and to think i saw it on floyd terrace

It’s Come to This

2012-01-30T19:28:00.002-05:00

instead of combing a paper full of news

we only truly enjoy predictions

when the lights need to stay on

& there is time to practice excuses

there is a science dedicated to disappearing

amidst flamenco dancers and their guitarists

so i keep a passport in my nightstand

ready in case of the untelevised riot

we cringe at the silent spring

ignoring the notion under cover of social niceties

where i am an elvis with rattling chest

who does not despise the gambler

even though it is his faults

that remind me how i must survive

Your Ride is Here

2011-11-28T16:15:00.001-05:00

here is a list of facts i have told

you & was completely wrong

the sky is made of empty gestures

that dance with a kind of duende

and make the shadow of joy on the ground

we meet in places we cannot be found

with public service messages pinned to my sleeve

they appropriate the names of bands that

play the tourist in a garden of french accents

in my five year plans there are no years after

my confidence calls for a vote

and is a decisive voice that repeats in my ear

it is philadelphia in the autumn

and the sky is made of falling objects

War Cry

2011-11-12T11:10:00.001-05:00

babe, you have to let the pizza cool

when naming names just to be bellicose

despite the brides of dispossessed peddlers

who trades their trades in rough instances

in vain hope to invent the circuitry of the stars

that is present in circles somewhere in roshambo

you follow the guitar and expect rock

and the ticket is yours so there are no choices

any fool knows this human experience

but i am hostage to circus bears in vienna

and know nothing of the language here

dear marionettes, we cannot articulate

our needs properly sorted from our wants

we just wait until we think we beat the system

Build

2011-10-03T00:13:00.001-04:00

For CG

infatuation moves like a dead girl

looking for a mnemonic device

for ethanol taxes us all in school

as we alter addresses to find

apparently, it’s a thing

band names in the sound qualities

there are waves in Egypt

kept in ceremonies of construction

passed by an ecology of books

in a string of characters like the genome

where gods are more jealous than we are

to make judgments along a practical axis

here my catharsis is a blackbird by a spring

by resistance, i am becoming

Apes of Apology

2011-08-27T20:50:00.002-04:00

one third of this life is at war

on the side of investments and inventions

based on loud mouthed south philly men

scared sons, the kind of who prove far easier

to pass through the eye of a hurricane

than through the pages of a bible

but please make sure not to recycle it

ground quakes & do you know the language of heaven

it’s a thug life at risk under illiterate stars

we read the birds as they drop from europe
another whispered hallelujah chorus of poor kids

sing out like weeds in a hated garden plot

behind grey mansions like de maurier

i am in the ghost of your first wife

Your Blues

2011-08-22T15:11:00.000-04:00

i am drawing a map of our highschools

on the back of gas station napkins

this is how we started, i think

play music: free beer,

my math was decent enough to find west

and you know, that’s a charter school now

in the old testament to our lifestyles

what seems exotic, ends up a fake british accent

drains our interest in what is called the cost of living

dear brother, it has been exactly one week

and making noise isn’t what it used to be

the truth is, I lost my cosmology in a national park

and somewhere its theater deadens me

but we get to come home rough and immediate

Black Shoe Sonnet

2011-08-15T21:29:00.000-04:00

there are nice ways to say anything
given my taxonomy of utensil drawers
this becomes meat for dehydrated lions
kicked off just inside the doors
that pass for volunteers of occupation
decent forgeries in acts of surprise
would welcome the vaguest smile
to name the specters that aren’t
appropriate for the attention of children
tossed into communal living spaces
in a parable of the inch of blood
it takes to form the resistance of splinters
even though there is no word for farewell
it is clear we both follow our own suns

Apparently, It's a Thing

2011-08-07T16:29:00.000-04:00

this is so last year’s meme
that sunk the memory jugs down
tips of our fingers by anastasi cave paintings
culled from victorian seed catalogs
in a ritual granted by IWW activists
to reacquaint us with attachment parenting
by sending us canned screams of acknowledgement
the kind that killed John Henry
sung by punks to the tune of my reignition
i am a pruned branch sacrificed for fruit
handpicked by the felicity of namesakes
who shouldered the touch of fellowship
confer, o rebels for your last stands
there is joy in life’s hard reset

Correcting the Dinosaurs

2011-07-28T16:18:00.002-04:00

i am being snuffed out
that’s what this occasion bears
with a papa bear full of intentions
they kept the wilhelm scream
dear to the shoot ‘em up children
with desire to impart that old beat
of the time we all came up together
& cried hold over one another
since there is no such thing as a brontosaur
in the carpal tunnels of damaged love
you point to in shrinking maps
of a more convenient decade to have courage
and other unwelcomed confessions
right before I found the antifreeze

That Kind of Day

2011-07-24T16:54:00.002-04:00

but had we seen on your first day, vested in
kind of midwestern winds that shift burden
blankets regions of the hearts and minds
it is a typical season, your low pressure
unresolved into horizons of panic
like foretelling a dry speaking meteorology
to stubborn out on living situations
with your rabbi long forgotten messageless
it is the task of the new proprietors to make
smears of the once loved mother figures
bearded in print to retable the cool kids
it is not what you can do, it is what is easy
in the coffeeless clatches of oven prides
written off faces of bubbles as they shrink

You Say it Like it's a Bad Thing

2011-05-29T01:09:00.001-04:00

for the Rebeccas

it’s that song you traded in my head
since we knew what we were doing
long before my disinheritance dance
as the amaryllis bulb disintegrates
into those last rites of spring
declaims those sophisticated comedies bashed
by patient advocates as they make bike lanes
of four noble truths in the blue light
where i hide in the sports news
holding out for the human room
one moment in nineteen innings to reveal
wait time of those secretes of terrors we rather
not pay off like invoices in the daylight
so we become our own trotskyites

Quotable You

2011-04-06T22:19:00.001-04:00

for Beckah's Birthday
there’s no shortage of dungeon masters
to ally sheedy all over your options
for ninety year old dames trapped
in allustions to flannery o’connor
on a russian winter war novella
i’m a food network superstar
having a glass of red with you
as we map the field of mars
& speak of admiral nelson’s diversions
that forbid certain condiments from the table
or of cures that use the blood of roosters
to howl spontaneous passages
to friendship’s quotable nights out
like doing thriller, only you’re a t-rex

