Saturday, May 27, 2006

four and six

so we have this big discussion today
about how it seems all he's doing
is waiting for the inevitable
and that's all i'm doing too.
let me tellya, it's like
amking love to a corpse .


and he says but i've been trying.
you give me no support
etc. o puleeze

yakkity yak. i'm hungry
i wish i could go online and look
for a date. i want to go out
been cooped up all day
and i wonder what tomorrow has
in store. a reading at least
but do i have the material>
ahahahahah
wrong.

well, there's some stuff i'd read
but i'll have to go thru it
and see if it wants to be read.

ring

errrr
Unregistered User
(5/22/06 5:02 pm)
Reply | Edit | Del All Ring me when you know
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ring me when you know

You have voice – I want to borrow it
to sing a waning song which has
brilliancy inverted trepidation-side up

in a small glassy pond
in an absent neighbour's yard
this year without fish because it would've been
too much trouble to get done
before leaving.

Why I want such a song
& the sense of me it touches
weaving in & out of balmy tristesse
as the season solidifies
though not in a way I can
wrap thought around –

why & how it all starts over again
as if it is "the" song – the one
open-ended like rain falling
on & off again, tulips
hanging in there, voluptuous –

I want the song like caresses
bigger than myself, than my world is
except just this minute for example
examining the way the day misbehaves
on the strength of merriment
fleeing before the storm…

court
Unregistered User
(5/23/06 1:38 pm)
Reply | Edit | Del serendipitiously, it's ringing now
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
just when i thought the music was
buried so deep it would run like an aquifer's
feeder bands, then straight into the rising sea

i see the grace of your hand
making movements through hard
water, a bee in flight, humming
rumbling to reach me in the nick

the quick lift of currents, then notes
composing themselves between us
a liquid concerto, moving south

errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Unregistered User
(5/24/06 1:28 pm)
Reply | Edit | Del heyyyyyyyyyyyy
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
concerto moving south
the small pic in the dumb window
the masses & their attempt at simple pleasures
canned laughter & the other loose goose kind
amatory risk - do it again

xo

spark
Unregistered User
(5/24/06 1:40 pm)
Reply | Edit | Del phi
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
risk and the sim pole sounds of bi lisciouis
amatory swing song. the shell
i found on the beach spirals and spirals
then stops. something killed desire
might have been the way the ocean
kept its popularity polls up front--
beachheads with piper populations
making tracks she erases with her
hungry, hungry mouth.

xx

third floor going down
Unregistered User
(5/24/06 6:18 pm)
Reply | Edit | Del where's the clear air
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

her hungry hungry mouth
swallowing fizzy water
pondside, as the sun plants itself
the wind plummets, time dismembers
the crowds somewhere turning
left & right of a grey day, of a song
giving off tandem insinuations
like crawling love itself
so sure it can't be
bigger than
it's already been...



fartherrrrrrr
Unregistered User
(5/24/06 11:14 pm)
Reply | Edit | Del time dismembers
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
what the crawling knees
bled for. blood is cheap he says
adds a gash to his arm.
this sense of entitlement, the porous maps-
a benzene cross polination. we are all aware

actually, of the faltering pilgrim.
the flights of men that became birds
a canyon area somewhere south of peru
betray our thundergods.

percentages become
pestilence. you begin,
i begin, to wonder

and that's where the trouble starts
in the beginning. with the answers,
sounding like the crowd, as men
fall from the sky, their tears the color of love.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

5.1

yeah so yesterday was the same
and i didn't have time to record
my angst. this was the day
i came home shortly after leaving
for work and found him , light off
rolled over for more sleep. even tho
he was supposed to go to an interview
at noon, and he had, he thought
six miles to walk to get there tho i did
offer to drive him but i was looking for
smokes and i said to him you
are really something else
found my smokes and left.

he called me later at work
asking how i would feel if he
went to live with his mom

silence. i was thinking
and i thought well, ima tell him.
so i did. same old stuff
1)her guilt
1) his abilty to ignore the fact
that he is poverty stricken
2)i will not support him when his money
runs out this time
4( why not just take the money for the next
five weeks and go, now, since
a. the way he looks for a job will not yeild one
b. he's pretty damn picky for poor
c. why delay the inevitable
e. i don't need a child, i need a man.
note
i do not need a man. at one time i did.
now i don't care if all the young boyz
love alice or me. i am over attractive
or not, over willi find love or not


i can't believe when i do, anyway.its
transitory nature is always brought to mind.

