Without a Good Scare

On a day when white death
melts the souls of freed demons,
I see their skeletons dancing around
the playing field where so much dies.

Bones flail under tenuous connections
in ritualized madness, a sacrifice to failure
we all will be buried under until thaw of
next harvest and new demons take flight.

11/7/11

Precious Bones

You and your precious bones
sway and arc in ways that make
us drift in the wind and grow
out from granite. They splinter
in shards that will thankfully do us in,
pierced
loved
fractured
into a haystack mound
of one carefully layered memory.

9/13/11

No Wings

Each day I am more
an Old Man just waiting
to be poked and prodded,
singing only at night.

9/8/11

Old Age Wisdom

Dilute my whiskey

over ice these days
watered down.
It used to be
straight up,
like my anger.
I’m still drinking
nonetheless.

7/21/11

Columbus Avenue Freeze Out

Removing ugly memories
should be as easy as freezing
away warts. I can only hope
to contain the spreading virus.

7/20/11 

Mis (use)

Mischievous
and maniacal
are words to
always be
pronounced
and used
correctly.

7/15/11

Smoke In My Eyes

When I exhale smoke,
see it swirl and caress
invisible structures,
there is no surprise
that this is what I
breathe in and out.

7/10/11

Straw Houses

How do I quiet the stench
that attracts the Big Bad Wolf
when I am prone to howl as a beast?

7/9/11

Schism

The moments of decision
to embrace despite
or resist because
is choice, otherwise
known as disruption.

7/9/10

Flipping the Coin

Impulses, usually under
drunk influence, are
best second-guessed
but there’s always a
question of embarrassing
inappropriateness vs.
sincere devices.
The difference between

Not thinking enough
and thinking too much.

7/3/11

For the Love

She exclaimed
"For the love of fuck!"
I can't think of anything
better to exhume frustration.

7/3/11

Question Unanswered and Answered

What if becomes
if then. What if
if then becomes
then what?

7/2/11

Solstinox

I am allergic
to the sun. What
give most things life
only makes me sneeze.

6/28/11

In Between

When the jazz ends
all you hear are the
restless ac motors
whirring mindless
against silence.

6/28/11

Leaving to Come Back

Return to what you know
even when it's too expensive
too aggressive
too familiar.
There is comfort in discomfort.

6/28/11

Life on the Road

Scars are cracks
in my asphalt skin
oil leaks the tattoos.
Pothole puddles of blood.

6/28/11

Coffee Shop British Blues

Listening to the car radio
I am disappointed that
"hobo" became "drifter"
coffee became latte.
Best to dismiss such temptations.

6/28/11

Trusting Our Instincts

I suppose his blue beard
was like trying to eat
green or purple catsup:

you know it’s harmless
but it just doesn’t feel right.
Then again, catsup isn’t
really cat soup. Sometimes
there actually are hanging
corpses behind the unnatural.

What's in a Name?

Promises are made
to be kept, especially
when first borns are
waged. Consultation
with fox and hare
becomes salvation
and the only thing left
is a name, and identity
leaping in shadows
from flame and magic.

We are all trapped,
gnawing off our
legs to save ourselves.
Divided in two,
a split between
shadow and self--
both live on,
now independent.
Rumpel will be just fine.
It’s Stilstkin that I’m afraid of.
We all should be.

Scorpion and Frog

Frog was generous
and ferried scorpion
across the river. Per
its nature, scorpion
was going to sting,
work its poison
despite all of those
amicable promises.

However

frog had its own
secrets, secreted
through skin. No
sting necessary
when you can sweat
your own poison.

This is a Hold Up

Gravity is a terrible partner,
even when laying down.
All muscles fight against
an inevitable collapse. Bones
succumb to positioning. Blood
flows through downstream veins
and we are all stupider for it. It
is only through a concerted effort
that we can bear the weight, hold up
against such scrutiny. Otherwise
it all becomes mush and my structures
are getting weaker by the minute.

4/19/11

Real World Death Star

“These are not the droids
you’re looking for

[metaphysical pause]

motherfucker.”

One sloppy drunk declaration
that dismantles myth
destroys mysticism
revives sleeping demons
calls Chthulu to slash open
Zen Force, disembowels pretention
makes us all wade in the vomited
organs of hope and benignity. 
Jedi Mind Trick trumped by
numb, irreverent intoxication
and there’s more of that to be had
from such bacchanalian enlightenment.

