A Late Afternoon, Almost Kiss, 2015

 
Dappled sunlight dimmed to death
in anticipation:

Their lips the breadth of a teardrop apart
when they paused.

Chastity? Or Christianity?

They still grapple for an answer,
though each made a home with another.

The brown patch of earth where they stood
remains flushed, shivering.




Twinkle, Twinkle, Little No More


When little children huddle before heading home,
do they talk about dying any moment
and wish for any nursery rhyme
to play as a funeral song?

Denying Credit

He shoves this piece
of blue plastic
in my face and starts
ordering absurd drinks
as if everything he
would say was supposed
to make sense.
"That guy looks awfully
pissed." The bar back says.
"It's one of the few
pleasures bartenders get;
denying assholes credit.
Why do you think
I still work here?
Where he comes from
McDonald's takes plastic".

February

2025’s second month
is deficient, lacking, less than
helpful, failing to
provide warmth to millions
shivering from northern Canada
to the Texas shoreline. 
It is minus fourteen in Nebraska,
colder further north, predicted
to have a high below zero
about three this afternoon.
Not much snow in January,
it comes daily now
adding to everyone’s wariness.
Livestock must live out there,
people must travel
yet roads are terrible.
State trooper responding
to an accident
was killed by a snowplow.
Heavy rain and floods
in California and Kentucky
death toll rising,
leave people homeless,
businesses swamped.
What have we done to you
Mother Nature,
for you to turn on us,
what have we done?

Shitting in the Dark

Shitting in the dark
Late-night in the woods
Wasn't my idea.  It was
Born more of a dire
Emergency.  Rough
Night at the club.  Lost
My ride.  Thumbed it
For a while, walked
Mostly. Then it hit me,
The necessity to step
Off the blacktop into
The woods to drop a 
Load.  So, like the bear,
I shit in the woods.
I was just hoping that 
Nothin' would get me.
My untanned bright
White bottom could be
A lure for a lot of the
Beasts in these woods.
Got bear here, wolves,
Coyotes, liquored up
Hillbillies coon huntin'
Or checkin' their stills.
That'll teach me to get
Drunk and tell Wanda
To drive her sorry ass
Home without me.
I sure wish she'd come
Lookin' for her man and 
Bring some paper.     
 

“Break my bones, just don’t kill me with words”

These keystrokes and slurs 
Slash deeper into my core 
Than stones and kicks ever could 

When they threw a brick at me 
for wearing a dress I said 
“thank god it hit me in the head,
And knocked me out 
So I couldn’t hear them calling me a faggot” 

When the four of them jumped 
Out of their jeep 
And on top of me 
Im glad that the sound of me 
Screaming for help 
Drowned out their proclamation
That fagots like me should burn 

When they cornered me in the bathroom 
Not letting me close the stall 
Or escape to my car 
Im just glad that the anticipation of another beating 
Made my heart pump all the blood into my ears 
To shield me from hearing their questions About what a little bitchboy faggot like me 
Was doing in their town 

I carry these scars 
But what scares me 
Is acknowledging all the ways people think im inferior.

I can ignore and explain away all the pain - Maybe they only stripped me naked
And broke my face by coincidence.

Its better to be treated like 
a worthless faggot 
Than to be called one

Trial by Error



A meandering trial by error
Reality is a collective battle of wills
When pink converse 
Is the boot on your neck
In
Heaven’s justice 
Up until this very moment 
Rendered an incomplete victory 
In dreams and fantasy 
Now breaking through the surface 
To manifest 
The vision of a mischievous spirit 
That exists solely to please and harass
The best of us 
In a perpetual 
Dark night of the soul 





Hospital Music



Hospital music 
On a winters morning 
The Lilly in the valley 
With you
We fall into 
A merging with the universe 
A buffet of beauty and the sublime 
Oscillating between heaven and hell

Unexposed Inbuilt Power


What would happen if you met death, and right then,
you realized you were not just a cat, but a tiger?
And time says: 'Sorry, I can't do anything for you now.
From now on, you are much more powerful than me,
as you frame with death'.
But wait I can salute you for trying positively harder
to prove— what you are— in reality.

If all this happens with our hypothetical set of civilizations,
won’t an inspirational lie, filled with unfruitful attempts, set off our reality?
For this, it would be good to support the non-existence of souls—
in any horizon of concepts, emotions, and conventions.
Dying— accepting the lie that we practiced is moral,
Rather than living a whole life in a lie and knowing your truth at last;
when we meet death; and have no power to perform anything.

But that doesn't mean to neglect the quest to find our truth.
If we are dog but feel that our soul has the nature of a wolf,
it's our right to find it out and respect our senses.
But only during the daytime of our life,
or else this respect for other senses might degrade the honor of our emotions;
if we know we were tigers during the time you met death,
yet lived a whole life like a domestic, dependent Cat.

from Sick, Poor, and Stupid

 
A world not given to moments
Of lyric intensity
Among the discount day care centers
Prolific anarchists comfortably ensconced within academia
Or White Castles metamorphosing into KFCs
After long periods of weedy pupation
Encampments cyclically erected and destroyed
Graffiti layered over graffiti until every person and piece of art is illegible
Bright flowers that speak to you the moment before you vanish
Wait what
Your last words


from Sick, Poor, and Stupid

 
There’s the violence of capital
And then there’s the Presidents’ Day Sale

cinema verite

i relive my youth
at the movies
pathetic
i know

leggy dames
i will never
know no
different than

the girls i
watch walk by
curving away
unglancing

while i sit
this side
of my own
invisible screen

***

"Too much drink..."


Too much drink
sprains the tongue
and bruises the brain.

The mind, crazed
with strange elixirs
runs out ahead,

the mumbling stumble
of swollen speech

tracks across a map
of dimly sensed inconsequence.

The Moustache

The gentlemen's fixation
With the classically stylish
And suave arrangement of
Facial hair was but vanity.
The handlebar represents
The epitome of refinement
Of the most masculine gents.
The mustache wax always
Selected with great care, 
Using just the right amount
Lest, after dining at the Y,
The lady's pubic hair can
Be left particularly stiff.
  

The Neighbor's Dog

The neighbor's dog
Woke me up today.
It's not all that bad.
I sleep till past noon.
In fact, the beast's
Barking and snarling,
Along with the screams
From pain and frantic
Calls pleading for help,
Made me smile and
Laugh.  God knows,
I hate our mailman.