Poetry

  • Noise (3)

    meanwhile, back at the castle… the fan made in Taiwan is sputtering. the boring commercials for male enhancement and arthritis cures blare. someone’s dragging their feet. the idiot thugsta in the spanking convertible corners curbside, speakers on boom. space shuttle Discovery cracks the atmosphere. the effing faucet is dripping. the thousand sparrows are singing down…

  • Ashes Scattered at Sea

    1 my eyes are as big and Grimm as china saucers but this is no fairytale. i do my daily doings hurried to purposeful distraction, a couple of snits or fits if things work out—anything to keep my muddling mind off those kith among those missing if i’m lucky the headlines will be so outrageous…

  • December, Fever

    A tang approaches, like the smell of snow. Illness like a color deepens— pale gray, thick-in-a-cloak gray, secret coat silk, and finally the weight of rough pelts heaped on the bed. The last enchantment of the day is tearing pages out of a book. The paper soft and thin, like falling asleep (a hand backstage…

  • The Mingus Effect

    after A. D. Winans the java fires the lava flowing in my brain hot wet sex-rider screaming stains black cold heart bleeds lightning and rain as the dame in tight red takes the names of simpatico lames. bass notes cut rainbows thru me trues me like falling ten stories into love leaves me drunk and…

  • The Shootout

    is guns given druthers of meaning or being. the old town look empty but for chattering lace blanching panes awaiting blood for eyes. saltpeter, all. even the buzzards dizzying down washpan dusks. buzzards: God’s hungry fingers. one gun chooses meaning—“this is for”—and sputters. this, for the gun that wins. the other? there’s God’s finger, carnal,…

  • Difficult Listening Time

    A flock of pink flamingos moved in across the street, and set up plastic people on the lawn.                     They’ve faced them out this way, hands molded to their chins, looking more like us as night comes on. Downtown, the waitresses are starving in their aprons; the watchmen get fainter by the hour.                    It’s…

  • The Pool, 1988

    Altadena-summer mustard smog sun all yellow as I have become      this year I fear I am fat and wear a t-shirt when swimming    childish    the T-shirt clinging to me through summer the gut of August    summers before when I was born smack for air    this year the smack of water as I…