4/20/11

My Lenses Have Become Jaded

I like to think I know when I’m being manipulated
either with consent or without. At times I’m not
that smart. When agendas become situated and planned
for ulterior purposes, I sit back and try to enjoy
the unfolding drama, the anticipated and predicted
reactions, how deceitful people can be, how naïve
to believe we can pull it off, try it on, suck it down,
wrap it up, sweep it under without anyone else being
the wiser. I revel in this, this absurd people watching.

5/5/11

You Got It

I gnaw on my fingers like some
rabid animal, ripping flesh and nail
out of compulsion. I know that the blood
and infection will come trickling oozing
out onto the white clean keyboard.
This has happened before. Vital bright
red fuses with the dark stains from a week
ago, a month ago. gftv, es, olk, spacebar are
holes and valleys of a battlefield. Fresh blood
worms its way between keys, threatens
to fry it all. It gets into the words too,
each drop as likely to kill off
as it is to revive. My words then become
vampires, seductive in the appeal
of empty life or drained death. Still bleeding.

4/22/11

On the End of the Fork

Mr. Bill, you scare me to pieces
accidental or not, a gunshot
right through my head
on target to eviscerate my reality.
Those empty eyes, hollow cheeks
a spy for the uncertain. That
iconic hat, buttoned to the top shirt,
black rimmed glasses. Drug-induced
postmodern Clark Kent from Mxyztplk’s
Fifth Dimension where typewriter
becomes intratextual and everyone
becomes an agent. I have you on record
as a Priest yelling at a God of musical
deconstruction and dissonance. Your last
recording beyond that look. That empty look.

4/22/11

Perfection Unmasked

It’s just unfair when each brick
in the house is stacked and mortared
against you, when breaking down
working out, shaping up to the proverbial
bar is impossible and out of your control.
When it’s so much easier and more satisfying
to belly up to another bar and to hell with it all.
Light another cigarette. To hell with popularity
and concern for others airspace. Drink another beer.
To hell with my waistline and calorie counting.
I’m not 18 and sculpted. I’m 38 with a balding head,
grey in my beard, and a paunch. No airbrushing
no tanning no plastic surgery here. To hell with caring,
especially about hell.

5/5/11

Lights Out

I’m a morning person
but I don’t wake up bright
and cheery even w/ coffee.
It’s all business after
the bathroom. I heard
an interview a woman
on the news. She said
she sees every morning
as a new opportunity.
Bullshit. It’s just the start
of another 16 hours of
responsibilities, mindlessness,
indecision over dinner,
procrastination and avoidance.
Cigarette breaks. When I wake up
the best part of my day is when I
crawl back to bed, to escape.

4/26/11

Topps

I met you once, or maybe twice it was
beyond my college age when money became
available through work day woes. Your name,
a headliner on the circuit strip. Applause
at your painted fingertips, you stop to give pause
and pose. Each twenty minute routine the same
for you but not for me. To swallow such shame
takes time. The rehearsed, justified “because”
becomes a shallow excuse, even for twenty-
somethings. It’s not a place to meet up with friends
or a club for gentleman of any sort
but the depraved, the desperate and seedy
kind. Everything about this is all pretend,
this city sanctuary of last resort.

5/16/11

Throwing Some Light on the Subject

A splinter of lightning, the eye of outside
peeping through the bedroom window
paints a white line down the body,
splatters onto breast, belly, hip with
contrasting overtones. This wash
quickly reduced to a single traceable line
creates a fissure in my head between
familiar and exotic. Within that
flash bodyscape there is no distinction
of dream or reality and no one is the wiser.

5/13/11

Truth In Moments

Moments of indecision
are like gusts of wind
giving life, opportunity
to dead forms. Everything
depends seizing or rejecting
in that cross section of time
which will be studied,
analyzed, celebrated,
analyzed again, regretted,
over analyzed, dismissed,
and ultimately accepted.
In that process, the world
has changed around us
and will make its own decisions.

5/6/11

Do Your Worst and I'm at My Best

Shattered defiance
Tilted head backward to sky
Flexing, exhaling.

5/5/11

Stubborn in the Sun

Years of exposure might have doomed
me to skin cancer or at best a perpetual
fungus that makes me out as a leper.
Such is the price for oily discomfort
like one of those waterbirds drenched
in oil spill disaster. Nothing can scrub
off that feeling, not even common sense.

