I know there were down times.
Down times when
you challenged my manhood.
When you pointed out facts
when I was still living
in terms of possibly maybe.
There were down times
when it was the least I could do
not to strike
the match heads you gave me
to the years of combustibles
accumulated in my 'ead
before I knew a person like you
could exist on this fuck of a planet.
I still want you to be
the five fingers on my arm
that tell me to stop,
in lieu of the five fingers of some pig.
I guess what I'm sayin' is
I am going down with this ship,
but I'm glad you got out
when you did.
original works of parts
Pittsburgh Black and Whites 3
Browns Mill road has come to a close.
Ahead lies the wavering torch of sunset
and orange blossoms of Homestead
crawling upward along the fabric of twilight
to trade war stories with the furnace hardened
coke oven crescent of the moon,
shy and peering into the black river depth's
emptied stage. "Am I on?"
Not yet. It is still Wednesday, after all and
we are still gathering our breath, but stay warm,
intermission lasts but so long and
the stars are already tuning their ensemble.
Ahead lies the wavering torch of sunset
and orange blossoms of Homestead
crawling upward along the fabric of twilight
to trade war stories with the furnace hardened
coke oven crescent of the moon,
shy and peering into the black river depth's
emptied stage. "Am I on?"
Not yet. It is still Wednesday, after all and
we are still gathering our breath, but stay warm,
intermission lasts but so long and
the stars are already tuning their ensemble.
Before the Talkies
The Lower River Trail is three quarters of a mile
rendered in palette knifed pure ascent and skin oils.
Seasons of rain and the kind of humidity
that presses rivulets into diorama gel and
years out of season autumn leaves
into foil canoes with grasshopper boatswains at their helms,
have bowed the ground and brushed
the flat rocks into the scales of a lizard
fat and happy to stretch long in the sun.
I am listening to the exhalations of it's body,
the lengthy wheeze and easy nostril flare
as it's spine bucks upward against my heels,
breathing in, and content to slough away my prodding
with an unhurried roll toward the shade of a gulch
peppered with tree limbs older than my bones
before rocking backward to the sun filled breaks
in the canopy to gather more sleep.
I am listening along the ascent of the winding trail,
gathered up and heaped like chord by a wanderer before me
who found there was nothing at the end of the journey
worth more than the aimless sauntering before it's terminus,
to the bullfrogs talk among themselves, nearly tripping
along the lizards back where a scale has come loose.
They are quite the gossips and I have no tales to share
with them, and their swollen throats,
over tea and cakes and fly wings
that they have not heard and turned over
time and again already.
Rising to the sun and sky tented above
where the trunks of trees bend away beneath the weight of
August's thickly piled clouds, to the humped back lizard
trundles away for the deep of warmed mud
over the skillet of paved cement and mowed fields.
The little ships sail away, down river, crews fatigued
with manning their small oars with their smaller hands.
Beyond the treeline lies the aerodrome
and rattle bang of inline 12 cylindered Cicada engines
and the swizzle hiss of rotary engine hornets
flying low in high speed airshow stunt work
above crickets clinging to green bladed grandstands
and belting out echoing applause
in the way a packed house rioting for encore only could.
The Lower River Trail is a three quarter mile descent
that hails from the hill top overlooking the Monongahela,
if you stand on tip toe and the afternoon light is just right.
I am listening to many things along it's length.
There is so much more I have not heard, the lizard sighs
from the place it has gone that I do not yet know.
These hours have been more beautiful
without you
and me trying to wrestle words and language,
trying to corral my inchoate thoughts
into streams of conversation
while you walked beside me.
rendered in palette knifed pure ascent and skin oils.
Seasons of rain and the kind of humidity
that presses rivulets into diorama gel and
years out of season autumn leaves
into foil canoes with grasshopper boatswains at their helms,
have bowed the ground and brushed
the flat rocks into the scales of a lizard
fat and happy to stretch long in the sun.
I am listening to the exhalations of it's body,
the lengthy wheeze and easy nostril flare
as it's spine bucks upward against my heels,
breathing in, and content to slough away my prodding
with an unhurried roll toward the shade of a gulch
peppered with tree limbs older than my bones
before rocking backward to the sun filled breaks
in the canopy to gather more sleep.
I am listening along the ascent of the winding trail,
gathered up and heaped like chord by a wanderer before me
who found there was nothing at the end of the journey
worth more than the aimless sauntering before it's terminus,
to the bullfrogs talk among themselves, nearly tripping
along the lizards back where a scale has come loose.
They are quite the gossips and I have no tales to share
with them, and their swollen throats,
over tea and cakes and fly wings
that they have not heard and turned over
time and again already.
Rising to the sun and sky tented above
where the trunks of trees bend away beneath the weight of
August's thickly piled clouds, to the humped back lizard
trundles away for the deep of warmed mud
over the skillet of paved cement and mowed fields.
The little ships sail away, down river, crews fatigued
with manning their small oars with their smaller hands.
Beyond the treeline lies the aerodrome
and rattle bang of inline 12 cylindered Cicada engines
and the swizzle hiss of rotary engine hornets
flying low in high speed airshow stunt work
above crickets clinging to green bladed grandstands
and belting out echoing applause
in the way a packed house rioting for encore only could.
The Lower River Trail is a three quarter mile descent
that hails from the hill top overlooking the Monongahela,
if you stand on tip toe and the afternoon light is just right.
I am listening to many things along it's length.
There is so much more I have not heard, the lizard sighs
from the place it has gone that I do not yet know.
These hours have been more beautiful
without you
and me trying to wrestle words and language,
trying to corral my inchoate thoughts
into streams of conversation
while you walked beside me.
Play Hurt
There's a sliver of wood
underneath the back side of
my index finger's knuckle.
I would be more bound
to complain
but the fact of the matter
is life is a very long game of
chance and circumstance
and to opt out of play
for a hurt
instead of an injury
is what can be termed
weak town
and last I checked
I was not the designated hitter
for the "frown town lose bigs".
Guided Weapons
Wires sky writing lines like slug tracks between stony heaps of fox holed dreams, tracer arcs twisting in, between where the night falls and satellites wheel.
Peel back the night blanket and touch the still warm barrel of the wave tidal marching through the hours between the start and end of something big, Sinatricly smooth and punch drunker than smoke dens and beat bars and guide the words in
filament thin strings from hard points to thinner veiled bullseyes ope' wide. Swim through concussions and air pressed so hard it gives up it's secrets in bright white bubbles of bone jarred condensation.
All around are jackets and unstrung lines of want and have-tos and smolder and grave, but in and amongst the columns of hit and miss there are tangled spider's webs of high rhetoriced intent. Splayed fingers of all that is not necessarily so.
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