Pick Up Your Own Damn Pieces

 her eyes burn savage, her lips go thin,
the love that buffers this hard sweet life
clocks her on the chin, revealing merciless 
glistening flesh, reduced to this, peeling away 
the frame. we could destroy and rebuild
and never be safe again, he said, sadly—
but with a grin. that's just what he was,
a petulant fog, an itching phantom limb.
did she ever look back? there's no fucking way—
the door missed her ass by a mile. unwilling
to host any lingering ghosts, she fucked
that note sincerely, protecting her delicate
architecture with a drunken bombardier.

Ol' Whatzername

Got a phone call from the captain says my ship is comin' in
but the phone is in the bathtub and the bathtub’s full of gin

livin on saltines,
sardines and day old
bacon grease
bet my bottom dollar on a
johnny walker neat
never took no pictures cause we never went nowhere
breathing in her pillow cause it smells like her hair

one-two split-tooth
smile like a clown
toe nails glowing red on the gas pedal
cranked on crank,
AC blow dry curls still adrip from the shower
eternal straight stretch whispers 95, 97, 110

she could stop traffic that girl

scene cleaners
pressure wash
bits of my dear
down drain, downstream
among catfish and eel.
raw deal
bum squeal
net worth
zilch.
final words was some shit about the bills

mama makin ground smashin muscle into bone
pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake
she ain't ever comin home

She taught me to sing
Sweet as hell. tongue
pokin' out when she did up her hair.

Looked at me
like the looks
I've seen  people
with headphones
alone with what's in their head

(and her eyes were the deepest...)
morning and night
I call her name
I test her name.
embarrassed as hell
to inflect
the end of her name.

And then one day
you’ll never believe
I couldn’t tell a thing.
The curve of her neck?
Which side the tattoo?

(and her eyes were the deepest...)
Her eyes so green.
Her eyes were brown or blue?

Father & Son

The Father and I
get canonized huffing
mineral spirits.
We could teach benediction to the
Coin-trick Saint! he revelates to his palms, to
just shy of 75
aspirant
Brides of Christ who gather
afield kicking
serious shit-storms of doubt, dirt
and dance til they are spent,
lying in a heap,
translating the percussion of settling dust:
You
done
good,
one begins, then 3 and 10,
'til all harbor the same stimuli--
yet mine comes out like this?
My first and final vow:
I love you. In fact.
In fiction

The Old Business

you got to sing,
he whistled.
kiss the sunkist cement
come spring, he hummed.
When the hell everything get
so bright, he blinks.
so bright, such bold
minor chord
lamentations...
Remember?
When sweet trouble stuck to your boot,
gathered hard
and cracked
underfoot
on ashen pavement?

The signs are buckshot and conflict:
tea leaves & hard candy
shards
politely insist:
Songs were hopeful
then. men
who fit in
were recognized 
when they arrived.
Music and food and your neighbors,
nothing was foreign to him.
People he never imagined:
strangers, demanding,
amplified tragedies, erect
flagpoles shrinking in the
ever-expanding radius.
Decisions pressing
flesh,
baring teeth,
smiling.

The Crack of Don

Banana split dreams
and directions to a gold mine
My sheets are
twistin' in the wind,
flap and snap
and fins and skin
big blown bellies on the clothesline.
Banana split sea, westerly
wind on the ass end.
In the water in the sink
brass monkeys tinkle and clink
canines rippin, drippin pink
flesh of over-ripened bovine.

Don's Lincoln Town Car
got as far as
Sharyland
then quit by the Dairy Queen Don
used to work
til when that jerk-off showed him the gun.
Was a Saturday black hole
before dinner dusk
rush buzzing on the radar, but
just him and Javier
and the
minute this guy jingles in
I thought, shit, this
is not going to be one of your normal transactions.
This kid's hunger went off menu,
which is a good in some.  But,
he shoots a glance
to the white-hairs in the corner, tongue-probing
dip cones, and
says all twitchy:
gimme a large Big Red, large.
Fuck the DQ man, let him have the money.
Fuck this punk too, though
tapping the counter with the pants slung low--
Don playing pin the
finger on the magic key,
mumbling Castaneda incantations--
which,
when invoked (via gunmetal ting)
unbuckled "Belt Buster"
at the time,
Don's brutal,
conclusive
alter-ego

jackass

Walking to work
October sun punched face, circa waste
water puddles
reflect the occasional south Texas scrub,
above,
institutional green leaves
hang on withering to bits like tobacco.
natural patches of dead grasses
arm the neighborhood against tender feet.
From scorched earth
cocoa powder dirt
emerge searing flashes of my son,
my sleeping daughter.
daytime canines curve into their eyes 
puncturing each perfect dream

