Sad Snow

I catch the first flurry
with my window gaze
past the table of girls
who bought their own coffee
past the single man counting
his tip,
the first snow flake
birthplace of winter storm
winter storm respite from
chained existence, from nothingness,
I think about the walk home
in snowglobed virginia
stomach full, warm, free,
the cooks bell rings,
next order up, I wonder if it's me--
I'm sorry I left you for this,
to eat alone, you'd already cooked
my eggs so lovingly--I'm always letting
someone down,
unlike the snow
unlike this snow,
it's never saddened.

(Almost) All the Macro you need to know

Higher Incomes
More Jobs
Hi-R In-coms
Moor Jobz
Hyre Encomes
Mare Jubs
Heir Incums
Moore Joubs
we want and get and build we
make higher incomes through more
jobs & with more jobs comes higher
incomes Mack-Ro econ works
this way makes higher income
Article I more jobs makes higher
incomes jobs&growth growth everyone
wants less inequality through more hobs
mor income doing it the right way no one
has thought of another way central banks
support modernized morality tools jobs more
higher stable income higher low resistance
inflation targeting monitor to meet
target drone bombing provided
more income & more jobs & higher
jobs & higher income morality
morality
structure principle
principle structure is discourse
of higher jobs get more money
get more jobs on status level-quo
on straight shooting comparison
system borrow/lend more/higher
jobs jubz joubs gobs capital
flows to the heart of stability
burns arteries good like coca-cola
secret short term formula
higher income mor jobs
paid advertisement of protection
go on running global order new
order of world whetted appetite
wine all members--properly.

We should never have lasted the first month

On the train platform
I heard your shrill voice
mad voice, truly mad,
cuts on your thighs
where you'd clawed yourself,
cuts on my wrists where
you'd grabbed me,
I thought I had escaped,
tears running down your face,
not sad but angry,
we held ourselves together needlessly
for so long, we finally shattered,
I tried to walk away, train
hadn't come (I had imaginary
places to be) I can't remember
now what you were shouting
when you grabbed me,
or when the cops came,
or what it was like, what
I was thinking,
my hands on the trunk,
then behind my back,
then he was handing me the ticket
(domestic disturbance)
I can only now
how much I hated you
I can only remember wondering
why I felt trapped,
I can only remember your
terrible, distorted crystal blue eyes,
I can only remember it
as a dream,
I can't remember where I went from there,
how I got home,
I remember watching Dragon Ball Z
with mike, hiding bloody arms,
I think this was near the end,
it's sad these memories are the only ones
left after all those years,
you stole so much from me.

Confidential Review

Start by chopping at the ankles
FOREfourforTimertimbur
hack to bits the leftover
shit,
fill yon plastic bag sack of
meat,
gaily toss colloquial garnish
pay that tab,
slave beggar laborer,
choose your own adventure
coloring book folders, those
scheduled by colorless tabs
binder tabs binder drawn,
participate in society
do your part,
laziness is a crime
perpetuated on mankind
as a whole,
there's no way to ingest power,
no great turning clock,  

A skeptic defends the status quo
(not the other ways around)

even if they don't make sense
even if that doesn't make sense
even if it doesn't make sense,

I don't get to define the words
no one does it for me
but I accept without question
their definition anyway,

history is a tangent
written by truthtellers
nothing is secret
everything is known
there are no lies liars fallacies

all knowledge has progressed linearly

there's no need to investigate
no reason to question
no reason not to believe every word

answers are ubiquitous.

Waiting for Felicia

smells like formaldehyde
everywhere, now spring,
so man decide plant,
pretty up park, where two
limos parked, girls turn
16, take photos,

this might be worst place
on earth right now to try and
read, indoors there's music and
shops, metal wire tables, no
room to think, I want to be out
in that sun but--there's nowhere
to sit & be

water isn't even running through
fountain yet. but fuck, it's nice out

I walk back and forth trying a few spots
all the same, can't find a sentence, can't breathe,

landscapers stop to stare
at procession of young girls,
pink dresses,

limo reads

"Sixteen & Weddings
THE MAGAZINE"

what's the connection?
not sure--

I want to read but the world
chases me
away--

Lunch TRek

Buildings never move
beyond window
they don't turn on
don't listen to the axis
my eyes,
deep set in brain time
at the wrong way turn,
a misunderstanding,

each day a badge check
each day a turnstile ride,
each day at lunch the same steps
same destination, same

everything--

almost every conversation, reference
God Almighty, god of numbers
god o' green,
each day a holy countdown,
calender day,
each day speak the name on your lips

money.

