so?

it flows from spout to porcelain
and it hasn't rained like this in days
i'm a cold sweat in an awkward pause
but we all fumble for perfect words

where's the phrase thats going to turn her
as they all delve deep into pockets for the scrap of paper
carved with passion
that will no doubt ease their longing

another toast to oblivia
who knows without knowing
the blindest eyes can hear the truth we miss between syllables

but no ones blessed or rested
we're all just serving time
and you can't dig forgiveness
without fucking up the perfect crime

but all in all theres a bathroom stall
with everyones name in ink
so we all know each others secrets about our stained glass intimacies

parched

Light shifts from the rain
Isis and her nagging question
drowning outside
I'm squeezed in the back of the life raft
all that's New Jersey floats by
gas station arm chairs and catch all catch-phrases

let me get one more sip from that bottle
my mouth is getting dry

Isis looks up at the rain
"you're not going to remember
this tomorrow, the dance
or the flashes of open heart
or the pavement"

let me get one more sip from that bottle
I'm parched

the crazy sound of tatoo pen
burning up the bottom of my feet
I'm not crying from the pain
I'm weeping from the colors

a tale of two cities (in two parts)

part one

in a room over looking a city
that holds no remorse
street corner proteges
sell all they've got
an urchin in rags rings a bell
as the snow falls
it's business as usual
hold all of my calls

streetlights and indigo blue
turns the pages
a few blocks away a trash can fire
that rages on
and huddled around or a sleep on the ground
are the hundreds of maritime street demons
celebrating a days spoils with newsprint duvets
and the food from the corners of mouths
that which was expendable
not necessarily that which was needed

falling over-not down

that light keeps dimming periodically
and the spaghetti westerns reel in the true nature of your foot long breakfast sandwich with Mandella and a side of fries
oh sun ravaged bean sprout
the saddest day is tuesday between 4 and 4: ten am

its nothing sexual
i'm just trying to hide the wine
and the world is slowly shrinking
and the belligerent fools stand eagerly on their heads
with two other mystic old souls and good spirits
scrambling for another cigarette
attempting to explain the probability of five am

hallucinogenic toreadors
the stockmarket faith healer
sangre de toro
the blood of the bull

ease into the rest of existence
a cool deep breath
let abundance signify solitude
and let me drive
you'll kill us all

Norman Rockwell's Unfinished Business

suits litter the highway
naked they walk
once enslaved
now free

the glass all breaks from the cold
but the huddled companions share their heat
one soft reluctant mass
never falling

Bowling Shoes

there she was like still life
lit by neon
with bowling shoes
and the booze on her breath
flavors of a devil, innocence, and wanting
in sharing slow kisses
her eyes had seen rolling hills in Tennessee
and streets and wine bottles in Brooklyn
demanding embraces
unable to speak fully
anxious and splendid
in between
the moments she leaned in firmly

still and silent

in the inhale pause
before a night lets loose
a passionate yellow eyed sunrise kiss
the only surviving ricochet thought
balancing above coarse wooden dock planks
slips as a whisper

in the still air
still lit flags only
tingle and shiver
above salty marsh grass

the whole bustling rabbid dance world
reduced to the demur of a Charlie Chaplin film

in the morning haze deadlights
the anxiety of awaiting dew
so much infinity in a tic-tic moment
(a man could live forever there)

serenity
whispered in the seldom heard sizzle
as a cigarette but meets bay water

another one from the west

my ears have gone septic
in to many ways
my poems flee to the recesses
of brown coffee stained napkins
laundry in my trunk
three thousand miles more on the odometer
the desert's dust on everything

and burnt feathers smolder
in a Colorado rain

there's a girl named Jersey
there's a girl named the West
and there's a girl still out there-
ambiguous dancer, vague promise, etheral

in the roadburn sunrise
I remember tumbleweeds
and native american cheek bones, and momentum, and frenzy, and delirium, and a dry mouth
and the roadburn sunrise

December, looking over the dunes

and these winter heros
riding large swell on long boards or guns
cutting down the face
drenched in chilled spray
obscurring their halos

Burlesque Nights and Fireflies

reminded of my grandmother as I slink around this sultry bar
peering through windowpanes, slowly losing control of the vehicle, drifting off the dock at the end of their street, pregnant again
he was right about the car crash
someone was on fire, but that’s not enough
you learn these lessons after a few stiff drinks and solid dialogue
none the less
this woman is amazing, there aren’t enough eyes on her
dancing as if an albino constrictor gently wraps around her waist
a tongue tickle across her naked shoulders
bathed in dollar bills, as the musty blood red light plays blackjack on her dreams
house wives, horned toads, all the kids "not" in costume gather favorably at the bottom of her twisting feet
craving, mentally caressing the silk of her skin
enlightened and taking notes
accusing, burning holes in her back as she gyrates away
when its all over and robed, she tells me secrets
vagabonds filter through doors, spilt onto this broken town, pinned beneath the smog of night
retiring, turning homeward, if one still stands in their minds
Sandra D flipped Betty Page, fucking confusion into the briefcase of a husband behind his cubicle
while street corner shoppers stumble fearlessly through vomit down dark alleys to their favorite strip mall
the solitary souls holding their own hands, admirably indulging in a mess of masturbation
She
dances alone
in her clothes

