Sometimes I try to identify
The vehicles passing beneath the windows
By the sound their tires make
Through the twin dips of the intersection.
Smooth ride or clanking trailer,
Singing brakes before the stoplight
Or acceleration hum to beat the amber.
Twenty seconds to guess at the conversation taking place
Inside the latest idling monster,
Before the green light sends them away.
A shred of laughter or singing
Leaking from an open window;
The thrum of bass or reggae guitars.
All lives passing on their way elsewhere
Unaware that I try to identify.
0
If my eyes are full of stars
Forgive me, love.
This swell of sinew in my heart
Squeezes magic through my veins
With each breath I take
Thinking of you, warm and laughing.
My once resolve to neverlove
Is so many ashes in the seabreeze,
For eager puppy I
Can only long for another look
Another touch that burns alive.
Stay drunk, you;
Keep worrying.
Preoccupied
With what’s next.
Can’t sleep
Without churning
Sheets like shorebreak.
Tumbled concrete,
Husking winds,
Hissing palm trees,
Gravel bullets
Of sky-spat rain.
The hole is growing
Withdrawn chill
Bring out the star storm
Get it over with.
Wrench me from this zombie state
Use power tools if that will help
I want to sleep as soon as I wake
The wake next moment by doggy yelp.
This oily film suffused my eyes
And cannot be washed away today
Something matching these leaded skies
Draining hues turns all I see to grey.
Lights Out
Posted: April 9, 2003 in PoetryTags: Bear, Blanket, Dinosaur, Dreams, Light, Marshmallow, Night
Lights out – time to go to sleep
That delicious feeling of getting horizontal
On a marshmallow futon,
Under familiar blankets,
Next to worn dinosaurs and bears;
Room to sprawl and do battle
In the night realm of dreams.
Write these things
In the forefront of your head
And criticize later
When you have no clue
What you were thinking
If you dare.
Open the floodgate
Of the pen to the paper
And be damned the results
When, for years, being careful
Begat reams of blank paper
And the idea you can’t anymore.
Believe and stroke;
Think Cat’s arched back
And silky hair throwing sparks,
Altogether, the choir of legacy
Something bright, worthwhile
The curtains of the show that went on.
Something syrupy this way comes.
The metamorphosis of calendar squares
Into real minutes around the corner,
To be spent leaping from moment to moment,
Fluttering promises settling to the paste
Of your memory of what happened.
Wish for the future, resigned to the past
Action to the fore for present tense.
Far Reaching Visions
Posted: December 20, 2002 in PoetryTags: Breath, Eye, Fire, Fly, Goddess, Laughter, Love, Secret, Silver, Sound, Sword
Inside, a glowing silver sliver
A secret, a blossom.
Hush now, stop grinning madly.
Cup it, feel it, close your eyes;
Potential beading like dew
On electric arms reaching.
Promises made to be kept
Keeping on, sparks flying,
We reforge the sword
With breath and sound,
Far reaching vision,
Laughter and love.
Wave aside the old firestorms.
Bless their sighs into heat mirages.
An invited return
To my rightful place
At the right hand of the Goddess.
Devious Thoughts
Posted: December 4, 2002 in PoetryTags: Blanket, Cape, Heart, Mind, Monster, Naked, Night, Soul
I
Once upon a time
I would run around naked
With my blanket as a cape
Caterwauling before creatures
Only I could see.
I was frightened precisely
Because it was so much fun:
Shrieking and then hiding,
Elaborate intrigues unfolding
From the adult trialogues
Taking place between heart, mind, and soul.
They would discuss me,
My imaginative situations,
And whisper between themselves.
I knew what was coming
When they would fall silent,
Anticipating.
II
I learned devious means
To avoid being eaten each night,
Or on the walk home from school.
I also understood
From the internal trinity
That sometimes it is best
To keep quiet, and tell no one.
Making friends with the monsters –
That was the master stroke.
But I remember why:
They just weren’t as scary anymore
As the reality of classmates.
The Marshmallow’s hella mattress;
It is the phattest.
I swim under the covers
And curl up with my favorite actress.
One big pillow, this Marshmallow,
Stealthy quicksand for a tired fellow.
Crown of Twelve Trees
Posted: November 17, 2002 in PoetryTags: Blue, Book, Cabin, Desert, Grey, Hearth, Light, Snow, Trees, Wind
Returning from the western desert oasis,
I have found the autumn fading
Gone into the palest blue sky of grey vapors.
I smell far off snow on this blustering wind
Spraying the later leaves from the hardwood branches.
Twelve trees are a protective crown around my cabin;
She’s enchanted to see me back again.
Fill the heart with hot soaking embers
And sign at the projects left undone.
Spent the daylight battling the chill air
With damp wood, flannel, and moccasins,
Curled up with a thoughtful book on the couch,
And occasionally wondering
What’s going on out there with you.
