Phentermine

The mall looks like church these days
And the church looks like a mall.

Is there something I can take for this?
Not a drug . . . all natural -
nothing that will liquidize my liver
or leave my scalp tingling like ten days
and no shower.

Ah!! Eureka. All herbal, it says.
Nicorette hooks you worse than
cigarettes - you gotta be careful
with your cure-alls.

I've got one . . . an easy way to clean
everything out.

It involves pants ankled & grunting,
but you can't do it at either place -
which one is the mall?

What One Could Buy With the . . .

. . . $950 charged by a Chicago jeweler for one cocktail:

A new engine for the Beetle,
a '78 ragtop, unsexy on cinderblocks.

A Goodwill spree:
three pair of jeans, a couple of faded shirts,
and everything else in the store, plus tip,
just to be a barrel-chested bigshot.

Two baby-oiled beauties,
shimmering in the half-light, grinding, for an hour

Or a flight to the Philippines
and three whores all night

Food and drink, my style:
fried rice, fruit, java, lick-aa, then 'rrhea, for four months

My rent, pro-rated,
for a month and twenty-six days

A rental car, fully insured,
driven into the Gulf of Mexico

Biopsies on the three multi-hued malignancies,
that the clinic doc said, "won't kill 'ya"

A promising start to a drug habit
which could take years to kick

Something better: a fifty spot for nineteen people
who gone out of their way to help me.
Maybe I'd need more money . . .

G-note after G-note, at a roulette wheel,
looking for lucky twenty-three.
One out of nine's gotta hit.

One month on a beach, sand so warm
that my crotch ignores the stray grains,
as I alternate: eat fish / swim like one

Oh so many ways to swallow nearly a thousand
dollars, much more than one drink.

Dream

A white room -
be damned if there were more to this -
this image swims in my dreams
extricates itself from impossible schemes
to banish the thought from my mind.

A white room,
floating high,
above a dome of plexiglass.
Since age seven,
this dream dreams itself,
appearing when expected least:
appearing after a day of laughter
appearing when only the foot on the floor slows the spin

A mystic said "it's here for a reason"
Ten dollars dealt me a hand of low numbers
from the dealer of fate
sequestered in some alley.
"It's a message, son"
and smiled with cracked lips.
I wanted to crack his . . .
but leave your fate in another's hands
and this is what you get.

Could Someone Answer This?

Commas are . . . pauses,

and three little spaced dots are a more

dramatic

pause,

so how can punctuation

express

looking at your shoes

while shaking your head?

For You

The cycle comes a third at a time:
dealing, denying, then just
g-i-v-e i-n

Right now, the deal's on
Soon, I'll deny there was ever a deal.

Watching young'uns holding hands,
holding on.

A smoky bar or a foggy campus
makes no difference:

first one, then another,
then the other.

Far

The man on the ledge
views the man by the hedge

the way the man by the hedge
views the man on the ledge:

with a squint.

What?

Did you think this would be
about judgement?

Lemonade

It's early
a wisp of the idea still runs inside my brain
Can I get it on paper before I
give in to
the urge that
has my hips shiftin'
and my mind griftin'
(as I try to negotiate
for just three . . .
more . . .
seconds . . .
before my bladder bursts)?
Nope.
I can't.

Near Breakdown #52

It's not my Achilles' heel, but my whole body:
- a spine meandering like a levee road
- a melon sits atop a kinked neck,
typing this.

Is everything good for you?
Aren't there downsides anymore?
Can turning pages be so hollow?

I'd believe what anyone professed,
confessed, or obsessed about
provided my spine stood tall
because of it.

There's nothing else to do but type:
nipple throbbing with the latest melanoma,
cars skidding into snowbanks outside
while fingers, frantic and nub-chewed,
set visions to paper

A Dinner Party

P.T. Barnum
arranged his life
the way it should be:
true splendor,
gross extremes,
with nary a soiree
in sight.

Betcha he'd never
accept an invite
to a dinner party.

Once here: converse.
As in "talk" and not
"disagree."

In fact, conversation runs like
a mail route: too familiar
houses rimming too familiar
roads.

Normality heats the room
like Bergin-Belsen
in this simple tract house
the first floor choked with
live choking people above;
the basement laying odds
on who'd lip the biz end
of a shotgun below.

