The Fool and the Warden

It dangled itself in front of me
like the meal of all meals
skin browned and glazed
it took all it thought I was worth
swinging and curving
grinding the meat against the monster
pulling my ears into it's mouth
snapping strings
in delicate dolled up fingertips
licking each secret
on the way out of it's mouth
catching my leg in it's claw
I'm a prisoner
with all I've brought taken
and a stiletto heel
between my thighs

The Kitchen

After my Father and I had the sex talk
All I could think of was cheese
So I searched the fridge
for something to melt it on
Standing in my dingy kitchen
The floors and walls stained
from leaking water
Pots and pans lived permanently
in our filthy sink
These days it was throw away Tupperware
and paper plates
Our refrigerator was a model you might see
in a Three Stooges short
The food inside
just about as old
Somehow, we had a microwave oven
You can imagine how clean it was inside
Once the radiation buzzed up
I found art in my surroundings
Waiting for my leftover chicken cutlet
These dirty pots
Mildew stains
Prehistoric appliances
pushing out one last spark
I saw an amazing setting
It wasn't beautiful
Not even close
But I couldn't help see something
Like a movie
This is a place that two cops walk into
and find too many people slaughtered
Guts thrown every where
like raw ground meat
Buckets of organs and bones
in the fridge or bathtub
Like a collection someone can't wait to show
'I've been doing this for years
here are some of my favorites'
Then the microwave blipped off
bringing me back
to the less romantic reality
There was no blood here
No bones or bodies
just one tired man
and a sick young boy

Private Conversation

I wasn't awake
But I may have been talking
While someone or something took me somewhere
My subconscious created stories
from the sound passing by
From the tales told by the highway
that those who are awake will never hear
Something between the wind and I
Maybe revisiting sexual escapades
one by one
Maybe trading bad childhood trauma
Or maybe it's all one sided
Maybe the road never shuts up
and you can't get a secret in edgewise

saw u fallin fast
terminal velocity
at a friction induce Celsius
i cant even contemplate
the blues and reds
with all the wrong wavelengths
to reach me
so far below

but i glimpsed you
sparkler head
at white hot moment smeared

and yr death
was beauty
in vaporization

modest mouse
callin out
that the dashboard melted
but they still had the radio
and we all do
as it all burns
so turn it up
girl
and dance with me
wild
like heroin or stray cats
gettin by
in the cold
with fast steps
for the sake of it
cuz we still have the radio
cuz we still have the radio

drifting on the fingers of the sea
yr eyes return
hallow and hallowed
in grey clouds
and white froth
with the biting wind and yr sarcastic tongue
and then promises
all the banking gulls
with their squawks
amongst the sunsets and sunrises

and the clean moon
throwing
a well lit road
out along the rippled
distance

purgatory's a diner
sure as shit
where wide eyed lost youth
sits and sits and sits
mesmerized on the shine
until its unshaven and worn

pines on the parkway
slowly recover from the fire (years ago)
and take on the silhouette
of those Peruvian palm giants
afflicted with some
invading curse
like democracy or capitalism
that drove
out the golden empires and cannibalism and subsistence
and god-king and witch doctors
from
the dry flat gone on forever land
and the ccloud soaked, llama trod Andes
in the flick of conquistador eyes and twinkle of their helmets

old crow medecine show
pluckin outta the car radio
through the
autumn wind and sea salt
as life begins
to fail
and flicker
like a ghost
of poor reception

It's always darker on top.

kids jumping from rooftops in the background

I saw that spot tonight

the one where I got your call from california

stood below that spot tonight

where you let me listen to my favorite band

almost fell off the balcony I was so drunk

that night you called me

so excited

to listen to that music

& I whispered 'I love you' into the receiver

& you whispered it back from the other side

& I shouted that you were the best girl in the world

I miss that night

hearing your voice

& you

so excited

just to hear mine

black marble geothermal nights
they'll kill one in ten
the rest head west
or just scorch the earth
beneath their feet

I lit her
cigarette
and she
smiled sweetly
and she
smiled
in the cherry glow

I've seen you pick out photons
and bend and pull waves

time
and
space
fall
apart at certain intervals
and
you
fall
through
in
between

all my heroes
died in the Alamo
of friction burns

This is kindof a joke

Loneliness isn’t contagious
So I’m not sure how I caught it
But I’ve got it
I got it bad

And I stay awake at night thinking about how desperate I’d need to be
To meet someone online

And I stay awake after that reassuring myself that I’m smart and pretty
Or that I’m talented

And that someday
Oh god…
Someday soon!

Somebody will say
“Hey! She’s smart and pretty”
But then I get worried
Will they also know I’m lonely?

