one poem or five haikus?

you move into the light
you breathe as if melting
a bucket of coins

white and blue windows
slam shut like bullets
into a chamber

the rest of the night hangs
on an outcome you have
the privilige to announce

you have a choice but
you have begun to see
patterns in a random world

the blue sky delivers
blood to our hearts
like bread to our hands

the oddest thing

when did you say you were
coming back? I sat in a chair
for a long time

                           my white clothes
were turning blue my eyes were
as tired as old women
holding vigil and melting
candles

              the oddest thing happened
to me today

                       I stopped breathing
and your face appeared

chicken bones

Billy Marshall
                          had a name
right out of the Wild West
and a devil’s grin fat freckles
and messy hair

                            fat lips and
black eyes bloomed from his
dirty fists

                        we dug up a
garbage bag filled with bones
small animal bones a chicken
or a cat why bury an animal
in a garbage bag?

Billy Marshall
                         had nothing
to do with it but it felt like
his kind of menace

                                   it felt like
a bad secret like the PCP and
greasepaint scene from the
Mod Squad

                       the fear of high
school
                falling from the roof

the one who haunts your dreams
doesn’t know you exist

two poems

spider

tiny red spider
you dance on
skinny legs

like Picasso
crawling all over
a piano
            
             like a surgeon
pulling thread
through a suture



gasp

a break in the clouds a gasp
and blue paint falls just like a
sheet of rain

sea creatures raise their claws
over their heads and grasp the
cable that lifts them out

the surest way to nirvana is to
hang to death just ask jesus
just ask these fish

drink from my cup

come here, let me show you the sun
have you ever seen anything so white
have you ever been lowered
beneath the surface
and reborn a killer
a first-born grain
washed down the drain
with the sand and the soap
there is no hope
there is no plan
just because i can see
doesn't mean i will

because of the rain
a city fell
if you drink from my cup
you never will
if you drink from my cup
if you swallow a pill
all hands on deck
the captain's opening
a barrell of rum
three days until easter
let's see some blood run

spotlight

he lifted his shoulder to his
cheek, taking a quick glance
and her eyes made time stop

the perfect question
(which is not a question at all)
is a thunderbolt that
lights up your instincts
your nerves are firing
the channels are all open
eyes are daggers
tongues are twisted

it's a hot summer night and
the moon is a cruel spotlight

two poems

summer rain

awakened from the dandelion dream
you fall on us (warm)
like whispering stars

lay down on the earth
and bless the pavement
find your way to the tongues

of spiders and ants
and into the wells
of all the kingdoms you serve

find your way
across the shivering grass to
broker a peace without tears 

i found my way in the morning mist
i found my way in the pitch of white light
in the drops on my glasses 


when

you must float up
in ways that are hidden
breaking the surface
in the middle of the night
while the universe sleeps 

two poems

our machinery

I open my collar to the wind and salt

and no sooner have I muffled the whistling kettle

when out of the obvious
murder walks a panther

of fine husbandry and meticulous scent

and lo! I am broken and suckled

laid down like a barroom brawl

tongue rolled like an axe

from unfastened buttons weapons are delivered

the machinery, the pistons and combustion

(smoke shivers)

our gears are meshed

the mirror is a nail

inside the shell

a fractured diamond

sparkling dust stirred

by waves of electrons

the mirror is a nail

that clears a path for

streams of light to divert into

we draw ourselves maps

only to wander blindfolded

we carve the ground 
with our will to disintegrate

threads

pureness in reality
    around these parts
pureness in death
    a crime is committed nearly every minute
pureness in complexion
    and the perpetrators are rarely unknown to the victims
pureness in fire
   
you must have a singular purpose, one with a backup
you're never stronger (eye of a needle)
than when you've consumed your own heart
and filled the space with a mad dream

there were five men on the north-bound train
when it left the station
only one arrived (and he had no teeth)

police officers in bathrobes
reviewed the case
they smoked tobacco
they ate veal chops
they took an untested drug
in a clandestine club
where merchants of sound
pulled threads though their ears

once the universe is aware of its own existence
it seeks to protect itself through the elimination
of external and internal threats
it will take bread over circuses
but it still wants something
to watch while it eats

oh lord the squadron of shrapnel
flew in formation
into my eye

-----------

holiness

the beats found holiness in the mundane
this is an attitude worth having
sometimes we forget that all of reality
is alive with meaning
even rocks, even empty space

A bunch of little poems that wanted out

-----o-----

Hey coffee, you’re the best,
Hey vinegar, you cut through the flesh,
Hey polio, I can taste you in my ears,
Hey people, come swallow your fears.