The below is me; I'll take the under
blunder
and plunder my way through
regrets look for regreats.

Genuine moments: a laugh,
a wince, the boil on your bottom
acting up, fueled lunacy,
going crosseyed like a lizard in the
noonday sun,
yes, indeed,
that is a life.

One Day Since Rich Died

A dog gnawing on the bone has more dignity

something inside is used to this
something inside must want this

says I, a snake, slithering back to the same hole.

Infinitely interesting are the ways

that people can do anew
that people settle for the old

I lie to my self.

So much time, so much concoction

goes into reinvention
goes into building cages

when only the next moment matters.

it is the stuff,

of angst poetry
of hack lyrics

through and through, of life.

How well you deal with it
is entirely your own.

Back To It and Onward!

Hello.

Last month was a good month of
writing. Though not necessarily
here.

A long time ago, the whole thing
seemed to be a race: between
friends, against Time, versus
Death - whichever notion
would give you a leg up on
your lazy self.

Last month helped do away with
this notion.

The odd belief that words will
flow like water at a magical time
has been replaced
by a new consistency - write
every day.

Has it become a belief? Well,
I've been fortunate to fall in
league with some folks who'd
answer that with a "yes."

Sometimes I'll post here, but
when I don't, you can be sure
that I am somewhere, sitting
with pen and paper, mapping
out pictures from my mind's
eye.

Onward!!

Global Repositioning

I've lost the ability to give
a fuck about laundry, or logos -
for this disease, there's no
twelve-step.
The cure is pure dee-why-ay.

How did talking through
laundry or a logo ever substitute
for conversation?

Your big-screen is a sleek
black sham, and so are
you unless you
focus on (the human) family,
in all its fabled, twisted glory.

On Having a Child

Candlewicks protecting their flame from an onrushing storm . . .
someone asked me what's it like to have a kid
Nine days later, this is the best I could do,
unsure of who's protecting who.

Cameras don't gush over kids the way family
sometimes does, so we picture her,
day-by-day,
picking potatoes,
rapping with Hello Kitty,
crossing rope bridges that needn't be crossed,
and every picture tells a story better,
or fairer, than I could.

Not that every day should be photographed,
but, to address the question, perhaps they should.
Some days you cower like a sailor in a squall;
others you curse like one,
but for all the pratfalls, the bumbles,
the bumps and the scrambling,
life survives in spite of all -
a terrific trick indeed.

Even beat poets the most intrepid
cower at the challenge of relentless
mediocrity:
life minus a fast car, a wild bop record,
a new conquest, a new vein.

Exalting the muddled middle is a
demaning task, one that would
wilt the best-trained bonzai.

Rather than stand for something,
rather than stand for self,
most crouch,
take cover,
most lives wane like moonlight.

Can you put a finger on why?
For the dinosaurs, finger the asteroid;
for the faithful, finger your savior;
finger age for the few who found their fate;
but for the rest, the culprit is clear,
Ladiezzzzz and gentlemen . . .
the force that finishes life:
mediocrity.

Make It Rain-Take 2

Lumber pillars hunch under the roof's weight
as Tom Waits croaks forgiveness,
seconds grooving,
clock ticking toxins away:
make it rain.

A conjoined boyfriend-girlfriend
slop down a gyro,
giggle at their secret,
a love any monkey could see.

Curdled feta sticks at the
back of the throat,
a sour echo of sour mash.

Mooks in sweats share beer.

Counterfolk swap Saturday
morning stories,
passing off normal for witty.

Only supreme effort prevents
drool, lo-tops quaking,
unable to bring food to lips:
O, make it rain

Make It Rain-Take 1

Lumber pillars hunch under the weight o' the roof
as Tom Waits croaks foregiveness,
seconds grooving,
clock ticking toxins away:
make it rain.

A boyfriend-girlfriend,
traditional Siamese,
shoulders co-joined,
slop down a gyro and
giggle and their secret,
a love a monkey could see.

Curdled feta reminds of last night,
sticks in the back of the throat:
mooks in sweats share beer
counterfolk swap stories
(passing normal for witty).

