Saturday in November

long johns
wool cap
no shirt
with window
open
heat on
sounds
of Saturday
golden
sunlight
powder
blue blueness
reaching
gray cat
sleeps
behind me
faint sound
hum of purr
keys ticking
green fields
of what once
was is no
longer
colorless
trees
branches
sapped
faded tiled
roofs
never noticed
before
a breeze
cuts in
every now
and then.
freezes
my chest
freezes
my hands

Chapter two

like
rain-
drops
fall-
ing
hun
honestly

kid thinks
while pocketing
cigarettes

don't leave this time;

space isn't the end,

it's more like
going in search of nothing
you can ever reach

[the thing ain't even
there anymore, like
the whole universe could
be long dead and we'd be
dead before anybody had
the nerve or years to figure
it out] jus' sayin'

you don't have to believe

either do I, necessarily

we're--

just shootin' the shit,
she goes, I know
and kisses him,
one quickly on the
red cheek,

I wrote about
them long ago,

this is a continued
story,

they were standing outside
that gray diner for too many

years, neglected,

they saw the stars go--

Oh!--

I'm leaving them again
in snippets, in just
enough to be vague,
immortal

match snaps,

light!

let it--

she backs away

he goes,

don't l--

falling apart

in scarlet sash
dripping over
drool
hang that
head lo
lo and be--
held by angels
of no wings
crawling on star--
dust in sunbeams
early afternoon
dance to unheard
music
played on cricket
legs two hours
into night

these days
there's no one
else listening

three rubber swings
rusted chains
frame painted
forest green
chipped
wood chips
underneath

blown by the wind

creaking.

these days

creaking

wind

by

We'll never make it

flat letters on
a page to be
admired

words should scream and die

carve constellations
slowly fading
like stars
into

obscurity

in a thousand years
from a thousand poets

anonymity

honesty

things-that-should-not-be-printed

lasting.

They just don't say anything

Have
         the poems
                         in the New Yorker
                                                       always made
                                                                            poets sad?

Rains of Indianapolis

there're no windows
in my cell

I get to thnkin'--

how those sulky
mid-western clouds
take their time passing
wheat fields corn fields

it's the gray wet mornings
in the mid-west I remember
the most--the trail of
rain on windshield--steady
grind of tires--

tried to write this pome
three days now
just stares at me

no go--

Indiana at sunrise,
roll wroll roul
to that big brown
river lull lowl luwl
ya into faded
memories

uneven poems--

'course I could
frame it some other way,

but for the drifting
thot thought thowt

gone--

They all come to this.

No inspiration here

A trickle of letters
     drain
     mildew, harden
     in tub

House hangs on corner
     two legs
     figures of night
     hidden in bathrooms
     past faded lights
     during the day

     step out at sunset
     squinting eyes
     heavy chest

Raise your brow to the setting star
     horizon follows
     a jewel of the west
     bled out

There skis are meant for no one
     they just are
     no destiny in it
     endless earth
     rock
     chipped
     clay

Claw at your heavenly senses
     Saint! Fool! Martyr!

     god is a blank page
     a sea of infinite grey
     unmade
     made

There is but one angel
     touching all times
     one mind

Witness all things
     as no-things

Rock     Ant     Fish     Bird     Dog     Cat     Human     Ape    
Grass     Dust     Fruit     Plant     Mountain     Ocean     Sky

     No Difference
     No Hierarchy

Our lights they've already burned out in the sky.

November Street Scene

a cafe

with only one table
outside

even in November
is strange

a man tries reading
Gravity's Rainbow

"but it mocks me."

I'd rather fry kidney's
on a stove

oil crackles like kirby
on the page,

think iron smell.

color is dull
to none existent.
all white, bland

utterances from
bodies lying on
subway grates,

morning

coffee sips mankind
a selective hi

novels in garbage cans

chairs upturned
on counter tops

chill winds
scuttle through
alleyways

old city pathways

cracked pavement
like an arrow
points north.

Dark Circles

there were dark circles
under her eyes, charcoal

transcribed. Fix the
picture, she said

it's tilted to one side, she said.
My daughter. I don't have a

daughter. Not yet.

In another memory
maybe. Another life.

Our walls have no
stories. Painting either.

There was none.
An empty space. A chair.
Me.

Our Book

BEFORE
thoz engels
livin en the vooid
i git songs en
me ed ehbout them,
duncha'no?

BEGINNING
there is nothing

DURING
suffer me
these tears crying
fear and hurt
go along with
love and joy
fractures tectonic
plates
earthquakes
ecstasy
despair

NOW
we are reading this together

AFTER
fall into me
i m us bay b
don't use those
words as we are one
cosmos of stars
planets seemingly
deeper still and
never--

ENDING
There is nothing

Lost Pen, Borrowed Mind

These things, they are getting easier to predict,
junk soaked hash browns in the eternal rotating mind,
a blank like white wallpaper stare might as well be
painted clones, all the same, one layer glued at a time,
I think, along with the crackle of fat & oil on griddle,
my brain eddies, flows, drops off the picture, past frame,

     I see a candle going out
a room dressed in black pearls
sickness on the pinwheel, ferris
wheel, on the burnt cross squinting
fool,
     I half understand, half forget

we write, in double speak, images, its own existence--
a cat, his rat. playing with infinite gladness of sun speckled dawn,
all stars are suns to dead planets in the solar array,
we just named ours first, classified to de-mystify,
to bottle it up--

     it's killing really,
building a fictional state,
a scientific existence reality,
call it a sacrifice to Lovecraftian
gods of memory, overshadowed
by numbers, remarks, discourse,
citations, speeches to legitimate,
in million dollar conference rooms,
concerned wholly with the "I"

I am not a forgotten boy
I chose utter foolishness anonymously 
I do not seem to fit
remember the am
remember the me

I play each part perfectly,
time is not counting up
it is counting down,

hit the cannon thrust
to evolutionary strain

TARGET: Entropy
                  NEXT STOP.

