keyhole

rained earlier but it’s still thick
purple and hazy tonight
the moon was gauzy orange
striped across with soft cloud ribs
a spectral torso through the keyhole
i wish would hear me in the hall

i’ve been blessed before 
to join them in there
invited, pulled up and stretched thin
made permeable, made gaseous 
sucked swirling through the pinpoint

but tonight i’m just sticky
among cackles and guffaws
of those i wall off 
and in bitterness
feign to stand above

at our best we’re in both places
the bone-lean heavenly bodies
laughing their backwards spells into us 
through each other seamlessly
we understand and smile
because there’s no other place 
and nothing must be done

the moon though 
before i even thought these things 
became a crisp grey sphere
wholly still and silent
telling me to quit trying

oaklike

as they said
in 3 out of 10 books
love everyone

dōgen was like 
in any moment, intimacy 
with all things 
some have the bent
some must work harder 
if they find the work

i want to slow
into the still
sit oaklike
in wind of hate and love
in wind indifferent too
without me
just the tree
ribs split open 
like a trunk lightning-struck
and heart collecting
the dust of those winds
to shield them at my side

buick dodge and pivot

may first washboard county road
goes ka thud thump thud to The Damned 
stack of cds hop and clack
car innards rattling 

something in there shook loose 
just like me 
gonna stay that way
functioning fine 
just taking a little space 
to feel it’s place 
nobody digging in there to tighten
and no one needs to 
until it breaks

for me though
gotta block the wrenches 
all day everyday

this world of toil and battle
hears a foreign rattle
they want to fix it 
but calm and loosely now
instead of scream and swipe
i’m gonna dodge and pivot

bifurcation

in the office building a spreadsheet 
last two weeks of two and a half years here
hasta la vista terminated
entering digits and recalling lyrics 
hold that number firm for five more seconds 
whatever paintings flit in front of it
later i’ll play the drums 
right hand ride, left foot hat, left hand snare, right foot kick
head swirling about 
splitting always splitting the soul

i start up my Buick and head down the hill to walk the dog 
and the sun is and isn’t obscured and this song from Status Quo pounds
(April), Spring, Summer and Wednesdays
just the right tempo with just the right space 
between ultra-course bar chords and cutting hi-hat
power restrained, felt more than seen 
and as these seasons try to occupy the same space like numbers and paintings 
whisps of steam breathe from the too-warm wet blacktop 
my sedan cuts right through 
and i wish i was behind me 
to watch them split and curl
clearcut car-wide between

summer job

in dread and desperation
with death inside me
i stood on the small back porch
off the kitchen 
short of breath and smoking
staring into the almost two tone yellow and green
of the state forest in midsummer sun
the entire periphery so bright
vision reduced to pinhole 
at an arbitrary and anonymous leaf
the bushes, trees and deer indifferent 
the pond and trout indifferent 
the kitchen indifferent, the guests indifferent 
my mind in crisis indifferent 
my chest ablaze in absence of a heart
death burning in its cavity 
stoked by mind of doom
my heart far far through the forest 
up and over, south and west 
tens of thousands of dollars away

i never got the funds 
but i got it back 
or grew a new one 
no, i unmasked death to find it was just my heart
sometimes black and red with fury but still mine
and now i let it scream or burn
hear it just as when it sings or radiates
inside me where it will remain 
and death sits across the forest 
and i’m just walking slow with my glowing heart 
i keep my shoulders down 
my breath low and my eye scanning
whistling a tune about our meeting 

idiot weeund

the light is brilliant and freezing 
8 am in mid april 
winter’s death will not relent
wanting music but trying not to wake her
i smoke at the window 

whatever i put out comes back at me directly
i am angry at the wind
which is the most idiotically human thing
i can imagine 

sittin on the mirror

cushion is just a mirror
reflecting the ass upon it
see straight up there
into all the shit
where you keep your head
sit and sit some more
drop your contents 

grow lighter
then one moment, one morning
by one star
deduce you are translucent
view anew a dawn sky unobscured
there below as always

now get up and walk

honey for the cat

in a rest stop cafe
see spiral in my tea 
two dollar mandala
like a feral cat
lick spilled honey from my finger
back aching and hardly register 
repressed & fearful glances
from norman and norma normies nearby
who don’t keep wild animals 
or wild acquaintances 
and want it to stay that way

i put two bags in
is this theft?
to the register, two dollars ready
to find its two seventy-five
two stray quarters in my back pocket
i offer to chase down jen for the third
but michelle tells me i’m set
today willingness is worth something 