Only supreme effort holds in
my drool, lo-tops quivering,
stomach roiling with activity.

Make it rain -
o, make it rain.

Welcome to It

Roses trek ten thousand miles,
held between fingertips, intentions so gentle,
just to be present for love;

yet, the petals do not withdraw when lips conceal it.

Alas, we have us,
crouching like surveyors,
hauling baggage like shields.
Love eeks via clogged smokestacks:
for us, the temple voyage will be a trek,
aching and arduous,
hauling withered personas,
clawing and clutching railings all the way.

Proclaim the rose an ideal? pssshaw -
instead of sliding through holy water,
the way dolphins do,
our separate starlit camps
howl at the light and bray forgiveness.

Ma Bou

Horse-stance discipline
is what is sold,
and what is a stance
when there are so many
movements out there?
Control is an odd thing:
you learn it to lose it to know when
to lose it
Can't say much about either
beyond that discipline has left me
with a permanent limp
and the occassion twinge
of guilt about not having that limp
under control.
To pour yourself into something
is not to fit a mold.
Rather, show how much you
can expand a something by
fitting your big head into it.

November

This month posts will be infrequent, at best.
There's a-something I'd like to do, and the time
is now.

If I do post, it's wholly by accident.

mind the store

Tricks are for children:
and my own - on me -
causes me to vomit upon sight
of a butcher shop.

It's harder than you think.
Not many meat men remain:
we need more old time America.
Bring back Sam the Butcher

and I'll soil the sidewalk
like a supermodel.

Believing is too easy
(1) Hypnosis
(2) Believe
(3) Bleech!
(4) Splat!!

The mind tricks more
than state-heads
or egg-heads

and my newfound nausea is proof.

Who knows: maybe I'll
fixate on the evils of
leaf lettuce next.

Shoestring Heart

On a clear day of blue
Mestopholes taught the band to play;
barons bitched
badges stitched
and the press was bewitched
as the tune screamed into now-grayed
skies and souls without a compass.

Rocking chairs rocked
and Life rolled forward,
not as a coward,
but as an entity that knows not
what lurks around the bend,
not looking to fend
off music looking
to ravage its shoestring heart.

Life, to be sure, goes on and on.

whatever

Whatever happened to you:
the breakup
the child who's lost your way
the job you fell into
(that you can't get out of)
the empty look skyward
the hums, the ticks,
the nics, the bums
was all a long time ago.
The the mirror will show -
the only one there with you
is you.

Wisdom

She would harness the stars if she could -
hitch them to her hitching post,
just a stump in the mind of a six year old -
and marvels at dewdrops, rabbits, and buildings that
defy gravity while they climb into the clouds.

She feels unburdened by life -
by loss, expectation,
the need to attach meaning -
and embraces creatures, grotesque and fuzzy,
as the fangs they bare do not prevent her approach.

She needs not cigarettes nor lovers nor coffee, uh uh-
her security comes from being out and curious -
and runs wild through sunrays
or bounds through the snow.

a post it note from a century gone by

You can not
free yourself
from your self
without loosing your mind.

Synthetic wood

Synthetic floor and synthetic wood
seems enough to aspire to
as your self sells in eight-hour time -

by the hour, willing power,
because admist this cart of lemons,
you're the only lime.

You only hope its enough
to keep this world alive
fake bushes and squares of sod
do you keep this world alive?

Clock tick echoes in your head
robbing you of sleep instead.
Most ponder wrongs and why they've fought;
another sunrise brings you "why" / "why not?"

Ode to Antony

Antony fought like ten,
roamed the prodigal streets,
gambled his talents,
married Fadia, Antonia, Fulvia and Octavia,
and besieged Brutus for lacking
what Antony swore to his general:
loyalty.

He conquered others, moved men with speech,
but desire defeated him drop by drop,
breaking the stone that was Caesar's second,
the desire for funds, for lovemaking,
for all that feeds
the importance of a man.

Had he hung his head once,
had he not picked the best blooms,
angered those administering the nation,
would he have been the lesser, indeed,
could he have been Antony?