Here in my cabin in the woods
I feel trees leaning over me
Rain coursing down their trunks,
A sad splishing of water
Pooling, making wet mud
Stirring load, packing leaves
Measuring time patiently.
Firm
Posted: September 2, 2002 in PoetryTags: Add new tag, Dead, Drunk, Eye, Flesh, Imagination, Night, Power, Vinyl
I am hungry for a firm bosom
On which to lay my head, close my eyes
And hear that everything’s gonna be alright.
Careening towards conclusion
And new beginning: new days,
New nights of excess by my lonesome.,
All populated by my skewered imagination,
Made real by isolation,
Made flesh by selecting
Sentiment on vinyl slabs,
Made fleeting by drunken stupor,
Yet creating all that for a moment.
A split second where I am bitten
Drained, refilled, refueled;
Reminded of my latent power,
Envied by those hopeless dead
Beyond these walls of vapor.
In My Basement
Posted: August 15, 2002 in PoetryTags: Breath, God, King, Light, Madonna, Money, Records, Truth, Turntables, Vinyl, Wink
I am trying to find god in my basement.
In my own house (well, that I rent) –
To tell you the truth, it’s money well spent –
But in this wash of club fog,
These hyperkinetic lights,
This irrepressible sugar pop sound,
It swears to me that life is sweet.
Maybe only in moments like these.
But in certain spiritual lyric coincidences
I detect some karmic, cosmic communication .
A certain wink from the vertigo;
A nudge in the ribs from my madonna.
Ridicule from the turntables
For not expressing myself and my soundtrack
Every moment I breathe.
Is it prayer to spin records
And cry out when the experience hits you?
Or is that reserved for holier orgasms?
King of my kingdom,
Finding that I am god
In my basement.
Postponement and Consummation
Posted: May 20, 2002 in PoetryTags: Drunk, Green, Happy, Shit, Wind, Window
A slight stirring of wind
Holds this gauzy curtain away from the window,
Reminders of a springtime outside, all green
And flowers and wholesome shit.
Me, I just want to get drunk
Feel the empty agony of my loneliness,
Postponed by the full bottle;
Consummated by another empty can.
I can feel, yes, I can feel again
And it is maddening, yea, sorrowful;
I did live all those years numb to it,
Became numb to everything else as well.
Successful, responsible, hard-working;
Admirable, overachieving, but never enough.
All exterior virtues for exterior opinions.
Something I chose to do to have somewhere to go.
I thought I was happy,
But now I really don’t know.
Perhaps I cut off one arm to spite the other
Now frustrated I can’t cut that one off, too.
Leave the closet doors open
Like a trap to entice monsters
To come out and play.
I live here for the moment,
In this moment
I would crouch and snarfle
Like something from behind
Those creaky sliding doors
But soon I go elsewhere
To find new temporary closets;
These ones are to be bulldozed.
Do not be surprised
To see me fifing by moonlight
Leading silvery shadows of your
Childhood nightmares;
Snouts and antennae and bulbous eyes
Across shoulders of roads
And dew laden fields.
Closets are bottomless, backless
Like the prom dresses that hang there.
Wasn’t I Just Here?
Posted: May 9, 2002 in PoetryTags: Alcohol, Breast, Car, Dawn, Drum, Father, Friend, Frodo, Gary, Grandma, Grandpa, Jared, Karen, Kyle, Laura, Man, Mission Hills, Monte Carlo, Mother, Nickels, Nobes, Penthouse, Samwise, Tree, Venus
Wasn’t I just here
Dragging the hose to the top of this hill
When Mom wasn’t looking, on the phone
Eroding the soil to catch it
At the bottom with a friend, shovels, and a dam
Before it floods my parent’s bedroom?
Wasn’t I just here, throwing a party
Snapped sprinkler heads and underage drinking?
Wasn’t I just here planting this sapling
That towers above me – does she remember
Me saving her from my chores of cleanup?
Wasn’t I just here, parking the Monte Carlo
One tire up on the curb
And staggering into the house on drugs?
Wasn’t I just on my way to the Nickels
To fuck around with high school experiments:
How much Jim Beam can I drink
Before I drown or forget whose breasts I am holding?
Wasn’t I just around the corner
Cursing up a storm just to roll those words?
Wasn’t I drinking Cisco just the other night
And shooting pool with the MH Posse?
I thought I was just down at Nobes
Throwing stolen pallets off the cliff
And leaping through the fire with my Mickeys.
Could have sworn I was just at Nati’s
While my parents told our favorite waitress
That they were so proud of Kyle and I.
Wasn’t I the one who broke Mom’s last wind chime,
And threw my Dad against the breezeway wall
When he tried to stop me from running away again?
Didn’t I just lie to Dad about
Doing all my chores but I didn’t coil the hose?
Wasn’t that just me and Gary
Doing stupid hazardous tricks of that stolen launch ramp?
