small

bracelets and bangles
unnaturally colored hair poking
tufts this way, that
lip slashes crown
pursed above
splotchy wattles of age
falling to the abyss

black
leather chaps open
pale creamy buttocks
imagined
only but youth
unfazed as above
articulate and manicured
not from here
after all

mullet brained strong
as an ox brooding
wondering
this lot
what place never
enough rain too much sun
powerless unaware
unsettled
without knowing

neither
never saw such
no clue
still
scared
quiet
watching
wanting the same for different
reasons
to reclaim to run to own to save

pushed up
bosoms, low rise
baring jeans
tattoo grey twining
cross low
back
dimples
eyeing all around,
twirling
hapless

its the walk
the little ways
a hunch
they saw
they know
they want
and can't

stranger unknown

life
a small town
chairs lean back
the warped wooden planks
of the diner in the morning
all that holds together
here
the passing of time.

not is heard here but then

A truth matter
of tinny sounds
how easy to lose
songs they come
through the air,
then go
passing by one
another me.
Sometimes to infinity and not,
not to return
others stay for a while.
I have in Texas
hear some old friends
loitering
with your ghost heart.
That one there is
pretty nice
the words ...
I don't know
the music the final
frontiers, nothing transcends.
Even moving five states away
just one listen blows us
back this way.
Music so clear it sees
right through everything
I do.

then

just wait til i
can find my shoes
i'll go home
then down
to the river
at least where
you can
push us
in hold
our head
under water
with all
its voices
in cold
syrupy
silence streaming
past consciousness
or then
again
we could
go
sell
balloons right
off the street
maybe
if we were
twenty
years younger
we might know
better what to do

hold our own
head under water
until
they come
we will
still one
that put
us in this box
we chose to stay
with ruined faces
maybe we oughta talk
one of these days
again

wormed

a long dark think
from nowhere to home
lights gone racing cross the skies
when i was them
i was a little dumber
now it's more and some complicated
hidden away in sueded leather
disguised
sos
crossing the skies
my skies and yours
firing up to elaborate
words yet spoiling
spilling
from that lopsided mouth
dabbed in pink
the better to make you think
it is something other
more
than is

jowls
are hanging out
as the squid slides through
the day before once
everything worked
for
against
all that you were
wanting
to be

and finally the bag men
arrive from italy
it may be a different day
yet still it is
the same old story
and tomorrow it will be the same
going on and on
disagreeing over some detail
that no one will remember
later tonight
even if a death ensues
especially yours

but we are not in prague anymore
and so we must do just the best we can
with your friend franz
twenty one hours to go
and still to be done
the work of a lifetime
only so much as time can bear
will be borne
harnessed in
shoes too small
and all the rest

i understand nothing

 

dump-ed one

that genesis is to genius
black as to clay
gangrene to hand,
hell, to brains and life and intellect, morals and all of it
everything that makes you better than me
yet there it is,
for no reason,
wholly without
the little dog stands
with his tail docked short

nails long clacking along the wood scarred floor
he's a chesty little bastard
bowleggedly tough
his stance
like any other banty rooster with
razors on his skinny scaly legs

makes it all seem kinds normal, don't it

out the window we can see
everything

it is twenty hours to go
but we know we can't finish
nor diminish
creating so many problems
so fast
the patterns swirling
clothes muddled in a heap
molding soggy on the floor
this flood will never leave
you may as well paint the first coat
rather than dress for some explicit therapy

now at ten in the snow is eleven hours to go
there is no word here to assure any of us
the bhodavistas have gone to the country
blocks to be burned
gloves to be filled
the proper way to play with scissors
is neatly at your desk
better to cut your own gangrenous sin
than the neighbor boy
that's what grandma always said
sides, mess with him and the nuns are gonna get you
their metal-edged rulers cut deeper
sharper than any scissors I ever had

they know the sins that swallow us whole
but if they're so special and holy and blessed
how in the world could they ever know
the flesh-devouring, life rotting gangrene of my soul?
any excuse to beat a defiant liar
god helps those who save themselves
and the nuns to help us

but not this one
this one it is not finished
before we get dressed
is one and a half hours
no matter what
one must avoid all dramas

now the floor is empty
butt scars blacken the long leaf pine
the day before in the rain
we never made
here they are on the rack
in the midst
of backwards prestige
the sage rolled his eyes
and lit another
looking at the mess
just another to cut and remove
dead branches nightmares gangrenous hands
take em all out
in the twenty three minutes left
those skinny waifs, their big doe eyes
shut closed, tight with duct tape sealed
just one last time
as even the beautiful
decay

all i wanted was just your blessing
instead
if not
then to the beach
with no more fear of silence
and only seven more to drown

what do they do with em once they chop em off
i wonder?

