Scissor

Every single one has a story to tell

after The White Stripes

There is something to be said
for the reflections of light though a window,
boun ing off of the w ndshields of ars.
Only to be co.lected inside your eyes.

A basket of coffee table sweets, no?
Bass asking more of the speakers
than they can speak?  Laugh with me!

A standing army of seven nations.
Have you never felt fury?
Deep inside your bones: fury.
Pure and gorgeous and engorged?
Capsule corporation that shit.
Bowling ball sized shit.  Encap' it.

Seven nations?  Seven ways to waste it.
Put your fury into daffodils.
Fuck you?  @#$% me.  Put that shit toward half the pills.
I'm just a full blown wizard trying to
make it with half the skills.
Sometimes with seven nations I try to mount the hill,
but when you're laughing with half the skill
I swallow the half pill still on the table
chopped up and promising me stable.

Not riding out like noir or detective hat label.
Keeping in mind the hand that rocked
my mother and the hand that rocked my father and
the hand that still rocks my broken glassed lined cradle.

I say I'm Cain, keep convincing yourself you're Able.

Running With Scissors

Which concussion is the one you do not wake up from?

Which broken nose goes to starlight and then black?

A litany of poor decisions and poor decisions.

Would you know if you were

sitting on top of a stockpile of golden medallions

if they punched you where your jaw bone meets your earhole?

Satisfaction in blowing bright red into toilet paper

is short.

No cannonballs.  No running.  No diving.

What if

I told you it was opposite dad?

Would you play with me then?

The last concussion you ever felt.

The last time you could ever break your nose by accident or by hook or by crook or by goodwill or by destiny or by fury or by tinkering or by simplicity, stupid?

Which one is the last one?  Would you play with me then?

Pittsburgh Black and Whites 15

How cold your feet.  Mine too.
The rest of me sweating, between
too much cover and skin,
lightly, breathing in and breathing out regularly
to lull you to sleep the best way a little spoon knows.

The underside of my paws
touch the topside of yours.

All hell breaks loose

for long seconds

'til your hand wraps around my jaw bone,
closing my mouth and you
shhh shhh shhh.   sush!  shhhhhhh.
"It didn't hurt."  Okay?
Feeling hit
and run.  Run run running and trying
not to cry or scream.

Morning.  Brick top right around the corner.
Autumn leaves shuffling skit skit in the wind.
Laughing at the weeds growing up inside
the cracks in the cement where
cigarette butts go and glad it wasn't another
end to another bender, but

to have a moment back I'd take that one and be black
incorporated pushing products over shoulders and
sideways glances around elephant sized boulders,
colder interpretations are always available, but
sometimes in dark nights putting up a firelight
of a matchstick against the green black of the woods
I remember what I felt when I am close to you
and I don't want to think about what getting that back
means I have to do.  I can never feel that again and
I know there's still time to spend and bringing it all back in
the bubble collapses
memory lapses
and history itself is fucking raptured and
I will never be what is strong as crazy glue ,
but I can see in black & white.

Do you?

A Picnic

The gardens!  The gardens!
The hanging gardens you could've seen
had we met hours sooner upon the year.
When I walked inside
after climbing an arm sunk to the wrist
in this hillside where we landed first,
where I lost my memory,
and turned him into a summer house.

It got cold and I wanted to use
the fireplace
to keep a little warm, there was a lot of wood around.
The gist was brilliant.  The details not.
The fireplace took.  She woke up again.
I am here now.  Well, we would not be talking otherwise.
Call it obvious.

I call it misfortune.  The flower boxes fell
and cracked to pieces on the hill's side.
You should have seen the dandelions and clover and mint
in eye watering day lit ice cream cloud reflected light
before she shook them loose
like plates felled atop a pool of grass green grease on fire.

Clinking tea cups over cakes
watching your eyes
trace her shadow
to where it meets plate metal and mineral sinews
locked up and woven toward behemoth and
pigeons circle, laughing making nests and
plans for September,
I smile back at you.
We keep coming here.

You can see it too.

I remember how I got here.
"What do you want to do today?"

Jackal

Laugh like Hyena picking bones like guitar sting.

Where the moon blows, I believe we have met before.

"Your accent is familiar, have you tried the chicken?"

"Allspice is my guess."

"There may be cloves too."

"Could use a little sea salt."

Clapping would be nice, had we thumbs.  Baby,

I know it.  Don't you start.  If you start, I will lose it.

"Jah-quel, you are too late and I am already gone-"

Smoker 45

Fuck you.  Pirate melody?  While I obscure
your finding the cure for the fog and the hate
surrounding my shooting brake while I rake up the shit lying in the gutters and the dutch big skirt standing over it handily?  Handle me, I scream, in ten kinds of colors making you my brother to cover the bullshit brown out me.  There was a shut down, can you handle me?  There was a shut down.  Damn near black out.  East said no.  The grid said yes.  For a second everyone was a moonlit guest.  The hounds came out.  Every single last end was found and then the power came back and black went to light.
When was the last time
fright turned to sight
while the street lamps blinked to the melody
inside your head?
A long.  Long. Walk.  With two matchsticks
and one barrel.

This I Believe 3

I believe in knock down drag outs.

I believe in lower case.

I believe in Carmen Sandiego.

I believe in heart throbs from Middle School.

I believe in bass and genetics.

I believe in pipe bombs and fetish.

I believe in hyper space and real time.

I believe asleep.

Do you dream?

Do you war?

I believe in chairs.

I believe in lake Michigan.

I believe in fantasizing about my professor's bare feet.

I believe in bubble gum and cardboard.

I believe in journeymen.

I believe in sadism.

I believe in gunpowder.

I believe in salutations.

I believe in metal, heavy and light.

I believe in hollow points

and well washed,glistening, silver nitrate threaded socks.

I will never be convinced

of the power of slight.

Skitter, skitter, skitter;

this I believe.  When the sun comes up,

believe it. Gunned down by the sounds,

falling on my face, blazing behind

up through the rib cage like fireworks

mapped in blood

 and found.

I believe in sidewalks.

I believe in pain.

I believe in the stopwatch.

I believe in laces.

I believe in fury.

I believe in earrings.

I believe in fingernails.