Highway wraps around
like a tourniquet:
I'm swollen, but my movement
isn't limited.

The map of your sex,
the veins and arteries crossing, overlapping,
capillaries merging,
remind me of the back roads of desire,
the dead ends of temptation:
your body, my near adventure.

But there's been a crash
by the side of the road
and there's no one here
to identify the body.

Fake

"All together, all alone," rubber bands cutting off the circulation, each digit more numb, only good for counting. Tying rubber bands around my throat, only good for counting.

Barbra in Shadow - My New Chapbook

Have a Kindle? Or a Kindle App on your smartphone? Download my new chapbook Barbra in Shadow for only $2.99!

Don't have a Kindle or Kindle App? Download the free App onto your PC, Mac, iPad, or smartphone!

Post Title

Ashtray beauty
near-sighted,
dreaming with images
upside down
and steeped slowly.

Now welcoming
pepper spray--
now honoring
Halloween coupons,
breakfast at Big Boy.
Break fast for the daily news.

White pages, blank screens,
red iris after a flash bulb,
red iris after a flash mob,
red iris after pepper spray,
democracy in action,
inaction.

With broken teeth,
the country smiles.
The cunt smiles:
a template for our disease.
Let us pray. Let us fast.
Break fast away from peace.

Vandal

Windows broken
with arms hooked in mouths,
only catching a fever.
Headache like an anchor,
dreams are shadows, ghosts.
"What was that line again?"

Shiny skin serves as a beacon,
Brian Wilson on the radio.
Clothed in nothing but anger
palms wipe mouthcorners, lies.
The rock ended up
on the other side of the room.
"Oh, yeah; I traded that sign for a paperback."

August 29

Worms create veins and capillaries in the earth, prolong resistance, mirror elegance, and yet they are easy to ignore.

For two years, maybe three, the same dance occurs underground: weaving channels, intersections, points of frustration.

Make room for more earth, no stopping. At least air is part of the mission, life cradled in cynical wonder, blind faith coddled, coded, in patterns.

Sunday at the Twilight Diner

don't mind me
coffee refills, chunks of sugar

that won't dissolve like
gaps in the timeline

mediating soundscapes
how they influence flavor

and how they press themselves into

the corners of my mouth

no change for a twenty
no change for a year
feasting on the night
dissolving

the gaps in my memory




you leave crumbs on the placemat
I wipe mine clean
absent nostalgia, like narratives
pieced together
breaks in conversation

July 19

a light is kept,
pressure cooked:
a sliver or
an edge of violence

uncorked,
syllables bubble:
a festive brew
of tired feelings,
true, sharp, but drunk
like the bees savoring
hot
fermented apples from
swollen ground

this is summer:
an effigy of recalled births,
songs lodged in dizzy cells

we coax out something positive
and as it swerves, it stings whomever is nearest

June 29

redirecting
broken links,
memorized
phantom visits,
relationships
in code, scrambled

by the way,
the dialect,
the jargon
is scrambled,
repaired

add a location,
physical shadow,
outline the abandonment,
underline in blue

where fingers stretch
to meet wires,
spliced, multiple digits
are sore

tired keys, letters rubbed
clean, we blindly interpret,
translate, memorize
what truth we fold
in circuits

June 28

with metrophobia
a headache is an excuse
to leave early
not enough money for a cab

muted television
no telling, just vision
is better than whispering
through pornography
better than draining
the line break of pus

we know more than the traffic
can carry, more than the wires
can vibrate
lacking punctuation we are free
to skip patterns of abuse, misuse

we are free to walk home,
change jingling in heavy pockets
avoiding drivers
grateful for the randomness of rain