with
the soft, impish gusts.

Then they shower down
after the wind releases them,
painting the ground white.

The pedal dusting sticks,
fooling me into thinking
that it is winter."

After I explained,
she understood and agreed.
We laughed together.

Fingernails

My fingernails bruise and grow
In jagged summits and snarls.
But I will cut then even,
Smoothing away their threat.

In jagged summits and snarls
are wild, woolly madmen
that, too, smooth away their threats
with deceptive coats of style.

Are those wild, woolly madmen
any different than me, grooming,
with deceptive coats of style,
this archaic, ragged body?

Any difference in my grooming
now is simply a coincidence with
this archaic and ragged body;
Noticing has made me self-conscious.

Now, simply, a coincidence:
I cut them uneven.
Noticing makes me self-conscious,
but my fingernails still bruise and grow.

the arrowhead edges of a crushed aluminum
can jut-out from the sagging
sides of a white plastic trash bag,
bunched at the top with red plastic ties
tossed, tumbling wayward, into a cavernous green trashcan.

Friday Night

My stomach sings regret
as I wander around
the dorm excited
for a party
I did not want to attend.

My ride is late
and I wait
with all the
anxiousness of virginity in
an uncomfortably familiar lobby
going through the motions
of the weekend party ritual:

Friday night is a breakbeat
introduction to a club banger,
manufacturing anticipation
to heights that
will not be fulfilled in dusky
crowded rooms that swim in darkness
and sin until the kind pause
of sleep and drunk induced alzheimer's
washes them away.

As usual, the dancers will eventually
forget their steps
and we will find ourselves
in Saturday morning,
stung with the stale
sweat and wasted toil of our attempts.

But, finally, at the party,
this Friday night waits for me
in the lonely corners
of a loud room where
I smirk at blurs of girls
I'm not attracted to
but would sleep with.

This Friday night screams
for empty sex and
a dashing tongue
in the weary mouth
of the work-week.

I falter from the plan,
the party eventually
takes me and dances with me
and I unexpectedly fall
into a good time.

A woman keeps my
attention and rips away
my sanctimonious pretensions;
she is intelligent, well-spoken,
and hotter than Halle Berry.

We rock and tangle in rhythm
where I find her soft lips
on more than one occasion.

And to think I didn't
want to come.
This Friday night has tricked me,
and yet we both have won.

So, galloping, I find lifted
spirits and begin to fly
on the now sturdy wings
of the weekend, beckoning
Icarus and giggling with
my new 'friend'
about his failures.

Now, we work with rod-iron
and steel, so keep
that weak wax away
from our Friday night.

And after we recognize
that the dancers are
all tired having failed
in their doomed mission
to pen an epic encounter,

we stumble into a descending groove
in the breakdown of the song.
The pulsing beat of everything
we had wanted is gone while
the sounds slides away to Saturday,
showcasing what we have found.

but I'm no longer worried or morose.
I tell my ride to go on home
because I'm leaving with
this brand new friend
to a hyacinth house full
of pleased lions where
we can sleep until afternoon
after tumbling like burning banshees
in the pyre of unexpected weekend sex
and still say to each other "Good Morning."

Favors

I wanted to ask
the professor if
he'd stay after class
with Elizabeth.
We needed to talk,
together, about
that night, where we'd walk
to, and the amount.
I couldn't pay, but
I had kept quiet.
He owed me, above
all else, and knew it.
I made a deal with
him; she was a gift.

Where is my whiskey
glass now, broken on
the floor under me
like a country song?
Will I two-step through
the jagged pieces
with a lost woman,
no clue who she is?
I don't think I'll dance
tonight. Just clean it
up, adjust my pants,
and meander out.
I'll slump back to my
truck, dropping the night.

Not Shaving

I refused the razor today,
neglecting a shave
so I might remind myself
I am a man.

The stubble masculinity
proceeds me, announcing
my roughness and
willingness to tumble;
I'll fight and nibble
the grit and gristle there,
in my near-beard.

And as its witness,
you will recognize
the beard's wisdom,
its grizzly bear gruff
and guttural, hungry growls,
grilling themselves solid
in the grind.

The manly freedom shards,
hanging from my face
as I age and grow,
into the smoothed
skin of youth.

I refused the razor today,
neglecting a shave
so I might remind myself
I am a man.

Bed Time

My eyes ache
like dirty blankets,
smothering my face
with gently hung
scratching and wavering
surges of hush.

I am rolled
into a drifting sleep
in the soiled bed
of my dirty clothes;
upright, my mattress
is firm as a gravestone
giving the posture
of a tax man.

I feign life
in the flashing tumbles
of consciousness,
strobing between periods of
teased dreams and descending
stillness.

I rub the roughness red
into my sclera,
hoping to flip
the draining pillow
of the moment to its
shocking cold underneath.

It is no use,
I admit to myself
that I am
slumber-fodder
and drift nobly on,
defeated.

On Spoiling a Crush

flattering fascinations
were never enough
to cover the bluff
of your infatuation,

so

your crystal snow flakes
fall fragrantly to the concrete
of our reality,
shattering into shards
of smell that stab
my memory into submission.

the transmission of peace
is interrupted for another
frenzy; again i am descending.

i blow kisses to god
for protection and mute
the jagged doubts
that self-protection
spins as safety webs
ensuring the quivering
insect of inspection
is not devoured
by the black spider
of the moment;

i am in the moment.

i bluster like an oyster
snapped from its shell,
there is no peace
in this tumult-ocean
and i am waved and
raked across the coral
that circumstance has
scarred into the seabed.

let me sleep and dream
of a softer nightmare;
my attention bleeds
to scab but i am
a ruby river of next,
next,
next.

and you.
you.
you bully your
tank-framed images
into line.

and i am powerless
to retreat, to climb,
or to swim at all.

i wavier and laugh
myself into fits.
again, i am descending.

and i blame you with
the reward of my spasm.

The Failure of the Prophet

i'm nervous.

before i even jump on stage
and pretend these wooden
planks are a word of
my own creation,

i feel my stomach's treason
bubbling and knotting
all my confidence,
kinking the hose to
my pure self expression.

and all the attention
adds heat to the already
burning, smoldering pile
of chard ash that is
my artistic ambition,

i had a vision
but this spot light
has melted it.

and while i prance,
singing praises to romance,
self-discovery,
hilarity,
and the shame of being broken;

i'll lament never hitting
the quick of those
original intentions,

the burden of the applause
is the proof that
i have failed.

i never meant to entertain,
i had only wanted to educate.

as Paco de Lucia

When the strings agree
and writhe, feverishly
plucked in the torrid
tune of the moment,
I wince in the pure
pleasure of my control.

These calloused hands
strike and scratch the
medal, pushing and
pulsing across the bridge,
as graceful and sexed as
the sultry dancers listening.

I shake my head in time,
violently dotting where
the song demands skill
and I oblige; again
seamlessly, again perfect,
again wincing until

there is a breath in the
song. And beauty intrudes
where intensity has quivered.
Tears will lick my eyes,
never falling. But the sympathy
is there. My hands feel the pain.

My fingers flash-flick and finish,
the finality of the silence
haunting the room in the instant
before the applause. The journey
is done and the story told.
My hands bow. I nod humbly and smile.

Alarm World

We live in such an alarm world,
set sirens for sleep and living,
and the nature in us has died
along with the ability to feel.

We stoically rustle against set budgets
of time and money and people, pacing
through memorized steps, dancing nowhere,
and stick parasitically to the lame rhythm.

We slouch and cough and die, all
in the same cycle set synchronised
with digital faces and micro-divisions,
draining away that inherent god in us.

We live in such an alarm world,
buzzed to birth then work then death,
wallowing in the set contentions of
this rigid and worn waking-day world.

Freshman

Our freshman year we would wake up together, pushing each other out of sleep and bed, and stumble to la clase de espanol, hardly on time and in our stale pajamas. We would find lunch after, doing the homework while eating, then crawl back to her bed with our stomachs full and, smothered in jersey sheets and feather pillows, sweating onto each other's chest, would fuck well into the afternoon, falling asleep until dinner and our late astronomy lab. These were our Tuesdays.

