Anxiety grips my stomach
and twists my balls
like a wine screw's handle
staring at the rows of chocolate candies
that throw themselves at me like
backlit district window dancers
before I bail out of line
to rethink the five dollar bill
in my pocket
and the gallon of milk in my basket.
I can eat them
only once.
I can drink it
for a week.
The blue toilet cake however
will flush joyously
for a month
and my nose
will thank me
that much more sincerely
than a full and
abusive stomach.
I smile to the cashier
who asks me if "that's it"
for a twelfth time,
sliding the palm hot clorox package
over the red hatched lines.
"Yes, that is exactly it."
original works of parts
Numbers at the Gate
All hell and water high
I count the numbers passing by the gate
effectual and mixed and prescient
and wondering little by little why
things turnover and loop back at ten.
Nine and eight and five and quarter till
breakfast lunch and spanner meals
and fueling for sleep and activity stretch
and punching bed spreads like
bricks full of coins and magic.
Through the fire and flames and the heated
insides out. Why are tights so hard to put on
in the stories of the land that never appeared
in the same place twice.
The air is cold and the window won't open
when the rest of me shills for sweaters and
skin water and jersey fabric spreads
and I'm gunning
for an early night though there's still
so much to do.
I would really like to cultivate
leaves of grass to ply my
trade and lip murmur schooner
and cast off the shore by the gate
where the numbers gathered
to watch me wait
for an opening between their
curls and marching points.
One eight five six four two seven.
No relation, but go ahead.
I'm too sensitive
to rub up against you lot.
Crossed legged and stuck
with these hands and bones
and muscles and crying and
burning up in this coffin.
I count the numbers passing by the gate
effectual and mixed and prescient
and wondering little by little why
things turnover and loop back at ten.
Nine and eight and five and quarter till
breakfast lunch and spanner meals
and fueling for sleep and activity stretch
and punching bed spreads like
bricks full of coins and magic.
Through the fire and flames and the heated
insides out. Why are tights so hard to put on
in the stories of the land that never appeared
in the same place twice.
The air is cold and the window won't open
when the rest of me shills for sweaters and
skin water and jersey fabric spreads
and I'm gunning
for an early night though there's still
so much to do.
I would really like to cultivate
leaves of grass to ply my
trade and lip murmur schooner
and cast off the shore by the gate
where the numbers gathered
to watch me wait
for an opening between their
curls and marching points.
One eight five six four two seven.
No relation, but go ahead.
I'm too sensitive
to rub up against you lot.
Crossed legged and stuck
with these hands and bones
and muscles and crying and
burning up in this coffin.
How Bad is it Really?
after Frank Sinatra's "Summer Wind"
We were classy.
Big time classy like
dark and light grains of wood
on the same floor, but from
trees nipped at the coasts where
currency comes in the form of gold
smiles and sunlight not hot
enough to fry eggs, but motherly enough
to make breaths take like yellow bodied cakes
with chocolate frosting
and easy like spring form pans
and slow droughts from fat lipped wine glasses.
We were classy.
Mad classy and maddeningly uncaste
to the rat packers and packed self identifying
brash and brattish hunch shouldered cats.
We were brass and cool to touch.
We were wrenches in worked palms
and pens to inkblot finger tips
and idea crazed and insane more still
and passion possessed like river swells
in a season dry enough
to malnourish all of New England.
We were classy and hellishly so.
It's not just the sky that's blue
now that the sun is high.
It's not just the clouds that are gray
these days
when contrast goes away.
We were classy
and summer 9 weeks out of season
and better than stubborn
for the sake of expectation.
We were classy.
We were classy.
Big time classy like
dark and light grains of wood
on the same floor, but from
trees nipped at the coasts where
currency comes in the form of gold
smiles and sunlight not hot
enough to fry eggs, but motherly enough
to make breaths take like yellow bodied cakes
with chocolate frosting
and easy like spring form pans
and slow droughts from fat lipped wine glasses.
We were classy.
Mad classy and maddeningly uncaste
to the rat packers and packed self identifying
brash and brattish hunch shouldered cats.
We were brass and cool to touch.
We were wrenches in worked palms
and pens to inkblot finger tips
and idea crazed and insane more still
and passion possessed like river swells
in a season dry enough
to malnourish all of New England.
We were classy and hellishly so.
It's not just the sky that's blue
now that the sun is high.
It's not just the clouds that are gray
these days
when contrast goes away.
We were classy
and summer 9 weeks out of season
and better than stubborn
for the sake of expectation.
We were classy.
It's Been a Tough Day
It really is not so bad
that I missed the chance for a promotion
as much as it is difficult
to explain the sensation
of the six of me being rejected
all at once
when I didn't cite mental disability
in my job application
to begin with.
that I missed the chance for a promotion
as much as it is difficult
to explain the sensation
of the six of me being rejected
all at once
when I didn't cite mental disability
in my job application
to begin with.
Generation Y
Having successfully taught myself
to deep throat
I don't know who
I am supposed to tell.
to deep throat
I don't know who
I am supposed to tell.
Form and Funk
It appears in my efforts to place function
well before form in all that I do
and wear
that I have begun to err
on the side of the homeless man
and that maybe that is why
you've opted to sit
at the other end of this train's car
though the seats intervening
are completely empty.
well before form in all that I do
and wear
that I have begun to err
on the side of the homeless man
and that maybe that is why
you've opted to sit
at the other end of this train's car
though the seats intervening
are completely empty.
Smoker 5
I don't miss
squeezing our puffy plastic coats
shoulder to shoulder
in that one good seat on the bus
above the space heater
as much as I miss
the argument at the bus stop
across the street from our apartment
and the seconds I stood dumb
when you said
stop me if I'm wrong
and the opportunity
to keep this thing going
pissed away like a dream.
squeezing our puffy plastic coats
shoulder to shoulder
in that one good seat on the bus
above the space heater
as much as I miss
the argument at the bus stop
across the street from our apartment
and the seconds I stood dumb
when you said
stop me if I'm wrong
and the opportunity
to keep this thing going
pissed away like a dream.
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