Off the edge of the Allegheny locks,
nestled in the scrap yard, stood
a bright red fire truck
with nothing more to say to anyone
about anything regarding history
much less how it came to rest,
so many years out of time,
beside the orange streaked brown body
of a tanker car with no more track to tread
and the head of a caramel and 70's
kitchen appliance green
tractor to whom no trailer would
be caught hitched unless it was dead.
Fashionably late, are we?
I am, fingers through chain link
that has seen no days more lively
than the industrial slump, overhead with
Totsy and Nod and we are
poking the grump with our eyes,
breaths caught steaming in Winter's coming,
as we wonder
where you've been all our lives.
I would buy it too. Drive it to work
and park it across four white divided lanes
like the king it is.
Tonight it is gone. Gone beneath the giant.
The magnet as wide as my kitchen
that grasps a magnificently clear,
from afar, silver orb
and then drops it through the metal skins
of things discarded
like a kid with too many toys
and not enough fireworks, matches, imagination or butane
to make things more interesting.
Now we stand,
the gang all here without you,
wondering where grumps went.
Our fingers slink away
from the fence lining the bridge above the scrap yard
and the neon bright green water
at the center of the pit the silver ball has torn into the Earth
and our fancies, like dogs ears pricked false
by mailmen who have already come and gone
and crossing the quietude of the disappointment
by filling the air with tales of other tennis balls
you would have to see to believe.
The gangs all here.
This one time I saw this fire truck in noontime daylight.
It was amazing. Where did you go?
original works of parts
Flight Combat Simulator
FFS is much easier to type and
I am courteous enough
to abide by the colloquial chatter
in the Brit dominated open arena,
but rest assured,
you aerodrome camping bastard
who likes to pad his ratio
by knocking off the noobs
while they've still got their socks down,
I will respawn and fly to the edge of the map
where I will have the peace and quiet I need
to compose a 17 line string of expletives
that will leave no branch of your family tree
unmolested
before I track you down and
give you a full facial
from behind the sun's covering fire and score
the only kill that will matter to me at days end.
I am courteous enough
to abide by the colloquial chatter
in the Brit dominated open arena,
but rest assured,
you aerodrome camping bastard
who likes to pad his ratio
by knocking off the noobs
while they've still got their socks down,
I will respawn and fly to the edge of the map
where I will have the peace and quiet I need
to compose a 17 line string of expletives
that will leave no branch of your family tree
unmolested
before I track you down and
give you a full facial
from behind the sun's covering fire and score
the only kill that will matter to me at days end.
Smoker 21
Having a cigarette
instead of lunch
because the time it takes the microwave
to heat a cup of soup is equal to the time
it takes to walk out front and back and
still catch the last fifteen minute
chunk of paternity tests,
littering day time television like
half smokes in the cracks people walk
when they've important places to be and
time enough to complain along the way,
of course, minus
lukewarm soup
pretending to be garden roast garlic aujou
with real steak
coming up Campbell's
in swallowed burps hours later.
The television
by itself
goes quietly into the white noise of the day.
Picking poisons
can be an art form and
today I am Beat.
instead of lunch
because the time it takes the microwave
to heat a cup of soup is equal to the time
it takes to walk out front and back and
still catch the last fifteen minute
chunk of paternity tests,
littering day time television like
half smokes in the cracks people walk
when they've important places to be and
time enough to complain along the way,
of course, minus
lukewarm soup
pretending to be garden roast garlic aujou
with real steak
coming up Campbell's
in swallowed burps hours later.
The television
by itself
goes quietly into the white noise of the day.
Picking poisons
can be an art form and
today I am Beat.
Catch and Release
I am Moby Dicked.
Lying down dreaming
to the beat of the ocean and
curtains of light that shine like
blue movie magnetic tape
dangled from an opening fist
miles above where wave tops
lick the keels of wooden things.
Everything is alright,
you just have your eyes closed.
Through gills I see
less clearly.
My heart still beats in its cage
that is an amphitheater too.
I swim through heaps of dead roses
when I go
to see it play on Saturday ever nights.
The dresses. You should see
the cuts,
pleats, hems, and strings
work loose as it spins and belts
to the bones and boxes overhead.
Lying down dreaming and Moby sicked.
When my heart does not play and
instead drifts away like petals
to a vase, draped in dust, to a table,
to a home years vacant
after the wind through windows
left broken
I give myself
to the chase, but pace myself metronomic,
rising sandy and dusk eyed,
my thousand grained bed erased
as my tails leave glimmering tracers of silt.
