grace hides
behind love's ugly little drum
she's lovely, she's quiet, she keeps
impeccable time

from phantom canyon

& i get what's left of you
hastened adultery
committed to the feeling
but reads
thou shalt not submiss.
shant.

slobs
pigs
adulterous gluttons
crucify his remains
send them home to me
all disregard for what meant the most
seasonally caught up
in something i created

the worst part is
i have to pick up the pieces
on both sides
when seasonal love has ended
and seasonal lust begins

i guess you haven't heard
that doing the same thing
and expecting different results
is the 'definition' of 'insanity'

Christ, i'm tired.

your lips, my ears

your whispered,
whiskey scented words
left me
speechless

The Rising Tide

Come to the rising tide
come watch the violent waves
the hard smash against the bulkhead
come find it in the words
well
it's in the thought
that comes after the words
find the rough swells
in you and I
the remorseless undertow
dragging me in
dragging us in
underneath what makes us monsters

The Publisher said he would make us famous...

The Idiom Book Release Party
Saturday, November 29th
9pm
The Brighton Bar
Long Branch,NJ




Flier art by our own lil hatter, Amy Dwyer

heaps of grief here,
where ground met ground, here

where eager defeat nearly reached us
where we screamed, and earth, motherly, responded

solitary hopes upon mountains
pose as homes

love runs from the rocks,
pools between us, freezes.

a buck eighty
for a paper cup of daylight,
a wide white world cracked open

i got so lost
i thought everything i saw was God.
i made up saints.
i sang my faith to sleep.

a rift in bliss
stars between one dark
and another

night is instruction
the stars, chalk
the rest, dust

i'm leaky.
water got into me.

like mildew
the wrong life grew.

i saw my light in them
they saw
their dark
in me

soul and bones on wheels
blue heat and speed
the vehicle for faith

the roadsigns have gangrene
the soul is a tumor
the eye, a wound

regrets?

we needed time
to unwind;
make space between us
your call, not mine.

so i moved on,
and so did the years.

and still, your green eyes
glare at my presence,
face fixed in deep thought,
girlfriend's shoulders bare.

Black Friday So Soon?

She opened the door. Any amnesiatic euphoria I may have been experiencing in the more delicate stages of awakening were slugged by the rush of cold air that breezed in, heavy with a perfume of burning yule log. Thanksgiving was coming on so quickly it induced a near panic in me, an unsettling certainty that somewhere on my suburban block, at that very moment, a housewife was reaching back to neo-ancient Americana tradition, fondling turkey guts in some horrific manner to produce gravies and broths the likes of which her husband's palette has never known. This is winter. The war is not over.

Sepia-toned pictures
placed on walls
of grandparents
and great-grandparents
together, hands clasping hands-

They are antique.

L.H.

Whatever happens

wherever those kids find
their explosions
the fire goes every which
way, and it burns through
brownstone apartments
like flash paper cigarettes,
and where the only light
is a bad orange
glow from inside the car,
I want detonate like I did
a hundred years ago,

I want them to
report in the papers
that it was sabotage,
that the Spanish were
responsible

but really it was
just spontanteous

cold knife air
and night time church bells
on an empty street

both give lonely
seashore towns
character

you cover,
then the wind blows,
and the leaves scatter

you dig,
then the rains come,
and the earth floods