Chocolate

I begin shaking
hand trembling
face reddening
thoughts muddling
closing in on me
my head, my drama
hardening
around my eyes,
voices fading into distance,
distorting thoughts, images,
realities, this is very much like
trip, I think, like tripping, in that
it was very much like a trip, I think,
out of it,

I am once in shambles
I am afraid tho I say nothing

I am waiting to die.

Newark in the fog

Somewhere out there
a ghost of my memory

I'll pass it in the night
like dying embers
scattered as stardust
around this fire pit

I'll meet you old life
older self and younger

I'll get this chance to say good bye

I'll miss it again
like last time &
time before

there's never a right time
I'll never have long enough

Pen's drawings snow

snow melts on my cheeks
as I walk 19th
looking nordic
alaskan, canadian, visigoth,
cold, pea-coat collar up,
bandanna tied 'round neck,
reflected in store windows,
store door reflections,
hair spotted with white,
beard speckled with cold
melting flakes,

alive.

Went out to buy a pen. Can't 
believe I'm without one. 
Too much. toomuch. Too many.
buy a pack. Papermate. 
3 bucks? But forget it. 8eightpack.
(?). They write. is all. Enough.
is enough.

Stuffed in my bag,
head out into the snow
become ancient again
fell my face stiffen again,
Stare out into the clouds
listen to my boots
the steps
remember the poem
figure out the lines
looking cold american
east coast yankee
watching the clouds
watch back.

Childhood on a bus

I realized I'd missed my legs
my boy legs, those
memories of fields & walking &
what kind of pants did I wear
what did they look like,
remembering completely
and being so sure about
where I was going & why,

I remember my little brother
as a boy--our endless stories
growing longer, longer--
further away--

I know my parents
their tender eyes and
hands--their love,

my sister scribbling on
white paper--opening a
book store in our basement--
hand drawn stapled little books--
stealing the copies back
after they'd been sold

I suddenly recall knowing everything
I'd forgotten.

This Winter is brought to you by the letters H.A.A.R.P

Freeze the East Coast
wet snow winter frozen hell
drowning pounded individually name-tagged
terror storms attention grabbing hordes--

drought the rest
thirsty starving high-
temperatures ignored
crops brittle colorless
crippled crumbling dry
dried out--

hurricanes whipping
earthquake-shock crisis
radiation pours into Pacific
Caribbean mudslide ruined (except
resort heavens) East Coast find it
hard to concentrate
buried in snow
a television broadcast disaster
series in 365 parts--

this could be a movie, ya know?

H.A.A.R.P.

2 Haiku

In my chair
steadily fading
into the past

30 years
accumulated dust
falls from the sky

At odds with the ending

I see the same image
like over again--my screen--
too bright--and like no-where--
I right click for the synonym,
child, this hellhole isn't word--
won't give you anything--won't
matter--won't fix the--

unfinished sentences I have
left in my wake--

I hang poems on the walls,
watch them fade in the sun--

pass them by,
write your name on the
blue stream-lines

claim them as yours

they'd be better off--

Piss

A piss behind the dumpter
off King and Patrick (?)
I think maybe, or not,
but it was off King,
under stars, cool night,
one half block off main
line and silence, I am alone,

there's nothing like pissing outside

there's nothing like beer

Felicia shakes her head but she
knows there's no use

I'm gonna go

fuck

I gotta go.

City Sketch

hard-hatted mexican workers
return to work in the cool
shadows cast by squat buildings
walking in line, dressed in
fluorescent orange yellow green
vests, soiled white pants,
they pass on other side of newspaper
stand bypassing groups of
office smoke breakers, talking inhaling
exhaling talking, the air smells like
spring slight tinge of burnt rubber
idling car engines, one of those days
with winter shadows and spring
sun warmth, men with sleeves
rolled up, women in skirts, not sure
if it's still jacket weather or not,
lunch crowds swarming
outdoor patio seats full and waiters
skipping between tables, taking
orders bringing food, cleaning up,
everything above blue and crisp
and new, birds returning chirping
harbinger of march april may
I hear them counting down
pulling me away and toward--what's to
come--something like a great adventure
and maybe get my pen moving again--
like legs and wheels and--lunch truck smells
lines haphazard waiting--did you order, yet?
no. yes yes okay? no, go ahead--feet on
pavement, honking horns washington dc in
the afternoon same as afternoons everywhere
stuffed into a box and shaken up and turned
upsidedown--I catch a glimpse of it
choking--a great wall of text written underneath
a promise somehwere a sigil planted deep
deep beneath the void--calls me to step over
the pot holes--listen as it explands--hissing
from the future--winter ends spring ends
summer all over again--someplace new someplace
grand part the great sea america--shuttle to the coast
3,200 miles away I know where I'm going
I know how I'll get there.