5/2/11

Seen from Yellow, Watery Eyes

Eyes, my love Frankenstein
Give me such longing, holding their shine
Friendly lashes, by and by, herein
Once worded, ears tucked under signs.

Fallen one, a mother who lies
Lives without, the head a ruing seal
Stand straight, see all the wonder
Let me see all your truth.

Not twice, Frankenstein. See me glimmer sharp
with two stern lines. Look inside me.
Bid me blackened and then go away.
How far one’s father flies.

Do not wonder if I am capable.
I won’t be found through gentle gestures.
Tricks, oh eyes, what the whispers halt
from the Golden overflow of these wounds.

4/28/11

Flying Monkeys and Such

There was a time when I tried to fly
downhill full speed arms flopping
like a Canada goose running across water
hoping to take off into air.
My feet rarely left the grass
and I clearly remember the disorientation
of disappointment. Judy Garland never
got her answer. No one ever wrote her
a sequel to Somewhere Over the Rainbow,
the one where rules apply, restrictions enforced,
dreams crash down and shatter as glass panes
against the jagged rocks below. There
will be other dreams but since that day
I have learned too many answers and am
content with these limits.

4/27/11

Pitt in my Brain

Forty or so years ago,
imprinted in my head
like a stamp. WOMAN.
Mold is cast, ink still wet
prone to smudging. Never
got off to you, on you
despite such considerable
assets and your confidence
to display them, even
through clothes and bubbles.
No, there is a higher standard
at work here, an eastern European
archetype of cheek mole, accent.
This is the role of lifetimes over,
more immortal than any vampire.

4/26/11

Circle Meets Square

A bond not to be broken
between natural/unnatural
It taints stains erodes away
while it solidifies joins together
reminds as a constant decoration
or symbol it is always noticed
even admired rarely removed
If so, it usually leaves an impression

4/26/11

Musings from Scribes

The film is finished. Throughout the ten

Directions of space, we are not alone:

We have brothers in the hills and sisters

In the jungles. We want the empty offices

collecting dust! I am at one with the world

and yet stand out from it. There is no such

thing as standing still. Link by link, we forget

the chain. There is no reason to play with death.

I tell her the truth.

Jack Hirschman, William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, d. a. levy,

Diane DiPrima, Bob Kaufman, Gerald Locklin, Lenore Kandel

Only Child's Fairytale

An old Queen had been dead.
A beautiful daughter, a King’s son
living beyond the open. The wedding
drew for leaving furniture
and cups
and jewels
and adornments of gold
and silver.

She gathered everything proper
for she loved dearly.

4/22/11

Hop-A-Long Meets the Axe

Given the holiday
Easter is here again,
time to recall all the
trials of Spring.

Evil-grinned rabbits that
hide all my treasures in
mischievous burials.
Murder’s the Thing.

4/22/11

Anita, 1954

Soft grey to convey an icon
lit only by window out of frame
she studies her shadows on the
bare floor bare from form. Fingers
fracture in surprising angles—a deeper
grey, not quite black.

No universals here, only shades of light
grey, dark grey, textured grey. Such shades
define her form, but in only the softest sense.
There are no lines to remain inside, only blendings
of greys, gradations of light, and where light is
not yet allowed.

Her hair alone offers a world of greys as she
is immortal, looking down into the light. Kneeling
over at rest, a supple form and shape—a study in
grey with all of its connotations, like a sky of similar
hue. The world is better off with the depth of grey.
Nowhere is this more evident.

4/18/11

Shall I Compare Thee?

How do we compare ourselves
to the thick and thin of it?
Diametric opposites? Books on shelves?
Is it the length or the width
after all? We all spout off
the same, but it is worth
the time to explore rough and soft
textures, unearth
salty and sweet treasures
from beneath covered shadows,
revel in painful pleasures
of dizzying heights and bottomless lows.

Comparisons are the middle ground
between what is lost and what is found.

4.15.11

Fair Food

Traced from a streaking blur
through dapples from holes in
tree canopies, shifting open sky
and reflections from water
below, a streak of royal blue
and eyeball white, every so often
add a dash of burnt orange and
forked tail silhouette. Emergent
insects become ducks in a shooting
gallery row, as swallows pay their
fee to the Spring County Fair.  

4.14.11

The Magic Number of Cranes

In the tundra
I came upon a Renaissance Man, bundled, sophisticated
Who, standing upright,
Held his brain in his hands,
and discarded it.
I said: “Is it bad, friend?”
It is wondrous--wondrous,” he answered;
“But I hate it
Because it is wondrous
and because it is my brain.”

