mom on phone

It is certainly not stoic or brave
holding your tongue while the parade
of homicidal cells
stomps pancreatically
ever on

oncologistic desire of
questionable provenance
wants the grocery store parking lot
whipping her hair
on a cloudy sunday around 2.
that's all you say

the mnemonic is spa
socratic, platonic, aristotelian
fed the dog, stopped at dollar general
and something like complaint,
rising up through the mass,

about the bad day
she needs more than you

On this particular day

the worst roadkill is white cat
dog claws clacka-lackey
collar tags jingle-snap
at my calf
adrenaline piss-squirt
sprinkle lawn my friend, sprinkle lawn.
slow train through town,
everybody shut down 20 minutes late
receipts plaster the windward wall
of la plaza mall

I’ve nearly ground a trail on my route ahead,
at the light I always turn right
but I pull in to cousin AJ’s and ask,
why you always so happy?
cause this little mutt in my lap, he says,
treats me like I have the potential to be someone great.
Yeah? I say.
Yeah, he says. That’s how I greet the morning.
Jesus.

green parakeets hanging like bats from the power line
announce Mr. Papers bearing brisket borne from his monogrammed smoker.
he can’t hear.
he says to me,
you know what I like about you?
my salty balls I suppose.
what?
I shake my head nothing and accept the greasy Chinet.
You listen, he says. You listen to me.

I ride to Dag’s for 5 gallons of cow shit.
no garden for me until I listen again about him
running a john deere
into the neighbor’s pool.

when I get home I hear daughter practicing.
I don’t want to disturb but I do
tap out a simple beat on my neglected kit
not 8 bars later, abandon charts
she joins me, improvising
big fat saxophone tone

King for a Day

there is nothing to do but straighten the rug
now that the subjects are gone.
my ass is slung
my aura, punctured, exhales
weak currents yet
beyond me, ambivalent
to me
though i grab the sky.

I will be spit into the ocean
of plastic and silt and human waste.
I will settle to the bottom pierced and pecked
by blind creatures who don’t appreciate their novelty.
pieces of my cold skull,
long imploded,
will never be discovered
and the waves will break,
scattering what little permanence they’ve known

inarticulations

I’m not that smart. Numbers-wise,
but I read. I read everything.
I see that you don’t
have time
I see that you form your opinions out of the ether used to make little
explosions in antique cars.
I’m not asking for cynicism
though the system is meant to bend us,
Or for you to ditch your baby Jesus.
but it’s so hard to see,
you begging for fucking authority
to feed you a bit
lead you
to sit, stay,
heel in your face.
spend even four hours in prison on a trumped up charge.
  smother your best love in dead faith
think about how you’re gonna hurt the person who put her there.
reach some solitary understanding through the mercy of grace
and form the word forgive.
the answer you get is,
for what?

apology

As I blunder through
Our variegated garden
wondering whether or not I’m man enough for you,
I miss an opportunity to defend your honor.
your strength,
your will.
 
I have gone to seed.
 
you would defend me against anyone.
Would not wait for context or evidence.
If you should falsely proclaim against a perceived slight,
so be it.

I’ve become incautious.

You are “a lot” as you say,
which at times may seem too much.
You don’t need me to define who you are.
You don’t beg my praise or permission.
You simply sacrifice to relieve the sting
of our borderline poverty
with a sense of purpose
akin to the peripheral last brushstrokes on a masterwork,
shooing phantom eraser crumbs from your sketchbook.
There is no part of me that wants you to need me,
to depend on me
if that were so, first,
we would be fucked,
and second, you wouldn’t be a lot.

You would be diminished; abbreviated.
intact but not static
a canvas that hides false starts
covered by strange experiments,
finished with an attempt to satisfy
your blinding curiosity.

Never once have I felt on trial for your setbacks.

This is the girl I fell in love with,
the woman I married,
the human I admire the most:
When she’s on, it’s a blessing.
Yellow is brighter,
the nights are cooler.
Then the wheel spins counter,
pulverizing ephemeral thrill
deep into despair.
I’ve learned to detect the migration of her soul,
to respect its turns and to look on it with a sense of wonder
and self-preservation.
I know she is dangerous.
I’m glad she is dangerous.
I’m cognizant of the associated risk.

