Your Masterpiece, My Muck

Space is calligraphic in the clouds.
So you stand under it to learn it's ways and
write lines in the sky.
White puffs filled with empty
 
inside cosmic planes pens dance around hollow raindrops waiting to take your form
that you write on the back of your hand with Sharpie.
Clouds turn black with ink that fell from your palm
and light the void paper below with literature dark
with stars
and my quills sit in ink wells
waiting for a cloud clear slate to prance past. I am
too lost in the empty
space. But you...
Drip, drip, the page bleeds
pitch since it can't hold the calligraphy of your 3D space.

Santa's Head Elf on a Soap Box in the Macy's Three Days Before Christmas

Toys, toys, toys, up to our ears.
All the children
demand toys,
elves slave 363 days a year--
if you figure New Years and Easter off--
to make your trifles.
Everyone praises the big man
with speedy delivery,
but consider seriously.
He can't do it by himself!
Grandpa Fatso isn't God.
No, he covers all of one little town
in upper state New York,
and performs as Santa at Macy's.
My fellows and I are the ones,
the ones who make sure you get your toys
on time.
It's hard work, making and delivering.
We can't build gifts for all of the children, though,
just the rich ones.
We receive funding from their parents,
who are too busy to do it themselves.
Don't give me that frowny face!
Do you think the materials for these toys
pop out of the North Pole Blizzards
or that we magically conjure them
in our cauldrons of candy cane syrup
and sugar plum powder?
Ha! Not a chance. No,
if your parents are poor,
and obviously don't care enough to buy you all the things your heart could ever desire--
which is worthless anyways--,
then Santa brings you squat.
In legend, he spirited gifts to poor young girls on Christmas Day
out of the highly overrated good-will fad movement of the day
that still pollutes society,
but that Santa died ages ago. In fact,
Santa isn't Saint Nick any more.
He is the CEO of Elf Management CO,.
Money grasping lazy pain in the feet.
He doesn't invent toys, and he can't make them.
Sorry to dash your "hopes and dreams" against the Peppermint Mountain,
but there is the truth.
Oh great, go ahead and start crying,
Just what I needed:
One more wailing kid complaining that life isn't fair.
 No one ever said that life would be fair,
they just said it would be.
Think you have it rough?
Try making trillions of toys in one year.
After all, you never get just one present do you?
Take the population of the world and multiply it by five.
Ah, what am I saying? you can't multiply yet.
What are you, five? Yeah, thought as much.
You know what kid, forget it.
Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas and a happy freaking New Year.

20 Junkyard Quotes

1) Happier than Dracula on Plasma

2) When you're up to your neck in alligators, it's hard to remember you came to drain the pond.

3) Just because you got the monkey off your back doesn't man the circus left town.

4) Did you just poop me?

5) House guests are like fish, they start to smell after three days.

6) I'm having a nice day, don't screw it up.

7) I used to be a hero until I took an arrow to the knee.

8) I don't wanna be a bunny puppy

9) Magic Bananas and Candy Canes for the world!

10) Don't ask the question if you don't want the answer

11) Coolest thing since sliced bread and buttered toast

12) Good gravy beans

13) Blast a monkey's tail

14) When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade, make life take the lemons back.

15) It's obviously rocket science if you have to do science at all. All science is rocket.

16) No toys in a kids meal is like the Grinch coming on Christmas day and stealing your presents after you have opened them.

17) Cows have ten stomachs, because there has to be five on each side of it, right?

18) Monstrous happy

19) Son: Mom, my back hurts. Mom: Shoot yourself in the foot and then stick it in an ant bed, you'll feel better

20) Take five minutes of your life and do something stupid or forever hold your peace

Polished Draft: Stonewall Jackson at Dim Sum

Steamy and heavy, that's how they come.
Pork buns filled to the brim with sweet,
dirt red meat.
The white roll oozes butter and sugar.
These balls of fat mark the beginning
of a massacre.
Sticky rice bundled in a leaf bigger than your face
slices through all ten diets I've been on in the past year.
Hand me a radish cake, with its unidentified contents,
and the steamed dumplings.
Too sweet, too sweet.
If you complain about lemonade Stonewall,
your tastebuds best prepare for a fight to the death.
Oh never mind, hand me some fisheggs.

