Wanted: Deadeyes:
Blindfolded,
a poem staggers
onto a blank page
to face a firing squad who,
lucky it,
fire blanks.

A Random Memory

Sometimes,
I'll catch myself
thinking about
those wildflowers
I picked
for you
from the side
of the highway
during that
long road trip
we took,
the little
orange ones
that stayed
in the glovebox
of your Buick
until they crumbled
to dust
like everything else
eventually would.

Sweet Is the Night

Sweet is the night,
Full moon and
Cool breeze,
Silhouettes of willows
Swaying with ease.
Pappy with a shotgun.
Me on my knees.
Given the choice,
“May I marry her?
Please.”
“Welcome to
The family, son.”

Sour Men

the back room
of the Post Office
smells like pulp and cabbage,
sour men. 
there’s a red
and white-topped
pull bottle coke machine
squatting in the corner
like a half-beaten dog.
when we pick my father up
at work, he asks me
if I want to give the dog a kick

The Little Man

 

Deep in the wood I met a
man, smaller than a boot.
He said, if you will sing
for me, you’ll again see
your father. I was poor of
voice but I cracked a lament
to make angels wince and
weep. The little man cocked
his heavy head, looked at me
and said, in a wee voice:
Chum, I am proud of you. And
he handed me a silver mirror.

 


An Alphabet for John Lennon
 

            “Phase one in which Doris gets her oats.”

                        --John Lennon
 
A is for Apple, going round and round.
B is for Beatles, going round and round.
C is for Corey.
D is for Death, our last best friend.
E is for Memphis, up to the end.
F is for Phony, Homey, Honey.
G is for Goodness, which we need.
H is for Heaven, which we need.
I is for I, as Dylan would know.
J is for Joyce, jolly Irish blow.
K is for Kittens and Kangaroos and Kites.
L is for Larry.
M is for Memphis. Something went wrong.
N is for Everything, put in a song.
O is for Ono.
P is for People, who know better.
Q is for People, who know better.
R is for Righteousness, thick as snow.
S is for Surrealism, Symbolism and Frank.
T is for Superman, a rank.
U is for You, please be kind.
W is for Wasabi, look it up.
X is for Leonard Cohen, he is not gone.
Y is for Why, which is not in this song.
Z is for Lennon, which we can plainly see. 

A Fantastic Idea

I just had a
fantastic idea
for a poem.

By the time I'd
pressed the
thing on my
phone to take
me to my note
book.

I'd completely
forgotten what
it was.

What it was meant
to be about

That's the
problem
when you smoke
a lot of weed

You get a lot of
inspirational ideas,
but they're really
hard to remember.

Oh well, I'm pretty sure
another idea will hit me.soon.

Final Significance                                            


Apropos for the Bantam edition
of some Canterbury Tales to be sitting

on top of the toilet’s tank,
in Modern English translation, next to the shitting,

certainly a concern of Chaucer
for its naturalism or metaphorical potential

the paradox that noisome dross
can be gold nugget and so value exponential

to the trained eye and subtle mind
far above the level of the squatting behind

Writer’s Workshop

The best writing advice I ever received wasn’t intended as writing advice. It was in sleepaway camp when I was just 12 years old. My bunkmates and I had congregated on a two-lane bridge over the Delaware River. I was standing beyond the safety railing, staring down at the wind-ruffled water. Three or four others had gone off the bridge without incident ahead of me. Nonetheless, gripped by fear and doubt, I hesitated. “Come on already!” my bunkmates finally all started yelling. “Jump!”

"We Ascribe To Nature How We Treat Each Other”

The difference between death and extinction
Is in the molecule of suffering that gives us light,
That makes us want to preserve the joys in despite of the indifferent universe.
That icy darkness that alienates us from ourselves,
As much as we might think struggling for good is pointless.
And which sorts us as naturally separate as on a capitalist’s conveyor belt,
Or other images of what profitably decimates life
Which have been with us since the romantics.
Since that industrialism that will consume us all in black;
But for our striving still to defeat what postures
It can’t be defeated.
I wonder if we thought up an indifferent world
Out of the calculated indifference of the order which birthed us.
These grim Appalachian hills and deadness to the oppression
Of history in the silhouettes
Of property. At least you, the poem
Is such a good way to man our spirits up
And say fuck you to resignation.
Especially to that constant patriarch who is chief executive
Of the world.

nightstick 

watch me on the ground:
silent as concrete
and all the little holes of blood
that are thought to be intellect
undiscovered,
tumbling
like beads from a cheap necklace,
ripped by a rabid hand.

my skull in so many places.

would you rather
i bawl like a baby
than lay here, breathing when i need to,
waiting for blind hands
to lock mine together?
i can’t tell you how much it hurts.
i can’t tell you the truth.