I Trip on My Poems 

In the night when poems

are born, I search for no one

but the hidden words.

Conjunctions are just meeting places

like personal ads for wild women.

Even my lady friend criticizes me

for being uncreative, disconnected,

a time degenerate.

The secrets stretch inside my metaphors I can not find them all.

I miss spell check;

grammar is a liar;

syntax is drug substance I refuse

to understand.

I am a trouble-free minded poet

with the training of an uncultivated monster; I chew on my experiences, go back to the prey, the kill, usually alone and spit.

But I have no sense of formality.

Even near my tender moments

when the images blossom into a rain flowers I trip on stems cut my way lose to nowhere.

I go there to see what I can find.

I Hide my Craft

I hide my craft

under the armor

of the armadillo-

tucked beneath its armpit,

hovering near it's stomach

with insects buzzing noon

day sun issues and indigestion-

away from the editors

punitive critics,

and pay on demand

print money mongrels;

cold bacon and lard

under the pages

between poems

and the words

stick I write

everything

with a scent or odor.

I look up at the sky

and giggle my nerves

like gold chains

waiting for the next

editor to tell me

my mind doesn't work,

flow with my words quite right.

I count them one

by one

those for me on one

side; those against

me on the other.

I hide my craft

under the armor

of the armadillo.

Bloodshot in my Medical Lies, Eyes

Bloodshot

American medical eyes,

lies.

The bloodshot in

my eyes creates sling shot

of a corrupt medical culture.

Private medical is a sinful devil

that eats riches and leaves those in need behind,

54 million left behind,

far from the mission of Christ,

or the oath they based their medical degree upon.

Blood shoot, sling shot, old fashion mafia connections, a symptom, a collapsing structure, damn crooks with lab vests on.

They love talk about premiums, exclusions, pre-existing conditions.

Toss your medical blood rag

over the wallets of sole proprietors,

small businesses.

Doctors and insurance companies

are vampires sucking the sweat off your balls.

It's an innocent killing, imagery tossed in the jock like Bengay or red hot chili peppers.

No One is Here

I walk in a poem

late at night that sings no sober song,

no lyrics for the living,

toss in a few lines for the dead.

It fetters my anger

with hostility and sticky jam between

my toes and worn out shoes.

I find myself walking 2300 Western

Avenue in Chicago at 3 A.M. like a damn dummy; thinking of Mayor Daley's sales tax proposals, lack of health care in this country unlike anywhere else free in the world, and some boxers who shoplifted some goods out of Marshal Fields department store earlier in the evening- no one is here to spit at me, to fist my face in brick, or steal my wallet silly, or my car keys or jiggle coins out of my jean pockets.

Disgusting, it hangs,

it beats metal drums in my ears

Over and over, like a pistol going off.

Loneliness is an elbow plunged

in one's ribcage at night.

I get in my car, bruised,

bandaged,

go home-

wait for God,

sprinkle prays

for the fairy dust

of healing.

Go about, the next day,

my crusades for the world.

No one is here.

Willow Tree Night and Snowy Visitors

Winter is tapping

on the hollow willow tree's trunk--

a four month visitor is about to move in

and unload his messy clothing

and be windy about it--

bark is grayish white as coming night with snow

fragments the seasons.

The chill of frost lies a deceitful blanket

over the courtyard greens and coats a

ghostly white mist over yellowed willow

leave's widely spaced teeth-

you can hear them clicking

like false teeth

or chattering like chipmunks

threatened in a distant burrow.

The willow tree knows the old man

approaching has showed up again,

in early November with

ice packed cheeks and brutal

puffy wind whistling with a sting.

Manic is the Dark Night

Deep into the forest

the trees have turned

black, and the sun

has disappeared in

the distance beneath

the earth line, leaving

the sky a palette of grays

sheltering the pine trees

with pitch-tar shadows.

