syntactic sugar

i know you're watching the spoon
fill itself with sweetness.
you can plant homes in the fill
between the minutes i don't speak,
which is a lot of homes. a lot.

people are weirder than bananas.
bloodstains on a mandala sheet prove it
because cold water removes that shit.
why don't you soak that sun mood
in some fifty proof and come
up to the bathhouse
for tea? we're having five day
beatles and humus on pita.

today is a day for a story
but the allegorist, author, bard, fibber,
liar, minstrel, narrator, raconteur, writer
are tired. shakespeare has left the building
where he made his money
and joined us for a more human friendly drink.
he's even brought a bottle of architecture.
that's him singing yeah yeah yeah
so close your books and give em
their privacy. it's the least we can do.

five hundred

how do you get dead bugs in your lamp?
i dunno how they get in there, drawn
to the light, the heat. their sin the sun
they imagine is behind the glass.
i forgot it's friday, in a sunday mood.
met this bookstore today, it's awesome quirky
full of potential and small town draw.
lolita, steadman & hunter s. on the wall,
fresh ground beans and tea at the counter.
chairs and tables to sit at. the shelves climb
walls, a metal ladder leaning, red, just so
stories, first edition, on the glass. you might
find the kind of weird book you wouldn't think
could get itself into this part of the world
but there is a small college here you know
and the laughing sky is the kind of place
such things congregate.

eleven days

thanksgiving

just unsewing my lips, in a lisp. sittin on jack's front porch, facing south i think.
the braveyard of the dead on the side of the hollow, evoking barrows and henges.
thre are so many birds in the sky here.
the quietness counterpointed by the singing wheels of visitors rolling by.
they made me feel like i'm going somewhere, sound as motion. i'm with
you here again, where we sat in cheap summer chairs, sharing outlets
and laptops, the tiles are still green, the children still laugh from the bedroom
behind me the amplifier turns red cuz you know what rust don't do.
the strings on the guitars are new. the a and the q are missing from this keyboard
but only the faces. the nexxus of reality is still possible, just push the unnamed pad...


life is too profound to be one big q & a.

preview without a compass

startling what mourning can bring
starling in the bare tree
tossed bag, wrapped around thistles
at the edge of a winter pond
too messed up to be anything but gone

when the laundry is done one last time
when the last shower is taken
the dryer releasing warm shirts
and socks into a cloth bag
a towel to dry with, to travel by.

when the last time you stick
your fingers in your ears and wag
your hands, clown, goodbye, fuck you.

and it seems like stone, these farewells
a spinning needle etched in the last place
you want to go, direction to the first new step.

and the left behind, the ones who will not follow
peace out.

the lasting goodbye

the strings ring, fast then slow
i remember your fingers on my body

now you sit across from me, playing
your forever love, something new and cleaned.

i don't think i'll ever recover
dunno if i even want to. i'll hold the pillow close

it hasn't hurt me yet. some things i can believe in-
smoke's little bite, feathers are soft except

when they stick in my skin. all the music is yours now
senseless to write lyric, all melody abandon.

new phase. moon out of light. belief
waning and anyway. it is what it is.

dyads & polyhedrons

cactus spires and magic
chasing bouganvilla
forty mango trees
in the arms of cousin seerah

come in past the low sun
blazing in the sky
through the broken fence
into the orchard's eye


and the spines and thorns'll catch ya
and the spell that's in there gotcha
witch's brews or fence's slits
try one on, see what fits.

cubicuboctogon
swinging in the vines
tetrapolyhedron planar curves
on down the line.

you don't know how you got in
not quite sure you want out

there's a door ahead
and you just want
to see what's inside

yellow glow above ya
the sun's still in the sky
shining on the door knob
glinting in your eye


cubicuboctogon
swinging in the vines
tetrapolyhedron
planar curves on down the line.

