Wasn’t I Just Here?

Wasn’t I just here Dragging the hose to the top of this hill When Mom wasn’t looking, on the phone Eroding the soil to catch it At the bottom with a friend, shovels, and a dam Before it floods my parent’s bedroom? Wasn’t I just here, throwing a party Snapped sprinkler heads and underage drinking? [...]

The Hard Edges of the Night

A lot of nights, Laying awake in the middle Of Ocean Beach, I hear screams or yelling And then nothing. Sometimes it is two men Or just one with No one answering. A man and a woman, The sound of a slap Then flats smacking the ground Staccato, quickly, then fading. Harleys and their riders, [...]

Forgive Yourself for Evolving

Perhaps my only true loves Are those that are inanimate, Or are animated soley by my Magical imagination. They love me like a god – I give them life, they give me Love without strings attached. They could attach their strings If they ate from that forbidden fruit That Adam and Eve partook of. But [...]

George

Sometimes I wish I could Feel all four walls in the dark From where I sit on this Thinly carpeted floor – Again, like a closet, A most comfortable space For one sad and lonely Anthropomorphic ape. One or two trips to the sunlight Have sunburned him into The hypocrisy he despised: Loss of childhood [...]

Horse

There seems to be a certain point where a great deal of intelligence becomes a stallion too strong, or wild to train, to ride. Madmen have become so smart that their brains have snapped: the reins have cracked, and they cannot let go, or get off. Simple people are said to be happy – their [...]

For Your Majesty

I I can imagine a perfect spot to have a picnic with you today; the sky is a wee bit grey at the edges – I caught as many clouds as I could with my butterfly net (I came in wet early this morning from the rain-dew on the unmown grass stems). II I’ve found [...]

Treaty

I’ve hated myself for so long for other people other opinions, other lives: here goes my hair – look in the mirror, watch your steely blue eyes wink: lighthouses to steer ships by. Bring them home. Home is the sailor, home from the sea, and the hunter, home from the hill. home to your heart. [...]

Candle Flickers

a candle can move its shadows like the magic of an angel if you believe that it might be so. one word one attempted explanation and it’s war so I give up, keep my mouth shut and rot from the inside out. page after page of meaningless meaning to myself tonight to forget tomorrow to [...]

Nitrogen is to Plants as Poetry is to the Mind

I I love you most when you are sleeping and around the corner I am peeping, shadow in the box of light that falls from the living room; I hear the rain is coming soon from the whish of the wind ‘round the corner of the front porch lifting the edges of your hair while [...]

Homecoming

maybe some part of me likes this all these charades and party games; little tiffs and arguments inflated into parade-sized balloons with sick joking happy faces; whole carnival floats from the high schools of hell – homecoming for one broken hearted man alone in the auditorium.

A Troll

he sat under a narrow bridge and skulked, the fairy-tale Troll. I was the one who sat under the bridge and chose not to demand a toll. I could have asked for the world on a plate or rich trinkets, various and sundry. but he was a reclusive faint-hearted Troll who wished Man good will [...]

The Prince of Spring

for all of my twenty years I have had one healthy fear: that Love will find me cold and dry for being a Prince and held so high, but my heart longs for fiery blood, wide-open eyes and Love, true Love, not courtships played to gain the hand of the Princess with the tracts of [...]

Impression of Las Vegas

I couldn’t help myself – I had to stare at all the older people in Las Vegas. They’re all motorized, putting coins in slots, sometimes playing two or three at once and even when they win their expressions don’t change. I saw a man win $5000 in silver dollars and he just seemed annoyed that [...]

Zambone Machine

why do my dreams lay siege to me as if I was a fortress of stone, a dragon unconcerned with men’s matters, a river who just picks up the bones of foolish dreams who jump the chasm and fall to drown in icy water, for I move the other cliffside at will at each new [...]

The Fall of Rome

the decline of Rome was a beautiful thing: around the Emperor you’d laugh and sing, pasted on smiles over plenty of warning while the city skyline is crimson with burning. spinning like the gold of a fumbled coin, maybe I’m ready to leave in the morning but not tonight while I’m this beautiful man… I [...]

Beating a Drum in the Woods By Myself

a Man of Many Talents, none too outstanding, but outstanding in having many talents; things to choose from but the worry is happiness and peace of mind – though he won’t admit it, he wants the instruction book: he wants help in figuring it out what goes where and which thing does what, why this [...]

A Fight by my Apartment

I I jumped into a ring of people with a big friend to save the girl who was elbowed in the steeple of her nose – on purpose by some insensitive ape (the kind that argues justifiable rape) who was full of muscles. hit in the eye, though I ducked, my buddy got up and [...]

Interview With an Angel

no wings, no halo, no beatific expression of heavenly rapture. on interviewing an Angel, he scratched his head and was most like any other man. I’m five foot eleven, one hundred and forty pounds (give or take five for the season) no, there’s no particular reason I should be renowned as an Angel from heaven. [...]

Fireflies in a Jar

I am still here; encased in steel, frozen in flesh; I am still here. the I, the me, and the one and only: Michael, an Angel, this quality, definitely the most beautiful man regardless of position and opinion. building and building my building, my self: a tower of faith in feelings. I’ve mortared each brick [...]

Untitled Poem #140

A Dog looked up at a Crow; to fly would be freedom. A Crow looked down on a Dog; to love would be freedom. A Man looked between the two; to understand would be freedom.

Scarecrow

I to look at you as a scarecrow doesn’t work; you don’t scare me like that. my heavy heart just tends to grow heavier; strength starts to tear me apart. II you are a singular flame that sears me awake from a comfortable death of being a man with no name. I need you to [...]

Bear at the Back of my Closet

I am the bear at the back of my closet, warm and furry. but nobody knows it. I am the star cut in the flesh on the back of my hand. you, however, are a fig-ment of my imagination, subject to my rules. and you are whatever I choose to make of you. you are [...]

The Most Beautiful Man in Town

I am the most beautiful man on this road, my bottle of red wine wetting my lips through the lizard-trod dust. My spit places octopi in the tiny gravel splayed like fingers or clouds. Sometimes I weave back and forth between the ruts in the road, carrying my bottle of red wine before me like [...]

Untitled Poem #-9

I am read to a man in a wheelchair who smiles and laughs out loud because he can remember. I can remember mixing the chemicals then taking it.

Egg Drop

a man dropped the egg he was carrying on the sidewalk, and it broke. the yolk was green. he knelt down to look closer at it, and it ate him. “Ha ha ha!” it lurked back into its broken shell.