"you should go

down the street
to mr. reed and
find his cane
again.

find his cane
so he can stand
his drunk ass up
and try to walk.
take him to the
station so he
can buy himself
a beer. find his
cane and if he
needs a dollar
for a beer give
him a dollar.
don't say nothing.

go down the street
and help mr. reed.
find his cane
again."

Why We Should Leave

Now there is nothing here for us.

There was once kings and queens for
us. Smiles on trees for
us. Notes and kisses for
us. Hands and winks for
us. Candy and films for
us. Books and poems for
us. Nights and nights for
us. Sweat and moans for
us. Gifts and words for
us. Hours and wails for
us. Fights and grins for
us. Frowns and blood for
us. Scowls and crowns for
us. Winks and drinks for
us. Drunks and drugs for
us. Knives and hugs for
us. But the feisty angles have left
us, and this shallow, empty void becomes
us, and we need something. Anything.
But now there is nothing here for us.

Now there is nothing here for us.

if i could sing

i wish i could sing.
i would sing constantly,
i would not stop spinning
in my whirl-wind cocoon of tune,
infinity provided in my perfect pitch.

i would never stop singing.
in every breath would beat a new note, and
in every breath would unfurl a new melody, and
instantly: infinity in my perfect pitch.

i will never stop singing.
i will become a cocooned chorus, a constant gospel,
in every breath a whirling sonnet sung
infinitely melodic and note-perfect in orgasmic pitch.

i would make my name a song.

If You Want to Run

If you want to run I'll buy a gun and learn all of your favorite songs. I'll wear an old western shirt, find my boots and my jeans, and we'll jump in my El Camino and find a desert road to drive down until we both choke on the idea of our deaths while finding nature and whatever reason there maybe for us to be here anyway.

The
spinning cannon-ball
rapture that
has become my idenity
is hilarious
these
days.

Zip through the registry with me
and mark only expensive gifts.
Let them guess at what we wanted,
stranded, pondering frailly
over expensive guitars or dvds,
wondering why any new families
would at all need these things.

It would be our joke.
Our own little prank.

Hair Dreams

I'm waiting for 1:00 AM
so I may fall asleep
and dream again that

I have sturdily grown hair
in dowdy strands of grainy
blonde, thick and bristled
around my face,
like a Missouri youth.

I will worry in these dreams
with my hair about what
distresses I might flounder in,
saving the waking-day for
lighter matings, but so
frantically consumed by
broken lyre strings while
I sleep that I hardly notice
the trouble.

Heavenly Piece

so i'm reading Newman,
an old Tractarian,
and he loves God
and has given himself
to the glory of Christ,
and that's fine

but he advocates
celibacy as holy
and those who enjoy
the flesh as somehow
evil, or marked with
the spot of the devil.

i will not be considered
evil because i have sex,
evil because i like sex,
evil because i want sex.

mr. Newman may be in Heaven
enjoying the company of
his distant, lonely God,

but my lord, or force, or power
will embrace me fully
and take me inside,
feeding me into the universe
as we both shake and rattle
to warm jazz and swirl
nonsensically together
like flavored milks mixing.

we will clamour romantic,
erupt robust,
intertwine holy,
and all the evil sex before
will make sense as
the practice for this moment,
this introduction to GOD
and accession to my rightful
place in the confused body
of the eternal and never ending.

and we will never stop this:
our limitless, beautiful tumult,
because Heaven is sex
on a different level

and I'll not let
the confused virgin corpse
of a Tractarian poet
tell me any different.

Flocks of leaves
drift morose in
the gray slits of sky
under the umbrage of trees
we might devour
under our breath.

We breathe the sky these days.

Sorry

I think too loud
and too fast
and come to conclusions in this
frantic freight-train way,
and worried,
want to share how my world

has crumbled

because of my flimsy discoveries.
I'll throw them at you
because that's what I do,

hoping a piece of a discursive musing
will stick with you
and remind you
that I, too,
can be beautiful,

but I'll leave with only
your jagged smirks
and quizzical eyes;

your face drowning
in a glaze,
telling me that
I should have saved
myself the trouble.

Your Rebuttal

my face is gone
from the photos,
scratched away

so there is only you;
your crescent eyes,
your melon-slice smiles,

still there after
i have been erased.

What I Wrote in Philosophy Class Today

I'll change hands
to the metal pair,
so that they'll creak
with their rusted gears
And you'll not
want me to touch you
again.

---

Stand fast...my friend
we'll break...on in.
This time...we'll win.
Patience...Again!

You won't take us back alive
You can't take us back alive

We're fine...I guess.
New cross,...old chest.
New scars...this time.
I'mso glad...you're mine!

---

If I hold
you, don't cry.
I want you
to be happy
with me.

If I hold
you, love me.
I want you
to hear my heart
alive in me.

Horatio; A Response.

He was always
a crunch-corpse,
piled on the sill,
wobbling in the breeze.

He was always
a friend to us,
never buzzing and
never stinging,
never really a threat
at all; he loved us.

Or, rather,
he lived with us.

If there's even
a difference.

The Glue of Dogs

Your daschund is a horse.
Your daschund should be made into glue when it dies:
sleek-look, smooth-coat glue
that whimper-barks on papers,
sweepingly soft rather than sticky;
that avoids the stiff wet-smell while drying,
inedible with a garbage-mouth taste.
That dog-glue would look loud on a page.
Elmer would shake in his New York boots,
but your dog is not a horse.
Your daschund could be a glue-horse though, a glue-dog,
if those janky, short legs should ever break.
Its patter-steps halted by a snap, then art on a page.
“Cats are just smarted than dogs.” – But they make poor glue.
The glue of dogs is loyal and fast drying. Perfect for Man.
The glue-dogs are more precious and immortal in our projects,
with dog-glue I would make a thousand Picaso-esq collages,
and Cory would see them in a gallery and know
the glue-dogs will serve a purpose. They will exists still.
These cohesive canines deserve what horses get!
Dogs would make glue more beautiful than horses ever could!
Los perros harían el pegamento más hermoso!
We love them living, they beg us to love them dead, to use them dead:
thousands of old pets, sticking together, still loved and used!
Yes!
Your daschund should be made into glue when it dies!

I realized that
after cutting my
hair short,
shaving it down
with clippers
like a soldier,

that I would rub
the soft stubble-fuzz
on my head
whenever I was
thinking or
dreaming or
feeling.

Little brother,
when I think of you
I rub my head, and

in a world of
'gone away,'
you will always be
my best friend.

A Bad Poem About the Past and Nerves

We were nervous
watching the teacher tell
our parents about us
in class; we watched
through the door
from the safe, sterile hall.

Were we well behaved,
and what would they say
about our grades, and
did we pay enough attention?

Were we right enough,
had we known enough
of the right answers to
show that we had read
and that we had studied?

I get nervous now
when I hear yelling
or crying, especially women,
and I don't remember much
of school or childhood.
I don't remember much
of anything then.

15 Minutes, 10/9

(a twenty something male sits in a room reading a book taking notes. another twenty something enters excitedly. they are friends.)

I've got it!

I'm fine, thanks for asking. How are you today?

What?

Nothing. What are you so excited about?

Just that I've finally got it. I've figured it out.

And what is it that you've figured out.

I know what women want!

I doubt that with every fiber of my being, but I'll bite. What do women want.

Well, no. There's a whole story thing. But I know now!

Okay, okay. What it is?

(the excited one stars to pace.)

Okay, so I'm walking around campus today, right?

Yeah?

And I come up on this skinny, lanky hipster kid. But he's not your run of the mill hipster kid. He's wearing some early nineties bicycle hat and has on these damn-near elbow length bicycle gloves. I should also point out he was on, or, rather, straddling his vintage looking bike.

A bicycle hipster?

Yes!

Okay?

No, but he was talking to a hipster chick! She had on the skinny jeans, the flats, the whole deal, right? But I could tell by the way that they were talking that this bicycle-hipster guy was into this girl, like he wanted her and whatnot.

Right.

Right. But he's got this weird timid thing going on. It's like he's playing shy or aloof so she'll notice him more or something.

Like ignoring her?

Not exactly, but making her push the action. And then it hit me.

What women want?

Yes! And it's not that. This bicycle hipster guy is obviously into this girl. Like, they're friends or whatever now, but you can just tell the way a guy will talk to a girl what he's thinking about. But he wasn't doing anything with that.