Duet Delusional

I’m honestly quite surprised by your appearance
You gave me every reason to believe…
That I was taller?
Well, no—but, that you were just,
different. The picture
you posted in no way even remotely resembles you...
Yeah well, it was taken a few years back.
No, but I mean it’s not even you. Not
even someone related to you...
Listen—
John...
Sure, o k, John. John?
Do you think you live in a vending machine? Is
what you want stuck in a coil? I mean,
you heard the quarters clink in the collector--
Who’s to say shit can’t change
without your consent?
Yeah?
well,
honey--
I get my first blowjob in the morning while
I’m shavin’ the hair off my face.
I sprinkle lightning bolts in my sneakers
I got aero-planes writin' my name.
10 thousand grams of protein
chug through my slick ass veins
as the clouds divide before me,
I roam the world 5 times in one day.
If the rhinoceros in my boxers
ever lets me get any sleep,
I'll raise my palms to the sky
and tan your milky hide
with a 21 spank salute--
Boom!
She said,
I'm wastin' time here
like a religion.
Wastin’ time,
all the time.
Wastin’ time,
doin’ the things
that I think
that I want
to really think about doin’.
Wastin’ time,
makin’ up dreams about scenes
that I see
me and you
actin like
we just met on the street.
Wastin’ time
searchin for gold
in black shadows of soul
puddled up at my feet.

3-Way

1. Picky. You have always been so picky. Pricky. Ha! Prick. No. But you know what I mean, right?
   
beat

 I mean at first I took it as a sign of confidence? You were like a man, but not ashamed of it? But then, it's like a damn disease, an affliction. Like when you started doin my makeup for me, or when I "ruined" your car.

2. You totalled that car, and that was no fucking car, that was the remaining light in my soul. That you destroyed. Without remorse. And you, with 'Look at me! Not a scratch!' Not even a bruise. Unfuckingbelievable. And yes, I know, I'm supposed to be happy, because it was just a thing right? Or relieved, or something.

1. Asshole. I coulda died.

2. But you didn't. And that didn't stop you from gettin in my car did it? Like it's stopped you from doing every single other fucking thing in your life. A heartbeat's all you need to die, sweetie, slow or sudden. Take your pick.

beat.
    
You at least coulda broke your arm or something.

1. A jewel.

2. What?

1. That's what she looked like. That girl you had that thing with...

2. Oh God, this? How. What, what is the point of bringing this...

1. ...say a ruby, which is cliche I know, but her color, 'cause she was always flush--lifting those steel plates. She looked so damn healthy.

3. Well. I just think you two have made some excellent progress.

2. Dang it, come here Fluffy. Come sit by me. We don't ever touch anymore. That's what it is. Foreign bodies.

1. Ha!

2. You like that one? That's not even my best material.

1. Put it on me.

2. I'd like to try you on right about now.

1. Oh, Tiger Baby.

2. Mi Palomita

beat

 Well, hey man, good luck. And listen. I mean, I don't know what I could possibly do for you, but I'm pretty damn resourceful. So call me if you ever need anything.

Roast Kid

I'm getting fatter
than a fat mad hatter
'cause I eat 10 cakes a day.
My belly's turning jelly,
my toes to sausages,
my eyeballs sinking in their sockets
and my lozenges
are full of sugar.

Sugar...

...full of sugar
in my boogers
gasoline in my spleen,
my marbles searching for the door
you know what I mean.
I meant that I am,
the King of Siam,
and my harem is 300 lovely girls,
who all have guppies,
they treat like puppies
that I will chop, chop, chop, chop, chop
up into chum.
And fill up slippy kiddie pools,
by the stinking bucketful
and dig up the cabrito when it's done,
done.
Done.

Oh, Henry

Thoreau slapped his friend, Emerson's
broad back, said,
Hey Ralphie boy,
I'm checkin' out.
I need a place to lay low,
whaddaya think?
Emerson said, Of course,
this land is your land.
And so the picture of Thoreau:
Freshly calloused fingers
gripping the shaft of Emerson's ax,
cleaving Walden logs.

Heaving a sigh from above,
tracing his length in a breath-frosted window,
Mrs. Emerson gently corrects herself.
Musing on the exchange rate
for just one minute alone with that Henry David...
Well!