It is here in this black

and sky gray the mind

turns psycho

tosses norms and pathos

into a ground cellar of hell,

tosses words out through the teeth.

"Don't smile or act funny,

try to be cute with me;

how can I help you today

out of your depression?"

I feel jubilant, I feel over the moon

with euphoric gaiety.

Damn I just feel happy!

Back into the wood of somberness

back into the twigs,

sedated the psychiatrist

scribbles, notes, nonsense on a pad of yellow paper:

"mania, oh yes, mania, I prescribe

lithium, do I need to call the police?"

No sir, back into the dark woods I go.

Controlled, to get my meds. I

twist and rearrange my smile,

crooked, to fit the immediate need.

Deep in my forest

the trees have turned black again,

to satisfy the conveyer--

the Lord of the dark wood.

Bird Feeder

Baby,

born

just

a

sparrow-

first flight

from balcony

to tree limb.

A chip of corn falls

from the feeder

to the ground.

Mother, Edith, at 98

Edith, in this nursing home
blinded with macular degeneration,

I come to you with your blurry

eyes, crystal sharp mind,

your countenance of grace--

as yesterday's winds

I have chosen to consume you

and take you away.

"Oh, where did Jesus disappear

to, she murmured,

over and over again,"

in a low voice

dripping words

like a leaking faucet:

"Oh, there He is my my

Angel of the coming."

I Brew in Broth

When the silence of my

life tickles in darkness

delves into my daily routine

caught in my melancholy music

at times, not exact;

then exuberant auto racing playing

at times, not exact;

(a new poem published or a kick in the ass)

kick smacks like tornado alley

in the tomato can

left over-paste

of my emotions

at times, not exact;

I realize the split of legacy,

of loyalty on its knees fractured

like a comma or sentence fragment,

naked like a broken egg

between friendship and hatred,

I stew like beef then broth

simmering

sort of liked, sort of hated,

not exact.

Poem From My Grave

Don't bring the rosary beads

it's too damn late for doing repetitions.

Eucharist, I can handle the crackers and wine;

I love the Lord just like you.

Catholicism circles itself with rituals--

ground hogs and squirrels dancing with rosary beads,

naked in the sun and the night, eating the pearls

and feeling comfortable about it.

Rituals and rosary beads are indigestible

even the butterflies go coughing in the farmer's cornfields..

Cardinal George, Chicago, would choke on the damn things;

some of his priests would have thought it a gay orgasm or piece

remote found in scripture from Sodom & Gomorrah.

But my bones in ginger dust lie near a farm in DeKalb, Illinois,

where sunset meshes corn with a yellow gold glow like rich teeth.

My tent is with friends where we said prayers privately like silent

moonlight.  Farmers touch the face of God each morning after just

one cup of  Folgers coffee Columbian blend,

or pancakes made with water and batter, sparse on the sugar.

Sometimes I would urinate on the yellow edge of flowers,

near the tent, late at night, before the hayride, speak

to the earth and birds like gods.

Never did I pull the rosary beads from my pocket.

It's too late, damn it, for rosary beads and repetitions.

Tiny Sparrow Feet

It's calm.

Too quiet.

My clear plastic bowl

serves as my bird feeder.

I don't hear the distant

scratching, shuffling

of tiny sparrow feet,

the wing dances, fluttering, of a hungry morning's lack of the big band sounds.

I walk tentatively to my patio window,

spy the balcony with detective sensitive eyes.

I witness three newly hatched

toddler sparrows, curved nails, mounted

deep, in their mother's dead, decaying back.

Their childish beaks bent over elongated, delicately, into golden chips, and dusted yellow corn.

In the Garden Where the Flowers Grow

I'm going to take Islam where their God has not been before- to the garden of  Jesus, olive oil presses, Gethsemane-- trees, flowers, fruits, vegetables didn't poison anyone there.

Passion was sweat on the ground and brow.

There weren't darts of hate, misconception or terrorism; children on their knees five times a day brainwashed to hate.

