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.

You still selling your junk? When you gonna get a real job?

glass crash lands
my pants

catch golden

malt-liquor spritz

not to mention

my shattered nerves.

trombone

shorty,

named for

Mr. Gillespie’s majestic,

launched a full forty

from his Pontiac

Aztek

yo but at least i can say

he threw a bottle at me.

her daddy says get a job. a real job.

What did her soul-brains

command her hands (commander hands!)

(last on a list of pains

you know well old man)

--what  her soul brain

commanded  her hands

to do--

(before

she met me

we had him then again

we had her)

--is unimportant.

immaterial

to you,

what she do.

you know what I mean

she asks

after every second breath

words levitate--add

auditory hallucination

to her

maniacal nights

scrawling scratch on scrap

paper

eschewing the pills again

much to the chagrin

of the doctor that tried to fuck her

If only I was

Gebre-selassie,

heir to the

Merob Traditional Ethiopian Bread fortune,

when that pretty lady today

smiled at me

or the devil in her tea

If only the words I pray

could sustain our transaction

until the

slipstream sucks

our hands emancipate

a brief literary reckoning

Larry McMurtry and John Graves made me wish I were Texan.

Flannery O'Connor and Franz Kafka reveal the true filth underneath.

A Moveable Feast qualified my desire:

even if I never create, I will surround myself in a wilderness of those who do.

Breece DJ Pancake and Dorothy Allison confided that my people were worth writing about. 

William Least Heat Moon got me off my ass and on the road.

Cormac McCarthy taught me poetry isn't poems, but still every line counts.

Sam Shepard made punk swing country-western.

And Celine, god bless him, saved me from being just another Bukowski-loving drunk.

the empiricist & his daughter prefer pizza hut

a Swedish biologist

who wishes to remain anonymous

donated her uterus

(which had served its purpose)

to a bunch of scientists

among them a geneticist

who won’t be home

when his daughter unlocks the door

Pastor Buxton
bid able bodied deacons:
locate and infiltrate the pizza hut
nearest the heritic's house

when his daughter unlocks the door
for the warrior/

uniformed pizza provider,

god’s mighty soldier

engages her,

takes her money,

his time,

noting well

the good doctor’s interior habits