new blue paint pen

out back for a smoke 
wind with me then against
push and pull pictures of he and she 
to ride the sun beams 
through my head 
then empty me 

not to be caught today 
as my back aches 
shoulders wound up 
peace in the belly already dispersed
by the back door creak
one minute from now 
and whos evers fucking needs
talked at me and stealing the sun

so back in the dim bar
where ventura highway plays
and i’m easy drawing rorschach blotter
with my new blue paint pen
that asks not for eloquence

googoo gaga town

there are men painting in the entryway
blocking the door, but they are nice to us
and open it

while you do your banking
i go through all the stickers
and find the best one
can i take two?

i don’t want a lollipop
there’s pain in my chest
i need lunch but i try not to whine

the more i learn the less i know
as the years pass, i move backwards 
i’ll soon be a baby
ideally still able 
to wash and dress and stuff
but i don’t really care 

another sunday

where is my mind plays
but it's too bright and I'm not asking

we've left the day and paused the night
here in holding

in billiard clack and neon din
pixies, tom waits, steely dan

whatever, keep em coming
seated but still running
drown today
in scrapping and laughs
until tomorrow
if the dawn insists
as it always does

king of the highlands

slant sun slats on dying snow
thawed air pungent over mud and grasses 
where five big highlands gnaw a stack of hay
one golden outlier 50 paces off looks on

Janet leads us over 
to Cinnamon Bear 
king of the hill 
and he rises slow and heavy 
like a mountain grows 
looks at me with his bronze eye
framed by prize-winning horn 
holding the whole twentieth century 
in tranquility 

atop his hill he’ll tell it all with a glance
if you pay a visit
saturday i’ll thank him and his family
for a dear friend's slow roast

let me

today i just want to float as a feather, so let me  
so close to march sun 
i just want to float as a feather, so watch me 
raised so free in succumbing
to this noontime spring breeze 
soon pounded down and ripped apart
by the coming flood 

i just want to be this feather, let me 
watch me but don’t want me 
i am meant for no one’s cap

you win again, but to wallflower

as they played you win again
you asked me to dance 
and i replied only 
hey one of the metalheads came in

you said maybe he’ll dance with me 
metalhead cranes head to reveal 
the high cheekbones of a smooth neutral face 
slender ivory fingers from a black leather sleeve
lay on the table at the ready 

i said go ask, will you
and you did and you and she 
slow spin with huge timid smiles 
beautiful, to wallflower 

there’s your human touch for tonight
and at that, novel and free
of all our fictions 

skip stones, sing or don’t

throw words sidearm at this pond 
to sing the glass picture of sky
we are given down here

they may skip graceful 
whishh swift rhythm off a flat sun
but always break the mirror
that in the first place called them

if i could only float one above
suspend it in air, reflected still 
it would join this frame of heaven 
and leave our love intact

but i’m not a sorcerer
and must be content 
to crack the world with song
or let it be and pass on
without a trace of what i saw

brand new blizzard

there is no precedent for what you just did 
scream restrained into the mic
jaw stretched all out as a banshee
ash hair slicked but still admitting branching curls
like an ariel view of the super highway
stacks of looping off-ramps 

this snow small, sticky and of criss-crosses
shaped like a frozen spark and coming 1”/hour
i circle the brick building beside my parking spot 
through tens of thousands of pounds of it
hit gas and the front end sweeps side to side
all on the wrong axis
and i can’t surmount this laughable 10 foot slope 

but then i do by flooring it with my whole ass
gain a foot, twist the wheel, pause for the correct instant
feel the catch then blast it again
for one more foot 

for so long i’ve robbed life of 
its true and golden voice 
by pretending there is a precedent 
there is none, for anything, ever

a person’s essence

flipped past a close-up b&w portrait of dylan
went back to study 
and it was actually a naked brunette pin-up 
smirking and covering her torso 
with a red sunburst rickenbacker 

highway dictation rewind from car crash

speed and slow revv and brake speed and slow down the highways of my childhood through driving rain sky and blacktop indistinguishable all the ten thousand yellow lights of industrial park upon industrial park upon shopping center upon cul-de-sac yellow lights make the same galaxy as the driving rainsplats on the windshield, trying to make my ears bleed for the thousandth time with don’t fear the reaper considering how best to tattoo its essence onto my skin northbound away from this weekend of reminiscence with reminiscants and every absent dunce glued to my tail or blocking my trajectory must be braked for or charged round as i will not be braided with their complacency i see the possibility of this Buick flipping into a wet inferno tonight blasted haphazard by utter carelessness or flicked by a massive spectral skeletal finger for pushing too hard at death but i know at least i want to see my love in the North before the sunrise and i want to be living when this killer rock and roll show happens in two weeks so i can burn properly

