The Name That Starts with E and Ends With H

Back when things were less exotic.
Had names that started and ended with
something more than single letters.
A chemist couldn't cook up
something more than
question marks when
long conversations at brunch
begged more than a casual
meet and greet across foam
cups.  Not to be sour
but, I think I liked you more
when there was still
a score
to settle.

More Go

Catch yourself hands up in neutral on a bad downhill
catching flies with your teeth and lashes cutting cars and
really road markings are a suggestion and if you get
from stop one to stop two on the busway you can
pull it off without a ticket and a citation for heroism,
but catch yourself hands up in neutral and look, ma,
all good, bombing the hell out of this town and
the world feels small and gigantic skyed at the same time:
making sense starts to feel frivolous and maybe
the devil may care this time around.

Daddy Said Don't Play in the Dirt

I'm faster.
I'm stronger.
I'm you part two,
dontcha know?

I'm laughing, belly first.
Empty socket
and a whole lot of voltage,
dontcha know?

Daddy said
don't play in the dirt,
but I got my fingernails all guffed up.

Wherever you are,
there's no one I can't reach.
Burn it all to the ground
if you plan on planting something.

I'm faster, I'm smarter,
I'm squared up good.
I'm on it, I'm on her, I'm in him,
feather true, arrowhead blades thin as paper.

I'm you.  Don't you get it yet?
How long will it take.
I'm faster, insides stronger,
dontcha know by now that thing
looking you dead in your premature eyes
is just you.
Part two.

Dumb Ox Kneels for a While

The flowers are terrible this time of year.
Always have been, always will be.
The bumbles are short on time.

I don't mind.  The grass is still long
the sun is so shy
and I have no thing to offer sighs.

Gamut Frieze

Music therapy
when the basketballs make no sound and
the chatrooms in Russia die down and
everything quiets to deafening and
you know you should pick up
that book you said you'd read.

You've been snowing again,
sketching again.  Boobies and big
belly rings and cute feet
without the hammer toes
you saw on the model.

You have been sniffling again
at the little tears that do not make it
down your cheek.  Speaking in mumbles
to the voices where your ear hit the bricks
last night
yet  you made it to class regardless.  And borrowed charcoal.

Excuses are for the dull.
You have reasons.  You can smell
the model from here and it is gross
in the same way your dad's laundry
smelled like the donut shop,
missed birthdays and chores.

Headphones tonight,
every night these days,
because you know what you did a decade removed.
They do too.  And when the man with the blue hankie comes
you will both know who comes for whom.
Listen to what stills and what can still move you.

Pen and Paper Will Sex, Have Travel

I won't lie,
I have been cheating.

I have been cheating in dreams with things with bedrooms
for eyes and wings for legs.  Things that do not know up
from down and stains for soap.  I have been
touching myself in ways that beg
description and beg for
limits.

I have been cheating.
I will not lie.

Shadow slipped and zipper skinned and bloody eyed
watching the windows for squad cars and detectives.

I have screwed
up and made up and been sucked
down in to whatevers.  Sad things,
happier by absentee suns and happy things
sadder for no one to see them
done.

I have been unscrewed and
burned and turned and hammered and sober
enough to be sworn in
to some kind of forgotten church
with the gods and the gods and the gods and the
stained glass.

I won't lie,
I've been gone
so far
some day
I will
have children
to tell
the day inside the days
I spent
was
without a lie.

Nothing Left

The panic has boiled down to
you and yours and you
alone.
What you do with it
is the choice.
What you can do with it, is theirs.