poet runner

i left the airport
made a beeline to the future
no one was waiting
world fell asleep

woke up underground
where the fountain flows backwards
where distortion turns the keys
in my cell

scrambled my things
grew mad wings
lift off union square redemption

made a pact
we bend to our space

kissed our time
with indigo lips

poet anticipated
the proverbial misunderstanding
the petty mindset phenomenon
human escapes human?

i left a hole
in the past
for the new ignorance

Elvis Magnets

The food line is straight down main street.
All the neighbors are glad to be in a tavernless town.
The tailors and the coffee shops serve gossip
and sleeplessness to scavengers on the avenue.
There are no places to surrender silently.
The counter girls are beautiful
and the old man behind the cash has a book.
He reads all day behind the display window,
knowing full well the sun will lighten his load,
just like a good idea: the likeness,
t'is Elvis in his youth.
The magnets are made to be display on a fridge.
But I have them in my room:
a reminder of past fellowships,
an echo of some good intention I beget,
a reminder that I once was in the mix.

'... the Soul Hunts

What black wolf waits
in the grove? He does not
tire of waiting. And so
not unlike my soul, he crouches

down and listens.

He is not alone but is
alone; his purpose joins him
to his pack. My soul a shadow
to other shadows cast and breaking

loose to capture what is found.

turkey hat

dammed

three gorges:
once gorgeous mouths
open

sails travelers floods silt
slow words flowed muddy
prospering with phosphoring organisms

patti still pours mapplethorpe's
ashes through her fingers

two losses: you and the song
all that I feared comes to pass
ashes and bone bits sink
into stagnant water

I thought he had to be alive
to do that slow fuck
muses do

turns out
you can fuck yourself
use energy from the past

for awhile
how long depends
on your obstinacy
/loyalty

flow of inspiration a memory

the mouth dammed
wet concrete

slathered over the lips

no poem today
or tomorrow

control
safety
deaden d

.

upward climb

Moths


All through the dark ran
little feet of darkness;

for every star a black
footprint. For every

shadowed step a toenail
of lightness. We dreamt

of wings rushing towards
the flame and called them

moth.

Conservator-diem

Substantially plump Beck Madigan intoned, ‘Jesus to God almighty, move from the stairwell, my dear man, I abjure you, ex pluribus dais!’ Razor stropped and held aloft Madigan rinsed the washwater from the crone of his face and smiled, ‘Tis a day for mollycoddling and slight-of-footing, be cautious, dear men, to sidestep poor recently deceased Passy’s gravestone, in lieu of flowers, a nice tardy so long bastard son reeves of alcove and drudgery.’ McCurdy, eyes pilaster and crossed-over to either one side or the neither, tossed a sapper in-line over the tops of their heads, saying as he did, ‘Adman has a footing, now isn’t he the Arbuckle, not a tosspot to pee in, in conservator-diem’. Mrs. Bloomingdale, vilestone of putt and mercy, wren’svoice stoked and ready, warbled on the count of never, deafening devilfish and arbours alike, a picket of crisps in the wayside of her hoopskirt fob. A cheer and hoopla was overheard from yonder widowsill, Mrs. Passy in mourning frock sidestepping her poorly deceased husband’s freshly limed cesspit grave, arms akimbo at her sides, Beck Madigan, fleetoffoot, tossing nosegay into the snotgreenscrotumtighteningsea said, ‘ex pluribus sepulchred, leave the dear man in peace and rot’, leaving not a dry eyesore in alehouse or vicarage.

Once Torn

I have given you reason
to turn back; no one
likes himself in the past.

Even nature re-visits
itself, attentive to
the weather's cycles-

a tulip bulb sleeping
unencumbered by history.

You should have loved me.
O how you could have
loved me! Like the blade

of a knife, like a machine gun
on the battlefield.

But this is not paradise.
And though the wolves are
beautiful and tender,

their teeth are not strangers
to their victim's blood; once torn
almost always eaten.

Dear Sir