Christ didn't lead them astray nor make them pagan pink.

There is no God apart from Allah, and Mohammed is the Prophet, but it's Jesus who makes the garden grow with or without water.

Then and now the apples grow in my garden of forgiveness.

Figs trees grow far away where I can't reach them but believe in them.

Like the Tamarisk tree, Christ is a source of honey, manna and wafer, a taste so sweet in the desert so dry.

You don't have to be a scholar to write poetry, religion, or understand the Eucharist; but you need to be a real saint to know the difference.

Islam, is Judas Iscariot among your converts nose pointed toward Mecca today?

I'm going to take Islam where their God has not been before- to the garden where the flowers grow.

The Christians Arrived

Salvation Army and

the Christians arrived today,

Christmas, like every other Sunday morning feed the homeless, chasing the rats from the bathroom, basement, kicking the dead flies out of the corner spots where the cat used to lounge- clean the toilet bowl, a form of revival and resurrection.

I privately pastor to these desires though I myself am homeless.

I forgot what it's like to be a poet of the cloth, savior in street clothing with a warm home to blend into.

I watch them clamp the New Testament in one hand, And pull a cancer stick out of the pocket with the other.

It's all a matter of praising the Lord.

Everything is nonsense when you're in a place where you don't belong.

Even praying to Jesus from a dirty dusted pillow seems strange and bewildering.

Someday I will walk from this place and offer spare meals by myself to others; feed the party in between the theology, the bingo of sins and salvation.

I forgot the taste of a Stromboli Sandwich with a 6 pack of Budweiser with or without the Chicago Bears--it would make every Sunday a Salvation Army holiday.

Today is a fairy creating miracles from the dust of the floor multiplying fish and chips, baked ham, ribs with sauce Chi-Town type, dark color of greens and veggies tip me to the Christian clock on the wall peeking down on lost and unsaved.

I feel like a fragment.

A birth date the way again to begin, fragmented.

Pinto beans mixed with graffiti fingers, Christians arrived on Christmas day- they always do every Sunday morning.

I pastor to these desires.

It's all a matter of praising the Lord.

The Christians arrived today.

Twist My Words

I see the spring dance all over your face in green you were arrogant before you viewed my willow tree outside my balcony.

Now you wave at me

with green fingers

and lime smiles.

You twist my words,

Harvard collegiate style,

right where you want them to be--

lime green, willow tree, and

dark skinned branches.

Berenika

Do what I tell you to do

your face is like flour dough

your nose like a slant directionally

unknown like an adverb--

tossed into space.

Your hat is like an angel

wedding gown draped

over vodka body

like a Christ shield

protecting you in innocence.

It is here I kiss your lips as a total stranger; bring myself closely to your eyes; camp out on your narrow lips and wait for the morning before I slide like a sled deep snow, away.

I Trip on My Poems

In the night when poems
are born, I search for no one
but the hidden words.
Conjunctions are just meeting places
like personal ads for wild women.
Even my lady friend criticizes me
for being uncreative, disconnected,
a time degenerate.
The secrets stretch inside my metaphors I
can not find them all.
I miss spell check;
grammar is a liar;
syntax is drug substance I refuse
to understand.
I am a trouble-free minded poet
with the training of an uncultivated monster;
I chew on my experiences, go back
to the prey, the kill, usually alone and spit.
But I have no sense of formality.
Even near my tender moments
when the images blossom into a rain flowers
I trip on stems cut my way lose to nowhere.
I go there to see what I can find.


I Hide my Craft

I hide my craft
under the armor
of the armadillo-
tucked beneath its armpit,
hovering near it's stomach
with insects buzzing noon
day sun issues and indigestion-
away from the editors
punitive critics,
and pay on demand
print money mongrels;
cold bacon and lard
under the pages
between poems
and the words
stick I write
everything
with a scent or odor.
I look up at the sky
and giggle my nerves
like gold chains
waiting for the next
editor to tell me
my mind doesn't work,
flow with my words quite right.
I count them one
by one
those for me on one
side; those against
me on the other.
I hide my craft
under the armor
of the armadillo.


