Mignionette

i love money

oh not money
just the things it buys?


the odor of it 
the yellow dye wallowing
into desuetude of it




*(&(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((




caught between careers
 a care package of temptation
wends it way down some pike
spotted thru a lens, a detector
and a point of view.

cut it away with a slender spike
process it with a patented recycling
plan. fragrance and pattern and grace.








**()**




  i sent   a smile
from your future.
it's in that cup of tea
drink up! relax,
 inhale scent like
a maiden of rome. .


i once had her hair
now it's self
 cut, the color
of dried stalks 
soaked in rainwater.
 so  i'm

 dispensing opinion

for free


devalue something
to find its  worth.
toss seeds
 into the sky
just to see
 how far
 they can fly







(*)











 our yellows are synthetic now.
our  sedatives processed in a chemist shop.
science can cure a lot of evils
but it makes replacements.
maybe clean up some of this mess
i've heard that  could  grow a sweet market.

tonite was more lavender

the fuse wasn't blown
the wipers work.

the socket will take
the plug just
push harder.

not here, the cops can see me
take the box of weed out
let's move on
 to some quieter place.

15 minutes later,
down the street, still lookin
for the phone heard,
lost amongst the trash in your car.

tried both cards three or four times
and the atm still don't work.
out of publix, the gyro place
closes in ten minutes
i'm starving
  it begins to drizzle.

the wipers don't work.

can we make it to the man?
can we try a different fuse...
let's just drive.
...if we don't crash on the way?


  wind and ripples
 make  a  windshield 
river down  us hiway 60


to the weed and back
at the wendy's pit stop
at the walgreens parking lot
at the mall stop light
at the hope chest hospice store
a towel battles   tiny drops
that sheet   glass,  dimple sight 
then the rain begins.

please pull into that racetrac
i need gas. it has a roof
we can try changing the fuse
lets use a 20amp.
fill the tank
clean the glass
buy a candy bar.

belief  is half the battle
i keep my fingers crossed
you say against the rain
i don't say
for the wipers to work
so they do.

a recipe for ambrosia

  she made a quilt when they married

 formed  calico and flowered

flour sack scraps into  butterflies 

squared off on a field  of white bunting. 

i keep it in her hope chest.

he restored an  oak

chest of drawers on their  porch,

 cursing the fine ragweed pollen spilling 

through the screens on lingering

late summer evenings .

when i rub it with oil 

 yellow flakes glint like

lapidary scales under

an electron microscope.

holidays she made

 the custard from scratch, a trick

i never learned.he  cut whole 

marshmallows into quarters.

pineapple pieces, shredded

coconut, walnuts, maraschino

cherries folded like children

into sweet thick flannels.

a mouthful of bliss.

a jerry moment

she: do you think we'd make a good springer show?

he: who do you mean? 

me and my family

pause

maybe you and your daughter

pause


why? are you gonna...


no.

tiger lily tornado

when sneaking thru my yard
it's wise to wear waders.
my breaklights are down
the road's a river
and  i want to find the doc
that will deliver lsd
for my next depressive bout.

i think somehow
you finally made it to china
simply because you had to go.
i hear the internet there
is censored like  Time
so take your salt in grains
that defy the windsplit rains.


you can call me. drop by over wires.
we'll put  pretense on the burner
boil up a cuppa, share  a smoke.
outside where secondhand
runs off the clockface
to bother the neighbors.
i'll show you the headstone
for my expectations
and you can kiss me
in my little white shorts.
they were made for hot weather.

funnel down into my neck
twist a bottle cap for dipping
into scales and graphs. i've got
a recycler on line 2 who wants
to mine the gold streaks
you picked up over the superfund site.
he wants to do lunch
but he can't get beyond the bridge
into the maw of the siren
so he's  redecorating
the landscape with brittle white doves.

unzipped

exposed back,

 tongue reasons,

hot, tight and orange.

dusk  till ten, 

a face outside

of clouds, tree framed  

comfort comes in small  

ten minute naps

 eyes inside time.

 these bodies  crave

  long days 

 with caramel toppings

fate lines its teeth

with barb wire

tango partners

women on the way

 to prom and basic training

with stiletto symptoms

the cable company wants

its money, messing with

my box of evil 

dead retro singers

splice into each other

so change the channel.

grab a drum. make 

believe this is what

you're meant to do.

starfish holiday

rain clouds loom in the east
downtown it's raining
southwest to the end of the bay
is the beach we seek -
blow the clouds back with wishes
and spells. little girl wants
to sit up front but this isn't
the sixites so she's strapped in
back, tired of promises, whining
she's seen water three times now
  someone sets a bottle
rocket off over the causeway.
she stops.
 for a minute,
 resumes.

all the way to the beach. the storm
is on the left, clouds slowly bubble
 like volcanic ash jellyfish and an anvil
headed shark swims over the top of them
out to our island. 


damn it might rain, says gramma. understated. 
mom says nothing. it's better that way.
they ride the outside curve of the cloud.
looks sunny where they're headed.























