"What goes with authority
must also cum in similar fashion."
I do not know who said that,
but I used to.
What right do any of us have
to the authorship of history.
None. I am
no pretender.
A place for everything
and everything well reasoned
in due time.
I have been waiting
for quite some time
for the poetic turn.
I do believe it will be,
the waiting,
the death of me,
but a boy can dream
and possibly
as aside from death
as a bless you is to the involuntarily generated sneeze,
or more accurately
the sideways glance
of a driver through split peaed fog.
taking in a wrecked semi
tented over a sub-compact
on it's way to a date with sun and surf
and little enormous dreams of elaborate castellated sand
and roy gee bivved plastic balls,
the turn is still to come
prolific as a September walk in an orchard
rife with the droppings of another summer late
and I've only to circle the edges
one more time
to taste the true complexion
of the air I've been breathing these short hours.
original works of parts
Cutty
Take it on, take it off, take it back to the one who sold you
dancing shoes to play worker bee. Take it on, take it off, and wander
the bigness of this thimbleverse in your ill apparel
and then hook and lateral it all into something
no one thought was possible, but remember
I was rooting for you to make the upset,
the long bet sure thing, if they only knew
what you were capable of pretending to be.
They've already seen me do my thing
and get swerve crazy in venues
where the only respect due
was the respect commanded of
clothing expected in the lots and bars
of the salvation army, but us carnies can do
other things besides the explicitly advertised and
truer to form than them other humans born into
establishment - oh establishment - the brute
in the beauty of form following
high function, you dance like
a song ripped lo fi and eight balled, late midnight, higher
than the dumbest most dubbest stepped dub,
but the track playing in your mind
has taken off and taken on the challenge of
the preponderance of long heeled country
with the grace of - jesus christ you can't do that here
in front of cameras designed to catch
the cut and scratch of the real and the greasing
of corporate self preserving twheels
so feel a little bad and be glad
there is someone to reel you back
when the urge to cut moves attacks and attracts
the kind of attention that can get a boy fired
if he were to say two words
about the way you've moved
the definition of stupid, balls out,
wear it on the wrist to the hilt, idle minded, sexy.
Is my tie still on straight?
dancing shoes to play worker bee. Take it on, take it off, and wander
the bigness of this thimbleverse in your ill apparel
and then hook and lateral it all into something
no one thought was possible, but remember
I was rooting for you to make the upset,
the long bet sure thing, if they only knew
what you were capable of pretending to be.
They've already seen me do my thing
and get swerve crazy in venues
where the only respect due
was the respect commanded of
clothing expected in the lots and bars
of the salvation army, but us carnies can do
other things besides the explicitly advertised and
truer to form than them other humans born into
establishment - oh establishment - the brute
in the beauty of form following
high function, you dance like
a song ripped lo fi and eight balled, late midnight, higher
than the dumbest most dubbest stepped dub,
but the track playing in your mind
has taken off and taken on the challenge of
the preponderance of long heeled country
with the grace of - jesus christ you can't do that here
in front of cameras designed to catch
the cut and scratch of the real and the greasing
of corporate self preserving twheels
so feel a little bad and be glad
there is someone to reel you back
when the urge to cut moves attacks and attracts
the kind of attention that can get a boy fired
if he were to say two words
about the way you've moved
the definition of stupid, balls out,
wear it on the wrist to the hilt, idle minded, sexy.
Is my tie still on straight?
Smoker 18
How ridiculous was it,
the change I made
for you?
How ridiculous is it,
the change you made
in me?
I still cannot drink
whole milk.
I still cannot eat
white bread
without feeling small and cheated inside.
I still cannot smoke
without thinking about
the rent I could not help you pay.
I still cannot run
without thinking about
the pat pat of your foot steps
racing ahead of me
and your laughter
at my flat footed, time consuming, warm up
dancing loose into the winter blacked Chicago morning air.
I am glad
for the newness. The still
newness of it all
after all these damned years.
the change I made
for you?
How ridiculous is it,
the change you made
in me?
I still cannot drink
whole milk.
I still cannot eat
white bread
without feeling small and cheated inside.
