om

on the lanai
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the sun put out its fire
now it's ashes and wan

i look for the dot but it's missing,undoing
all that was worked for. today
there were suits in the plant
looking us over, now
the owner's dead. long live

the queen. anyway, the metal
band next door shakes the lizard
from the screen. curvy silhouette
in the last of the light.

a face lit by the white glow
of the page with
no end seen
from the street.

the lampost turns on.
the bass lingers.
to the west time
tests the wind.


unsweepable
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
i take a broom to half corners, bricks
blackened by moss and effluence.
between the landfill and the water treatment
facility, a bike path winds beside a stream
connects to the bay. i've been feeling bottled in
chaneled, chained to an inland.

my sister looked like carly simon in the seventies.
she's dead like i wish the moons in your eyes were.
tomorrow would be her birthday. john lennon's too.
i imagine a lot of deaths could be commemorated
on any day. why not begin then?





*






he feels like a loser. opens the window to let in a dark
shadow. a tv show with vampires bites his neck
and he's down on the count with all the lights off.
he's choking on maybes, chewing on yesterdays.
he calls, what she's doing is sublime summertime.
she tells him about her vendetta.
how the guns are loaded and aimed.
how she points them at various windows as the targets
emerge. he wonders how he got her number.
the tv turns black and he falls into not again.





*





she's on the chat room again. the old standby.
six conversations is slowing her down and either the keypad
is fucked or the new digs at her old haunt totally need
some major interface renewal ware. glitchy is how her
answers look . runs with toothpicks is back
and hotublvr peeks in. she always blows them off.
in the worst way. the phone rings. she knows who it is.
he's going to make her think about love and things
she's trying to fog out, forget. they say it happens. shit,
she means. she answers. they talk. she puts him on hold by telling him every story. his lights
are off. his room is dark.




****



there's some place she'd rather
not be. yr smile makes me ahhh
asks about romance. she takes
a needle and pokes him in the eye.
he's alright tho. there's still lust
to consider. there's no blood .







*()_)(787








she's got the hands free plugged in.
he sounds sad. she remembers what that was
like, falling out of fragments, how glass
got shadey and she watched as it flowed from one sharp
edge to the other. then she remembers what an ex
friend told her. "take your meds." she commands him.
he agrees. they remember how to make a smile.
the lights come up. there's a guitar in a corner.
there's a car. there's other places to go. they go.
the broom waits.



futon frame
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


sans mattress, it sits on the side of the road
to my place. behind the decaying fences of the track
housing beside the trailer park. mobile home facility.
manufactured housing park. wooden arms, bent black
metal bars. just like the way we left yours that night,
heavy fucking in the venetian blinded windows.
revenge of the dorks. you wanted to be a porn star
notorious decline of the twenty first century.
me a hammock for your bliss. why not i said?
you're young enough for anything.
i wasn't. sorry. but this frame, splayed
like the money shot of the girl on the pole i think
you put it here. a post it note on the one mowed yard
along this bucolic route. yeah it reminds me
as if i could forget your aluminum arms.