-----o-----

america has grown fat
it’s noble purpose asleep
in a bed unmade
in terms of trade
in a narcotic arcade

-----o-----

I drank the Kool-Aid, I stole the purse
I said magic words that opened the universe
the back of the mirror reflects a different light
and a different You is staring back tonight

-----o-----

Send for my prescription,
my sacred beads of mercury.
I’m feeling a clarity,
a stark encounter with the end of us all.
Last call for alcohol
in a city of failing light.

-----o-----

It is the number five, the number you are
always asking about. It’s always five.
Hold up your hand, make it face the sun,
make it feel that star, make it be felt by the star.
Our only hope is the sun,
Yet still we stare into the darkness,
Lying in wait for the things that come out.

-----o-----

Pray that he comes
in the heart of the heat,
the bone and the meat,
the pounding of drums.

Pray that he stays,
pray that you’re strong,
an army in retreat forgets
all of its songs.

The Prince has an air
of hard-done-by youth,
and disdain, in equal measure,
for those under his hooves.

-----o-----

Delight in a thousand engines
Lay waste to the prime meridian
Out of the fire and into the physics
We’re bred in the lab, unconscious.

-----o-----

Obviously, there will be a full investigation
Utilizing all of our imaginary resources
But the bottom line is that
you will get your money back
It’s just a question of where and when
the wrong atom is split.

-----o-----

A red brick
Sailing through the sky
Signals the start
Of the next revolution.

-----o-----

A molecule of air
When bathed in sunlight
Is as bright as a berry
When bathed in rain.

-----o-----

Too late!
Too late!
Screaming at the ambulance,
Screaming at the world.

-----o-----

Artificial light, sailors tie their knots
like ribbons of sugar and weeds.
as popular as you get, a rapidly growing franchise
has neither the womb nor the ratchet
to bring about riots.

There’s a glow in this room, from above and below,
a vanilla cream hum in the floor and oddly fragrant mists
focus slippery sounds in the ears.

There is a spirit of dust that has settled on my shoulders,
A head like a tunnel, a passageway for colour analysis and time.
Lose the analysis and keep the colour.
Or is it the other way around?

-----o-----

The road to ruin
Is paved with
Abandoned pets
And smoking jackets.

-----o-----

there will be no more Pepsi
for your awkward illusions
there will be no more foie gras
no pastries, no handsome paperweights
the full scope of your mad dreams
amounts to nothing
but a whistling insect
and a few grains of rice

-----o-----

Nine Poems

Another Other Brother

it is really quite revealing
the way you spin your guns
and open the jar of honey
like the bees are still inside
i can’t recall the first time
i awoke with you on my lawn
damp shirt and sunglasses
black as the moon


And what can I say?

And what can I say if one day
I’m opened up and falling
with rocks and stars
watching everyone watch me
smaller than my own skin
and feeling like nothing left in the sun,

but the next day it’s cool green
and silent liquid silver
and there’s Bill Evans himself
playing like a bubbling stream
and it’s all delicious,
a martini in a chilled glass?


Opinion

I’m tired of having opinions
of pinstripes and aeroplanes
and combustion engines arriving in the nick of time.

It’s the path that’s seldom taken
in the air-conditioned excuses that are trotted out
in the headlines each morning before nine.

I’m tired of making opinions fit between sheets of glass,
freshly glued to foreheads and bedposts,
scrambling down the road like a two-legged camera crew.

It’s not my hard-fought-for breath I’m wasting when
I blow out the gaskets on the kingdom of ink,
it’s the paper that soaked up each and every one of my songs.

I’m tired of having opinions
to share with my victims.



Mirror

What is a mirror
But a pair of scissors?

 
Endgame

Panicking soldiers
jostle for her attention.
More than one will
go home tonight.


Celluloid

the kids stand in line
at the birthplace of Disney
to pay their respects
to God and Lee Harvey.

 
Two Poems NOT by Yoko Ono

1.
Draw a map
Of your parents’ bedroom
Mark an ‘x’
Where you think they’re hiding.

2.
Put a rock in your pocket
Each day
Put another rock in your pocket
Keep doing this
Until you pants fall down.


Sun Heart

in the sun there is a worm
beating as its heart
it tunneled through my head
and fell upon the flames

 
Moon Heart

under a moon that’s carved in two
I hold a heart in cupped hands
my birth was a chance, a punishing peace
my tongue holds a word (and won’t let go)
but my ears are pretending they already know

Three Poems

what you see in my forehead
came from a comet that sailed
through December
it left its mark in the form of passageways
opening a path through everyone that saw it

-----o-----

snakebite blacklight
    the thief never comes at midnight
airstream pipedream
    he may arrive on a sunbeam
sailing bracing
    he will never find me waiting
glass pane double drain
    I fell from the sky in an airplane

-----o-----

around the star we swing
like a hammer chasing
a nail that fell into the void
always swinging
never landing,
a ball of glass forever falling
to the floor

starlight

what,

what now is breaking starlight?