Sweet

2011-04-01T22:13:00.002-04:00

for Lynch

in a comedian’s dream where
there’s an eternal couch back stage
a party is carried with you
as large as grief and celebration
will get up and drag redolent goers
from their private booths without so much
as instructions, you have music in your head
that a community will gather to sing
i read backwards like magazines
memory is a ledger of goodbyes
when all i want is tales without caution
to line up along these winter streets
because there’s no vessel large enough
to hold all our notions of you

Lift

2011-03-20T22:27:00.000-04:00

for Akilah

dear Akilah, there are intermissions
with ruminators who echo in the halls
here, to greet the ancestors with smoke
and pour one out along telephone
lines that hang in the mouths of
kamboucha tea mother cult artists
who function in cups with head shop cards
that tell our fortunes with oversized shirts
who leave themselves in mill workers homes
and aspire to be resistors on our altars
moved to tears as we speak holding and love
for the journeys from isolationist states
to our sons and forbearers thusly in congress
where we light candles, all hail, peace, in solace

Fear of the Dark

2011-02-22T23:53:00.000-05:00

dear tricksters, i am an uncredited event
a pirate novel of phrenology and waves
ransacked from a childhood’s worth
of idioms for sleep deprivation
along a spectrum of specific articles
that end in grave accents
we learn to pronounce in contrast
it’s true, i am afraid of the dark
with fistfuls of grandmotherly warnings
there were many talismans
that ask us for birthday plans
to summon reason from bird wings
our best is every dusk and dawn
cast in substantial fire of opposites

In For a Pound

2011-01-29T11:13:00.001-05:00

this is the paint Joan of Arc would choose
as she surveys tourist maps of Orleans
in flattered aspect ratios as she
visits with doctors in crow-flown acres
it is only on anniversaries we offer
such libations to our tragedies and our departed
in the next seat over we become
invisible to the near dears we
confuse obligations with preference
here at last, the choice of our dailiness
in good we trust the intentions of smiles
ready with blades at fathered betrayals
where absolution is a foregone conclusion
that slips from the bonds of our personal planets

Without Yellow, Without Orange

2011-01-28T22:36:00.000-05:00

the sun don’t make changes
less than the sum of its parts
can carry like a tune in a paper bag
that is the name your love gives you
& is always in the form of a question
that starts today with promises free and clear
of reasons to get you to Pittsburgh
or Lyndhurst or Saint Louis in time
to tell the souls that cross your transom
that is the sentiment of back page bios
it is a calendar of incisions
you read to divide demands that rip
like miro paintings on your pastime

Running in to You

2010-10-30T13:00:00.001-04:00

you are a cartoon character
playing british adaptations of beer pong
claiming the while malaysian ancestry
that surfaces in afrocentric lighting
the respect is worth a fiver & not enough
for this is a city of perfect solutions
on the way to his solitary tavern taking last meals
of the day he walks past ghosts of his present
making memory plays out of childhood
to the sound of the orchard machines pounding
a russian middle age in search of a novacaine
cold comfort for toil of twentysomethings
watching a winter of your turn
when you were so certain it was still summer

The Bones We Inhabit

2010-10-24T22:30:00.001-04:00

i am wrecking my face
with a map of your apartment
it is deer hunter orange
over aluminum slurries of a power base
the substance in which lumberjacks
store their unwanted furniture
for unanswerable admissions policies
that clearly refuse tradition
to underwrite their own grandfathers
in respect to aspects of career
who came along way, baby
just to collapse in grand mal revelations
in a reasonable age who hope to claim

From Other Mothers

2010-08-14T23:44:00.000-04:00

i am a invention childless
for the trees are a kind of faith
with white tingeing beards
i gave my wrenches away for research
to the baby faced union grand
silent disease through a harvest of glass
a hide stretched drum announces
winter counts of your father’s past
times you two in the trench
over the scratch riding of vinyl
sunday with paper and reggae and spliff
woken by the toaster accident
to the only alarm a brother can give
foretold to us on these lucky days

I Have Three Shoes and Only Two Feet

2010-08-06T22:45:00.001-04:00

tuesday morning greets cracked sink
like an oil painting for stories of fathers
this is a stale water audience
yearly in the pines, i matter
slowly to a viennese guilty box
snuffed by films without humor
my eyes cannot stay open
laughable with a jamaican nod
without looking, my neck is a foot rest
a trail for the faithless workforce to follow
mistaken hands that screw too often
worried by the voice of frayed generations
heaped like clothes on the floor
we give this all to the grandfathers to sort

It's Called a Tumbleweave

2010-07-27T23:38:00.000-04:00

left here as undecorated halls
know the skin in this game
but never tell children who anxious,
free, fall waiting with the urge for air
and some day it was accepted speech
punks in the eyes of your sneer
abbreviated by the girls hobbies
that style after your city of choice
capitalizes in the wake of brethren
born in shadows of a superpowers
sure to arrive, but late to the party
either you should know all there is
or shut up and watch the ride

He Doesn’t Speak for Us

2010-06-05T09:51:00.000-04:00

it has come to this
broad street claims its sons
boot & rally a past unflinching
two for one-eyed cars
like new snow on the 64th st. rink
that sleepwalking fragment
of souls who pray for enemies
either way you lean what becomes
chose or you’re in no global position
between us & a lemonade stand
apart from lines of sycamore
injury is more often a dream
who knows bastards are terrorists
as some options may have changed

Exit Strategy

2010-05-23T18:08:00.001-04:00

you talk of going but don't even have a suitcase- John Weiners

it takes more than your handyman’s house
to stop a heart at the stairs
then some elderly rastafarian smiler passes
a sought after woman laughs
at the edge of those bladed vigils
when at ten a.m. it is too early for crumping
up in here to call and respond
to a city that is its own nationality
this is not a farewell address
for the last direct question before
crazy weekends end in sober highway miles
with new names for the rodeo
i am a father who cuts loose his children
and heads for the wilderness