 

know how

We can't always do what's in our brain

Galaxies spin.
complete annihilation
sucks at our sleeves.

Come sleep
not talking, not feeling
not moving, no control
unaware
and there's nothing no one can do about it
forever

We must all know how to have a failure
How to be

Forever with the devil
sitting on my chest,
whatever the space is supposed to carry our heart
I used to think our soul was there
but nothing could be bigger.
Never.

Dead?
May as well, sooner or later
maybe we can enjoy it more now
before we get too old
but that we wake
though only on waking
do we suspect
we may not be
after all.

Sleep the smallest of fears
stranger is the night
like passing
out
only
to wake in Idaho.

----

This is a crowded conversation
the voices of madness only by default
moving on of its own numbing mindlessness
to a past just as real as tomorrow.

wordless

somtimes they get in the way
sometimes i haven't any
when i feel a need
when i haven't any
i can't

what does it mean
thinking i need
to write?
a need to communicate ...
if so
with who
when none read
the words that appear?

are we just talking to ourselves again
pretending it's not really
talking to ourselves
because it's written?

even though
these words are written
we still talk back
in our heads

if not...

if not then
why?

My brain swirls,
wires frizzling with sheath-destroying heat,
of uncertainty.

Should anything
be
be said?
Subtly
or in pointed directions?
Do you know
have any been there?
I guess
not
for nothing said
means nothing worth
and as nothing worth
the mere occupancy of space
does not mean
a thing.

I want to
tell me what to do
to know what to do
not just whatever
whatever you want
what I want
now
too old
too set
no changing the mind now
like dirty socks
flecked with the tar
of a floorless house
they
we stay
the same
an obstinate mess
less we set them to fires

No more body
few if any want
what has nothing to do
occupying spaces
few can see
I lost count at eleven

so what's next?
if there's god
perhaps
only god knows
his humor lost here
for he must have
one
at least one

one that has no use
to talk to me
whoever is here
no reason, no point
Why waste a precious time
for
god knows, has all
for those who wait
who earned audience
who trust and believe

Moving cross the nation
is hardly the time
for questions
so enveloped
in secret solitude
that ask is intrude
no matter pretending
politeness

The most polite
the least of time
and fewer inclinations
but
maybe
perhaps
one gulp of guilt
stuck in the throat
to stop the speaking
it must be done
I at least
in my density
cannot read a mind.

So where?
Maybe later
but nothing there now
only old and creaky
tired
constructions demolished
should be hidden
at least
at last

Somehwere
something
better to take the space
from
of nothing
or at least
saying what is
offered to
echo.

purpose of writ

if no one reads is it really writ?

at night i wake
streams of words
some rushing like a swollen river
full of surprises
realizations
like sharp rocks
skinning our ego
shot through the rapids
the lesser to get any deeper
meaning

as if...

others meandering
as though
deep swollen bayous
home to gators
old man bodies
decomposing
here and there
deep stagnant pools
we gag
pulled under
our weakness showing

as if anything else
there was

not troubled to preserve it
none
instead
writing, imagining
the empty space
behind vacant eyes

the moon scuds
cloud shufflings
the dark silence
absorbing all the wrongness
til once more
heaviness takes hold
forcing us down
to another sleep
unknowing as the rest.

In the morning,
whenever we wake,
nothing remains
dim memories
faint in wistfulness
wondering
can we ever reclaim
that short peace

In futility
in ignorance
we write
what we think
we recall
knowing all along
we remember nothing
more than a feeling
strange in its quietude
trying to replicate

If we can connect
though fleetingly
with one in us but not connected
is it not selfish
hoping to connect
with an other
not here?

and so we write
it is writ
unread
the purpose?

Not a clue.

-------------
not that ...
but should a reader stumble
does it matter,
style, form or others, else?
about what is
what should be?
Some
pure poetry
some
anything but.
some connected
seeming so amyway --
here is one
there another
a poetry here,
and others not

and then are the photos
raw and shopped, mundane to soaring ....

is there anything to say
not already said, exhibited better than can be?
No one here has anything to say
and less to show for it
Maybe we all have nothing to say.
Still...
i've done nothing for time
only to have nothing to say ...
not willingly

noise is not better
than not
better to be quiet
put to sleep only to pretend
being, doing
when there's nothing at all.

dream

All in new jeans
dark stiff denim two men
one a son of the other
leaving to china to live in the jungle
on an island
just to be.

These I don't know but familiar.
I never met a man in new stiff jeans.
Some with tags still on
proclaiming how thick, how thin, how tall, how short.
Stickers unseen
like no body's business.