(you break stars on a summer night)

it’s not the colours around you that has opened the ground

the energy that makes the ground vibrate

nor the song of your voice, splintering sidewalks

(gunshots in the heat of summer)

chaotic and liberating, it’s in the fine details

of our smoke and food, our murder and skin

how impossible it seems

when weighed against the starlight

burning in lifetimes of endless space

what,

what is on fire?

how many other fires has it started?

(in the dry grass)

red pilot, blue engine

no one describes the process
no one extinguishes the crystal thumbprint
in face of all the unreflecting visions and refined cataclysms
i exhume a particle, a filament of spider web hung on a clothesline
parsed by a consuming crowd

red pilot, blue engine, ice forms on steel
a tower of fuel rods transmits the message
into the fire-breathing sky
and produces a child, pale
a bone hung with flesh
a half-devil raised to fail

disproportionate in tone, in weight, in colour
a face within a complex, a tangle of linen
made entirely of tobacco and coffee
we insist the boy bring bread removed from windows
what choice do we have, when we’re stretched on the pavement
and a telescope tells us what we need and who we are

a river of pamphlets flows through the pyramids
and twists on itself like tissue dyed with kerosene.
whether or not we submit to the madness
the conventional wisdom of soulless mice
all depends on direction of windflow
and the patterns of numbers in houses of paper

red pilot, blue engine, within the wrist there is a stone
within the playground, a virus is spreading
above the factory floor the chains are trembling
and ringing like castrated bells
let this be a warning to the hamstrung children
there is more blood in the soil than
bone or blasphemy

archangel

brittle teeth born of the streaming light
open breathing holes in the plastic sheet
standing like blue windscreens
and the hair on the back of my neck
there are stars that can only be seen in the movies
there are molecules of sound that rest in your ears for a lifetime.

when winter comes, we start to lose our skin, we start to catch fire
hollow bones that are lighter than air rattle in the rafters
as we wait in the street for the shaking to stop
an honest day's work begins when you want it,
an evening of lies, whether you want it or not.

there is a small child on the lawn,
cold as a mushroom in the fall grass
pulling at the grass with automatic fists
bring the plates to the table, the child to her mother
bring fire down from the sky, and dig at the street with shovels
around our heads buzz flies and mosquitoes, messengers of mud,
milking the earth like a bloated udder hanging in space.

the candy machine

this is the candy machine
words cannot express the sweetness
the liberating pulse of energy
that climbs through veins and scrapes through walls
as you roll out the flesh and tongue
and drop broken gumballs from your wet lips
let the rivers flow with these drugs,
let the muscle of sunlight
cleave your heart.

five five-line poems

1
the wind is changing direction
but our kites are still flying to the sun
if you hear a whistling sound
maybe your lips are making the shape
of a rocket attack


2
a lone stand of trees braces itself
against a black wind
feathery bark peels and flutters
like hair, or wool, or tobacco falling
from an unlit cigarette


3
did you notice the weights that were left on the hood?
i followed the footprints away from the cars
and saw where they led:
a pile of old cans, stacked as high as a house
and lying in front was a dirty old man in a plastic bag


4
i have a complicated way of bearing witness,
a tooth fairy's knack
for making discreet expeditions into the night
freeing teeth from mouths
for little more than coffee money


5
einstein in a gorilla suit
telling you that
time does not exist
while he relieves you
of your wristwatch

seven poems

wire

whether or not there are positions to be taken
it all depends on your first rendition
and your relation to the foxhole

you totter like a hammer,
and you are wedged between two earths
i've known about your broken fingers,
and i've seen the end of the fierce rabbits

blood is thicker than wire,
when wires are plugged into the heart
it's from the inside that we see what's going on
what's truly taking shape in the space before us
it's only a matter of time before we face the fire
back to front we're in the truck,
a blind man follows his dumb luck.


chill

morning,
frost on petals,
the blue glow of the sun
behind houses


complicated

calling fire down from the heavens,
molten lava, my life
odd happenings are heavy, silent
the birth of the windows,
the shattering of glass,
knots tied in wood and hair.


weed

when we were walking through the meadow
and the weeds were thicker
than a tangle of fat nerves and green rope
my feet didn't want to move,
they wanted to grow roots and hold me to the earth
like a weed that has broken free,
a dandelion seed that has been taken by the wind
looking for the right soil to lie down in and crack open its heart
to spill through the earth and rise up from the ground.


spores

the moon blows down through ancient lips,
the frosty breath from the white ball in space
mushrooms know the moon is their mother
and try to reach her, but can't
they shower spores like tears.