The Ones That Swim Away

she chalks off another infatuated unfortunate heart laughing it up
keep your eyes wide and words pretty, you’ll reel um in
and when they’re choked to death by the magic in her air, breathless beauty, or her need to
dissect and analyze every fragment of her egotistical life, toss them in the dungy bucket
if there’s any room left
but don’t forget environmental law, you wouldn’t let me,
gut them all and sing while you sever their heads, pretty words, pretty words
linger in every lick of their torched flesh, pick your teeth with their fragile bones and
SNAP! she throws back her head, crys cause there’s no fish left to listen to her song
flings their innards to the dog and hands me the scales to fashion her a crown
cause that’s really what this is all about,
sport, sport and pretty words

broken traction, 22 degrees

someone peel my face off this blacktop
keep singing, all I can hear now
is my tounge scraping the gravel,
looking for the last drops of spilt chianti
and freezing breath, dropping like hail.
blood and wine are indistinguishable
again, sea of glass tinted red, building
upward, against gravity (as I give in)
it's fragile in a way distance isn't
but I wouldn't know that, all I know is
this isn't a real parkling lot, just a black, friday
impression left behind in the air
as I drain through cracks in the ice
as we drag our way back, away from
serene landscape, it's almost first thaw
anway, but right now it's 22 degrees, and
I shiver as she cuts off the bleeding

those trees are none too subtle
showing me red like blood
orange flamed leaves
are a warning

even the squirrels see it coming
two of every animal
try to slip away unnoticed

two heads collide

two heads collide in silent screaming afternoon till night
the piniata effect
don't go in that room until we get it al cleaned up
the bits of skull and hair and teeth and gray matter adorn these walls and the two of us are now this one blood speckled entity finally having found our common ground

in gardens of ice I rest until the cold kills me, or the noise
stomach brimming with unwanted nourishment, not conduced by affliction only an obligation to fulfill
mostly with red wine and bananas
either way this is all just one more sunrise over an Atlantic seashore suicide
a bubble if you will, and a longing of immense magnitude ripping away at the fibers of this party dress
throwing around train tickets and fairy tales, blinded in my left eye only to walk head on into another sleepless night
whispers from the king and queens’ room travel well to the ringing ears of the opened minded
I wish they’d just be real, slam the door and scream
creeping over a bridge, she turns toward the muffled music and a bad painting of the sky
saying to me
"isn’t that beautiful, this is our home"
home? that’s up to you , only an opinion and everyone’s entitled to it
I’ve felt better though

what a mess (part 2)

those beautiful memories
the erotic sunset
the desolation of an arizona near dusk
i long again for Barstow and a quick shot across the land without reason
now the basic beauty seems stripped and no one laughs
the screaming is doubled up in the house and in my mind
i find it so comforting that one day none of this will matter
these plain old complexities running down hill to meet you in your pine box

well, the decades have skated past thus far and with a bit of luck i'll be long burned out and forgotten but for the tongues of those my insignificant words remebered now roll off

theres a place i miss so immensely that i cant even bring myself to tell you about it...that and i can't remember being there
i think that i have cried in the past couple of days over some such silliness that left my life so hollow feeling
this isn't a poem
it isn't a story it isn't anything creative
i hope that i'm dumb sometimes and i just don't see the shit

Einstein said that imagination is more important that intelligence
i believe him
but i also imagine that i'm careening along a narrow desert road at 110 mph wanting to be struck down by the hand of the truck driving god approaching from over the up coming hill... to die in this abysmal dry heat of a blistering afternoons paranoia and not have to worry about the beauty being eroded away by what i'm told is the way things are

fuck you
i'm dead too and i have no one to drink a toast to my death with
fuck this
the days get sooooo short around here whenever i think that the sun is my dearest friend

i enjoyed surfing this summer
what is wrong with me
nothing i'm fine
and you ?

Julianna

smoking halves of cigarettes naked on the balcony
in the rainy Boulder morning
and she puts on this accent when she says her last name
sleeps with a knife on her hip
on countless mexican beaches
on countless mexican nights
draws out her words then fires them faster
forcing brains to reel and runaway fishing line spooling out
injects verbal pins into asses
just to see a feedback dance
and frowns when the boys just line the walls
bathes in power and finds it uncomfortable
swims if she has to
is free
swims

what a mess (part 1)

yellow and brown index finger skin
black that won't come out from under
the windows broken the door is ajar
and i'm pickled in the tragic basements of america

small shreds of paper with all knowing verse
39 cents
sick from wine and time and friends and lovers
desperate to break away

theres a girl over there who knows the music all too well
i watch with great anticipation of her next sultry move that i'll beat my head against the wall over
remembering for days thinking goddamn theres such a beautiful innocence to the sexuality that she basis all this on

i drink to everything in sight
i'll be on a bus someday listening to head phones and just trying to get out of whatever hell i've let loose around me
that same old song will come on and i can cry

"jerk off in the bathroom or in a woman with the help of a movie about birds your lives are all sing song happy shindigg shit house idiocy and who am i but a cautious observer and a reckless participant

you’re just one more butchered Radio remix
overplayed and understated
a misinterpreted mangled Mess of unappreciation
so I’m going to Dance over there