 4.13.11

Mr. Fantastic and The Invisible Woman

I’ll make
it up
to you
tomorrow
or the day
after that
or the day
after that
after that.

It’s only
fair, I know.

It’s something
I owe to you
but you never
ask for, at
least not
explicitly.
This is the
dance we
perform
day and night
on the couch
in the bed
making coffee
sharing cigarette
smoke. Flowers
on the odd
occasion, a card.
An undercooked
dinner, the gentle
nudges instead
of alarm clock
violations. 33 You
deserve, need this.
That cats know
it. So do I.
It, this, I
am here for
it all, so long
as you can put
up with . . .

4.11.11

Since You Asked

Play me as the Devil’s
Advocate, work me over until unexpected
slice me in quarters and thirds again
so that I continue to surprise,
initiate overdue seductions.
Only then can we have afterthoughts
naked as we sip morning coffee together.

4.10.11

"Saturday in the Park"

I’m living alone
with cats and playthings
that echo against the cheap subfloor,
the double pain windows. Cereal for lunch,
beer and bratwurst for dinner

bouncing between everyday errands
or meditative debauchery,

Calcium crickets and worms for the lizard
and half-off castoffs that take up my day

interjecting between the dialogue of sun and fog

Today is a good day to be alive.

4.9.11

Communal Thoughts Up In the Air

If you are one of those

frequent flyers who recline
their seats on an airplane,
I want to kill you slowly
taking our time to savor
the destruction of self
absorption, entitlement.

Ability is not justification.

You know who you are
and I don’t want any excuses.
Time to bleed you out
through the back of this
ever-encroaching confinement.
Touch down into a better
place to be.

4.1.11

Fridays During Lent

After nap, some beer and chips
then sprouts and catfish on my plate.
Now back to beer, both stout and pale
to drown the health food I just ate.

4.8.11

Once Upon America

America seemed like such a good idea

as if by chance, a once upon a time
in storybooks and fairytales. Althea
then told me I need protection against the crimes
of elected leaders, those deaf to cries. The Dead
have all the answers and I’m flying that flag
as a common sense freak in the war on intellect instead
of budget. It seems democracy has hit a snag,
a glitch in program design. Go back to templates
of Founding Fathers and Mothers, daughters, and sons
to clarify what others obfuscate
for private agendas.  Return us now to a nation
that dreams once again, that stands for reasoned ideals
in a responsible and rational court of appeals. 


4.7.11

Corner Bar Poetics

Hey you, the one reading this. Are you here
for some morbid curiosity, to see if these
words are sour roses? If so, geradeaus.

You won’t be disappointed, unlike
the Missys and Michelles of the world
for whom I was just a bland banana,
a dusty peach, a mealy apple.

These days, I string letters together
for trick combinations, as likely
to scratch as I am to sink the called
shot but only after a six pack, smoke
screens, and a jukebox that encourages
more more more. Hang around. You’re
in for a long night. Will you remember it?

4.7.11

One Word

Transjunctivitis.

4.6.11

Lizard Prophetic

Civil unrest, protests of military action,
conflicting sexualities, experimental escapism.
Breaking through new frontier, holding keys
to locked doors of political demagogues,
seeing through crystal ships of prismatic
manipulation, lighting fires and waiting,
waiting, waiting for you to come along.

This was a half century ago, and here we
are again. Strange days indeed.

4.6.11

Bleeding for the Dancer

I looked over the filthy rainbow
into a world of inversion
of beautiful dust, vibrant decay,
luminescent shadows.

Heard melodious creeks,
harmonious screams.
Touched gentle razors,
tasted delectable rot,

smelled wondrous death.

I followed to the very end,
to the golden reflection and
took in all the reversion/aversion:

faded adornment, eroding vitality,
diffused light,  shrieking music,
dissonant voices, cutting genteelities,
spoiled pleasures, meaningless life.

Rainbows are best left in the dark.

4.5.11

Shallow Puddles Without Reflection

Remove your face and this all becomes
less personal, less intimate. A blank mask
that hides who you are, eager to reveal
every other contour you can offer. What
remains is a palpable distance, safety of
anonymity. Expose your private reality
without ever having to reveal who you
actually are. It could be held against
you some sunny day.