not invited

lord of dumb and blind 
at my door in disguise 
you’ve been by too many times 
to catch me by surprise

i know your knock
i know your smile 
i know your pitch 
i know you’ll have my eyes and tongue again

but today you’ll have to 
break down the fucking door
and best me to remove them
and don’t leave without my head this time 

wrong place wrong time

i used to lament how
people just throw themselves around
and i still do, but also now 
a war whoop rises 
out my scored throat

and when they throw
their bloated bodies onto me
they’re going to receive the brunt
of a long-brewing vengeance 
undeserved 

you never can tell
the price of carelessness 

optometry

relief to find
you are the eye
that will never 
have to see itself

flush in warm socket
as you are meant 
capillaries and too-wide pupils
left on their surface outside
to be sized up
by another

waste time guessing in dreams 
or let the sky do it’s seeing
and keep to yours 

dumb cloud

as a break in the clouds
reveals the great heart 
of our neighborhood
warms each of these selves
straight through the center 

in a march breeze, skin aglow
and perfectly relieved 
of the duty to know 

so a glimpse of liberation
is fully, then recedes
behind the silent cloud
that cannot know 
the veil it throws 
between the sun 
and its children

extra guy

i’ve seen plenty pink 6pm skies

backlighting brick facades 

west texas, hartford connecticut 

unionville to the grand union

the winooski or the farmington

brazos or potomac 

laughing river neath my feet

while i stood and watched 
on bridge suspended

as though i belonged above in town 

plenty, too many last moments

nothing left to do

gone in the cloud

but bound to the ground

remaining, resigned to play that extra guy

when we all knew 

it was just game over

in candlelight

ease is i suppose
the supreme way of being
with least necessary contact
and lightest possible touch 
everything unlocks

mysterious foreign ways
of delicate objects, of bodies

the gritty ancient levers
of an antique lighter
cleaned and restored 
so quiet and soft
to its intended click

grain of meat
see the spiraling seam of fat
dividing the breast
tug gentle and watch it split perfect 

so i will, for you and me
dismantle this sin 
of force uncalled for
ignore the questions 
asked not by your skin, muscles and voice 

a special hound

find the slightest issue
sniff a whiff of wrong
and hit that trail as a hound
blood in the eyes
mind the simplest kind of machine
one purpose: rectify

well one day this hound 
caught a scent
and the fire of hunt 
flipped on too hard 
and burned his world away

so quickly, so completely
that the frenzy of kill was gone
his master’s voice was gone
and he saw the cool swimming pond
at the end of the other trail
and began to trot away

sum dum goy

we had the sweetest dinner
chicken thighs with candlelight, segovia 
rice, carrots, hall and oates 
a father and a son
a mother and a daughter
all four as dear friends in ease

after tea and mancala came the fortune cookies
individually wrapped
in the junk drawer since god knows when
but by the taking now made new 

you three had prescient messages
i’d chosen the middle of them from your hand
removed the plastic and could see right away
through it’s cracked center
there was no fortune
no way you all said so i crushed it in my palm
to reveal emptiness

i might know everything
i might be dead already
i might be granted permission 
to compose the advice i'll heed 
or probably there was a skip on the machine 

spirit of 85

go to find the bathroom
when i pick dad up from work
long angled halls 
of this industrial complex
much older than me
stacked with pallets and metal

the john shares a hall with jazzercise 
directional signs posted along the way
maybe original prints from the heyday
i wonder if i’ll see
an instant before i do indeed
foxy fit women in spandex
electric from exertion 

and the call from my pre-adolescent
sensual base brain
is audible
rock ‘n’ roll, curves 
dim light and concrete
neon and sweat 
cheap worn with class 
vivid stills filed
from the best 80’s movies

we like what we like i guess
not hard to retrace
not easy to own

rock all my babies to sleep

these days 
when i give myself a break for a few
i see that my life is a mobile
these moments, these loves
the glow of the snowy dawn hill 
the glare of the blade in afternoon woods
the filthy orange floor boards 
the buzzing speakers and gleaming glasses
her eyes closed so lightly
neck a smooth soft sapling trunk at my fingers 
the others holding the > of her waist
maroon under the candle 