Just sort of languidly chatting it up?

Right! Man, that is not how anything happens. The funny part was that she was obviously into him as well. I mean, you can just see these things. But nothing was happening. They should have been setting up a date, or holding hands, or...shit I don't know, making out or something. But nothing was happening.

I follow...

So you can't just sit back with ladies. I've been doing that my whole life. I've got the cute, playful act down. I've got the patent. But there has to be a follow up. With girls I'm always worried about coming on too strong and seeming like an ass.

Isn't there a middle ground?

Yes! There is! And it's so obvious. You can let a girl know you're into her, sort of drive the action, without being a forward crazy jerk. You can still be playful and cutesy...

Thank God

...without just letting all this potential sit there. There is nothing wrong letting a girl know you're into her want want to get to know her better; physically, mentally, or whatever. People like that. I like that. You have to show interest. Or it goes no where.

And women want this?

Well they want action. Everyone wants action, but if a guy acts he's got something of an advantage I think. And without action, I mean, no one is getting laid.

And that's no good.

(the excited one sits down. he is tired from being so animated.)

Not at all. I'm just glad I've realized this before it was too late, you know? I could have been married by know. I think normal girls, the really worthwhile people even, are going to be a little timid.

No, no. I agree. Forward girls, at least in my humble experience, tend to be a little insane. Lots of fun, but lots of crazy.

Now that I've got the plan, man, all I've got to do is put it in action.

Who's your first target.

Target's a harsh word, I don't intend to shoot anybody. But, since you asked, it's Jamie. I think I'll talk to her.

Nice choice. Godspeed. Now, if you'll excuse me I must get back to my Malcolm X paper.

Well I will leave you too it. I gots a lady to talk to

(the excited one stands up and walks out of the room. the one with the paper raises his fist and calls after.)

Fight the power!

Liprings

I don't like liprings.

I've been dazzled by the expert way
that eyebrowrings glare off shining faces
and bounce down to the eyes to substantiate
in even the longest of stares and blankest
self aware beauty into a warm capture-look.

But I don't like liprings.

I've been turned-on by the way
belly-bottonrings dangle or shine
their majesty unto torsos, highlighting
the pure sex in the center of gravity,
damning my attention to lusty intention.

But I don't like liprings

I've seen the husk of protesters
turned glamours artist by a nosering,
adding senseless class and old nobility,
Weighting a face-line posture with sparkle
and shamelessly becoming a fetish.

But I don't like liprings.
There's something unbecoming
about kissing a piece of tackle.

15 Minutes, 9/7

(a man in his mid-thirties enters a living room where a teen in watching t.v.)

Did you find a date yet?

What? What do you mean?

Eve told me. Did you find someone to go with yet?

What exactly did Aunt Eve tell you?

She told me about the prom. You really ought to go. It might seem silly now, but as the years wear on these things get more important. You think about them, you know?

No. Why would she tell you?

Look, it’s fine. Don’t worry about Eve. Get a date.

Damn it, Uncle Tarver. This always happens. Let me just do this my way.

First off, watch your mouth. Second, no.

No what?

I don’t like your way. Your way’s no fun. Go find a date and go to your senior prom.

Please, could just leave me alone. Just this once. I don’t want to go to prom. Really. It’s stupid. I don’t like the music, I don’t like to dance, I don’t really like the people I go to school with so I really just don’t want to go.

You just can’t find a date, can you?

Tarver, please!

What? I was ugly AND unpopular in high school. I still managed to snag a date to both junior and senior prom though. I even got laid.

Should I clap? What do you want from me? This isn’t a big deal. Just stay out.

Look, you can’t fool me. If you were that pissed you would have ran off to your room by now. You’re still here pretended to be angry at me, though, so it’s obvious you want my advice with the ladies. That’s fine. Your Aunt Eve is a beautiful lady that I happened to trick into loving me. I have the secrets, big guy.

(the teen turns off the t.v. and fully addresses the man.)

Would you like me to leave? Would that send the right message? I could go slam my door and yell or something, but I thought I would try to present myself as calm and serious, but that doesn’t work with you. I’m not going to prom, okay? That’s that.

That’s that. Okay.

(the teen turns the t.v back on. The man waits a moment before continuing.)

Hey, whose that cute girl with the short hair your bring over here? Ask her.

Elizabeth? She’s my friend, like one of my best. I’m not going to ask her to go to a stupid dance that she probably thinks the same about as I do.

Fine. Yeah, you’re probably right. What do I know? You know…yeah. Proms are sort of silly. You just dress up to dance and have a good time. I mean, nobody likes looking good and creating memories. And who would even want to go to a stupid after-party, because who honestly stays at the dance the whole time? And really, who wouldn’t want to be let off the hook from their curfew for a night because of a special occasion that a certain uncle finds vital to a young person’s life. I mean, really? YOU. ARE. STUPID.

Damn it, Uncle Tarver.

(the teen storms to his feet and out of the room)

Where are you taking that sailor’s mouth to?

(leaving, the teen answers.)

I’m getting the phone.

(the man answers to himself, smiling.)

God damn right you are.

The Mercenaries

We clutch plastic guns,
belly-crawling on beige carpet
draped in our father's flannel,
with underwear on our heads.

Invisible villains are killed
as we whisper through the enemy lines
invading the kitchen cabinets.
Later, we capture the laundry room.

The mission is accomplished;
we belly-crawl down the hall.
Passing Tiffany's bedroom,
we reach homebase.

We reload our weapons,
sharing the orange darts.
We agree on new emergencies
with underwear on our heads.

The Things I Remember from the Dreams Where I Die

The faint taste of oranges whisper-hushes its way into conversations; I fail to realize the problems with this. Forgive the weakness of my concentration.

You. You are always there. You have a trip-wire tongue and will never kiss me. I've tried to save you many times; rarely am I successful.

The melting kelly green of hyper grass that grows only where I cannot imagine concrete.

A tall, elderly man who is my grandfather, but is nameless and so frighteningly vague.

The empty sense of nobility in self-destruction drapes itself around my shoulders.

Falling for dangerous lengths of time is typical.

Tears. Genuine tears without hyperventilation; just loss. Always loss.

And that ironic waking satisfaction.

15 minutes, 9/1 (2)

(two men in their early twenties are in a car driving to a theatre to catch a movie. they are close friends.)

What time does the movie start, again?

9:30. But I want to be there by 9.

No, totally. I hate missing the previews.

Thank you! Christ, it is so annoying when people can't get to a movie on time. Let alone when they drag me into what ever evil plan they have for settling their blood-lust for being late.

You know, I don't even like to miss the fun little trivia slides. There are all so outdated, but it's still fun. That, and all of the advertisements are hilarious. God, that dentist one is too funny. The apple's teeth in that cartoon are way too damn huge.

Yeah, no fruit should have teeth that big.

Or teeth at all, but I'm willing to digress for a good time.

You know you always made me late to movies?

Oh God. Don't say it, please.

What?

I know where this is going, and I'm going to just delete it now before it even gets out into the world.

Okay, grand poo bah, what was I going to say?

You were going to mention, for what would undoubtedly be marked as the near-infinite time, how Vera would make you late to movies.

So?

So? So? It's played out my friend. You guys broke up three months ago. I think the time for peppering you friends with bitter remember-rants has long since passed there.

So I can't make a relevant comment about the conversation we're having. Thank you for editing my speaking habits, I've been meaning to have less control over my motor functions lately.

Suck my cock. I just don't want to hear about Vera. And it's because I'm a good friend.

You ask me for oral sex because you're a good friend, too?

I see how pissed thinking about her makes you. And since you can't call her up and brake up with her again, there really is no reason to bring her up at all. It sucks for me to hear about it, and it sucks for you to think about, so just don't bring it up.

Shit still bothers me, though.

Why? Just let it go. She is out of the picture.

Not entirely.

What do you mean? I thought you guys were done-zo?

Were are, she's just not out of the picture.

Explain to me this picture, because with as much as you complain about Our Lady V, it could be an interesting portrait.

I mean I still see her around. She's friends with all of my friends. She unavoidable.

Okay.

Okay. And we talk sometimes.

Okay. And?

And what? I'm trying to be friendly. There's nothing wrong with that.