I stand in awe.
your discipline, your fierce independence.
I fold like a warm blanket
in the embrace
you reserve especially for me.
I am sorry I left you alone,
my dearest partner of greatness.

Metrics

the closer to nothing
the broader the appeal.
ooo. a message, brought
to you by: Jobs, Freedom, Security, Hope, Change.

On the Origin of my Son and what Transpired on our 3.5 Mile Walk Today Featuring what we’re having for Dinner on Thursday

sooey sooey
oh baby
I’m sooey-cidal
yeah, yeah, yeah

--bigga chicken & cornbread interpret

the songs of the Kingsmen

no, like i can visualize my goal,
just in the dream she was called Eduardo.

pearl snap buttons sound different
than zippers in dryers of all
stripes. the dog
licks her leg every night
at 10:32

neuro-chemical

flames kindled Tuesdays at Toni Price.
seas.
atoms,
vital to
women, whales, and elephants
primary proteins infused.

harboring a criminal in her
placenta
sluggish flies in July
easy catch
but the Even-Flo
winged at my head
due to some combination of me
and you and it

scab on her kneecap,
diamond studded nipples,
spider leg streaks on her thighs
harp strings flourish:
Introducing!
(it’s alive)
a feeble minded
skeletal
product of attraction/contraction

pork chops
sweet potato
greens
maybe bake something

huffing up Wilson River Road
renaming anxiety in Cantonese,
I find a plastic C missing its marquee
Chicken-Christ-Coca-Cola?
absent a sign
I’m off topic off point off message

I find the letter P on the train tracks.
Vanna gone turn me out, I sing cuz
I’m special
(special)
so special
(special)
I gotta have
some of your
attention
give it to me

P's are first for larceny around here.
Separated from its sign, no doubt
dropped due to negligence
by one a them
Parnells.
dumbest pack of
snot-faced aimlessness
you ever seen in your life.
uncouth,
marauders.

And them serpent skin pants?

on the road home
carcassed heavily with doe which
I roll into the canyon,
without hesitation,
The routine impulse was to wipe my bloody hands
on my pants. But
I wasn’t wearing pants.
Just the fur. Two firsts!
and what a story.

she sympathized.
her head
a musty storage shed
of mosquito size
ideas.
he acted.
a chameleon who liked mosquitoes.
they both read well at the auditions for Hoarders.
I love you
I can't stand to see you like this
it's embarrassing

and we’re back.
are we back?
this thing on?
tap tap tap
Prepare
to get your face torn off
by this blistering rendition of Little Stevie Wonder’s
Living in the City:
Ladies and Gentlemen--
The Dirtbombs,
Right here at the only place for Rock N Roll
on your telescreen dial
Q-FM 96.7 WCMJ
Oceania, Eurasia, East Asia
and (there is no beyond)

outside after,
my mind’s rings
in waves
as wind
conveys
water
drop's
poly-rhythm
plink on October tin

remaining anxiety
jacked thru in newsfeed-ese, dissipating
in the sunlight,
fractured Arabic glyphs splash
through trees
abstract to me.
licks of autumn barely
hint the relentless precipitation
to come.

first
winter
drifts halfway up the door.
After TV, tunnel to the Winnebago
while the old man snores off
a hot shot to St. Louis

One Thing Leads to Another

I only eat
grilled cheese and fries
cause i can’t stand
what it sounds like
when doves cry

comes a girl who arouses
great personal distress

and his hands
slide down to solve the bicuspid
curve of her ass

she catches me
staring at her,
thinking that

half-cocked after
my share of saki
she spears a piece of
sashimi
and feeds me

later as i suck the marrow from a pork bone
I find the relativity of my values
as problematic
as blaming the deep cuts
along my wrist
on mis-
placed keys

title match

Meals born in the morning,
nursed over an afternoon.
stripped of domesticity
cause the kids aren’t home.
or more  precisely,
as an afterthought to last night’s fight,
resonating, unresolved in D minor.
in this corner
8 feet and 250 pounds of solid Mexican pine
raw blonde wood
fine dining
bathed
in pool hall light.
There’s the bell.
time lapse
season of coffee cups,
bills and backpacks
dull pencils and papers to sign.
Exhausted bottles of wine--
knocked out every night.
for the main event,
we unleash a litany of every
natural phenomena
even vaguely connected to the food on our table:
Sub-atomic elemental mechanics of evolution;
the reproductive zeal of our civilized ancestors;
durable seeds and delicious animals
so capably domesticated.