Still Abode of Stones

2010-05-02T18:58:00.001-04:00

you know, polonius was going to die anyway

when he skips roles of do-it-yourself love

to vault faithful flashmobs in time

to translate that leftover scrap of

tongues spoken on peeled bedroom walls

with knives in wait without relations

carves into trees “no matter what, it can stop”

says a voice abducted from the throat

it is the joy of watching them go

tumbleweeds to the paired courses

that tear petty countries in two

lest we fear the break, we collide

systems of bodies downsized and retried

like the swing of neck watching tennis

Flirted

2010-04-02T16:23:00.001-04:00

with you, all my minor obsessions
restrain unready epoch-makers
never once thought: why build?
here in a room full of too many saws
it’s the teeth that fit the job that sates
not far from the edge of your laugh
alone, it’s the love of old lions
who wonder whom to follow
with no instinct left to hunt
not every tread of grass is a path
the way ancestry is laid out for
first triangles carved on the chin
not every line becomes a box
if today is a good time to close

I am so Happy to Finally be Home

2010-03-20T21:19:00.000-04:00

for C.G.

not that we get to choose our addictions
popping relevancies on the table
when you have to save the galaxy
it is easier to name in pairs
with television pilot uncommon matches
in the transmission from the mother laptop
the kingdom of cognition is within
the russian of the seventies is a variety show
and the hallelujah chorus is the daisy bell
set to watch thirty minutes of singular breath
in a loop of what it’s worth strikes deep
into lines of recycling demands and
is subject of this sonnet
what the predicate says he does

Flirt

2010-03-18T23:18:00.000-04:00

gone through it all with that catch
it’s a fear i can’t stop
call it a sage response to flight
suddenly like edges of skin mix
with metal banking colleagues know
sells the everyman kitchen floors
and bigger crimes choke of memory
it’s like karma’s buyer’s remorse
this is a bad idea- i’m out
sharp acts follow climbs on unbrave trees
now that we speak about this openly
smoking the while a mirror of me
disregard the damned clocks
i guess i am just not ready

Bad Dog

2010-02-21T20:32:00.000-05:00

if it can be built, it can move
a few feet to hide on the farm
where bad dogs of carpentry hold
retainers of the disappeared
in a whisper, who shutter to admit
over the shoulder, no one’s there
as incomplete a thought as a flirt with
unreadied forces of folk music
it’s a sound of howard zinn rebelling
free will, this is a new congregation
mixed with offerings from the blood
of the tree that we are supposed to
arrive at this conclusion of acceptance
after a few generations of creditors

The Handy Carnivore

2010-01-24T22:06:00.000-05:00

canines likes these like chances
heavy in mahogany cigar rooms
we jest better pastry chefs
just enough to allow some truth
that quaint words still take bite
routineless flirting of ends
never learned to be sneaky
as they try to pass chestnut carriers
afraid whales will get on them
in the sharp ocean where children
connect to slowly for harm’s way
become shepherds & not nice guys
forgetful warriors who learn to grin
at all this around us that ages

Story of My Life

2010-01-01T18:53:00.000-05:00

there’s never enough numbers
in dreams, accounting or dances
we are poor so safe from squander
pass in public jamaican dayplanners
full of old boots on the ground
i was there, so it’s true
before we compete for light in the sky
rage will live with rages
to spite ten or twenty anniversaries
corks undone three thousand or so feet up
with gloved keys or factories of invention
the only plot is nurturing
by nature of my gross enabler
fabled fate for the king of mice

Everything’s a UFO Until You Know What it is

2009-12-13T21:15:00.000-05:00

on the soundtrack to the inflight movie
there are love notes to your mentors
& someone else’s stack of maxims
so shake the foot; handle it
tell them this is not a buddy film
dumped for jesus on holiday
by orthography of anglican abductees
who can never agree on tenses
this is indeed the end of the bender
part of the seminar where you lose
track of filial complaints and notions
of things that i love torn apart by
crowds at the outside table at Jonny Manana’s
thrown to the factory of the sky

With the Tumbling Tumbleweeds

2009-10-25T16:06:00.000-04:00

they say this about mountains

in schools stacked like shelter systems

that pass america so small

to chase debt from the clouds

keep the faith just outside the line

of uncollapsable highwaysides in film

wire in my day to keep touch

by smoking checkers with dimes

free men up in old nine mile

caretakers since the tween years

play with no mention of choice

treaties that keeps the casinos

in the first warmth of burnt dust

on the path of autumn prairie wind

Where’s the Arsonist When You Need Him?

2009-10-17T01:49:00.002-04:00

for Chris

like we learned these strokes
brush to find the use of paper
we lost fires, anger and revolution
in a unit of prayer that
scratches like a sunday morning lp
in the dissembled present living room
our nobler occupations around us
that would never stand before
in the bowing culture that found us
it’s the unexpected smoke that wakes
and becomes part of the family
busy with need for stolen flame
we waited too long in our connection
now it’s time to light this tinder

Tinker’s Damn

2009-10-16T23:31:00.001-04:00

this town has ears of hens
beside stones in his mouth
and proof of the first noble truth
mary bloom goes on without you
as the taste of malt vinegar
wretches the petty thieveries
of good old greeks and irishmen
married to marx and freud
to buried wives who retell & retell
i am a repetition of bones
broken deliveries in earth paint
scrawled advice your teachers gave
but only remember as some old joke
that places us here in this tavern

Breakfast in Philadelphia

2009-08-29T14:00:00.001-04:00

it’s a matter of simple physics
like how starbucks in august history towns
questions broke weeks of blue shirted
men with godfather hats and cigarettes
plume the already smog and forgotten
keys on mocking workstations lead to
our escape plans with b’s of subtly
that spill mercury during tropical storm season
and then you wake up that guy
with the joke about the light bulb
anticipating lobster rolls on monday
here with oatmeal cup on unrecognized street
reminiscing the flat irons under skyscrapers
for once knowing here where we are is not so bad

