here is not the begining

minutes before an end, it ends
completed in the newness of incompletion
without begining for beginings never happen -
when can you ever begin, where
is zero – nowhere – everywhere is somewhere
is something rolling, ebbing, flowing
to another something to another
anything to get where it needs to be,
to get there when you are here,
and if you don’t move then here will,
and here will refuse to be here
and you will lose here and there,
you will miss the rolling along.
life will not wait for
completion, for perfection, life
will not wait for zero.

of sacrifice

an overzealous gulp of grapejuice,
droplets not bloodlets to floor,
splash, rise, splash again, stain,
but wood is wood and wears
clean with wipes, with water,
with woven wool, absorb, transfer
to wool worn, but never washed,
for wool is wool and shines
nothing like the sun, shrinks
nothing like the sea, i wear
reminders

a look at saturday night

it’s been some time since i’ve posted a poem. i’ve written some things, but they are on paper and not in front of me and inspiration struck in a different way. i like this one because i don’t know if i like it and the more i question that the more i like it. if that doesn’t make sense then you’re in the proper state of mind now.

***

a lead duck without a cell phone
to call in the switch,
a man in the wheel chair
sign facing up,
a handful of chocolate covered pickles,
the scraping remains
of a tube of chapstick,
shirt too tight – just right,
five lists with zero items,
the book you know by heart
in the language you don’t speak,
service that is too fast
to accomplish the task,
garbage day postponed via holiday,
1000 red crickets wasting
the silence of stationary eyes,

a gun,
a noose,
a knife,
scarlett or mustard or ???,
not dancing on the dance floor
free smiles,
free looks,
free drinks,
a touch that doesn’t even mean
an accident at best,
three smiles,
three looks,
she leaves,

it rains,
but what of the remembered umbrella?

the saving flower

i extend, caress a flower
to his thick black hair,
pull the trigger,
fire-
like coals to gray
ashes of immortality.
blossom bullets
weaving a hollow masterpiece
throughout his fertile memory,
seeding luscious overgrowth
spilling to the otherside
weeping willow.

i pick the petals,
as silk to teeth and tongue,
brush away his gray,
and contemplate my garden.

The Hunger

vegans repel his pig-sweat, pot-belly,
cloven-hooves. he lay fetal on hardwood
across the room, seizing from
unholy aromas, teared by
suety steam that blankets pagans
who cook on (Most) high, use oils
with low flash points, and singe
the walls black with gluttony, creeping
skyward apparition tendrils
that pool and flood and rain
like burned butter, enhancing flavor
to all sans umbrella or pot-lid cover
or kosher aura, yet all three
submit to this slow-boil penetrating
living breath of now kitchen-god,
dripping lusty salivations
for anything with a heartbeat.

kitchen-gods are little kids,
this place is a dinner plate,
and only vegetables are safe.

to follow faeries

within twilights when spirit matches jeans-
smoke-soaked, dark-blue and faded
in stylized distress at elevated price-
i cry to cobain and meet him midway,
asking the worse of bullet and fame,
ignoring fem-fates that laced the dice.

we know we overglance the obvious-
the yang knifing yin,
the one-petal’d lotus flower,
the cross with no nails, removed,
rusted, sanguin-stained
and worn as jewelry for the skin, the eyes
pierced and piercing the irony of band names
hopeless with hope, singing merits of rage,
knowing without speaking,
dying without dying within waiting
to make a name, to make lead gold…
to buy new jeans…
smoke out the spirit
captured in moist lucent moonlight,
eclipsing golden-glow singers of fortunes lost-
all exchanged for resplendent eidola-
so clean and godless and perfect,
never hazy, never smoky, so clear.

but kurt tells me faeries aren’t to own
and the perfect ones all fly back home.
(follow?)