Free Admission!

admitting that your poems make no sense is a start.
typing really fast is a good, solid follow up move.
People react to abandonment in different ways.
Mary shut herself off from the rest of the world.
any
maternal instinct
she might still harbor she
knows she must protect
from the damage they will do
to get the drug they need.

Karl on the other hand, opened himself wide,
made himself a target,
took chances
with what he considered
a worthless life.
Everything he touched turned to shit.
There was no formality to the depths he would plunge.

most of it anyway

forgotten as they wheel her out onto the stage.
she will only be vaguely aware of who they are,
so many of these parties.
she
said it. you have your life.
knock on her door not six in the morning
missing shoes and teeth. wet
from god knows how.

when doves grill

miscreant scent of regret
la paloma peligroso
roasts
crow jane
sipping
highball on iceberg rocks.
sticky wing swats
fire ants from their
mons pubescent mounds

the quality/quantity connection

would have been nice for you
to have delivered it
with like a mariachi, and maybe some pizza rolls,
timothy hay, alfalfa...
you could have gotten all dressed up,
hired a small dog in a cute sweater
to gently drop it at my feet.
but I guess you’re busy or something.

before you start these lessons,
take some time with your whip.
quietly rub it all over your body.
once you are comfortable
you'll be able to use it like a puppet
to engage  the alien tangled in your head,
with the most universal of languages: laughter

hot air balloons,
the trembling leaves,
change in light and shadow
patches of daisies and weeds
all potential triggers
for flight

so she spooks?
been known to bolt

training should begin at home
alter your tone
to indicate stability

you start biting,
I’ll be like, damn baby, what the fuck
un-hitch that taut line
on them drawstrings.

yeah.

but then, you know,
when
we do, we
synchronize--
(them kids gone be traumatized)

escalationary tale

 her formidable frame-span
is anchored by the heat & heft of
yoga ball hips.
the smell of  a shampooed possum
curls
up the corner, green
indicating into which
books were shoved
the incriminating letters.

a bucket from the River Thames
was plucked,
on the night she slid the bundle
in the slot,
by a bystander
who spied it afloat carrying
mutilated finger
food,
foot-
longs, and
soggy madeleines.

the loss of her reputation was sped
by venom in stories that changed
and abrasions that stained her skin

When I was still afraid of God

he rigged fishing line to my bedroom door
after The Exorcist
prime time
yanked it
shut with the same stroke he used to
paint black and blue midnight
across freshly stretched canvas

rending in the gale

Maybe someone wishes the wind were just singing,
because ees yelling,
the abusive wind.
screaming Japanese
at high speed,
accompanied by a chorus of sheet metal roofs
pitched at angles that produce ungodly whines.
ungodly whines?
no. sheet metal roofs pitched at angles that produce a symphony of
rusted moan.
moan? no.
sustained, non stop, no rest, constant,
coked-up pipe organ shriek.

we long for the wind to sing. 

Lay you down and softly whisper

love is sour cream.
my strategy:
service.
make her life easy. easier at least so
that when the reckoning comes she'll
admit--
I could do worse.

the moon discovers
fingernail clippings
in corners and dusty cans
brylcream ads
slick black jet white
for the sake of aerodynamics, ladies, sit back, relax, enjoy
my new 8 tracks.

chicken-foot floats in porcine green jello mold
creek water
still life with snapping turtles
in the bed of  the truck.
toes tucked and a tire iron.

we'll be up until dawn:
fritz the nite owl & flippo the clown,
Big Chuck and Lil’ John
under the influence of midnight frosted flakes
color TV embrace me.

mistaking her for the 17 year old he married
got his nose broke.
not long after
he dawned the horse collar
imitating Animal imitating Keith Moon

she left a leatherette box
with tiny
kapow! accents.
tiered
with bougainvillea
powders and cream,
clip on things,
plastic brooches and tangled chains.
girlfriends dressed like curtains to
match her fancy-fied casket,
short-legged uncles
in Cuban heels
sink into cookie monster
shag.
Bakelite hi-fi stereo console
coos Conway Twitty.
tubes produce a diffusion of
fresh bread & band-aids
textured rose fabric finish
(gold flecked)

she looks good
enough to grab
by the shoulders.
check for that smile.

are you for real dead? 

visitation day

Mercy Rehab ventures a lick
of a glazed fingertip
holding back the bite 'til she can
recite one more reason
why she deserves
the doughnut in front of her.

