Friday, February 26, 2021

Alternative Therapy

I was sitting at the booth that we gravitated toward
if no one else was there.
it was too loud before to notice,
but that shit seeped into my subconscious
started taking tiny shits deep in the folds of my shoulder muscles
had to champ down inside my cheek to keep from grinding my teeth
it wasn’t no premonition, like they want to say it was
it was that goddamn song, “we didn’t start the fire”


we were all fours on that nasty floor
but like when you go out in the dark
from the light,
it takes a minute to adjust the volume too
from 6 dozen conversations
over pancakes at the diner to full on crime scene.
they had a man in back barking orders
up front was auditorily doused
no one eager to be a hero.
but the speakers were still on. and that song.
along with the breathing and the whimpering,
I had a feeling these guys planned this thing,
it was goin allright.
traumatized probably, but for fuck sake,
Everybody should survive an armed robbery.
it doesn’t have to be dead bodies all the time
like the CSI.
Nick Stokes gone wild cat again.
butchest mother Hen on TV

Thursday, February 25, 2021

Phantom Limb

The dogs find their pace
In the stubble on the bank 
of the river we walk everyday
Into reverie, they lead me, snuffing, squatting
Our distorted tableau sun-cast upon fetid water.
I salute
Catfish rotting
In weed, victims of aberrant freeze
To these hounds, coated in bourbon,
I drink in this dream

Where I finally have nothing to lose

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Anchorman Gene Jennings' Last Live Newscast

nobody gives a shit about you and nothing will ever happen to you.
accept that nothing will ever happen to you.

you will never get mugged
shark bitten or
blown up at a gender reveal party.


Cowboy,
you won’t get to be a hero with that handgun.
terrorist immigrants will never take your job
because your life is boring 
and nothing will ever happen to you.

you will die.
that will happen to you.


you will continue to be a good producer until you can’t,
you will retire and then nothing will happen.


Your kids turn shitty,
but nothing ever happens to them.


the land is red-assed and
barren from
assaulting and battering


no stories…
dot dot dots.
to be continued
something will happen to someone,
but not you.

Friday, February 12, 2021

Bloodbath at the Sharyland Dairy Queen Starring Don Dokken

Banana split dreams

and directions to a gold mine

flap and snap in the wind 

like sheets on a clothesline.

westerlies on the ass end

about faced 

post-eighties.

Don's Lincoln Town Car

got as far as

Sharyland then quit.


out of context into obscurity, 

Don’s meteoric rise from blizzard jockey to 

shift-leader was documented in the manager’s daily log.

Then that jerk-off showed him the gun.


Was a Saturday black hole,

post lunch/dusk, 

dinner rush buzzing on the radar, but

just him and Javier at the moment

and the

minute this guy jingles in

Don thought, shit, this

is not going to be one of my normal transactions.

Nothing on the DQ menu was gonna satisfy this kid’s cravings


between him and the exit

Don clocked two white-hairs tongue-probing

dip cones.

The kid,

all twitchy

lifts his hoodie,

smooth belly,

with a side of semi-automatic.

orders a large Big Red and motions toward the register


Fuck the DQ man, let him have the money.

Fuck this punk too, though

tapping on the counter with the pants slung low

Don playing pin the

finger on the magic key,

mumbling the exact Castaneda incantation

that unleashed "Belt Buster"

the brutal,

conclusive

alter-ego

Don had been grooming since

Elm Street 3











Tuesday, February 9, 2021

The Backyard Needs Some Attention

bred on panoramic views interrupted
at intervals
by half-assed depictions of urban terror.
I reckoned effects, culminations,
'tis of thee I sing
plastic happy toys,
bleached
the color of
ancient dog shit

ooo, padded for pleasure,
teacher said. feeding me
with those
insanely talented
hands
(he admired my brand new pants
on
an unscripted
extra curricular trip.)


bred the remaining son of a
cigarette butt
in a puddle of parking lot water,
the slow train thru town
and your idle hatred of being powerless
before a god with graffiti on his ribs

slap myself healthy
on top of cold showers then
jerk it furiously
under blankets pox-ridden
with subconscious sin,
spreading samples
of half-life on the
planet’s crusty skin.


the backyard needs some attention.
the kiddie pool is filthy.


better let the grass take over
you know what’s gonna happen the day after,
the moment even, when you remember to ask ‘what if’

Friday, February 5, 2021

Polynya warms up

aSTONished descends from
grazing the sky
on the pole of capital T
truth
twangs your spine-chord,
rattles your third glass eye.
bewildered sneaks
inside thigh
(where only washrags deign to go)
beWiTched press 
pause
press
a finger
press, pause 
press a finger on the
Dot
between w and t
~
aye
~
aaaayyyyeeee

big ask

he clicked reply all
begging forgiveness
and an RSVP

Wednesday, February 3, 2021

on the lake where the black lion drinks

my dreams are black lions at midnight -
lapping up crocodile water.
crocodile's not hungry
but he listens. through his cold blooded filter
he can sense 
lion’s beef with hyena

my dreams ride on ripples
--herds, prides and basks--
collude as they pass 
through
one another 
like nothing
incredible’s happened

hyenas conspire to increase through
subversive signs of submission
priapic bitches! the future is fluid 
nothing’s loved
or trusted along
the bank
of the lake 
where the black lion drinks