All here exude nervous nonchalance.

I am here to learn
how to
what is
prayer

One cursory look in my bag for drugs
fearing forfeiture of this place in tatters
with an armchair for the father,
who sits on the steps
the rest divided into plots,
string strung between dead sticks of trees.

Some growing, others empty
maybe planted but sterile
either way
nothing there

On the wall a painting
i know it well as though i painted
but i never saw it til now.
A cezanne, a monet, or maybe starry night
"Peter sold this house"
I know this picture well
the house as blue as starry night
but windowless admits none of this.

I know someone here but
I don't know who
only nervous scared to be found out
One to China, another for drugs
no one else speaks.
We, none, have mouths and they, no eyes

On the wall by stairs
where one father sits steps
the picture unframed.

I learned something but I lost it.

Painting writing
growing things are important
but i don't know if they're prayer.
No one told me anything about prayer
maybe it's that I never asked
but why i am here?

still
I play with red-striped soda straws, nervous.
They don't like me playing
I quit the sraws, they're gone.
The noise cuts deep and through, bloodless.

I want to ask
I want to know.
I never do.
Not yet.

I think we may meet again
maybe then I will be
able
to ask.
Maybe then.

spiritual amusements

Faith is academic once we're dead
enmeshed in the brain
loosed of earthly moorings
speaking in hallucinogenic tongues
liuke all good pentecostal evangelsits

down in the church basement
tuesday last
my asymmetry alone

is this a better place
to purge my sins, veil the toxins and
serve up pious seconds -- for clarity
not euphoria

After life
being to not
forking this way and that
to paradise, damnation,
the final liberation from this wide open place

A smaller case of larger reality
of the perpetually sober schizophrenics
in China digging in their heels.
At least they have a name for it

Singing in public no more,
not
in the shower
of a married man.

Melliora!

Even at home the voices
the people
the noises outside
There is no way to fall from
this jiggly life.
It's time to jump.

We have done this, met before,
no
matter the denials.

Preguntas?

Is it true
in most christian religions
to be ordained
you must prove god spoke to you?

no idea

Metric fantasies.
Punjabi dance.
One lone swan on the winter's river
followed by his hollow vee, nothing more.

Germs of craziness
inciting to revolutions
the disaggretative individualism
of modern theology,
passing therefor,
of me
i am we are
the center
but only until you are gone again
your perversity, questions, disallowed.

It's the gorgeous tiny chicken machine show
joost and hulu
facebook myspace
me me me me me me me
and the select few i allow as "friends"
and the hundred they know
and they know two hundred and they know two hundred and they know two huundred
and we know none of you
friendless hiding in the numbers.

Strangers with candy
brain aneurysms waiting to pop
like so many cerebral zits
whose pus the ignorance our survival thrives
We think.

nothing said

i am many
others not
others were
but no
longer while here
i am
i remain as
nothing else -

words fail
ideas inadequate expressions
as want
is to be

see mona
lisa
every detail
through crackled layers
then go

go
paint her

listen
if one to you
speaks
felling protests without violence
let the words
come
as if
to say
to do the same
using only words
in my place

we are lost more
than had we never spoken

psyche invaders

an unforgettable night
we had
their digital youth
on every corner
in every smoky basement
not ready to leave
why should they?

the blue of night
soothing
pillowed by clouds
waiting to catch us
should we happen to fall

epic
awesome
wonderful
rooms filled
as many belong
as thinking not
here
if not here
then when?
if not us,
then why?

field lillies
lines in the sand
falls from grace

you can have everything
except what you want

still
here we
are you
and i so
differently alike
whoever comes through
might never know 'less told

not deciding anything to do
trusting what you say is true
they laugh with me, i talk to you
concerts on the lawn
beachball wafting
fragrant evening air

simple
easy
pleasure of a summer evening
who said
it had to be
hard?

if only
this was all
enough
to rule the world
nothing then
left to explain

no space exists
filled with empty
one big (w)hole of absence

thanks for coming

past transgressions
waiting not to be judged
forgotten
compared
not the worst wrong
but just to be

deep in our heads --
nothing to question
deep in our hearts --
no space exists
filled with empty
one big (w)hole of absence

other areas

Blow yourself up the
middle of your enemies
suddenly, your right

Hear the firing
run as fast as possible
carnage everywhere

Open defiance
We obey the sadness of bombs
of deep eyed faces

After school
boys play cricket
in the dust,
for girls
death is the blessing

(only with permission from the father)

children are tools,
they satisfy god's will and die

No safe haven, they
justify suicide as
father land runs red

No matter the peace
despite it we instigate
to spite you we are

shot in the stomach
one eye missing, vacant hole
who hears anything?

