written down upon regaining consciousness outside the Tampa Bay Convention Center

Jazz-Fire tonight at the
Miami Diner
cold weather depression?
come to Miami Diner
or visit our sister,
Everglades!
the smell and taste of Florida,
Indiana style

with special guest
Weds thru Friday
performing the hit single didn’t
suspect his evasions,
one man band,
Juan "green jello" Johnson
live
at Miami Diner

Saturday only:
corner a feeling
at,
Everglades! starring
professional mesmerizer
Nate “gnat nuts” Cohen.
“his talent makes you
sick and excited
at the same time”
                         --unpaid family member

like a WalMart of self betterment
says dance instructor Frank
“Pierce” Brosnan
free afternoon lesson when he can
sneak away at
Miami Diner

blue screen
Everglades! logo up
VO: Happy Hour is what we make it
$2.00 Sinkholes
$1.00 Gator Snatch
$2.50 Blackouts
special event?
make it beg for discipline with
our expert grooming
consultants (free estimates)

where were you?
if watching this, then
not here!
make plans to return
we want in your head for good

don’t forget our sister,
Everglades! serving
American-Made Chinese
and our global dessert cart
you don’t deserve this
much sweet       
                     --voice you heard
                         before nodding off at
                         sunday school

Tuesday’s Brown Bag lunch includes
ice cream, new clothes & grown up drinks
be polite. we’re family
open the door already
Miami Diner on the Lake
don’t trust your whispering instinct

Miami Diner blue
plate special every second morning
featuring this
week, Rashid Samantha and his
Oklahoma Stingers
shudder to think what we’re capable of at
Miami Diner: right under your nose
open on Father’s Day

new at
Everglades! (subsidiary of Miami Diner Inc.)
there's one in every family cabaret revue
you look forward to it.
don't you?
you anticipate;
we deliver!

Craigslist post
filed under
chapter 11 bankruptcy:
72 inch, 8 burner gas oven
cold storage
xxx lg Miami Diner & Everglades!
t-shirts
unbreakable tumblers
permanently embossed

the inability to accept an atomic outlook

Your diversion to occupy my mind is,
there:
now you're bleeding!
but i refuse. I sleep
creep, dick, douche,
cruise control in my head
my psyche,
stuck in this rotten meat bag of a body,
on strike
a small scale coup,
says fuck you,
here’s a demand:
sort it out. 
OR
i will bring your ass to ground,
your head to table,
your face to cradle
in your hands.
I will lock it up and
dance the
drooling comatose. 
continue along this trench,
OR-
get it off your chest

And so that’s where we stand my friend.
unloading, unleashing 
the confession to which you answer
in your broken English
Why you tell me this
SHIT?
Live with it you fucking coward.

congratulations on the new mini-van, hughes

I’m glad we didn’t meet then, when
alone in my 3rd floor efficiency off Magazine
I would trap southern roaches with an upturned cup
slide under a piece of junk mail to cover the mouth
and off to the freezer they'd go
until the next day, or three, depending on when I came to
and damn if I wasn’t surprised going for ice.

Its funny now,
but imagine I make you laugh
hell, you’re in New Orleans.
imagine you’ve said fuck it,
you don’t know that I’ve only just moved here
(seasoned and pickled are similar looks)  and we’re on the streetcar back to my place
you haven’t been this drunk in so long and hand to God
you almost never touch the other stuff.
and even if the unbearable lightness should cause your clothes to float away,
nobody's gonna mistake you for a lamb

My process was to take the creatures out of the freezer,
suspended, comatose, or dead
i never knew
and pose them in tiny chairs,
on paperclip bicycles. Skateboards.
Miniature tables laden with little plates of food,
I would fix hats on their alien heads and place
little slivers of  the Times Picayune
in their  prothoracic legs

imagine shushing your inner bitch as we climb the stairs
past Fury, guarding her doorway
challenging quaint definitions of gender
cursing the curves of your bountiful ass.
here we are,
you, partaking of a little vacation strange,
enter this stale smelling cell,
this coop where I stoop to deposit my insides into the river

It’s funny to think of dozens of these tableaux,
posed roaches caught mid step, twirling
night-night buddy wearing pajamas and a cap,
carrying a candle.
eating, going to bed, lifting weights, staying informed,
the roaches were leading the life that we would eventually establish
because you were not there to see them

now that my roaches are dispatched
with extreme prejudice,
our freezer is stocked with
more civilized
frozen animals.

you're not horrified that
I seem a little strange

corrosion

true maps rendered mute

blinded by

imperial american innocents

 dark-souled excrement

oppressive revolutionaries

consume spells under which

everyday dictators

normalize wonderful

 too exceptional too good too

as slaves imitate masters

 uncontested

full court press

artists orphaned

on doorsteps

in baskets

scent of public school

entrails sun-struck

death blows

delivered with angel arms

outstretched in his name

oh daddy

my son & the

holy fucking shit

It is cold when he dies

smell the inside of that monte carlo he drives
winstons and polo
see that bag of liquor he has
well, hell
may as well
have another smoke
anyway
hey
Mr. M
what are we doing
in English
on Monday?