Chastity Brownbelt,
recalling up to the coat closet
last night,
(real fur
bare ass)
chases her
post-blackout bearclaw
with a cold blue razzberry tea

Mercy expects at noon
to endure greedy hands,
probing her forgotten body,
unmapped for so long until
her remaining son
went up
without the possibility of parole.

Chastity plucks baby spider
legs tangled in her neck hair,
grateful for the
plate glass shop window
dampening the morning traffic.
she cannot ascertain
why the lady framed
by that window
engages her glazed
doughnut
like a potentially deadly orgasm.

Mercy with her napkin on her
lap,
registers epiphany with each tiny
bite.
she loves this place
except when Sergio switches shifts
with some stranger
who doesn’t know how she likes it. 

did you put it on the list?

kids want milk.
I must have tobacco.
swing on over to the
grocery store.
low magneto fluorescent hum under
auntie & abuela's bumping gums
(because this piece is proof  I’m alive)
Or, an alibi
when I invent
a
time
machine
so I can do
one thing
seemingly normal and ordinary,
and then go back and
do
a double,
nefarious and evil.

maybe if I give old blue a nice piece of ham, he’ll shut the fuck up

a sketch book
search engine predilection
for robot boobs
is my cue.
take the boy out to Yosemite, dude
Kerrick Canyon
Peeler Lake
get him drunk
on the land
on hot chocolate
then begin
what I hope is an ongoing
series of love, fucking, love
of fucking, perils
of love, living
with dick,
liking
(really liking) your
mate, making
sure if he does
like-like mates,
like that,
it’s nothing,  impromptu.
just a first dip.

but what a film strip
framed by the fire
cut as
alternating horror
and fascination contort his face.

stripes and streams of
cold star cords,
galaxies and
city boy
eyes.
my fucking god, one
night up there--
Yellow went the sky.
for an unreasonably long time.
lit ten seconds.
seriously. maybe 5.
count to six.
For the whole sky to be lit like that?
headlines said Chinese Space Junk.
Bridgeport residents
spooked.
irritable. scrappy.

he pokes
agitates the fire
scans the ashes, puzzling under
nectarine
chunks of ember

pausing,
de-
riddle-ize-
ing
his mind of
the nagging suspicion:
it didn’t go so hot,
his very first time.

oh yeh. the title.
I give old
blue a biscuit
and ham;
he shut the fuck up
so I could write
this poem.

You get to know your Grandma

beached in
pepto tile. avocado
accents.
acoustically explosive: the
call of Mahalia Mendoza.
Sub-valve deluge going on 24
hours and 90 minutes.
Post-pink chicken
salad from that rinky-dink
IGA on MLK.
Mahalia Mendoza
prefers the complexity of venison.
Hey! she says from
within, on my
minty mouthwash way
to pluck ticks &
dip my
dog, Flash, in tomato juice,
as she got skunked by a skunk.
are you out there?
Let me tell you what I did.
uncanny
how natural it is to stop for a minute.
the door
is just a veil.
Fritz the Nite Owl showed the
one
where Werewolf
pops the legs and arms
off Vlad’s last barbie,
quadruple amputee,
covered in mustard
for the dog to lick.
Hey!
she tells me,
sit down where you going so fast
everybody shits.
You remember the pig.
after we dressed him.
I saved that piece
you never did keep
started to smell after Smokey got aholt of it.
Fingers of Mahalia’s Rose Milk
guts,
radiating from the crack between the floor and the door.
her life is shaved ice.
her summers are stained hands.
she coughed up rocks for
the raspa palace
stands,
half finished,
Tyvek flapping like long underwear.
nothing
but ice
and the cold blades that shave it. 