You guys are sleeping together aren't you?

What?

You're sleeping with her again, right?

We're not together or anything.

But you are having sex.

Perchance.

Hell, man. You are a walking contradiction.

How so, Mr. Moral High Ground?

Please. It's not like there's anything inherently wrong with what you're doing. You're just a dumb ass for doing it and you know why.

Enlighten me.

Because you hated that relationship. I like sex as much as the next guy, but I'm not an emo whiny ass like you. I can see it now. You're going to mistake all the wonderful sex with your ex as this crazy idea that things might work out again. You're an idiot and you're torturing yourself.

What makes you think it wouldn't work out?

It had a shot. A long one if I remember right. And you complained your way through that. Do yourself a favor and stop living in your fantasy world where revisiting old flames will somehow develop into this ridiculous fairytale that you somehow passed over the first time.

People change.

Not likely.

15 minutes, 9/1

(two older teens are in a bedroom staring at an open lap-top at a desk. a boy is sitting in the desk's chair while a girl looks over his shoulder.)

No, this is stupid. I can't make her spin clockwise, damn it.

Calm down. Just move something in front of the screen.

(she waves her hand in front of the screen.)

See, clockwise. Okay....okay, yeah she just switched back to counter-clockwise.

I can't. She won't change for me. I can't believe I can't make the ballerina spin the other way.

Maybe you just have to relax your eyes, like one of those hidden picture dealies.

Is that what you're doing?

No, not really. I'm just sort of telling my brain to switch her around.

Why can't I do that?

Why are you so worried about how the ballerina is spinning?

It's a test thing. A right brain vs. left brain test. If you see the ballerina spinning counter-clockwise then you're left brain, and if she spins clockwise then you're right brain.

What if you see her doing both?

I can't get her to switch. I'm left brained. This is not right.

Why are you worried about the side of your brain? Just go with the flow.

No, see, it's not like that. I'm left brained, but left brainers completely go against who I am.

Like an enemy sort of thing? Oh no!

No, I'm serious. Here, right here. It says that left brained people are more logic oriented, can see the details, focused.

Those are nice.

Yeah, but the right brained people are described as feeling, emotional, creative, big-picture oriented. I always saw myself as a right brain person.

I guess that makes me a centrist. Well, buck up. It's not the end of the world. Not yet, anywho, that's 2012.

Why can't I make her spin...

Just relax. All you have to do is change your life plans. Listen, just stop writing poetry, stop drawing those cartoons you do, and just pick up engineering and statistics. This way you can actually have a fulfilling career that does something for society AND will pay you a decent wage. Win-win, homeboy.

That's horrifying.

(he closes the computer and leaves the computer desk.)

I mean, I know what I'm into. I'm creative. Artistic. Right?

Sure.

I can be an artsy type. That's who I am. That's who I've always been.

That's the spirit, tiger.

Besides, no I think I'm right here. That's just one test.

It WAS on a news site. A BRITISH news site. They are pretty prim and proper with their reporting.

Yeah, but millions of people probably did the same test. And who knows whether or not it's even accurate? It's the Internet, after all.

Yeah, but the Internet is pretty much the one collected spot for all of human knowledge and experience.

Oh, God. I'm really not meant to be an artist am I?

I have the feeling this is about more than just the ballerina.

My mom is thinking about sending me to State.

But she said you could go to the institute. I thought that was a done deal?

It was, I thought.

But State has NO creative writing program. Like, at all. And why wouldn't she send you to Tech? It's right there. Tech even has a respectable English department, and I say that unbiasedly though proudly of my future Alma-mater.

I don't know. I was excited. Everything was good. The Institute was here, you'd be at Tech, we could still hang out. I could stay at home. I don't know what happened. I think it has something to do with "life experience" or something. She's putting me into a dorm.

That, all respect to your mother, is bullshit. You don't need a different area code or zip code for 'life experience.' You already got into the Institute, right? Just go. That's all you've been talking about since, literally, sixth grade.

I can't do that to her. She's my mom. And she's paying for it. I, honestly, have no leverage.

But you can talk to her for Christ sakes. This was your thing.

I know. I know. I don't know what's going on any more. Everything is dying.

15 minutes, 8/31

(two men are in an old pick-up truck driving down a south Texas highway in the haze of the afternoon heat. Big Buck wears old jeans, beat-up brown and black cowboy boots, a worn out cowboy hat, and a red pearl-snap shirt. Dave wears a black t-shirt, khaki shorts, a green poker visor, old white Vans canvas shoes, high-top socks, and big aviator shades. Buck has a week's stubble and is heavy set, but not overweight. Dave is clean shaven, skinny, and smoking a cigar. Buck is driving.)

So tell me Buck, in lou of having no radio in this tank, how long have you lived in the myriad heat of this listless desert?

Whole life. I like it. It's nice.

Nice? There is nothing here to trust! Just sand and sparse weeds. It's wild man, and I don't know how you stand it.

I do alright. It calms you down. Where did you say you were from, anyway?

Me? Oh, Buck. You know, it's funny you should ask. I'm from a beautiful place with trees and grass. Plenty to trust up there, and the strangest part is where I'm from, we actually have seasons!

Alright, where is it?

Missouri! Cheers.

(Dave grabs under his seat, pulls out a fifth of wild turkey and takes a swig before putting it back.)

Missouri is my home, the land that I love, and what not. Now, don't get me wrong, Texas is dandy and fine. Fine and dandy. An alright vibe for a visit or quick job like so...

Right.

...but it is no place for weirdness. Not my type of weirdness There really are no safety nets out here, man. A man like me, I need as many nets as I can get. You never know what trouble will follow you, stalk you, or hunt you down. Especially when you're flirting with trouble. You need nets. Buck, as I hope you can tell, I am not in the circus. I will impress no one performing without nets. Do you sort of get what I'm saying?

I suppose. I would guess you're just a little high-strung though.

What do you mean, good sir?

Well, down here, trouble ain't no different then it would be in, say, a place like Missouri. It's just the setting is different. There are different rules to how you have to handle yourself.

What do you mean by different rules?

I mean, you...well, it's like this: You seem worried. And seeing as how on this particular errand we're running we're saddled up as partners, that's grating on my nerves a bit.

Look man, I'm cool. I didn't mean I'm not cool. I'm fine for what we're doing here.

Ok, but listen. You're jumpy. That's no good. You might be able to be jumpy and, shit, what do the Jews call it...neurotic? You might be able to pull off neurotic up in Missouri with those St. Louey gang bangers. But down here, it's not like that.

How is it down here, Buck?

It's Hell. The Mexicans don't give two shits either way. The cops are in on everything and hate everyone. It's hotter than the devil's nut sack which drives all the outsiders batshit, no offense...

None taken.

...but everyone tries to stay cool. If the Mexicans are cool, which I would say they got a natural, tough coolness to them anyway, then the cops can stay cool, and if the cops are cool, and the Mexicans are cool, well then we gotta be cool or someone's gonna want us real dead real quick just for not being cool. So you're either cool because you love Texas, or you're cool because you don't want to get shot in the face.

I don't want to get shot in the face, Buck.

(Buck pulls a .357 magnum from under his chair)

Then please cool the hell out, stop your weird shit-talking, and listen to the sounds of the road because you're grating on my nerves, alight fella?

Yeah, sure, yeah, that is...uh, yes, not a problem.

Alright then. No offense.

None taken.

(He keeps the gun on Dave for a moment then puts it back)

Where the hell did Boss Acuna find you anyway. I usually run with a tough looking mean Mexican sum bitch who doesn't know English and can't piss me off for talking anyway.

Well, I met him in Houston, I think he...

I didn't mean that to have an answer.

Oh rhetorical, ok I get it. Sorry.

(Dave is obviously nervous and complacent. He stares out the window still smoking his cigar)

We need gas. The next station I gotta top off. I don't know how many more we're gonna see. Hopefully there's one around here.

(Dave looks up to see if Buck was talking to him, Bucks eyes are on the road. Dave keeps his eyes out his window.)

(time passes. they continue on.)

(Eventually they pull up to an old gas station)

Hey there spaceman, wake up. I'm gonna go pay for this and take a piss. You pump it. You want something from inside.

No, I believe I'll be fine.

Suit yourself.