these all hang silent 
swing so gentle
against the house-breeze of my warm room

i’d been beneath in the cradle
but now i hold the mobile from above 
guiding the pieces in their dance
with the slightest tilt of the base 

yes, i’m up on one foot 
stepladder trembling
and who, you ask, is the baby
but my balance is strong
these muscles i’ve never felt
surprise me with their endurance like
they’ve always waited for this task

hail hail

rock and roll is a messiah
lives have been saved by it
backbeat the set of single footprints
feedback a din of choral voices to hold
the whole week through til sabbath
each song a prayer, always there
to see you through dark times 
when demons of normalcy
seem to have won your very soul

phrasebook

- for Dolores -

among the ranks of the feelers
who lived so precariously
the next moment bringing always death
given voice through which
the living vision could be frozen
not frozen in the hell colds 
of these blank white mountains
more halted, in a manner 
unseen elsewhere in the universe

to use this voice recieved at birth
a language must be acquired
through i guess some exact 
convergence of circumstance
transmitted unspoken as the dharma
god knows how

i’m just told Dolores died 
no idea how yet
but i’d say a safe bet 
related to her language 

but see these ranks
open your eye like bran
honor them as forebears 
and need never be alone again

practice your phrases
choose a moment right
and you may halt it
hold it glowing in your hands 
above your head and those 
of your neighbors
plain to see 
for any who raise their eyes 

aerobatics box

put your arms out like you’re gonna fly she’d say
and straighten the shoulders of my little sleeves just so
i recalled today as i did that
the meticulous personal care
without fanfare, she showed me 
without explanation
just a way to be

i did straighten up my sleeves
and i did fly
unbound from the ground
sailed between then cut right through 
clouds of condensed dream vapor 
hers, mine, my parents', my siblings', my first love's, my best friend's
milo aukerman's, bob dylan's, r. crumb's, herman hesse's

she worked on planes at pratt & whitney for decades
second or third shifts i think
hands hammered into leathery keepers
of home and meal for her two little people

these planes we build
to sail all up and around
like bill at MVL
loop-dee-loop through your patch of sky
every afternoon in the season
just cause why wouldn't you
then carefully polish your old Pitts
snug the cover and put her away until tomorrow 

come contender

some ignorants 
and less-than-harmless marauders
evidently doubt whether i have 
the fire of hell in my belly and hand

i continue to step steady
through the corrosive cold
and my pace will not waiver 
as bellflowers in my throat 
begin to wither unspoken
as scalding tears freeze on my cheek mid-stream 
as my knees grind bone on bone 
my pace will not waiver 

so i welcome the contender 
the smirking thug
who respects not love, death, bliss or pain
to ask me about the fire 
so i may answer with my frozen-hot fist
and he will never look the same 
or see the same again

no added sugar

in a doctors office before noon
with only white noise of central air
soft click-clack of typing at the desk
across the waiting room
4-year-old angel whispers to mom 
mom calls her jasmine

those two angels of your own
back behind the doors 
talking to the healer 
about what peace and healing
there is to be had

in this place you can know 
as you ease into a slouch
not of disregard but of, well, ease
that after the privilege 
of plugging in your device
slowly folding your scarf
at last assessing the contents of your satchel
you can weep if you must 
rest your hands 
be only here
and add absolutely nothing

clue

i’ve begun to learn to close the gap
between my ailments
and my remedies
my needs and my meeters
my delusions and my pills
my castle and my blueprints
let me do it in my own time

i wail as i spin around belligerent 
to answer the prodding voice behind
which appears to have come from
an outline of a dead man’s corpse
on the floor of this unfamiliar study
they say is mine

instructions: crane riding

in a reverie
with a breath
press mind into a sheet
at each turn of memory, make a crease
fold reminiscence back in toward here

with a breath 
build a crane of yesterday
look out over now, mount the bird
sail into the evening 

the lability shuffle

gonna turn my rabid growl
into a miss piggy impression

salt this bland white fish
with my ample tears

form my scorching lower back
into a prod to belly-laugh maniacal

gon make like the supergroups
and take my wank to the bank

lability she says
a light touch i'd call it

mae

in dropping my shoulders
in gathering my breath
steeling myself
against the cold wind of this world

my mind presents your face
hard, quiet in warm morality
loving in its fortitude

at the sight i almost break down
but that would be opposed
to the whole notion

i think i barely know
how much of you is in me
i think it’s a lot and i thank you 
for each ounce