Reincarnation

here now work
drive stake into bone
chest ribs cracking here
then turn toward mindeyewatchful
awake-ness, pass into
a place of no time no thought
mindyielding static shocks on
the keyboard with each tap,
there is silence, quick grind
of tired bodies, heaven, heaving
arching mindfallingdreaming
every loved thing in the cosmos
teetering like a sand filled toy
won't fall just nods left right center
back here now listen to sounds
of the window, of the world
speaking whispers green cozy blues
here then what comes next, what's
always coming, lay your ears to the
ground and understand here when
the nightdaypassage is illusory,
romantic, brazen, here please
hold my hand, stare into the abyss
read this as an image not
as words, there is no linear narrative
why do we assume reincarnation works
that way? Proceeds forward like a single file
march drawing time as a third dimensional line,
what if you're the first life
of many scattered? where does the cycle begin?
here now then where how
mindaltersspacetimebodypeace
decide--

Notes by the window

my hands slowed with chill
I won't reach for the heater tho
I'll get sick maybe,
my fingers are numb,

rain is imperceptible in the night
stopped only by my window
a ledge,

water blurs the world
gives birth to it,

Yesterday I wished it would rain,
now I stare at it strangely,
I am seeing into myself,

this was not what I meant,
when I said it,
I am too conscious of my wish
too wrapped up in my own
petty thoughts, a fracture of
the essential mind, an aberration,

It will continue,
the night, storm, winter, spring
it will continue with me
or without me,
as me,
or because of me,

I am silent,

in the near lane heading north
a car turns left without signalling
there's no traffic,

what came before was a fantasy.

Good Morning Rolling Stone

In the morning
I don't have time to
slowly wake, there's no paper
at my door, nor is there
a half finished bottle of wine
at my feet,
there's only time to brush my teeth
if I hurry, and dress but that's a given,
I'm guessing,
I wonder where the morning goes,
and why we've all got somewhere to be...
why not enjoy the sun's rising,
I dunno, it makes sense to me,
'cause I don't really know where the time goes,
or why sitcoms tell me I should
have time to sit at my kitchen table reading
the paper, eating cereal, waiting on the toast,
coffee dripping into glass pot,
that's not how my morning goes,
mostly I roll out of my sleeping bag,
pull on pants, part my hair, blink
sadly out my window, and look
for my shoes.

By the numbers

I am ever in the nirvana of your mind
a sick puppy feeling his way home
.
I discovered my sleeping bag works
just as well as a comforter
.
sometimes I lay with my feet hanging from my mattress
I let out a big sigh
.
I am sometimes one with the diamond night
and wake to the same song every night
.
Trying to remember my dreams
I embarrass myself tripping over details.

Stokes (Car tires screeching in the icy snow)

car tires screeching in the icy
snow covered roads below my window
remind me of delivering papers
with my father in the old Grand Marque
with no traction stuck in that drive way
for hours can't push up
and the owner is out there digging away
for us and pushing, and finally we gunned it
and struggled to the top, waving good-bye
and him sweating and waving too until
we were back down at the bottom with
him again having failed to take the hill,
shit piss this is getting old, 3 hours behind
schedule and we were throwing papers
that disappeared into 2 feet of snow anyway,
no use, never to be read, one last push
and burnt rubber winter snow smell,
finally breaking the trenchline and
on our way,
only to realize when sliding down
the other side of the hill that neither of us
had gotten out to help the poor guy,
we had just sat in the car and watched him
hack and slash away,
man,
we had good laugh out of that,
and no Christmas tip,
I'm sure.