4/5/11

Veins a Poppin'

Costanza, Magoo, George Jefferson.
All heroes of outrage. Life has dealt
them raw and they are bitter. Screaming
shaking flailing still able to squeak out
measures of happiness through chaotic
whirlwinds of cruel concocted fates.
One slips into depravity of surrender
another sees only his own distorted reality

the third struts flamboyant, loud and proud.

Finally, Ralph Cramden. TNT fantastic
in every instance. Boil the outrage—let it spill
over polite confines. Yet the intent is to laugh
at such demonstration and laugh too at ourselves.

3/28/11

Cooking Roast Beef and Sausage

Inspired by a Wood Carving

From 4/10 via Poetry Everywhere

Dehydration

I’m feeling like death again
inside and out, a grimy
old rag that is rung
dry of all it has stored.
My ribs collapse into
themselves and feast
at the shriveled mass
of my stomach. Even 
bile has vacated the premises.
There is little left.
All will become withered
starved into dust.

Loss of Faith

Just as it all gets worse
when it really couldn’t
I turn to my clove cigs
and my legs go out from under
head goes on spin cycle
sandpaper smoke down my throat.
Nausea is better than
the alternative I am forced 
to confront, when all my 
middle fingers go unseen
and my outrage screams
at deaf ears. I disappear 
into the exhaled smoke 
become a ghost in fog
an owl in a snowstorm.

The Great Multiplication Divide

Blocked from oblivion
by this crossing guard
prevented from accessing
such an inviting void
all that stands between
is muscle and blood
Flesh. Not bone, nor faith.
This abyss swirls its tendrils
through my bristling hair
feels my throbbing pulse
invites me to ecstasy
but as quickly hides
in hoods and shadows.
There is warmth there
if we take our time
and realize there’s no
going back once we’ve
broken through the X.

3/17/11

Medusa Burlesque

Frozen in
black/white
as fatal
in your stare
as any myth
Just waiting
on those tresses
to come alive,
inject the sweet
venom
that swims
through your
serpentine
fleshy curves

3/15/11

Poor Circulation

When left alone I forget
what’s in my veins, what
holds me together inside
this dry, cold skin. I forget
what got me here, the lies
and blackouts, the awkward
errors, the brief episodes of
sun that break through the
passing storm clouds. All
I can warp myself around
is this numbness beyond needles
and pins—everything an
accident waiting to happen
and I'm overdue on the
insurance payment.

2.26.11

One of My Turns

I feel it coming on
hitting me like a
screwdriver to the temple
that spiritual sanctuary
of my own sanity.
I’m withdrawing
back into my eggshell
of concrete and cinder blocks
Back into syndicated sitcoms
buffalo chicken organic corn wild rice
casual touches of affection
that signify much more
my cat crying as she carries
in a stuffed tattered fish,
the other one sacked out
on her sunset afghan from
a thrift store. Yes, this is
where I belong.

2.25.11

This is what Democracy Looks Like

Today I stand
with Fire and Health
Math and Nature
with all the servants

Today I carry
the weight of voice
signs of discontent
burdens of vision

Today I sing
with rhythm of outrage
melody of representation
a taxed throat

Today I fight
with permanent signature
completed procedure
through the system

Today I act.

2/15/11

We're Not Gonna Take It Anymore

I’ve been threatened by
the National Guard
deemed a danger
to local, to state
because I choose
to educate, even
when prohibited.

Brains in the streets.

“Glory, Glory Hallelujah”
plays on piano and brass
amidst a sea of green assembly.
I'm marching on Madison
out there unprotected
reduced confined
dictated. Truth will
march today with
anthemic defiance.

2/15/11


This poem has been published at Verse Wisconsin Online.
http://www.versewisconsin.org/

Do You See What I See?

No matter the disguise
the mask, costume, or
creative light, it comes
through. You can dress
it up, try to hide it,
feather it
bleach it
distort it.
It will still come through.
Some may never notice,
focusing attentions                                         

Elsewhere

Not me. I’m locked in
looking, fixed on what
I can’t ignore, regardless
of how hard I try, how bad
I feel because of it. It still
comes through, piercing.

2/10/11

Connectivity Issues

Urges to reach
for intimacy, to
pull, yank, twist
each other into
connections are
a bitter realization
that we need something
more than keystroke
correspondences or
reflective reality.
Touches must have
temperature. There is
no satisfaction in
static shocks. Feel
how hot my skin runs.

