Mommy

Blood is thin against the water of your womb
I’m inside you, there, pressed against your bones
Umbilically dependent, nourished
Two cable conduits, telepathically twisted in each other
Your blood, my veins
My skin stretched over your connective tissue, muscles expanding beneath
Your lips closing over my teeth
Our tongue tucked inside
You open your mouth to speak and my voice comes out

The Pilgrim

snow swirls among the browning grasses
the moans of the wind
are unanswerable

bent forward
sack over his shoulder
eyes fixed downwards
rapidly blinking against the wind
the thin layer of snow over the road
is as pristine as an abstraction
until he tracks through it

idealism got him started
the novelty of it kept him moving through the worst
now he is cold
the sack seems to be getting heavier
and there is only the black pleasure
of duty being done
totally devoid of extrinsic motivation

did this fate senselessly fall to him
or was he elected to it?
one foot in front of the other, he thinks
one foot in front of the other

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Minor Spirit

you knew instantly when you entered the clearing

the swollen silence
when you saw her
and you knew she was seeing you

amazed
your pupils reamed out
until the hanging dust was star-spangled
and the sun-dappled undergrowth was jewel-encrusted

"Who am I?"
you asked yourself then
"Who am I, forever?"

it all evaporated to the everyday
but sometimes you lose sight of a deer into the trees
and you remember
you see her looking back over her shoulder

---------------------------------------------------------------

A Dialogue about Snowdrifts

"bleak monuments
to the north wind's malice"

"crystal barrows
raised for high summer gods
who died drunk at harvest"

"it can all be said
in the tropes of stellar prophecy:
the millstone heavens grind away
each generation
tries to unlearn nihilism"

"I greedily drink the splendor
from these reservoirs of moonlight"

The Secret

I knew she would find out,
Can't keep it hidden forever.
The fact is, I'm a primate.
My parents were primates,
My siblings are primates,
My son's a primate,
My best friend is a primate.
That's just the way it is.
I'm registered with the vet.
I'm up to date with my shots.
I've got the sign in my yard.
I guess she's got a problem
With primates. So, I'm takin'
My bananas and going home.
If anybody comes by my cage, 
I'll throw some turds at them.  
I'm a primate.



Drawing a Blank

Nothing like drawing a blank.
Sit down to write, nothing comes.
I used to ramble on endlessly,
Important stuff, frivolous shit,
Just a natural manufacturer of a
Never ending wealth of words.
Maybe I've already said all that
I have to (or ever will) say or to
Write with a pen or fat crayon.
It's like the end of a long line.
I could throw myself in the bear pit
At the zoo.  But they fine you even
If the bears tear you apart.  So, best
Jump in with the wallet and change.
Maybe end up bored enough to go
Out and get a job.  No, that's crazy.
I got more coming in now than when
I was workin' with the nut cases at
The asylum.  Colorful chaps.  Friendly.
They'd kill ya for fun, nothing personal.
The height of my day is checking what
The mailmen brings me.  'Bills' I don't
Mind.  It's the proper 'Williams' that
Eat at my bank account.  Actually,
It's time to return to the bar.  I've been
Absent too long.  Hopefully, my favorite
Bar stool is still available.  Really, I'm
More concerned with my spot on the
Floor that I usually ended up on at the
End of the night.

that evil bike

 
he’s got a so/so apartment
and a shit head for a parole officer
and a job at a muffler shop

he’s got an old Harley panhead locked away in a storage shed
and a two-hour drive in his 86 Toyota pickup
to visit his mother who just turned ninety-two
and among the things he knows for sure
is that she’ll call him a loser and a terrible son
and she’ll scowl at his tattoos
and she’ll demand to know if he ditched that evil girl friend
and she’ll demand to know if he sold that evil bike
and she’ll demand that he kneel so she can pray for his soul
right there in the dining room
in front of all the residents and the staff
because public devotion to her god is what keeps her alive

and there’s a cop in his rear-view mirror
and a slow-moving bicycle up ahead
and he’s afraid to make a move around the cyclist
and give the cop a reason to pull him over

and he’s torn between feeling that he’s the loser she says he is
and feeling deep down that she needs him to be a loser
so she can swell her heart with prideful judgement
and that he’s pissed away his whole life
waiting for her to die so he can feel free

and he slows the truck and eases around the bicycle
and the cop veers off down a side street
and he almost pukes with relief from the tension and the guilt
but he admits to himself what he never admitted before
that the old woman was always dead inside
the pious kind of dead that becomes a terrible lifetime prison
but he doesn’t have to die in that prison with her
and he vows that the panhead will see the road again

I Want to Be Your Dog


Historical determinism is the theory
that events are determined

by prior forces and conditions
and so, in a sense, are inevitable.

Marie Antoinette, the last queen
of France before the French Revolution,

had a velvet-and-gilt doghouse built
for a puppy she particularly adored.

Never Enough

It’s the hazy kind of night
that can give rise to anything.

The air is pleasantly more still
when the frantic bustle of the world
slows to match the pace of an
at least momentarily contented soul.

We see things in the clouds,
and imagine those things
see us back with the clarity of the gods.

It’s a marvel of porch lights
and telephone poles
and memories of what once was,
knowing full well those memories
are mostly exaggerated lies
we tell ourselves in order to
keep the lamentations to a minimum.

Everyone pretends to have not seen
the money change hands,
but we all know it did,
it always has to.

Breathing in the late evening exhaust,
we board the crosswalk
in search of even more.

Wrong Way
 
Every way is the wrong way
when living under the
endless powerlines of a world
that would much prefer
you kept yourself to yourself

until you finally bow out,
at which point the universe
will gladly reclaim you to the
carbon scrapyard of existence,
and who knows, maybe you’ll

sprout a tree through your skull,
or house a family of rodents,
lives only slightly more
identical, monotonous, and pointless
as your own,

but the standing under all you’ve known,
the ozone flourishing just above
the sunbeaten terrain,
cries of continuance are weak,
and only half felt at best,

pleading to a sky that gave up caring
so long ago, your ancestors
knew no more of hope
than you do, and you feel this
world receding, leaving you with nothing

but a barren blacktop,
humming powerlines,
and a couple of signs
that will forever remind you
that there is no right choice.

A Trail of Mystery

The visitor enters with the zest of a lion
covered with soft lace
and a command of a queen in disguise
with tender boldness and imposing gentleness.

Unknown to the people in the tavern
she touches them vicariously one by one
with a soft yet lasting breeze
leaving a trail of ambiguous mystery.

Vibrations ripple through time,
like harmony in high and low timber
repeating itself at irregular intervals
hoping to resolve the mystery.

A clear light suddenly appears
laying bricks for a road of covert chivalry
treading carefully to keep a balance
between ecstasy and discovery.

A pause unexpectedly descends
like a cloud shading the sun,
an eclipse is never refuted above
but here under, hope prevails.

Stupid Pretty

liquor bottles
lined up
tombstones
of hope




In Your Dreams, Buddy

drunk on the sweat
i licked from your navel
high on the spittle
you left in your drink