(Buck walks into the station where there in an attendant at the register. He is an elderly, but alter man.)

Howdy there, how can I help you?

Howdy. I'm just getting some gas on, looks like pump three. Do y'all have a pisser?

Yessir, right around back.

Cool beans. Say, real quick, you seen any trucks come through here lately? Any big rigs, I mean, for that chain of Aucna Mexican restaurants?

Naw, can't say I see any stop by. Maybe one's passed by, but I don't recall. Mind me asking why?

Nothing important, I'm just following one a bit. A friend of mine is driving. Anyway, pisser?

Right back yonder.

Thank you kindly.

(back outside Dave is filling the tank and leaning against the door of the truck. he is thinking aloud.)

Yep. Yep. Time to get weird.

(Dave opens the door of the truck and pulls out a long bag and an expensive suit case. He sets the suitcase down with care just behind the truck and starts riffling through the long bag)

(Buck exits the bathroom, pays the attendant and starts to head back outside)

What the hell are you doing.

(Dave pops out from behind the truck with a shotgun)

Rocking

(BANG.)

And Rolling.

(BANG.)

(Buck is dead. Dave casual walks into the station holding the gun open like bird hunter walking with gun safety in mind.)

Excuse, old timer, open the register, please.

What the hell is this?

Wrong answer.

(He lifts the gun. BANG.)

Time to build a net.

(Dave takes his time messing with the register but fails to open hit. BANG. The shot opens the register.)

Bingo was his name-o.

(Dave fills his pockets with a surprising amount of cash and then spends time choosing a bag of chips and a tall can of beer, which he bags himself. He casually walks out of the station and sets his snacks in the truck. He loads the long bag into the truck and then the expensive suit case. He pats his pockets, missing something thing)

Keys.

(Dave takes the keys off of Buck and heads back down the highway in the opposite direction singing "On The Road Again" at the top of his lungs.)

(the gas station is still and bloody.)

15 minutes, 8/30

(two college students, one boy and one girl. America average with a hint of passively-hip defiance. they are in the hall of a dorm building.)

No, you're right. She's usually wrong. At least with names.

But my name is easy.

Jodie?

What?

(beat. eye contact.)

Do you want to come watch t.v. with me?

I don't usually watch much t.v. Sure.

(they start walking to his room)

But she knows what she's talking about.

Professor Croner?

Physics, yeah. You're just ambiguous with her for a while.

That's not bad. I hope.

What else are you taking?

Philosophy 101 with Majors, some sort of science class. Spanish I think. Two intro literary surveys.

You're an English major.

Yes.

You should take Waters. Or McCasey. And Steve...Steve...what was Steve's last name?

You'll have to get back to me on that.

Steve....Steve...I'll have to get back to you on that.

(they reach the room. they stop at the door.)

So have you ever sat on a fufa?

No. What's that?

It's a giant bean bag but instead of beans it's filled with memory foam. NASA invented it.

So it's a memory foam bag?

No. It's a fufa.

(he opens the door. they walk in. he closes the door. they stop.)

Jodie?

Yeah?

(they start kissing. they kiss toward the fufa. they kiss their way onto the fufa, awkwardly. they stop.)

You taste like cigarettes.

Fufas are comfortable. Do you think I'm pretty?

You write poetry.

I do.

(they start kissing. they stop.)

Do you want to read my poems?

Of course. Now?

(they start kissing. his phone vibrates in his pocket)

That feels...good.

I should answer this.

(beat. eye contact.)

Never mind.

(they keep kissing. it keeps vibrating)

No, I have to answer this.

Yes.

Hello? Hey sis.

(he covers the phone. to Jodie:)

It's my sister.

Good.

(back to the phone:)

Hi. How is everything. Okay. When did you get out of the hospital? Oh. Well. When did he get out of the hospital. Good, that's great. Congratulations. Of course. No. No, champagne is always funny. Yeah. Yeah, right. Not for him. Okay. Well, thank you. No, no. It's fine; I don't smoke. No, that was Howard. I wish he would too. Okay. Okay. Well, indeed and back to you. I love you. Bye.

(he hangs up. beat. back to Jodie:)

I completely forgot she was pregnant.

What's her name?

It was a boy.

Your sister?

She had a boy. Her name is Catherine.

What's the baby's name.

It's a boy. His name is Peter. I'm an uncle.

You sound worried.

More confused.

Things happen for a reason.

Do you like Thai food?

No. Curry is good.

Right.

(they start kissing)

15 minutes, 8/29

(two young men outside of a garage converted into a one-room apartment. they're at the beach and dressed like hip kids with a dash of beach style. they are not oppressively cool)

So when do you think they'll stop?

€I don't know. Do you want to take a walk?

Maybe after we eat. I think a walk would be nice after we eat. The weather's nice.

€Yeah.

Should we go in now?

€I don't hear anything.

Buy the ticket, take the ride.

(they enter. there is a couple in the one room apartment)

You guys hungry?

$Yeah, sure. Where did you guys want to eat?

€Chris said Italian sounded good.

Yeah, I'd like pizza. Pizza has been sounding great lately.

$That's fine. We can do Italian. Sara, is that fine with you?

@Whatever.

$But which place though? Felini's or Cafe Fresco?

@I'm not that hungry.

$But you could eat. We're going to eat, are you coming with us?

@I don't know. I guess. Whatever.

$Sara, we have guests. Chris and Paul are our guests. They want to eat.

@That's fine. Okay. Whatever. Where are we going then?

$Do you want to go to Felini's?

@That's fine.

$I thought you said you didn't like their crust.

@Honestly, John, it's fine. I don't care. Let's just go.

(she storms up, grabs her purse and shoes)

Alright then. Pizza time.

€Felini makes me think of cats.

Italian sausage is Italian for cat.

$That's stupid.

And yet still so sickly true.

€Do you think Felini is a man or a woman?

@Can we go?

$We're coming. Calm down. Do you have my keys?

@No, I don't have your keys. What did you do with them, I thought they were on the counter the last time I saw them.

$What?

@On the counter, your keys are on the counter. Let's please go.

(she leads the pack out the door. Chris and Paul lag a little behind just outside the door. John and Sara argue muted to the Neon in the driveway)

€What are the odds of this being this uncomfortable the entire time we're at the beach?

Why are they so pissy? I thought they were okay now?

€They were fine the last time I was down here.

A few months ago?

€Yeah. It was all rainbows and assholes. Not this passive aggressive hell.

Did they breakup? Is that why she left?

€I don't know, it's weird. She had to go back and see her family or something. I guess living together just did what it does. Their relationship didn't help.

What do you mean?

€I mean the whole open thing. They're all against these gender roles or defining their relationship in conventional terms I guess. Technically they were never together how you would call it. Now, they told each other they loved each other and had plenty of sex...

Naturally.

€...but they never considered themselves a couple. No boyfriend/girlfriend thing.

He seemed really excited about that at first. It sounded shady to me.

€Yeah, I told him it was a recipe for weird, but he thought it was great. I guess when they started driving each other crazy this summer things just went to hell. It's not like they developed a real support system to handle the hard patches of a relationship.

That's a shame, you know?

€It really is.

Well, I'm going to enjoy this pizza, this fine beach air, and make John take us to the beach tonight because I want to have a good time.

€Oh yeah, the beach sounds amazing. I want to get in the water, I was thinking about that earlier.

Definitely. Pizza and swimming should be amazing. I can't believe how good it feels out here.

€It's hot, but it's a good hot.

Totally. Have they made it into the car yet or are they still trying to out piss each other?

€Well, I suppose since no one seems to wonder why we're not in the Neon yet that they're still pissing.

Let's just stone both of them and end their misery. Our misery. Whatever. I just want a tan and some damn pizza.

Oh Lady

Oh lady,
you can’t justify
the ever growing morose
stains on those satin lips
you lie and call
your own
any longer.

Why had the boys
all over called themselves
criers at your feet
if there had not been
something there
for them to want?

And only now
you bay at a moon
you feel you deserve
and you let your toes curl
like fancy hair cuts.

Smile for me then,
and laugh a little louder,
scream a hyena-chuckle for me,
because I’ve let go.

I had thought
I would let you drown
in a pool of my regrettable
victories, but I see now
you’re filed in a deeper drawer.