2/8/11

Do Over

They took the world
away from me. No more
nightly news, leaving me
to create anew, become
my own universe.

I don’t know where to start.

Would I recreate what I
know or fill my world
with oddities, hybrids,
chimeras, magic?  No
limits, nothing forbidden.
I’m wise enough to know
there must be conflict,
tumult, predation as much
as flashes of bliss, pleasure.

A world without explanation
so no nothing can blame me
for when it all crumbles down.

2/6/11

Bad Reception

Getting angry over the phone
isn’t as easy anymore. Spiteful
texts or reigning down curses
can only do so much to release,
express the anger of jealousy
or betrayal, or selfishness, or
immaturity. All we have is a
spineless “send” key that we
can only press so hard, a cover
we can only flip down or slide
closed.  I miss the times when
I could slam a receiver down to
an impossible to break mustard
yellow wall mount in the kitchen
hallway or on the putrid olive green
table model with the emergency
poison sticker in the center
of the rotary dial. That crack of
thunder was an expression of real anger—
no weaseling out of that conversation
due to “bad reception” or a dying battery.

2/4/11

Saturated Yellow

A ceramic bowl
that could hold
watermelon, but
is a quarter full
of yellow popcorn
is the only thing
dividing me from
you, there with a
towel too small to
keep anything
under wraps. You
glare out the window
to the outside
saturated with sun
as if I’m not here
and I’m not. We are
both somewhere else,
but full, filled.

2/1/11

Writhing Forms

From below it all
looks alien, a twist
of writhing forms,
appendages, details
that do not belong
bumps lumps
wrinkles dimples
manicured for
refined abstraction
ideas, only ideas
far from natural,
intended. Lick
the lips of deception
dissention, worm
into the dark passages
that call us back
to what we so willfully
avoid and ignore.
Comfort, pleasure
in that.

2/1/11

Spring Collections

Everyone is so happy
when seasons turn from
snow to sun. I see it
as I chance to catch
up with buried friends
see what’s become of them
after the melting away
has done its work.
What stories will
their weathered bones
tell that their skin
never did? I’m all ears.

1/31/11

Morning Blood After Coffee

She woke me
for a sit-down
warned me I
needed coffee
first, but the spin
cycle in my stomach
already hit before
any caffeine comfort
remedy. Braced
for another talk
about my various
addictions, news
of a bleeding ceiling
came as relief. Melted
snow seeped its way
under the rubber skin
into second-rate wood
communed with metal

and dripped through a hole
drilled to hang our
witch ball. Drops spattered
the alcove walls and floor.
Blood is much easier to clean
when it’s not your own.

1/27/11

Frostbite Transfer

I felt my soul bleed
out of my fingers
on a bright morning
in January Wisconsin.
After pouring seed into
feeders for seasonal
guests, feeling at my tips
began to slowly drip
onto the fluff of snow,
its heat draining down
to frozen ground beneath.
Still having to secure
my industry, I sheltered
my hands inside feathered
pockets—their souls
replenishing mine
one quill at a time.

1/23/11

Preparation

Shadows flicker on my billboard
as sun gives life to forms outside
my office window blocked by slitted blinds.
Sparrows come to feed through winter,
knocking each off buffet perch.
Fluttering balance, rapid wings
disarm the fixed forms of pencils,
pens that stand as battlements
inside a giant Daffy Duck mug.
Chickadees wait their turn,
eyeing up a peanut butter banquet
more fattening than any black seeds.
The swaying tube feeder betrays them all,
soon to run empty with setting sun,
well below zero.

1/21/11

Six Pills Plus One: 7. Fighting It Off

My immunity system needs filling
up, especially now with all those germs
blitzing through the hallway, killing
what they can without pity, strictly on their terms.
Cold hands say I shouldn’t fill feeders;
sandpaper throat whispers that I should stop
my blustery yelling and read more.
With middle-age eyes I can see germs dropping
out of nowhere onto my flesh, into my bloodstream.
They surround me know, festering with disease.
Induce the orange juice dream,
Quarantine this husk to unconscious oblivion
and choke down a multivitamin.

1/20/11

Big Head James

Today is a day

I can’t lift my head.
It’s not that I don’t
want to see, not
anything I can
no longer stand.
I can’t lift my head
because it has grown
too heavy from
rejections, pressures,
memories forgotten.
My neck, once strong
with rebellion, is
now brittle with
skepticism, defeat.

