Home Fries Translated

A photo of a glass microscope slide

in a highschool textbook depicted

the spectrum of red to violet in a geometry

violent and ever opening as to be a thing

defiant of the still and personage definite better

than any string of words describing the sense of

chemical and lattice and science and on a saucer

beside supporting and necessary groups and chains of

particulate component breakfast you are cubed calm

until the silver fork breaks oil crisped skin and teeth

catalyze the crystals within and quanta divide

fission creates ever expanding planes of taste and

the slide shatters through the page of cookbook

in a little big bang of color scents mapped to buds.

"Holy fuck, these are good."

Two Women on Penn Avenue

Two women have had a fender bender
to start their days.
One drives her dinged rear across opposing traffic lanes
to beach half of her sedan on the safety of a sidewalk,
the other stops on a dime's width
from the sight of the two mile per hour collision
to park in the right of two lanes and swing her door
full into the left of two lanes.
Both have cellphones at ears
flying teary streamers
watching traffic back and back and back
like a kitchen sink, fingers sweating in the pages of
never used and grease coated phonebooks from fridge tops.

The mail carrier shakes his head
passing you for a second time on his way back to his truck.

The potential is real.
You will not make it to work before lunch.

White '87 Supra

Sun battered and faded
tangerine seat cushion pokes through red thread
like the neck of a cello behind seldom played strings.
One stroke across the body still loosens
a note so far throated
it shakes the walls and
blows the doors off history and hearts
like a page slipped from the desk of
the Eastern hemisphere's finest composer.
The back streets of Chicago
blear into four four time and measures
turn into spans of red light green light
games of rover as a seat belt
promises to hold beating wings of insides in and
little else.
With windows down and the hiss,
a blow off valve cymbal strike
in a sea of timpanic foolery,
daring a smile to strike
the question
have you ever ridden a white horse
finally has it's answer.

World Domination

Great, the aspirations of youth
grown into the bucked and slanted
off color for character's vacuum
stripe work of a tie and cuff link
with matching suit and case and shadow's
passioned echo in tacky briefs
close to the vest and the heart
that still remembers when
guts were guts and it didn't matter
whose name was embroidered
on the inside pocket of a jacket
never worn in tandem with
the labor of the hands and brow
all wrapped and ready to grind
another year off of a life
misgiven to the pursuit of a mania
failing to cover the micro
in favor of implanted mega and

while I'm getting you coffee and
checking your weather and candy dish
for keys I pant behind my eyes,
a dog at window's sill, because today
instead of conquering the world
you'll find something of yourself fulfilled
a planted flag and peace unfurled
with nightfall's certainty
in the rolling waves and pastures grazed and
lawless open sea covering the ground
you tread when you come home and
inside of me.

Winter Makes a Lasting Smile

The weather outside is awful.
Suit up, little spaceman,
Europa is calling.

Pinch

The elevator is packed
from the ground floor to the 12th.
A man in a wheelchair is keeping pace
with footsteps just fast enough
to be a shadow.
The meeting is moved
up fifteen minutes
each seat occupied except the one
between the head and
the projectionist.
A thought goes back to the car and
the carpool also jammed.

The line at McDonalds
to get breakfast.
A golden opportunity is wasted.
A fart amongst strangers
is far less embarrassing
than the alternative.

Scraped Knee

Pomegranate on a cheese grater
crinkled hairs on the skin of the forearm
pricked ducts of a face
the compound blood eye is opened
the gills, trampled accordions,  are breathing.