Fall Haiku

Coyotes sing tonight
songs of trees, crisp falling leaves
sounds of your return

his fingers rot

his fingers rot
like acid eats

his fingers rev
like guns of marines

his fingers bleed
like a woman bleeds

i’d hate you
to want
to want them

Afterthought

I been too long inadequate,
insignificant– left to the crows
and digging boroughs in the dirt of my heart,
deep in mud from tears I cried.

I made bogs to procure the bones of my past,
hoping and praying the reckoning would last–
until I had a knock at the door,
and I let myself in–dragged and wet,
left to bet her own cards against herself.

But I shamed myself then,
And I blamed myself then,
until I came to that recognition
of being alone so long it doesn’t matter.

And, I think Death’s door is a swinging gate
to the bar, and the entrance to the
kingdom of Heaven is locked–vines overgrown;
There’s so much plenty it makes a hard life vomit &
choke like a gunman coming back from a war
to a land unbroken–

He realizes he didn’t protect anyone
from anything but himself, the demon
the Army made of him.

The Truth is
there is no blame then.
No facts. No tally of wrong and right.
No rational intent.

Only afterthought

Mercer Street

Daniel has been running away from that chasing silence
filling his every heart of need with a hope for violence
scraping through the ozone, digging nails into the dirt.
He wants to get past where the lake steals your soul,
to fly high and ride on the fear of falling faster than breath
surpassing death and landing into the softest bed in the Belvedere,
rolling blows, not beat off the street where the candy grows.

I live surrounded by pimps and hoes who blow smoke through words.
Their rotten teeth gleam in the street light stain but all of their eyes are genuine.
They hold bottles or cans and comb their hair for the passerby traffic.
Walking ads of sex can control where you go for comfort.

Their yells echo and break off the thick skinned brick buildings,
and they’re all named Junior except for PeeWee. He donates his
diabetes needles to the junkies sleeping on Straley, or hides them
in back street dumpsters. He collects trains and sells them before
paying his bills and shovels snow from dusk until dawn. We
hear his metal shovel scrape the sidewalk for a peace of mind,
and I watch the snow fall to spite his effort.

I crave for the drag of a smoking cigarette against my tongue
like velvet gliding down my throat, the very same way they do.
We are all lulled by the drone of wet tires on speeding cars
committed to driving by like gusts of wind, engines rumbling the walls.
And, I wonder what thing led me here, watching them,
from the window downwards, disappear.

abrasions of heat

desert dry the words
melting slow off of the page
seeping down onto her lap
down between her legs
down onto the floor of the car
dripping further below
leaking out onto the road
heat dissipating like black snakes
hissing memory of
a heart full of lead

this house, quiet
living in a realm of glory
everything still, floats

poached and docked
an island forever from you
where safety lingers
a line cast at sunset

the firebrim strokes
green leaves thick of juice
deepens heavy full of reason
though we know not one

it still lingers on a walk
not to break your glass
chalk-lined and even

Green Beans

When we’d travel to Kentucky
to see Uncle Bob,
Aunt Ruth would have
canned jars of his green beans
sitting on the countertop, awaiting me.

As soon as we arrived,
I’d run into their kitchen,
sit on their barstool, and
sniff the scent of Uncle Bob’s
cherry pipe tobacco
lingering in the air.

I waited quietly
while he warmed
some beans in a bowl.

I’d watch him grin so big
with his big pipe
hanging from his lips.
He’d watch me eat down every bean,
and then wait on me to ask
for some more please.

I remembered the first time
I saw my Dad cry.
He was outside, cutting purple flowers
off of our Rose of Sharon bush
for Mom.

He stabbed
the inside of his arm.
I watched him weep in pain,
lying on the old couch,
as mom bandaged his arm
and put a cold cloth on his head.

I hid under the table, scared,
watching him through the cracks
of the backs of the chairs.
It was the first time I ever saw a man cry.
The strongest Indian cries, he said.

He asked mom, with tears rolling
down his dark skin, into his beard,
if she would warm him some green beans.

The Room Upstairs

The Room Upstairs is quietly olden
welcoming stars from fallen shorelines
of faint golden seers, of painted locks
where children skip across creaking floors
squealing horses and ponies need saviors
(we all need saviors like fragments of stained glass need light)
we make mosaics out of broken things
and sometimes we smash things
for the sake of brokenness alone.
We paint edges, we sand sparkling dust,
we take shells from the shorelines
and hang them like necklaces around our halo joy.
We sit them in window sills while wild cats go roam
across the city, while guitars hum like waves.
We make amends with them;
with the ones who think music is war.
We construct melodies that tear down walls
and build booths to master capture sound
and all around us are thick walls
stuffed with old poems, old whispers
of the guillotine waiting in the basement
and of this sacred ground gleams honor
for creators alike who love, who watch
blessings flitter fall from the sky.
We take photographs at every miracle moment
when souls by souls are fed with abundance.
It all tastes good in the epicenter of art
where portals swell, where the flow
pours a circle of realms into song, where we
hear voices of angels guiding us to sing along.
In the room upstairs chains are recycled,
they are welded into wings.

just maybe

you say my name and a million miles away a newborn smiles
oils thick, i smear you onto cardboard and weep pastels 
a drip of heaven though you were sloppy when you made love to me in a tent 
sweet gypsies surrounded the stomping firegrounds
their shadows danced beneath the sleeping bag of my soul 
a lonely dog slept outside against the zipper door, whimpering  
his body kept me warm through the night into the morning

On Writing

There’s a heavy burden in the pocket of my heart,
clings to the fuzz of my mind like loose change in
a clenched fist or a velvet painting sharing borders
of smiling great grandchildren on cardboard holidays.

If you put a candle behind a picture the still life becomes serene.
If you mock all things serious in America you make peace.
If you can manage your words like a banker,
you’ll still break even until you die, and
they’ll paint your words on an underpass.
They’ll call you genius.  

 

 

 

 

I keep missing the part of my chest that enabled
easy breathing without feedback and I don’t think
anymore about what lives outside of me.

 

I keep shoveling the dead earth into my mouth, swallowing whole.
I can’t seem to give away what I hold most dear
after I let you go, now that I repeat your number before I
lay down to sleep, to keep dreaming of a love I can’t have.

I chuckle against this pain that you lower and shake your head to
with a smile of complete and utter acceptance, the same that you
bite your lip to in wanton of a desire that scrapes beneath flesh.    

 

 

If you turn the lights off, let the light stabilize, you’ll see
even in the dark. If you break things you love the pieces will
become part of your shadow. If you say every way you feel
you’ll never heal and the starved will steal all of your originality,
they’ll call it their own by using the railway of inspiration.

 

You’ll evolve into something close to suffocation and even then,
beyond your mind’s constipation, you’ll emancipate the heavy burden.
You’ll exercise your right to be more than a poet
drowning. Words, your anchor.

 And, the ship: a vice carrying you outside of yourself.