>unfinished: given that it is morning

>

given that it is morning
certain chores must get done
forget the teeth the spare skin
littering the livingroom’s floor

first you must jump the puddledull
sing alive the lights and have a look
at yourself deeply brightly
dark with adjectives the mirror is well

unlock the door kindly beg each deer escape
and one by one spy their fur for stolen brushes
pilfered digging hands you recognize the one you
miss leaping through the plate glass door

as much from the puddlesharp reflecting
what crushes scratch rolls across the AM sky



( unfinished and entombed: from 8/6/2009 )

>Jayson

>”Those he command move only in command,
nothing in love: now does he feel his title
hang loose about him like a giant’s robe
upon a dwarfish thief.”
[Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Angus. A5S2.]

Dreaming in pictures
television tongue-cut
a black man, strong black
man guts the air with fingertips
paints each hungry leaf an icy blues
something crawls behind his ear
like a cricket chirping with intent
inhales through teeth
lets pass
two beats
into the too cold room the creep
a stench runs past his feet
couch, tv, used books bought cheap

The simmer eyewild Jayson sees:
red tricycle, white wheels gentle
tipped on its side hangs in the honeyed sky
Jayson dreaming dreams and the kudzu climbs

Hand-me-down Sony stereo wet
grinning bug darts behind an airless blade
sliding colors stir by the pricking of thumbs
Jayson wonders what beast he’ll now become

Beyond defeat lay no living disgrace:

But we know, we know Jayson drowns
that room stomps out that bug turns
the volume up Real Loud and hummmms
along to whatever stirring noise, just for fun

Oh Jayson, just for fun!

>it’s dark in here even with all our fire dancing –N$D by herself, saturday morning

>”I’m sitting way too close to the fire with all the shit I’m dosing imprecisely on the precise moment the minute hand lumbers over the swollen 12s, 3s, 6s or 9s that just keep coming

“For years I’ve watched that same bland round black and white timepiece with the rounded black arms ticking and clicking and gears all grinding up there off to the right. 

“I’ve done this for years and no interval is the same from hour to hour week to week for eight years time postures and for a moment pauses allows me to inject another well-cooked bead, swig a fresh mouthful of Wild Cherry Pepsi or joe or red table wine, here or there, these precise ingrediants, trappings, traps, that’s what i’ll call them today, Traps, all the traps all just lined up by the fire: Dostoyevsky blind folded flashing his filthy yellow teeth chattering about to catch the bullet that never comes. I’m likely to stumble in, roll into the jumping flames by 9:15 a.m. just a quarter hour after my mock-soothing, mock-healing little ritual begins. By my second round i’m drawn up into a ball and i wish people could see me trying to cry.

“Today is not going to be a good day. For years this is how it starts. Ease up.

“Only my eyes are here today. Only my heart and my skin and my tongue. This mixed company. Only way I know how to get the little pricking men, the grass, soot and shit devils, to plot. To square up my storyboards. To hit vibrant notes, key up the fireworks charred cities sharp razors, and my work, my fucking work, like its some cloud floating just out of reach, only works if the light fluffy lines are traced over all in my own blood. Like some kind of Jesus metaphor in some smart book or something. I don’t know. I can’t make all this blood myself.

“Sometimes you have to leave out the best parts to make the worst parts stick. Not like glue, stick. Like spear of longinus, stick. Really stick.

“At 9:30:00 a.m. I did something, 9:32:15 a.m. I put my hand into the fire.

“At 9:32:19 I shook my hand in the air above my head and tried crying some more, stretching out my cheeks with the muscles on both sides of my mouth. My tearducts felt wide open, nothing came out. Not a single bit of sadness.

“I know it’s in there, oh well. I know it’s in there.”

>of blood

>

sorry for what you’ve become

while you were sleeping i fell in love

it didn’t take long, i know
maybe i think i could be wrong
gypsy handed rush of blood
ruby-eyes crush juvenile love
desire wet dependence, addiction addled remorse
soul’s resolved divorce transfixed as she drifts off.

>Canova & Venus

>

Comfort or quiet
nothing echoes when
the windows let up their gaze
snow falling somewhere, breath inside
soon a child’s steel will freeze
no thing can satisfy me no
you will never be enough, mollify.

