revised

i burn experience like tobacco

in this small bone pipe.

i try to keep some for later

try to quell the need for more.

substitute weed but it doesn't satisfy
just increases desire  

i'm not saying i quit. i'm modifying my intake

i'm managing my addiction, i'm giving into temptation

because my won't power has the upper hand.

i burn experience like incense

smokey, slow, stinky.

swing it back and forth in a censor

to cloud the outcome

and confuse the congregation.

i've heard them all, all the stories,

behind the glass screen. forgive them father
for you left home when they were mere tots.

most of the things that would make good stories

i had to forget, or i couldn't look
people in the face again.

i wish they'd let us burn weed again. i think it would help

with the collections plate. or the concession stand

i can't remember if i'm at church or a quidditch game.

*()()*

i burn experience like shell oil in elijahland.

i burn experience like american flags in baghdad

i burn it like fields of poppies in kabul, like vietnamese jungles

my experience is napalm , my burn is nagasaki.

i burn experience like looters in ferguson,

 like cops with tear gas 

i burn experience like fukushima burns the sea.

last night

it's not a good thing we have
i think
when we get into a physical fight
that begins when i try to discuss
how bad the relationship between
my daughter and her baby daddy is.
you want to take sides tell me
how i've made   your opinion of her
so negative so don't try to change
your mind about her now. she's not
a good mother, you and i don't
like the schedule she has her child on we both
feel she's neglectful but you're sure
she's one step or three years away from physically
beating and probably mentally fucking up
the child you and i are in love with. i have
a bit more faith that getting away from the crack head
who fathered her child-the man who barely raised
 two children before this one
who calls her a useless piece of shit
who is an alcoholic who was abused
by his father to the point of living his life
which is much farther along than hers
on the low edge of poverty always looking
for a way to scam to someone or a handout
instead of a job because sure he's gonna get that disability
he's been trying for in just a little while-
will be the key to straightening out her own head
and her own life and she will rise to the occasion
of her child. i'm not sure, she is manipulative
and a thief but i prefer to believe it's because
she has been given very few breaks
all her choices turn into the worst possible outcome
plus she really hates herself thanks to the way her dad and i
raised her. and i don't know how to fix it except
to be supportive of her if she has all the right answers
and she did, last night , when i went over there
to tell her she needs to mother
 if she's going to be a stay at home mom
because with the right answers
your choices narrow
black and white are clearly marked
and if you chose black then you don't take
child with you into that bleak night.





all this to run around the fact that last night
you provoked me and i responded exactly as you wished.
why is it that we can't discuss disagreements with civility?
i want to say that the moon wanted blood
the gods wanted drama and if they couldn't get it
at her house they would gladly accept ours.
of course that tone absolves us both from our actions/
my excuse is that you provoked me. what's yours?
i provoked you.....i just don 't know what yours is.
you were in my face, not two inches, not one. zero.
you tried to occupy the place where my eyes are.
i spit at you. twice. then i moved back, you grabbed me
pulled me close, your arms around my shoulders your mouth
over my nose. i pushed you pullled, still you were talking still
the words coming from your mouth designed to hurt still
the words coming from mine to wake you the fuck up
you grabbed my tongue with your teeth, i slid under
your grip, pushed you away, you got up , i got up you
pushed me onto the bed, came at me and i kicked,
and kicked everytime you came near me so that
when you retreated i got up.  you accused me
of using you. i lost it big time then, came at you
with my open hand round house across the your cheek
which didn't have the proper slapping sound so
i did it again and still that didn't satisfy to i made a fist
and hit you in the jaw , quite ineffectively you don't even have
a darren wilson mark on your chin.
this was after i told you to leave my house
and you said i'm going forever and i said good riddance.
i have not had such contempt for a lover since i
bitch slapped j out of my house six months
after it was time for him to leave.
i frankly don't want to wait that long again.


