Cold Concrete

There was blood on the tracks this morning
before I reached the first full
stop.

When I passed by that way
later in the day,
the car catapulted
just the same,
just … the same.

Though it makes a living underground,
where dust is merely dust,
I could not smell the death
apart from earthly
must.

Reason & rhyme could not compete
against the cold (and)
concrete.

So let us pause … to imagine
   the shattered bone
   the soul, incomplete
   and the weight of severed limbs
what now separates us
  
   from them.

Speech Impediment

When I was a boy

I couldn’t say your name,

’round letters went stiff

Now I need a drink because

a drunken sailor needs the sea, 

                       …a gentle float adrift.

Oh, what little sounds we enter

where boisterous waves cry out,

‘Hey let me in!’

—no doubt.

So there you go 

passing by my boat.

You’ll stay afloat, just pine,

creaking sound of caring drowned.

Enjoy the floor and remember dear,

‘The words endear only how we hear,

for those who speak with silver tongues

bring gentleness ashore, 

heretofore.’

Garbage and Laughter

sitting by the window
the scent of garbage and laughter comes in equal measure
then there’s a room silent
cavernous
and low

its emptiness glows
what a lonely sound echoing voices make with pleasure
all that remains
hollowness
bows

lying seditiously shallow
against a state of affairs, love evicted still rules writ
a law for fools
careless
fallow

the buildings and the trees
everything coated in painter’s black, bright moonlit
hope in the gallows
writhing
pleas

how many lines
that break and form again, never myself to permit
a peace that partakes
retreats
repines

The Amusement Park Wilderness Revisited

The First Visit

The Second

Skyscraper towers of rock silhouette the sunset sky

The evening star pokes a hole in the imminent darkness,

A promise that morning will come

But what dreams may pass between the shadow and the bluebird,

before the rise and fall of wild calls?

My hollow voice will echo faintly,

watch the ripple crawl across the watery table

The moon will glow and the sun will shine, ever brightly,

and where that ripple goes,

only they know

Reverse and Refrain

Bolted to the ground and bruised at the hip
Broken at the rib, where you once lived
The alpine wind comes and goes, who whispers while it whirs?
Something old, something blue, something eternally askew
Psalmist, sinner, and drunken lover never rest
the penultimate play, each must wearily address

Time shuffles forward and now my sins are my own
Paramours of the past echo flowered fields
circling a constellation crookedly sown
Truth survives the second coming intact
but some splendors were never meant to last

Dusky illusions will yield
while parched lips forever compromise in haste
Descending from the rocky summit, will you remember
or did you forget
The broken, the bruised, and the beautiful
sublimely written, wonderfully chaste

Forest corpses reverse and refrain
Only the sun redeems everything sane
Aspen groves gesture comically in the air
waving with faint flickers hello, then goodbye
Golden dusted lines crest every hair
before the cool breeze blows, a fasting sigh

A Sea of Tense and Tea

is there no assurance of things long remembered?

a steady rhythm to recall the object of my derision

I, a small and feeble thing

confessing words that strain to match the intensity

of men with chests, barreled full of poetry

a thing long forgotten, it not I

and a placid sea of tense and tea

maybe it’s better to be blessed

than to arrange fallen line comedies,

an orangutan harangue and pitiful pigs

the procession never ends

this evolution is revolving round

flaccid round a cosmic point that dwindles

it must be something that collapses into nothing

what then remains of things long remembered?

better left lamented, love cements itself

till the bitter end begins again

and again I strain to see the point

where the small and feeble thing

becomes worthy of a king, it not I

pardon me, pardon me amidst the sea

find a steady rhythm to recall

a line forgotten in royal geometry

the wave stands still yet what remains

a pillar of salt just right, his not mine

then left a tragic stain

remember the pronouncement, again

a thing long remembered,

never more, never mine, I resign

There's A Sinister Side to Life

There’s a sinister side to life.
Brutal and real in that imaginary sort of way.
Flesh torn asunder
a violence
poured into coronary caverns.
It thunders and pulses
Fingertips throb with the nadir frequency of fear.
It’s a throttled, hushed tone
that knocks pernicious at your door.

The smokey breath of death slips beneath the threshold,
a bellicose bromine pools around your feet.
Suddenly the vivid stench of darkness goes quiet and flat.
The idle golden lock turns and clicks.
The shape it takes,
Altogether average but for a tilt and a tear
etched beneath the skin.

In the dusty corners of your eye, the world is black and white—
Stare this terror in the face
and see the hideous splendor of your own.
Escape the mirror of caprice
before its image breaks the plane.

Until We Meet...

Sheets of lightning
they blanket the sky
Do you see them too
casting shadows
on the wall. it's writing,
a perilous sigh.
What watery death it portends.

But, an eye for an eye,
the storm's only grace,
a chance to save face.

The cool wind blows
Do you feel it too

The horizon disappears,
the clouds cover the corners.
Is it too late for fasting and fears
Where is that heavenly wisdom,
bid an earthly welcome

Time to build a tent
the lights go out
Do you have the time,
two in the dark, express all you mean

Sleet Sleet Sleet
Sleep, Sleep, Sleep,
until we meet

Turn the Other Cheek

turn that other cheek, figurative and sweet
then shoot 'em in the back, knock 'em off his feet

sheath that sword of truth, dull and rusted
then bury a bullet in the brain, it can't be trusted

watch those guardians descend  unseen
then rain down rockets red, all the good you mean

say a prayer for a piece, heavenly and rich
then clamor for a curse, go to hell you bitch

know the end is near, final and complete
then jump-start judgment with all you meet