I walk beyond seasons all the glass
surrounding the lattice

I am the windows are not quiet
storming, their work is tempered by chariot fire
by mythic largess by greed by

I though afraid as I am of comfort
or quiet or you or the deep polish
of window panes I choose I choose

Together we conspire
the hard wet world
strapped into his claws
or that pours her sweet apple
pearl rolling down his flaying edge
(cloud or breath the shape of digging
smaller till the brutes’ stomach fills
no more the sugar of syrup
no matter the salted reflective cast.

>holding it in

>The pink is pulled in now and that’s fine, but what about the panic and the fear? 

what about you-know-who who will happen to the whole fucking world

if this thing happens today

i like things the way they are, i don’t want this new thing coming here
and, yeah i’ve got the power to control these things, i’m the only one
really
but sometimes it’s easier to sit back and do nothing for fear of taking action
and doing the wrong thing. that’s fucking honesty. you know? but whatever, you can pass around 
a deflated football half as easy as a pumped and primes pigskin. it won’t spin right, it won’t
bounce, but flipping that flaccid brown chip in your scared hands
you’ve got to think real hard. think about what kind of new game to make.

invent

you know. but i’ll let someone smarter than me name the game. imagine ways to launch or
hide this weird convex/concave implement. the problem with the fat commonplace football
is that people have stopped thinking creatively about it. what with all the 30 second advertising people/dollars
the new stadiums’ naming rights the logo on the crash helmet that bitter tasting substance 
passed around the locker room the investors the playmakers ziggers zaggers the sharp cuts
illegal formation shotgun nickel defense rivalry end zone celebration. who has 
time to think about the electricity flowing through the outlet or the factory in jersey that smelts
the metal for the prongs oh its all up in the air now,’ Calvin chuckles thinking about Favre airing it out last Monday night how beautiful and practiced and green everything was the screaming righteous splash of spinning leather locked untruthfully at center stage the camera locked onto the ball delivered like by GOD‘s own fucking divine word into the hands of Greg Lewis who will never shine like that again in his whole career. 

‘i can’t do what i wasn’t made to do.’

>no throttle

>… discourse into the vein

but how in? the image
rides or bursts like a bust
of Ludwig Van dropped
from the super-story sky scraper
passion lines wheezing behind
or or or mashes across viscus
pink micrometer slugging
wrinkle above her crying eye
i’m not describing the image
to spite what i’ve said of course
this is love then again swirling
and red and rushed and swinging
i’ll come back in time
in time
to spite what pains of before.

>Battles #1

>

Bright and burning in my pumping veins
the lonely morning before you rise
spent dreaming others’ perfect names
darling, there’s only you
can lip me from this edge
one memory left to toss
so I think real hard about
the time at that old house
heard teens coo 100 miles out
breaking bottles with their shoes
you always knew what to do
you touched me
you coughed
eyes cast out toward the bridge
not quite ready to push off
at the tree we both might have lost our kiss
caught beside the harbor’s sinking ships
you fading like a sad ghost at my fingertips
me, I was a lost child only waiting for a gift
now it’s morning and I feel stronger
think I’ll stay inside a little longer
wear that silver chain you gave me loose around my neck
the cool quick medal swings across my chest
its you, only you, and you’re about to come home
pearl morning light, my lips cotton to your cheek bone.

>Jackie

>He is not as he seems

bright dependable
he is
Selfish full of youthful glee humor
maybe shards of projection
his darkness is real you
See this clearly
all the sand pushed
around like a retaining wall
Quick fire cut off
erasing everything
while the child dreams
Of future
failures sees
morning
Sour embarrassing color
sun dashes behind a cloud
listens for an amber tongue
He knows its true knows its true
Knows someone brings something
if you wait for that perfect wave
Knows the satisfying knock
that looses the trophy out of your
into his tiny pink hands sparkling
Over the long eventually repeating
line each passing minute
a new angle for admiration
Until the quiet night
the heavy heave
moon sick with labor
In the salty light
on his hands & knees
maybe laughing
With his shoulders
bright, dependable
full of youthful glee.