Death Grip

Everyday could be the last and
We must call her to keep her,
Else she might loose this world
From her sagely grasp
And follow the Shadows of her Ancestors
Into our unreachable Eternal,
A path she pursues with embrace with
Closeness of breath and naked breast
(For shame makes not the trip).
So we call to keep
Her holding on to this Earth,
Dreading the terrible fall from
Her venerable hand
Into a never-ending vortex
Past elemental fire
And slow swirling wind
Mixing us all back into ourselves,
Into a neo-nuclear soup
Beyond imagination, triggering
Well-familiar fear of unknown.

So we call out to her,
Praying tight grip on humanity,
Keeping her hand bound to us,
Never releasing, always here
To mother us.

Boxing up Holy Grails

“sing me a song,” I say.
tell me a bible story
with liars and lepers and locusts,
oh my – wounded pride.

calling spades everything but spades.
i can do it
i can do it
with my magic mind.
impossible?
i can do it
i can do it

revisit just a verse or two,
or skip to the good part, the chorus
of angels chained to my leg,
to each other, flying, crashing,
trumpeting the return
of whatever in hell we wait for
with hopes of heaven certainly drowned
in the isolation of 40-day rain.

tell me what i want to hear,
placate the emotions.
you can do it
you can do it
kill my rational side.
impossible?
you can do it
you can do it

sell my desires on the street corner,
sing your song for a dollar,
use my own name in vain,
play dress-up with demons
as preachers read them their fate.
read me the same.
too many maybes
in a world without change.
maybe you did it.
maybe you came.
maybe the magic is really insane.
maybe i win, but
maybe too late.
maybe the mind was designed to be tame.
maybe i can’t hear the call of my name.
and maybe just maybe…
i need not be saved.

* * *

Been sitting on this one for a few days and I’ve tweaked it and it’s close, but I’m not comfortable with it, although I don’t know why. Anyway, here it is. Comments are welcome as always.

To Scare Away Monsters

The movie rolls smoothly to a sudden jerk,
credits scroll in order of who shot first,
and we’re all fast asleep, basking
(in tv black-glow and orange and blue
indications that our time has expired)
in positions our mothers would be proud of.

All except for one: stoic bright-eyed or rather
half-glazed or maybe just sprinkles on top,
definitely no bushy tail in this half-dozen
deceased that moan out (for the sole benefit of my ears)
whatever tormented pleasure mimics reality.

Dejectedly amused I crawl the stairs
to my love’s room, as she sleeps in waiting,
not watching me apply a shirt not mine
to my tv-tanned skin under digital clock light,
making extra sure the buttons are on the right-
a feature of shirts previously not typical to this closet,
but that’s why we say “i love you”
with all her lefties as ancient history, yet secretly
I’m hoping for a comeback before I retire.

She stirs as I stir
(a rustle to my disquiet?
aware of subtle wakefulness?)
as the patrol of the night light
does little to ease her mind of monsters
and I question her age-
she tells me her name.
I pluck all the buttons off this shirt
and replace them with screams.

(from under the bed)

Ghosts Are Thespians Too

It’s one of those nights just dark enough
to be alone in a crowded room of people
invented in your mind to ignore and feign superior,
but they all see you in the corner playing coy,
waiting to be discovered and have your plot developed.

It’s one of those nights dragging along
empty soup cans tied with lace to the back of the van,
announcing the celebration of your misery
to phantom party goers all having a much better time
in a world you created but cannot enter.

It’s one of those nights with too many drinks
to honor the deaths of brave conversation warriors
all gunned down in the line of duty, advancing
the troop to your bunker, throwing themselves at you
to cover up the impending shrapnel.

It’s one of those nights noticing painted walls
bringing you colors you would have never chosen
for this season or any, but definitely something brighter,
a pastel, something that welcomes a brunch with melon
that you ball with cigarette-stained fingers.

It’s one of those nights when the word
“lonely” misses the mark scrawled on your cheek,
tempting them all to aim, but you pull away,
scratch in a new irritation to help you feel
anything but the reason why your bed stays cold.