Donkey Lovin’

2009-07-26T23:18:00.000-04:00

for Lyons

pitched eyes texted in blond perfect
vision of a shifted southern driver made
an ass of me on one evening of wet dreams
at the stroke of seven lucky waitresses
who garnish the wine goblets of heroes
here i am beside the fence and a sand pit
for a-ha revelations of brazilian records
out of compass that sidles up to our character
in tremors of never circling crowds
runs in the climbing youth who wants
in to green comparisons of west commences
hits on the memory that this business lies
in the laughter that surprises our honesty
translated blessings under this rehearsal

For the Filipino Wearing a Thriller Jacket at Market Street East

2009-07-19T17:19:00.002-04:00

summer is a selfsame spark of teenagedness
pepsi accident running one minute late anew
it is old gossip we have in common
that recession proves nothing is worth safety
in defense of high fructose corn syrup
when they speak of iraq in new jersey
they reveal david copperfield’s fiancé
messed up with babies doomed
to repeat the serial crimes of their children
real thug, on the corner waiting for eagles
while brazilian barbecue wafts through dover
on highways with renegade television motorcycles
to prophesize there aint no butter in heaven
to loosen our birthday wishes for a world of wonder

Funny Boy

2009-06-20T18:16:00.001-04:00

For Jimmy

part of the palate old mannish
that’s the may of music industry
failure of the kidneys in whiteness
manners under privileged wagons
awrapped in cheap blankets widowed
by that angry generation of the stolen
organs that are connected to elements
how inhumane we die of lack of neighbors
absorbed anew in a stationless blue
i’ve screwed a muse or two
but never in the dark of the business day
repaired by the careful animation of roadkill
the best of our own circles and why we are here
if that’s what you want, funny boy

I Never Could Get the Hang of Thursdays

2009-05-31T23:55:00.002-04:00

not still enough to front the storm
a too familiar scent of altoids and beer
hangs the rye anniversary with Dave
real man full of trouble here in Philly
on tender hooks in radio silence
kills the aliens, the little man in the room
for what i did for half-erased billboards
that commute sentences from 50 or 85 years
those mechanics of clairvoyant cartographers
there is no lastly in the resurrected city
payment is due before that drink is over
and like any professional, take time to stretch
because in a former life, i took your money
i still know what to hold close to the chest

When the Laugh Track Starts

2009-05-13T15:45:00.001-04:00

sour hour starts here on cue
drenched in april diminished
returns an east coast survival match
to one career too many of statistics
sometimes it’s our job to hold
hands of the dying on trains
those smartest men who left stationless
we fit in to public spaces
at risk or proving ourselves free
in a future redundant with Hamlets
not enough ghosts to keep us
anodyne with civil unions untold
pacts with devils in unflattering light
when radio is on, then the fun starts

The More You Know

2009-04-25T12:34:00.000-04:00

like any breaks on the jesus wagon
is not to remember bust lines of praise singers
with rucksacks of gen-x-ers who employ
100 monkeys who write “it’s not you, it’s me”
to be cut like a rival gown out of glam curtains
under kliegs that bring to light this city’s challenger
of unpopular romance culminated in the nineties
that harken to bone dust in my pill bottle
a shade of manic merlot on a morning commute
who can remember to spring forward?
in my defense it was the chinese grocers
who feign interest in major league sports
and stand crooked as an englishman’s teeth
against the loneliest parts of the day

Because I am the Tortoise

2009-04-12T15:41:00.001-04:00

at risk the gloved little girls
roll geometrically suburban halls
untold by lesser arcana reversed
to ends stuck in this dust bowl
while an automatated seventh calvary
shoots at audiences of everyday plumbers
who keep their technology ornamental
in broken records of first baseball games
we are botanists when the sun comes up
busy reasoning under nine mile cedar shade
no one should be blamed for survival
what is lost in migration is found in photo albums
past the tourist tests in august mankind
we converse with the spirits of campfires

This Wasn’t in the Brochure

2009-03-26T21:21:00.001-04:00

once past february, catholic sex has
too much detail to be in midwestern states
under clearest light in eastern philosophy
where city is now an adjective
to have a diet, caffeine-free coke with you
out flower picking in the xeriscape garden
speechless with rock and rye in hand
where she fingered the illegals & loved
to explain what it is to have a donkey
to jean valjean & his clockwork children
who post their fantasy truths on the net
in earnest efforts for world unity
to palm the invisible cool hundred
dressed in their best johnny cash

Future Hazy, Try Again

2009-03-16T22:04:00.001-04:00

life in the back row is past related
to dancers that fancy trauma sisters
where they count pieces of blood
in latin from a sampling of sequoia
that i am bound to donate like it’s a tithe
when skin alters into dragonlike feng shui
only to find a jar of salmon and old scarves
in yearbooks of times i chose to give up
from pink admissions of the working class
on paperwork meant to be read by 4th graders
who run away in the independent cinema
busted, like exploitation in the 1970s
cut in two to be sewn with ceremony
one foot on the boards, one foot in the book

Only One Kind of Blues

2009-03-09T17:51:00.001-04:00

sound like shoulders for the yoke
love & a case of small batch bourbon
grows like mint in small spaces
regulated by tiny blue cynics
civic leaders wish to screw like poor
starlets in california’s fin de siècle
there can never be just one song
with fifty two percent of the world
so my front window never locks
winter is a cold, rough feel of our luck
these new dealers on the dance floor
fear silence that morning wind relates
clever like thieves but without the patience
smash my windshield & never get to change

So, Bad for You is Good

2009-03-01T23:51:00.001-05:00

actually weighed against a feather
for unkind televisions on the east coast
character assassinates better hipsters
of the brain children left to riot squads
licking wounds, american style
like action flicks with hijacked vehicles
this backstory in vain a pond of obvious
that heavy machines chew with lies
easy is never as like sunday mornings
that learn to kneel after cowardly acts
absolved to tired new englandish wicked
tossed out of amsterdam for failing language
it’s the title of your autobiography
as long as we don’t have to think about it

