the mouth of the couch

things slip in here ,   pictures
from the beach line
my underbelly, crumbs
for teeth, quarters dimes
  nickles are   uncontrollable
 remote eyes i use to spot
my prey. socks.
i like them. also lighters.
if could get a little oil
and snag some thumbs
i'd make this whole thing go up in flames.
  i don't hunt. i merely
want and wait
 for the bounty of the gods
to fall inside, to occupy
i feel most at home as portal.



















*(&







  my mind is  memory
 blocking foam
the kind that holds the shape
of the designers. you
can't sink into me, i'm
uncomfortably stiff unless
you have a bad back then
we understand each other.

the cat would love to sink her claws
into my hide. i have no give. i'm bark
a dog to chase her up a notable
lack of incoherence a thing in the middle of a space
in the quick stop of one second at a time. eternally.













*&






where is the heart?
 you ask

do furnishings need one?

where is my heart?
i ask.  smashed into bits
recombined, separated, united
pulsing and plussing
into and out of time.
electromagnetic occupier of rhyme.
reach between   forgiving thighs
feel the empty space of sigh.

sometimes the last sip of sake, the last drag of smoke and the last word all arrive at the same time

that's  like a mutual orgasm.

starke und zeeman effect

the scientist is renegade
filling empty space between stars
with the power of belief.
and what about the planets
what about the seas?

the dragon's eyes
one winking jupiter
one venus. . one planck out
says the stuff of our world
does not exist
the way we believe it exists
i can tell you this much
there is no matter as such
a force that holds it all together
is the matrix of all matter, a mind
the mind your mind, mine.



*

  i'm reading nietzsche
that old etymologist.
 he said it first, ego boosted.

 belief is thought
marrying emotion.

&

we have love and fear as our wholeness.

he said it
 but he was germanic and wild
 laying claim to superman
 in syphylitic grandiiosity
the best  kind., delusional
but of sound body. he didn't know
he was insane.



















*())***












rode Us nineteen tonite
to see a play written by a local
produced by a local
theatre troope still putting out
  still producing art, still
wanting to communicate the pain
and   joy of human experience
into the center of being all eyes upon us/

commerce closed all up and down the strip.
hospice is doing well though. how close
i am to peerdom with the clients
of the successful industry along this stretch
of paved paradise  where all god's audience
drive large town cars from which
 they can't see over the steering wheel
but it's ok. autopilot works for the most part.



&*^]



i'm sipping sake, missing the feel of your fingers
and teeth. feeling the  quantum well form
between us.

 the way we absorb absolution
the sorries you carry like calling cards
the whip i wield like a whistling drum
charged by   dna,
 held together by excitons
the wrench of your back
the bear trap waiting  in my hip






*(****














back home the disaster area
resulting from my attempt at motherhood
awaits. i could have sworn i did
that laundry before i left washed
the dishes, wiped the counters
but here they are again, all fucked up.

in addition i swept the floor
because it's that time of the month.

three generations in this house
only the oldest holding it together.
the double bass gleams
  in the corner, set on it's side
facing the wall. the doorposts are stripped
by the visiting cat. the place falls apart
apace. even magnets can't hold together
what splits out into the dark.

ybor shoe licker

i don't know  what pov to take on this  legend.
i want to  get inside the licker's   head, find  out what
compells  him to stalk ybor, particulatrly the artists
who hang out  lookin for   a place
to  play  their  music without gettin hassled
but  i  bet  he  goes for any unsuspecting tourist
with a  look of  affability.  like you, pleased 
to be  sitting in a coffee house  where  free
music and poetry  entertains a  full house 
of culture freaks while  i lean into  your caress
allowing you to  look down  my little black dress. 
 we talk to  him  for  a moment,  he 
seems  familiar, maybe  i've  heard  you read?
 he shyly  turns his head
murmurs what  could be yes or  no
and it comes to me he's the licker but  i've only
seen him sidle by on friday open mic pointed
out by  victims past, and he was  always wearing
a  rasta hat.  this dude  has a soul train pimp  cap,
denim, studded  with rhinestones. he seems
pleasant  enough,  if a  bit shy. and gay.
a simple dark  scar  slices   his right  cheek
near  his bee stung  lips.  his  lashes are  long
his  countenance demure. harmless  boy.  not
the licker. i  gotta stop being so  suspicious.
i read my stuff on the  mic. when i  come back  i lean 
 into  you again.,  how  was  it? great you nod
and smile. we  watch  a couple more
poets  and  a  singer
 who wrote  a song about jesus
 you seem antsy  and  i'm ready to  leave
when  j  gig comes on  because 
i'm  still piqued at  him cuz of he
 dissed me last open mic
  i  was  at, 
 which wasn't last night's
he can gotohell the  arrogant  slut
until i'm not pissed & you interrupt
 hey
listen  not to  change  to  subject  but
i  gotta tell you what  happened back there
when you went up to the mic  that   guy
asked me if you  were  gonna  read poetry
and i said yeh,  duh  and then he  asks me
what kind of shoes i  have like
out of  nowhere
and i'm  like  ummm, timberlane  n then he  asks
can i see the  bottom of them? and  i'm  like
whaaa...?   but i put out
  my foot   sole up  and he drops
to his  knees like some  kind of worship
his head bowed then  he  licks the bottom
of my shoe  from  heel to  toe  all the while
watching me  with a .... a  ...
lascivious? i  suggest
no it was...well i  guess it  was  sexual  
i  mean  i do  feel violated  and he was
enjoying it so  much, it was  like  oh ..man ,
and then he ran  out the back door ,  wait..what?
i  thought you'd be  calling me  for  bullshit ,  i  thought
you wouldn't believe me
and that's  when i hadda tell  you 
what i should i have  told you  when he  sat  down
next to us  but  i wasn't  sure
that  was   him  really, besides i  thought
  he might be   a legend   the guys  made up
 to write obnoxious poems about
i  still haven't ever seen him do it with
my own eyes    for all  i  know  the  guys
  coulda  got to you while
 i was  reading , fed  you  this story  to play 
me even now  so  i'll  write another
poem  about this   poor  bastard
that licks  shoes in ybor city
and   he never did  any such
thing at all..  after  dinner and  a walking tour
of the famous  ybor- little slice  of new orleans
in cigar  city-    we  come  back
around  the  bunker and the guys
  are  basking in   remembrance
of applause for  the  performance
 we  walked  out on.    we stop
 and  laugh about how you
got violated by  the  legend   
and   m   sez yeh ?he got me tonite too!
and his story's just  like  yours
and b   sez  oh yeh, the guy's
 got  a  facebook page and  everything
and  j gig  just nods and looks  at  the bttom
of his glass and i'm wondering  how
you'll handle this  writer
 who  has  to hold on  to legend
iin the face of   an  otherwise
 convincing  reality.

