untitled

think of me as a stone
in your salivary gland

puritan you are not
in the habit of ravishing yourself

part of the lumpen family
I go undetected

you keep your distance
and the condition worsens

the drugs you need
are illegal

hit and run is your story
in a nutshell

kiss me thru the face mask
hold this old oxygen tank

I might be gay
or

the product of a single mother
in the wake of invention

I have a digital phone now
if your name doesn’t appear on my television

you are nobody not even worth
the immature bark of a fox kit

I am buds that eventually lead
to a lot of naked trees

can’t even provide enough cover
for a quick piss in the woods

knowing can’t cure the disease
but it can make you more beautifully sad

I love you I say
the first symptom

NEW HAMPSHIRE

in a Laundromat named Ron Padgett
I find this sock
“…free of the baggage of who I happen to be…”

I put it behind my right ear like a pencil
and wait for an idea
I decide to take it home and look for a match

I find “keep away from children”
and “close cover before striking”
but no match however

there is something without a mate in my home
me
so I decide to take many baths

until I am the same color
in the bathtub I begin wondering
if Gary Snyder lost many of his articles

while meditating in Japan
I figure yes he must have spent time in Laundromats
I also don’t know why my computer is always forcing me to capitalize Laundromat

it doesn’t seem proper to me
but that’s neither here nor there
I could hang myself on a line to dry

or I could just dye
I prefer living in a poem rather than the other way around
my feet don’t have to go together

JANGLE

JANGLE


can you dance
do you do full throttle

I don’t care about your ten grandchildren
they make no improvement in the species

have you got a quarter
moon hanging out of your ass

don’t give me that dachshund look
without an –itis you’re all ego my dear

BEAUTY

“Truth,” he said in 1819
“Nonsense candy, Schonberg!” I retorted in 2009
but I didn’t stop there
a sweater full of pills
Vermont suddenly declaring pot legal
the five-year-old’s flashing sneakers
her panties as I am pulling them off
etc.

when you turn the spell checker off
time dies and is reborn
I finally shut my mouth about beauty
sex depicted on a stained glass window
whether we win or lose
life encased in plastic
all the hours spent studying it from outside

how we whistle before our freight train derails
now you can moan like you mean it
now you can play the piano like a toddler
now you can come home meowing for milk after rolling in the dirt
now you can wish the murderer were never born
now you can understand why the word war is so much worse than fuck or pussy

philosophy is a beautiful armored tank
the geese are all tuned up
it’s good to wash the mirror once in awhile
after I finished filing away my important papers I closed the cabinet and the handle came off
if I hadn’t gotten saliadenitis I wouldn’t have met Gina
love is always wrong but beauty couldn’t care less

here comes opus 25
I was small and my father made me smaller
there will never be enough poems
the juncos decide to put their nest on my air conditioner
Sneaky Piet, the boogie woogie man
brown shoes don’t make it
allusive, cryptic, I comb my long dark hair

ITCHY HOMO

up the poplar
down five stars and to the right
there’s a peanut named payola
where a people live like wee
give them a seed
and they’ll sow it in the wrong place
any fault will do any desert
they gather on Brownie nights
to bemoan their stunted growths
the quake the drought a deity’s fault
prayer beads made of Honest Abe pennies
some paranoiac runt at the head of the flock
he who learnt his lines by rote
the phone calls are dialed by digital
the messes are dealt with by endoscopy
the moments are dismembered by plans
yawn burp sigh kneel and curse
would they shit you of course they would
and give the miracle a name
anti-death & anti-body
they are paid by the immaturish to dabble
the co-pay is all they are willing to add to the pot
they believe in unfunny cards
they will not let anything be wild
st. chemo smiles out of a flat screen spa
an Australian vintner is the shaman
language is a problem
3 and 4 letter words disable them
but jargon they like like a rattle
give them a sunset they can understand
and they will gleefully go for all the glue traps
say cheese I do and pledge allegiance
argue for obesity and pubescence
as long as it has the right genomes
raise herds of scapegoats and asses
they are the circus they just can’t find the road
give them Barnum Jesus Bailey Christ
give them their day the size of a millisecond
an ant lugging a bit of feather three times its size
that thinks it’s a chief