Sleepy

She tried to relate her
dreams to me still half asleep,
still more in than out, something
about a conference and high school
classmates, always dreaming with
the same cast, not sure why, but it's
no use her words are staggered,
stuttering and she's wondering if she's
coherent (not) while it snows
outside and the afternoon
gives way to night and gray slush,
her voice fading out, breathing
growing longer, heavier, I felt her
chest drop, grow warmer,
surrendering--

A Lesson on writing a Rejection Letter

Bus engine rumble,
rejection letters should
just read no or yes,
I don't have time to read your shit,
shitty opinion about how I should
write more depressing dark
realist shit, I have my own ideas
and rejections just prove I'm
right, don't'cha realize that's how it works,
pull around the corner, take the exit
on the right (or is it entrance, 'cause
I'm gettin' on) the journals and magazines
and publishers are always the ones behind,
struggling to catch up, leeching all the
beauty out, sucking all the colors dry
pasty white, I'm on and going man,
I don't have time for your formulaic response
I have poetry to write, I have roads to drive.

with Love forever,
Me

Written on March 12 (Kerouac's Birthday)

Sun's down when I wake up,
don't know how I feel about that
just yet, doesn't seem right, doesn't
seem like I should be pulling myself
out of sleeping bag, brushing teeth,
getting cool drink of water, now then
now getting dressed, here, holding on
to warm fabric, sometime in the night
i had removed my clothes, don't remember when,
forgot to write dream down, letting this
journal waste away mold away, hear this
written down, some horror story
gone come gone go, was sweating,
was fear? or--could have been any number
of things worth mentioning, not worth
caring about, it's all passing by regardless
all a dream, all no one ever remembers,
all going somewhere in search of the prize,
it'll be darker tomorrow, and the day after,
and the day
and the day

I'm ready

It's becoming real again,
sinking in,
my body moving forward again,
my mind yearning again
     for the drive
     for the wheel
     for long stretches
     for tundras, hills, mountains
     for the Great North
     for snow & hell
I'll take whatever
     I've gotta move or die
     I've gotta see it
                             again
                          live again
Give me those sleepless hours
                             talk
                           laughter
                       understanding
give me those Junction city boys
                       & their road.

Bus Haiku

Star over Parkway
invisible & clouded
by man's inventions

she's sweet
like all taken girls
like mine, alone, waiting

to each side
two seats, two bodies
headed north, estranged.

is it cold
in baltimore?
I'll never know

I'll never know
if it's cold
in Baltimore

In Baltimore
it's cold,
I'll never know

Snow Coffee

I really must be depressed
the lack of this coffee (waitress
took order hasn't returned)
near brings me to tears (I can
see as many futures fading off
in the receding distance can't
wait for me)

But now, listen (don't turn around)
padding of her feet, mug in hand

(I am saved)

this poem exists in real time!

And again, that first sip
smell of roasted beans, sip,
burns my throat (I won't wait)
better, better, ahhhstrong
sweet bitter darkness,
my beautiful elixir!

How I've waited in sadness
for you
How you've saved me!

School Bell

Children know what we teach'em

Children know money

love money

seek money

don't shave money

hoard money

honor money

worship money

never give up money

hide money

invest money

pay money

pray money

find money

trade money

keep track of money

earn money

find value in money

understand money

children become adults eventually

die for money

teach those essential lesson about money

leave money behind

worthless money

Five Lines Prayer

Eat, Sleep & Drink my Darling
East travel the wind
       west of my heart
               North to my home
                         South to America's soul

I-S-B-EN

I abandoned you,
without ever finding out
your name
or brand
or barcode,
without even opening you
u.p.

Experimenta

keyboard training me
toignorespaces
get to the point to point
if i miss one tap well
just keepgoing
I'm not sure what's the case
this is going out there uneditied
and justmade myfirstmistake
misspelling, I can't be heldaccountable
for making this hard to read
it's an experiment, I'vetyped
1,500 of these exactly the same same
words [redacted: wasn't supposed to 
type same twice] with the only variable
being me,my mind,me my body,
now time to finalize the numbers
time to check on my hypothesis
makes sure everything fits neatly
into the check book, can't have my
benefactors getting antsy, chalkit up
to nightmares, my caffeince [sic: caffeine]
addled brain to findger connection
whogivesa fuck thart last combination
was done on purpose--but maybe like
all of this was done as planned--then
maybeI've been lying this whole time,
how would you even know>?

Thinking a poem out loud

I highly recommend
refining your search

does best

kindling wood

use sparingly or else
cancer causing enzymes
seep into river over world
causing water to run clear
over smoothed rocks
a billion years old

saw god worship some thing
makes you uneasy
on a Saturday
makes you think maybe
you aren't catching on

HEADLINE [place text here]
[name] was found [verdict] of [number] counts
of [crime] and will be [sentence].

OBITUARY [among the rest]
[name] died.

often times it's easier to care about
what's impacting the rich than all the stinking
bodies of the ether piled up in rows
and wasting away

suck a drink from the funeral pyre
make a toast to mankind
we've got a while to go
and the next town is bright
the next press stinks of ink
the roads going on going on
about itself.