All Night Long

You ever thought Krispy Kreme wasn't enough? - she said,
dough pinballing off her palate,
and a trio in identical hoodies-and-jeans
(though each ensemble slightly miscolored
for a last grasp at individuality)
walked in to hear:

what she thought
what earrings say about the pussy, non-specific
what earrings say about her pussy (con-tin-yoo . . . )
what slicing a tree really thinly will get you: a napkin!
what lightning does to darken the world
what about a hard rain could depress and cleanse simultaneously
tried to riff on what made coffee glorious, but could never
get beyond the word "legal"

I saw the three shuffle out, cups cupped in palm,
looking anywhere but our table.
Two ay-am came like a wall; all words wasted in a donut shop,
on naughdehyde, beneath pink neon twisted into
the phrase, "all night long"

Two Kinds

Blunt or twisted tale tellers
both decorate my life.
But if I had to choose one way to live
I'd say straight-on causes less strife.

Then again for pain avoidance -
dodging brutal, searing blows -
twisted tales whisper much better,
straight-on every-one knows.

Straight on blasts hurt like the devil,
then you can cauterize the wound
while twisted tale rumors prevail,
making the unaware a buffoon.

If you have to choose amongst the two
(no holds barred or behind-the-back bitches),
you might want to change the peeps you keep:
leave the blowhards and ban the snitches.

Let the twosome dance together
until there's one, alone.
Before, talking smack or behind the back
Now, atop a lonely throne.

It Ain't Just A River . . .

Everyone here
has been trained to equate the smell
of blobs of buttermilk baking with
those biscuits that spring from the
cardboard roll like hostages freed.

After cooking, even the cats try to
scrounge some. The cats see the giant mutant
cats eat with happy faces; well,
they want some of that.

It's too perfect -
when you cook here,
the smell seems to waft
right up the stairs.

Now for my next invention:
a "meal-stick" that burns a biscuit scent,
to get people here
out-of-bed,
hungry,
and angry.

Empty house

The amber LED blinks. Long enough
to grab your attention, but
not to hold it.

Someday I will fix that blink.
Today, I need the company.

Self Advice

Giving up coffee ain't easy,
sure enough,
because coffee keeps me awake,
sitting in a chair and dreaming.

What am I dreaming for -
these five words spelled the end for the brewed beast,
personified so you'd think the beast is coffee,
and not me.

For myself, only a life stripped of java,
all fascinations and masturbations
wiped aside, must do.

This came to me via a dream
where a path through the jungle
was the only thing, the one
thing that could deliver
me from the ultimate dream-evil:
A humungous coffee bean, tucked
in the middle, rolling oblong toward
my head.

Wake up time.

Got more living to do, and life has
nothing to do with dreaming.
Or coffee.

Besides, smokes are expensive.

Porches and shes

Stay cool, she says,
with a smile, the crows feet extending down to the bone.

If writing is your apple, she almost winces, then go ahead
and do it, she says in a sing-song chant.

On the back porch, in a plastic chair, I wonder:
At what cost do you hold in it?

Good writing, she continues, is halfway between
hold-it-in and let-it-out

Halfway between the skids and the stars,
don't shape, don't make
and just let it flow through you.

This makes no sense at all.
So you sit, think,
and it washes you like rain.

The rider

Two thin plastic bags groan, swinging
detergent and chocolate, orange juice and Camels
off two short metal sticks.

The seat grates, grates, grates as hips rotate
and the gears grind, grind, grind:
proof that forty bucks buys a bike, but barely.

A tree stump beckons. The rider sits, and thinks,
"Metal and bone aren't destined to be together,"
but the stump. smooth, cooled by winter air, is another story.

Silhouetted, the plastics droop lower still -
damned gravity!! - as the rider stubs out a smoke,
and bicycles under a moonless sky.

Be eight, decode Hollywood

"That guy who had the lottery ticket, he's the star of this movie, right? It means that maybe his friend will get shot, but he'll never die."

- A child, while watching the movie "Treasure of the Sierra Madre"

spent poem at 3:04 a.m., no caps

Radiation from the screen throbs my head:
a sitting zombie, the woken dead-
never thought about making bread, instead
thinking about the mash-ups in my dread
pulling peter won't take this night away:
whether its pos or cause, yea or nay
just want a soothing place to stay
while i keep pouring out what i must say
if i were canadian, the next word' be "eh"
but being born in the u.s.a
dissuades examination of the now, today,
two sides decomposing 'til decay.
i suppose its always been this way
i suppose its always been this way

Summer, Friday, in the mountains

Foil folded furiously -
A pipe made of silver,
smoke brings laughter
then bubble gum lights.
And, crouched in a limo-tinted GTI,
more laughter.