Bloodshot in my Medical Lies, Eyes

Bloodshot
American medical eyes,
lies.
The bloodshot in
my eyes creates sling shot
of a corrupt medical culture.
Private medical is a sinful devil
that eats riches and leaves those in need behind,
54 million left behind,
far from the mission of Christ,
or the oath they based their medical degree upon.
Blood shoot, sling shot, old fashion mafia
connections, a symptom, a collapsing structure,
damn crooks with lab vests on.
They love talk about premiums, exclusions,
pre-existing conditions.
Toss your medical blood rag
over the wallets of sole proprietors,
small businesses.
Doctors and insurance companies
are vampires sucking the sweat off your balls.
It's an innocent killing, imagery tossed
in the jock like Bengay or red hot chili peppers.


No One is Here

I walk in a poem
late at night that sings no sober song,
no lyrics for the living,
toss in a few lines for the dead.
It fetters my anger
with hostility and sticky jam between
my toes and worn out shoes.
I find myself walking 2300 Western
Avenue in Chicago at 3 A.M. like a damn dummy;
thinking of Mayor Daley's sales tax proposals,
lack of health care in this country unlike anywhere else
free in the world,
and some boxers who shoplifted some goods
out of Marshal Fields department store earlier
in the evening-
no one is here to spit at me,
to fist my face in brick,
or steal my wallet silly,
or my car keys or jiggle coins
out of my jean pockets.
Disgusting, it hangs,
it beats metal drums in my ears
Over and over, like a pistol going off.
Loneliness is an elbow plunged
in one's ribcage at night.
I get in my car, bruised,
bandaged,
go home-
wait for God,
sprinkle prays
for the fairy dust
of healing.
Go about, the next day,
my crusades for the world.
No one is here.

Mindful, Mindless, October Date

Mindful of my lover

running late, as common

as tying your shoestrings;

I'm battered as an armadillos shell;

I put my bands around my emotional body

armor native to myself and walk like a stud in darkness.

Everything in October has a shade of orange you know-- a hint of witch and goblin.

In the leaves between my naked feet

and toes, as I pace my walk in the parking lot, I count them-- I count them color chart fragments and bites:

oranges, reds, still mostly greens.

Barefooted the time of the tear, the year-fragmented.

I am male battered in a relationship

tested without my testosterone

no sexual rectification or recharging

of my batteries needed.

I lie limp.

Native to myself--

mindless of my lover running late.

Then she arrives.

Forked in Itasca

I am so frustrated

I want to chew

the dandruff

out of the internet hair implant

and dislodge it,

for a lost love affair I never cared

about and hardly knew.

Don't tell me about my sentence structure, I am human in these simple words.

I swear to you I curse.

Then the ram of my affair falls short

frustrating my approach to the world

at my fingertips.

No Yellow Pages here my love.

The dial up of my local connection

is wretched, stuck unincorporated

in the land I approved to live in,

monopolized by Comcast the

robbers of the poor and the humbled.

All I hear is the rambling of the railroad tracks.

I grow numb in my deafness faint with my hearing.

Did I ask for your opinion?

I am a frustrated foreign camper

in my own community.

Of a village I don't live in,

but I love this local village I lie about.

I am estranged.

I tie knots in contradictions

when I travel light and far,

visit home I long for a journey

past where I have never been.

Is this the reason I am lost

forked in between

the poet I think I am

and the working man

my bills dictate?

Jesus Walks

Jesus lives

in a tent

not a temple

coated with blue

velvet sugar

He dances in freedom

of His salvation

with the night and all

days bearing down with sun.

He has billions of ears

hanging from His head

dangling by seashores

listening to incoming prayers.