The Confession of Dan: An Ode to Fran

Oh Fran, Fran, Franny
I hear sizzle and you shimmy
off that silky piece of nothing you call a
nightie.
I hear a Mexiguatesalvadominican jumble of
Eat me's and Fuck you's and remember
the way they
pricked up like chastised school children when you ran the line.
Ah, hell Franny.
Well into the middle of my campaign for
best vintage Cadillac/coke addiction(critics choice!)
you step down, my running mate.
My recipes were strong enough to endure the split,
my spirit gently declined.
Witness the crumb's descent into gazing Valentina's dark cleavage,
dazzling flecks of cream gravy on Valentino's smooth brown chin.
Reach across the booth into the great
wild tenderness.
Damn, woman.
A proud and lonely heart once stood roost in this busted up cage.
I am not a different man.  I ain't no different from the man you married.
I ain't ever completely believed you
either,
how you got that scar on your back.
Franny, I'm gettin' out. Fifty years is a long time.
I'll end up in the desert, wed to a saguaro.
Take it all.  Consider this legal and binding.
It's just like falling asleep, ain't it?

For C. on Mother's Day

you are the one,
small,
right thing
in the middle of rage.
bone marrow bubbling
in a deep stock pot
pen scritch on notebook paper
Caravaggio's shadows
between note rest

The song came on
inspiring the man
to forge the fork
comes sliding out
outside your mouth
without
the bit of beef
which left a
tender
kiss
of grease
upon your juicy
upper lip. puh.

Poolside

In the dank metal cavern of Pendleton Pool
towels sop heavy
thick adolescent mist
swollen fibers
drunken inhibition
floating
we need not speak
revelations
this chest to chest
Testing strange glass
Clothes shed,
nose to nose,
craving a
companion to navigate
faith

grandma cocks her head to
her own
children of her children
emerge glistening, swarming
her lawn chair to
wetly peck her cheek.
pruned hands liberate trunks from the cracks of asses
she swats them off
one by one
with quarters they plunge
into the soda machine

Jack

In the clear,
relative calm:
Peace.
Delicious waves
of sleep
crash piggy-backed
on the next.
Childish security of her quilt-baked tentacles
searching for purchase.
Weightlessness of sleep:
Bubbled dream peaks:
Un-torqued machine: Popped and sprung.
Morphined.
Then a whimper.
An irressistible newborn grunt.
Fighting the TKO:
Not entirely hip to the idea of another night
crib-bound.
Signal ignition,
sputter to life
he coughs:
Lightly. Gently
rising in ire.
My newly christened ears sting,
bitter steam behind each
sucking gust.
Stoking his lungs
for a
series of
brilliant, resounding, yawping
screams.
Stable cadence
until he is in my arms.
snuffling,
rooting for milk.
Crashing a splendid ghostworld party,
we are dressed for the occasion,
our midnight toll punctuated
by an evenflo on the wooden floor.

A Brief Interlude With Cathy

I catch your eye and lick my lips.
I wave and you pretend not to see.
I bat my eyelashes and you don’t respond.
I smack your face and you kick me in the balls.
Right in the balls.
You smash my balls with your boot.
I’m on the ground but happy
that I finally have your attention. 
You begin to walk away and I can’t stand
so I crawl after you, yelling your name.
You’re walking slowly and I can hear you laughing.
You can still feel in the tip of your toe
where you kicked.
It’s all warm and pulsating and you smile.
You see a friend and the two of you begin to talk.
I catch up and tug on your pants.
Wait, Cathy, I know this story. 
You’ve told it to me before.
I finish a sentence for you, still on the ground,
half rubbing, half playing with my balls.
You look down at me amused
and begin to change the story.
That’s not how it happened, I say,
 that’s not how you told me.
It’s a different story you say and I don’t know shit about anything.
Your friend has the common decency
to kneel down and ask if I need anything.
A Bloody Mary would be fine.
Hot?
I nod and she leaves us alone.
I had waited for us to be alone.
I thought of things I might do
if I could only summon the courage to ask.
I caress your calves and raise your pant leg
 to lick your ankles.
You’re not telling me to stop, but I sense I’m just another man on his hands and knees,
begging for a bone.
You enjoy this.  I can tell.
Then, I knew it would happen:
Your friend arrives with my drink.
I didn’t expect her so soon.
I wet my lips and you go into labor.  Right there.
I was surprised.
The ice made my Bloody Mary very cold
and I have to admit,
it was good to see you suffer.
The pain brings you to your knees
and your water breaks all over the sidewalk.
What can I do? I ask, reserved.
Fuck off you fuck, was your reply.  It stung.
You scream.  Scream.  An angry, evil, agonizing scream.
Cathy?
Maybe you didn’t hear.
I put an ice cube to your forehead.
You liked that. You almost smiled.
I thought you would ask me for anything then
but you didn’t
because you are a stubborn woman.
God please—  but the rest is choked by a sudden, more precise pain.
I didn’t know your feelings: 
Hospitals or natural child birth?
My balls began to swell.  Once, twice, three times their normal size and I was impressed.
I undid my pants to let them free.
And just who the fuck am I with my goddam pants down in public?
Officer, this woman is having a baby.
That’s not the point, he said. You’re coming with me.
What about her? What about Cathy?
She’ll be fine.
But—, I said,
and he cuffed a wrist to my scrotum.
Cathy, you held out your hand then
and I knew if I didn’t take it
I would never have it again.
Cathy, I screamed.
The officer stood on my back
for a photograph
and one of my testes burst open.
Cathy, I screamed, I’m here.  Right here.
And then I couldn’t speak.
The cop laughed.
The people walked by.
My vision blurred.
The midwife arrived
and calmly directed your contractions.
Time passed.
I couldn’t call because I was in prison.
I thought about you constantly
because my cell mate forced me to call him Cathy
when he fucked me.
That was difficult.
It was a difficult time for me.