Somewhere closer to a heartstring,
once plucked;
forever resonate.

And happy.

Miserable Youth

At times,
I forget about the languid charm
In your inbred breath
When we would entangle
And talk about how we might
Glorify the certain mundane
Of our futures.

Your hopeless dreams,
While romantic,
Were a silky wine
Drugging me into believing
What I might accomplish,
And I helped to spin
What we knew where looming lies
While we coddled in jersey
Or satin sheets.

We were roustabouts,
Stinking of bad sex,
But with scrap-iron stomachs
And a masochistic flare
For dangling unpromised boons
Upon ourselves and knowing,
Just knowing,
How the cosmos would bend
To our steely provocations.

We sealed ever prayer
In sweat drenched kisses
And posted every corner
With the riches
Of our miserable youth.

Wither-Sheets

You bleed pneumonic blood
on the stale wither-sheets
of old verses that your grandparents
would read you to sleep with.

The feather edges of the works,
stained in your stoic gripes,
now flounder amidst
the wrangled yards of your childhood,
failing and draining
like dying, yellow grass.

Your machine-smile
slowly devours the romance
while your eyes engineer through
long-since memorized fantasies
that were left to crumble
in the fetid hope of
‘grown-up,’ ‘professional,’ and ‘mature.’

Something Bluesy

Throw it all away for me
Follow through this time
Throw it all away for me
Let me know you’re mine.

I have to keep on the road
You could always fallow
I have to keep down the road
We could live moving without a home.

Throw it all away for me
Love me into the night
Throw it all away for me
Love me through the spite.

I have to keep on the road
But you’re the best damn thing I have know
I have to keep down the road
We could live moving without a home.

Throw it all away for me
Give up them other boys
Throw it all away for me
They were all just toys

I have to keep on the road
I have to keep a clean nose
I have got to keep down the road
But around you, I am home.

Throw it all away for me
I know what you need
Throw it all away for me
I can heal your heart when it bleeds.

Summer

Summer
smells like gasoline
And
forgotten opportunities.
It’s full
of orangish dusks
And
burnt pink mornings,
Concrete cracking heat
And
cooler midnight mournings.
It drains and sours
Slowly
melting with rashes,
But
it lazily lunges
into Fall
With romance,
sweat,
and
passion.

Soft Ladies

The soft ladies refuse to learn
that animals and infants
don’t fucking speak English
and that prodding them actionlessly
will accomplish nothing.

The soft ladies,
somewhere inside of their meaning-well
but decaying minds know this,
and are only really talking
to passerbys hoping that they
will take action in the face
of their failures.

This is why they talk
to animals and infants,
uselessly trying
to force them into
some desired action.

Ledge

The man is ruined.
His wrinkled
brow cowers with undeserved life
in the rainfall of his waning years.
Like a stoic philosopher’s bust
he looks on listlessly
with a pupil-less pride
from a deep milky resolve
into the ghost pastures
where children could scream
youthfully with mouthfuls
of cornelian games alongside
rabbits and royalty.
But those children are coiled now,
swimming as pearls cast by St. Patrick,
and nothing is left to fold delicately
into the old man,
now left with only
the barbs of swollen memories,
sullied by their novel, inflated looming.

Vows

I will tie your corset,
I will bite your neck.
I will whisper in your ears
While I devour your regrets.

I will kiss your eyes,
I will hold your hand.
I will find a breeze to blow
While you wallow in the sands.

I will mix your drinks,
I will make you smile.
I will hold you in the night
While the days die to beguile.

Spaceship

Your mother is a spaceship,
With phoenix eyes and cattail wings,
Propelled by the love of level rocket fuel
That stutters her shyly forward
Into the whirling tadpole galaxy,
Into the infinity of Lake Universe,
And the nothing-waves in-between.

Three Small Pieces

I will watch you write
Insomnia-inspired love songs
And review your words
With wounded eyes,
Trying my best to
Disbelieve and judge you.

---

The choke-chalk of grinding teeth
Wakes me from panic-dreams
In pools of nightsweats,
Reminding me of my frantic pace
In this disturbing dependence
On all things ethereally,
Uncomfortably you.

---

A cornbread smile and overall bibs
Rim picture frames filled
With Friday afternoon memories
And summer evening breeze-breaths.
Your watermelon hair
And friend chicken cheeks
Glisten with youth-grease
And I charcoal sear you into me
In that glazed perfection,
Contained and remembered
As you are and were:
Never fully cosmic,
But rurally beautiful.

Showdown

I scraped my chapped fingernails
Along my tumbleweed stubble jaw
In the iron sun’s breathy haze.

Feeling for my ghost-guns,
I was waiting for Saul,
Trusting a switchblade
I shouldn’t know how to use.

The Texas sting-heat is a rattlesnake
And turns men into epics,
Drying their roots into dust
And clotting them, finally, into ash.

Violence

Snazzy shiner-nosed suits
Spray Thompson spray
Into bricked-eyed bullies
On Valentines Day.

Shinny baton machetes
Twirl glimmer-glare in the sun
Hacking scab frowning gashes
Not wasting single slugs.

Dog

I am a dog.
Head hung
With
Constant
Embarrassment.

I am a dog
Licking your
Hand meekly,
And you jerk
Away
Just to slap
My cold,
Wet nose
Again.

Fire

When the taco truck's tires were burning I had wanted to cry. Smothered in stacks of smoke they tell you to crawl on the floor AWAY from the heat. We couldn't deadpan after the yellow body suits because our tongues stuck to the ribs on the roofs of our mouths. I wanted to scream or eat. Black smoke plums up and billows from flaming roots. My brother gave my phoenix pendant to my father. There should have been something for my teeth. When babies are in danger they can sense their mothers shooting secret screeches into the sky and the babies know to chase the mother whimpers. The metal wrapped and burned around the diced beefsteak tomatoes. Preparation is a sort of incarceration. Sudden incineration. Protection. My gums itched dryly in the dust but I could not scratch them. Heat rises. Your palms sense the surface heat of potentially engulfed doors. I cradled my arms in my hands. Roswell happened. People die. Tuve hambre ese día pero yo no lloré.

Drums

stick strike
count off

it's that
boomboom
rat-tat-tat
that I feel coming up.

the thick chunk
deep bass thump
snare sting crash.

rollingrollingrolling

stop

it's that
boom crash
boomboom crash
rat-tat-crash-rat-tat-tat
boom crash
boomboom crash
snare sting crash
bassbass
that keeps me here.

In My Brewster Chair

Sit and speak with me now
that I am bent and hobbled
in my Brewster chair,
swelling with the rot and bloat
of age and feting along with the time.

Talk to me about mothers and memories,
and count how long we spent in crystal gazes,
locked in the blistering sunlight of youth
without being burned at all.

Whisper into my ancient years
the folk stories we crafted
for our choirs, and remind me of
our animals and their nicknames,
and tell me which ones we became
in our dribbling dream-scapes.

Remind me of our green poetry,
craved into the soft saplings,
proclaiming our love like lucky spinsters
on the barely-born trees.

Forget me not the names of our children,
loved, lost, and never born,
who might have made a difference
and kept me away from this iron maiden,
there was hope for me
in the rouge they put into your cheeks,
but I have crumbled amidst my prayers.

Remind me slowly of the wounds
that we had given to one another,
now drinking honey from the scars
where there would have been blood.

Snap me back into my yesterdays,
life has decided to keep you
and I am bound to go away,
to stay away;
until you remember me again,
I will be gone away.

So keep me bitter on your breath,
stinging your lips
and ravaging your tongue;
I would have died in your position
at even the chance to keep you young.

Lady, Keep Walking

We trade glancing hellos
And she enblows with
Hickory breath
And a lemon juice smile.
She walks past with a
Pendulum rhythm
On whisper heels
And those lying, sleepy eyes
Of bruise-blue gravel.

Lady, keep walking.
You don’t know it,
But you’re ruining me.

Dance Tape

The winding-grind click
of an old video camera split
the silence in her eyes in two.

With perfect focus
and her seraphim face in full view,
I asked if she was ready to dance.

She jostled her head excitedly yes
and asked me to start the music.

And as she fluttered and twirled
I wondered, so unskilled,
what it must be like to be beautiful.

She moved with the music,
she moved in the music,
and I was happy to have filmed it.