but back to this particular convo
which lasted all day mainly bc i
could not stand the fact that he called me
at work
to break up with me
and then he didn't do it.


yaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrggggghhhh!

at lunch we met up
i showed him a place in this hood
help wanted
we sat in the rental
across the street and argued
about the search, how to go about it
etc. he's all like i listen to your advice
i seek it and i'm all like why don't you
get real? you ignore my advice and consider me
old skool. he's all like i can't give
repect where it's not warranted and i 'm
all like see
you're exactly like them
i gotta get back to work
get out. as i looked in my rearview
i saw him heading back home
away from the help wanted sign.


tried to tell him when he puts no effort
or really, minimal, minimal effort
how that seems to me


that he doesn't
care enough about this relationship
to do his part. i don't think heheard me.
hah, what else is new?


today he didn't leave the house.
said he called a couple places
a couple. good odds dude.

you'l be in va. soon.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

5 weeks 3 dayz

he actually left the house
today. tonite i find out he's
goin to jam this weekend. i guess
'll have to find something else
to do since i wasn't invited.

sigh.

and other things.
that's if jt stays here

maube tonite he's found a singer
to replace me. i hope so.
but the guy can't sing.
even worse than i can't sing.
or maybe the same as
i mean at least i get rhythm.
if i go out there
i won't be singing
well, i will
cuz i'll have to teach the new one
the tunes.


ok so if he gets a band
then he's gone too.
any way you look at it.
gone. how did i get into this
i want him outta here? i mean
he's heavy to watch. heavy
to watch him take the longest
route to stretching it out.

my dad gave me some poison
and it keeps festering.
but it's the interaction with his
actions that causes the sickness.

Monday, May 22, 2006

five weeks, four days

he's not trying
stayed home all day
recording, his voice
the silmarillion, guitar, cioran.

i know he didn't leave
his shoes are in the same place
there's no dirty shirt lying
on the floor.

is it that he wants me to kick him out
when the time comes or
that he simply does not believe i'll do it
or is he just a cat
sitting a box, due to be opened in five weeks
four days. doesn't know if he's alive or dead.
but it seems to be working, lungs inhaling
stomach grumbling. i hope he worked it out
with his mommy. someplace to go.














((


really difficult to live with not saying anything to him.
but it's a promise i have to keep.
to say i tried everything.















"""

shaved his goatee

looks extra young now
he asks if i like what he recorded.
while he was supposed to be doing
something else. i like this song.
he asks me if i'm just saying that.
no, i mean it. it sounds good.
don't i always tell you what i think
even if it hurts you?
i hope you'll always do that
sure, unless it's something
akin to working. ican't do this anymore.
but i will. five weeks. four days.
then it's over. i think he won't
be able to change my mind. three weeks
is enough to establish a habit.
i can used to anything
that i decide against.

he needs to lose some weight anyway.





*(*(*








and that old young friend of mine.
i know that what he's experiencing towards me
disdain, a feeling of being fooled
is what's going to go thru my lover
when i have to do what i have to do.

it's for his good, and mine.
i don't want to become toxic.














8989
hah become. that's what i am
is toxic. i fuck up everything.
just by trying to let it ride
or ignoring it. my son said
he wants to give up on everything
he wants to give up the bass
because he didn't earn the grades
and i made him a deal
but i made the deal for a laptop.
he turned it into the bass.
now that he can't get it
it's my problem. he wants it
he doesn't want it.
iwish i could get him the bass.

his father's a prick.
he says so. i can't tell him
not to speak that way
b.c the man's proven it again
and again. what a loser.


how do i get this child a mentor
a realistic man who can show him
what striving will do? or a woman.
i think of his cousin, how she had
no father figure for her teens
and how she turned out just fine.
but
he's a boy, with boy things.
i know nothing about boys.
sometimes he frightens me
the way he wants to kiss me
seems covertly sensual, sexual.
he sometimes closes his eyes
puckers as if a lover.
as 2ybf.
or maybe it's all in my head.
i hope it's all in my head
or a phase we'll weather.
right now 2ybf is talking about
the finer points of suicide
or why to not do it.
or maybe why to do it.
why should i let him
do this to my son.
look at him.consistently
lositn jobs. oh my i have
to talk to him my son.
he thinks he's not going to school
tomorrow.

