Autumn Memory

It is strange when you talk about zucchini
because we have bigger fish to fry.
Life is switching over
like holograms of hell
down your hallways.
Memories slow down
come back to redefine you.
Fall is the season of memory.
Dreams are falling one by one
and soon we'll be thankfully trapped
in the down arms of winter,
stringing lights like flashing wishes
knotting bows of fortune.

Monster Revolution

Come in with your mask and black eyes
and wish me disaster
and thrash the silver blade towards me,
right at my neck line.
Strengthen the brashness in your voice
and your handcuffs, make it all sincere.
Take the rope,
Take my hands like the twines of time.
And when I say no, don't listen because
I have difficulty with humor.
When I ask for the gentleness of your hand
there is only the sunrise ahead of us
and the revolution of innocence,
but what does a monster know about that.

Knees

Cool air of Saturday to sweep
spider legs toward the breeze.

Cool air of souls at rest
to whisper soothing sleep.

Sweet air of anticipation
offers ache in the knees.

Bitch erupts

Oh no, she is fired up
raging for the reckless dream
a future to plunge into memory
a bloody prom, a first kiss.

The nothings that are left
are spewing like dust
dripping down a skyline.

She is bitching for the itch
of the imaginary better.

Oh more, where are you
you wild excess like butter
lip gloss after a bag of popcorn?

Long drive to think of it all.
Long drive to keep desperation
for the new word I haven't learned
to pronounce. New, brand-spanking-new.

Full of Stones

Remembering ourselves is the worst we can do.
Leave yourself next to the coffee machine,
in the disposal where you can be chewed up and swallowed.

There isn't anything new in the recall
of last week's tornado, except the consequence
of wind on those things you called yours.

Instead of twirling up inside, just keep on
walking, skipping, making the happy trail forward.
Let your heart be light, even if it is full of stones.

Gory Ego

Today, my ego is all bludgeoned
Sunday night massacre
Friday night to do, gone bloody blue

Ego, used to be all fancy pants
all loop dee doo
Now, she is feeling the turn of the screw.

This year's ego burns down escape routes
She is dragging her left over limbs
towards you.

Will any notice the flies that flew?
Will I find my top hat after this kaboom?

Quiet Margaritaville

They are right
about highwires
and marshmallows.
They disappear
in your throat
when you look up.

The dead are tired
of helicopters dancing
along the outskirts
of heaven.
God let the volcano
kaboom, so he could
get a nap, so he could
hear himself think
for a damn minute.

I empathize
with the bowl of beans
exploding in the micro.

They are right
about highwires
being nonexistent
in Margaritaville.
I think I will live there.

Hat and Heart

We are stamping the no, no no
into our heart, heart, heart.

but today air clears through clatter
but today death is just another hat
we try on.

Makeup Superheroes

So, my face melts its youth
and if a gutter were near
I'd throw in this black heart smear.

Dear rouge you keep me sane,
Dear rouge,
you are falling
from a highwire.

Ground comes rushing
crash, boom, bang.
Superheroes, pencil me in.

Taste

We have been visited, kissed. Look
at the lipstick evidence. Even I know
the consequence of dreaming.
Elevators drop, the world is clear
and we can eat strawberries again,
taste again with the first tongue.

Sail like a kiss
like the fog
through the pasture
indefinitely looking
back at how your road
bent through your years

Breath the sea air
and deeply. You inhale
without the weight,
you can hear us whispering
to you in the wind
murmuring, as if through
a thin wall.

We wave to you, speak
softly to you at night
through our tears.
You

Feather at night

The softest feather at night
blooms its shadow against the wall,
a tuft from atop a doll's hat.

She stares wonderstruck,
maybe she is thinking of the sea.

Yet, the feather's shadow growls
opens its mouth to devour
with its sharpened teeth.
I fear he might gulp us up.

Feathers has all the letters
needed to spell fears.

And I wonder if all this time
I have been looking
at the actual thing
or the shadow formed by it.

Bent

We get bent on nobody's business,
on the hours that we borrow.
We angle ourselves away from the ache.
We drive the nail home.

Who I am today is a foggy little dream.
I used to be someone and something.

And all the lists, rules and whatofsuch,
really matters nothing as much.

And now I am trying to diet.
Magic is most desired when it comes
to the consequences of the body.

Have you wondered about the glasses
you were looking through before?

We've been bent and no we're crooked
and the world looks smeared.

I too

For Cameron

My brothers cry
and so do I

You say you cry at night
and I do to
when the light
turns deep blue
the room is hallow
and my heart is too

My brothers cry
and so do I

you say you cry at night
and I imagine your eyes
and daddy sees you too
in his phantom flight

He lays his hand on you
and that is when you dream
you whimper while you wish
for the return of everything

My brothers sigh
and so do I

We all dream of the past
when we didn't cry like this
when daddy cried good-bye
after our departing kiss

My brother's cry
and I know why.