She told me auditions need tapes,
we sent it in and she had to wait,
but I assume she'll make it anyway.

Writing "Rain"

I'm going to write a poem
and title it "Rain"
and describe the cherub puddles
that glimmer afterwards in the sun.

I'll described how rooftops well
with aqueducts' capacity
and how some send stickly streams
dribbling down toward shiny,
off-white linoleum floors.

I'll describe how the young people
dash through the drops
hoping to scatter past
their ensuing wetness,
and how the old people
grit down and lumber
through their sogginess;
stoically accepting.

I'll describe the humid air
fogging the inside of car windows
with such misty poltergeist
that the windshield wipers outside
can only push away the rain,
never reaching the polyping,
dreary clouds within.

You're All

You're all chapped lips and scrapped knees,
neurotic wanderings buzzing like summer bees
toward flowerbeds where small stink-weeds
attract all the flies.

You're all watermelon juice down a chubby chin
and smiles full of corn kernel skin,
an evening down home where the smell of a grill
deviously blends with the dusk-scape sky.

You're all the quiet and reclusion
of being hurt without tears
and running to no one with torn heart-string fears,
an isolated spasm of a steady will
but displayed, as if on a stage,
for any willing detractors.

You're all birthday cakes and tacos,
eccentric without irony,
with a defiantly high spirit
in the shadow of this hullabaloo.

April 2008: Style

I live and walk,
With the collegian haze,
In the soft spring irony
Of cigarette smoke
And workout clothes,

Of jogging shorts
And Eskimo boots,
Or tights as pants,
With blousey long-sleeved
T-shirts and baseball caps.

The Van Dieman Blues

Oh, didgeridoo brown man,
Moan me a prison-island tune,
Where I can trance and dance and scream
And fly my flag and kill and bleed.

Oh, black warring runners,
When will you learn,
That Flinders keepers
When that deep Bass is strummed?

The worth of a whale waivers,
But that throaty wale is worthless
Unless it speaks with soul,
So moan, so moan, so moan.

Oh, boomerang brown man,
Hunt me a hungry heart,
Where white powered wigs
Learn to hold their smokey shots.

I Am Languid

I am languid,
with all the energy
of a carpet sock

and dragging around
this routine moor of a room.
Repeating all my

mantras, mantras, mantras,
and walking into dawn
to sleep through noon;

even the sun has abandoned me.

Spring Stew

The spring lavenders have melted away
and I have learned to quietly, gently
rock in their absence, and their holes
have filled with murder browns and
coward greens, but my scolded child
stance protects me from melting away, too.

I hasten and concentrate on my youth,
I am bound like plumb clouds to an angry storm
or vintage reflections to a dying mirror
to my age, but winter tears at the draining sun,
holocausting through rabbits and lilies
to create such bitter gray men
with well-hollow hearts dregged with feting,
frosted blood; such solid, cold, frozen
blood that it should never melt!

But, impossibly, all men melt and swirl and mix
and cauldron back into spring beginnings
with yellow chicken births. The cracks of pearl
seeds bore on to more melting, now of yoke,
but my twittering seat has saved me
from the molting before, and I sit vilified
with my foolhardy gestures, my gibberish
back in vogue with the suitors,
and feeling so small and unstructured
that growing is no longer maturing,
is no longer a nightmare,
is no longer a concern.

And that hidden, bitter refuse
dines with the snakes and putrid reptiles,
waiting to pounce and thrash again,
waiting to reconquer,
forgetting that it too will melt
and boil in this lavender stew.

Windy Fountain Meals

Windy fountain lunches
push tiny water explosions
onto my plate,

and while I eat at my turkey,
lettuce and provolone,
honey-mustard sandwich,

I close my eyes
and smile as
faint splashes whisper

on my face a story
I'll never understand.
The sun ripples off

of fake waves
as the rain-water pond
sways in the breeze,

and the sun seems
like it belongs there,
as part of the water,

not at all like
a surface highlight,
but a cohesive whole.

Even still at night, with
the moonish silver slashes
that ride the ripple-waves then,

but more calm because
windy fountain dinners
have the soothing candlelight

of the stars
with their gentle
massage-showers.

On Sleep

There's a knock
at the door,
and I,
laying down,
ask,
"who is there?"

A familiar voice
replies with
a friendly name,

But I am unwilling
to answer.

The canyons in my bed
sheets amaze me in my
dreams while the sloth

of a sleepy afternoon
seems like the most
selfish sin.

I roll
onto my side,
my aching shoulders,

but I refuse to roll
onto my back,
where I may dream

of god and her treachery.
Nightmares of abandonment
and the fading faces

of those who should love me
litter my dawning hours.

Falling asleep is
a depressing dance,
and I am most afraid

of missing you too much
when my burdened eyes
dare to crust over and shut.

Yet,
is it too much
to say
that I think
I am dying

when I drift
so slowly toward
that eight hour
prison beyond me?

And There Goes

And there goes a horse
Running through a California
Desert-plain, free and shining,
Rippling in that visceral glee
And mocking the lack of grace
At the core of my humanity.

And there goes an octopus,
Giggling tentacle death,
Whooshing through seascapes
With rainbow emotions beguiling,
Hiding my dominance within
Deceptively clever intentions.

Heave

Heave!
And bleed with their
Jagged fingernails,
Crush your eyes closed
And inhale the soiled
Cotton, fists clinched with it,
Pounding and breaking,
Shattering with thudding smiles!

Heave!
And stretch toward the streams
Where snake-vines shimmy
Toward the breaks
And coil-rush up silken calves
To burrow into the blood-meat
Of the chubby thighs!

Heave!
And cry onto the red hand-welts,
Bathe in the pureness
Of the echo in the slaps,
And be baptized in the stings
As the bruise polyps onto the skin!

Morning Ice

Rampantly, shivers chatter past
And slip languidly on the walk
Through the shadowed, blacker glass
In the fog of the frost-dew morning.

Early chirps sing at sterling ruby
Puddles, swirling into cracks
As peppered breaths steam the sky
And warm coats eat the white grass.

Prone before sunny throngs,
The morning whispers harshly
From yesterday's sing-a-longs
And the loss of caution in ice.

Drunk from the spirits and
Daggered from the world,
She sped toward home early,
But late by any other word.

Out the Window

Breeze beaten branches
Bounce in the rhythm
Of the wind,

Flopping their luscious leaves
Which hold tight against.

The thin, sinewy branches
Spider out against the sky,
And the sun illuminates
Through the veiny leaf-sheets.

Absolutely Horrible

Why am I such an absolute terror to myself,
(Absolutely horrible!)
Looking at pictures of you?
I know the penalty, but ignore,
Of seeing you, but knowing, no more.

And still I chain myself to those memories!
(A silly boy, indeed!)

Why masquerade in strength,
When I get so sloppy, so weepy while surveying?
And when on the phone, so stoic when alone,
I can't even hint at what you mean!

The Western

The Western shades of desert hues
Moved us to the shore,
And drowning tides of further reachings
Stunted our folksong lore.

We were men, and traveling,
Across sand and forests and lakes,
And if we stopped to take it in,
Then we gathered it all the same.

The rivers bent on pine fractures
And wild turkeys hummed with pumpkins,
Autumn found a winter breath
And we watched snow on northern beaches.

The Western shades of olive hues
And the promise of fertile land,
Pushed us far into this wormhole,
Of endless regret and never-had.

What They have Given

In the spastic chase of the Titans
the new gods forgot to build
a pleasant man, and kept us
in the cocoons of their imperfections,
leaving us smoldering with their envies and vengeances,
unfortunately bound to emotion and toil
and able to excel to their thrones to question their reins,

how dare we mock what has made us, no matter how imperfect!
We have been given heroes and so then hope
in our Hercules and the others, and they fight
our monsters, mirror images into what the gods have given us,
but what they apologize for in allowing them to be defeated.

Our Sisyphean struggle is our torment, but also our gift,
and those high Olympians knew that life was full of breath
and worth breathing, because our experience is worth having
and our lives, disheveled, worth living.

Doors for a Writer

My fingers pile-drive on the library desk
Before I play the keyboard like an organ
Thinking up witty rhymes and retorts,
Pretending to be a verbal virtuoso.