I still cannot smoke
without thinking about
the rent I could not help you pay.
I still cannot run
without thinking about
the pat pat of your foot steps
racing ahead of me
and your laughter
at my flat footed, time consuming, warm up
dancing loose into the winter blacked Chicago morning air.
I am glad
for the newness. The still
newness of it all
after all these damned years.
Complementary Parts
I had this idea
about trying to write a poem
from memory
with my fingers located exactly one key
off
and see what the shapes would look like
and if there was someone
who could still read it
as though the words came
straight from my tongue to their ear.
And then I woke up
to one of the worst hangovers I've known
and drank
until I could forget
tidal ambition
and the tide pools of the dead and floundering
pieces of things that should never
grace a human eye
that dwell in the depths of
the fatty creases of my head.
about trying to write a poem
from memory
with my fingers located exactly one key
off
and see what the shapes would look like
and if there was someone
who could still read it
as though the words came
straight from my tongue to their ear.
And then I woke up
to one of the worst hangovers I've known
and drank
until I could forget
tidal ambition
and the tide pools of the dead and floundering
pieces of things that should never
grace a human eye
that dwell in the depths of
the fatty creases of my head.
Empty Sets
The set of things that I want to express.
The set of things that I want to press
to single play records.
The set of things that I want to impress
on singly played moments.
The set of things that I want addressed.
The set of things that I want left
unrighted and
the begged dichotomy standing proud
in the gap, demanding redress.
The set of words I thought I had to say
and the waking to another morning
half said, half played, and understood
because an "un" could not stay
the course before an "un" already made.
Expressed presses impressed on
thoughts already addressed leave
little wiggle room to left and right and
redress is optional and understood as
a stay of elocution can relate to
a stay of execution's proud stance
on the natural order of call, response,
cause, and affectation and where
the sets are empty we lay
our heads on pillows and beds unmade and
wait for something
to make us do
something we have not.
The set of things that I want to press
to single play records.
The set of things that I want to impress
on singly played moments.
The set of things that I want addressed.
The set of things that I want left
unrighted and
the begged dichotomy standing proud
in the gap, demanding redress.
The set of words I thought I had to say
and the waking to another morning
half said, half played, and understood
because an "un" could not stay
the course before an "un" already made.
Expressed presses impressed on
thoughts already addressed leave
little wiggle room to left and right and
redress is optional and understood as
a stay of elocution can relate to
a stay of execution's proud stance
on the natural order of call, response,
cause, and affectation and where
the sets are empty we lay
our heads on pillows and beds unmade and
wait for something
to make us do
something we have not.
Turn On
The sun does shine
in the early touch of afternoon,
but in the way
of electric lamps.
The sun does sing
loud enough to be heard,
but in the way
of late morning music.
Bright enough to see
and be screen pressed smoke
and in the way
of seeing clearly.
A snow blind August
in half shadow headaches.
The day holding us each
our own ransom.
Whispering sweetly
through the walled in
spaces of four cornered,
glassed in, cube divided
misery:
"give yourself to me."
Tumbleweeds
A bad beat persists and makes
time sour into films and skins.
The threads rise like steam
from the pits of graying streets
that show their red brick bones
after rains and tan cloud reflecting pools
dry away and rainbows
crowd together into nets of
concrete stippled spray insulation
against the corrugated steel
riveted to summer sky's belly.
Beneath the compression
and the rise of opportune life
formed on the surface of rot
the spores float loose and, borne
on the wind of a/c compressor
opposite box fans, they flower.
They flower and thrive and thicket and go
nowhere. Their eggshell shoots grow
long and spiny and hair feather thin and
tree limb resilient as they touch and
resume walls and window shades and
tufts of vacuum loosed coils of plastic carpet.
A bad beat persists and
numerous, transluminous against the desk lamp's
bright coiled bell, invisible in the obfuscating sun
rays that do struggle through
slats of blinds and rained out clouds,
heaped and tumbling weeds
are leaking from my head
and I've not the shears or black trash bags,
the gloves or green thumb,
to touch and corral without pricking skin
let alone their extermination.
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