Sunday, May 21, 2006

lost sanctions of the internal monitors

i can't sit down to write a poem
that's not what happens.
i have stuff submitted and i hope someone
takes a bite.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

stuff

in the fountaining pond
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
three jets of water
like a triple penis cum shot

that would be gratuitous if
not for the mallards nearby.

she dives, he chases
her tail his target

he mounts she dives
it reminds me of when you tried

to have sex with me for the third
time yesterday afternoon.


my beautiful sock
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


i pull it on to cover my ugly
toe. now my toe's lovely
too. my sock is vast, a multitude
of different fibers
hairshirt and silk, cotton, rayon,
hemp, some of the material
anonymous. whenever it begins
to unravel, i darn it with whatever yarn's handy.
i've only got the one
its mate's out trying to find
itself. my sock whispers of cold tile
and hardwood. it wants to go skipping,
slipping, sipping li'l spring puddles.
when my son puts it on
his hand, it has a mouth of many colors.
i call it jacob's ladder, cuz it likes
when i'm silly
like that. sometimes my sock
looks very lonely, sitting in an otherwise empty
drawer. that's when it feels ugly so
i have to take it out and wear it
with no shoes
for the whole day.




last call @ the last open mic @ tres palmas before we knew it was going out of business just like all the cool places
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------


shawna is a little bit drunk. the sangria's
effervescense transfers to her veins
bubbles thru the mic as she calls friend after
poet after performer to the stage a cleared
area just east of the kitchen. "did you know mercury's
in retrograde? what that means is all your
communication is going to suck till
the 25th" . khomeni calls her mistress
cleo. shawna rolls her eyes
"o laugh, sure. but don't sign any contracts."
holly laughs.

mistress cleo says "for instance
take holly ova there. now
i haven't got the best credit and i get
bill collectors calling all the time i usually use the caller
ID to duck them but this morning
i answered the phone here at work
and a woman identifying herself as holly with acme
credit agency asked for me.
i immediately said i wasn't here.
she asked me well do you know her
last name? i said well,
if you're calling her you're supposed to know that."
and i think ///i know a poet named holly i wonder...//

so tonite
we're talking and i ask where she works...
and wouldn't ya know it was her. i guess
she still don't know my last name tho.

Saturday, May 13, 2006

the fire runs down one side of the paper

well today i go to my sis's for her bday.
it's not a long trip but i'm spending the nite.
2ybf is sleeping after staying up all nite.
he is invited but he doesn't want to go
he's feeling very low right now.
and i don't help matters with my
don't make me kick you outs

i do love him. i dont want him to leave.
but i won't support him. is that love?


if the situation were reversed
he points out,if i were the elder
and you the younger, still male
and female, i'd have no problem
supporting you. well, then , you'd
cripple me. is that what you want?


i've been a feministfor so long
been trying to create my own equality
within relationships. so equal
i forget how to ask
when i need help
forget how to help
when it's needed.


but honestly, after hearing
the view from inside his deepening
depression, i don't know
how to help him. my daughter
recognised her proclivity to suck me dry.
i don't think he wants to admit to it.


but it's the age ofsearch and embrace
search and destroy.



he says he'll always love me.
i must remember his psyche was shaped
a bit differently than mine
tho there are similarities.
it makes us resonante
but sometimes we clash.
interference on a grand scale.
the stronger signal drowning the weak.

i'mnot sure which is which.
he is a writer. this i know.
he weaves such tales as oscars are made of.
if only he would write them down.


if i don't say it
it won't happen
but it already has.
the community is broken
and splintered. internal riffs
have streesed our marrow
too thin to survive a move
or even a movement toward change.


when all the fibres weave
themselves megellon disease
colors. bugs under my skin.
it doesn't kill you
it makes you
itch

aliens and their civs
in my universe.

somethings you come upon
are just too strange
to comprehend. the wrath
of a brand new god
with you for an acolyte.