Values Express

still fresh,  tested
by Sam Shepard channeling Chuck Yeager

we wrap the most abstract
in baby blue bunting for the
tone deaf and empathetically impaired

at first, I borrowed a little from my clients
my champagne flutes
were out of tune
thankfully I’m so disappointed
that I got caught

I can’t tell you how much closer I am
to God
than you
now that you know 

ducks in a row

steer clear

stay away

order a hamburger

suck a shake

come up for air in time.

tiny twigs in my petite pea brain

snap and I freak

screaming at my

true companion co pilot

consuming pieces of every good thing

sure, there are guide wires intact

among the idle and hot, aglide

left to puncture and tangle

stoked by wild stories fading

as we trip to

those were the days

Beware the finery

Valco Chemical Refinery

enhances cottonseed oil

with Wessonality

smells like fried chicken combo down Wilson Rd.

with some sinister clinging

blend of overripe cantaloupe

on the low notes

and the high spice of a chemist’s pits

at the top end

kids hold their breath

at the red light

but I can’t help it, every time

I inhale the depth of this smell

and wonder

at how

it barely tickles my ancient alarms

We can't go on forever

paranoid

pattern

united

(superstition)

Billy Preston

says, “nothing from nothing leaves nothing”

Lucretius says, “nothing

can be made from nothing”

but the brain (that thing) creates stories

when there’s not even a

porch light in sight.

baseball vs. basketball on who is most superstitious

keep doing this

until one remains

whichever happens

split again

walls go up

sun
comes

down come

so damn

close

to a three way parlay

average once a week

for that last 14 years.

Lucretius?

"no atom can be created and none can be destroyed; 
space is infinite, as is the number of atoms that move within it” 

Billy Preston:

will it

fly high

like a bird up

in the sky?

semi-finals at J.B.’s on old 41

the poet questions the consciousness

of dancing bees who refuse to sting the smoker.

a strike! he falls to his knees and keens, be-

lieving the dots in his visions and dreams connect.

from this pose, he ejects a piece of gristle guilty

of lodging overnight in his back teeth.

how does one ascribe language to a chile pequino

etched with the image of a trained monkey in the talons

of a bald eagle morphing into the shadow of a black

bird that shits his own bathwater? one must roll.

sponsored by the oiled scalp of a true American.

4hrs 14min to Ber-NEE

Driving to Boerne, Texas today

to pick up a craigslist kiln

on 22 acres of how the fuck

does someone take care of all this?

I learned a valuable lesson about

tension.

Very heavy lid on this thing.

Well hell, it would have to be,

i mean, look at the fucking SIZE

of that spring.

Here,

I’ll just work super hard to undo it!

One-hand snap on the bra strap of a vengeful God

ensnared

punctured and bleeding.

Did that stop me? Yes.

For the time it took to release the tension from my crushed fingers.

Then we had BBQ.

two-meat plate for me,

brisket and pork ribs eaten with my good duke bandaged.

got hard for the rich white men

and the gentle wave of their unruly white hair,

walking in

ahead of women

who’ve grown

to look like them.

Jimmy Falls

the gift of a trick pitch

is that it lands in the glove

and solves for swinging sticks

at this juncture in Jimmy’s life

he’d never got a letter out of the blue,

but his were answered in time.

before getting plugged

 (a musket ball was his downfall)

Jimmy gently lifted a stone with the tip of his moccasin

stirring brown beetles and grubs.

cockroaches caught in the act under

the stained box that remains

of letters and tchotchkes

the game ball presented to him

from Nathan James

Longstreet, reenactment friend

Saturday

sliding glass door tracks

ruthless,

single minded

water spigots

phantom insulation

cheating in my dreams

concrete slabs unpoured

underestimated electric

earth to turn

fences to mend

mystified.

The kids have friends,

playing dungeons & dragons.

Marco’s wrapped around

a cello sawing notes in counterpoint to cackling laughter

plus warm orange crush

popped & poured over ice

second pot of coffee today

I quit counting on the smokes.

I quit for a month.

and that first cig after.

damn.

done caught that dragon again

Oh, what a little moon light'll do

water sliced stone

pocket knife

luminates tin pan instagram

messages fade

resist the tune stuck in your head

even sweet jane's

long silent stretch of leg

over which tangled sheets

cascade