sir william of frisco

walks through haight to pawn his dream
and steal another week
handful of cash to get him back
to chinease food and motel sleep
former days of poverty preparing for the road
in search of ash and diamond he goes sleeveless summer cold

Like Clockwork

Drowning out sounds of broker small talk
same AM radio speach
warming beer perspires
warming neck sweats
scratching at it
dead skin under fingernails
"Those kids don't belong here!
They're breaking windows,
Slithering up beer slick tile...
This place ain't the back of a Chevy"

Stradling half-life
soaking up sunrise temperment
earning their keep running mezo-American fairy tales
they sing of La Chupacabra
they've got revolution in those boots

searchlight reflection off a thousand compact surfaces
slow slow slow progression
somehow there's a dance
and someone falls out of step
that moment is captured in pixels
before the floor gives way
before gravity
but after the last important steps

waking up to roses
guess I slept outside again
The dirt smells like thumb prints
not usually seen by the naked eye
blanket of earth covers me up to my waist
fills my shoes
gets between my toes
leaves me with wiggle room

miles of bridges to burn before i sleep

pure idiocy
stop all that thinking
let the blood flow proper
so many damn words for sympathy
call him frank or geena or little dave
get me outta this train car
heading north for the holidays
think i need a breath of fresh air
bathrobe clad and i'm spoiled from time
every motherfucker has an artistic side
wanna see mine
it's drunk and wandering empty steets with a paper bag over my dick and a chrismas hat on
fucking a light post till i bleed from the anus
wana see more
i got pages and pages i use the best ones to soak up the urine under my chair
staple that to your weekend drive through the way the other half lives
wanna see more
look closer
take a deep breathe and i'll expose him the leper you won't invite in
he lives in my overcoat well under it anyway
you know who i am
where i came from
his name is
still can't look away from the car wreck
your infatuated you wanna see more you wanna see more vultures all of you get the fuck out of this world you don't belong just dropped in for a peek at the underbelly of the boar, covered with scales and skin tags a blister here a callous there
smell the air down here
rabid foam pours and i can't wait for your wife to develop the pictures to make kodak slides and prove to the world that you were really there
in home movie format with the in-laws crashing on the leftover sofa
wanna see more

babble

madness or meloncholy
well lit and old newspaper yellow
grinding teeth and a chalky taste
the way fingers run themselves
over worried knuckles
the empty sound
vibrating at the end of a question
that inhale the sky takes before a sunrise
what disaster that night
and in what sense can the past exist
lunch served on that certain white only dishes possess
all the shapes and textures
which glass seems to take
how smell triggers memories
out of nowhere in a thought stream
not remembering the print on the last page
a car door shuts somewhere outside
neckties and needing a shave

a barroom moment

he was wearing all black again
with some obscure seventies rocker t-shirt
complete with deep eye liner and long hair
so everyone naturally had their preconcieved notions
when he stepped in front of the karaoke screen
the 56 year old lush with her big hair and heavy blush
the young guido in his striped collared shirt
the girls who think to much of themselves and their jobs
the latina bartender
were prepared to ignore
3 to 4 minutes of loud screaming
off key
but all that went haywire
faded as a smile does
when the intro to Prince's "Kiss"
cued up
and in came his unexpected falsetto
and I saw a dark skinned woman begin to dance
and later people got laid in hotel rooms
and beers cracked open in the dark
and the heavens know what happens
in barroom moments

peace

termites keep me company
the last good frineds I've got
we share a meal of splintered oak
and speak of plans to travel

anticipating great disaster

a birds eye view of the world in ruins.stop.i couldn't be happier.stop.
above this little crater that you've built your world around.stop.have you found it yet?stop.that little somthing that makes this worth while?stop.the love the lust the pain and such.stop.oh joy the day is coming where the tumors will all fester to a boil and the truth will be exposed.stop.and i in my recliner.stop.sipping whiskey from an old brown boot.stop. and thinking, hey, this could be the best day of my life.stop.as i put the barrell in my mouth.stop.and hunger for the taste of my own mind.stop.

two images and something about the lighting

pelicans and their shadows
hauntingly like the ghosts of magnets
with the way they trace the surface
as it flexes and bulges
all that gliding
so little distance
a kiss that doesn't happen

naked female lines
an arm obscuring nipples
just enough flesh behind something or other
the framing
of a girl in a doorway
thoughts of entanglement

Hooray today!

from the barrens of brick walls
faces search for shape
noises mimic actions
mimic gestures
mimic empty moments
the notion of relevance binds memories to conditions
perceived relevance anyhow
as the fluorescent lights flicker in locked foyers
locked like cages
barring all from the eternal bliss of cable television
barring those inside from funnel cakes & funeral processions
the rain
the rain dances hard down the street
finding it's fate against the black top
each drop another lemming
smacking against car hoods
finding cobics
!
the sound of a blender whining it's little motor
rips the new morning in half like a chainsaw
a chainsaw having it's way with a phonebook
she makes a new concoction for a brand new day
a healthy new day
first the gym,then the office, a love affair at lunch,
& the opera after dinner
she fills with excitement as she rinses her glass
she finds the keys to her BMW & makes for the door
she already wears a body bag
how could she possibly know?
her toe is already tagged
she is eternally stepping in front of that bus
it happens at 1:30 on her way back to the office
on her way back from adultery
it happens forever & it's been happening forever
since the dawn of time
same bus, same dress, same "just had sex" hair
her slip is always 2 inches visible on the left side
just below the knee... she never fixes it
never sees the bus
the world is a sick joke
& time is the motherfucker telling it
yesterday is all in your head
today appears fresh (every time)
tomorrow will be no different.