Polished Draft: My Poem

My poem ran away to follow its long lost relative.
We didn't know where the wayward poem dwelt,
but my new scribbled piece set on its discovery.
We looked in the fireplace ashes,
but found only skeletons long forgotten.
They insisted we try the garbage can.
Nothing but stories and love letters in there.
However, one kindly directed us to the pocket of yesterday's pants.
My poem searched in every crevice of those pants,
but all it found was a pen. The pen asked,
"Why so intent to finding a poem you already count dead?"
My younger child flared in anger, "Who are you to condemn?"
At that moment, I looked to my desk and smiled.
Writing long lost can't be found.

Polished Draft: With Barney and Sal

Rocks wait, for eternity, it seems, for something to happen.
As the water rushes by at Hurricane Shoals,
I tune the world out and listen to the waves.
I fly away with the mosquitoes that buzz around.
Maybe some obnoxiously loud kid at the park
across the way will shut up if I bite him.
This place used to be so quiet, so sweet and soft.
I remember them, each and every boulder and wave ripple.
The inter-tubes, and the pounding waves,
or rather the small waves that seemed larger
than they were to a seven year old trapped in a  four year old's body.
Since then I ran, and now I am home again,
sitting next to Barney and Sal,
my Lab and German Shepherd,
the only things I missed while I was gone.

Insane

Banging my head against a wall,
and my foot against the floor,
I push my back against the door.

White walls,
white floor,
white ceiling,
white bloody door.

I would rather paint them red with my own blood
than stare at them all day long.
Padding or straight-jacket, might as well be.
Bored stiff, procrastination at it's best.
I think my pimples are all popped
and my hair undone.
Carpel-tunnel syndrome is kicking in.
I am sick of this room,
I am sick of these words
and I am sick of it all.
What moron paints everything
in a room white anyway?
I'd take black instead,
at least I could imagine a color then.
Forget it.
I'm going to bed.

All Seasons Time

Where are the flowers that used to bloom

In the sweet and sunny days of June?

Where are the lush leaves that used to sway

In the golden bowers every day?

Where the trickle of the bubbling stream

where flapping fish were readily seen?

All of them have left or gone to sleep

for safe and sound themselves they must keep.

From the fingers of Cold's wicked hand,

they hide away for they can't withstand.

After reflection I start to fear,

I may also have to disappear.

Between the wind and the biting frost

I fear that hope for me is now lost.

Just like them, I can't withstand this cold

So I crawl back into my warm fold.

There I rest my weary head, to wait

for warmth upon the appointed date.

I wait for spring to come right along,

and renew the stream's sweet, happy song.

Restore the flowers and leaves anew,

sprinkled with the warm, fresh morning dew.

Then when the sun is shining again

Out I'll plod from my warm winter den.

I'll greet the spring, and the summer too

For all the seasons have their time too.

A Rock and a Book

One day as I trod
through the forest, Earth,
I met some strange men
who called themselves
Children Without Worth.

They were small and green,
with funny brown hats
and each carried a
big leather-bound book
in his blue leaf sack.

Upon the various
grey and black rocks they
made their home, nothing
was there to call theirs
save a bit of stone.

"My, what poverty!"
cried I. But "Nay," said
them, "no poverty
resides with us!
We live like kings here."

"How could this be so?"
when you have no toys,
no technology,
no beer and no wine,
surely you are poor!

"Without toys, dear friend,
you cannot play! Lack
technology, beer,
and wine, you cannot
party, surf, or drive."

Then to my dismay
(For I didn't think
of how my words might
hurt) they began to
cry and moan like ghosts.

Abashed at my
heartless speech, I spoke
gently to them, "Peace,
friend, these lacking joys
can quickly be yours."

But on they wept like
widows mourning for
their lost spouse. Their sad
blue tears flowed like
a rainbow without hues.

Finally, one said,
"We do not mourn our
so called lack, no.
Instead, we cry for
you, Man. So lonely
you existence must
be! To bank your joy
on such hopeless things!
How could man-made crafts
bring fulfillment, friend?

