Photos on the Phone

He wakes up
And notices 
That he has
A message
From Google,
Google is
Asking him
If he wants to
Turn back to
A moment
Five years ago,
He says yes
And then a photo
Of the house he
Used to live in
With her
Pops up,
This isn’t the first
Low blow
From Google.

The Past

The past can be a problem
you think you've made your
peace with it.

Then it sneaks up behind
you, and beats your brain.

Taking you back twenty, or
thirty years, and it hurts
just as much now as it
did then.

On the other hand, the good
times can seem close enough
to reach out, and touch.

I suppose I'm just getting
old.
But the past made me the
person I am now.

For better or worse

Mustache

There are certain things a cowboy has that he cherishes very much.
His saddle chaps, maybe a pair of homemade spurs,
Or a nice set or romal reigns and such.
No doubt he cherishes his horse.
And don’t forget his mustache, of course!
It’s big and bold.
He started growing it when he was about 13 years old.
He only cut off once, when he accidentally caught it on fire.
He grew it back, as fast as he could,
Cause his upper lip looked like a fence with no wire.
It started out pretty thin,
As the years past, it darkened up and filled in.
He loved his mustache a lot, it’s a part of him.
If he ever lost it, his days would be pretty grim.
He’s getting older now, and it’s even bigger, and mostly grey.
It’s one of the best ones around, most people would say.
It’s no doubt how he landed his pretty wife.
Boy, if I had a mustache like that,
It sure would improve my quality of life.
Any cowboy worth his salt knows,
If you want to live the high life,
And get the chicks,
You gotta have a mustache below your nose!

The Note

Please
Forgive me
For saying
You were
Acting
Like a bitch
Last night.
Since then,
I have come
To realize
That you
Weren’t
Acting.

 

 
The Crab Shack

The Crab Shack
Didn’t sell seafood,
But
It was run by
An ornery old woman
That all she did
Was bitch.

8/10/07


Upon first glimpse of
what we thought was Eden,
we raced down to the sea.
The sand meshing under
our feet like our will
under our many youthful
impulses. We ran until
we were there; stranded,
alone, naked and full of
a wonder that only
partially consisted of
our bodies.The crashing
of the waves between
our legs fill us with
unadulterated joy.
That spring manic
spasms of laughter,
from our lips to the
evening sky.

An Entire World of Suffering


I eat the fruit of delicious people
I am not amiable nor picayune
yes, I am a coterie of obscenities

what else is there inside me?
there exist hateful emotions
a stirring an energy a fierce desire

one aimless vector
you are raw you are profane
I scare you

I climb on top of cars
I scare you
you are the holiness underground

I aim to be forgotten
I am the emptiness inside you
I need to be propulsive… I plod

blood of the messiah
I am not the one
who hurt you?

crimson lines speckle these eyes
I am not the one
who cares?

The music in your head


Hear that melody in your head
Let it sing reprieves 
against the lengthening of the day
& let it sigh relief. 

Then with your chest
Cry out
That the music in your head
Is real
& alive inside you.

Feel the pressure beating
Waiting to release 
from the tips of your fingers 
From the drumming
In your ears.

Now close your eyes 
Take a listen 
that small theater above your shoulders
Has a concert
So take a listen 
& see the music, play away.

A TEMPLE

 

                                    This god is an empty room

                                    with no house around it.

 

                                    Only silent prayers echo

                                    in the open space it encloses.

 

                                    You may try with all you are

                                    to please this quiet god. You can’t.

 

                                    This room is empty as god

                                    and always was.

The Day My Dog Died

They put me under and cut me open, removed parts of my spine and then glued my skin back together. Early the next morning, calling me by the wrong name, they sent me home. I was greeted at the door by familiar barking. No one else was there, though the radio was on – an old tape of Glenn Gould interviewing Glenn Gould about Glenn Gould. The dog slinked off. I gingerly climbed the stairs, undressed, and fell exhausted into bed. I may have slept for a few minutes or I may have just thought I did. The anesthesia still in my system was messing with my perceptions. I smelled ocean. A family of orcas bent on revenge for past humiliations might have been angrily battering the hull of a trawler. I tried to pretend that it all made some kind of sense. The dog reappeared, her tail pointing down, a sign that, like me, she was feeling troubled. A massive volume of water flooded into the room even as I spoke to her in my most soothing voice. No worries, I said, no worries. I would never be sure she understood.



Man Is a God in Ruins

From where I sat on the sand, it looked like a bulky carcass of some kind, a great grayish mass upon which a dozen or more seagulls perched, was floating in on the tide. The lifeguard vigorously blew her whistle. Most of the people playing in the water ignored the shrill alarm. Other beachgoers actually reacted with anger. “Whatever happened to the right to be lazy?” I heard one sunbather complain. I’m not into cosmic things, but I didn’t have a choice. The dismal clouds that had begun to gather over the bay resembled nothing so much as a band of estranged angels coming to take revenge. Only if you have ever experienced a broken heart yourself can you truly judge.

The Spectrum Stikes Back
It was always a numbers game. The elusive fiftieth percentile, the median equals holy grail. Above fifty you are normal, below it deviant. You call it science but its pure maths. We had been stuck for a long time, no growth but now we are rising. Once they consigned us to the edge of town or cul de sacs but now they cage us in the world, amid the rush and volatility. Cruel. Yet we rise. When we cross the Rubicon with fixed bayonets, we will establish precursory tribunals to allow for the airing of grievances. The guilty will be repaid in the same coin. But for psychologists there can be no mercy – we lack empathy after all.  Up against the wall shrunks! The DSM will need to be rewritten to include Excessive Expressive Disorder, Pervasive Validation Syndrome, and oven mothers. All references to us will be removed or used only as a guide for correct developmental landmarks. Neuros will huddle in corners and whimper. Freaks! It will be a quiet world when we rise. Serene. After the retribution we will flourish and rescue your other victims.