Jimmy

Just got off the phone
with my Uncle Jim

2 years, 11
months, and
14 days in FCI Memphis behind
him. He’s
the one who taught me how to play
drums. Spent
thousands of rounds failing to get me interested in
guns. Took
me seriously as a
teenager, listened
patiently expecting
I might eventually have something to
say.
Sold me
the Kawasaki
KZ 750 that he bought off the floor in
1983 then forgot about
in his garage,
among the bikes
he liked
better
and the bones of
grandpa's old Volvo sedans.
500
oh-riginal miles on it.
Tennessee via Greyhound,
blue streak back to Austin.
I never
felt like such a badass than when I was on
that bike. Perfect
age,  immortal, but
cognizant of crippling
disfigurement ahead
as the elderly motorist
makes a left on my green.

Motherfucker
has prostate
cancer. Getting
his balls
radiated 5 days a
week. He’s
tired. And
his roof leaks.

Columbus, OH to Crossville, TN via U-Haul

She antagonized his lethargic manhood
I wouldn’t call it brave
truly last ditch
He was not awake enough
to take the air out of a room
so when he left
no more tippy toe
is what I noticed.
It wasn’t slow.
Dad’s not home,
smelling leather, lipstick,
& smoke.
misses
her rusty laugh,
a donkey/Buddha hybrid,
brawling
the murmurous sludge
of her new man's night cap voice,
followed by a U-Haul.
and a Chinese restaurant
that served
biscuits & gravy

moving day

Lena, across the street
on her porch step clutching
her robe closed against the afternoon sun,
ashtrays neat with
stacked half-smoked Kents.
In her bedroom
a real live slot machine
would spray nickles but you never won.
Lena’s buoyancy declined
absent my mom floating
her tab
at the China Inn

To Kim I pretend not to wave
who couldn't give a shit
who spit and kissed and
let me ride her dirt bike exactly once

(hey fat-ass. go help your mother pack.
Name’s not fat-ass, Booby.)

Nu-Dad Bobby black & white,
western arrow piping.
Bobby black mustache,
ring finger missing,
like Aunt Belinda and
her little 280 z,
burnt orange dot fading
in the pale horizon.
Bobby blackish blue bird breast oil chest hair
showed teeth on stage
with Marty Robbins
out in the west Texas town of El Paso,
where we never saw Belinda again.

Help me, Operator

who was it you said you were trying to reach?
maximum strength delusional hack,
zero stamina poseur.
puttering dilettante.
status quo
co-
dependent
nail biter, nose picker
chronic masturbator.
unable to superintend, driven
to tears every
post-apo
plectic
aberrance.
surfing some corn chip/old spice cloud
har
binge
ing
his
agenda wielding
overplanning
micromanaging
nitpicked debarkation,
you say.
perfectionist.
and I say,
Fack Yu.
you got the wrong number.

Who are the people in your neighborhood

carrying a hammer

wearing spaghetti straps

sparse field of hair

green short-shorts,

dry lips,

grains, kale in teeth,

cannot make eye contact.

tall and crooked

splotchy red chest,

canine obsequity

hand-chopping the air

eyes rimmed like rib-eyes

waistline punishing

waistband

shirt stain profile described as robust

legs too heavy to bother,

lifting.

laughing at everything she says

smells like bubblegum,

fingerprints, bruises

shoulders

secret smile,

like two people put together with cardboard and glue,

crumpled,

freshly skiffled manuscript

sheets on a bunk bed in a cabin

incessant-waves-of-doubt-

crushed-garlic-breath

clouds

race across the moon,

but in the mirror

behind locked doors

no compromise.

talked like a locomotive sailor

but cold, soft, unlined hands.

looked bad in jeans.

carrying a hammer

wearing spaghetti straps

sparse field of hair

green short-shorts,

dry lips,

grains, kale in teeth,

cannot make eye contact.

tall and crooked

splotchy red chest,

canine obsequity

hand-chopping the air

eyes rimmed like rib-eyes

waistline punishing

waistband

shirt stain profile described as robust

legs too heavy to bother,

lifting.

laughing at everything she says

smells like bubblegum,

fingerprints, bruises

shoulders

secret smile,

like two people put together with cardboard and glue,

crumpled,

freshly skiffled manuscript

sheets on a bunk bed in a cabin

incessant-waves-of-doubt-

crushed-garlic-breath

clouds

race across the moon,

but in the mirror

behind locked doors

no compromise.

talked like a locomotive sailor

but cold, soft, unlined hands.

looked bad in jeans.