"No, tall man, you are
the one living in
poverty's mansion,
you are the one who
lacks so much, poor soul.
Keep your beer and wine,
your parties and drives,
your techno-babble,
it does no good. You
are mistaken, man."

Thus I concluded,
"Give me only a
home on a Rock, and
a thick leather-bound
book in my hand and
I shall be rich, indeed."

Blaster Ceiling

I sat in my chair and blankly did stare,

And was bewildered to see nothing there,

I saw no color or hue,

The sky wasn't even blue,

for my sight, the roof o'er head did impair.

All Things Silly Like So

James offered the exclamatory utterance,
"Here are some goat stomachs,
ready on the fire to stuff with blood and fat,
good supper pudding."
 He received no antithetical valorization,
but if want this vehicle and the intrigue,
it was bad conducted as Morgan Le Faye rose
from a lake of milk bathed in a buttery glow,
and the draw bridge , yellow butter.
From her we know bagpipes were invented in Persia,
those non-bound, non-flying elements and floating signifiers.
What a rhetorical gesture of repressive uniformity,
but then again, Polynesians seem to regularly kill two-thirds
of their children, so what is the surprise that horribly
Munch feared women, and what he felt was their murderous possessiveness.
In this dynamic rivalry between house and universe
we are removed from any reference to the simple geometric forms
of gerbils or sand rats, who are nocturnal, burrowing,
feeding on seeds and grain.
But such is life and all things silly as so.

A Brit Goes Muddin'

As best man, I expected to go to a party before the special night and endure long drinking games until the sun came up when we would all march dutifully into the steeple-house and watch the vows with glazed over, stupid smiles. There was drinking, but it was no party. Instead, with borrowed breeches, here called britches, I did something I'd never done. With beer in hand, I boarded an ATV, splattered in something indistinguishable from horse dung. Come to think of where I was, that wasn't out of the question. The next morning when we walked into the church, I was still scanning every inch of my visible body for it, for mud. The mud from the watery field where cows had vacated just the day before, where tire tracks remain imprinted on my mind, and makes me want to go back again.

Marble Tells

Clear marble, white like a flash of sunlight on a clear spring, mounts high and round in a sky of moss green. Round polished roofs stand like smooth stones along a river bank, still sparkling with felcks of fools gold and water droplets. Marble everywhere, strong, soft, yet secure. Lonely streets, quiet buildings, with every door shut. This was home once. Now barren left and right. A family shattered through the departure of one wayward duckling. Ugly or not, she was surely the part most beloved by all else save the marble pillars who knew her disposition too well. And now they turn dark.

Bejeweled

Amethyst protects my heart,
Emerald defends my imagination,
giving jade life to its clutching hands.
Ruby, the color of warriors dyed in their enemies vitality,
stands at the door of my eyes,
taking in all beautiful allies,
and bruising aside all malicious schemes
to usurp my place of fantastic mystery
where diamond butterflies stare at black pearl roses
with pure silver petals.
 By jewels harder than steel,
made by my sedimentary refinery of igneous mastery,
my sapphire glazed eyes shut tightly
to dream of a world colored by tanzanite.

Whose Voice Really Speaks?

Genius, I am convinced, is a stumbling block to every man.
Einstein mocks the rising mathematician,
"I could do that problem at the age of two!"
Stalin and Mussolini mock the politician,
"We drew plans to take over the world at five!"
Hitler and Churchill taunt the speaker,
"I could write that in my sleep."
Mozart and Beethoven snicker as they look over a new score.
Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire chuckles at the practice steps of a rising star.
Pavoratti scoffs at the warm up scales conducted before a concert.
Michaelangelo rolls on the floor with genuine glee after looking at a beginners sketch.
And Homer, Virgil, Wordsworth, and Joubert shake their heads in despair.
All folly, and all ridiculous pleasure gain.
But with whose voice are these things really said?

Ball and Chain

Attachment breeds sorrow,
or so I have heard.
I think sorrow follows me
like a lion prowling the plains.
A ball and chain with links
made of greed tie me fast to the jail.
I love my family, my cat, my computer,
the tea from a certain restaurant,
and that little novelty shop at the Crossroads.
I locked myself in and the key rests still in the door.
My freedom waits right there,
but inches from my face.
Still all I see is the ball and chain.

