Dogfight Bike

I can't range far from my aerodrome but,

the miles I can cover I do cover furiously.

Trundle climbs are graceful

as a man one hundred pounds overweight

mid-crosswalk in rush hour

at the turn of the light

who doesn't bother to look

because he knows most already are.

It's the power dives

that shine and I am

always too close for missiles

screaming Stuka-like between buses and

sedans with 30 millimeters ablaze and

exploding car horns in my wake.

A tanker flies by night and

the reflection of my fuselage on it is

what a dragonfly must feel

seeing itself rippling along the surface of a pond

and I would be remiss to let so large a target

go to waste.  Chase is given

in a running fight from light to light

down Penn avenue

before dawn rise and the tail gunner is good,

but I'm better;

the heat of exhaust is burning my nose

as her engines burn and break up and she's 

forced down

at the gas station around the corner

in mushrooming flames and smoke.

I am bringing my bird in

at my apartment door, making a note

to go back and raid what's left of the downed bogy

when I'm ready to pick up a bag or two of chips

this afternoon

aces higher than the sun
shining clear on my aviators.

Smoker 14

There was this idea
that maybe if I switched
to something harder on the tongue
and took smaller breaths
I could quit you.

Here we are.
Elbows dry and
lips wet.

Bed

If the choice is between
the jersey spread or
the nylon comforter
stuffed with things not feathery,
but still able to prick skin
in fits of tumble care sleep seeking or
nothing at all,
it doesn't worry me too much,
this pursuit of dreaming.
However the options all pale
to irrelevance
when twenty minutes in and
finally warm enough
to stop fidgeting
I realize my teddy bear
is still at my desk
catching up on some late night reading
yet again.
I thought we'd been over this already.

Blessing Their Boats

Leaning against a wall
of poured cement
despite the twenty five cent pieces
of faded spit stains and
gum like Beechwood bark
stretching left and right like
big cat skins,
the buses come regularly and,
between cussing phone calls and
pacing gentleman in
patch appliquéd jackets and blues,
more infrequent.
Behind mirrored aviators
staring down the barrel
of the high walled speedway
reserved for the P2 and Three, Flyers, and
the heard of 67s
running nose to tail downtown and
every point west in between,
the scale of clouds,
climbing choral and tight and
deep enough to lose in the expanse
of sunlight's streaking
spun streamer density,
is shaking knees and the knocking
is disbelief against the walls of chest
before the curling wave tops and
sound like thirteen hundred horns
raised beyond earshot,
I turn away for my small door and
smaller room with teeth held tight
as the pane of glass
holding back the crush in those spidering popping seconds
before the mouth of asphalt and tunnels
dilating like eyes in the heads
of a nursery.
A blessing
on their souls,
but I am not ready today.

Little Spaceman Sets a New Course

Watching the stars scroll by

and the blinking lights across the boards

that tell me things are

okay enough to leave breaths unheld

and fingers loose on arm rests

and thinking about

what it's going to be like

to put on a jacket and snow boots

instead of a pressure suit

to hug my insides in

and walk where there is

something so simple as gravity

holding me down

instead of machine blacked history

and last minute course correction

to preserve tenth inch integrity.

I don't know

what it's going to feel like

or if we'll understand each other

any better

without a comm link in my ear

once I land this thing,

but I do know

it'll feel pretty damn good

to not have to wonder

if I will go down with this ship.

Voidism

It's easy to see what you brought to the table
since there wasn't really a table at all
before you said hello.
It doesn't take two to start a fire,
but it does make it twice as fun
when you're not the only one
snapping the legs off
the day to day bullshit
to stay warm.
"We'll find somewhere else to eat."
I want to say something
like the world is my table,
but really
I just eat in my car nowadays.
It's one of those things.
One of those stupid things
I've been working on getting around
because most people don't put up with that shit
and would prefer I rubbed my hands together
and went to church a little more
and I can see that things are made
and done for reasons and purposes, but
I can see
with so much more ease
what lies in the heart of reason and purpose's home.
Our lunches are resting easy,
I know,
wherever they've fallen
and I want you to know
I'm not gone mad
or hungry,
but some days I am a little cold.

Partial Sounds

Tuesday is striking
like the tennis ball volleying
between the church tower's inch thick iron bell
rackets telling the time and
the continuum slip between
the feet on the black corner and
the white corner close enough
together to see through
and appreciate the sooty stones
and runnels instead of the glare
and the glaring of understood nonsense
and long winded, easily stomached, disrelease.
Tuesday is striking
like sun dried peanut butter and jelly
sandwiches left on the back of an
upturned plate so it's face wouldn't
need a second wash and
there was already a dirty dish
in the microwave
keeping some crumbs safe,
but the crumbs have grown
over nights and days of
pee bee and jays windowsilled
and there are still some hours left
if you really want
to fix something
that will hit the spotch.
Tuesday is striking
the rim of night like a projector
screen come free of its nail
to smack and spin and spin and
wake, snapped from open eyed sleep,
to listen to the two wheels
fly loose and truthfully
the work of setting the thing up
was worth more than the clips of
family dead and living
blinking into the whiteness of
bald gulbed light against
black windows.
Tuesday is striking
like the threads of a sleeve
popping two dozen at a time
where the cotten blend
catches fingernails unkept and
chewed noncommittal
and wishing for once
that a body would give
a little under stress
instead of tearing through
the wake of day
like a funerary streaker
through flesh toned body soups
across Wednesday headstones
to an early Thursday funch
and it seams every time she strikes
a day late like she's want
the meals mist creep into peripheral
collisions in the margins of
existence that glamor to be bed
and there is no more time
to deal and recallve
before the clock
must be punched at hurt.