The End of My Jazz Era

 
In high school 
I would be alone 

in our dark garage 
at night 

practicing
my saxophone

when I’d notice 
police sirens.

Neighbors didn’t 
want to hear 

my honking scales 
and arpeggios

any more than 
my family did.

It’s a miracle 
I stayed off 

drugs and out 
of jail somehow. 

Worst of all,
I might’ve been 

famous by now.

of tomorrow and forever


the bitter cold of
pending death

the uncertainty of
what is to come

that fine fucking
line of tomorrow
and forever

broken souls know
only the pain

not everyone gets
to be loved

to be cherished

to be blessed

to be lifted up on high
and experience the joys
of what the other side
gets to call life

been over forty years
since your grandmother
told you to go pick the
switch you were going
to be beaten with

they never knew a
young child knew
the chaos of a butchers
knife and being pushed
to the absolute end

fine lines indeed

Stooping for Love

I forgot how
Love is pronounced
And now a lake
Has found its way
To drown me.
I look up to the world
And steal a shawl.
I lift
A shy cup
Of forgiveness
And remember that
One cannot
Seek forgiveness
Until it is willed.
Have I reached
Somewhere high above
To the world of love
Or has the world
Stooped for love? 

BILLY THE KID

 
Out here,
In this western ghost town,
The young girls are empty
Bottles, that reflect the mountains,
They wear me like clouds on their thighs.

A New Metaphor for Sex

I will chop down your weeds
and dig out your rocks and
stumps. I will replant your
fields and be your scarecrow.
I will drive your red tractor
as the manufacturer warns
it should “NEVER” be driven.
I will fill your hayloft but tip
over your cows. I will spread
ash on your kitchen garden.
I will plunder your pantry and
taste your preserves. We will
swim in God’s own swim hole.

 

 

A Hungry Poem

A poem for my dinner table
Is hungry.
I like to summarize my day
At the family gathering
Around the dinner table.
I swear my love
Hangs like the blue sky,
I wake up under it
And my hunger is for a companion.
Sometimes I am right,
Sometimes I am wrong,
A mystic love
Would soothe my wide open eyelids.
In memory the heartache fades.
I am obliged by the hunger
To love.
I desire more love
The water pitcher
Doesn't erase my thirst.
The dinner table
Is a resting ground.
I dance on it,
And miss you
Under the shredded sky. 

Over-Ambitious Phallic Metaphor

While this dandelion presses upward
to proclaim a rapturous leonine pose
I would like to believe that like the dandelion,
my shoulders thrust to the Sun
and my shadow drives back competitors,

that like the dandelion, even if
a violent death scythes my deepest arteries
and I am mown by fate into pieces of wilting debris

I will have gulped enough of the milk of life,
so much like the dandelion’s sap that inches up its cut stem
even as rot creeps up from its bottom;
so that bodiless, withered, even still

the roaring yellow turns to hopeful white
and startles the gardens with
life’s defiant power.

The Fine Lines of Madness 

 
The axiom holds firm:  
Look crazy now,  
So, you can appear normal later.  
I’ve gone out of my mind  
To appear this fine. 

Gamer

Some dreams
are like video games.
The more you
repeat them
the better you become
at navigating various
levels. Practice
doesn’t always
make perfect but
dreaming the same dream
multiple times
over multiple years
enables me
to accept situations
as they unfold,
recognize realities,
prioritize options,
evaluate relationships,
locate where I am
in the shifting shadows--
to stand firm in chaos,
see the dangers
and respond in new ways,
use new powers,
and rely
on secrets previously solved
to unlatch truth’s door
in the hallway of endless lies.
Fear transitions to anticipation
as I become familiar
with the dark
and make peace with enemies
now known well.

dream & nightmare

i had a dream
it rained spiders
all those legs
running all
over my body
as i lay in bed
then i woke 
to true horror 
i was nothing but
this blood-thumping
lung-bag panting
carcass strapped
to bones 
alone
at day break

*****

some days

some days yr shower stall becomes a torture chamber

some days yr bed becomes belts of nails

some days yr reading chair becomes electric

some days yr records become acoustic weapons

some days yr skin becomes a straitjacket

some days the alphabet becomes black ants
crawling yr arms

some days the light becomes papercuts across yr eyeballs

some days the walls become a compactor

some days the door becomes a vertical grave

some days you just sit & wait for the beautiful night forever faithful to its shape