you haven’t been gone a decade
but you might barely recognize
our country, our race

this shit was afoot though in your last years
and you went on
driving, chatting, nurturing
attending things
the life show

into the cold wind of the world
scarved by the grace
these hard times gave you

coy reaper

joke’s on you reaper
i’m already dead
i’ve already known 
every song you’ve thrown 

i’m singing my own 
this so, maybe you want me 
to take souls
is that why 
you keep skipping your shadows
cross my heart and home 

but i’m not like you
i will ride the sunbeams 
especially those i follow down
to your discarded husks 
where i’ll bow then mount 
surge skyward 
glide and return 

play this flying game 
hold onto this name 
until it’s time
for you to approach me in earnest

varsity

it’s just believing in the other 
as you meet their eyes
not a concept, an action
an approach
a drill to run each day at practice 
when’s practice again?

not after school
not saturday morning
every moment of every period
and then between classes in the hall too
in fact, mostly there 

this is your life we’re talking about 
no camaro
no homecoming
no band practice
no sega
no peaceful death in old age
no virgins in heaven
get it down 
or you’re going to be held back 
for the rest of time 

into the hearth

i’ve been growling a lot
it helps me through the flesh eating subzero
if this spirit of cold had a beating heart
a throat of muscle 
i would tear into it with my rabid tooth

i’m more concerned though for my growl
at the endless tasks of the mundane
items to sort, messages to address
dunces from mass blocking my road 

or worse yet
at the soldiers of ignorance i pass daily
who corral an elderly woman
on the sidewalk chanting nigger
who force a youthful woman
frozen in fear into the wall of the barroom

these furious blockades 
like sent straight by toecutter 
singe my insides 
especially when following
the glow of love
the grace of song

my love though helps me
handle demon flames that destroy
move them into the hearth
to be a fire that warms
quiet the growl to a purr
that disarms
open these fists of fury
into gasho 

blood filter

what is this filter on our iris
when the heart’s been removed
when the heart was stolen
is bound in a dungeon
this filter that paints the captors' faces
blood-encrusted masks of pure evil
endowed by the otherworldly to ravage 
this filter that superimposes the righteous path
onto a plain old street 
that makes those masks from a face 
nearly identical to your own
that turns the stool or fencepost
into the baton to crack the masks

i don’t get, is what i’m getting at
who set this in motion
and how we allow it
don’t you see they’re you
don’t you know each skull you collapse
is that of a child you’ll never have

what i do get now is the heavy lids 
and i mean to cultivate them
so that your lenses will not fit
your demons will not suck my heart out through 
your spells will not be granted entry
to impose the blood filter
go try some other fool

but all this said, test me
i will crack your skull 
and relish the sound 
was never sure about kids anyway 

a box of old pictures

who deserves bliss
only those who smile, not cry
at the love-faded snapshots
of castles of europe
of brown VW rabbits
of teenage eyes full with naive fire
that betray a first harvest of desire
campgrounds of twentieth century mist
barrooms of an 80’s tryst

those who do not covet passage
into the storied past
or the triumphant future
of a love offering bliss now
that's who
they’re only old pictures 

thank your assailant

grateful for the cell, stretcher and catheter
i’ll aim now to wear my body
as the blanket perfectly wrapped
in first blessed moments of bed, after the cold 
when bliss and innocence exist
when demons and assailants
are held fast at the threshold 

and on the other side of my head
i’ll know they come and go freely
while i’m gone away beneath in sleep 
they do what they will

i’ll wake dazed, the sun will loaf 
again remembering the lowest
i’ll say thanks for the chance to allow 

clean machine

my only aim now is to be 
a more effective vessel 
i’ve scoured all my pipes 
refinished to a perfectly reflective sheen
the filler will flow without the slightest stick 
the matter will move of its own volition
i’ll host the sweet and acidic
the chunky and the thin 
the scorching and the soothing 
from the source above and below 
surging through my manifolds
note motherboard signals if necessary 
sent to the following unit with record efficiency 

just don’t forget 
my two-year maintenance regimen 
pull me from the machine 
wash with care   
leave me on a clean towel on the shop shelf 
put on your old favorite AM song 
let me rest and dry

jamas

i wait dazed for my woman
in cloud of r&b christmas light din
been run through the wringer
wheeled on the stretcher
delivered to the last supper
overlooked at the table’s corner 

she has turned me inside out to dry
so i’ll try to fold me up nice
before she arrives 
to bring me home to wear to bed
just the right time, place and purpose
for my new fuzzy surface