"We'd be in there, too."
"But we're out here. High. Ha ha ha"
As police cuff friends who have the misfortune of place and time,
our little hideout in the driveway rocks with glee.

Freaks

Nipples through a tight tee no longer make me horny.

Am I getting old? You betcha.
The sight of the suggestive no longer suggests.
If you're going to show me something, just show it for free.

Otherwise, it's all freakshow to me.
File today's midriffs with yesterday's Wonderbras and
the rolled up tees of eons ago,
each in mothballs for a
future fashion comeback.

Calculating love and how to elicit it
seems pretty hard to do;
whereas a low-dangling cross on the chest,
a look then a look-away, then a look out of the corner of your eye,
an elbow-touch in mid-conversation (mingling words with touch),
a glance away as the other person glances at you -
breathe deeply and watch the social dance.

Freaks have a special place in my world.
Just use yourself and let me watch.

SF at night

The puzzlement sends our night into motion -
"Who the fuck is Wills?" we bellowed,
as our spittle rains on train strangers,
legs evade turnstiles,
trenchcoat tails trailing behind
being the only evidence of our petty nastiness.

"Wills, my ass", we say,
even though Wills will surely fire us
because the dough lies in a lump on the boards
and we are on the street,
letting skoal fall from our lips into teapots,
dropping a quarter into a newspaper stand
then taking eight,
wadding them up by the water
to hurl at one another, thus
distracting us from our hacky-sack circle.
The sun indulges, staying low like an accomplice,
and we are gone by the four a.m. police sweep,
bewitched by authority / enticed by a score.

Enlightenment

Baby oil now suggests

only one thing: a liquid

made for the tiny.

Honorarium

"I'm warm", shivers Randy
with arms jammed into his palm.
He sips, gulps, breathes in the vapor
the truth in his eyes tells all.

i am thinking of Adam,
both eyes conveying the cancer within -
even the glassy orb -
as his head, his torso, buckshot knees, and feet
dragged years across a hardwood floor.

Can i think of Lupe,
the most aware mofo I'd ever blow,
tongue cradling an LSD tab,
a shooting star in a picture, framed?

Must ends meet, ropes tied just so?
It warms me thinking how
they do and they don't.
If lives synched differently,
that tab takes Randy away
that youth helps Adam
evades bullets and tumors
but what of Lupe, who had
walked his own tight-rope
like a boy in his backyard?

That warmth ebbs as deep-gut fear
creeps in on the same soleless feet
that took him from the street.
If life leaves Lupe,
faced and emaciated before two score,
then what can it hold for me?

Trinkets

Footsteps crushed the dew as we walked to the Farmer's Market.
Chipmunks spun away from our path; dogs just sniffed.
We had nothing to offer but rectangular paper,
colored like money,
but the trinkets!!
Sausages for dogs
and angry ladies selling burritos in the mist.
Could the sausages also fortify the food wraps?
Moving on:
crystals, and dream-catch feathers, and
epoxied seeds roasted to perfection,
and overplumped breads with underplumped sellers,
augmented by push-thermoses left coffeeless
by the groupies, who bought every last homemade cinammon roll,
the one thing that coffee might have washed down.
After an hour, when gaunt breadman walked over to sausage lady,
to compare home cooking,
it was time to walk home,
pockets bare for the animals on the path
save the ubiquitous smell of dog sausage
everywhere.

The Upside of Nepotism / White House Dreams

I hope to be able

to provide friends with paychecks

legitimately

Raising More Questions

What was obvious

now needs to be clarified:

"I'm my baby's dad."

The Longest Ruler in the World

Scientists say Mount

Everest is twenty-nine

thousand feet and change.

Denny

Red Rock, Nevada:

Frontman Denny kneels,
the funnel rises,
and RockStar bongs twelve ounces of Everclear
through a beer bong.