Friday, May 12, 2006

crushed by its beauty

this thing is hard, living with foreknowlege.
you ask yourself if it's time to get out
now before the roots grow deeper
or you let yourself be fooled into
believing in anything except
transience. the roses bloom on the red
bush outside the lunchroom. when i
harvest them, there are fungoidal mothlike
creatures, small black bugs, brittle
thorns. carpenter ants like toy tonkas
over the luscious smell, the velvety petals
2ybf talks on the phone to his mother
about his rockstar dream, how in two years
he plans to hit the road, make it real.
i replace tuesday's roses with today's.
the vase my son gave me for valentines'
day has a clear heart molded into its body.
i sweep yesterday's petals from the counter
smell them briefly, add them to the withered collection.

Monday, May 08, 2006

fuck

i think i've been found.
if you found me and you know me
email and tell me.
cuz you should not let a girl
walk around with her zipper down.
k?

what time did the pizza guy say he'd arrive

electronica
Unregistered User
(2/17/06 11:20 pm)
Reply taken care of
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
i caught the milky
way from a sky i've never seen
moon rose blood red and big
god's angry eye above waters
avenue, over the semaphores, forever
rising, falling.

she sings to me a song you dedicated
then, when i never heard it.
let's sing it together now.


outside this first floor window
my doors, shut,
i hear the piano play in that apt
you rented, on the edge of a river
i never stepped in.



there's a different you now, a different me.
we haven't met. never will.



mirror gun
Unregistered User
(2/18/06 9:52 pm)
Reply and the bosstones of barroom brawls
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
final last tunes on the magic giving ring.
the wooden frog straddles strings
cracks a past right in your face.
right in your face.


what you do now sucker?
kiss it and make a princess
throw it and make a frenchman
flip it and try again.



that'll be 26 cents please.
keep the penny.



double shot of jose cuervo
and you can squeeze out the lime's line.
it runs from her ass
all the way past his fist.
duck



gfhddghhhhhhhhfffffffffffffffffhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh



trashpo
ezOP
(2/18/06 7:17 pm)
Reply
ezSupporter
incense & wolf-shadowed tunes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
how when the sun's out
beating on the horsetrack and you park there
right beside the big suvs and the valet
sees you and tells you to move
but you're just waiting for your boy
friend to get his last paycheck
and the boys are in the back saying but i've never
seen an actual horse race and they still don't
cuz you have to drive in ever ineasing circles around
the flagged off valet parking area while the gamblers
and families file into the clubhouse area
itching to catch the last four
races live and up in the party
box they begin to yell and scream
unitelligibly but you're on the other side now away
from the pounding hooves the jockeying
for position the nose to nose and sacramental tickets
torn in two then four then eights and sixteenths
thrown into the air by losers raning down
like glissando confetti as you round the last curve



898989898

the open g string of nachos
Unregistered User
(2/18/06 10:11 pm)
Reply realising she'd missed the bus, maia hopped on one foot
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
did the rain dance on the corner of fifth
and tezaqual. no one watched as she removed
the first veil but by the time
ofthe seventh there were several comanches
waiting for the four fifteen. still maia
on the one foot, blushing in her pink angorafor all the world a flamingo,(she got the translator
on sale at the fea market. only a dollar. she
was willing to put up with whatever
glitches came her way as long as they'd direct
her to bathroom when the time came.)
suddenly she wasn't there anymore. the bus
came and went again, popping like britney's chorus/
it's up to the next passenger to decide what she was
saying, where she went.












she's on vacation and left me in charge.
you got this vision of her that's wrong
one sided. she never shows you what she keeps
trapped in her gut. sometimes i kick
hard enough, she lets me out for a walk.

for instance she hates
cheerleaders, saints, being on time.
and grace is that fake suntan in a tube.
always cheering for the saints
let them make their own matyrs
only the sacrificed deserve a poem.



()()()()()

that's all i can remember.


well, as far as i know
he didn't look today.

but i'm trying to keep it on the dl
this negativity i'm having.

i'm trying to say nothing
of his activities

until the day i give him two weeks.
two weeks. and if can't feel this coming.
he can't. and if i can't help it. help it.
one after one after one. 2ybf
is gonna lose it b/c his mommy love
isn't gonna tell him. i'll be
the last lesson he won't heed
or the last mother he don't need.