Hold yourself to what your heart desires.
They do not tell you the shortcut
through the wavering woodland of
high water grass is to know what it wants and
then meet it there, but even so,
I am Moby gripped.
I have bitten the score. I have tasted
the shore. I have gone back for more and
I have gone again to the Saturday theater
for lust,
but when I've needed it most,
the heart plays the ghost and
the silence between my ribs
becomes a pounds per square inch
retina bursting crush.
Chase your dreams,
chase your screams,
chase the krill fireflies in daylight and
spend their insides into your fingers
one dozen at a time.
The hooks, you see,
with fine metal plate and
hand stitched whatevers,
the slow rise to where it goes
to cuddle with the moon and play
sporting games with harpoons,
the little scars and the big scars,
the places where we meet,
the hooks that have settled
where scale laps to scale
are all part of
the catch and release of short lived Moby Dick dreams.
Lying down dreaming
to the beat of the ocean and
curtains of light that shine like
blue movie magnetic tape
dangled from an opening fist
miles above where wave tops
lick the keels of wooden things.
Everything is alright,
you just have your eyes closed.
Through gills I see
less clearly.
My heart still beats in its cage
that is an amphitheater too.
I swim through heaps of dead roses
when I go
to see it play on Saturday ever nights.
The dresses. You should see
the cuts,
pleats, hems, and strings
work loose as it spins and belts
to the bones and boxes overhead.
Lying down dreaming and Moby sicked.
When my heart does not play and
instead drifts away like petals
to a vase, draped in dust, to a table,
to a home years vacant
after the wind through windows
left broken
I give myself
to the chase, but pace myself metronomic,
rising sandy and dusk eyed,
my thousand grained bed erased
as my tails leave glimmering tracers of silt.
Hold yourself to what your heart desires.
They do not tell you the shortcut
through the wavering woodland of
high water grass is to know what it wants and
then meet it there, but even so,
I am Moby gripped.
I have bitten the score. I have tasted
the shore. I have gone back for more and
I have gone again to the Saturday theater
for lust,
but when I've needed it most,
the heart plays the ghost and
the silence between my ribs
becomes a pounds per square inch
retina bursting crush.
Chase your dreams,
chase your screams,
chase the krill fireflies in daylight and
spend their insides into your fingers
one dozen at a time.
The hooks, you see,
with fine metal plate and
hand stitched whatevers,
the slow rise to where it goes
to cuddle with the moon and play
sporting games with harpoons,
the little scars and the big scars,
the places where we meet,
the hooks that have settled
where scale laps to scale
are all part of
the catch and release of short lived Moby Dick dreams.
The Sex Ain't Gonna Work but I'll Try
You want
me
and I want
destruction
painted large in red blooded letters
and quiet breakfasts
so lets go.
We'll see where the rainbows end and turn
into buckets of gold medallions and
kettle pots and
more than likely knot
into safe words poorly heeded and
unbridled bridled enthusiasms and
yes
I do not want to talk about it
because I am as hurt inside as you are out and
done with making rookie mistakes
so are you going to let me eat
this oatmeal
or are you going to be
the start of another almost there day.
me
and I want
destruction
painted large in red blooded letters
and quiet breakfasts
so lets go.
We'll see where the rainbows end and turn
into buckets of gold medallions and
kettle pots and
more than likely knot
into safe words poorly heeded and
unbridled bridled enthusiasms and
yes
I do not want to talk about it
because I am as hurt inside as you are out and
done with making rookie mistakes
so are you going to let me eat
this oatmeal
or are you going to be
the start of another almost there day.
Anyone Can Memorize
Anyone can memorize
but that shit is hard
so I give props
to the ones that do it well
in whatever fields
to which it lies,
but I am far from inferior and more
like a species departed.
Vice and all the things
you'll never be privy to know,
though I do let so many of my bones
show,
aside.
I just want the record to know
I am,
bad clothes,
bad conversation,
bad humor,
and tasteless to boot,
possessing of a value
improv's artist's love laughing at what wrote never knew.
but that shit is hard
so I give props
to the ones that do it well
in whatever fields
to which it lies,
but I am far from inferior and more
like a species departed.
Vice and all the things
you'll never be privy to know,
though I do let so many of my bones
show,
aside.
I just want the record to know
I am,
bad clothes,
bad conversation,
bad humor,
and tasteless to boot,
possessing of a value
improv's artist's love laughing at what wrote never knew.
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