Derek,
the checker who allowed us to buy the liquid,
smiles. "Five minutes"

Evan disagrees. "Ten",
and a Casio timer gets to twelve before Denny
goes off to kneel again.

He holds it until sixteen,
groans,
then projectiles pure proof
until sunup.

We bring him warm compresses,
stay with him - even wipe his drool -
while, in the front room,
music blares and money changes hands.

Round the Fire Late

Hoot, whoosh - car passes.

Fire beckons new forms of warmth:

both silence and song

Untreated

Fortified water

makes my skin itch, my face dry

up like old sandpaper.

The Blamed, Lucky

They came as doves slept in darkness,
when pigment precluded peace
and they numbered one-fifty,
a swarm,
a salvo,
a sweep,
where a bride did weep
and children cried into
the point of a barrel.

The night-market man
fingered the inseam of his vest,
belt-high.
"Are you Christian?"
he asked, and I said, "I believe"
in front of a stall selling
leather and winking knives.
He eyed my daughter,
eating ice cream,
eight ethnicities coalesceing into milky skin
and set his feet wider. "I am Muslim."

Now I laughed out loud,
because this is how I deal with
other people's shit,
and extended my hand.
"Hello brother," I smiled, and . . .
slowly . . .
his hand met mine,
despite skins
and the brown fear in my pants.

"Pop" said the little one, later,
"he was nice but
something smelled like poo-poo."

A goddess can not kiss everyone,
and the one-fifty
went looking for brown
as owls slept
found it
found him in bed
asleep (a student)
awoke him (the student)
arraigned him (the student)
arose her (his wife)
afear'd (his children)
at four a.m. -
the time when the guilty disappear.

What Happens When I Watch a Box

The man on TV

said, "For health, drink pee" moved me;

yet, I still flush. Twice.

Lonelyville

A few well-timed hugs
would have short-circuited
this asshole,
the one who swats at tree squirrels,
believes pavement was a gift for them,
rages at the unaware.

The sky oppresses:
every change could be a threat!

Late at night
the mirror speaks:
"your world is undoubtedly small,
undoubtedly you."

Pining

Each branch and bump, notch and needle
outlines against the palest of skies,
reaching up to
- warmth
- all they need.
Contrast this with the urbanity of
"I will not vacuum."
Put the two - picture and word
on sandwich boards,
pay someone with chaotic knots for hair
a ten-spot to tout the two as a contest:
life versus fear.
Which coffee can would gain more green?
Would the sign be seen at all,
shoved aside because of a glitch
that leaves no notice of
fractal beauty,
a pine tree splashed with sun?

Karma

After practice, ball players moan
like the orgasmic superheroes they aspire to be.

For the ones without their cream dream,
a compromise: a four-year shelf life
featuring low-speed car crashes
between armored sub-compacts
on two legs.

The rest? Lucrative careers in law enforcement,
or perhaps bouncing the new breed of ball players
as they ogle the titty dancers.

The eyes that learn

An hour of your life

watching cafe strangers proves

we are all lonely.

A Haiku of Warning

Coffee, large, four bucks.

Five bucks gets you good smokes, so

still wish pot was legal?!?

Mike The Employee

Mike The Employee shrugs to adjust his blue vest and reveals

how you can get

an off-road permit for an off-road vehicle,

as lip holds chew in place:

"Ne'er be caught on that", he says, cutting his eyes.

I roll my bike to check out as

fellow wag-ers wail "you done?"

(after all, it is 9:15 pee-emm),

but his eyes say no - for him, I offer a tidbit:

the one where I wrap my leg round a quad wheel, age 15.

It's good; but he just nods,

a skeptic bathed in florescence.



This way, I am a hostage, freed.

This way, I have something to share.

so, if storytelling's the cure, here's some more:

(1) mopeds meandering down city sidewalks

(2) six-fifty-cc scooters sending you,
with a wrist-flick,
ass over tea-kettle


And the effect of all this? Mike is

loose now, well-oiled, one-upping by revealing

a swiss-army knife designed for detonation

and stray nose hair,

regaling me with his pride, his tool, his truck.

He forces the bikeseat upward,

tightens the shocks and

chuckle. "It ain't much", I drawl,

"but I'll be drivin' this home"; he nods.