*

Sunday, May 07, 2006

arcs

Sticks, when they fell, danced like leaves
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
it has a way of filling up time
and imparting something if not
direction
then osmosis.

a float in a sea of consciousness
jellyfish inn at the out bar


and the leaves llike air


in the virtual distance were battles and the texts
of empire. the music suitably background
but filling. as if ceasar carried an orchestra into carthage.
a sublimation of fighter jets and car bombs.
keeping the rabble in pablum reserve.
what to do with all these boy babies we've bred?
we know what to do with the women.




in the real distance commercial
properties developing under jetwash and bracken.
pick up a jewel-by-the sea for a song. register
under the dark clouds , while waiting for a giant rat
to come lumbering up and dispense stairs to a hammock
on his back. climb aboard, it's party time.
china and the years of the reds.
google sized fries and do you want an edit with that?
isnidious insiduous the pot warms.














*



so where to find relief?
in an examination? choose one
a
b
c
dilleneate dilletant, show your adherence to novelty.
smoke your pack a day and porcinely proclaim
my new rain forest a success the day before
the mountain slides down taking all those brand new
roots with it. the ghosts were dancing around the fire
pit all last year. didn't you see them in the evening
mists, eating rootstallk, chewing nodes? glad to have
you join us and i wipe the mud from my eyes.
we are here together where all the closed books go.
ah the langoliers. how cliche. how yesterday. ashes.
but the mud, as it worked its way like thick phlemg
into my nostrils then my lungs, an eboal quick pneumonia
began to soothe me. i always knew the way home
might be painful, but this was like a warm cave sloshing
over me, just don't fight it dn't panic
then i woke up here
you can let me go again
i've shed the shell














***







in reality it's sundae afternoon, sliding like a bad lover
into monday. cool grips, the sky is suitably nappable.
i want to wash my greasy hair in a long hot shower,
shave all my pits, climb into bed again, see what desire
pulls out of thin skin. all my obligations are met for
the nonce. what dreams might this day hold?


8888888888888888888888888

Saturday, May 06, 2006

ambition

love it when i'm bored
but there's nothing to write about.
like last week he lost another job.
political views coupled with mistakes
means johnny don't play here anymore.

at least they gave him severance pay.
i told him look, you've got a thousand dollars.
you could begin with that, somewhere else
if what you want to do is get out of this state.
all your bills are paid, it's the beginning of the month.

he always sounds like he's planning his future
which he is. he has so much of it ahead of him.
he doesn't seem to realize how mine seems cordonned off.
i can't really move. even tho the ex doesn't take care
of his kids, he would make some stink if i left.
but wait. what if. what if we were all to move
including daughter. shewants her own place very badly...
i couldn't live with my dad either. maybe it's something
inside of us. she prolly isn't ready to move.
i am so thinking of getting out of this state.
or at least the lower part of it.
today in gainseville the terrain made me homesick.
i'm tired of living in this swamp. maybe at least
move from the city.


dad said, what are all of these girls
gonna do with this education? dumbfounded
i grasped for an unargumentative answer.
bleacher seats,unpadded. bran was so cute
all hyper west girl with brains but no direction.
i can't keep a simple monolog in order.
tha't becasue i haven't been daily journaling.
i am almost argumentative about that.
the artists way quote ...it works for some.
it works some of the times for me.

there's a lot spinning in my head right now.
my too young bf loses another job. i don't like
his brand of porn. my son is turning teen.
my daughter needs some guidance but
do i have a light enough hand. we talk
things out. she sees my side more. a learn
by doing type of girl...

my too young bf should not occupy
all this attention. but to be too devoted
to son would smother him. the view from
this rope is teetery. 2ybf distracts me
enough but perhaps too much. like now,
he's gone to j to jam since i went out of town.
and he'sstill there. prolly won't be home
for hours still. j tells anyone he's with
a different story. there's something wrong
about him. something just a bit snakey.
i don't like the way he treats his wife.
just b/c hedoesn't call her that, still
it's a biker's way. get me this. do that.
fuck you. so there he is,gettin his own
imprint on how to treat yr woman
playin music. i do so think he should
take off. he thinks it's a rejection
but it's not. it's a ready to fly thing.
i just stone him down.
he needs the itch.
he's getting fat
and
lazy. i will have no kids with him.
he is all about spreading his seed.
he just won't admit it.

