Poems

Road entry #3: The human skyline. Austin.

The distance an eye can see,
above this world
from sky rising
rooftops.

These viral streets
cankerous
web-like & silken
un-natured
rubbish
peopled through
green shrub-trees.

Human umbrage
sienna and clay colors
structured habitation
piercing continuous
growing vegetation.

Road entry #2: “Things are bigger in…” Austin

They say “everything is bigger in Texas.”

Big hair, big stars.
Big ranches, big cars.

To me,
Texas is simply
the land of small trees.

Not enough water for
proper growth.
Or something
like that.

Its all stunted
mesquites, more shrub
than tree,
as far as
the eye can see.

No small wonder
surrounded day in
and day out
by such small trees…
who wouldn’t have a false
sense of perspective?
A false sense of “size”?

We all compensate for something.

Like the short
kid from elementary school
who always talked
a mean game

on the yard

so the rest of the class
would pay attention.

Road entry #1: Bukowski and the toilette aesthetic. Baton Rouge.

In this day
and age,
poetry
has become
something of
a farce.

I am not sure
who to blame.

But it occurred
to me the other
night.

We all have our
tastes and pleasures.

We all have our
versions of beauty
and objects of
inspiration.

You see it one way.
I see it another

You see art.
I see vacuousness.

We all have “opinions”.

Would it be much
simpler if beauty
was obvious?

If we could measure
poems and songs
and paintings and cinema
with some semblance
of objectivity
and say “this is good”
or “that is horse shit”?

Simpler?
Maybe.
But probably
boring as hell too.

But one thing can be said
poetry is in a bad way.

This occurred to me the
other night while
on the toilette.

With nothing
better to read
I grabbed one
of your poetry
books.

If I can read poetry
while on the crapper
nothing
is sacred
anymore.

I am sure you
would have
liked this “shit-can”
epiphany.

Dull currents afloat

I.

Wounded people.
Rusted age.

Shallow bruised
discoloration.

Shuttered epileptic whiteness.

II.

Undulation
sea breezes
horizon of waves
smells of salt &
green water-weeds.

III.

False repose
starred nights.

Luminous. Lost.

Disordered
days
afloat
dull
currents.

Night, again.

alone.
we are alone.

each night,
we are alone

this night like
any other

a handful
of pills, a book.

sleeping on a sofa,
no patience for bed.

A forest scene.

Moss like fur
creeping
green on
forest rocks
and aged trunks of
weathered oaks.

Hanging tree.
Noose over branches.
The gallows of
fools.

Each wind a whisper,
slowly
twisting,
from right to left
till the rope goes taut
and spins
now left to right.

A pale face
blossoms blue
choking gasps & failed breath.

In time,
all ropes snap
and this heap of flesh
tumbles
to the forest floor.

Soon this blued corpse
will sprout green
moss fur,

a communion of nature,

the natural end.

Plague of feathers.

The crackles of flightly grackles
Clip and yaw from limb to leaf-less limb.

Leaden
These naked branches
Washed
Black in beak and feathery horde.

A natural hymn
Oblique as wind
This passerine song
No more than fevered din.

Dew still young upon grass,
A plague of noise,
The night’s slumber not yet shaken.

I sing these miserable days.

I live for the miserable days, the dreary days, the rainy days.
These days, they ferment the flavor of life:
The burning lungs, with every cold breath,
The rain, the drizzle, the wind, soaking the fabric of clothes, your skin, your bones, your soul.
Noses red, cheeks red, ears red, lips red and chaffing.
All soggy, cold, numb.

These days, I sing these days,
These days that make me feel human,
These days of travail, toil, sunless and cloudy,
These days of constant twilight,
These days of puddles and mud,
Where the act of moving, thinking, laughing, smiling, simply being, inspire a blissless lethargy,
A dream of warm clean linens and aged blankets,
A dream curled up in pre-natal fantasy.
Warm, sleeping, comfort, dreaming.

I sing these miserable days,
These days of boundless imagery.
This butcher’s image.

No Skeleton truly dances,
this raw meat of wounded
life.

Heaped bones, ground as dust.
Dry sinew of corpse-meat &
flesh draped taut on
conveyor-hooks.

Choice morsels
laid raw & tenderized with
mallet and hammer.

This butcher’s image,
this song we sing.

Far beyond

Far beyond not lost
to your horizon, this
milk-haze galactic whorl,
a nightly robe of white.

Green stone-moss fur,
as frost upon the rocks,
the leaf strewn
ocean of wood-flesh
compost.

This twilight brings a fickle night.

Gaia undecided
between abused Medean
infanticide and fevered lust
of newly bedded loves.

Wind, its kiss, this eddy caresses.
A walk through eaves of
Of setting sun.

The clouds gilded bold
as the Apollonian cart
makes way to restful stables.

They also sang the Marseilliase!*

If song can befuddle soldier,
Befuddle Army &
Unhinge shackles of sugar chattel.
If song can liberate slave of whip
And lash under the tepid sun.
A song, this chatter, this Marseilliase,
Foreign anthem, foreign soil,
Now sung new life on a native land.
Free life. Free soil.
For this song, the shackles unhinge.
The Marseillaise that is more than Marseilliase.

Slave yet still, in age of emancipation.
This perverse poverty of
Bullets & rubble. The
Desperation of food of life of strength.
This blood that is more than blood.

When Gaia’s unjust embrace turns
Constant rock and roof and wall
to rubble &
Nature in her enigmatic wisdom
Seeks wounded feet to shackle &
Bruised wrists to bind.
Remember this,
This song, their Marseilliase, is our song.
Their blood is our blood.
As Nature makes good her devices,
And those of Nature’s noblemen
With strength,
Those with health,
And those with wealth
Have a hand, lash at the ready
To end the revolution so long ago.
When the French were confused by a song,
This Marseilliase sung, and
Freedom became unalienable.

*This poem is in reference to the Haitian Revolution. The myth involves the Haitian rebels confusing the French soldiers by singing their national anthem, The Marseilliase. When faced with Haitians singing their song in their native language, many of the French soldiers withdrew not wanting to fire on their own countrymen.

This mildew winter

This mildew winter,
damp,
hides worms of spring.

Rose shaped with
pastel whorls
untouched by garden
tender
left now these naked thorns.

Bright was the gull-song

Bright was the gull-song,
a boisterous melody.
Silent now, this beach
dulled by moonlight.
A ship’s mast, split
and shattered amid
the moss-green rocks.
The waves u-lu-late
and break against
the shore, a bloated
corpse of some
fish or fisher-
man slips first to
and then fro–
drifting dead with
the current.

Thought, this plague of frogs.

Unbounded thought,
many like ants,
or a plague of
frogs
raining green
ribbit hum
as velocity
smears amphibic
entrails
fertilizing the
mind’s eye
biblically rendered
opaque or merely
translucent,
a bright
green fluorescence,
smashed ribbit
and reality quibbles.