I imagine him in his truck, nodding to piston fire.

I imagine him wheel onto the highway.

I imagine grinning at the bullshit ATV story

as my knee still throbs,

pedaling into the blackness without a helmet

because -

as you can see -

I like danger.

a school moment from Taiwan

A message in a bottle,
in English,
between a foreign teacher
and a local manager:

Teacher: Don't you understand how hard it is to be here?
It's common sense.

Manager: What's common sense?

for an an-gel

Congratulations!

You have been endowed with

ten man NT dollars

(three grand in dead prez)

in fees set for exchange: cash

for health / green cards.

My friend, my Chinese

doctor has discovered

you have smilingly

stolen from me (though

usually meek minions

come lay hold of it)

and provided nil

in return. To you, angel,

a curse ever-so-slight:

may ass-gravy gush

from you in perpetua:

(1) until Latin rules Mass

(2) until the head on

your matchstick body floats - blank

with pained rheumy

eyes, pained with pure

wonderment: how could I stay

so sick for so long?

(3) until your guts eek the

filth you spread - even leaking

through undergarments,

deucing even the

adult diaper poop traps

you bought for Mother!

(suffering likewise);

someone has had to let you

think that tanking on

your commitments could

twist the tithings you owe Taiwan

into nifty net

profit - let the one

who loined you, join in . . . the

excess duress of

having your innards

seep out every glory-

hole and not know why.

A fortunate rule

change, one denying me the

right to get a green

card to work here (when

my creds clear me to do the

same in my home state),

a meddle-man's gem,

allowed this deceitful

door to open, and

let your hijinx heist -

lo, free money!! - from a

family of three.

Forget nurses and doctors

and deep-six all that.

To die in a fire

would be too quick, too kind. The

curse upon you shall

be liquid - let's take

the word away from the realm

of fees and numbers,

and set ebola

into your intestines,

you bitch!, and, in the

final ticks life grants you

may your piggy flesh puree,

may your eyes roll back

and see no shelter,

may sand slide down your windpipe,

burying your forked

flickering tongue with

promises unkept; may no

nurse kneel for you - none -

to cure your dis-ease.

No amount of currency

shall prevent me from

being the last face you

see, the one pouring sand down

your malfeasant mouth.

You'll be spirited

south like a gale-force fart, only

leaving a sour stench

in the air where your

body had soiled space.

These allusions to

feces have left me jonesing

for a throne to sit

on, and, although I

feel syllabically spent,

like a man typing

lottery notices

from the Congo, hope lifts me -

the hope that a road-

bound missile (a blue

truck) has a spot on its bird

whitened grill just

for you. Adrift here

in waste references, I

bid haiku adieu

Beliefs in the Wind

Whose reality -

the vegan or the butcher's -

strikes as strange to you?

Un-Dependance

Don't let anyone

curb your spirit: truth starts

within, and feeds you

Most Folks

With eyes beaten shut

she slinks through amniotic

fluid, with life in tow.



People one and all

fall by the weigh-side, versus

a sweet woozy high.



She’s unlike the rest,

that’s clear, with kempt hair and queen

killer eyes – when lucid -



but consistency’s

a past pastime, and night hits

are all she’ll accept.



Dumping thin slices

of processed meat like newspaper,

she floats through moonlight,



an exile, and moonbeams

slide around oily hair that she’ll

river-dip, tomorrow

Haiku in a Wheelbarrow, Painted Red

Semantics:

so so much depends

on a red wheelbarrow and

what that means to you



Modernity:

so so much depends

on a red wheelbarrow and

petro-chemicals



Gods:

so so much depends

on a red wheelbarrow and

if you believe it

Noo MEdia

Dead language, dirt words

and cool media flit across

my world window screen

Men-in-black United

Gangbangers, hicks, and

Coeur d’ Alene Indians

all dig Johnny Cash

Not Writing, Again

Another pastime

for my eight-to-five work day:

id, here’s your new boss

In the Grove

Town counselor jabs

pomelos with sharpened

sticks of old bamboo


Thick-rinded fruits thud,

their juices numbing, their size

swelled to ripeness


His face soft but proud

reveal a son’s sad eyes as

fruit falls far from tree


His own legacy

slips away like late sun rays,

mingles with the breeze

Thailand

The non-natured strut –

high-heels clicking on tile – of

cross-dressed starlets

Fingerprintless

Chicks chirp and cows moo

while nary a vehicle

rumbles through the calm


Days drift gracefully

and Time reverts to two halves,

one dark and one light

51st Haiku

Shaping the whole world

and all the things inside it

into five-seven-five

Be Gone

Maybe your momma

loves it when you do that, but

get outta my face

No Hug From Me

If you were truly

altruistic, you would not

mention anything, eh?