His Kung Fu

2009-02-25T15:00:00.001-05:00

and this ten day stint he passes
amongst friends, calls dry glass
pain is familiar but not the memory
digs an almost untrue advisor
where natural nurses inside us move
to choreography for snowblind faculties
left between family and wooden trains
coated gentry as a dickens village
in the last chair for papa bear
too late for screams; too early for stars
mistakes us for youth in our interruptions
like how blue is a color at rest
that grow the volunteer class in america
unafraid to hurt for this work

Couldn’t Have Said it Better

2009-02-18T14:10:00.000-05:00

finish what i started this
is under negotiable backdrops
this condition of weathermen
against other people’s burdens
so unlike sacrificed rooms smoking
disappeared down nine mile canyon
those were tangled in mechanics shops
before the thought of tumbleweeds
that trip along unpaved roads
who never occur to name this picture
anyway, i have no use for my throat
as a big-bellied southern singer
to me in black and white cinema
without gods in a silent error

Rocket Science

2009-02-12T22:48:00.003-05:00

monday starts a guilty moon
at the suggestion of misplaced
land grabs that silent partners
waiting in the mono-hued rooms
strike positions of rocket scientists
here to dream of random confessions
in childhood we are all chemists
that poets occupy spaces of our police
we are sentenced to more than life
united, we stroll streets like francophiles
when february winds corrupt winter
broken industries leave theory to the dogs
let loose to my practice of sitting
with six words to explain myself

Here We Go

2009-01-21T17:30:00.000-05:00

like so often brothers of missed epistles
rumors of three visits always at night
those were wrecking crew ghosts
back from the days of foot tapping
give me those electricity blues
in the spirit of post-holiday connection
again time trails in happy color changes
this is the fun crowd in 1995
where john lee hooker for nobody
but the cat, the dog and the kitchen
business is a hearth word
when names are all that is left us
we count winter beside road maps
with flat tires we cross here before

This is my Typewriter, There Are Many Like it

2009-01-09T19:19:00.000-05:00

repetition is good for the fluids
hazes come over and tell me is
to get through robot faux pas
down the jungle of likewise blenders
look at fragments in line for a denver train
after chemical option period resurrects
flannel habits that found new starters
acrons burnt in the laser light home
welcome bonfire night of my vows
take undisappeared youth in cities
who set fire to timbers of the ship
against the stronghold of my lucky number
in mystery rings through the house
without which i am nothing

That Drink on Arch Street

2009-01-04T16:37:00.001-05:00

like promises become recurring jokes
composed on line of sight values
so ambiguous that company
loves to commiserate
there was once such a beer
that folk songs were composed to
never mix histories, never worry
with a bros fixation on fire
the difference between empty and full
polices secret parking with zero tolerance
when independence came to a halt
cry, absolve your assassins
all that was left in tea cup
was how we decide this should end

Fish Out of Water

2009-01-03T17:16:00.000-05:00

ok, lancaster avenue, let’s do this
my eyes are time sensitive
wary of the age of communication
to arise in inappropriate spaces
that pay no attention to accuracy
here, my words should lie
out of bonds from chairman mao
on the road that monks fermented
schooldays spike memory of jackets
on the street and back in the hall
unraveled sense of appellation
like watching a game at home
in the middle like crepuscular predators
ready to repeat the name of the game

Birthday Sonnet

2008-12-30T16:04:00.001-05:00

the letter i never sent prefaces
one week prior to astrologer’s debates
over fortunate outlooks unnecessary
in the $752.97 of moderation’s son
crayon and paper hands holding
on this sentimental drive back home
is splinters that dissolve or emerge
new trees of recycled material
caught in perpetual teaching moments
she says another fucking growth experience
torn by anthropology and age limits
that never speak of tough matter
she says good vintage here of soil mechanics
promises to get better at correspondence

Meadowlands Sonnet #1.2

2008-12-29T15:35:00.000-05:00

because meadowlands blonds
are to one p.m. bar lunch crowds
as pizzerias are to the arabs
we drive in tightly industrial corridors
under late uttering russians
who overflow silk this chemical river
for local access television crews
and their need to flash at us
with regular chinese food calendars
from dawn reads my year in service
stolen school days as horse traders
bet the last race of my unlucky year
with grace enough to get by in these
times to tell of sensitive materials

Seasonal Affected Sonnet

2008-12-22T14:43:00.002-05:00

weather is more underground

as found in central american cures

dependent on ancient interpretations

of ways of the plant kingdom

secured on earth as destiny

call it a judeo-christian pastime

to write favors on longest nights

that appear on menus of secret caterers

frida kahlo was a bonfire

no computer could find a match

that overrides common sense fiction

here it is a gift of seven generations

deferred improvisations on final scenes

we are all butch and sundance at the canyon

Track Four Revelations

2008-12-02T10:31:00.000-05:00

because i watched venus and jupiter

part the rain in perfect time

to chant victories over electronic parts

of math in institutional trades

he invests like ball game scores

old white ladies attend on the a.m. dial

that keeps johnny walker blue

past the supercuts and food chains

is there room in your mythos?

to stop bobbleheads from surfacing

in mimicry of musculature of the neck

arise and be free in the sea of anonymity

with calls of barbers in marble station

arch & hunch emancipated by night mysteries

You are Alone in Your Kitchen

2008-11-29T21:51:00.002-05:00

i’ve known pirates to be chefs

as steam rolls us over

network sensors who mix up

second life for plus nature

humans are prone to specific gravity

in little boats familiarly tug

strings of our labeled mattresses

less wound by weeds

that puns at the corner table

glad resources in reverse

for career gals made italian

by re-homed yellow jackets

plant again martini husbandry

whose mission is for epicures

The Good Parts Version

2008-11-24T10:53:00.002-05:00

hold of moves to new zealand

while we hope in posters

that group hugs find new parades

under besieged municipalities

give or take one billion less

obeys like the giants posse

that pops in manhattan

where it’s lost on jersey shore

in humbleness of thief weddings

where salmon chanted evenings

on bluebirds hidden by fences

irregulars reply with undeserved

chances to fill fourteen flaws

to bluff their way north

Night Moves

2008-11-22T11:14:00.000-05:00

funny how questionless sons
working on dead gregorians
snows grace on top of calamities
truckless, poised to sneak outside
where guerillas are behind curtains
gestureless, sleeps it off
but, regret is your artistry
silencing charlie brown morning
that duty is so spanish
to pair with red table wine
bereft of morality tales
are contents of my refrigerator
of substance with weakness
open how the night moves