planning the new army

the whole fucking thing's collapsing
i feel like a thousand soldiers yanked by a child's hand


like i'm a puppet directed by a god . and i'm that god's hand
the brainwave that moves it. iow. karma. hey jack i had a natural
ayahuscya whilst surfing an old blog, and finding an entry
that i needed for the book, yes, still writing it. the universe
won't let me have a new lover till i finish it. then after
that i found a perfect place to plop it in the book.

there's helicopters beating the airspace tonight
it makes me think of new roommate, just out of jail
on financial charges no worries, how we have to stick
together in this life. who knows who knows. one card up
another card down. i've known this woman longer than
i've known most people in my life. our girls grew up
together. she's a scorpio too. i wonder how much
of her story is true and how much is gems from her need.
she is my sister.
born on the same day as my last long term lover. 2ybf.
odd that. i know three people born on the day right
before halloween. i get along with them, scorpions all.
i'm almost sure i will feel her sting. it better not
involve crack. i don't think i could handle that.
tho i understand subterranean motives, it's fire
that fascinates me. such innocence in the lilting yellows
the way they grab at the air with a child's glee, tasting sugar.
more daddy. more. i remember when my daughter first had a taste
of coca cola. she was in her stroller at my dad's good friend
or some sort of uncle by marriage or cousin in the tenth degree.
she was in her walker on linda's porch, at the scooty stage
oh, nine months old, still babbling and playing with fingers
but looking outward, smiling at granddads n things. reaching.
my dad said here baby have a little soda, held the can up
to her mouth. she sucked. her face lit like firefly her hands
plush moths reaching for the ty moon. she was in love. or pleasure.
sometimes it's difficult to distinguish the two. thanks dad
i said and rolled my eyes, now you have her addicted. earlier we'd been talking
about how i was trying to keep sugar out of my baby's diet. linda
gave me a "men,what can you do" look.
i remember playin with their kids at the family reunions.
that's something we did when we went to these things
we met our cousins , we played under the antebellum porch
of one aunt and slept in the farmhouse attic of another. my
grandmothers sisters. at night the creepy slopes of the roof
visible in the dorm style room the girls shared.
some nights we'd watch the donkeys yoked to the wheel
turn the huge press as the men fed in sugar stalks .
the sweet cane syrup dribbled out the other side
into jars the oldest kids had to keep their eyes on.
i remember a fire, i know that there was fire. perhaps
they boiled the sryrup. perhaps the memory
is vague because i like the nostalgaic feel of that dead era
how i lived in the last of truly rural south, when family
farmers raised crops of tobacco, cane, corn, children
that moved off the land and into the coffers of the city
never leaving much for back home. before cable tv.
when static was the most watched channel, a default mode,
available everywhere. thre's a train on the track
to the north of where i live now, the whistle moan another
anachronism that spins thru the sliceosphere, connecting
me back to the buffalo slaughterers just as keenly
as to the blues players that traveled the rails
in the last great depression. the great one.
i dunno, the fire this time around seems ready to burn.
we've been taught what the last great depression did.
how we got out of it. but that's not going to help
thistime. if you'd'nt get a piece of everything,
that's ok. we can save some for the children

oy sleepy. lemme light this smoke. oh shit. it's after midnite.
no wonder.


i know a couple of aries men that
flamed like an offering to the gods. they say young
meat is tastiest, soul still sweet. how bitter
their ashes smudged on my window.

curse as the first refuge of the unimaginative

she places the cards back on the table
face side down. says pick one. this is you.


the hermit turns up, a time for retreat
she says, you are in need of contemplation.

a nod, recognition on the eye. she fans the deck
a second card is drawn. three of pentacles.
this means a lot of work is needed you are not
ready for romance you have a task. a twitch
on the right cheek, was that a smile or a revelation
of tension

the third card is four of cups. this is the union
you ask of: remember what you want, avoid temptation.
the water is sullied, your emotions are confused.
a furrowed eyebrow lends confirmation.she moves

to turn the fouth card, but is stayed
by the hand of the donor reaching to choose. she
doesn't like the hubris. thinks of black magic
and the heads of chickens. the overturned card

is the chariot. she snickers with a throaty
laugh, lights a cigarette and leans back. will power
she taps the card. yes, you hold this together
with your actions. do you always wish to control
this way? you need to reign in the ego ,perhaps,
with this one. let the canoe find the current.