Rambling Beyond the Powerlines

Because I busted my ribs I cannot let go.
Because it reminds me.
Solitude rarely gives over thoughts of the future.
 Identical days and nights
lull the trusting imagination to
plunge deep into streams of consciousness.
The past.
Watching the movie.
And my imagination has a
painful correlation
to attach to the rogue three days
beyond the power lines,
where the night sky slowly dropped her robe,
not aware of my eyes,
beautiful alone.

Nude dunes but for spots of tangled
blooming seaweed,
the bay is a vast barren rink,
flat in a way that hyperbolizes the modest hills.
Approaching darkness caresses
right angles into submission
Untouched Guitar:
wind born sand
vibrates a plaintive Japanese howl,
translating
a three week old
Cuban sneeze.
Of course you're gonna take it.
Now is not the time to explain.
Maybe they aren't chasing.
Allowing what has always been
to reveal itself as if for the first time.
Manipulating bellows and stacks.
Closing off fuel to future worries,
present concerns,
past assaults,
you and the nearly full moon
focus light on existing energy
supporting,
warning,
reminding you of the lot you drew.
Leaning into the wind,
toe-licked by sea
ankles,
thighs

live with it you fucking coward

Jesus Christ man, fall back in love with the word. Scratch and scrawl it and fall down and fuck yourself up dreaming. Breathe.

Cooking Myself Clean.

ingredients:
Mexican Gulf salt,
sun,
skin,
narcotic waves breaking
waves breaking waves pounding sand
ten feet from my feet.
sleep
And dream it all back to soft,
sweet silence.
dead words
resurrect in her name
those first nervous nights
touching like the blind.

for C. on our 7th

With nature's
efficiency,
you remain with me
knowing I believe what you know.
Half-mad
at the world
half the time
at your own kind,
seizing fistfuls of hair.
I drift to your marrow
a pardoned pig
in luxurious mud & juice.
spot lit, among the hum of every word spoken,
anchored in midair...
(praise)
reserved for saviors and secret healers,
is your name
within me.

Birthday Poem

5 glowing birthday candles
illuminated my expectant face just as you
entered this world I thought of as mine.
We smelled each other in Tennessee, but didn't know it,
4 hours and 34 minutes between us,
Martin and Crossville
close enough to induce recurring muscle spasms above my left eye
 for the next twenty-odd years.
You heard the word Texas emerge in muffled grown up discussions:
And so it was.

Relying on olfactory Fate and circumstance is a risk,
considering how the stealthy Rio Hondo breeze
broadcast the scent of your dirty diapers.
You learned to walk, run, debate, discern.
He missed.  I swerved.  She stomped.
Mistakes were made.
You were possessed (though not by him)

Under the same goddamn sun
(Which is cute, but not so substantial)
surrounded by the same goddamn state,
tempted by red neon Hamburgers.
those lucid moments, when the lightness of belonging to a republic threatens to coalesce into a belief,
sharp edges of an early October morning defining, outlining the day that would embrace you…
these tantalizing yet satisfying peripheral images--
that was me.
I am often oblivious, but I felt it too:
Perfection of place, slant of light, turn of phrase.
Promise accumulating in your every step,
forward and back.
You could crunch numbers
or
you can believe me when I say, chemicals were released,
upon my birth, inert
until vibrations from the Gulf and the exact pitch of your first infant cry
combined,
discombobulative agents,
muddled my internal compass.
So, considering my lack of direction,
you made the right move
when you bought those shoes
that took you part of the way to me. 
Not that you ever needed an excuse
 for shoes.
But remember,
I am the trail blazer.
I had the first five years to leave mark, scratch and sign along my every step
Imagine
each year
our aspirations coincide on chocolate box cake candles.
You blow East, I blow West,
unsettling the nature of our limited scope,
as we open our presents like ravenous little animals.