No Such Thing as Mondays

2008-11-14T10:19:00.000-05:00

this is more november
breath is waiting commute
behind tricks of little people
call them old technologies
a lost generation fond of drink
on used parts of eulogies
that resist invitation
when philadelphia is on fire
under changeless bowls of dust
so the threatening letters say
with the body of bob ross
awakens joints of the armies
there is a sweatshop five floors up
& a bar on every corner

Midnight Reading Jackson Square

2008-11-11T00:07:00.000-05:00

let’s pay the city stars
absinthe left at midnight
cups as keys this year
medaled as courage calculates
three north, four east
ambles distracted crowds
that futures on milk crates
partial love of fine things
goes with new broken deals
never write your name to
these tokens of land use
yes there is that singularity
of feminine wilderness climbs
stone streets in place of arms

Chicory Mid-October Morning

2008-11-10T22:58:00.000-05:00

wall of earth is sunken

story out of doors

famously here leaves clouds

for rivers to sit and have coffee

now refined stormy weathers

where callers lead us every damn place

we go in unacquainted territories of

very much alive resistors

with greening hymns of aristocracy

you are used to bitter mornings

touched in tin-clad wooden

indians barely in their nickels

to beat this dime game

Five Fingered Discount

2008-10-18T13:01:00.002-04:00

pumpkin pie martinis & familial toasts
so forgotten marbled centaurs
it's just a big mess any how
with soft-bellies & plastic cups
this reunion of disregarded suspects
is a 1950's of unclassified acquaintances
that read too much classic postures
gotten away with his one secret love
but tonight is a mephis allegory
that kid of board footed painting
green with ten year old discovery
your turn again in passing games
that today is a gone civilization
ruled by gods of memory loss

I like Intimate Criminals

2008-10-05T23:59:00.000-04:00

you thought this was cinco de mayo
thin-veiled lemons in little water
under rubric of fake volumes
fill lists for dissatisfied citizenry
get out of my family language
searched in electronic generations
for hard-won libraries of taxonomy
it was never proven to be hoax
this is skin touched with finality
in the savagery of cried myth
since memory is empty of true names
after we came in and dropped coin
loudly drowned in party atmospheres
suddenly saturday to hold your ears tight

When We Listen to Hockey Moms

2008-10-02T23:20:00.001-04:00

i learned the truth at seventeen
god loves a working economy
darn gone in the mystic down
in water women’s throats drown
mispronounce those mavericks of
exeptionialism in new reckoning
i heard the blood of folksy smirks
destined to manifest from reformation
shout out across straits of melting ice
when counts one man and one woman
lonely planets of dust bowl truckers
circle eugenic stars of nuclear families
on our side this paranoid surging sea
stemmed on the sands of believers

I'll Show You Mine

2008-09-25T18:43:00.001-04:00

seriously this spans my head
for days with painkiller siblings
lost that very charge that brought
him thus far on urban living
& millionaires take their bailouts
in lands where there is never enough
capital art feeds the dogs to explode
like games decisions disappear in
if i trust you to do this for me
or the bargain is laid on charnel
grounds for references to skinny ties
there are holes individuals come to admire
absences that cost nothing singular
silences that scares the codetalkers
to open you babble playtime songs
at the risk of truer parts showing

Explanations

2008-09-11T22:38:00.001-04:00

for Christopher

my correspondence is behind
a kettle that will be undelivered
adding satisfied but unfinished
rooms or really just the one
that holds the house at bay
hours there, ours wherever
that click for another wintertime
pictures are better than trust
your brothers count as armies
in the days that we made camp
so fire follows us to safehouses
hidden in the smoke and dew
damn, happy occasions keep us
gathering this mouth precious litany

Everybody Remember Where We Parked

2008-09-07T23:46:00.000-04:00

in stacks in hand, awake
blink & i remember questions
began with one word
painkillers wrote acknowledgements
solved with smoke under our colors
welcome cold into our lungs
to pray before the mood altar
in thin air, i was skinnier
closer to the lake, night admits
crack straight into my jaw
better living through astronomy
what to do when it leaks
in the company of cell phones
i am less interested in the answers

I am not Going to Listen

2008-08-21T10:14:00.001-04:00

monday here tastes of macadam
for the good looking suicides
personal secretaries turn thier iphones
toward many virtual complaint desks
this is a spell for peace and calm
who knows a cool dip three miles up
who knows why the blue rose left
silly rhymes in the wake of modern talk
jest is the truest of proclamations
that are inventions of the obvious
when the balloon animals pop
place is what i am most sure of
in my chair waiting for the planes

This is My Rifle

2008-08-18T10:59:00.002-04:00

those are the words that start
i should know, i was there
like adjacent souls of nonbelievers
all they can do is twitch in their shoes
foolish of unreleased summer
all night in the kitchen problem plays
under worried paper lodges
burning the best parts of the moon
when a year on the farm team
apply those fifty storytellers
to our filial connection with the stars
that are serious students of vanities
reach summits in the cabinless present
tense with jackets on cool tile floors

Midnight Dice Game Rolling

2008-08-10T23:36:00.002-04:00

hey, thunders come on their own
despite cries involved in frog song
under mammatus involvements
this meadow is a texas arm chair
take refuge in the forth generation
like all east coast volunteers
in our true hollywood stories
it is nineteen ninety seven all over us
but then who else is left to care
forty thieves carry all tomorrow
with lonely women in race riots
counting joints on her fingers
in what cigar smoked oracles
call the one, the one with certainty