iluvubaby he says.
2ybf. when i go back on lava
for real, there will be a different me.
i'll have my son take the picture.
how i really am, not somebody's idea of what i'd
like to be. what i hate about myself
right now
is that need to be attractive to men.
i hope he wears it out of me.

the ceremony marshalls at graduation
wore blue gowns. orange and blue
is the color of the baccalaureate.
i love that word. it has a dionysian flavor.
the heady smell of intellect.
there were rows and rows of girls.
that's how i saw them but they were women.
my niece has done more at 21 than i have at 46.
and she has a blot clot in her left femoral vein.
my sister worries about her european trip.
the us is not as catered to as previously.
i hope she meets a man who will marry her
and take her out of this country.
otherwise she might serve the mIc.

maybe she can get out though,without a man.
look at condoleeza.


thinking out of the box
i wonder if i could put aside
all that. just give it up
and say ok, i just met this woman
and she's pretty funny. i like
her i think. she inspires my mind.

but is she still like that?

well,just as an experiment
perhaps i should
ummm, wait. the tarot bode ill.

it bode ill for her. as usual, it has both
a front and a back. justin won't ask it
questions. no clues. just a blind reading.
but of course,he concetrates onthe issue.
so it's already taking shape oh
dear. i said i wouldn't answer didn't i?
it's like that time i first heard
that which resists, persists
well , then , perhaps i'll write her.
someday. when her need is not so urgent.
i don't know why she wrote
but i'm putting too much thought into it
as well.

what i should be obsessed with is cleaning
my house. but i swear it's not fair
that i have to pick up his shit. 2ybf and son
are fuckin pigs. i've never lived in a house
of males. the cat is too. friday he
ate and ate and left all his trash, everywhere.
when he gets like that, i want him to live
somewhere else. free meal ticket reverbs
in my head. thanks dad. luv u too.

i just want bran to have some romance.
she seems like she really could.
but if it means tying her down with kids
i don't know. s thought she wanted that
i fear it was her age, biology, chemistry
that drove it. but it's not as simple
as that. once you make the commitment
once you make the choice to bring a life
into this world, you have to do everything
you can do to make that life a thing filled
with love. otherwise, orcs.


now some people like orcs. sad wide eyed schmeagals
hiding from the moon. and who am i say that
it's wrong. for me, it's just painful. and tho i like
my hair pulled during sex, not for too long.
exquisite is a razor easily dulled. orcs are slaves
to an opposite god. beauty must be painful to them.


finally finished a thought. wow. taripppy....


i wish i could talk to scar.

he was my resonator.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

siren song

dear s

things work out like they work out.
i've come to an equinanimous acceptance of that fact.
you stopped being my blame long ago
it's up to you to get over your guilt
and i wish you well with that.


the occurrance of your letter
shows me that you have managed
some growth. i'm happy for you.




i feel like 's nothing i can say to you
that you won't twist to find a meaning
other than what i mean. i readily admit
that's due to my past interactions with you.

i prided myself on being able to communicate
but pride is a nasty monkey. the only thing i want
to say to you about what you're about to read
is that i'm being earnest. i'd like to give some
of my truth because you shared some of yours.

i thank you for all the lessons you taught me.
ones that i'd somehow avoided all my life
prolly because i was in a relationship so early
and yet so late. i always was, and remain
a total dork. some common sense things
about the nature of human
i refuse/d /to acknowlege or see in myself

they were painful of course
but helpful. a vector that i survived
about the dave thing
i felt and feel that in the end
we are only animals. he owed me nothing
you owed me less. lust and love
tied together. i like to be romantic
and think what a wonderful life
my pain led to, between you two.



i'm sorry if you're having problems
and i hope you can work them out.
dont be too hard on the cat.

the vilification was the worst.
it must still hurt cuz this is a
difficult letter to write
and it's because
i wanted to be your friend
but i can't be. and i know that's
not what you're asking.