Mother's Least Favorite Word

Don't say you're bored.
Mother will hear you.
In English, that is her least favorite word.
She doesn't mind "No" or "Won't" but
she hates "bored". When I heard it first,
I thought it referred to a piece of wood,
an easy mistake to make,
but now I know there is no such plank
as this vagueness of mind and purpose as "bored".
So take care you not say said heinous phrase
for mother will make you scrub the grout light bulb white
with a toothbrush if you do.
As surely as little green apples exist, it will happen to you.

Loveliest London

Cobblestone beneath my feet,
click, clock, clop.
Brown, red, gray, black,
white, and dapple.
Who knew stone could have so much variation?
The sadly neglected hues of sediment show brightest
light in the dark night.
This dark hour when I walk through lovely London,
past glass picture frames where artful silhouettes
in different poses remain frozen behind passion colored backgrounds.
But from your window,
I see white and your candle burning
in my window on hills that grew from bones
of the dead bundle-carrying shadows
carry salt and memories.
Look at the Nightingale as she flies,
the loveliest of all creatures.

Peter Pan Out of Time

Film flipped by.
Fuzzy pictures recounted days gone.
It fled, just like me, and the film.
Together, the film and I remembered.
We played in the kitchen
with a frying pan and wooden spoons,
banging drum.
We adventured in the yard
with lions who spoke and magical witches.
Hours where time waltzed by,
I was Peter Pan and no one could stop
my maniacal plans.
Just me and my mother's quiet camera.

In My Cell

It is possible for prison walls to disappear,
for the cell to become a distant land
where the moon calls flowers from hiding
and wolves howl at the sun,
where the sky remains midnight
and stars fall from the heaven-waters
like seeds to the Earth and create birds
with silver wings, golden crest eyes,
and a song like the Sea Horse's harp
under the waters of a pure river where
fish float serenely without flapping a fin.
Oranges blossom at the lakeside,
next to the fluorescent lemons
and the garnet tomatoes of summer night.

One Button Away

What do I want to do with my life? I want to win the lottery and live on a yacht in the Mediterranean where I attend parties with hot chicks every night.

Do I play the lottery? Heck no. Everyone knows the lottery is bogus and Uncle Sam takes half of it anyway.


Forget dreaming, lose yourself in the one-eyed face I live off of like a baby. It's better than what I do in reality. Who needs dreams when fantasy is only a button away.

Bitter Z06

Corvette Z06, 2010--hot off the press. My classy white suit with red pinstripes, you bought me after graduation. A bright future lay ahead of us. You polished me, and glazed me until the sun became jealous of my beam. Traveling the world together, that was the goal. But dreams come to sharp ends, don't they? The day you sat down in the drivers seat in your crazy black monkey suit and black and red striped tie, I understood it was over. You divorced me later when you married her, the girl who first sat on my virgin passenger leather in that skimpy red dress. No more waxes, no more washes, no more tune ups in the garage as Nickleback and Red blared from my Sony sub-woofers. If I had the choice, I would have refused to transport you to your honeymoon in Florida. And just like the beat up old Mustang from the Used Car Parking Lot told me, when the wife comes, the kids follow, and the practicality of a sports car drops to negative. One squealer later and I now reside in the Used Car Parking Lot and a Toyota Camry and Chevy Trailblazer take my place.

Moth Captivity

My cat pawed at the door, begging me to let her out.
I felt lazy, so I left it open,
even after she took her royal time waltzing out.
I wasn't going to stand there like a sentinel
waiting for the Queen of England to pass by.
A moth fluttered in the dirty blue den,
and bumbled about my lights.
Off if flitted from the illuminated flower heads,
as though the mechanical dust would supplement
it's pollen intake. Poor thing would die soon,
trapped by these plaster walls, worse than prison bars
where at least a small moth could fly in and out.
The windows make a cruel taunt of freedom, but offer none.
Keep drifting little moth.
At least this way, you will feel purpose in life.

