Baseball 10

Leather hits leather and stitch,
take a breath,
nothing but time and triggers should never be pulled
with a gut full of air.  Run run run run run. Let him.  Gun him down.

Let the ball go
and then let the ball go
without blinking.

At the point of attack
the most difficult thing to remember is
never close your eyes.

Leave self preservation behind.
Let go self's bred defense.
Never close your eyes
at the point of attack.

Return of the Painted Dinosaur LP

A Rotten Time

Circling the village and smoke stacks, I

"Are you really happy?"

"I'm happier than I've ever been.  Never acid again?"

"Never acid again."

The thwup thwup thwup thwup of rotor blades
can send a boy deaf if
the whine of engines don't take care of it first.

Pick a spot.  Wherever is good.  I'll meet you
up the block.

It is okay.  It is why we came here.
It is why we can't get any god damned air
between our Osprey and their muzzles
throwing metal.

It is okay.

Circling the huts and
the roaches.
We brought mechs.

Ready now?  Never acid again.  "Let's go, boy!"

Crush them or die trying.  Headed toward
the blue flare
smoke.







The Valley of Light


Winter burly still the wheels skip
rear drive up hill across the spot where
the sweepers turn into hair pins and 
hydroplaning is more than a concept
in an article.
Changing lanes
was a bad idea
hearing the pop of solid transaxle 
bang the frame like a whore's kiss,
left rear hopping the curb before biting 
concrete and tearing 
her ear off
with teeth.

Can you be? Can you be?
Can you really eat me.

Not today, on a wing and a hope and a prayer.
Fringes of vision beginning to gray
with speed enough to pave the way straight
to heaven. We go and go and go faster.
Nose bleeds no.  No still means no.
Snow fall comes in the depth of the night,
tearing apart the Summer highway and 
I can eat it all if I open her mouth wide enough
with fingers.  Spit inside.  The clutch slips and
torque tears a hole in the sky inside tunnel vision,
did you know if you strike
between the eyes they call it seeing stars?
I see snow white, waking up,
the driver side door slamming and try
to catch a flake on my tongue.

Can you be? Can you be?
Can you really eat me?




Dread Not (the code)

"I look after you,
you bet your ass
you better be
looking after me."

The phone rings and I am asleep
talking to you. The phone rings again
and I am out of bed and on my saddle
looking for the spot "I know" between the tracks and trees,
still sleeping while I kick the pedals
to get where the getting is good and by the time
my consciousness decides to rise everything's gone bad.

We timed it.  The cars of coal behind the engine
will not stop for anyone
on the tracks.  The grander scheme, gilt.
Polished and coiled iron and brass and,
plated gold, depending on where it's going.

no one's there
in good spirit, but I brought my own and
home is where the hearth is,
bonfired and inspired by a thing as simple as
a time of day.
 
Spitting distance to the river,
laid back on
railroad rocks and backpacks for pillows
eyes night
it would be good to be near you. Everyone else
the bonus.
A beat machine on a handheld
kicks up the way I know you and you know me
by smell. Teeth spread in the star eyed sky
like blue glow sticks and we,
for a few more minutes, cash in karma points
between the rails, mine steel and held down with
spikes large enough to be Raptor finger nails and 
before the new year sets,
talking about the trout licenses
over the phone
that we will never get and who won what
long bet set last January and
the river is crystal clear to the people there.
Begging a stone to be skipped.

"I look after you,
you look after me."
We skate a little bit.  You, at the riverside.
My voice lost with coal cars bellowing, metal on metal
at each coupling,
on both sides.




Interlude I

"...choose your own adventure.  It's kind of like 
the first time I left home and it was either
come back in a few days 
or find work and there was only one way..."

"....you heard the story about
Onibaba, right?  She was
one bitch of a motherfu-..."

"... to live long enough to
gain access to 
affordable replacement parts.
At least, replacement parts you can sell
everything  you've built
for, if scheduling conflicts mean less to you than
where you spend time
in an ideal whorl..."





The Toast Never Said

All I want in this new year

Everyone has a right to a new year's wish.
The difference kicks down a door,
protocol and extreme prejudice,
everyone has a right to wish.

Is peace on Earth

Everyone has a right to a new year's wish.
The difference kicks down a door,
protocol and extreme prejudice,
everyone has a right to wish.

Even if I have to kill

Everyone has a right to a new year's wish.
The difference kicks down a door,
protocol and extreme prejudice,
everyone has a right to wish.