i don't think i would ever
trust your motives. i doubt
dave would trust mine. i doubt
you would. we all have an eye
for the properly hoisted ironic petard.

so ultimately, the way it was
was the way it had to be.
the play penned with first
contact. in retrospect the most
astounding thing to me
was the way you carried off our
weekend together. i really don't think
you can cry weakness after pulling that off.
you're a survivor , ,and i'm glad to know it.
you have three sons to mother.
such characteristics are important.


if it makes you feel any better,
i don't lie awake
nights dreaming of how it could be
or wishing
i was still with dave. everyone knows
your first time is never repeatable.
i let my ghosts go, tho sometimes they
visit me. that dave is gone. ya know?

i try to keep that in mind when loving
the man i'm with now. some would say boy
and maybe that's all i'm capable of loving.
but he's.

perhaps i could have left out part of what
obviously is still painful. but i think
when someone is doing the alcohol's anon
they need to confront the pain they caused
which makes them still feel guilt.
the one hurt deserves to say
at least
doesn't she
this is how it felt,
i just wanted you to know


but this is how it is now.
you didn't ruin my life
i do fine with that on my own ;->
and i know you're not asking for forgiveness
heaven forbid, an apology does not
require that. the act is enough. but...


oops got a bit sarcastic there.

i think that when one apologises
one does so with the hope of forgiveness.
if not, then the apology becomes just another
selfish act. as you say, in the spirit
of the twleve step. i hope you can
forgive yourself. that's the only person
who matters here. we all harbor evil.
it depends on your point of view how it's taken.

you did what you did to protect yourself
and what you saw as a love in bloom.
or maybe you are just plain evil.
i prefer to believe that your lovely children
are not the spawn of satan.
tho i'm sure with three young boys
it must feel that way some days.


sounds like you could use a day off.
don't be afraid to ask for it.



l


wow just had a double deja vu
and here, on a day i thought i wasn't going to write.

??

retiring the futon on valentines day
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
we got our bed from the dumpster
where used furniture is placed
the other dumpster is a trash compactor
both are situated near our front door
so we can see when there's room
for our trash as well as the cast off possessions
of our itenerant community. the painters next
door, illegal mexicans hauled from the tejas border
in a rolling ship over the hurricaned gulf last fall
faces torn like too many numbers
having finished the job here at the homestead
have gone. the pods unit which stored latex,
ladders, canvas drop cloths, rolls of transparent
plastic, bushes, stools, spray cannisters, compressors
and other painterly paraphenalia hauled off one weekday
while everyone was working or at school. now there
are only ladders and broken chests
of drawers, televisions praying
for a technician's screwdriver and beds
smelling of cat piss beds full of fucked and fuck you
maybe crabs and broken heads, broken marriages
he says we dn't want to sleep on someone
else's bad luck. it makes me pause. smell the corner
of the queen mattress hauled inside
from the dark, examine it for rips. haul it back
outside with its shiney suit aroma. a pink and blue
mattress, has the scent of talcum.
it's not very stiff. it waves oak branch in a storm
as we muscle it inside. queen size. fits the box
spring already here. boxsprings are not as intimate.
we keep the mismatched pair.


strong as dopamine
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
we learn in reverse
review recursive tide
a shill to bide. the oil runs
quick as blood thru our engines
pumpishly. what will will you
take with you refugee ?
better to let them shoot you
in your streets. let's have

a study break, one where we watch
termite bellies splice onto bacteria
and distill ethanol from straw. let's
drink it in big hummer gulps, pretending
the short term lack of orangedog butterflies
won't lead to a price increase in our
morning juice. let us ruse, from a 450 feet
away, and put our brethren behind
the last bars we'll ever need-
the ones etched in our eyes.



indiana, what blue skies hovered
over you above the wavering gasohol
lines wrapped like mirages across the desert
and when can we lie in you again?



this is written somewhen in the early
part of a decline of an empire. lead
poisoning, too late to stop the euclid smoke.
eresis, the will of entropy and ebony
gleaming in a milky way. i'd like to die
in new zealand, watching those skies.















ii















the martin strings are shrill
but resonant. i understand the incoherence
which makes this unreadable. but it
behooves me to write this way,due to the influx
of sinister atoms across this vector.
this is code for tomorrow.
argentian football stars dress in the shroud
of turin and parade on olympia. no one
notices. the sheer incoherent apocalypse
each prophecy fulfilling itself, prophetically
the powerful playing their roles, and we bit
actors dying on the beach of saving private ryan.

gimmee all your filthy lucre.
marketing for pop u lar i i i ty
where in all this
is the face of god?
look around you they show me
it's on everything green.