*







thunder across the bay
where the skyway bridge 
and the rest of civilisation 
swelters under dark skies.
lightening is swift
 but sound lingers


 
the edge of the storm
 sidles over the sun.

but wind blows from the west
we add hope to push it east
  swim in  receeding water
flirting with electricity.





*







the tide keeps going out and out.
leona is bigger than the ocean!
come back little girl, that's too far
under our toes,  cracked shells
the broken backs of tests
spilling seagulls and also
live sandollars and snails.
little girl makes a game  tosses
each back into the water.
 gramma finds
a small whole ,test . she turns
to her daughter.
ahhh  . the ocean gave us
one.  mom smiles it's dead
we can keep it. they've
been searching all afternoon.
she hands it to leona,
 who looks at it
briefly
don't throw it!
looks at gramma and mom
smiles and neatly
 drops it into the murky deep





*






it's futile but they search
for it anyway, a keepsake
  to take home
from a  midweek holiday
 a tie to  childhood
going back and going forward
like waves running over the beach

 mom goes back to keeping
little girl from walking across the bay
but gramma hopes to find...
pulls up her hand...

a starfish, oh look momma, look
i got a starfish! we all hold it 
briefly, long spindly legs
snake over her small palm
searching for the sea,
 for mother's sweet breath

later there will be her first
 fireworks . they explode
with all the thunder
that missed us.
the thrilling way they
  mimic   stars
oh so briefly
the terrifying sound of their light.

independence

something about a holiday in the middle of the week
makes me want to simply curl up and sleep it away.
maybe that means i work too much.  i like to be
at the beach on this day, in a rented room, with waves
signalling  wake, shush, take a break. but no room
today. last year there were stars in the ocean and lies in my ears
but this year reality is back in the saddle, no probs.
current you, as opposed to previous objects de mi affeciones
(i could totally get into a patios of english, french and spanish
throw in some italian, sprinkle of german, i'd prolly recognise it
sooner or later. any way...) rakes leaves in a rental house
broker than even myself, with the  same problem childs
and same problemas de mentos y problema de ambition.
that's the way i damp ignition. the house i'm in rattles and shakes
with the washer's journey. got some fifth exotic music expelling
from speakers, its warp tuned into mine. don't care if i get outside
or save my grandbaby from her fate of a  mother oh mother
how did you leave so gradually that i'm missing you still, forty
years and a bad life later?

meh, don't feel so much bad as useless. jeanie and i discuss
assisted suicide, burdens, the way to do it right. is this what
my old age is to be?  a long slow ramble into convincing
myself to snuff before i get to the stuffed wheelchair age?
hopefully the cancer will take me quick. heh. wish there were a time
donation machine, i know a lot of people who'd put theirs
to better use than i've put mine, it would be cool to be able to leave
something worthwhile behind. but i don't mean to be morbid.
i mean, i've been saying for years.that life doesn't have to have a point
doesn't have to have meaning, make meaning from the daily.

the only meaning i've been able to make lately  has mold in its crevasses.
ants on its counters. unpaid electric bills. no secret to living says the song
just keep on walking. and dying/ just keep flying.

"I wanna die in place that don't know my name."
well, welcome to the world. lonely soul by unkle
the gods always laugh at me in the soundtrack

Sipping wine and prophesizing us.

i realise it's not the same as
anonymous's game, taking
your lines without credit but
you are in paranoiac ville about now
so no worries i'll expose you
k? hey hey it's ok, rilly.


jist you know , the keyboard's spittin out spaces
and all the chocolate's been eaten. i have a new pain
it's in my toes. hearts are so cliche, moreso than
pointing out cliches, even.  you wonder if

every thing is this same game of gain and loss.
i gotta tell you that it sure feels that way now.
i can't see us in a martha stewart kitchen or
lounging on a vitton chaise in aruba because

all the dreams were co opted years ago. i envy
you the ability to continue in the face of desuetude
but my fine lines seem to lead to solitary sleep.
and happy for it. the wine flows down the grapevine

and we all feel a bit finer. out of carolina
for a dropped chalice. you can pick the make.
let it be of  china if you want. there are no rules
in lethe. or wait, was that the strafe

of wars, big and small, acting like something taller
as the empire state, we named it we bought it
we caged it we caught it. the bullets make the master
the sheep make the slaughter. ahhhh but i'm not

so despairing as all that am i? there is beauty
in a habanese who needs a house sitter, the trees
and their flight above the perfect pool, the knees
of nuns, do they still move? spittle and spoit and goove.