Every last motherfucker

Everyone has a right to a new year's wish.
The difference kicks down a door,
protocol and extreme prejudice,
everyone has a right to wish.

On this God damned planet.




Super Easy (stick the landing)

Catching snowflakes with a tongue
is an art.
It is cold outside. It is cold inside.
What else is new?
The sledding has been
a task.  Remember when adventure meant coke
and it was easy to understand?
Laughing like this years before
disposable cameras
were the rage, I ran round and round and sought out
opportunities to steal.

Snowballs still
make the same sound.  When they pepper a party.
Everything changed and nothing.
Watching it all fall down.
Do not be so
whatever it is called.
Hearts are
doing what they do.
Along the expanse of drift covered parking lot,
street lights and all,
there is space to dream between flakes,
until headlights scream to a halt at your knees.

Glaring, 
the bloodshot pair of eyes behind the windshield glare back.





Interlude II

"The ground shook the other day."

"I know.  I was there.  Chairs moved themselves"

"Was it an earthquake?"

"I'm not sure."

"Aliens?"

"Could of been."

"You were not alone before.  Do not piss your pants
when angels make landfall.  What is different now?"

"Nothing..."





The Great Destroyer "Goodness" Breaks Communications

Velvet hammers require
a standing staff of no less than
fifteen thousand souls
to make their engines go.

Destroy your goodness, they said,
brought cellulars to hell and
orbited XRF-Ac77's horizon
at a safe distance
until it's crew went to bed.

A fool takes the name.
A drunk believes.
A prince commands.
A king thinks.

Destroyer Goodness, they said,
brought cellulars to hell and
orbited a wound in time
at a safe distance
until it's crew bled.

The great destroyers
ply the seas
between the planets and 
bring eras to their knees.

"Destroy your goodness", they said.
"Bring cellulars to hell" and
orbiting XRF-Ac77's ecliptic,
after com-links failed,
worlds went dark one by one, and
the angels fell.





Antiques

Lying in the sun
beside the maple tree
the shade retreats
and I don't know why
the sun is dead set
on making bacon
out of me.




Return of the Painted Dinosaur

Hi.  Can I interest you in sex today?
It's been a rough week.  I've been keeping a 
backpack on, in case something comes up
that needs solved slower than a boxcutter
and faster than a trip back to my apartment
to grab a water bottle and Allen wrenches
and Teflon tape.  
There's a ball gag in there too.  For me.  
To help me
work better.  I cannot go wrong with 
a spare chisel and tin snips too.  Five fingers
is an over rated theme.  Have you seen my cellphone?
It's a rock that I throw when my voice is too small,
distance too great, or a fax needs sent.
Have you polished your scales today,
coiled inside your cave, where the cool flat rocks
can soothe the hot bellows of your gut?
Tango in the "it's good to be tall, isn't it."  
The color really comes out in sunlight.  It's worth
the going over is gotten shady.
Era's error.  I am not unhappy
a rock ended us.  
It makes sense, the sar-chasm.  Or don't.
You don't know me.  Quite alright.
I was born eras before yesterday
and then I stayed up all night.

The Night Shift

Someone mends the bones.
Someone walks the halls,
picking up this and thats.
Someone comes behind,
replacing everything alphabetical to the stacks.

Tests end and classes do too.
Paper cups reach garbage cans.
Pencils are collected and sharpened.
Anxiety vomit cleaned from stalls.
Chewed off fingernails swept
into baskets along with
muscle balled notes.

Bookmarks are removed.
Trash cans are end upped again.
Skeleton keys turned and lights 
turned off.  

Toilets are flushed and mirrors polished.
Shoes to their bin
and cross stitches sewn
to close broken skin.

Yawns are taken.
Bathroom stall questions asked 
are answered in marker.
The aggression erased 
with steel wool.

Dust is swept and sprayers spritzed.
Vacuums run and museums built.
Little by little.
Before morning dares to touch to a cheek it's lips.

Endless Battle

do it
...do it
....do it
do it!
do it!
DO IT!
DO IT!
duet
duet!
DUET
DUET!

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST SHUTUP!!!

I CANNOT!

I cannot.  

I can't.

you can
you can
... you can 
ha ha ha.  yeah, no.  
In all seriousness no.

do it
...do it
....do it
do it!
do it!
DO IT!
DO IT!

ffffff...  I am not thrilled.

That is a-ok.  There'll be treats.

Do you remember what happened the last time we got into this?

So do you.

I am not thrilled.

Join our club.