Baby Bear Blues

2008-08-08T12:07:00.002-04:00

someone’s an interrupted account
in a big wait of the uninvited
sense in color control geography
those day job considerations
or we’d all be market analysts
so says the fifteen year mark
it’s dispatch of heavier fragments
of men who were active memory
end games for correct possession
those just molded faces that succeed
under crash of ponderosa tree waves
lifting divinations for unafraid poor
that watch the tumble weed smile
again, it laughs and topples, again

Battle I Find

2008-08-06T23:38:00.000-04:00

older than strokes of luck
tried hands hold drum for
broken buddy through corners
it is the stop that gets to you
strikes close to breakfast together
the day we left for albuquerque
starts with the same prayer
the suck that smoke takes now
at war in the sides of the skull
down to four drawn cards
where three differently angry men
wait at the mouth of suburban waters
here, in the only brave act left
crash in the race to meet the sky

July 4, Lyndhurst

2008-07-27T11:37:00.000-04:00

over thewater on soaked nights
& this city is carpet bombed
in second sight of siblings
where fortune is us here, moon
crowded in the visitors room
with festivals of ukranians on fire
that cigar smoke vanquishes
these ganeshas from the cabin
of my own heart buried
deep in the black hills pine
to love like childhood condition
i am wrapped in concerned weather
& lost sixteen miles of adulteration
on the way to the next powwow

Your Own Time, Child

2008-06-08T12:54:00.000-04:00

for kings there are too many moves
that advance before the stopwatch
paper about today it burns hope
at the feet of unidentified charity
these are away messages
on the run from mid-lives
we are medea’s children
playing nearer my god on deck
fortune tellers that shuffle cards
to chase stomachs down hallways
in aspersion to the financial sector
this land is covered in bad debt and
is a hunting ground for new translation
it is without champions at close of season

Snows at Easter

2008-06-04T00:39:00.001-04:00

breath is warm in december
we first stand still and do nothing
for that warble of complaints
i was told this would be music
of untender deeds of adolescence
silent as braves in their scouting
that color outside the lines
until we are perfect storms
together overpainted lessons
of boots at fire season home life
buried in unanswered voice mails
that crack thunder in limitless sky
ten year old argument fades speechless
when the sun our help again

Time Lies

2008-05-10T08:10:00.000-04:00

when you walk with purpose
the ritual empty space is seated alone
no chances but in the second third
it adds up to real money
enough for the food chain
to voodoo down in trickled seeds
that grow the last damnations
hope we meet in the first light
strange to be models of ambition
with ambivalent eyes cast on
prizeless games that alice made
legitimate in what were too few trips
it’s awkward, back, adolescent & dances
this is a giant person, do not bother

At the Crack Beef Place

2008-05-07T00:31:00.000-04:00

not to loose common affects
trade deaths in the family
for love our drunken rubicon
crossing bodies too precious
for double images and traitors
that guess at carnival stations
to read left over fortunes
laid on the floor of the sanctuary
you will inherit wisely
first, your hair is reunification
unit of causes change to overcome
surprise by pink of time deficits
like a house swappers dreams
in a market of near collapses

Perhaps

2008-04-01T00:56:00.001-04:00

Happy Birthday, B.

then it was hometown tourism
sunday cooking in motown kitchen
flag shops, old cities, asian markets
buttresses fly to the ivy to erudite
name calling as historical context
it is a public speaking laughter
ridiculous engagements of men who
sing like women and women who
what was never said about new york
what you way in stones foresees the
mistaken otherness of true aliens
it is art that admonishes not us
silence we speak in spinning class
of absentees and run away names

Poem for V (‘s birthday)

2008-03-12T01:59:00.000-04:00

Everybody’s got a little light under the sun
-Parliament

yes, who can measure time
that saturn live symphony shakes
booty around the dog star
has it water cooler patience
true believer in breakfast foods
what part of the day i say
shiftwork is light to read by
both endings of dirty novels
mouth born of black coffee
hands me down songbooks of
snow lions covered in long pillows
it’s the house where funked lyric
celebrates those nineties on muralled walls
it’s enough poetry to voice the late DJ

How ‘bout Them Apples

2008-03-11T14:58:00.001-04:00

then two trains latter and i
mariachi singer at the forties
monday to friday hourly relates
in tempo changes that porter
tunes in crystal tube radio hobbies
or in counseling we awkward
robots with unpretty dates
‘tis your silent witness here
that rises early in smoke
stand on any moving object
is that faces make me hurt
and force countdowns when
home along oil down dust roads
it’s spring and all we misplace

Cocktail Hour

2008-03-10T00:00:00.002-04:00

Pictures came and broke your heart.
-Trever Horn
for Brahm

4:23, when it is cheese, beer and coffee
how serious are our occupations
who took them in illness, youth
and no longer out of benders
man, no longer are we slashes
those points of struggle in used cars
that took us to sweetgrass and charged
over the hill to that fight we stuck with
when interfered by cellular technologies
we are left children who rattle and smoke
who believe magic boxes and broken rides
past the midnight of our responsibilities
who fake romance with still beaten smiles
at end happy with gifts of what had been

The Spanish Lover

2008-03-09T23:27:00.001-04:00

sunday is an empty cup by noon
there a leafed through copy left
of everything in a scary movie
it is a dance of chickens once more
whose russian bosses give noise
to promises of one day of rest
in foreign, it is easy to be taken in
to give over and boy scout on
with rumors that it is the business
here in summer she sips the kool-aid
it is points of tongue that occur
when citrus tastes old in march
perform faster to memorize her side
in the end, only our winters matter

Wins the Race

2008-02-17T22:31:00.001-05:00

now in salt figures it is told
between lines of the border
with arms i watch him walk
west of our invention
get it done in divisionless labor
or spare the time of quiet game
and to be professed at failure
in the old ways it was true
to be of service on roads of
choices like somehow we learn
occupation in our heart’s revolt
gave anthem to unvoiced history
here, any decision to make it seems
here like not other way should be

Sonnet For My Jaw

2008-01-18T23:32:00.000-05:00

1986, i am a pointless secret agent
silently that kidnaps off sands
what riot of only brown power
too close to draw from memory
i don’t like the way this sounds
that pirates could have blamed
for texting a function of twenties
it’s true, they congregate guiltlessly
and sure to bring a wingman
this is an accused vocabuary
that did this to me in atari
in a lifetime that yearns to faint
at any one word that comes
to us in the guise as days of service