she reaches for the next card, fingers move
lightly over the spread. she hesitates above one
before moving on, then comes back to it. seven of swords
revealed. a purposeless stroll with handsful of knives.
oh, that one's tired. and lost, she clicks her tongue.
has no goal. confused little lamb. let's see what

might be possible. she turns
the last card. queen of cups see?
teacher, mentor. you have a task to do.
shirk it, it will find you. with a vengeance.

props

to the unrequited the reunited the disinvited
the white knighted. believing in belief
the way fog gets frozen in the reeds
at the start of winter. in the weeds
like archangels, time for seeds
grow huge bangels. let us grieve.

he takes a bit of this and hunk of that.
he wants you like a laundrymat, in and out
dump the dirty in the wash, with clean all flirty.

i dunno why fuss and moan.
this karma is fully home grown.
if i rhyme again, please don't groan
just learning lessons on the phone.

ok. i'm out of here.

i d 10 t error error errrrrorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

that would be me believing
you on my birthday cuz i wanted
to believe on my birthday i guess
but now it's less than one month later
and you have once again proved
why i should have listened to my first
yawns and let you go so long age.

the pattern.the pattern doesn't change.

i'm tired of missing work for you
tired of missing life whilst waiting
for a wee bit o yr tyme. you have
the balls to say to me
but not the balls to do anything
differently than something you tried before
that didn't work then and still ain't working.

i've said this before. we are the definition
of insanity. i think i'd rather go there alone.
thanks.

vesuvius explodes

and the lava runs into the streets
all the men and women and children,
asses, oxen, horses, dogs, cats
all the living creatures on the land
are buried in the flow, amid ashes. the birds
and insects, butterflies, moths, all manner
of air dwellers are incinerated
in mid flight. there is no room for hope
there is only movement and heat
and destruction in a beautiful stream of flame.

contemplating the yoke

she doesn't begin to know how to heal
this rift in her reality. there is the man
who comes to her home and says
love, says meant to be, says care. she
watches him watch his children, absorbed;
he seems to know some of love, at least--
wonders if he could ever feel this way about her
or any woman again. she remembers how
she lived within her own children for a while
amid the anger her husband carried, resentment
for how life unfolds, even as the home
he dreamed rose up around him. shelter had
to be enough, the children fed and growing so fast.

he says he knows what to do , just not why anymore.
she feels as if a stranger to himself is the one who
sits on her bed and plays music.sometimes they hold
hands and close their eyes and it's then the bright
angelic light rushes through her eyes. he says
he feels it too, but then he leaves, sometimes
for weeks. she says good morning and good
good night to a hologram that reads from a mock up
of a mac. then one sunday he's up early
making potato pancakes ,the smell of salt
on his shirt is mouth watering and his face is mobile
as if the wax were becoming flesh so she knows
he's back. he looks at her with eyes that want

to turn her into something she never was, and she
looks at him with eyes the same way. why can't they
keep moving into what's in front of them instead of watching
the shadows on the cave walls? she moves back into
the darkness, used to things with less substance.
he turns to the stove and flips the pancakes.


she is alone in her bedroom. he is alone in his bedroom.
they have so seldom been in the same place together
she wonders where they have to basis to say "love".
might as well say stubborn, clingy, co dependent.
they have no history, only spots of concurrence.
at various times it's been clear to her that what he wants
is his old life back, that what she is
is a plug in, that the hologram is more inside his heart
than outside, projecting emotions onto the body,
projecting her body onto some semblance of emotion.
she understands he holds such anger inside, a hot spring
a cold revenge. she thinks that he cannot allow
himself to love again. that he, like herself, has scars
from where he reached for the fire she follows
the twisted skin with her eyes but is afraid to touch
she flows between the ridges, tries to color the patches
where the pigment burnt out.

