Good Evening Hon'

Every now and then
the horns blare
loud enough to hear
if you've sat quietly
long enough.

The CSX. 
The CSX.
The coal train express.
See excess.
The CSX.
The CSX.

When it didn't matter whose car keys you left
at the fishing hole in the ignition
to make a joke seeing the CSX
on its way to demolition and
fireworks or laughter at keys and fleet feet
while 9 foot poles glimmered
with a bite.

Sometimes 
sitting quietly enough.  The horn blares
and carries through the valleys
of Pittsburgh,
echoes through the trees, 
and rolls across a pillow,
to the ears. 

All of the graffiti
traffic jams,
catfish and mud and grease gloves, 
undrinkable fresh water, 
shores of nails and glass and warm sand,

tunnels and bridges.
The quietly blaring horn
through the depths of Summer's coffin,
the songs of Autumnal pallbearers:

Can you hear? 

You are already home.

Huckjspaqua

 They always tell you

quiet rivers run deep

drowning is the most pleasant

way to go.  Flicker

ing.  Isness.  A way to be.  Isms.

Until you do all nine lives.

Burning Down the House

Stitched together with two inch pipe.

Scaffolds welded with skin.

A tooth here, a loose finger there.

Steerage pressure fit

with glimmering coils of hair.

Saliva to grease the switch panel's buttons.

Depress, spring up, with a snap, the familiar 

clap of the shatterproof caps, protect

the finger nail toggles touched closed.

The grates and walls pitted and torn and replaced.

A prize toe trophy for a pressure failed hole,

to keep the air in, taped in place with a 

carved and aged sole.  Remember

the boarding party from five years ago?

The pirates and bounty hunter's muzzle glows?

The interdictors, the uniformed, the cloned,

and metal mated?  What memories.  What loves.

Alive with their blood.

Adrift, it is time to depart.  The outer rim home

to ice worlds and its blinking quiet eye,

a tear in time, a channel glitched tone, 

it is time to depart for the further reaches yards

and make everlasting alloys 

from what has grown.

Growing Up

 The bottles for unborn art projects

and night inspiration and dust collectors

and pages of rolling papers and gifts

to no ones and holidays and craft

festivals.  What was that?  The wind.

Still schizophrenic.  Still insomnia?

Still, somehow, drinking.

The thick

Whiskered Nights

I stalk you.  You stalk me.
We're a cat furred family.
With a knickknack
pattywack
flay flesh from all the bones
and leave a special carcass
at our best friend's home. 

You Are More Than a Map

"...they don't love you like I love you........."

and

vomit.  Violently.  Projectile it into
an upturned hat.

You are old.

It is happening again.  You

had

one

job.

Stop it from happening again.  Do you see.

Vomit violently again.  Spill
is that a tooth sized piece of carrot

over the side.

It is happening again.  You

had

one

job.

Stop it from happening again.  Do you see.

Vengeance.  Vengeance!  You were small.  You grew.
Vomit and do not miss the mitt.

Down the left pectoral.

It is happening again.  You

had

one

job.

Bang.  Head against ceramic.  That cannot possibly
work.  Where is my hat?  Where is my hat!

Slick hands and magic tricks.

It is happening again.  You

had

one

job.

Reverberations.  Time.  Space.  Vomit
like your vertebrae depend on it.

These are not your friends.

It is happening again.  You

had

one

job.

EVACUATE!  EVACUATE!
PLEASE!

You've seen what they're doing to their kids.

It is happening again.  You

had

one

job.

THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO FOR THEM!
THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO FOR THEM!

Erase her.  Erasing her will.

It is happening again.  You

had

one

job. 

I'll see you soon.  It is happening again.  Nine years
from now.  It will happen again to the person I love.

Kill her.

It is happening again.  You

had

one

job.

I will be suspect and examined.  There is no way and
THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO FOR THE KIDS!

I will. 

It is happening again.  You

had

one

job.

Leave her?  Leave me!  There is a way.
Create.  Show the way.

She will die.  As will her friends.

It is happening again.  You

have

one

job.

Focus.

Outside My Window

Pulling the curtain aside before checking the weather report 
to see white whorls of wind, crystalline tap, by the wide angle pane. 

Winter has finally R.S.V.P.d to Summer's wistful post cards.

Pulling the curtain aside before checking the weather report 
to see knots of lightning and hear the miles high rap of hail
as the gutters collect ice and leaves whimper underneath night's blanket.

Winter has finally R.S.V.P.d to Summer's wistful post cards.

Pulling the curtain aside before checking the weather report
to see the deep orange shine of afternoon sun, reflected from the passerby
along highway lanes close enough to whisper wet tired cement.

Winter has finally R.S.V.P.d to Summer's wistful post cards.

Pulling the curtain aside before checking the weather report
to see black winged blots of birds above each chimney across the street.

Winter has finally R.S.V.P.d to Summer's wistful post cards.

Pulling the curtain aside before checking the weather report
to see skins evening aspiration crystallized along the wide angle's edges,
pain pricking my forced heat chapped and smiling lips.

Winter has finally R.S.V.P.d to Summer's wistful post cards.

Pulling the curtain aside before checking the weather report
to see formations of geese crossing amber lit contrails
frozen in a sky clear and weighty, an entire day's fistful, bubble chambered.

Winter has finally R.S.V.P.d to Summer's wistful post cards.

Crisp and shining gloss printed with trees as green as the river
water, glistening easy wave caps, a rod and reel and bicycle.  

"Wish you were here!"

Winter has finally R.S.V.P.d.