Someone please get me a pillow.

1/19/11

Missing Parts

Pop my arm off
as if I’m a great
unwanted action
figure, an assemblage
of plastic parts held
together by molded
forms and metal screws.
Snap my leg held
in place only by
brittle rubber strands.
Twist my head from
the shell of my torso;
leave what remains
to crack under age
or melt away in

prolonged sunlight.

1/18/11

Tongue Piercing

Mondays are
the splinters
you get
licking an
ice cream
stick, trying
to remove 

last remnants
of chocolate.

1/17/11

This poem will be published in an upcoming issue of Verse Wisconsin.

Bundles of Energy

Peripheral vision locked
on to a dark streak
against white canvas
of snow—a mink
like a runaway
ball, bouncing down
a lonely road
disappearing from sight.

1/16/11

On Reserve

Two chairs on
reserve at Community Resale. Mid-
century. Good bones. Half off
at $10 a pop for
the pair. Not
sure if they’ll fit
in the back seat.
Not sure if they are
her style. I know
we don’t need them,
but we don’t need much.
They sit low—too low.
Do they deserve
such a reserve?

I can’t tell anymore
and I’ve already shown
far too much.

1/13/11

Six Pills Plus One: 6. Heart Health

Settled nicely into routine
methodical middle age. Peaks
and valleys leveled off into serene
horizon lines—a steady progression of learned techniques
through errors in trial, successes in intent.
Now it is my heart that is being choked
out by my parents, grandparents
without their knowledge or consent. I’ve been poked
by needles, dosed with radiation,
forced to evacuate on an empty tank.

I’ve since abandoned all expectation,
wiped the tarot cards blank.

Comfortable in my falling apart:
graying beard, balding head, flabby belly, hard-pumping heart.

1/16/11

Six Pills Plus One: 5. Will Not Cause Drowsiness

Moving away from lifelong friends made over
the past few years to a space and time
became a polemic shift worldview. Guitar
gave way to fiddle, concrete forest to swamp slime,
burger to crawfish. She was the one constant
from old world to new; we would both cut
our hair and earn new tattoos by surviving fire ants,
hurricanes, bouts of madness that slammed too many doors shut
right in our face. Thirty should be a turning point,
but I forgot to put on the blinker. Smart enough to evade
accidents though. I can’t quite remember being clairvoyant
about it, so I have to be reminded. If not, it just fades
into forgotten recesses. Must stay awake. Must stay awake.
Much too much at stake.

1/14/11

Six Pills Plus One: 4. Muscle Relaxers

They come in liquid form
bitter by the dozen
$2.44 for Mad Dog, Boone’s Farm.

Braved the worst of frozen
winters just to get a different
kind of numb, impervious to pains
from failed attempts at romance, absent
of any assisted relief. Sustained
drunkenness at three dollars for three hours
three times over. Magic number
cubed. Wolf waiting to devour
Little Red, but intoxication is cumbersome

When you’re the last one standing as that urinal trough.
Time to retreat back to the cave. Sleep this one off.


1/13/11

Six Pills Plus One: 3. Pain Relief

Alice Cooper has it right. I gotta get out
of this place.  Petty grades, petty school, petty
crimes. Brothers, sister all leave with doubts
of their own. Mark, Rob, Steve, and Lenny

become Dave, Coleman, and Ron

but still no girls to speak of. Metal
shined most bright; stage lights are on
the horizon.  I am painting my kettle
black with broad strokes, splashing

and dripping across my bedroom floor.
Random streaks and puddles flashing
potential will always remain, however obscure

the design. They are all ultimately hollow

in use and meaning—a tough one to swallow.

1/12/11 

Six Pills Plus One: 2. Alleviate

It takes much more than cartoons
and mad athletic skills to create
an identity. Out of touch, out of tune
from any reasonable harmony; sedate
in my own tofu persona. Experiments
in puberty gone awry, attentions
of a cat at a Spring migration lament:

intent, but wholly unfocused. Ascension
is just around the bend.  A few
more years in the struggle of where
this will all lead, Scooby Doo collecting clues

and staying away from Medusa’s glare.

Ten percent luck, ninety percent attitude.
Twice a day/take with food.

1/11/11

Six Pills Plus One: 1. Fish Oil

Once removed from birthplace (birth nation),
my siblings save me on a cross-country trek
out to land o lakes in our sickly green station
wagon, mile markers in the dark to connect
where we’ve been to where we are going.