The only way free
to destroy peaceful valleys
cradling mountains rendered impotent

Love's temple chorus
dogs wailing, mothers lost, tears
no more, emptiness

we are not welcome
they warned us, we will be killed
men, the only chosen

Deliverance coming soon
making fantasies for you
God makes us fools of ourselves.

crap

stupid things people say
think nothing of them
…
he seemed like a nice person
overheard at the table
about the flavor of the day
troubled life
running loose in the city

Take me into your arms one more time
I will kick your ass

A crate of bibles packed full of
good intention
just like the morons at the table
refusing to believe
anyone they knew would ever do such things
deciding instead it’s another’s fault
Or none atall.

Only when the praying quit could we sleep.
God protects as many of his children as he cares too.
To hell with the rest.
Walking along a dusty road
a most unusual thing --
cow tracheae with bells and crystal beads hung
sighing in the wind,
swinging,
moaning and clinking.

Trials of terrors.

Back in the kitchen, fat sitting puddles.
Roaches scatter ‘cross dirt crusted plates
but everyone’s happy
believing their want,
refusing the truths.

...

the grim weirdness
of nostalgia
feeding on the carrion
of life unmoved
and forgotten

Some of us were not at home
when you came in
that day
Who was it
you met that day?

None of us remember
anything more than
sullen moon tremors
through slats of lashes
against eyes squeezed tight.

It was no one you met
there are none of us you know
nor we
As if
anything seen could be said
would be heard
it may as well not have been
You do not know us
You would not recognize us
if we stood
in front of your speeding car,
not in time to stop.

Some they never are
others come undone
but without wings this is home.

Words
hear in my mouth
clenched tight
held close
imprisoned
like the others
the ones you never met
only to be flattened
by your intentions
smashed flat
like the rest of us.

empty

Day
for night
in the city
where
neon knows
no bounds

I have been that book
our reports
not
so simple as
free play time

The gusset plates
just
too thin
for all the traffic
human weighed down to gray
trundling past
eyes looking past
it all.

Losing
buoyancy
we swallow their dust
and ours.
The dust is old
the buoyancy
suffocates.

Another memory whispers
through
to correct
authority on the other side
more terrifying
we wager then
when the covers will drop
revealing
all we hide,
banking on the quiet ones
to make us invisible
to all but
we know
we can never
escape
They will see the nakedness
they forced on us
and say we asked for it
and we will believe them
for they are bigger
and they are right
and we must always
honor
them
The Bible tells us so.

Deceit now
spinning
out of control
til random inspiration
sparks.
The things of this world
they do not
last
but
what of memory?

How much better
were we then
before getting wrapped
in the power of another
inside.
Wrapped like a larva
I s'pose
we'll be freed
when it's time, but
til then ...

Day for night
the neon never rests
like the many we hear
in the empty crowd
Later
the details
will be
worked out
later.

a limited mind

the effort of a limited mind
to know a truth
to express itself
net zero
like a lobotomy

i never said anything,
did i ...
no reason to say anything
when none can hear
and these thin lines
formed to shape what we call words?

words bound in dictionary,
meaning lost to the vacuos mind
convey nothing
when born to a vacuous mind

but i didn't say anything,
did i...
if none read this
or even you
still i've had nothing to say
fear, yes but to keep calm
your gentle mind
one can't imagine, will not believe

and if none should ever read this
did i yet say anything?
But you are reading, tell me why ...
unless like the rest you cannot say anything
But you are reading and so cannot answer
even though
unknowing what was said
when this was read
unsaid when writ.

The efforts of a limited mind
to exress itself.
Even the day i swung from the fixture
no one had a thing to say.

wasn't

let it sleep a litle longer
now
is too young
that was too long ago
far away
They were good enough then
so as today
no change for nought.
They never thought it would happen
in their world
yet forty years later
clear as the night it
happened the woman sits
with us at her kitchen table
asking whatever happened,
remembering,
talking about police
doctors, examiners of sorts
the blood
the baby
blood everywhere
the baby is not

they said asleep upstairs
loudly downstairs
noisemaking
the blood on the walls downstairs
silently

Who cleaned it up?

Mostly she talked about the blood
and so did he
and so did she
and so the notes
at the examiner's office
illegible words
spaced but on the same line
spinal fluid
bloody spinal fluid
bloody sunday
off to church less one

was he even ever?

sudden death
like a football game
someone fouled out
blood
on the walls, on the slats, on him
in him the wrong places
dangerous places
on those hands, those nails
in dangerous places

Two days shy of two years
remembers nothing
but look,
see that house
huddling close to the ground
in the moss covered trees
coloring dark
the space
with the house
with the blood

We know.