Home

Someone left the garage door open.
The right hand side one.  There is no car inside,
the left one hidden by the left hand side door,
still down.

Chunk up a good hack, looking at it.
The gutters need cleaned.  Known before the lit out.
The chuck through teeth lands square
inside a flower pot grown over.  Glare.

Where the hell are the keys?
Break a window.  There are the keys
beside the sunglasses.  The hell
gotten up to, taken away long enough
for leopard slugs to crawl

up the cellar stairs walking down
after banging knees on coffee tables
well stocked with envelops,
notebooks, and pens, and bills.

Not a soul in sight
above ground.
Beneath:
the shop.
Still chewing the weed picked
at the front of the driveway
where the bus line ended and
the acres began.

City mice are
one hell of a cup of tea
and good to keep
at arms length.  Most of the time.

Get cleaned up.
Start with the glass, then the garage door opener.
Then the gutters.
Then the lawn.
Then walk the driveway and maybe check the gotdamn mail.

It is good to be home.
It is better to be
in the cool of the basement.
It is better to be near
the trees.

Wishmaster

I've held something in my heart for too long and I will relate a story to you, but I have to ask you some questions first.  Do you remember how you can wish on a shooting star?  Do you remember how you can throw coins into a fountain?  Do you remember how you can place coins on a statue pedestal?  Do you remember how you can tip your hat to the sun, but only when the moon is up too and you happen to be wearing one?  Do you remember how, if you snatch a propeller seed out of the air, you get one if you toss it at someone and it touches them on the way down?  Do you remember how snatching a ball of fuzz out of the air was very important?

I do not pee in jars anymore.  I do not cut whole chickens into pieces in a very specific way beyond the call of duty or hunger.  I do not make sure I have a mirror inside my right front pocket at all times because I need to break it at a very specific and occasional time that shows its face.  I do not rub cum behind my ears when I am going to a job interview.  I still do not hit roadkill if it is already dead.  I do not whisper to stones and then bury them when people are watching.  I do not keep an even amount of pennies in my apartment at all times.  I do not hold on to an odd number of scars at all times.  I do not touch my shoulder to the right side of each door's jamb passed through when I visit a new house.

There was a wishmaster that grew in my backyard, in Maryland.  At the time, I was snatching the little fuzzies out of the air with abandon, then.  I did not know where they came from, but each spring they were everywhere and I saw them rarely on Staten Island.  When I was mowing there was a plant the mower could not chop down, in Maryland.  I passed it off as work for later.  The fuzzies were very numerous and I started a game of catching them between spells of flying paper aeroplanes and shooting them down with a water canon that used the constant pressure system so that every shot taken would have maximum distance on it regardless of how much water was in the tank.

I grew very concerned.  The next week.  It was not time to mow the lawn.  The fuzzies were still catching wind and they were.  Grabbing balls of flakes of chips of feathers.  I sent many wishes.  Back then.  I walked around the house.  Looking for grass to cut.  The plant was ten times its previous size.  Entirely vertical.  Opened.  Throwing feathers into the wind.  My first time facing a wishmaster.  It was generating wishes.  Creating them.  I was terrified.  Too terrified.  Weeks bled into months.  I went out every day.  To look at it.  Not daring to touch.  Afraid to cut down.  What if you cut it down wrong?  What if it grows back?  What happens to everyone else's wishes?

What if you eat the fuzzy instead of opening your hand?  Blowing it away.  What if someone else cuts it down?  What if it saw me?  What if it remembered that I ran the mower over it?  It died.  On its own.  Turned grayish brown.  Fell over.  Taken from my hands.  There are more.  There are more.  They are horrible.  Do not destroy them all.  Do not allow them to grow on your own land.  Take your chances.  Cut them before they begin casting.  Open ended wishes.  My recommendation.  The only way.  After the wishmaster fell over.  I burned it.  To be sure.

Return of the Painted Dinosaur (track one)

Circling the village and smoke stacks, I

"Are you really happy?"

"I'm happier than I've ever been.  Never acid again?"

"Never acid again."

The thwup thwup thwup thwup of rotor blades
can send a boy deaf if
the whine of engines don't take care of it first.

Pick a spot.  Wherever is good.  I'll meet you
up the block.

It is okay.  It is why we came here.
It is why we can't get any god damned air
between our Osprey and their muzzles
throwing metal.

It is okay.

Circling the huts and
the roaches.
We brought mechs.

Ready now?  Never acid again.  "Let's go, boy!"

Crush them or die trying.  Headed toward
the blue flare
smoke.