III






the song is off key tonite
but the timings almost alrite
no it's a reggea and it's not sposed to be















***
take 5.


sometime it was they set up camp
late in the afternoon. lyre would take the pot
off the back of the wagon, samuel
would gather wood. she'd place a gram
of fresh water, sweet from the high mountains
were the benzene had either filtered out
or had never landed in the snow. himalayas
she remebered the sound of it, the towering
ice,the heavy waterskins, the quietness
of the gieger counter, the clear test strips.
their fortune lay in the slow descent, melting
just enough to fuel them . if the sun stays
lyre thinks. if our arrays hold out.
they set the panels up toward the west to catch
the last of the sun. rootstalk and potato.
carrot and apple. steamed. nuts rounded the meal.
samuel uplinked to their contacts in beijing
the stars were close
there few lights below them anymore.
















****





what would you take? these drooping petals
effluvian traps, the sixteen years of school pictures,
a poem your first dead girlfriend gave you what
would be in your box as you move along the high
road, between the river and the ocean, northward
and out of the sea? the tides will take it all.
let me just take a rest here on this banyan stump
i remember when
i remember i
remember.



hunting soda pop
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
in the middle are strafed hands,
a tiger. she cocks her stick figure
head sideways,looks down. yes, a belly
of cat, stripe, wink.

she wanted to write so she sent him
away. now he snores on the mendicant rail.
labours with concupescence. nicknames himself
cupid. she offers him bow, arrow, target.

he takes them into the laughing subway
where couples drift idly, dandelion damsels
sycamore gents. the trees are all in pine.
he stretches his claws, cut at the knuckle.

he grabs the headlines, puts his face thru.
senselessly the arrow flies, aimed into the next
fifteen minutes. hiss snigger snort snot
he's on the bus again, beggin bux. she won't

forget him now. she can't.
she never knew him.




border journey
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
in the morning the microscope
becomes a refuge. inspect the welds.
safety first. recurse into the small universe of surface.




at this moment the place is quiet
polite phone bleeps, spilling plastic
counted and bagged. but wait,
here come the people.




useye test for ueer update:
add tolerance for the reflector test.
remember the blind spots.





later it's lunch. i found an intermittent cause.
the veins got crossed, influx of multiplex
from bus a to bus c. the brain couldn't figure it out.

now we ride along behind the deisel hog
luis in an orange vest holds his hand
against the traffic. we stop. the mini bobcat
creeps along, slowly. it's feeble claw
hangs like a carnival game in front,
some freakish carrot for a metal donkey.
what of rafael, driving? he's lost in the morning's
dream of fields of strawberries, stretching along
the dirt road from one pavement to the next.
there's a layer of ice over each plant which he
must thaw with nothing but a butane blowdryer.
and he has to pick 20 flats today to make enough
for beans and tortillas tonite. forget sending beatris
and pili enough for new school dresses. he stops
abruptly at the ditch's edge. he does not know
how he got here, inside this open cab, pushing a grasshopper
leg into reverse, the metal jaw clawing at reeds, lifting
them above his head like that scene from alien
when the creature bursts out of the science officer's
chest the very first time. he remembers pili got dysenterry
though, last year. frost on the berries outside
the trailer he shared with 14 others. he looks over at luis.
luis is waiting for him to move the machine again.
luis likes his orange vest, likes standing in the middle
of the road, holding his hand out to traffic, his hand
bare, head turned away from the oncoming cars.
rafael asks luis in cafe guadalaja at lunch why don't
you wear the orange gloves when you do that?
luis just shakes his head, runs his finger down the edge
of the picture of pili that rafael gave him last year
thinks of the birds they released on the day of the dead.