Hand to Mouth

Not quite
punk rock girl
says "Did you ever wake up
in the middle of spilt beer
wet dreams?"

I cough a cigarette cough
the door is 12 feet to my left
Gil Scott Heron breathing down
my neck
The revolution is 12 feet to my left

I excuse myself
she wasn't listening
says "I'm not above
living hand to mouth
as long as it's my hand
and your mouth"

Avenue of Americanism

American cities can drown
and black turned purple bodies bob around
like lilypads reclaimed by hungry swamp
and when the last of the street prophets,
deshevled and disrobed, snakes his way out
under the radar, unseen and un counted
I see America bathing in shit
handfull of painkillers and lips marking
high water point, sinking down

In daytime I don't know my drunken, stumble down streets
anymore, concrete softened by churchbell sun
antique shops open their doors to sell me old family photos
sepia toned borrwed history, but that looks enough like grandpa when he was young
I don't wonder where they got it.
Cigar shop indian asks me for directions to 3 star bistro
with 5 star prices
No, not indian, not even made of wood, but he
smells of cedar and his eyebrows are painted on

Johnny Cash is begging for dry socks,
while I'm wading through cheap Tuscan wine
they lap it up, like feral dogs, only vaugly remebering
their owners hand, they see me as a threat
I don't have terror eyes. I'm their twisted
acid burned mirror image. When the desperate, naked-from-the-
mustace-down camera man
goes to record his last
moments for posterity
I'll be sleeping under his Toyota
to stay out of the wind
used to be Main St
renamed Avenue of Americanism

grendel

grendel
came stalking out of pure mythical night
from the fringe of the universe
-the unintelligable boarderline
and when he split open
those heavy meedhall doors
in their drunken myth-laiden fear
in the back of their heads
those unfortunates
saw him as
the grand accumulation
of that which trully
drips from the air
the sweat of the void

Beach Haven West, June

a little blonde girl
that I've been back and forth with
to many times to count
in my arms- eye to eye
trading footsteps
with a grateful dead backdrop
that I've been back and forth with
to many times to count
outside there's a savage fog
almost palpable
it won't shake from our hair
and the would-be budha
radiant and placid
clings to an enlightenment beer
maybe this one will get him there
all these to many times around girls
and get drunk let it slide boys
heroes of anonymous Manahawkin night
bayside in Jersey
the crack of beer cans- the smooth caress of female hands
the liquid evening, the game, the kickback, the dance

beneath twinkle twinkle dark

Moments Above Water

odd the resembelence of the womb and baptisms
the way water tension gives way under gravity
sometimes
and all along this was the beauty of the stuff
lost in the bottle
with Marley off somewhere
"free yourself from mental slavery
none but ourselves can free our minds"
september with its daydreaming
of Niche's landless bird
making love to the idea of Amelia Earhart
in all that Fear and Trembling
and the heavens
flitter between ears and inhale just before the splash
a serenity found in submersion
all the worlds barrooms
the heavy base and tormenting wetstone eyes hushed
and fading

Is there enough space
between notebook lines
to fill in your own story?

Space is rationed
and your lot is 1/4 inch
and your joys
and sorrows
and left field sucker punch
epiphenies
have to be squeezed in

Coffee soaked thoughts,
sleep talking your way out of
bagel theft, arson,
impersonating a shrubbery,
only footprints in volcanic ash

Shopping List

1. wedding card
2. 9 volt battery
3. mayo
   
4. 31 green candles
5. trebuchet
6. Canteloup (if they're in season)
7. Shoe leather
8. vaccines (whatever's on sale)
9. claronette
10. squirell feed
11. squirell traps
12. corn bread stuffing
13. contentment
14. laser disk player
    

This Queen of Camp

this queen of camp
with wide appetite eyes
having reigned herself to tight grasp fate
and this thirty-minute asphalt conscience
deliberating issues of place and action all the way to her
the fuzzy claw-game boardwalk dice
holding her in their midst- soft multi-colored aura
her fingers at rigid attention
and the cheapest cigarettes at their extreme
pursed lips
the picture of a fourteen year old’s first cigarette
she exhales THC and ghosts
over a plastic Pan Am bag
having borrowed cultures from men in lobster suits
big breasted snot nosed animation
dancing on the screen

December

The quality of air on the first authentic winter night
Crisp electric frantic charged
The instant between
Friends and a first kiss

And all these winter nights
Glistening with all the potential of gunpowder
Scanter off
As fish through a net
In some monotoan zen koan
But the white blanket
The silence as if before a death rattle
The cold sting
The stillness like a prelude to the bomb
Echoes of whispered possibilities
Ever gone-
Unless…Echoes of whispered possibilities

AM

Early morning drive
With sleep dust still in my eyes
And frost clinging tightly to the windshield
A low sun
And the way exhaust hangs in the air
Bring me back to birth
Or brings to mind the day after an air raid