We seek the stories
to guide us through
We miss our daddy
and I know
he misses us too.

My brother's cry
and so do I

Our days are marked with questions
Our nights the fate of time
and the signs come to us
from the other side

We all cry
but it will be alright

He is close when we are laughing
and at night when we are shattered
We had fun he whispers and loved each other
and that is all that matters

Hearts and Doodads

My heart is New York
it is the Roman ruins
it is all that is big
with history
bursting upward
and down.

My heart is confetti
it is a stuffed pinata
it is all that glitters
with its collections
of meaning and matter
piling and scattered.

Our hearts are just decoration
on Dad's old junk fence.
Amongst the gourds
and doodads.
My heart by your heart.
We decidedly watch the birds sing,
they are hungry today.

Do the thing

There is something missing.
Is there something?
Today I live with twice
the intensity, twice,
because I feel the space.

Consumed

I think your right, I have been consumed.
That flash of light did shoot through me,
and I realize how much I feel like a balloon
let loose with a message on my ribbon.

Am I more reckless or just more careless?
Who cares. Not even these little letters
all strung together like necklaces
make a lick of difference, and the uselessness
of it still makes me laugh.

And can you believe people just go poof
and we are left to remember when
God let us have it all,
but we were to consumed to know it?

Jar of Buttons

if the volcano could speak, it would only wince
if the quake could fortell, it would be sewn shut
life is a big ol' ache

if the rain swells before it drops
then so do you
we feel the scar of mistakes

put your whole arm into a jar of buttons
that is what my family is like
cool and made to be attached

now we are sifting through debris
we are part of it

God Must

Phantom hands helpless see, can't yank the drowning bubbling deep. We cure ourselves through time alone. The rest is a hum. Did you see the man escape? I watched him hide in eternity. A face hinged there, pocketed near the what to do. Slowly dreaming comes back to you. Can you believe you are so small? The "they" are right, love is all. Buttered bread and metal flowers and the unwinding of your allotted hours. Do you see age happen to survivors, quickly in only hours. So the rush doesn't pause as much, so the rush inside my gut, so the rush of wanderlust, so goes God, so he goes, since he must.

Blues

Blues what do I do with you
Do I wear you like my daddy's shoes?
Do I eat you like a frothy stew?
Do I bleed you like the bleeding do?
Blues don't stay silent, tell me how to move.

Do I scatter you like ash?
Do I hoard you like my stash of cash?

Blues aren't you tired of living in my chest
relaxing in that hammock, all depressed?
Bluesy doosie, do I sing it out, do I laugh and dance about?
What if I am tired and down and sad?
What do I do with that?

Do I fold you into a plane
that can rip through the sky again?

People say, oh day by day,
but what do they know, I scream
they are laughing
like a bunch of jelly beans.

Day by day seems far away.

Blues do I make up bad rhymes for you?
Blues my dear, oh yes I do.
I've bought a ticket for you blues,
all aboard the sinking cruise.

Beauty

Beauty beat me like a bully
face down in the dirt
on a bird-chirping Tuesday.

Beauty laughed so hard
my face cracked like a yard sale plate
one you break for fun.

Beauty came to get me
because she hates it when you run.
She said, look at this.
Look at these pretty
pretty fists.

Special Shovels

Human sized shovels
are very endearing
gifts for those suffering
life's array of technical
malfunctions. Scoop me up,
my apologies for the cheeseburgers,
throw me in a bed of smelly flowers
where I can wait out the turbulence.

from Rock Stars

When I fall for rockstars
my heart goes zombie.
I see you are entranced
by bloody messses.
Little yellow flowers
burst like weeds
before we made a baby
out of newspaper clippings.
We colored each other
with paint from berries.
Look out the window now
I am dressing
and I feel like cool soil.

Blue Glue

Snap to the big blue.
I need a case of super glue.
Heros hear me, I need you.
Monsters roar away my blues.
What is good?
Who are you?
Please send me that super glue.
Let it fix the unfixable.

Domino Effect

Ball up your growl.
Bring it wrapped up.
Unleash it like a God.
Like dominos, the world
responds when you fall.

Out of the Cloud

this we obsess, pray or concentrate, this under
this kissing thing, we burn our thoughts, they are so
long. We send the weight of our hope, it's confetti- - -
you lay healing, dust of love come down like rice.

this we dream, dream not like illusion, we crave, race
this wild grappling of so many invisible meanings, we dare
to imagine melting, explosions and other acts of fracture
for you to be well, to yell, to heal, to come out of the cloud---
My belief breaths fire.

Painting Fish

My brother helps me paint a fish.
I am still too young to understand
movement or pressure.
In the end we are by the playground,
sun splashes over and under
the swinging swing.
It goes from light to dark,
but my brother still works
on the curves of the eyelids.
Fish will get out of your hands.
I never liked that about them.
Everything runs this risk.