More Names

Names are what we go by. 
Breath means we are still alive. 
Hearts are what we break and love. 
Lost are the words dementia takes. 
Know this is just an experiment.

River is the water in my dreams. 
Hydrogen is the lightest element. 
It is something I read. Hope 
clings for a miracle. 
Remember, names are what we go by. 
Are you going to change your name?

Grass is for the cows. 
Leaves are the clothes of trees. Who 
gathers all falling meteors. Water 
transforms into a raging sea or a 
wellspring that goes by fountainhead.

Electricity is the passion between us. I 
own a first name and middle name. Our 
lives could use more names. 
Forgotten is a name I went by. We hate 
ourselves when we are taken for granted.

Yard is a measure of distance. 
Save money to spend it later. 
Molecules are groups of two or more atoms. 
Crack is a name used for many things. 
Beds are where we sleep and die.

 

eight cups a day

 
I’m reading this magazine article,
on the end-table in the doctor’s waiting room
that compares universal consciousness,
to drops of water that come together
to create a lake.
Once in the examination room
the doc explains that,

all 6.7 billion assholes should drink
eight cups a day,
to maintain true health.

I assume the most efficient way to
accomplish this, would be one every
two hours that I’m awake.
Set the cell phone alarm,
make it spring or bottled, not tap.
Or wait, better to ladle it,
from that lake of drops.

Let those cups come together
and forge a new me,
with a social conscience,
maybe even a desire to vote.
As the therapy grows
and becomes the rage,
we will all come to realize

that we’re more than dehydrated egos,
devouring and pushing things
inside these ugly bags of skin,
that we all drink from the same waters,
need to see Dr. Harding
and would benefit greatly from reading
the same magazines.

 

Compost Heaps:

Mixed up with the earth, we
mix with the earth.

32 years a poet,
may my blathering skull compost
as words do in
dictionaries and usage books—

slowly while
fecundating.

I know why kids like playing in dirt—

the greatest joy
is returning home grimy. 

-for Bryan Garner

Love the Quick Profit
“Want more of everything ready-made” – Wendell Berry

Get hired, get fired, do everything but quit;
discern your profession and love the quick profit.

I’m no prophet, it’s just what they say;
delay your ambitions and love the quick profit.

What’s your hours? Did you hit the mark?
Don’t be a sinner, love the quick profit.

Do it, don’t stop it, clock it, don’t cock it;
Oh, are you tired? Here’s the quick profit.

Money makes you sick? No, money makes you
rich, don’t be a bitch, love the quick profit.

Money makes you click. No money makes you
hick. Don’t be a dick, love the quick profit.

You’ve got the 401k, so all will be O.K.;
you’ll retire one day, so love the quick profit.

Eat your collar and put your yoke;
here’s your eggs, baby. Love the quick profit.

Get hired, get fired, do everything but choke;
your breath is so important, so love the quick profit.

into oblivion

 
write out the pain

press down hard
enough they will
at first believe it
is a suicide note

alas, just a plea
for love

for our better angels
to find the time to
give a shit again

not some childlike 
belief of peace and
tranquility

we are better than
ourselves

whatever fucking
we you happen to
be thinking of

raise your glass
and dance naked
in the rain

there is nothing
on the other side

all those bright
lights are a cold
destiny into
oblivion

the urgency of
now has never
been greater
--------------------------------------------------------
rhetorical in nature

 
it feels like torture at times

finding the right words
to explain or describe
blah blah blah

i remember when the
words would flow like
wine

a soft liquor on the
shoulder of a beautiful
woman clearly lost in
all those clouds

now, she's just a crazy
bitch with a knife telling
me to dance for her
enjoyment

a cousin once asked
me why i chose to
be a poet

i told her every blank
page is another chance
to cheat death

is that why no one
makes any money
until after they die?

Tapioca and...

Eating pudding
in the cool of this night.

In my one room apartment
costing me a fortune.

My skin summer fried
from the scorching day.

Phone corks in my ears continuously
listening to my favorite podcasts.

Slow picked and ready to pop,
everywhere and everyone

working endless days,
loneliness an accepted fact.

Retirement will be a trick of tales
down a road and over a cliff,

where I will laugh on the way down,
full of tapioca pudding and a good burp,

but feeling so guilty
that I didn't listen... to God.

RAW HIGHWAY
                      for Ravi

 
I’ve been walking inexact dimensions, expanding towards
odiferous sunsets, bedazzled by the contours of skin and sin
driving my bones towards shadowed balconies since time
was invented.

This morning you asked me if I believe in God?
Me, an old mammal daddy, spouting whale song and bullshit
between bites of egg and gulps of black coffee.

Yes Rav, I believe the divine intelligences are just like you
and me. They have no idea what they’re doing and they too
are consumed with joy and terror.

We are cursed prophets inhabited by maps of Vietnam.
The word sighs an ancient shadow, breathes the flesh and
bone of first love. Fish tracks on our breath. The scent of
roses drained blue by time.

My love rocks you in the luminous arms of the sea.
Be bedazzled son, wear rainbows in your hair. We dance
to the eternal rhythms of life-death-mystery-love-terror. 
Heirs to dolphin joy.

If I Can Find the Words

 
If I can find the words
To share my joy
I would like to give
All of them to you

If I can find the words
To relieve all my sorrow
I won’t keep a single word
To myself

If I can find the words
To express my surprises
I hope you can thus understand
What shocks me the most

If I can find the words
That can truly express myself
There won’t be a moment
When you give me an empty look

If I can find the words
I would keep them all to myself
Never share with another soul
Just to be proud of myself

 

Dog Days

The day is hot and sticky,

a wet fart. A Massachusetts

man claims to have been taken

by flying saucer to a planet

made entirely of drugs. In Linz,

Austria, a wooden sculpture

of the Virgin Mary goes into labor,

adding to the general hilarity.

Dogs, overcome by confusion,

at last stop barking without

having to be told to shut up.

OLD HABITS CHANGE

The drinking has changed of late as
My body struggles with the hangovers
& my mind struggles with the idea of
Even drinking in a bar so now, with
Little else to do, I sit at home doing
A combo of the cheapest red vino
& the always ubiquitous smoke that
Just about keeps me sane & not
Wishing any harm be done to this
Life that, seems of late, to be getting
Back to something like a normal I can
Get used to even without the thought
Of going out & getting drunk in a bar.

 
MORNING JOY

That first morning of real weed after 100 days
Of despair is something to delight as
Finally my mind can rewind,
Relax and
Tune out to a frequency I have missed,
One that fucks with a cool retaliation to your
Boring normality and takes me back to
A place I used to live but which I now
Only occasionally visit.


STONED

I’m stoned, that’s for sure
& why the hell shouldn’t
I be, when it’s just another
day in this stoned out life,
In our stoned out town &
I don’t ever see it changing
Not here, not now, maybe
Not even in this lifetime.