later we talked and i still hurled insults at you.
you laughed said yeah that's true or no
it wasnt' that way i raised my kids and i said how long.
did you pay child support ,were you there for her teens?
you think that doesn't count
i guess but i know teens is when my daughter
got really screwed up in the head
and my divorce probably stuck her in adolescence
to this day because , really, she so teen.
your daughter had the benefit of psychosis
which you ascribe not the breakup or the psycoactive
drugs she did as a  teen post breakup
but to the things her mother did to her within the marriage
because ber momma be some crazy bitch
all bipolar like my ex which is one of our commonalities
so when i say i believe my girl is bi polar that colors
every thing you see about her interactions with my grandchild.
i think you shouldn't project. i think different bi's act different ways.
ithink you acted my ex husband last night so maybe it was you
started all those fights in the marriage and even now
you can't admit because that makes you the villian
and you wanna be a victim, just like my ex
who to this day believes i used him
and left him to rot with the children we concieved
lucky for him he got out of that by being
totally himself and i took those children
so they are not hs fault.


so here we stand at the corner of blame and coercion.
what's love got to do with it, tina?

the beloved is something that fills a need in oneself.
what need do i have for your abuse and craziness?
only one of my lovers has not said i used him.
he knew who the user was.
i'm a stone cold addict so maybe that's what they mean.
i love the feeling of loving and being loved.
addicted to it so that when it inevitably goes
i immediately begin looking for the next fix.
everytime in the middle of it,when the rot begins
to poke through the paint, i say this is the last one.
but a short while later, i'm a beagle , i'm a hawk,
seeking the prey that satisfies. i don't learn
the lesson of that prey--it's not a symbiote, it's a parasite

i burn experience like petroleum

--title :hector the crow


it's an interesting thought
she muses as she lights her pipe.
last night she was in barcelona, walking
between guadi's landmarks and the rest of history
trying to out do him. since architecturally,
he set the standard ,  the beamslingers all come after him.
he's dead so he won't mind. and the church
that rises in his stead-spanning a build
 time of a hundred years
just like back in the middle ages when
the exhuberant sacrifices went into lasting
works of art, or back before ancient egypt even
when the sphinx was carved and stuffed
and placed beside a river whose water we'll never know-
it won't mind either because temples
understand the need for flashy spaces and carvings
to occupy the mind intent on finding gods.


when i walked in la sagrada, as the locals call it, the bodies
all around me became muted. my head popped backward
like a trick flamingo on a swizzle stick , my eyes
craned and strained to touch the star burst
at the knaves's center. i could feel the flow of the crowd
as people passed me , moving on and out.
transfixed, i couldn't heed them, but i let myself be carried out
of the ailse and found a small eddy to rest in. finally
i took my eyes from the supernova and began to record
the figures in the alcoves. then i had to stop. it was all
too much to catalog. it was like watching a life unfold
in a move that was playing everywhere all at once
and then i realise that the star is god, who is wearing my face.


















9090000






i burn experience like tobacco
in this small bone pipe.
i try to keep some for later
try to quell the desire for more.
substitute weed but it doesn't
satisfy, it makes me desire more
tobacco.

i'm not saying i quit. i'm modifying my intake
i'm managing my addiction, i'm giving into temptation
because my won't power has the upper hand.

and despite the cold i've had for weeks
i sang better last night than i have six months.
one day i might be able to sing allelujah without taking a breath.




























*(^^^



i burn experience like incense
smokey, slow, stinky.
swing it back and forth in a censure
to cloud the outcome
and confuse the congregation.

i've heard them all, all the stories,
behind the glass screen. forgive them father for
you left home when they were mere tots.
most of the things that would make good stories
i had to forget, or i couldn't look them in the face again.

i wish they'd let us burn weed again. i think it would help
with the collections plate. or the concession stand
i can't remember if i'm at church or a quidditch game.










$$$000)))











i burn experience like shell oil
burns methane in elijahland.

i burn experience like american flags in baghdad
i burn it like fields of poppies kabul, like vietnamese jungles
my experience is napalm , my burn is nagasaki.

i burn experience like looters burn  fergeson,
 like cops burn tear gas on the streets of protest,
i burn experience like fukushima burns the sea.














actually, i haven't had that much experience to burn.
but the grand canyon was on fire.