housecooling

jerry jeff spinning quiet
the most beautiful morning

perfect comfort of home

house is my tailored coat

place you'd never leave

and letting it go

for a road

what other choice

sweet kiss goodbye 

soul summer

back in the

put my voice through

steady as i could

pounding head too early spring morning

birds calling do my work

it ain't there

swing a shoulder

balance a calendar

it's all there

thanks for listening

russia?

hey folks.

poetry month

that time of year again 
in gay montpelier
when we take a moment
on the way to the office
to look at atrociously laid out 8.5x11 printer sheets
scotched all over the windows
and think about
how roses are pretty
and love does exist
but o the soul
it's so murky

whatever 
last week was national grilled cheese day
and i had to deal with that too

hygienist rock

incongruous
classic rock in the dentist's chair
as maggie mae plays i say
maybe i'll skip the fillings
see what happens 
she's not amused

nothing really matters to me, I think
she starts the cleaning and wouldn't you know it
another one bites the dust begins
what a beat and a good pun maybe 
but staring into the fluorescent lights
mouth jammed with latex fingers
you can't shake your hips
incongruous 

she tells me about the dangers of smoking 
i'm not amused
and later as she pokes the curve of each tooth's gum
reciting ratings 1-4 in random order and steady
like an incantation
low rider comes on
and it's just weird

i'd go with classical 
or kraftwerk 
or something less incongruous

same coin

can one take this seething 
stifled wanting
frustration of frozen earth 

and just flip the coin over

to grinning patient assurance 
sights set on warm songs of spring
so small on the horizon
but growing in steady approach 

keep a light of countenance 
a lightness of step
in the goings on
while waiting to harmonize 

better try
else i'll lose sight 

disconnect

service disconnected
nonpayment
sit clicking for 20 minutes at least
knowing the problem
and not knowing 
what's so urgent on there anyway

and here i see an allegory
for my lost living

going to a merchant 
who only takes currency i don't hold
trying to buy something
that isn't sold

world outside
don't need nothing from you
just need to be whole
and simply of you

the ruler

shadowed lingerers are revealed every half block

along sick barre street 

with its ailing microcosm-of-barre feel

languid in their trashy greed

for temperate lethargy

it is the first warm night of the year after all

i wanna get languid too

as i walk newly free from my serfdom

of all natural meat-slicing

and lazy yuppie ass-kissing

the light rain begins to fall

the night makes its threat on freedom

like a nun who hates childrens' laughter

upstream

even my heart's truest ambitions
worms on a line held by
some fat white angler on holiday

drift slow hook in sight
float free left or right

no longer the game

spring sky

half used gray cottonballs

and a quarter kid corduroy blue

remainder's not notable

over the crooked capillary tree

we once noted

on the tennis court 

of some kind of college

okay in a t shirt

first time in a long time

jumping my backpack

should've brought water

cause i'm ready to skate hard

til i do something cool and/or

bleed the blood of the living

check please

either way
i've got nothin for this room which contains
no quiet 
no digging
no singing

sit and witness ambling
the endless ambling
the endless turning away

do it til a last second of panic
in rot
then die lost

it's not my way

check please

not a penny

think to write
anything or nothing
heart in tomorrow is doom

i implore me
under the dirty bathwater sky
on my melting porch

it's the weekend
not a penny to my name
i'll walk down and see my friend's smile
it's always sunbeams

hope it lights these wheels
i had turning
heart in yesterday is doom

dreamt last night that my car worked
backed out of the driveway and saw
i'd forgotten the oil jar
but it didn't even spill
and i drove somewhere

blue collar bird-flip

work mailbox so stuffed
with bullshit upon bullshit
stride on by, smirking

white 900, '05

i was such a mess
more and less than now
or probably just the same
in one of my vermont past lives

i think as i peer up the ramp
into the parking garage
where my white 900 lived overnight all winter

the attendant, older guy 
with weird teeth and a cramps shirt
seemed cool

spent as much to replace the engine
as i got it for
great car

listened to the strokes 
shifting gears endlessly
charlie in the back
no idea what 
i was speeding towards

waking painting

silence so real in the AMs
the big blank canvas in full view
stand before it conceiving

birds and early cars and
housemates' coughs
make the first strokes

this one's for the portfolio
so keep a steady hand
a sure heart
a careful eye

and ride the painting's rhythm
once it reveals itself

neath frozen skies

fuck vermont and its
eternal freezing winds

summer, if you come
you may come too late
in my icy eyes
to redeem this state

off air

if you watch me like a tv
i'm gonna feed you some lines

but I'm through waiting for you to
fall asleep on your couch
and just going into my static

when you're distracted by your cheetos
i'll blow a fuse 
become a view out the window
that might shake you
back to your senses

in no territory

don't care for your floatation device fictions
i swam in the rio grand with my baby
there's a temperature two inches below surface
that's just right

did waistdeep handstands at mexico
basked in a texas hotspring trickle

some days the light of love goes right into us
from that sun and it's too much
but it's just enough
and it's quiet and doesn't need a name

ambition

sometimes you think

i know what i need to do
why am i sitting on a
freezing fucking cold porch
staring at nothing  
while the day dawns 
and the trees before me are lit

got to get out and
hustle hustle real hard
like brad's shin says

that's when you
let it be a thought
today is a day but
today is not that day

sit in quiet biding time
thoughts they pass, 
rhyme your rhymes

skate disney

don't wanna be a black hole
but sometimes 
all that gravity in your eyes 
in your shop windows
and in your billboards
goes down into me
and makes it so 

but then i became
the next thing
whatever a black hole is after

earlier today i was 
skating on saturn rings
in my body
on my board

so yeah
it's an arc and
it's a coaster track

what can i do but
ride and try
to really feel that thrill

parents already payed 
for my ticket

karaoke star

so check it
you sing someone else's
shitty songs
or decent ones if you prefer
so someone else might care
that's the gist

no thank you
the silence sings

my endless love (reprise)

once i got it
now i don't 

and on it goes
and on it goes 

first i loved you
then i left
there's an order to it
i guess

but since i did
i always do

and on it goes goes

vermont (range life)

boring cold
if your crime ain't complete

beautiful perfect
if you got what you need

water

if yer in my periphery 
i'm gonna take you in
be ready

and i'll try to too

desert's so lonely
and quiet
who's got water?

don't mean to seem self-centered
but politeness is off the table now

can't chat about cactus flowers 
till you had a sip of water