Sometimes busy hours drive Him

near crazy with buzzing sounds.

He walks near desert bushes

and hears wind tunnels

pushed by pine stinging nettles.

Here in His sacred voice

a whisper and

Pentecostal mind-

confused by hints of

Catholicism and prayers to Mary-

He heals himself in sacred

ponds tossing holy water

over himself--

touching nothing but

humanity He recoils

and finishes his desert

walk somewhat alone.

I'm a Riverboat Boy:

Poem on Halsted Street

As sure as church bells

Sunday morning, ringing

on Halsted and State Street,

Chicago,

these memories will

be soon forgotten.

I stumble in my life with these words

like broken sentences.

I hear and denounce myself in the distance, mumbling chatter off my lips.

Fragments and chips.

Swearing at the parts of me I can't see; walking away rapidly from the spiritual thoughts of you.

I am disjointed, separated from my Christian belief.

I feel like I'm at the bottom of sinner's hill playing with my fiddle, flat fisted and busted.

So you sing  in the gospel choir; sang in Holland, sang in Belgium, from top to bottom, the maps, continents, atlas are all yours.

I detach myself from these love affairs

drive straight, swiftly,

to Hollywood Casino Aurora.

Fragments and chips.

I guess we gamble in different casinos,

in different corners of God's world,

you with church bingo;  and I'm a riverboat boy.

No matter how spiritual I'm once a week, I can't take you where my poems don't  follow me.

Church poems don't cry.

Hanging Together in Minnesota

Two thousand men on death row

in the state of Texas.  I've never

been here, still I'm worrying

myself  to death.

Webs of worry travel fast,

scan over my memory bank

back and forth like a copy machine.

I refuse to get out of my bed

I'm covered with burnt dream ashes

held in custody my cobwebbed anxiety

sheets waiting for the on looking armed

system of justice to take me away.

Their loud speakers keep screaming channeled commands through vibrating my eardrums; their messages keep cross-firing against my own desires.

There must be a warrant out for my arrest.

I will not listen period.  I will shut out the sounds period.

Insanity echoes with stressed sounds.

It's Sunday morning, prayer time, I swear I will block out the church bells ringing on Franklin Avenue, ringing at St. Paul's Baptist Church.

Religion confuses me like poetry or prose.

I curse I will hang where Christ used to dangle; wooden cross-post in a Roman Catholic hole, or was it protestant reformation?

I'm the thief, not the Savior.

I don't want to die in my worry, my words, stranger in this world alone.

I want to resurrect the dream before the wounds came, and placed me in exile.

Long before the sounds of cell phones came ringing.

There must be a warrant out for my arrest.

Mixed in war, thunder, and sentence fragment.

Speaking Of Death

Speaking of death-

mother, Edith, at 98

in a nursing home

blinded with

macular degeneration,

crippled in pain,

drowning in pills,

I come to you,

blurred eyes, crystal mind,

countenance of grace,

as yesterday’s winds

I have consumed you

& taken you away.

Death hides, but doesn’t divide.

“Where did God disappear to”-

she murmured

over & over again

like running water

or low voices

in pray:

“Oh, there He is.

Angle of the coming.”

Death hides, but doesn’t divide.

Michelangelo: Painter & Poet

Michelangelo

with steel balls

& a wire brush

wishing he was

wearing motorcycle leathers,

going wild & crazy,

stares cross eyed at the

Sistine Chapel ceiling-

nose touching moist paint

body stretch out on a plank

bones held by ropes from falling-

painting the face of Jesus

& the Prophets

with a camel hair brush;

in such a position

a genie emerges as a poet-

words not paint

start writing his sonnets,

a second career is born-

nails & thorns

digging at his words:

it is finished.

Crazy Old Jack

56 today,

& Jack died

in his room years ago.

He still sits there I swear

watches T.V.

Philosopher of sports,

entrepreneur of sleep,

dream weaver of single men and their dreams.

