Thursday, January 27, 2022

Hills like White Trucks

White truck on my bumper

F onefivezero on the I-10

let it pass

Coke Zero ripple

can in the cup holder


                       SUPERDUTY 

F-250 (XL)

Mud flaps under

empty bed

God given right to pass

misinterpreted passages

fattened calf slaughtered

extended side view 

and the Word standing still

tinted windows and extended brim

fish fleur de lis deer head mais oui

never found out what that means

extended cab Atchafalaya

feels like 106

tall chrome bumper 

imaginary knees and the birth and the sun sideways cypress trees

cloud mountains overhead

3D lightening F-150

pushing back

Dale Earnhart and his dad

vitriol clasped

hands unopened in prayer

locked under the sun


4x4

herd negates speed limit

rules don’t apply

the F word in a Pavement song

If I could settle down,

then I would settle down.


trooper waiting 

no cypress to the left

no cypress to look at

American made

thicket tree wall in front of hunting grounds

undeterred ahead

empty toolbox headed to the camp

old ice chests

grid on top of the Igloo

duckblind

nothing to see here don’t pay it no nevermind

a sign to speed, hurrying to never leave

chatteling

aircraft enforced no wings

white trucks all around me

and van gogh’s ear cut off and

posts i delete


king of the road truck stop 

nothing to see here

nothing to see

white truck under chassis

73 (miles/hour)

Monday, January 15, 2018

Psychotherapy Appts


Maybe the things I said
have resonated more,
out of the smoke cloud.
Lingering dendrites, dead matter
bridges flowers and the bones of boars
archers shooting ropes with claws
that probably have a name
a four year old knows.
Why and what
good a poem is if the writer
doesn’t know the right words?
The top of a paw of a cougar’s hand. Ask the child how to
communicate like that again.

Sadness glamorized and pity
where it doesn’t belong.
Pages uncovered
with notes from a diary meant for others.
Secrets formed
in order that they may be overheard.
Tall bathrobe and voices parrying
dodging and thinking about what to
say.

Conversation sinking in a bay treacherous .
Blue cliffs overlooking and murky
water
and rocks with moss on them.
Bones of sailors having leaned
on their knee and having pounded
a table with poker chips on it.

I couldn’t understand a word he
was saying and I wasn’t even
listening.

Stunted breathing, breakthroughs
the second time around.
Jokes re-told and religious competition,
the same conclusion
Globalism and nationalist protestors
lined up at Taco Bell.
Railroading sports utility vehicles in Portland.
The breath
and the
tip to the server listed in denominations
Dot matrices and Verifones.

Ingenico, I hadn’t heard that.

That’s what I was thinking
Better seats and Sprites with caffeine in it
The tea at a Vietnamese restaurant
The place across the street with the
average curry and the forgotten
explanation hurried thoughts crossed
over a puddle dampened by a
shoe and boots, the water spilling under.
Frustrations
labored and
crossed out word and
conscious edits and over-thoughts
decision and crying
in the hallway and faces in a window.

“I just wanna
go back to my room!” and letters
that will never be
written and
patients without prescriptions, tickets at a station.

Dreams of Russia, other frustrations, bricks
concrete arches and platforms
Lists and shattered
knuckles fights every five years
Lines and pens that
don’t fit
and overlong brunches and
saying the same thing.

Handing someone your trash and thick brush
and upper body muscles
passing instead of turning back
Pulled up the side of the waterfall and that lagoon in the sea
by the bay, emphasis
Repetition underwire dead semen has
chattered on to sailors turning their heads.

Have you
had your hearing checked
and not projecting grating phrases and
concrete inclines that aren’t machines
and no one walks on them and
books in the marketplace and
a cross, arm connected to foot, Xmas
and atheists talking
about religion and no one laughing and previews in silence,
a laugh before the credits roll.