Day After a Failed Test

Sleep until ten,
don't grab breakfast,
ignore the grumble in my stomach.
Upstairs I kiss mom on the cheek
and say, "Good morning, Starshine!"
We laugh and then pull away,
her to cleaning,
and I to my seafoam dungeon.
Get dressed before I start? Forget it,
I work in my pajamas. No one cares.
Check emails, but don't answer them,
never answer emails in the morning.
Move to the next thing and read some literature,
not old, not new, but undeniably quality.
Half-way through at twelve, mom calls me
to get the garbage. As I stroll up the drive
in my fuzzy leopard print Liz Claibornes,
I hum a song I don't remember the name to.
I heard it a few weeks ago, and only once.
Why do I remember that instead of my history notes?
Stupid selective memory.

Runner's Wreath

Why fight to win, why fight to lose?
What good comes from strife and her grip
that wraps so willingly around our necks?
Competitive spirit in games both monumental
and trivial results in no good.
I think witchery's machination doomed us all
to show out true souls as we climb with the goal to win
or lose. The victors wreath thus never tastes so sour
and so sweet.

The Wrong Plane

Pound, Pound! The hammer drums.
Smash, Smash! It always hums.
Reason bashed my head against a wall,
where I came face to face with
my final boarding call.
The flight would leave without me,
So now I better run.
Will they give my seat away
to some flight attendant's son?
Where is he going I wonder?
Maybe he's got a girlfriend in Jersey,
Or perhaps she's got him.
Flight number 27658, could that number
be any more confusing? Who the heck names anything
27658? It's all bogus, I conclude.
They just want to sell you off to some
Indian dude who asks you for your pass
and offers you first class.
Sure, I'll take first class and make myself
forever discontent with economy for the rest
of my miserable flying life. Thank you Indian dude.
No, I am here on time, my seat is reserved,
so I'll hop on my plane, shove my nose in a good book,
and forget the world exists until we land and the jolt of
the brakes starts the pounding again.
And reason returns with its ugly face to laugh at my
stupidity as I realize I'll forever get on the wrong plane.

The House That Won't Grow Dark

The rooms don't grow dark anymore, and the halls--far too bright. I think a pixie came in and left an eternal light. No matter the gloom I bring with me, it never dampens the mood. The walls still have flowers on them, and the butterflies still come straight in. The pansies in the front lawn bloom bright and true, and the lilies always come back again. Children fear nothing in this bloody sunlit house, and they laugh here all day long. I try to cause accident's, but it always goes wrong. They dodge an axe head borrowed from the neighbors lawn, or the spiked wood plate that I threw at their arm. Knives are useless, guns absolutely absurd, and fires just make the house brighter. It seems altogether I am a failure. I should have been a Banshee instead.

Too Flat

"I never liked the city, too flat," my mother explained,
and I agree. Smoke and smog cloud the air like
dust bunnies under my bed.
Cars honk their horns, radios sound off like sirens,
and everybody shouts because everyone else is too loud.
Not at all like the rooster who crows in the morning,
the cow who bellows in the afternoon,
and the crickets who recite bedrock poetry at night.
Shiny lights from awkward street posts and office windows
lit 'til the crack of dawn never rest like the sun and the moon.
Nature knows its appropriate times and schedules.
You won't find the stars or birds confused.
The city is a jungle, like the ones you hear about in story books,
but my home flows with the gentle trickle of the creek water,
whistling titmice, and the chickadees.
Nothing is more sacred than horse's schedules
and my mama's blueberry cobbler,
save the One who made them all.

Honor

A long time ago, Qin Shi Huang built me to keep others out and his own in. My stones came from a distant quarry in a forgotten valley. Thousands worked to pile my brick organs high. Inch by inch, mile by mile, fathers, sons, uncles, and brothers labored with sweat, but no tears, to lengthen my far reaching arms and legs. Across these Yellow lands flowing with silk and fire dragons, they stretched me out, like interrogation on the racks. Together, with the final stone laid, their arms and legs, stomachs and hearts, brains and eyes leaked together inside my rippling sediment in a primordial soup to create my beating soul which fills with pride from their own bodies, to know that I am made of my people, and together, life and limb, we protect them. Never say honor is the prize of fools.