Jack never leaves his room,

seldom shuts his T.V. off.

Jack seldom gets out of bed, boils on this naked body-

no need for razors, baths, for this man.

Jack takes pills, then herbs, then vitamins-

but he is incurable.

Jack died in a room years ago-

he eats toast & jam,

toast without jam,

fingers wipes butter from a dish.

I hear Jack yawning from

his room, his coffin again.

Sleepy old Jack coughing again,

quiet old room-

just below a beauty salon-

56 today & Jack died here.

Crazy old Jack.

Flight Of The Eagle

From the dawn, dusty skies
comes the time when
the eagle flies-
without thought,
without aid of wind,
like a kite detached without string,
the eagle in flight leaves no traces,
no trails, no roadways-
never a feather drops
out of the sky.

Red Rocking Chair

A red rocking chair

abandoned in a field

of freshly cut clover,

rocks back & forth-

squeaks each time

the wind pushes

at it’s back,

then,

Retreats

She

Somewhere

she has lost

her shadow.

and now

she stands

still

with nowhere

to go.

Sandy 

I have seen your eyes roam

over me so many times,

I don’t even bother to feel

them anymore.

One can speak with the eyes,

you know-

and you’ve been silent

for so long

it doesn’t even hurt anymore

to see you staring at me

and not uttering a word.

Vicki

It was here in

the breeze...

I thought of you.

Why was it you

threw sunshine

in my eyes?

Why was it you kissed

the sky a tender shade

of blue?

Touch me to the winds...

and I shall carry you

to a long lost love

somewhere beneath the

willow tree

you loved

so much.

Beyond the hidden shadows of my mind,

or beyond the shades that trace across the sky

covering the warming touches of the sun...

all skies are blue,

and all tender whisperings

of the breeze...

are but thoughtful

memories of you.

Bread Crumbs for Starving Birds

Smiling across the ravine,

snow cloaked footbridge.

Prickly ropes slick with ice,

snow clad boards pepper sprinkled

with raccoon tracks, virgin markers,

a fresh first trail.

Across and safe,

I toss yellow bread crumbs

onto white snow, for starving birds.

Now That I Desire

Now that I desire to be close to you

like two occupants sharing a twin bed

sensing the warmth of sweating shoulders,

hungering for your flesh like wild wolf

leaning over empty carcass,

you're off searching unexplored cliffs

& climbing dangerous mountain tops,

capturing bumblebees in broken

beer bottles for biology class,

pleasing plants & parachuting from clouds

for fun.

In clouds you're closer to life & nonsense,

a princess of absurdity, collector of dreams

& silent sounds.

In clouds you build your own fantasy, share it with

select celebrities.

But till this captive discovers a cure for caring,

a way of rescuing insatiable insanity,

or lives long enough to be patient in longing for you-

you must be vigilant,

for with time snow will surely

blanket over this warm desire.

Catch On The Fly

Full barrel up 53 north,
heading to Lake Zurich, IL,
Christian talk radio 1660
on the radio dial,
crisp winter day
sunbeams dancing down
on the pavement like midgets.
85 mph in a 65 mph zone,
just to aggravate the police,
black Chevy S10 pick up,
shows what a deviant I am
in dark colors.
Running late for a client appointment,
creating poems on a small hand held recorder
knowing there is not payment for this madness
in this little captured taped area of words.
Headlights down the highway for a legacy
into the future, day dreaming like a fool obsessed.
Working out the layout of this poem or getting my ego in place,
I will catch up with the imagery when I get back home.
This is my life, a poem in the middle of the highway.
Scampering, no one catches me when I'm speeding
like this.

Coffee Time, Fuller's Restaurant

(Edmonton Alberta Canada)

June 29^th, 1980

3 a.m.

& I'm getting older by the minute.

Thinking about it makes me tired.

Outside traffic crawls slowly over

slippery pavement like inebriated turtles.