 

settling into it

i tried to  make  sense
of the new machine-
it  blew  up  again.

when i  say you're  like  me
she  says, what
dark  and  morose?

i wanted to  try delight soon.
kids   grown  up future settling
 into  been there done it

there's still time.
the world  won't  end
in a leap year

there's a pink castle
in my  front room that says
it needs to let  her get  grown

so  i can cackle from my
dotage as she repeats mama's
past on  the bitch.

prayer

oh  clouds have returned
rain  bringer
my  skin  is thrist
and  longing  crack
the sky pour  over me

the hot mess of our pasts

sake buzzd we pull  up 
to the shell station  for  smokes
there's a  line  i want to  write
   forgotten by  the time 
i get home. 

you lived the  original weeds  script
cuz    the  house was only  24k
one neighbor-an  80  year old
danish pimp, and on  the other side
they  sold crack
 on weekends and  holidays
but otherwise  kept the driveway  clear.

i leave the house on a third  acre  
with a  pool  for  intinerant  romance
the next ten  years i'm a  careening
plastic bag  filled with someone else's hot air.



the kids i  said. what am doing
to them  when he was  suicidal  at  7
and she pulled a knife on  me  at 12
   we always fuck up our kids
one lover said, then went off
to prove it with his own.

   she  kept clinging to the car when i told her  i was
leaving now.  three  weeks later
the  cops came  and threw  me in  jail
for trying  to  run her  over.
not  convicted,  you understand
but  it  cost me more than  one position.


i  broke  up with him
several times because his  priorities
were fucked. but  i loved him anyway
and in my own ADhd way
i was  faithful to that for 3 years
2 or 3  weeks  at a  time.
instant relationship  stew
going  gangrene  straight into scientology.

the cougar is  a  uniquely  transitional  woman
  the  young take
so much  energy.  and the co eds
how they will do anything for an  
A except the  class  work. i threw  them
out of my  office.   i have  daughters.


he  taught  me player
she  taught me slayer

why  did we stay  so long
in  things designed for profit
 tenure  is  about 
publishing.   no room for  ideals
that's  why i  didn't get it.
i didn't get that
you  gotta get the funding
  to do the science
to  do  the art

well, i think it may 
have been the drugs
but  it may  have been
the lack of hugs

s

a man might not know what he wants, but when he sees it, he knows he wants it.

hopeless hill

only one way off
two  choices

wet  a finger
test the wind

look up
test the sky

put on your 
parachute,  jump

if  you need to
open it.

the landing can
 be  soft or dicey

either way  you
land, still alive.

begin the long
climb back to the  top

or 

grab my hand
fall with  me

into a place 
of antigravity

i have met the enemy

harbour at night.

  strolling  in the burg we occupy
a bench on the edge of  the  water

  in the  distance, on a  spit
of  land   palms limn the shore.
one bright  light hazes  the sky
flips eternity signs, evokes  aliens
for me, an rc  craft   for you.
.
where  did the  magic go?

after you left me
at  the  car parked
in  front of  the catholic  church
moon  above the bell  tower
jesus  baking on  the  cross
i  checked my phone
it wasn't  there. panicked  i drove back
and asked the gentleman
sleeping on the   bench, if he'd
found it? and  perhaps my weed?


 you danced  till  one  at the club
a little tlc  to  get the heart  pumping again.
how could  i know?

please understand  that lack
of encouragement is  sunless.
such  trees are stunted at  best.
  fractal flakes   of a neglected cat. 
you were loved from illusion to  end
angels haunt your death
 eros strokes your life.

the passage into the black  hole
is long  stringy and  laced with ariadne's  fine  cloth.
we have  been  here  evernally 
seeking a  way to  turn on the light
seeking   some trace of pattern meaning life.