he's afraid of so much. mainly she thinks, it's the physical
between them that clouds his reason it's the way
the ground absorbs him and he's drifting
thru a nebula created only between them
and he wants to call this love wants to think
that it exists outside where they are and is fed
and kept alive even when he retreats .she starves
while she waits, unable to fly without the rising
drafts they make. she has no other way to say it.

it's outside description. maybe that's why they call it love.
but if he feels it like she does, how can he retreat,over
and over? she understands the demands of time, so
she tries to not fester, not fret. but how can he not need
this as much as she does, he seems to get more distant
the closer she tries to move. it feeds her own resentment
and anger. he says he's not like this, he implies he knows
how to be, and why. she thinks he shows her a mask.
she knows how loud his actions scream to be let go.

if what he says and what he does do not match
which should she believe? he says luv ya. and she knows.

empty cup

had a mouthful
of dirt, a handful
of promises, a headful
of no.

what's left to understand?
silence is its own reward.

i dreamed of you this morning
applying where you work
to what i wanted. then the ocean
washed up over the sand outside
your motel room. or it may have
been my dad's. anyway, a bunch of shoes
came unearthed. i chose several pairs
some of them with heels. you

were taking care to not be seen
in my direction. still, afterwards
there you were, wondering how
to get out of this mess. i wanted

to let you go. gave you keys
directions. you wouldn't leave
but you wouldn't stay. i offered
you a pair of shoes. lay under
the tightrope strung under a tent
where you taught some woman
how to fall into a padded
container by shaking the rope
you both stood on.
then you let a baby drop i can't
understand why she would be up there
so high and unprotected or why
you weren't concerned when she fell
not onto the mat but onto the cold
hard dirt floor beside me
but i picked her up and she didn't cry
even when her knocked out breath,came back.




()*(*&&&


we don;t get all the hours we need in reality.
only one minute of sleep for every five. relativity
is beginning to crack. the altering of the curve
as einstein throws dice with god, gleeful
and allelujah. thinking of the properties
of angels, conflagration in the santa anna winds
signs melting in the streets streets melting
into rivers of tar. that's so far away. our
disasters will be different. learning as evolution
market survey combines with collective floating
intelligence. tune in drop out. what if they gave
a war and nobody came. but instead they gave a war
and everyone came. cuz of the bonus. watching
the place burn we still have hope but watching pomeii
explode i think hope will finally be flames.

open micless

i feel on hold
like a thirteenth floor
in a twelve story building.


wanna boiler maker and a pizza--
curdle into a landscape of nightly ritual.
friday is no time to be out
without a drink. caffeine ation . yo.

gothic keys

the air is still warm outside, muggy
with hint of sinus. allergies are big
business. an off key acoustic guitar
guides toot toot waiting
for the wire that delays
while the price increases.

shoulda been long long gone.
bubble on the end of a severing tongue
inflatable beliefs bent with participating breath.

a pop and a wow. cap guns with playful intent.
plastic arms tangle with nylon hair , a heavily black
lined blinking eye, rouge the cheek, bow lip,
lashes of innocent thickness. the dance floor
is a spider in a tangential flick. you are the circle.
tell me how the dark creamy center feels
after the first bite.