Wasn’t that me the other day
Looking down from the top of the pine tree
At my hysterical mother telling me to come down
And powerless to do anything about it?
Didn’t I just steal my first Penthouse
From the neighbor’s garage
And see Venus, Venus, Venus
In three color pictorals?
Don’t I get my $5 allowance now, Dad?
I want to go buy Lemonheads at Delta Drug.
Didn’t I just have those army men
And Matchbox Cars
That Dad keeps digging out of the backyard?
I swear that I just read the pain
In Jared’s poetry and thought that I could do that.
Wasn’t I just hammering my drum set
In the garage to “We Built This City”?
Where are Samwise and Frodo;
They were around
Just a second ago.
And I thought I saw Grandma and Grandpa
Last weekend for miniature golf;
How come Grandpa always won?
Wasn’t I just here with Karen, with Laura,
With Dawn, with someone else?
Wasn’t I just here?
If you would only punch out my heart
An spin my head right round again
With that electrical discharge of brilliance,
That revelation of ultraviolet split-second,
When the idea’s dagger is buried
And the closet door is opened,
Contents spilling like freed puzzle pieces,
A mess I can just shake my head at
Just reaching for the paper,
For the pen,
The muse.
Goodnight Jenn
Sleep well, sleep tight
I just wanted to make sure
You got home alright.
It’s not that I
Want to bother you or pry
But I think
It’d be nice
If I could wish you goodnight.
Just like you said
This doesn’t mean anything
It’s all in my head
Just like everything, everything.
I’m not coming over
I returned your keyring
But I can close my eyes
See the covers
And the space I used to occupy.
This is the way I take emotional photos:
Spat on to paper by the stylus at hand.
Clipped coupons of what’s come to mind
As I perform this audienceless exercise.
I hear the cacophony of voices
Opining inside my skull
Each struggling to surface and be heard;
To pick a thread with the eye of a needle,
Focus until it smoulders,
Then collapses in ashes into sub-consciousness.,
Is to draw these characters here;
It is to write stop-start to fill paper
Week after week and year after year.
These are scrapbooks, collages, shadowboxes
Of my dreams and my feelings.
These words might as well be wraiths,
But they may be looking to weave themselves
Into another mind.
Floodgate
Posted: February 14, 2002 in PoetryTags: Boar, Dog, Eight, Eye, Faerie, God, Island, Kiss, Laura, Light, Nine, Records, Red, Salt, Sea, Tree, Vinyl
Closing my eyes against this real light,
I see warm red through my eyelids
And if I stretch my hand out blind like this
I can imagine caressing your face,
Turning your chin up to taste your full lips
And the salt tang of the sea
That has faerie dusted them.
Hanging out in trees and lagoons;
Spray-painting abandoned concrete;
Stacking records on the autoplay spindle
And rearranging my room
To the crackle of spinning vinyl;
Romping pell-mell over islands
Chased by hunter dogs and fat wild boars;
Floods of experience wrapped in whispers of red hair,
The clickety-clack of eight wheels and nine inch nails.
I know that my every effort to erase what we’ve done
Has come to naught but a floodgate
Open wide of oh my god
I never forgot, only forgot to remember.
Bye Kittnz
Posted: February 12, 2002 in PoetryTags: Anastasia, Atari, Cat, Dawn, Hobbes, Kalvin, Mother
Ahh! Hear that sound?
Of cellophane tearing across
That keeps happening –
It’s the unbridled loss
Of my four furry ones:
Hobbes Goldenfoot,
Kalvin Screamerchops.
Anastasia Saunterbutt,
And that wily Mogwai.
These four I raised
Now collected by Dawn
To occupy her house
While she’s always gone.
Locked in the basement
When her mom comes by
Too bad you can’t come with me
So I have to say goodbye.
Burn the Phoenix
Posted: February 10, 2002 in PoetryTags: Closet, Frog, Froggacuda, Green, Laugh, Live, Love, Onion, Phoenix
I am thee Froggacuda
And oh so froggy be I
Defined by myself as myself
And marooned is my current cry.
Inside I’m still the same hollow
Green straw puppet carnival black hole
Of pool-soaked poetry pages
Missing something to be whole.
Cobwebbed closets rarely treaded
And rusty hinges, unsafe passage
Basement dwelling, life enshrining
Long decoding of this message.
Love and laugh; live your time
Unwrap an onion and be true
I burn the phoenix of my years
Consumed by seeing myself in you.
A forest
Of opportunities
And I
Cannot restrain
From celebrating Venus
In every female form;
Although
In my heinous thoughts
The gloaming that you see
Is the embers
Of another
Life.
When you smile,
And when you bite your lip and sigh,
Your eyes searching for mine
Looking for some sign
That all the while
I have had you in my heart.
That’s when time
Rushes in like waves of the same moment,
Like I was on one of my old trips;
I press my finger to your lips:
I am yours, you are mine
And we know that’s at least a start.
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