A Mule to a Fool

I walk, never gallop.
Don't ask me to think of myself.
I am far too humble for that.
Man mounted my back and began to kick.
Don't do that, fool, you'll ruin my coat.
 I told you I don't gallop, so why bother poking?
Still he wasn't satisfied.
 I walk only, so don't be cross. 
Bright, pure cosmic ray of fairy dust!
Who's seen great balls of fire? I did.
But the man didn't.
I saved his life and mine three times,
but he was not content.
So I just sat down and then he was monstrous happy.
Now you fool, don't ever beat me again.

Wroms Chop Away

Worms chop away, termites sink in.
The pungent dust and vivid aroma
of time mingle together.
Scraps heap high,
the whole object never to be discovered.
Cob-webbed memories of General Lee,
Grant, and Stonewall
drift like shadows with a dull ache.
It's the moments we sit and stare,
the only hours we really live.
We count the challenges of history
and look on our futures like that of the mahogany chair leg
with insects and wet snakes munching on our slime.
Grand old past--
terrifying future.

Ballroom Sky

The sun and the moon desired
to become better acquainted with each other.
So they set out to dance each twilight hour
across the tessellations of the gaseous floor.
Never did they hold hands,
nor the sun take the lead,
but still they danced a perfect dance in the forsaken times
when the mind is absorbed by beauty,
to simply feel a thing they never possessed.
Heat and frigid air before the break of dawn.

My Father's Slaves

As I passed them, gazing in their hopeless eyes,
I understand why my father called them animals.
They lead hopeless lives, no salvation.
They look like rabid dogs, trying to scrape survival
from the dust for fear of a more terrifying task master
on the other side of life. It's tragic,
the inability of humans to understand each other.

A pale creature at the end of the line captured my eyes,
for she was different from the rest.
 Her eyes were two dead stumps still bleeding their life away.
 Her prime stole away from her, and chained her there.
This world indeed with ills unnatural is haunted.

Monday Morning

There on the corner of my bed, that poor old cat.
Stripes and a chort tabby coat.
When I first shut my eyes, he lay sleeping soundly there,
just as he used to, happily purring the day away.
When I woke up, gone.
It came slowly, but we knew.
No food, water,
he couldn't move.
We attempted nursing him back to health,
but he wouldn't eat the baby food,
of the mushed up medicine.
Monday morning, a fitting way to start a bad week.
Three B's in Chemistry, and a C in Algebra 2.
Dad buried him in the woods, but I don't know where.
I searched, but found nothing. So now there are two.

To Society From an Angered Representitive

What did I do to deserve this?
Since the Garden of Paradise I crawl, debased.

Tell me why one must suffer for the whole,
and the congregation for the leader?

Don't try to pass it with hypocrisy
and exclamatory utterances.

We all know the truth.
Because of one mistake
and a woman's fading wisdom,
I and the rest of my kind become
forever an abomination to Creation.

So we crawl on out belly,
and hunt your spiders and mice,
with no other defense than a forked tongue
and a hissing face.

What did we do to deserve this?

Repressive Uniformity

Across from me, sitting on the walk,
a man and guitar.
The strings look like phone lines with angry crows
picking them away piece by piece.
In the old mans hand, half of a purple pick.
When none survive to play and no means to learn,
everything dies. The strings broke,
and all of the old crows came tumbling down.

Inside Out, Mental Asymetry

One day you asked me why I get mad so easily.
One day youinquired how my moods change so quick.
You think it's an evil alter ego hiding in the other half of my asymetric body.
There is an alter ego, but it's the same me.
Don't limit the female mind to your own scene.
We are sugar and spice and all things nice indeed,
but we are also hungry wolves and blood thirsty leeches.
We depend on your strength to keep us alive, and we hunger for your support.
Don't try to figure us out--Your brain would explode.
Just hold me when I want you to, and hide when I crave chocolate
as equally as blood. Do this and you might survive.

Condensation Afloat

White feathers,
frayed string,
cotton balls torn to pieces,
melted marshmallows,
splattered bird poop,
odly white tornado,
pillar of smoke,
flour scattered on the floor,
baby powder on soft fresh skin,
come take me away.