I have too many ideas to play so smoothly,
I have too many unfinished epics in me.
I have cantatas, fifths, and sonatas
But in my own imagination I remain
A dejected persona non grata.

Where is my rock star,
My Dionysus, and care?
Why have I thrown that classic Soft Parade
Into the Crystal Ship’s tattered snare?

Jimmy Morrison,
Mr. Mojo Risin’,
Help me break on through
To the other side,
And I will tutor you in shaman spells,
Bach’s Third, and genocide.

The Burdon of a Smile

“I wouldn’t want you to go. I should think that you would want me to stay.” His brow buckled and looked like it might melt down his face.

“I don’t want you here if you don’t want to be here. I can’t do this right now.” She turned away from him at the door and walked slowly back into the kitchen. She stopped at the sink and swung her head up to look at the dogwood they had planted in the back yard when they first bought the house. It had gotten tall and the white flowers where raining from the branches in the breeze.

She thought about going after him when she heard the door open and close, but decided against it and to stay at the sink with the dogwood in view. Hearing the car start and back out she pictured the routine: he would go, drive for hours until he felt far enough away, and they he might come back in a week or so. It had happened before, in the beginning when they had had hard fights. But not lately. Not since she had gotten sick and she needed him there—just to be there and smile at her when couldn’t for herself. He was so strong then. He face was a lion and he represented everything she had wanted to smile about despite the gentle crush of it all.

Her family, her hopes, her wasted life. Everything had hit her all at once and she had spent what seemed like a lifetime in bed. In reality it was only two months. But he never left, he never gave up on her, and he made her believe that there was something bright there. He kept her from the abyss, tethered to his towering courage in her. But where that was tethered for him, she had no idea.

But he had just gone. He had just walked out of their little house and left. She wondered where the strength in him had gone. What was there now that she had found a smile to make him leave? She had started again, thanks to him. She was singing again around the house and was beginning to make her way out more. Her friends looked forward to her coming over. She was reinvigorated now; she had found a new purpose and he had helped to rebuild her. But why had he gone?

She moved from the sink to the small oak dining table in the small half of the oversized living room. Sitting down she couldn’t believe that he had gone because she was better. That was too simple and didn’t make sense for him. Was there another woman? No, not for him. There couldn’t be. She could see him with another woman as much as she could picture herself with another man as long as she knew that he loved her. And that they were married. But what had hurt him? What had set him off and then sent him off? Was it really because she was well? She couldn’t accept that not absolutely depending on him for happiness had been healthy, for either of them, but should that make him want to leave? And if so, why not when she was sick? Why now when she was just getting better, and almost normal?

She didn’t know why being free of the burden of her would have hurt the strong, lion-faced man that she honestly did love. So she sat, and put her head on top of her folded arms, and she cried thinking she had ruined her marriage with her recovery and that he might not come back this time, and that she wouldn’t need him and could smile without him here at all.

A Found Poem from the Suicide Note of V. W.

I can't read.
I begin to hear voices.
I feel certain that I am going mad again
And I shan't recover this time.
I want to say that — everybody knows it;
I can't fight any longer
And I can't concentrate.
Everything has gone from me.

You have given me the greatest possible happiness.
If anybody could have saved me it would have been you;
I know that I am spoiling your life.

So I am doing what seems the best thing to do.

This is a Confession

This is a
Confession
Of sorts.

Mainly an ode
To my paranoia
And lack of trust.

I don't keep many friends
Because I don't think
That many people care;

But this is fine
And right, I can't
Say that I care for them.

But I do have friends.
There is a handful
Of people for my smiles.

A couple of my friends
Live very far away,
And we don't talk much.

But they are some of my
Closest friends, honestly.
But I also have friends around me.

Lately, though, I mistrust them.
And I wonder what happens behind
Closed doors with blushed faces.

I sadly come to the conclusion
That wondering is vain,
And I must decide:

Either I ask about suspicions
Or confront my suspicions
As a sign of my own bad friendship.

Neither is easy,
But I honestly hope
That I am crazy

Because I don't want,
At least not now,
To feel alone.

Perhaps it would be best
Not to prod at this
And find a way not to care.

But I have done that for too long
And I thought I might have settled
And found a sort of normalcy.

I suppose my away-friends
Are my best friends,
Because they are beautiful in the distance,

And far-away is easier
On the soul. And troubles
Are blind to the eyes there.

Crying Girl

Brad won’t know what he’s done.

And while the breeze blows back
The long shards of her blonde hair,
Her tears will mix with cheap mascara
And stream across her temples again,
Showering that plain-pretty face again
As she walks along crowded side-streets
Leaving her anonymous and inspiring
For for the strangers, just a Crying Girl,
Nameless and timeless, painted and printed
A thousand times before there was a Brad,
And a thousand more after his death.

And that, I suppose, is her vengeance.

This is Not a Confession

This is not
A confession,
But

Every few months,
As if on cue,
I fall into this abyss

Of sudden loneliness.
I forget what it must
Feel like to be myself.

I am weighed down,
I am shelled and separated,
Drowning through days

That would rather forget me.
I bob languidly through hours,
Sleep and eat recklessly,

And when I’ve found my dregs,
I think of you.
You, standing there,

Smiling, laughing,
And lighting dreams
With your hazy eyes.

And reminding me
That this whole mess
Isn’t important or real,

And you make me Believe
That anything is possible
In this distance.

I Bid You Goodbye

I bid you goodbye,
The biddable bitch,
For I leave today
On my noble search
For a real renegade!

I bid you goodbye,
The homely troglodyte,
For I leave today again
On my vain play
Toward a prettier friend!

Yes, I’ll write letters,
And yes, I’ll blow kisses,
But I’ll conveniently forget to continue
When I’ve found a better Mrs.!

The Effort

Where the rivets build their metal seams
And make monsters from steel and sweat,
Dreams are swept where paychecks are met
With all the cascading corpses they’ll create.

Whispers of patriotism clang along
Around the hollow pings of machines,
And posters stare doubts into confidence
For the dirty-tired working the floor.

Pots and pans, long since war contraband,
Are missing from glistening kitchens
And are as notable gone as the women there,
Filling the lines for men who have gone to die.

Spring Art

As fresh as a daisy
And as dandy as a dogwood,
The spring Easter sky
Moved like a maypole.

Swirling with pastel teases
And blankets of cut grass breezes,
The picnic stills were painted brightly,
And the memories made there
Were remembered so fondly.

The Poet's Death Ramble

"The page screams with triumphs,
Flirting with passion again
Over failed dialogs, but
Moving with the sprung rhythm
Of inspiration anyway."

"I have written a universe
And roll into the centuries,
If I am timeless, so be it,
For myself I have invented
Personal connection in eternity."

"Until the page is turned
The blankness stays hidden
And the words still bleed out,
I am the wound and the healer,
Listening to the breeze on the battlefield."

Why Your Smile Stopped

I wondered why your smiled stopped
Over awkward-dinner tiny talk.
But as I straightened the sideways silverware
And noticed you brush hair back behind your ear,
I found I had lost myself in wanting to impress you.

I thought if you would forgive my adoptive plundering
While I sipped my water and crunched the ice chips.
I only become more of you to be close to you,
Now I realize your interests were not mine to be stealing.

So as you finished your blackberry pie,
And I finished what you had left, but only a couple bites,
I sighed and tried my best not to talk like you;
I adore you but I am not like you.
And I’ll blame that for why you don't smile at me now.

The Crane

The crane today was awe inspiring
With its red triangle frames,
Completely awe-inspiring!

And I saw it move and sway in the sky,
And I was awed.

And as it swung over, lumbering,
My brick building underneath,
I looked up at this red,
Awe-inspiring metal tower,

And was struck with aweful
Fear that it would get too near
And crumble our brick building!
And that under that red triangle frame
Of the awe-inspiringly tall crane
Would rest the rust rubble
Of our brick building,
Nothing underneath.

On Being Asked to Take a Joke by C. C.

I do more than take a joke, son.

I take a joke and run, like it was money.
I take a joke and run like I stole something
from your momma and she just found out.
I take a joke and run like I got a point to prove.
I take a joke and run like I was trying
to impress a girl or a coach.

I do more than take a joke, son!
I run them, I make them,
I laugh them and I brake them!