Star Storm

Stay drunk, you; Keep worrying. Preoccupied With what’s next. Can’t sleep Without churning Sheets like shorebreak. Tumbled concrete, Husking winds, Hissing palm trees, Gravel bullets Of sky-spat rain. The hole is growing Withdrawn chill Bring out the star storm Get it over with.

Crown of Twelve Trees

Returning from the western desert oasis, I have found the autumn fading Gone into the palest blue sky of grey vapors. I smell far off snow on this blustering wind Spraying the later leaves from the hardwood branches. Twelve trees are a protective crown around my cabin; She’s enchanted to see me back again. Fill [...]

Postponement and Consummation

A slight stirring of wind Holds this gauzy curtain away from the window, Reminders of a springtime outside, all green And flowers and wholesome shit. Me, I just want to get drunk Feel the empty agony of my loneliness, Postponed by the full bottle; Consummated by another empty can. I can feel, yes, I can [...]

Thee Angelkitten

A purring song of liquid honey Angelkitten, Burnished golden metallic wings, Diamond-bright dinky halo and Those kitten-soft feet to mommy-paw Your eyes shut at sleepytime, Hunting your hair, As the wind from the waves of her home, Corner-of-your-eye cat-quick paranoid spirit Of Cleopatra Mykelti kittenator flatulator, Calling-cards framing those other cats, Wrestling with an orange [...]

Big Olaf

Once, while sitting On a tide-surrounded Piece of Sunset Cliffs, I smelled boyhood, A summer scent: Warm sand, blue cool ocean, Seaweed, shells, swells, surf wax; Coconut tanning oil SPF 15. The silence of waves before they break, Bodyboard rash and sunburns, The sharp asphault places in the parking lots, Kicking sand on the backs [...]

Pine Tree

I climbed up as far as my courage And strength would take me One day in the life of a monkey-boy; Those branches were spaced With a long-armed youth in mind – A kind encouragement Beckoning boys to the heavens, That grandfather pine tree still stood As of the date of this writing, And it [...]

The Pier

The pier is flung out past the surf Into the deep water Like a sleeper’s unconscious arm Idly hanging over the edge of the bed. Sunlight scuba dives for the flickers Of schools of little fish And warms the top of the waters – Where the seaweed loosely hangs Like bead curtains or piles of [...]

Rioting Raindrops

The rain came down Like cartoon anvils, Spending itself on the cement In an assault on the town. The parachute-less troops Gathered in the low-lying spots And took over the streets In order to regroup. Rioting raindrops, Seething and churning, Swallowing curbs and sidewalks And the floors of a few shops. En masse, they moved [...]

Sailing to Byzantium

I perch upon a basalt wall, 12 feet high; it surrounds the port Separating the rough-hewn blocks Of the well-travelled docks From the slopes of the mountains lost To the predations of much-prized rationality. Many a sailor I watch disembark From cutter or barge or sailing-ship; They wind their way from wharf to within The [...]

coming calling

The snow has touched the mountaintops And the leaves drift on the ground. My breath is grey before my face As I’m walking into town. I left my car parked in the drive; I wished to go on foot. A whim the moon brought to my thoughts When I laced my father’s boots. When I [...]

Target

Look around you at the wrecked shelves, the damaged or opened merchandise, the floors littered with tags, sale shelves half-empty with slower-selling items or taped up single boxes priced as marked. See the hanging advertisements, the red and yellow eye-catchers, the signs leading to popular departments: Toys, Electronics, Sports; Christmas Trees in our Garden Section! [...]

Something I Haven’t Quite Finished Yet

To the hip-hop rhythm of my break-beat bounce I sing sun stars surf stoopid something amounts To a funky fresh freestyle flowing fast and far from the breakers to the speakers in the trunk of your car. I get a little sparkle like the wind in my eye When the sun is shining steady from [...]

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 [...]

For Galstephus the Mage

You dream like a king on a throne; you are not like the serfs and servants of this existence. This world doesn’t want kings and heroes; rather, normalcy is enshrined and page homage to with certificates of merit. You are a nobleman and your heritage is not acknowledged – there is no room for the [...]

2 Stories

I had a beer with an Indian. he said he was an Indian so I bought him a beer and he told me about a ghost horse who could run faster than the wind who he was sure he had seen in the long grass behind his trailer. he bought me a beer and I [...]

Chanting

you’re going to scream at me but I’m chanting I can take it throwing words like broken mirror pieces of me beating the pinata of my disguises but I’m chanting I can take it breaking accusations over my head scalding me with tears that I never wanted to bring to you on the silver platter [...]

Musings in the Night Aire

perching like a poet – I found a table and a bench tucked away on a second story walkway of the Arts building just for me. a yellow magnesium light shines down on this paper turning letters into dancing figures that say something important to me so I can pretend I am a poet. a [...]

For Jamie

I still dream of the way your long brown hair fell over my face in the wind in the park as we played with the camera and rolled on the grass down the hills by the Mission in a blanket of stars.

Dowsing

One man walked through a cracked, dry land dowsing for the cairn of a woman. his spirits circled him like many wrestlers, fanning the wind into slight eddies, stirring the dust raised by each cautious footstep. one man seen alone with a forked stick walking away from a dirt-streaked car, a door hanging open like [...]

The Beauty of Destruction

The winds of last night have blown the limbs from trees, torn the leaves from branches, and scattered them on the sidewalks like dull confetti and still streamers. The beauty is in the destruction; the tree trimming of clouds breath, shaking every blade of grass, stripping the dew away like pearls silently falling from a [...]

By Yellow Moonlight

I commissioned a cloak black but lined with elf-eyes to be able to stand still in the graveyards I wished to wander. The wind confers in my ears then tugs like awkward bridesmaids at my hem making parachute ripples in the fabric while I ignore them, another statue in this washed out moonlight a faint [...]

Yet Another Untitled Poem Serving as a Journal Entry

the wind left my door open and in came the rain, in came the rain; he blurred my pictures of you by dulling my pain. and like Spandau Ballet: it’s true that the wind left and left my door ajar and I never thought I’d go as far to forget instead of coping.

A la Skinny Puppy

standing and staring alone at the clustered skies …crowded with high rise… terrain made human by the wind blown newspapers and the heaps of old trash gravel in piles and A-frames knocked aside a car rusts away with one door open wide grey prestressed cement leans over and oppresses the air from the streets I [...]

Wind in my Eyes

I where can I run to? I am hiding from myself again. I can’t turn around without feeling what I’ve done and where I’ve been. chorus I’m falling away and I fall through your sky I see the ground coming up and I forgot how to fly. you taught me before and I never knew [...]

Untitled Poem #145

you left me with a scarf which smelled like your summer rain; you had worn it in your hair and I had closed my eyes. I touched it to my face and imagined how your breath would come so close to me and how I’d hear your heart beating. you left your scarf behind a [...]