Thinking about how many times
I've almost bought it,
one of the few time stamps
I am able to track
through the years
that tell me
it really has been a contiguous trip
from then 'til now,
I am impressed
with the part of me I do not know
well enough to sit down and share
a few cups of coffee with
because I will be damned
if I have not tried,
consciously and otherwise,
to wipe him from the face of this Earth
like a bad tattoo
showered in laser light.
I know someday I will
have him in a moment he has slept on
and I will tuck a sterling fork
into his eye socket and pluck
tender white fruit that will
run down my throat
like a gently salted soft boiled dumpling. I will be
a wolf in a pen of fleecy thoughts
before the light
and after the ghost, leisurely
like cumulonimbus on a form fit hillock
with no hint of thunder or rain
to be spoken, smelled, or seen
between sky spanning beams of
ocean and baby blues and a
dry eyed orb of sun
draining into the horizon and
the promise of moon rise whispering
into the fade and starfall, and I
will be able to love
the tastes and scents of myself
in ways I never could
while I breathed.
However there are still
many things yet to do
by heart song and blood flow
and so
I do not expect my will
to succumb to the impetus of
transformation and I will cry,
not knowing where the boundary hides,
where the threat of self annihilation ends
and the fence begins, but I sigh
swooning against pursuit and the heady clutching
for a tenth life
in a space I am not sure actually exists
beyond the end of the line.
original works of parts
Special
Everyone should be so lucky
as to have a friend with nine lives
who doesn't also have a tail and
halloween creepy, dilated, green eyes.
Granted, I do have a problem
with vomiting about as often as a cat and
sometimes pee
where I shouldn't but,
when was the last time you tried
to talk to your cat about
anything politic?
I know tens times as much
about the world as
that bastard and
I bite half as hard and a quarter as often,
though my decision making is
probably as ill advised as
his passions, if not worse.
Sure, I am not as quiet or
sociable as I would be
with fur and a taste for
milk and butter and
shitloads of catnip,
but I am at least as adventurous
and enjoy long naps
in sunbeams just as much,
if not more,
and am absolutely golden for you.
as to have a friend with nine lives
who doesn't also have a tail and
halloween creepy, dilated, green eyes.
Granted, I do have a problem
with vomiting about as often as a cat and
sometimes pee
where I shouldn't but,
when was the last time you tried
to talk to your cat about
anything politic?
I know tens times as much
about the world as
that bastard and
I bite half as hard and a quarter as often,
though my decision making is
probably as ill advised as
his passions, if not worse.
Sure, I am not as quiet or
sociable as I would be
with fur and a taste for
milk and butter and
shitloads of catnip,
but I am at least as adventurous
and enjoy long naps
in sunbeams just as much,
if not more,
and am absolutely golden for you.
The Children 4
Six Flags Great America was a hell hole.
Sixteen years old and
the manager was nineteen.
She spent a lot of time
in the bathroom and when
she was not there
she was busy
writing her name,
in puffy letters
with the insides of the "A"s
shaped like pudgy, irritated, sphincters,
on every blank piece and back side
sheet of paper in the red ink
reserved for till totaling and
performance reviews.
When I wasn't busy
explaining to customers
that they could not have their choice brand
of pop and would have to settle
for equally fattening competitors
because posting a sign
was frowned upon,
I sat next to the funnel cake fryer coils
watching white bricks of lard
melt into amber pools
listening to them groan
against the background of screams of
thrill seekers unable to find
excitement enough in their day to day and
wondering why ear plugs
are acceptable in less jarring factories and
not in a mill whose only purpose
was to extract violent sounds from
every throat that passed through its gate.
Afterward, turned on and off and on again
by her antics and
the stink of sweat and some kind of
poorly defined fear seeker passion
mingled rich with wave tank chlorine and
head spinning sunlight, I sat outside the gates
in air too cool for late August
waiting for my parents to pick me up,
knowing they would show
eventually and
the children sat with me.
Fumbling in the flowers
patterned after American flags and
bursts of fireworks
fallen to the grass and all
various shades of street light silenced orange and black,
they clawed and danced and tagged one another,
climbed up my back and lolled in my lap,
yawning and laughing and itching my
polo shirted elbows.
They fell over each other and poked
at my cheeks and asked me
so many questions, but they
kept me company
against the eleven P.M. winds of
another summer night
burned away and replaced
with the stiff, flaky char, of
"this really is, all there is" glass shard scattered
flights of "one day at a time" fancies
they kept me warm inside and
tuned and uncoiled my knotted nerves and
laid them straight once again,
that my hands could play a song
in the absence of the sun
on an instrument
not too far out of tune and
not too far gone to,
once and for all, put away.
Sixteen years old and
the manager was nineteen.
She spent a lot of time
in the bathroom and when
she was not there
she was busy
writing her name,
in puffy letters
with the insides of the "A"s
shaped like pudgy, irritated, sphincters,
on every blank piece and back side
sheet of paper in the red ink
reserved for till totaling and
performance reviews.