So I wrote this poem
Well it’s sort of a poem…
Sort of a cry for help…

OH GOD!... I’M THAT DESPERATE … I’M POSTING THIS ONLINE!

What I've learned from strangers

This neighborhood is filled with self absorbed Fuck-tarts
And I might just kill this ladies dog
And I like dogs

But something that I’ve learned
From talking to strangers
Is that I don’t like strangers in big houses
I only like strangers at bars
Or rock shows
Or art galleries
Or cafes
Or Diners
Or costume parties
Or… the Zoo

But I don’t like strangers in big houses
And I don’t like the things they say or the things they do.

the day after the eve

I can still recall your hand against my cheek
And the comfort that brought
To start a giddy day
With a hangover
And a little guilt
Of something I wasn’t sure was appropriate

And now
If we never see each other again
I can only say we had a night
But I’m a poet
And you’re something else
So I suppose
That’s Okay

semi-stalker.

i never got to tell you,

but when you move,

there's this thing you do...

it just tears me to pieces.

there's this face you make;

and it's the reason

i've yet to pull your pictures

right off my fucking wall.

it's the reason...

the excuse i give myself

when i see you on the street

and i stop and stare,

just...

amazed.

amazed that no one else around me

is following suit.

now,

if i tried to imitate

the move you do

and the face you make...

i'd look like nothing short

of a gigantic asshole.

but

since you and i both know

i'm not in the business of caring

about what most people think,

here goes.

(i'm making the face.)

RIGHT?!

how retarded do i look...?!

now,

multiply the retardation

by some unreachable amount,

and substitute it with beauty...

and you've got

the perfect impression of you.

beautiful,

moving,

face-making

you.

the corner desicion

On the corner of Main and Somerset
There is a chicken shack across from a grave yard
And this is where
With great consideration
I weigh my options

The Writing Process

First I procrastinate the whole week
in fact if I really want to write I might
procrastinate into the next week.

Then I usually upset all the people around me
which for some reason makes me happy. My jokes
get more crude and I become super obnoxious
about everything. I don't use the bathroom
for days and save it all up so it's still inside of me.

Next I watch TV for hours, maybe days, to the point
that i will not want to watch TV for the rest of the night.
I play video games till I get frustrated and can't go
any further in the level. I try to find some poet,
but not for the night that I write because I can't write
while I'm high, but for the night before so it's still in my system.

After that I try to play guitar, but it never works
right. I can't even tune the thing- I have my brother
do that part. I play a little bit of "Beast of Burden"
badly and then The Car, "You're Just What I Needed"
because they're both basically the same song, or at least
I play it that way. I come to realize I will never play
guitar for a band or an audience or for anyone.

Finally I go to my computer and write down a line
then I write down another line and another
only to realize that I now have a poem about
how to write poems.

A Certain Kind of Irony

it had
a certain kind
of irony
when my
former roomate
a Satanist
moved from Jersey
to Florida
back with his
parents
because he couldn't
pay rent anymore
and took a test
got certified
and began to sell
life insurance
to all the elderly
that normally move
there worrying about
their oh so short
future

Chicken Fox Corn

Alright, so I'm in this boat on a river and I got a fox
some guys chicken, and this sack of corn and I really
have to get to the other side of this river and I only
have room for one in this little rowboat of mine.
Of course the dilemma is that I can't trust a fox
with some guy's chicken and this sack of corn
would be gone if I left it with the bird.
I never did stop to think why I would even want
to keep this fox around in the first place.
Don't I hunt foxes? Can't I just kill him and
Take the chicken and corn over one at a time?
Aren't I going to kill the chicken anyway
or eat the corn? Why not just have my way
with them now, before anything can go wrong?
Why would I want to sit in a boat with a clucking
chicken or a wild fox anyway? Maybe I'll just
leave them on the shore of this river, only to find
an empty sack of corn and some scattered chicken
bones being puttled into the water by the small tide.

Only You Can Tell Me That...

Is what my teacher said, when someone asked if the poems
about his father were true.
You should also be assured then, that Beowulf and Grendal
never really fought but worked out their differences peacefully
over a chicken and mashed potato dinner in Heorot.

I don't know who said and I've been told hundreds of times
that maybe William Carlos Williams said, "poetry
is the best words in the best order"
Which doesn't imply that those words are
necessarily true.
But I may have never heard this quote before
and made it up myself.

Does it really matter if a writer's words are true?
Is that really something you should be looking at in
a poem?
Does it change the poem, whether or not it's true?
Don't you still want to cross the country in a
Truck you bought for $400 even if "On the Road"
is different than Kerouac's biography. Maybe what's
important to any poem is not how it was created
by yer humble narrator, but what it does to you.

