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

Rodeo II

her complex chemical reactions

lead to expectations

that I practice the way

to unload a grocery cart.

we went two times a night,

claws, beard, entangled

searching for purchase.

Ranking first, number one

flush-knocked-cartoid-throb,

 she bespilt unvoweled

octaves from the high sierra.

Open  your eyes,

Cowgirl,

I  feel objectified.

post-second had a

very why dialect.

laugh asking,

do you like me?

Fourteen Two Thousand Seventeen

You whisper.

my heart turns acrobatic

you leave

light bulbs pulsing in your wake.

The bowling alley

can’t seem more chaotic than

the bed we so beastly unmade.

We made the boy and the girl

who we prep

for trajectory.

hell if know

the routes you go

with,

to me,

uncanny instinct

I trust like

I once did Santa.

(it was the drug, not me)

You can populate

a Dee-troit city directory

with what i can’t explain.

i do

know

though

why

my head explodes:

you want me?

my

high crass woman.

Together as we lead them to nest’s edge

the world will open up with arms outstretched.

my dearest partner of greatness,*

your love is
tulips in the tiptoes of

me and Harry Dean.

*Macbeth, 1.5

As the Weed Eater Turns

Low octane paranoia standing in my intestines. Nothing that can’t be assuaged by a deep existential exhale. My breath reeks of corn chips, coffee and cigarettes. Possibly rivaling Corn Nuts, the decomposing dog someone heaved into a garbage bag, dropped into a 5 gallon bucket and relocated to the middle of the alley behind my house. Flies pop the sack like steady rain, stuffed insensate with good old Corn Nuts. I say dog because the weight feels right when I poke it with a stick.  I can't actually see what's inside the bag. It could be a human leg.  I opt for animal control over 911 because I am not a slave to fancy. Odds are it's a dog. I wouldn’t bet its real name was Corn Nuts either. I named it in honor of the snack that smells bad.  Like my breath. That possibly my breath smells as bad as that carcass out back?   That's not even close to the truth. An exaggeration that serves no other purpose than to draw attention to the weight and inconvenience of death. 

passive aggressive fan letter

where some unnamed personal inadequacy contributes to the ghost writer's thirst for vengeance

first
had to talk her out of the race
took her to a meeting
this and dialysis?
ran unmolested
delivered suggestions 
as ice belies the booze.
what forces drive
the changing tide
we’ll leave to the known
unknowns.
what may come 
came,
the aye’s held sway
on my motion 
to ban your 
book

Jimmy's insides turn to custard

grackles blast then recombobulate
with a fresh full moon backdrop.
it was the moonwalk
on tv and Waves
of Jimmy’s remedial charm/plump fingers of Southern Comfort.
Jimmy cracking corny jokes and traces of her
ancient Greek grandfather's high pitch whine

still stuck in her throat.

Francine claps
what the hell.
slips
her hand down the ample 
elastic band 
of her polyester drawers,

 smiles.
Before she whips it out,
the grackles reconvene
for yet another
daring
power line cantata

Stalin Never Once Said Netflix

neither has my daughter ever said militia

except when she’s drunk, talking to Melissa

while living among Aleuts

who had no written language

the Russian saint assigns Cyrillic to their audible thoughts

principal

accountant/nail lady

pool cleaner/lawyer

fry cook and I

agree

on one thing

so broadly stroked we

don’t even notice

to encode the sound of a thought

that exists in the mind of an Aleutian

ease on down the slavic slide

where

palm tree and Dairy Queen

translate paradise
cold hurricane, soft-serve

Boca Raton, and 
that’s what I like about Texas

allright already,

with the fixed meanings

what can’t keep up with our

profound expectorate

he disappears when they pass the plate

Young Jimmy Spatula
flushes again

as a courtesy
to himself.
Beast reverb in
this blessed restroom

let us turn now to

page 22-eeee-leven,

for it is well with my soul

dampened by the wall

lingering in his stall

he hums along.

a charity to hum,

who never yet kneaded strange flesh.

paying himself a confidence

for,

never, 
even thru bad skin,

had he groped for bones to clamp his hands

hips and

never, like rinse water,

did he cup the skull of another

as a confidence

let him

touch her lip

stick to hymnal

pages. let him draw the message

to all the girls he's yet to kiss

starring rice, with very special guest...

I’m certain when it’s Ray Charles.
rice bathing in its own milky cloud.
that I can’t
but i will
or i won’t
cascade minor chord!
descend! step over the hint 
of victim emblazoned in highway orange.
End road work