or why i don't hate billy collins anymore

ok so he sold out to bush
what EVerrrr like if you were named
poet laureat of the us of a you'd turn it down
politix shcmallatix. tho i dunno, if hitler
was the man appointing ...well history will judge so anyway
why i don't hate billy anymore is cuz tonight he said
like a wicked child with his baggy middle age poet eyes
under his bald pate with its anachronistic fringe kind of wispy on the right
side how he stole an image from ferlinghetti, shamelessly and robert
browning too, how poetry's veins transfuse great lines
into a new poem, the way you
well he,would write it
i'm paraphrasing here n that's the warner
brothers zany ironic twist that got him
a shel silversteen berth on
the leaky poetry princess cruise line
bound for bahama or bimini or suddenly
how everything fell into place under the wet sky
outside at picnic tables covered in white
cloth, a small PA and a large projection screen
with a close up zoom and the mic a poor
second hand set borrowed from usf down the road
i guess cuz one had to strain to hear the sound
outside but cigarettes and wine were served
and i could see the man himself inside, small and distant
then close and personal on the screen
and he was funny
and he was self deprecating
and he was almost intimate especially when
talking of how the poem might come
and i heard in him the echo
of my mentors and i knew then he feels the poem
same as you and i, he just carries it off
a little less sadly, that's all.

wild as close

i can detach for only so long
the ache in my left side under
my breast belongs to stress
and stretching muscle, a tear
in the fabric of time that is mine.

neon and chambric postulations
in the winding of what's real
and what's imagined. tonight
you chat with new women, all well

and meh, but still, i'd like my own
computer, in my room, where i pay for it
to be, waiting to fulfill my desires
not yours. the slave would like her
soma now. to wait for even ten minutes

seems like stolen things seems like dis
respecting the hands that hold the fire.
the hands the work the fire the immolation
of the slave's desire. desire desire.

i wanted to drink tonight. maybe i did
want to have it out with these boys
pretending to be men, i can't say all i know

is that i have little patience today
for all the twigs thrown upon my path
the things designed to be good enough
the unforgiven detritus meshed underfoot.

oh, sorry, did i forget to step around
that piece of fragile you left on the floor.
wondership and ownership. a greeded pile
in the book of the now. what if i'd had
the perfect poem in my head and lost it
because you were on my computer. you have
one of your own. you have one of your own
you have one, why do you have to use mine?

if i say it three times
maybe it will sink in
i've pissed off my son
and he's wrong to be
except he hates it when
i'm all pissy. it's ok
for him to be all pissy
but not me. i'll be better
when you're gone because
i don't think it's fair
for you to keep using me this way.
fair fair fair. such an
adolescent idea. as if.
life just is. it just moves
thru these troubles, so hard.
if you want fair, you have
to find it in yourself.
i can't stand to live on charity.
i guess that's the difference
between me n you. you want to.
as if you're owed it because
you're born. i can't get that.
at some point you have
to accept that death
don't want you
yet.


there's some lessons
you need to learn. i have
to ash this cigarette.

for instance i am not magnanimous.
i just understand to a certain point
the way life can get cha down. i hope
one day to be repaid in kind
when i need it. we are here to help
each other. merilee, she needs
help now and i can't do it.
i have flat run out of help
at the time when it's needed most.
is this the change we're talkin bout?

escape is impossible. i do love the boy
but. i can't see the inevitable not happening.
that's just the way the river flow. now is the time
for a handout, indeed. i've always been
the soft touch, the sucker. you never were.
you kept the sheep at bay. but i know a man
i dunno if he's like you or me. there
has to be a balance between helping others
and the thing you can say mine about.

fair. earned. ok, if you dn't have it
and i have excess then i can give, unresentfully.