Inside, at the coffee counter, I flirt with a waitress-

fresh young fruit from Montreal. She insists

on calling me Vincent Price & speaking

French in Alberta.

I'm trying to read Periods Of The Moon,

By Irving Layton, selecting the human

Condition, repetition, & insomnia as

My main themes.

Next to me, a street gypsy drooping

over the counter beside me, pulling

scraps of dog-eared aged newsprint

From a doggie bag. She stares

squint eyed at a picture of John F Kennedy

for 2 hours, manages to laugh an incredible

29 times,

Sorry, 30 times, 31.

Counting makes me tired,

makes me take notice of the gypsy

& disapprove.

Silent Moonlight

Love lost

in silent moonlight

tortures heart

with rising sun.

Silence snores.

Sunlight scatters

shadows in

spotty rain.

Cicada Bugs & Carol

I walk

this pain & joy

like a deity

with you

4 life it seems

inhabits us

like a run on

sentence

4 no assumed

reason.

17 years together

since the last calling

of the cicadas-

nothingness

but for their noise,

loud buzzing wings,

no reason to stay

no reason to part.

We smell

Lilacs bushes

together briefly-

take down

an apple or 2-

ride rusty

old bicycles together

to a destination

neither of us

have been

to before.

Nymphs drop

to the ground

& burrow the wood,

again.

Will I see

you in 2024?

Dove Poem

I hear

scratch of

little dove feet

I hear peck

of little dove bill

in bird seed basket

on my balcony-

in near silence

on rain filled

afternoon-

thunderstorm,

lightening

overhead dark,

cramped up with rage,

holds off a minute

so I may

hear these sounds.

My Lady, Maria

Like a good Rembrandt,

or a unique bar of soap

carefully handcrafted,

shaped into a delicious

figure with hot butter knife,

you are natural, beautiful, proficient,

honest as opposed to fake.

Pickle Juiced

My skeleton is in

a large glass jar-

x-rayed for dental remains,

half dead, detained

& vibrating in nerves endings.

I walk through

this night pickled juiced,

caged in.

I know who I am by

the words I type,

the fonts I chose,

the poems that

didn't nurture

in my brain, aborted.

Behind my shack

a trailer park playground

of juvenile tormentors

shove basketballs

through netted rims.

A skinny redhead

named Randy

urinates then

hammers his basketball

against the side of my

bathroom wall for practice-

shatters glass, the scent

of ice blue Aqua Velva

permeates shaky

shadows on the wall.

But these pesky human

insects are gone my midnight.

The displeasure of

the laundry mat doors

slamming relentless against my

living room wall lock down at 1 am.

Cordless, powered by inebriation

I toss this fried skeleton box

into a cheap twin bed,

wrestle with the quiet

for 3 hours.

April 15^th, taxes are due.

Poverty is a pair of scissors

cutting dull across the foreskin.

Gotham, Oil On Canvas

Chatty women at the dining table

in 19^th century garb-

red hats & hair pins

caked with rubies,

ghostly faces acutely obscured,

hue blue matted hair stretching

down like dripping wax.

Menus open out white

as bleached sheets

with no black typeface.

Wine glasses filled with white

Clouds, no red juice-

begging in silence to be

lifted up, to be touched

by the missing lips of strangers..

3 mirrors hanging from

frozen air behind the bar

away from the dining area-

circular globs of white reflecting

nothing but moon shapes.

At the dining table ladies

pointing fingers at each other,

ears filled with gobs of paint.

Dull lights in the corners

depicting form, faint

in near darkness.

Their pictured world,

frozen in time, is slapped on canvas.

As the evening wears toward midnight

the painting disappears, emerging

silent characters into madness.

Blind Man In Café

Blind man

fingertips

dancing across

table tops

crooked smile

on his face,

searching for

a seat in a

crowded corner.

Wind Chimes

The wind chimes

on the balcony

today,

different

sounds in all

different directions-

my thoughts follow them.