the poet is
the divine translator
the soothsayer
and momma bird of the
world- of culture
chewing the tough
parts
and feeding the
chicks
the world on her
tongue, demystified
the job has to be
selfless
the work an
honest gift
otherwise those lines
are only doggerel
and sour
to the ears
one fist fits all
so
puke like a pro
you look like my friend
and my friend, she’s dead
and I like the idea
of the world being
born
with a sound
sentiments aside
you can’t hold me
my organ- jet powered
my body- torpedo
the no hold of
nets can’t close
you’re the pretty one
let me touch the pretty one
again
I’m too loud to be creepy
I’m just sneaky
with
small questions
bare thighs
and nasty noises
The Black Sail Part 1
a Black Flight of
swollen tonsil
busy convincin’
the demon to leave
the throat
failing of the
Black Halo
corrupt
the world of hot neon lines
pickin’ up
Discardin’ the ones I don’t
need
weaving a poem with Black Hands
a nest
someone has opened The Black Sail
and spilled the dye
The sky a closed mouth
Black Damp
lungs heavy to hang
found sorrow in short hand
some sad Morse code
bury the Black Book and the Black Box
place all my words
down with me in the final Black Room
an itch that’s made
it’s home so deep
a fungal sternum cut and a
cough, a metronome
shrinking from the SHOUT of the Black Sail
started on the rim of madness
Open
Like third kingdom’s gills
sail Flight and Halo
All Black as shadow laid
To defeat
Two days at White Sea
Let my words
Let ‘em shine
see a face like a moon
in the morning
thinking
those ancient men and women
musta worshiped
its bald pale face
but they all died
and left their remains
for college graduates to find
for their thesis to write
but their sloping sockets
told something and
held something too
there’s was a delicate thing
like the bones of a bird
buried deep in the soils of unrest
and my tools
are unwieldy and I’m far too
passionless
for this line of work
so I busted the fossil
and forgot all of my dreams
from last night
look, this is me trying not
to be an animal
this is me
putting human pants
on my animal ass
this is me not giving up or
losing it
or getting lost in rib cage land
on the backs of k-pins
they said
those ancient men and women
were assimilated
that our species
ate their species
what wild wild times
I wonder if I
was from their tribe
I’m tired of this winter
my passion a long vapor and
herald through a conch
the quiet white
covered everything
cold night shattered
its remnants spun in the atmosphere
trashed
like a snow globe placenta
I’m a traveler
among bones
milk my entrance
cold my cape
glide on femurs
a boneyard pathway
I equate the great cold
with a sharp sense of
mortality
becoming more clear with
every frigid day
bone rider
white shiner
riding bone white knuckle
wide eye socket
frenzy
a frantic
picked clean leviathan
and snowed roofs
the long hard barren trees
they’re reaching up in agony
cheated
Splitting my back
Washed out
Washed up
Birds silent under traffic
Traffic is all I heard
Change in jars
(not enough quarters
Only nasty copper)
My nose an oozing wound
On my face
I’m looking for good news
In every bottle I find
Lifting my pen
To defend myself
Cutting the clouds
With my own protesting
Chill
Showering under the pale
Light
I’ll pretend to be a
Bald face moon
Dignified
Thanks for coming to see
Me yesterday
You looked like a sweet
Tired stain
To my heavy head and
In my favorite story
swimming outside the rim of sleep,
head near the undertow of the tides of dream-
thinking of our words in circles
pencil acting as a catheter
of my worry,
I’ve been puking into my journal,
I’ve been barking up the wrong tree,
I’ve been in a cave
with a broken lantern-
and the water’s been around my knees.
I’m all teeth, hair and eyes.
I’ve known well the-
truth terror
but I’m still wanting it dressed up-
I asked you to put a happy mask on it
but you said
“I cant pretend,”
I’ve had this red heart shaped locket
for 12 years now.
I got it as a gumball prize
at a rundown Chinese restaurant
(maybe in Germantown?)
A lot of the paint has chipped off
and the tiny keys to it are long gone.
What shows beneath the paint
is shinny tin.
When I was a tacky teen
I would wear it clasped around my
neck imitating Sid but not
knowing it.
I always wanted someone to give me
something like this
but I impatiently jumped the gun and
cranked the dial of the machine
myself,
and the tiny Valentine rolled out.
(SINCERELY, YOURS TRULY)
No sentiment to share.
Now I’m nearly 30
and it hangs on my key chain,
a teenaged 50 cent memory
amongst adult responsibility.
If you see me standing crossed arm at a show,
and spy my red locket,
know that I’m an advocate of
living in the past,
and harboring silly passions.
I lay my love on the string of kite
I admire the thing
as it glides stories high
but detest the burden carrying it
saw you in my dream again
it was as much you as a watered down
pigment of your skin
I dare slit a pallet to paint you
to make the horrors real
too dense to be sunshine
instead
I’d love to be your dark cloud
anchored to your finger with twine
smother the one you love- a slogan I recite
lay only with me
having doubts snuffed into washed out color
a jungle cat full of kill
no desire to hunt
only to smother
one last thing
hold me tight like a found doll you lost
that had been flattened in the road
many times
I lost my button eyes but now
you
can see who I really am
do you remember our trip to the south
and how much fun we had?
yes, and how the dusk dozed,
turning the cotton fields purple
and the cranes flew like
living paper planes
and every star was real
and as bright as the
humble candle flame
yeah
and the bluesmen sang to us
Bossy Behavior 