The Spirit of the Age

March 6, 2009 at 6:01 pm (Poetry)
Tags: Poetry

A tumultuous cascade

of middle fingers
aimed at government

of sex and handshakes
     with no time limit
     with affinity for sweat
     with someone you care for
          and someone else

of genuine enthusiasm
     for green vegetables
          because you grew them, they’re there
     for opera
          because it’s not “stuffy” anymore
     for your shadow
          because it follows you like history redeemed
     for Dali
          because you can dream again

of breath
     that comes with labor you enjoy
     that blows smooth across hairs
          on your lover’s arm
     that comes deep from your diaphragm
          and feeds the greenery
     that carries your voice in songs about
          the beginning of the end

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Inlet, My Prayer for Erasure

April 15, 2023 at 7:25 pm (Poetry)
Tags: Fiction, Poetry

Let the ship run aground on me.

Let my body be pinned between bow and dock.

Let my ribs give way, break as the wooden pillars of that dock break, shattering beneath unstoppable weight.

Let my skull grind upon the rocks of the shoreline, flatten into silt and stone as the final sound pops, scrapes through my ear like a universe collapsing.

Let my remains compact to unrecognizable form as the ship passes over me, lurching like monsters lurch into the space between city and beach, where fleeing screams screech like vultures say grace over a carcass.

Let brackish creatures and saline begin my decomposition with hungry haste.

Let the reports zoom cameras on pale survivors, the stricken pilot whose failing equipment offered no control, no opportunity to halt.

Let the words speak of small harbor sheds, piers, and the lone vehicle pulverized under the hull.

Let them celebrate the living, lament the damage, the expense of repairs.

Let them forget I had been there.

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Out of Bounds

April 13, 2023 at 1:35 pm (Poetry)
Tags: Poetry

I use tables as desks, desks as tables –
so when I threaten to drink you under the table,
you can fear on many levels.

Give me a cat-like dog over a dog-like cat,
and if you ask me why, I'll sic my cat on you.

They say you must have a heart before an attack,
so I must be their heart because I feel attacked.
How long will they have me?

I stockpile memories against myself
in secret caches of association
so when my ego gets cozy,
internal affairs busts through the door,
arrests me. There goes my deposit.

I've never cheated on a woman,
but I was never playing,
so how could I cheat?
I have played with men,
felt a savagery of stubble
wrestle my lips till they hurt,
sent my hand in search of parts
below the shirt –
Bigger than mine?
Harder than mine?
Lonely like mine?
We mined each other by strobe light,
and I was fool's gold.

I wear boxer briefs, shoes with toes.
On the rare occasions I wear cologne,
it's always unisex. I am Lady Macbeth
unsexing herself. Come, you spirits.

I hate dearly, escape nearly,
drape stiffly, tiptoe whistley,
find heaven in hell, write badly well,
kiss places not for lips,
take no shots and never miss.

When I slip into something more comfortable, 
it is always a coma.

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Falsehoods and Firearms

April 13, 2023 at 1:24 pm (Poetry)

Bugout bags, bullets, and guns –
stockpiled against some collapse
that might uproot everyone –
they won’t be one of the trapped.

Let’s think on these well-prepared,
see what they believe in now,
biting each conspiracy aired,
highly convinced and highbrow.

Deadly vaccines! Fraudulent votes!
Deep State pedophiles promote
trans agenda to tear us down
while rapist illegals abound!

No thought of humanity,
their recourse will be “family”
or “domestic security”
when they defend inequality
– violently.

They paint themselves victims
if on this truth you indict them:
those dreaming judgment by barrel
are ever the greater peril.

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Heave-ho

June 27, 2022 at 9:17 pm (Poetry)

heave-ho
heave-ho

They nail the machine—
each hammering blow
into my skull, its screen,
an electric window

to secrets now seen,
to thoughts exposed—
nude girl on knees,
knife tickles throat.

The violence bleeds.
The perversions glow.
Through bars, they reach
and space enclosed:

jerk—scratch—fillate me.
Our differences? Zero.
They come and leave,
one infinite flow.
heave-ho

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Necessary Delusions

June 15, 2022 at 5:35 pm (Poetry)

Never attempt to live your fantasy —
lo, you learn its impedance comes
not by other than inadequacy —
as tape peeled from a crack
shatters wholly the glass,
leaves not mirror nor window,
but a wall too barren to bear,
a space too sharp to crawl through.

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No-Road to Utopia

June 7, 2022 at 9:12 pm (Poetry)

Unshouldering ideology,
the Close-Mouthed Revolution
finds the unmapped
center of all maps
on a blank road, unpaved.

So you might join, they draw the way
without lines
in colorless coloring books
of infinite page,
ephemeral crayons.

The way.

Submit to victory.
Be still to move.
Almost arrive endlessly

At every almost,
remain silent.
Take no sustenance.
Taste no whine.
Shush the incessant
prattle of mind.
Here, you must feed starvation.
Hunger is food to equivocation;
the way is uniquely the same.

Remain silent.
You must stop to go,
blind yourself to see
no X on absent maps.
At no time will you be there,
out of breath, running in place.

For a race without ego,
you train without station.
“On no marks. Get set. No!”
There is no where to go.
There are no lines. No tracks.
No one cares to know.
Abandon your pack.
Drink, Closed-Mouth,
from the eternal desert.
A revolution without blood
bears no red indication.
You surrender to win.
Death pens the lively invitation,
and you must end to begin