industrial revolution

this has to work,
it's the details that get in the way of a good breakfast
fine songs let loose like feathers in boats, engulfed in flames
like a hard-strung planet
aeroplanes float in the sky like eyebrows rising in surprise
when the road is harder and hotter than your will
there is no reasonable way to throw your mind on the table

wires are hot, wires are strung, ropes and meat are hung in the sun
green fields turn gold, under grey skies they burn
if ever the bleeding rooms open up during the frame
i'm on board for realizing the long crates
the open spaces that are held in batteries

these are the hollowest balls in the station
but i can't seem to draw upon my thin hairs for support
there are open dreams, there are slicing fears,
there are ways to remove the glaciers,
ice, hard as steel, cracking like rocks
straight to the devil's feet,
nailed to the floor with five pound hammers
in a cycle of smoke, repositioned and refined.


some things that i found

blue dusters were sailing in the air that was thick with constant wailing
chimney stacks lined with paper and horse harnesses leaning precariously to one side
all at once the sea was quiet, you could hear the drop of a tooth
branches that are no longer branches hustled for leaves
a newborn baby had gathered them all like matches in a matchbook
paper airplanes folded by kingpins, and brought to the queen by snarling dogs

(the most obvious daggers are never the ones you should worry about
it's the tiny ones made of coal that slide under your skin that pose the gravest threat)

just when you think the elements have come together in a unique way
the breastplate of righteousness is split in two by a swinging ball
five time five is twenty-five, the number you need to stay alive
the cold metal under your feet and against the back of your knees
that's what it takes to succeed in the land of make-believe

these are some things that i found
down an alleyway and on the ground
it wasn't pretty, it was all blood and graffiti
I found loaves of bread, and Francis Bacon's head.

three poems

dirty sidewalk

before the fall, there was an ocean of plasticine
stretching as far as the bouncing ball would permit
and containers were spilling over with enthusiasm and faint hope,
not to be confused with the pandemic that permeates all conscious thought

never before in the history of mankind has there been
such an abundance of nickels and dimes
the truth lies somewhere between here and Kentucky
the rooster crows and the whistle blows
and the breath of a foghorn blows out over the bay

possible outcomes are determined by impossible inputs
her breast-taking beauty only diminished by a lawyer
in a plaid suit, with a briefcase full of sugar
and a dog on a long chain snarling at its own tail.


i'm having trouble

if there is a notion that i cannot bring myself to endorse
it's that there are firestorms that are too splendid to partake in
as if there are lightning bolts that are too dull to damage

five times the window was thrown open
as if the airplane knew how to climb on its own

in the morning,
in the paper candles,
in the hard night
i'm not finished until the last sliver is pulled free


you're having trouble

sparse cameras illuminate an otherwise dreary day
i'm not the kind of frantic phone call you need me to be
blasted straps to hold the whole mess together
and you force it, you'll see what happens when it pops open
like a furnace

i would furnish the house with all your spastic droolings
once, twice, three times an alien
it's obvious that you can't see a thing from where you're standing
if you could, you would have been screaming by now
but instead you're curled up inside that trench coat
whispering sweet nothings to no one in particular
ah, but that's the point, isn't it?
it is better to have loved and lapsed than
to never have hung the cables

what is it you've got there, strapped to your waist
packets of plastic explosives, practically bursting with flavour?
do me a favour and spit out that gum
you're having trouble chewing it and pulling the trigger
at the same time.

some new short poems

animal sense

some dogs know where the sun went
they can smell a sunbeam as it inches away
how the sun pulls us all up straight from the ground
like needles from a ball, like limbs from a body
if the post is cracked what will the gate hitch to?
it will swing over the cold, muddy ground
it will fly apart like a dandelion's old head
the oddest cat just entered my yard
it owns the world more than i ever will
it's not afraid of predators
it just watches silently
as they take away its kittens


insect sense

a dominion of earthworms convene under the moon
fireflies, dragonflies, rocketflies, far from blame
silk worms pull locomotives with thousands of strands of silk
in the same way that blood hardens when baked


save the prince!

for better times, we plan ahead
retreaded tires and buttered bread
an extra spool of premium thread
will guarantee the prince's head


there she goes again

she turns around and leaves, but not before
dragging her hand across the rough wall
the faintest sound coming from the back door
a boot, firmly placed, the right amount of pressure
five broken bottles all leaking on the countertop


the problem with things that are round

late at night the stars lower their hair like Rapunzel
early in the morning the earth's hair stands on end
atom bombs can be made now that are smaller than golf balls
if you hold them in your mouth they taste like butterscotch
if you run around the world in a true straight line
you'll fall off the world, not because it's flat,
but because your path is.


nothing ever stops

if i close my eyes, the world explodes
if i bump my head, a crowd holds its breath
under the brightest moon, the night bugs are busy
we think the world stops when we do
but nothing ever stops, it all just rolls on
we all learned to walk, not one step at a time
but all steps at once, all fears exposed