but if you wanna slack cuz you don't feel
like playin the game? i'm weary of the coin role.
i'm running out. food, smoke, smokes, free
internet, fee free. you got yourself in this mess
why do i have to get you out? damn man.
bad luck sucks but it's time u distinguished
between luck and choices. you chose to remain
ignorant of the workings of finance
and think some magic genie gonna fill your bank
account with money to cover the debits
you took when you lost your job again for the fortieth
time this month or the check you kited
in a drunken stupor for more booze i dunno man
this is a mess you pushed yourself into
with no help from anyone because you want
to be ignorant and free and an artist.
but someone else gotta pay your bill.
like, sigh? get real boy.
i'm done two weeks ago.
now it's three. i need relief.
plain and simple. without you
in my bed in my head in my life i want out
of what could never be, despite the beauty
of your eyes, bit by bit, a rabbit lashed
stereo concordance. immolation in the aftermath.
this is not the way i can live.
if you were a woman, and i were a man
i would feel the same way. i wouldn't support
a woman. i wouldn't. unless we decided
that we wanted kids. and then only for a few years.
i wouldn't want a woman who was satisfied
with being only mom. i think . if i were like i am
now. i wouldn't want a man who'd be satisfied
with that too. i didn't want to kick the dog
when i came home tonite
but when the dog kept humpin my leg
i kicked him. i just wanted my own
computer, in my own room, in my own house
that i slave for. i slave for it. not the dog.
jeeze.

string of symbols

i didn't pay for the vetting
i still have trouble reconciling

what you say with your actions.
why waste the money. there's bedsfull

of excuses for living. dark eyes lined
with kohl. a majority of opinion

to pinion and piston. rack me with doubt
again and i'll vanish into the sky. girl

talk and mist in the canyons. they say
if he walks then she ducks. they say

i was married once. not for long, how
can you keep a man in a state of expectation

when you've already unwrapped the present. hunter
society was the last bridge out of the moon.

yes, let's bring in the stars as well, points
of light as nipples of the gods. might as well

be myths still told. might as well be words
as real as this light. and the moon she

doesn't emit , merely a detector only
half shrouded, only quarter attenuation. sort of

like the way i see you, all these years you've
been dancing in and out of my life.

off limits to the wind

the poet returns to la place
de la primavera. nothing --
her mark can't stamp. she visits
graveyards to warm herself
on names of cold stars.

they tell her x rays escape
from black holes. then it's not
a closed system after all.
looking out she looks into
the seeds of the void.


by this, what isn't
also is.

repository of time.


summer begs birth in these clouds
guided by the globe's
slew, spinning, spinning...

collasping into this moment

i think a lot about the past
because the stars imply it
if science has its way.

everyone alive on every planet
surrounding any star's light
in the sky tonite


i can't say it in the way i want.
mybe it's just morning brain freeze

maybe i need to get high.























*()(*


in other words
you could be dead
last night driving home
in the wee darkness
eyes falling over themselves
suv turned upside down
because i don't believe
that we will be
so one way or another
the past will serve
to destroy us.
























()_+()*



this boy is leaving soon
he wants me to say man
but i don't know if he's gotten there yet
and maybe by me calling him boy
i keep him distanced enough
to not believe in that again.

























*(_(&*







i'm smoking jack's weed again
because i can't find mine.


i'm such a stoner.



















()*





what this moment
has going for it
is that i'm not dead in it.


i will move on thru it
retaining the shape of the vortex
remaining in it because it's eternal.

a star gave out some light
people on a planet lived in it
it moved on, this light, traversing
dark matter being swallowed
by time and distance. it flows
into my eyes on a coldish november night
brighter than summer, more present
in the air's absence of water.
the people warmed by this light
are dead if they have a human lifespan.

they can't even live on my memory
only in my imagination
but that isn't real.
conjured beings on xiudau
whimsical shapes on klaatu
imaginary social systems on qyrrrty
delusional lovers of earth.

























(*&&&^^














trade show secrets and honorary mentors
line the reception hall. someone important
is coming, someone with an ear tuned
to the radio color of a nebula.

the stark darkness and the eye
which paints it.


the talent show waits
a curling tail , piggy and chrysanthemum.

why not make a fool in front of the tarot deck.
watch myself from behind your mask
impossible and fattening
wrinkling and chatteling.


the live we would lead
a fife of a life
the promise of naught
in spite of the strife.



















*(&



as in every morning i should
get dressed to leave in less
than 12 minutes. i'm sorry i haven't
been speaking to your
poems i haven't been
much lately
winding
down
to
u