A refill in the lobby
and questions in the lobby and new Star Wars movies.
And scripts handed out medicine
like candy w/candy dimes and dozens
and layers of clothes in
the summer and articles
and prepositions. A conversation with
pointed words and interruptions, taken like so many
sing-a-long’s,

and “Singapore because
I’ve been there.” Why’s wherefore’s
who-dun-it’s and pre-meditated
explanations. Overt criticisms and
stopping the path of an eyelid

Bulging eyes orbiting, and
moonlight in some desert I’ve never
been to that I’ve seen a documentary on
Packages left by the door of
a similar address to the
neighbor with the same name, pictures taken down off the wall and rhymes
with no antecedent
preserved in
a jar with a rubber band and a
cheese cloth that will never be
used again. Exceptions and
exaggerations and a swing wrapped
twice around the top with an S-hook
or maybe 2 S-hooks together. Pens
and hands with bends and lessons
and lines and styles expressing and lessons
and lines and styles expressing themselves
like a balloon on a strand of hair

One cracker I forgot the name of and in a
bag of pretzels and conversation
taken seriously an empty row of
seats double spaced narrative. threads in
a knot and rosaries in a comb.

Horses, peasants, nipples, star-
flake uncomfortable pen. Exposed
and claws trying
to trip a pig and sugar for
breakfast.

These are unrelated things
of which I have said too much and never need to be said again.


Saturday, September 14, 2013

Range

Rolling hills
Un-wrinkled grass
Buffed surface
Patent-leather landscape
Refined by radiation
Unperturbed grazing ground

A steer cries out
A rousing bellow
Gnashed grass in hulking gullet
Black beast with tremendous shoulders
Incensed nostrils powerful clavicles
Perspiration gluts dried blood and baked mud
Groaning upwards
He challenges the sun
Countering its deafening roar
That's traveled one hundred million miles
Booming explosion remnants as visible light
An aerial bombardment
The steer clenches
Chewing and screaming at Noon
Wandering in conflict
In the range of the sun
Stomping on a mountain
Holding his ground

The steer follows a low rumble
At twilight
Sensing the sun’s retreat
Raucous chatter
An echoing din
Inside the thanes carry-on
Drunk and complacent
Pounding on candlelit tables
The steer marches undetected
With pummeling steps
Towards the mead-hall of the sun’s soldiers
A shady barn in his range
The discontent beast
Nudges the barn door
Silhouette in the threshold
Panics the revelers
Which incites the beast
Who clobbers fleeing victims
His dark hooves stained with flesh
Wiry thatches of black hair soaked in viscous blood
Fragments of thanes spattered
On large bales of hay
Stacks of dried grass trampled
Shady barn turned red in the night

The cow rests alone in darkness
Legs folded under
Knees relieved
Preparing for tomorrow’s defense
From the unrelenting sun.

Friday, October 26, 2012

fabergé eggs and other poems


fabergé eggs

fabergé eggs
so fragile delicate beautiful
you coddle them, warm them, two hands
you've found the ones you want
i prefer rough-textured, plain-white
and you decide
they don't belong at the china shop
and stick them on the counter
of a polished dresser
near the china cabinet
behind your couch
until your grandkid picks them up
out of your ornate french bowl
and you tell them
"put that down
you'll break it
(they're not yours)"
and that ceramic bowl in the china shop
doesn't look right
until the shop closes
and fabergé eggs go out of fashion


cold showers

i was getting used to cold showers
because of my poison oak rash
soothing my pores
it closes them i hear
but the poison is still in there
seems like it must bond to your cell's receptors
isn't going anywhere
no matter the water temperature
and now i'm back to hot ones
since i can
without the satisfying but dangerous burn reaction
of urishiol (that's the poison)


waking up

teasing a sleeping person
they don't respond
you can push it a little further
each time
talkin to'em and shit
like they're going to respond
but when they're awake
with their eyes closed
they have the power
and wait for you to talk about them
and pounce on you
springing out of their slumber
all "what the fuck?"
and they're going to be mad anyway
crossing back to the consciousness
to wage war with time
who only retreats from sleep
only to outflank you
when you return
gasping
looking around to see
who's fucking with you

Friday, July 27, 2012

Monday, July 9, 2012

The Idiot: Fyodor Dostoevsky

"I had heard a great deal about him beforehand and had heard he was an atheist, among other things. He really is a very learned man, and I was delighted at the prospect of talking to a really learned man. What's more he is a most unusually well-bred man, so that he talked to me quite as if I were his equal in ideas and attainments. He doesn't believe in God. Only, one thing struck me: that he seemed not to be talking about that at all, the whole time; and it struck me just because whenever I have met unbelievers before, or read their books, it always seemed to me that they were speaking and writing in their books about something quite different, although it seemed to be about that on the surface."