After all this I can say
my stuff is all true,
Every last word of it.
I should know
because I'm the one
who made it all up.

ponderin montana


all these hunger headaches
cold toesand empty pockets
got me thinkin lately
of drunk suggestions
from drunk barely known drinkin friends
in the drunk lonely barroom night
like sober prescriptions
from madmen with similar footsteps
and maybe I could find myself
or a couple dollars
or just a moment so holy
out there in all that big sky
amongst those powder days



[seems these routines
keep bringin me back
to the same old crossroads
all over again]

sarcasm
a fury of emotions
a tidal wave of indecision and madness toppling all reason and exploding without regard for the love wrapped in razor wire thats been blown to bits and dental flossed back together over and over again
and those are the qualities than make me love her

somthing

7th

I can do my best
And try to write
But the things on my mind
Are not interesting
Or poetic

"A poem for every 5 minutes they are testing"

and they still haven't learned a goddamn thing
and they sit in their desks hoping that by the time
class is over their test will be done and they can go home.
If I were teaching they would be asking if its time to leave
noone gives, a shit about commas anymore.
not even the book when the last rule states,
"Use commas to make a sentence clearer"
Whats the point of learning all the other rules,
if this last rule can cancel them out.

Everyone wants something for nothing
I will not publish yer dead friend
and I will not send you work to other publishers.
I guess all the competition really does die
when we don't keep score at the soccer games.
man, I wanna bang a soccer mom
and send my work to Camber Press
Ill make us all famous whatever way I can
and i'll go in headfirst now and mention
everyone's name and see how that works.
As well as 12,000 copies off to a deadpan
hippie festival? Were the police hippies?
Maybe I should just play bass in a basement
that floods and volcanoes are made
and I can skate in circles around the poles
and smoke some Winstons.

Then the class wants to go on a fieldtrip...
all the way to the student center
pickup pencils with animals on them
from a school that endorses gameboy
and condoms and full size shampoo bottles.
She's the kinda girl I could date
I could hit her and she'd still be happy
with the relationship.
Hit her with a lamp because the spaces between
each paragraph show how many times
I show my authority by pacing back
and forth in front of a room.
Charles Bukowski said it best,
'its not that there's to many writers
but to much bad writing'
because how much sense does it make
when volcanoes are butterflies.
I mean, I get it, and you get it
but do the students get it.
They didn't understand when
they went to my car to look for pencils
and only found a smoke machine
and some drumsticks.
But if only one can walk back with
butterflies in her hair and it ends
up on her purse then really why
do we do it.

Damn, I'm beginning to sound
like the poet laureate of Asbury.
"Theater of the heart" Fuck that.
I hope he chokes on his incense
stick cause he has no gag reflex.

some moments gotta be grabbed
right there right then
cuz those same eyes that glittered yer way
in the vast barroom night
last week might now
be tradin feet
to another bands song
in another mans arms

cuz some moments are clean
so clean they aint got no past
no future

man i wish i was that clean
just so now
when electricity arcs from cloud to cloud

deanna sitting on the rooftop
rubbing barefeet across shingles
and eyes making empty love
with all the distance

stars like the finite ends
of rods streaming through
the black and the wind

deanna sitting in november heaven
pressin hard into tomorro
and backlit by constellations
so ancient mythic

with world stretchin out lethargic
in the cold, reaching down
into the soot and salvation
and the sea foam and teaming bustle

deanna statuesque cept for
fogged breath, dreams,
runaway hair in the updraft,
and a glisten

man
saw the moon,

thought
about himself
thinking
about the moon

but it still hung
mysterious and
distilled
and bleached white

and all he really had
was awe

happy magic hour, kids

Hope whatever it was that didn't happen you'll never forget

all the news 10/29/07

Trash Talking World War III
Israeli Premier Mourns Definitions of ‘Is’ and ‘Gay’
How to Love a Space Station
Nearly a third of The Evangelical Crackup
Tries to Swim the Channel
A Tale of Tragic Love Sings
Shock in a New Way
And Will You Tap Dance to Mozart’s Requiem?
The Kid sings, too uncontrollable and extreme
Makeshift Silencer Eyes Penthouse
Looking at Flora and Fauna in Greenland
More Money, More Yoga:
Bestsellers and Bombs Melt

placemat friendship paper thin

malformed ego

results are in

suicide and indigestion

marmalade and perfect posture

renegade idiocy forming pictures

of a time and place far from this wasteland

i'm not asking for a hand

but get yours out of my pocket

no more daisys

start pushing envelopes

and empty all your waste in here

The chip's in my heart not on my shoulder

Hate
is the same
it's just like love
that's why you
annoy
the fuck out of me

Love
is wanting
nothing more then
to strangle
bury
and destroy another

I'm in Love.