Au natural

Squatters' children

frolic round the old pump well

wearing only smiles

Bohm

Somewhere else, someone

unaware writes these words at

this exact moment

Welcome To It

Things done on your knees -

prayer, humility, blow-jobs –

only help The Man

Best-seller

I have employed

ten typewriting simians

in a locked room.

Won, a suburban Haiku

Won

Debts, a mortgage late,

five cars, two jobs, a big-screen

TV, and no words


Too!

The same people who

inspire debt are the people

selling your escape

Belly laugh

Best stand-up ever

was a Berkeley punk who

breakdanced for change

Veritas

To espouse deeper,

to say the unsayable,

that is comedy

High desert, at 3:21 pm, spun

Cirrus clouds scat to

the high and lonesome tune of

a desert blue sky

ha ha

A carpenter's son

gives each the divine right to

judge-forgive-repeat.


That's funny, and so

it goes, unless you're the one

who's been double-crossed.

What You Must

Love, security,

pre-dawn stillness – I’d give them

all for one blink of . . .

evolution?

How we’ve progressed:

from two men enter, one leaves

to “the Judge awards . . . “

Nic Fit

I’ve quit for good and

no one can tell me otherwise

but . . . wait . . . no . . . not yet

untitled

Love shines in the sun,

a gorgeous white shelter, built

on a hill of sand

Motivation

You have said some things

that disagree with me- I'll

save this for later.

a passing thought

O to be born,

when a bucket of cow milk

could trade for pure grain

So what stops us?

By nature, people

evolve unless made to think

lesser is better

In the Boneyard

Deceased children

lie, death-packed like mango buds,

in mailbox caskets

The Trick

Death seems quite unfair,

yet lying motionless is

somehow even worse.

What a Good Pull Can Do

Touching yourself yields

pure self-gratification

till laundry day comes



Just pray that no one

sees the discolorations

where your pant legs meet.



However, I think

the whole “feel – good” movement can

pollute as it saves.



How many killers have

been well-laid versus pent-up?

Satisfy that urge!



I’ll take wanking friends

anytime – you can discuss and laugh

without shaking hands.

Home

Home is not a place

but a keen sense of belonged

felt by head and heart


Home can be but a

moment, a flash connection

of was and be

Can

Can children un-do

what grown passion does? Zen says,
“
A child-like mind is . . . “

Cubicle

Furtively watching:

can your best be good enough?

One never can tell . . .

The Humble Idea

. . . an idea has
hit me smack between the eyes!
This is Haiku month

I will unload a
multi-layered mess of
five-seven-five verse.

Starting forthwith
stare "primitive" Japanese
literary culture

in the face, right here.
Seventeen-syllable swoons
shall slap you silly

for the rest of the
month, or until I just get
plain sick of the thing.

If someone counts my
sound-sets, be assured that
some are off. I mean

that these are not just
poems, but a reflection
of my functional

capacity as I
write. And sometimes, on purpose,
I try and see what

words will come if I
ingest this, or that, or even
this and that. That's art.

Gather your toilet-
cams, your raw fish, your rising
sons and comb your straight

black hair to a beat
stereotypical of
literary culture

done up as well as
I can. Think of this as an
ode to sweaty June.

Malacampa

A vacation spent
hearing family wish death
on blood relatives
for pesos and pride,
and bad winds swirl from nowhere,
the dead dishonored.

“She was the richest?”
"That’s right – but then she gave it
to people like you"

Peace alights, dove-like,
in evening cool, as we sip
brew to let loose love.
Five-ace hands bewitch
and, hearing how carabao
brained Uncle good,
laughter, sweet laughter,
fills the house with a strange good -
or at least a trace.