When I wasn't busy
explaining to customers
that they could not have their choice brand
of pop and would have to settle
for equally fattening competitors
because posting a sign
was frowned upon,
I sat next to the funnel cake fryer coils
watching white bricks of lard
melt into amber pools
listening to them groan
against the background of screams of
thrill seekers unable to find
excitement enough in their day to day and
wondering why ear plugs
are acceptable in less jarring factories and
not in a mill whose only purpose
was to extract violent sounds from
every throat that passed through its gate.
Afterward, turned on and off and on again
by her antics and
the stink of sweat and some kind of
poorly defined fear seeker passion
mingled rich with wave tank chlorine and
head spinning sunlight, I sat outside the gates
in air too cool for late August
waiting for my parents to pick me up,
knowing they would show
eventually and
the children sat with me.
Fumbling in the flowers
patterned after American flags and
bursts of fireworks
fallen to the grass and all
various shades of street light silenced orange and black,
they clawed and danced and tagged one another,
climbed up my back and lolled in my lap,
yawning and laughing and itching my
polo shirted elbows.
They fell over each other and poked
at my cheeks and asked me
so many questions, but they
kept me company
against the eleven P.M. winds of
another summer night
burned away and replaced
with the stiff, flaky char, of
"this really is, all there is" glass shard scattered
flights of "one day at a time" fancies
they kept me warm inside and
tuned and uncoiled my knotted nerves and
laid them straight once again,
that my hands could play a song
in the absence of the sun
on an instrument
not too far out of tune and
not too far gone to,
once and for all, put away.
Call Me
The internet
has ruined creativity and
imagination
for some
who demand
pinpoint accuracy,
as though
before the zipping packets
and flying bottles
of island notes
ever existed,
people went to libraries
to fact check
casual conversation.
has ruined creativity and
imagination
for some
who demand
pinpoint accuracy,
as though
before the zipping packets
and flying bottles
of island notes
ever existed,
people went to libraries
to fact check
casual conversation.
This Blind Date Is Over
I've been listening
to the music of the late 90's
religiously
because it speaks
to the deeper plight of mankind
in ways other periods
could not understand.
If we keep spoiling the Earth
climate change will
put significant portions of the population
underwater.
Smoking is not bad
by itself, but second hand smoke
destroys lives and
it does not matter
what you've been through
if you don't find
a positive way to cope.
Every
living
thing
has
a
soul,
even though
not everything that is alive
is actually living.
I wish I had a time machine
so I could change
the world.
I wish I had a time machine
so I could
change the world too. I would
go back to the summer of 1985
and push your mother down
a long
long
stairwell.
to the music of the late 90's
religiously
because it speaks
to the deeper plight of mankind
in ways other periods
could not understand.
If we keep spoiling the Earth
climate change will
put significant portions of the population
underwater.
Smoking is not bad
by itself, but second hand smoke
destroys lives and
it does not matter
what you've been through
if you don't find
a positive way to cope.
Every
living
thing
has
a
soul,
even though
not everything that is alive
is actually living.
I wish I had a time machine
so I could change
the world.
I wish I had a time machine
so I could
change the world too. I would
go back to the summer of 1985
and push your mother down
a long
long
stairwell.
Chips
You're chippy,
difficult to handle and
poisonous as paint flakes
in a crumbling home and
twice as sweet
across the tongue.
You're chippy,
sharp and witty and
cutting as a thin bladed
flint ax held checked
to a handle by threads and
skin splitting.
You're chippy and
give me fits of glee
in the way
a man trying to fell big game
finds joy in the conferral of
a bow and stone tipped arrow.
You're chippy and
give me fits of teething pain
in the way
a man trying to be himself and nothing more
must give in to wearing hats
if he is to keep his cheeks dry
in driving, unpredictable, rains.
A chip on a shoulder
makes a body hungry,
makes a body lean, and
that hunger does
make a body mean.
When you are not
all pepper and vinegar and broken glass and
you are tempered
with purpose and
perhaps fixed
on targets pointed
away from me
you are always a joy to keep company.
difficult to handle and
poisonous as paint flakes
in a crumbling home and
twice as sweet
across the tongue.
You're chippy,
sharp and witty and
cutting as a thin bladed
flint ax held checked
to a handle by threads and
skin splitting.
You're chippy and
give me fits of glee
in the way
a man trying to fell big game
finds joy in the conferral of
a bow and stone tipped arrow.
You're chippy and
give me fits of teething pain
in the way
a man trying to be himself and nothing more
must give in to wearing hats
if he is to keep his cheeks dry
in driving, unpredictable, rains.
A chip on a shoulder
makes a body hungry,
makes a body lean, and
that hunger does
make a body mean.
When you are not
all pepper and vinegar and broken glass and
you are tempered
with purpose and
perhaps fixed
on targets pointed
away from me
you are always a joy to keep company.
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