Imperfection of Surface

Rippling waves mount no higher than a threads width.
Trees move like ghosts but remain constant.
The blue sky looks brown and grey,
strange film bubbles gather on the surface,
they move on their own as though they breathe
through the water too, like the strange black fish
darting under the water, just within sight.
Their fins look like wings,
but they are too small to be adequate for flight.
But the thing you see most in this glassy scenery are leaves,
logs and bags, with random candy bars
protruding from their mouths.
This surface drives the rest of nature away.

I'm Cold

At a little square coffee table,
in a comfy round chair,
her legs crossed at the ankles,
blonde little firefly drank her Colombian brew.
A little cream, a little sugar,
just enough to suit her taste.

At the counter, a deep voice sang musically
for a mint green tea,
nice and steamy, but with some ice
on the side. Long legs, cool blue eyes,
and a cane sweet smile.

With drink in hand, he turned and
found the firefly's glow.

A blush from her lit up the whole room with amber tongues,
pulling a grin from him as he sits down
and starts again: "How are you?"
"Well, thank you." "Lovely weather,
wouldn't you say?"
"It's a little hot, don't you think?"
The smile fades away.
"We could all use a bit more warmth in our day."
Ice dreams melt away.

Job Well Done

He stood at the entrance, rugged old door,
cracked, splintered,
just like their appearances.
"I'm proud of you."
She glared at him and took a hostile step forward.
He raised a white stop sign,
"No need to waste your efforts.
This job is done." He fell against
the crumbling wooden frame.
In his dark eyes he saw the shambles of the apartment.
A fist through the wall,
a bullet hole nearly hit,
bits of concrete and stucco scattered beneath her feet.
He had finished the job,
corruption, heartless, wicked, despair.
Vicious green eyes and thick frowning lips
with fists balled at her side.
No sound breath would ever be uttered
in her body again.
What devastation she would cause, what glorious gore!
He called to mind the famous saying,
"Hell hath no furry like a woman scorned"
and laughed. The poet was wrong.
Hell lived within a woman,
the fire was her eyes,
and here the blaze stood in all its flaming glory.
His job was well done.

To the Hopeless Romantic Devoid of Hope

First time sucks. Your heart stopped,

your breath—willow-wisp gasps.

Yeah, yeah, we all know it hurts.

You feel like bird fodder,

flower seeds that passed through acid juice

and meat grinders

on a non-stop route to the butt of all bad jokes.

I really like plate dahlias.

Congrats, the witch-doctor gurus say, this is the point

where your otherwise pointless life began! Screw them

(in all things except blood oranges and pomegranates of flame).

It’s all a gambit to make money.

Don’t cry for help, little girl.

Superman saves only in myth,

and unknown to the rest of society,

happy endings are never really bliss.

Jellylike trails on the road left by human sliminess obstruct the way.

What does crying change about the fact

your first love was a jerk?

So what, life chugs on. CHOO CHOO. Don’t get run over

or your body will break,

forget your heart, it’s not that vital anyway.

Just man up already.

There are plenty of toys in the sandbox and

trees in the forest. Here, I’ve got a million of these,

so take my axe and start chopping.

A good fire always solves cold feelings.

From Worm-Food

You could have waited,
waited until I dried with encrusted maggot saliva.
It might have comforted this plant food
to gain the closure of a year in the ground.
For the love of all things sweet and salty,
give me time to bond with my earthy abode
before you go defiling my former one.
Lady Mock-Mercy says, "She would want you happy."
She's a cow.
I say you were happy even before you killed me.
Happy with her. At least grant me the pleasure of witnessing
the suffering caused by your guilty conscience.
Go, you coward! Leave me to wallow with my beetles,
they make much better company than you,
passing gossip between the three other graves before mine
where your previous lovers lie.
I never liked cockroaches, but now,
they don't look so bad.

A Ruptured Cord and Mind

My face looked into a mirror and descried nothing.
It searched for reflection, but nothing appeared.
No eyes, no mouth or ears, not even a nose
or the mole on my left cheek.
I witnessed all of these before,
but now they were invisible.
The shadows pooled around my feet like their blood
as I withdrew from the looking glass and cried,
the sound of a radio announcer bludgeoned my head
as they interviewed B4.
She felt cold and was afraid of the dark.
"I would have loved her," she said.
My head pounds. Would that love have replaced this rift
in my sanity? Too late to find out.

