All Natural Assassin School

all-natural assassins
take no aspirin

the message sharp-ied above the urinal

says.
also, the party line insists
the test is not a measure of intelligence
so much as a game
of
light your oblongata

or get off the pot, 

which was Ante Annihilation’s
catch phrase, aka Jules Rodriguez,
who retired on a roller derby
pension.(ah the snakes cursed
that poor old gal. snakes for intestines
they said) she was an instructor
until they caught her canoodling
with ethically challenged,
cross town rivals
‘the preservative assassins’

How on earth
this tight lipped syndicate
operates incognito...

but it is they who passed
me through the physical prowess
portion of the pre-interview process
due to mastery of board breaking &
lasso making.

on to the classroom arena via
escorts, broad-shouldered and bow-tied.
unabashed,
size-me-up-sideways
types, allinarow,
prick up
when the deep down body
voice presenting from a mini transistor
situated on a metal lectern
cracks
to life: Hey! Sit up straight
ya buncha Barney Fifes!

the valedictorian raises her hand, 

registers concern. wait. 

I won't take aggression 

through this medium. her desk folds
inward upon itself, popping, compact-

ing reducing, reducing
until she's gone.

when silence 

is again regained 

the voice assures us, 

you may begin.

When you find out what these kids are jumping into, your jaw will drop!

The narrator
takes a break from his wares
dips
sticks and twine into the solution,
and presents as if he were christening

an orchestral movement.
opens this contraption to the breeze
and a bubble the size
of a unicorn pony bounds away into the distant horizon.
it’s difficult 

for him to create this enchantment children
seek so fervently to destroy

a keepsake wallet-sized print-out
of his second infarction’s EKG
reminds him of mortality and a frame story
for an epistolary
about that one, small, family
of strangers we finally
let in, a mother and her child

the child developed the strength
of a middle aged tree,
but the ratio of candy to bruises
never changed
in his favor.
The narrator sounded 

like this: I’ll take you away
from here right now,
but you’ll have to forget.
And you can’t remember
where we’re going. 
Deal?

The townspeople whispered
abortion when the child grew
into what the e-newsletter
described as “a reminder of misallocated generosity”
under the headline,
“Details Reader’s Digest Won’t Print”

the candy was the story
because if the candy wasn’t the story,
then all those bruises
were for nothing.

and the story on her end?
souvenir t shirt scraps
lay on her lap
unquilted
like a flattened cat.
she can sit the kitchen
of an evening,
watch gas
flares at the refinery
light the sky. useless
to them but like
what's coming up next on the HDTV
her attention remained rapt

he displays mosaics for sale

outside the town wall.
bottle cap plastic
spoon pieces, sharp
and sun bleached, broken,
glaucomic,
Happy Meal shards
fixed to plywood in regimented
blocks of color

vice principals stop on their way back in--
administrative assistants, team-members,
sales associates, band boosters--
to visit his makeshift booth.
apologizing in their way by purchasing
one of the 5 dollar works
he kept in plentiful stock.

camouflaged of desperation
but crackling with urgency,
citing rights,
they each demanded to know,
sotto voce,
do your fantastic stories work?

Yes, the narrator sighs.
yes. but
grab a lollipop on your way in.

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.