Storm falls and my eyes roll back
flicker, rain on windshield, without anyone knowing.
My brother sees foaming, bubbling white on sickly black
screams and cries, frenzied desperate.

Convulsive spasms ensue. I match
green of vinyl interior, the same but separate—
one artificial, one becoming more so.  The catch
is that it’s taken thirty-six years to return

to Minnesota. Side effects make my heart burn.

1/10/11

Self Expression

An inch-long scar rips
down my wrist, right
where a vein runs across
the main tendon. Not a
failed attempt at suicide
but a bit of the old cat-
scratch fever. I have many
such scars, but this one
wants to tell everyone
a story. I’m just not quite
sure whether the fiction
or the nonfiction would be
more interesting.

1/9/11 

Zombie Zombee Zombi

There is a standing tradition of zombies
feeding from the world, from the creativity
of others long gone. I am the first
zombie of my family, a parasite that
festers on the thoughts and actions of
the courageous dead. I can only nurse
off of their perspective in order to say
something, anything.  So much left unsaid.


1/8/11

Mischievous Words

Attention must always come first.
Intention is rarely rehearsed,
but spotlights shine hot
when meaning’s forgot
and translations can only get worse.

1/7/11

My Cat, the Author

As I try to type words on
the wasteland of this blank
page, my cat obsessively paws
at the back of the laptop screen,
needle nails scratching on hard
plastic. Struggling to write what goes
on inside my congested, thumping
brain, her penmanship says more
than my keystrokes can.  This is
all about communication and she
is often better at it than I.


1/6/11 

Grumples, Grumples

Winter holidays often
have adverse effects.
Suicides become popular
methods of escape from
forced parties, required
to make nice with people
we don’t like, awkward
gift exchanges that just
take up the valued hidden
spaces we all need, food
that fattens us even more—
speeds us towards self-loathing.

But
there is
ANOTHER WAY

Champagne by fireplace
hungry for more fuel to burn,
cats batting loose ornaments
hanging low on the Goodwill tree,
embracing who we actually are,
wrapped in pajamas and each other.

1/5/11

When the Dead Come Calling

Accountability is all the dead
will ask for when they call my name
Ask me what I’ve done, what I’ve learned
and all those many failures.

They will ask if I deserve to be with them
if I want to be with them

Judge me on my vision of reunited Heaven/Hell
or festering ooze of bone and muscle

There are no promises I can make
none that they can keep

When the dead come calling
I’ll answer the door
naked and ready

Invite them in

for a drink or a smoke,
see where the evening takes us.

1/4/11

Cleaning Up, Changing Out

Inside tires that support
empty boxes in case of flood
were two dead mice. Frozen
in form, they still had fur
but little else. Even maggots
left only a shell. Did they expire
together? About three inches apart.

I had to peal them off the cement floor.

Picked them up by the brittle tail,
tossed them outside hoping that
they would serve some purpose,
some use. One fell flat—a good sign.

The other was held up vertical by
frozen blades of grass. I’d have to
fix that if they lasted the night.

Early Sunday morning
they were still there, unchanged.

A proper burial was in order.

Scraped off the debris of winter
and placed them side by side.
Covered with a leaf, a few cedar
discards, a fluff of lilac blossom.

1/2/11

Down the Drain

Shaving kit passed down
to me years ago. Small cup,
a blue stagecoach embossed.
Broken plastic case held together
by a dried cracked rubber band
doubled down. Inside, a sculptural
Gillette razor, the kind that gives
both sides of the sliver of blade.
The old fashioned kind.

On day one of the new year
I thought I was ready. Headed
into thirty eight over

twenty years of practice.

Enough of man now
kicking screaming cursing
slicing bleeding bruising
trying and failing along the way.

I replaced the blade, surprised
at how thin it was for all the damage
it could do—has done. First strokes
removed three days growth, tracing
down the muscles and veins.
Working my way to the center
the first nick, just to the left and
below that bulbous growth of bone.

I decided to cut my losses.

The right side suffered the same.

One vertical stroke. Clear. Rinse/Repeat.
Second stroke. Clear.
Third. Nick. Wash the blood and foam away.

Can’t remember grandpa ever having
this much trouble. Maybe he just hid it well.

Shaving is as much technique and patience
as pretending to know what you’re doing
and being able to cover your mistakes.

Nostalgia is a bloody bitch.

1/1/11