A bomb carried through time looking for an escape,
a pacifist era to claim, skeletons & rusted beams, sinking
ships killed the moon to bring on the floods,

I am no longer welcome,
too much was said,
promise me you'll watch from the windows,
scrape the mold,

I found the cellar door,
it was all down hill from there--

Dolly's Sod

You of roaring plains
impassible, uninhabited hills,
eternally savage high plateau,
eastern continental divides,
mortar shells dot you logging
cleared meadows & falling cliffs,
fallen white oaks that challenged
great sequoia heights,
iridescent fires scorched your
plains, cut by railroad lines,
Dolly Sod, dirt roads, unforgiving
winds, rain & snow, how you're
nestled secretly in West Virginny,
on the eastern slope, you belong
west on this end of Mississippi waters,
how'd you get so lost?
you're dropped from heaven,
suffered here too long...

2014 (2013- )

All years are uncompromising
they turn imperceptibly
          imperceptibly faster
          advancement of
temporal time
to the chaos bridge
          rainbow oblivion
          arching soon
          white flowers
          crying mothers
          systems down
years shrink immeasurably
          unnoticed
          in the cramped dark
          wailing forge
          river widens
we are a breached galaxy
a martyred existence
          death
          somehow
at the end
and mine
a famous tree
          shedding leaves.

IN PRINT

BANG!
the sound of
book on hand
closing
is empty
weightless
still

no echoes
out ever-oneness
no vibrations

strings

don't ya see?
          already gone--
                    angel
Busted!

kick of engine
to beat the light
rattles earthly
night

unencumbered by lines
unresponsive
                    at ease!
                    AT EASE!
                    I'll tell ya.
Let go
     yellow glow--
          and needs--
--I recall.
          silence after
          short breathes
No cops going:
                         Oh!?
                    made it, child.
grope in my void
     I'll open my coat
          to darkness space.
Look closely
     each speck (pixel) of nothing
you pick up,

is a billion stars
    a galaxy
eternal light.

That's odd

ran out of 3 

line poems

       pomes got no legs

                         NO legs

to stand on,

no more words

empty corridors

yellow lit hallways

muffled sound of

breathing in some

forgotten room

after hours

after ours

they've gone away

one at a time

bomb 

sprinkle earth with

our dust momma

git eet right

get it down,

sure,

you ain't a'frid brotha?

sure it's goin' down

smooth?

sure as hell

he

ain't 

there're no red lines

on the clock

a blank face

a void

coughs back,

caparisoned in

fluorescent rags

we take one final step

piss off.

you heard me. 

The Moon is an empty blue sky

eyes reddened,
stirring,
piano keys,
limp fingers,
ah,
walking
followed by
the moon,
it won't go.

Wave to the souls
on opposite shore,
sinking yachts
sift though the
quicksand plots,

they can wait 50
years for the right
foot, marking the
right time and
glunk!

a few deep breathes
to our animal spirit
and no more suffering,

no, no, nothing,
that is where the
sense is, no, yes,
I mean, nothing
you see?

I couldn't even reach out
before your hand slipped
below,

I sat there and watched you go,

took time off to write about it.

Winter

There!
             wind snakes thru
angry shutters, rattles ears,
cold winter breezes seep
vibrant colors of autumn,
life from fallen leaves,

             thin figures huddle,
hunker down in heavy down
jackets, hide their faces, be-
come two dimensional sketches,
wispy pencil smeared phantoms
on side-walked streets,

pass by without raising head
or hand, bleed out time and space,
storm's coming, bearing down,
thick wood on window snaps
and the air jumps back, whistles,
barks, howls--

clouds descending,
mirror the sunset,
car headlights click, and
as if out cobalt blue nothing
a searing knife cuts from
the fog,

blaring,
blaring--

The Revelation

Harrington left
the number for
Doctor Modesto
on my orange desk
left his digits by the
front door,

car headlights
rotate like lighthouse
light on cul-de-sac streets,
(any you can think of)

this house needs work
off the alleyway score,
scene is incidental,
irrational, broken at its core,

pamphlet costs us 99¢
to print, $1.50 to
incinerate,

that sticky tar in your lungs?
that old rotten tooth taste?

that's paper 50 years past due
marked by expiration dates,
Shit, it's cancer causing, too?

"just a bonus, school children"
says the blue suited, green-eyed
headmaster, "a super-sized plan,"

our end that's the beginning,
one sickly charles atlas crusade,
(we care about mother earth going forward)
but must be repaid!

and he ate the whole thing
in less than 10 pages.

*choke*