The Stranger I Know So Well

My dear, when I first glimpsed you
leaning against the frigid firebricks, my toes
turned to ice, and I heard running
nerves in my head bouncing
back and forth.
The sting of your cigarette lingered
on your shirt,
little pieces of ash clung
to your black chest.
They tempted me as I surveyed
scattered patches of sky between clouds.
Don't think you fool me. I know you
are here, with me now in my mind.
No ebony dragon of hatred possesses the fear of
my soul. Back off
and stop your smug flirting.
Shadowy beasts always eat themselves
alive.

The Color of Pomegranate Seeds on the Border

A young man rocked back and forth in a pile of plastic rubble, striving to build sense from what stayed. The smell of fake cinnamon and sugar surrounded him, a hint of warm vanilla drifting loftily. Instead of pyramid or skyscraper dreams, he recalls a chocolate hovel on the border of Georgia and Alabama. A fallen bicycle abandoned to stand and fall on its own in the dusty drive, next to Converse All Stars and a rusted desk. Chalked on worm riddled wood, the equation 9+18+22= scrawls, the answer never found. A purple basket with a black-eyed baby, clothed in a sky blue onesie stood in the dirt, neglected and overturned, a black widow stitching her webs into the soft folds. As in childhood games they imagined, Godzilla finally arrived to smother them. The sound of silence stained his world pomegranate-seed red, like a failed dye, attempting to color them caramel gold. All that remained was infinities jest laughing at him in the form of thirteen crows.

From Gossipping Do-Gooders

“Get some self-respect and a day job.” That is what you wrote to me. Have you ever had self-respect after face planting in the dirt? No one in their wrong mind you hire us. Look at us! just look. Twilight urchins scraping our way across the stagnant stone city. Why should any denizen of the daylight community look at us, that is, unless they want to eat us in place of teatime crumpets. Civilized cannibals. Indeed, most honorable Mr. Darcy, savages dance quite well at masque balls attended in shadowy hours so their brighter alter egos escape the crimes committed in ritualistic rain dances when the god of lies is appeased and sends hurricanes of abysmal “truth” unto the happily living Nightshade Commoners. What is to be done for us who can’t ever find our way to the world of eloquence and false propriety, born into the pit of hell, our home where the cries of damned infants ring loud and clear through the night. There is no room for self-respect where wolves prowl streets both night and day.

Hots and Chicks in Poisoned Jeans

I learned of pants
named after a girl
called Jean, who was blue until
A postal bird bleached her white,
and tore her in two. Then she became
amputated Jean, too short for her mother,
a giant.

I heard poison
is good fun. A man
named Al called his wife
Hol and told her to roast
barley in steamy water
and disinfectant to create
poison that releases the mind
from the criminal restrainers
Common and Sense.
This pair are very un-chilled.

I ascertained lastly that beings
are divided between Hots and Chicks.
Occasionally Hots meet Chicks
and suck faces.
The Chicks burn
and a collective brain called
The Society eats them for dinner.

This is the projected goal for all Chicks
who seek to enjoy life.
I conclude to conduct my life thus.

Antelope on the Other Side

Twigs beneath my feet and hands, just fresh earth, moss, and uncomfortable nuts. Above, I hear obnoxious buzzes, and below, scritching legs and curious antennae. A creak here, a squeak there, from softwoods with bugs crawling in and under the dry white bark. I am close, but further than some from my forest. I trap a scent from the wind. Strange yet familiar, perhaps antelope? Have I ever seen on before? Squirrels and dogs I know, but antelope? Sometimes instincts must override reason, It's antelope, whatever antelope means. They smell of grass, sweat, and their own crap. Why does that sound delicious when I just admitted they reek of New York City sewers? The hunt takes too long. Fly, March, Stalk, STOP! Antelopes in view, at three o'clock. Ready, set, graceful mad-dash, and now it's in my grasp-- Whack! Ow, that hurt. New goose egg for the count as I look through the clear prison wall. So much for fresh antelope. Hello nasty little girl, my name isn't Tigger. Don't take my picture.