The Man With the Stone Hands

has been music to soft ears,
ears soft enough to pluck
like mushrooms in softer ground.

Eat or not.  To trip or to
hit and miss,
these are all decisions
along the road when a body is too hungry
to reason the next five minutes into
a division between rationale and
a stomach that would eat itself if it could.

Can you feel where the hairs stand up
on a neck, otherwise shaved, if it knew
it had touch coming?
Her mustache pricks
where lips land where
either one could not expect.

If he wore lipstick
before, no one can tell.
Someone remarked snide
at the tea party, all water and no leaf,
and hot nonetheless.  Can you feel
the cry where the wet was 
supposed to be?

No one knows in late August
where the you turns into me.

She had this dream, this sickening dream
where her teeth crumbled into blood.
Every time we get high she gets 
to talking about her niece and
how she died on impact,
flying yards if I could spit three feet.
The hole in her heart and the tail lights,
the pink ball still bouncing against the curb.

The sex has been a stone cutters dream,
the unveiling of the work,
the sculpture, cloth whisked,
shutters flashing,
tears drying, alarms screaming
"he'll be home soon."
What time is it?

Dreadgnaught

Skip tracked old school like
forgetting fire hydrants are still on like
ice cream cones don't melt like
eating everything edible is like
purchase is Summer as though there's nothing like
wearing new sneakers is nothing like
you never knew me like blue can shine like
everything could be termed in plastic like
there is no cut for the verse lik
there is no clasp for these clowns like
everybody get some bodies like
oh no, oh no, oh no like
maybe sometimes we should cover faces like
maybe dirt can do what it does like
grave robbing, rave stomping like
run like you've never before because like
sixteen bits, and a remote and grape jelly like
super coming on like a bad song and good intentions
like we were and still is like our only thing is like
play the H and play with hate
like our only mission is like
being the last or the first or just the noted like
I had this dream against the seams to be
you know me like
we had a plan from the beginning and
I've got you dead to rights.

Exit 11 (by the underpass beneath the mattress)

Where do you go when you go away from me?

For hours un end?

You mean on end.

I would love to tell you
someday when the flowers are back in bloom.
Have you seen the honeysuckle off Exit 11?
Smelled like breakfast in bed
inside a gondola on a hillside
off of Exit 11.

You talking about 367?

Nope.



Silence is golden.

So was middle school.

You hated middle school.

I know.



The Comedian

I do not watch the news anymore.
Coffee still tastes the same,
though I've never seriously enjoyed it.

A lie.
I do.  I did.
Life of late has been
a deeply nested dream and I keep waking up
to the last shell
since high school.

I could imagine myself corrected
like the scene in that movie when they are tearing
down the highway into sunrise and
the camera pans upward
to trained Howitzer barrels
ten meters long
begging fingers for triggers.

I cannot lift
these days
without asking myself what I am training for.

All around us, weapons.  If you care to love about it.
I keep waking up,
taking little stocks.
Finger to the knuckle.  Connection okay.
Palm to the wrist.  Connection okay.
Light to eye nerve.  Connection okay.
Lid to eye.  Connection okay.
Jaw to skull.  Connection okay.
Hips to vertebrae.  Connection okay.
The checklist goes and finishes and
enters concert.

Another day, the apparent thought
being no one has killed me yet.

And as it turns over,
the engine coughing before humming,
I know I have another 16 hours to do
and another eight to gift
to you.

Working With Renae has Been a Nose Bleed

The cats on my tin roof are sticky hot.
That's why I'm up there with a push broom.
The wide bristles work well, you know?
Because they're dead.  They stick a lot,
gutter leaves in late spring and dumb smelly.

A wise man once said
"if you want something felt you've got to feel it yourself"
on the back page of a grocery store rack,
start side down to the right, in case you went there
accidentally and couldn't read without a mirror.

Sometimes you wait for rain and
sometimes you dance.  Play the iffdler.  Sunny side up and
white side down.  Until it browns.  And clarity turns
into another breakfast falling into the back of a spoon and
"I don't get you"s.

The fish have been high lately.
I think they know what's been up with you
and want to say "hey, you tried," but
it keeps coming out like
"more breadcrumbs, please, thanks."

I don't know when I started feeding them.
My eyes have been getting hard again.
Dispassionate, I can forgive.  Dissonance, however,
sounds like a personal problem.  Hold out the bag,
this one's pretty stuck.  I can't hear you up here.

Morning Ride

I know that
the next five tenths of a second depend on an understanding,
I am no fool.

Braking into the cut,
your foot on your pedal.

I am not as fast as I think and
neither are you, but I am
a little faster and head stronger and
that's what counts.  See you later.

Pittsburgh left.

Still Work To Do (atlantic)

Salt and bloody nosed,
she will come, sun rised.
The clouds will watch and we
will suck air like bad fash
yards out of water.  Not scared,
not pitied, not legged,
and not deterred.  In that kind of sand,
muscles taking the give and
pushing regardless, we are
poking fingers into found bottles
for notes unwritten and save our
souls never sent anyway.  The sand is good today.
A little bit rocky, but the gulls are gorgeous and fat
chuck dipping the tide pools.  Freckles don't show
this early in the morning.  Who really does love
swimming at night?  Validity.  Comes
steep these days.  The clouds still watch and we
will suck.  Judgement comes cheap
these days too.  Belting out a
high G I am crying and I
don't know why.
Your feet in the wave rush on those pebbles,
if anyone could call it sand without being generous,
can amaze.  More to say about pedicures.
There really isn't.  Collecting all of the sea glass
fingers can corral.  There's still work to do.
Howl at the moon
so I can hear you over the ocean rush.