Cracks in the Clouds 


I do not celebrate the cracks
in the clouds where blue skies
hide from view. If we could
carve those skies up whenever
we could, we would expose 
the blue skies forever. They
need their privacy from our 
prying eyes. The clouds bring
us the gloom we have given
the skies from our disrespect 
of nature with our man-made 
contraptions. In darkness blue
skies cry themselves to sleep.

Captain Blood in Vietnam
           for Sean Flynn

Maybe he thought
he was some kind of
existential cowboy,
indestructible as a hero
in his father's feature
films, a man with a camera,
brass balls & a partner in
crime, getting right in
Charlie's face on the edge
of all the frontiers, so far
past known perimeters,
point men on patrol
used to see their jeep
disappearing around a
dead man's curve in
demilitarized zones,
blowing weed and taking
candid shots of the dead &
the soon-to-be, the ultimate free-
lance war pornographers,
one step ahead of Uncle
Sam & half a step behind
Sir Charles, Dennis Hopper's
role model for Kurtz's
magician with a lens &
a stoner's complete lexicon
of "Hey Man's… you
should see what he does best,
man, the Man is a genius…"
long before the movie or
the character was conceived,
until he was caught
over the line, where press
credentials & a long line
of bullshit did you no good,
got you captured & locked in
a cage to be pissed on, beaten,
reviled and finally killed, so
far behind the lines his capture
was just a rumor & his body
would never be found.

Nostalgia Hurts


Sometimes it feels like time stopped
and the only thing still changing is me.

My family is turning into phantoms,
yet I’m the only one who disappeared.

I wonder if this life I chose is selfish,
I’m afraid I changed too much this time.

Seasons became years and soon those years
will be decades of ghosts locked in time.

Nostalgia hurts and the home I miss
is filled with graves. The long-distance

daughter cherished for the space she keeps.
I guess my boundaries became sacred,

but everything has a cost and I traded
the home I came from to live my dreams.

My mom has always been selfless
and that’s the one thing I’ll never be.

I’ve got one life to live and I’m living it for me.

Hindenburging

 
I’ve dripped and mad-ripped 
out the other end of this affair, 
grey-haggard and high as a sprocket. 

In the Bible there’s a woman 
named Hagar, the concubine 
of Abraham and mother of Ishmael 
who’s kind of a write-off 
right off the bat ­– illegit and all that.

What does this say 
about infidelity? 
Fealty? Fiddlesticks?

God fuck the ego 
of affairs, unfairness, 
the fare extracted 
from my worth, net worth,
self-worth and worthless, ripped
open and stripped, unpacked, 
unwracked, all wrecked 
and reeking like leeks 
and wires. 

I met that man (my lover) 
as Chief of Security at the mall 
where we both worked – huh. 
He caught me unguarded. I sucked 
and fucked and finished 
him off, and that started 

everything. Don’t come again. 
I’m going 
down graceless, grab-handling,
hindering everyone and heliotroping 
down in hydrogen.

The Hindenburg, that German airship 
claimed 35 souls.
I’m 35 years old and oldering 
daily, while the sky 
brings the clouds to a boil.

The ICE Man Cometh

I wanna be an ICE man.
Kick in doors and make 
Children scream.  Root
Out heathen immigrants
Eyeing my cat for stew.
Break car windows in
The street just because
I can.  Local police and
National Guard both be
Pussys.  The Russians
Have Siberia for their
Dissidents.  If the Boss
Has his way, soon we'll
Have Camp Greenland
For ours.  Love and big
Kisses to Satan's ass. 

Wolf Man

The old man appears to be well past his use by date. He’s as wrinkled as my nut sack. Often he’ll say things out loud other people don’t even dare think. His children are grown and scattered, and despite his being there for them when they were growing up, they just step around him now, as you would a hole or a puddle. From a distance, he helplessly watches his young grandchildren become hypnotized by the glow of digital screens designed to ensnare and control them. It’s a myth that a wolf will gnaw off its own leg to escape a trap. But you knew that already, right?

Wish

When that Martian girl
comes around hunting for
men in her black
leather cat suit,
you better lock up your uncles
'cause you know
somebody's gonna get
a little too juiced
and jump in her
saucer looking for
snacks

Here they come like cattle
with tickets in their hands;
showing that dominatrix smirk,
she drops a pocket guide to
sex positions in zero gravity,
and you know
you wouldn't wish some
of that on anybody

Fair Enough

 
When researching
potential homes for orphan poems
three primary points of interest
come to play:
about,
masthead,
and current issue.

If “about” starts
with apologies for
occupied land, melanin levels,
and confessions of oppression
to indigenous people who
oppressed their own people;
and “BIPOC” and “queer”
writers walk on red carpet
while straight white men
are forced to pay
for the privilege of rejection,
I begin to wonder.

As “masthead” bios
reflect female personalities,
Subaru ownership and a
right to child sacrifice,
my wonder increases.

And when “current issue”
reveals the few men included
share the middle name of
“castrated,” I realize
it’s time to take my balls
and my ballads
and look elsewhere.

Imagination


All the things that i have
All the things i have imagined

Those things can fill books movies
Netflix series

All these things i have imagined

You said and did but didn’t really didn’t do

But all those conversations and emotions

And situations 

The laughter and the horror stories

The energy i put into them 


And all those untrue things

And unreal things 

All that time living in those worlds

I have killed myself with the 


The snowflakes of imagination


And breathing in those worlds 

I always like to make people smarter dumber 

Than they really are

A Refuge of Self-Deception

Everyone reaches for a shard of immortality—
a gleam to flash in the cosmic audit.
Some chisel their names into monuments;
others whisper them into the seams of the universe,
hoping the wind files the message
in the correct eternity.

Most get routed through the usual channel—
a granite placard, dates stamped
like misprinted batch codes,
telling passersby:
here lies a carbon temp
whose contract dissolved quietly.

Lower still drift the poets—
the graceful write-offs—
crafting metaphors no one requisitioned,
reciting sonnets to drifting dust
and one baffled housefly
clocking overtime.
They get no graves.

They’re rerouted to a containment district—
Amazon Books—
a cul-de-sac of forgotten language
where paperbacks arrive like stray birds
and gather in gentle piles,
murmuring their unread lines
to fluorescent skies
that never look down.

A soft-afterlife warehouse,
stacked with abandoned imaginings,
each book aware of its fate:
to fade with dignity, in print,
aligned beside its silent colleagues
who never cleared the ledger.