Broke Even

2008-01-06T15:49:00.000-05:00

in this video my class of men
not yet sepia before new decades
what is the last car of our
bachelordom on bamboo screens
all the way half on electricity
holiday recasts his autobiography
this is the sad part of hope city
ten chips down slaps the wheel
it sounds so much more polite
to put lady in front of your terms
womanly at the bottom on the ocean
true believers end their discussions
that outcome is empty gold bird
that twists blades of light on our backs

And Now History

2007-12-31T15:21:00.001-05:00

in the burn of bay leaves
those coals women keep
suggests safety of entry
to hear how you landed
it is mint and soda water
tossed back to clean throats
for dust once touched hands
reenacts what was has origin
follow but never care to speak
those that the winds are relevant
nod to crowd it is good that you
came here and place is my time
i come with letters never sent
read and then we will talk

Clark Gable

2007-12-28T12:45:00.000-05:00

i’ve heard this before
met a closing department store
where we left our movie
careers as hearts of gold
like prayers put in newspapers
once a silver voice is over
at times still strike three
& scales my grays for you
in structures of second chances
whose certainty of past
not like a stone but like a fire
catches in the santa clara
focused here to witness
the last work i will ever do

I’m Afraid I Can’t do That

2007-12-16T15:43:00.001-05:00

this is another pennied december
& machines that remember ozone
clean our rent in kitchen light
perhaps dearest geek sputters
old science is more voodoo
what was rose to our speech
is blue light therapy to me now
to conserve argues common sense
if my spirit initiates from clay
all disappearances in czechoslovakia
are here in the great grain storage
where mamma continent speaks
in comfort and immaculate turning
we have the need for more grace

A Miracle Happened There

2007-12-08T23:31:00.000-05:00

and they heard some noise
like any saturday morning
joy and separation of lovers
at the end of roads in rome
there’s terrific parting gifts
with fictitious travelogues
helen was never out of paris says
your popular website infatuation
duchamp was made of streetwalkers
it was never just dammed water
that made mistrustful believers
of the companions of father christmas
the very model of our drunkard
out of place in the land of tomorrow

Mother if Another

2007-12-02T10:34:00.000-05:00

for kari

o blast furnace, o taxonomy, o pharmacy
you reborn world flood mythology
added on yellow paper to collage nouns
that sentences admit being afraid of
once divided labor this aboriginal dance
utopias expelled by awkward robots
is careful articles in colonial sculpted city
it was your past in my present that made
today in unfair years go by unpainted
righteous regulations in ritual of podcasts
me the electronic mother of true temper
for a lullaby without just more traffic
what that word was left only artifact
memory teat tonight i breathe with you

We are Beggars Ourselves

2007-12-01T14:49:00.001-05:00

here is the party of historical queens
answers by post-bellum house tales
behind doors of tribal scarring bleed
another song on three ships tells
zero scores without surprise
it is said never turn around
the soul is antique & mouth born
ready for fight or flight by scapula
that twist and grind under nighttime
consider it is what mice announce
slight sourness every kitchen returns
to anger and is left as body function
two in the morning crawls cotton mouthed
from which is a voice unsatisfied by quiet

Luck As Falls

2007-11-22T23:33:00.000-05:00

i am famous then
too afraid to make guesses
when this object theatre
is conditions of luck
or that do not occur to me
would act as ice breakers
for squat city pilgrims
as if acts of charity defy us
i am panic in religion
poverty of this gambling song
that marches passed oligarchs
games that whistle the days when
monarchs of our wronged scenes
silent, return to cold climates

My So-Called Sonnet

2007-11-07T23:26:00.000-05:00

for B.

this room has only one door
& a theory has everyone in deathtraps
to tell me that woman is an egress
that absconds with measuring spoons
whose oldwives programs start
at ten, & we watch the stories
live richly as earringed dowagers
where a typist brought a class action
correcting the opiates in a shame
to dismiss chivalries of teenagers
now you know the true rockies
that exit peoria, and the bay area
that was never leaving but going
in as many disposable migrations

Stop and Ask for Directions

2007-10-19T11:13:00.000-04:00

i will forgot the name Alison
it’s a problem when adapting
her visit to the bar was apparent
lost connection that is second sight
veteran nose bends toward books
in a new reaction to illumination
to a family who will never read this
with a sense of twelve turned backs
our occupations in the old country
that have no electronic calendars
is the unsettled arrival of winter
one month returns to empty houses
we are so accustomed to old pains
these are things we fail to notice

Something I’ll Start Tomorrow

2007-10-14T21:16:00.000-04:00

time to hear of last year’s saw
if my teeth took whitening product
from the mouths of passengers
that barter for health food saturdays
in nests of unintentional fathers
eyes stitched to our manuscripts
we are japanese bound revelators
that depend on afternoon coffee
butterflies of our favorite immigrants
it is diana durbin with arm on head
that pressures us into another drink
& toast while we make eye contact
it is green and amber everywhere
remarkable in a city without zoos

The Year We

2007-09-05T12:22:00.000-04:00

outlying states about them
there is always ceremony
knowing what we know
it’s a prophecy of sound
insomniacs with stenograph books
read through cracked mandibles
which are sonic organs under sea
that change our self-mapped lands
between us the closing of doors
that call to gather at tourist centers
convinced of faulty positions
even your meteorology professes
photographs of signs of the road
for trackers without communion

Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

2007-08-19T17:03:00.001-04:00

two hundred-three dollars mid-august
cried for luck this bourbon contribution
of next steps, some rings, baby names
& the western slope which is burning
and the one plays it out in lonely wind
for taciturn gods in full opera voice
just back from gathering folks
in stoic imaginations of the neighbors
police calls through rainy sundays
who makes this ratio of yin and yang
five years and misplaced address book
for our only meetingplace is these events
thunderless when you are entertainers
we hold the fire back for you to cross