an intermittent fool

In the time it takes to ruin a
perfectly good night,
I spoke of

tomatoes. Leaving what was meant
in my throat.

Coughing, chocking on thoughts,
while leaning on the wrong

hole in the yard. Tomatoes.
----
I saw the present to late-
just when the nail

was coming,
going to meet its coffin
closing shut,

in order to talk less-I
gave it the slip.

Out ran quacks not heard

in echo. No-one knows why,
but the damage was done.
----
Onion flavored fingers makes
for onion flavored beer.

Its the smell, I think,
but i

do that to much these days.

Thinking aloud. I should
turn up the volume

of nature so that what escapes
these lips, blends.

when we met it rained

when we met it rained. a hot
mist fell
and covered its tracks; so the

paper wouldn't know.

i believed, in secret, it was just a
fog, moving south

as it does, angled-playing rain.

but i could not find the right
time to tell, the

difference and then
it stopped. rather, we stopped
calling it

luck. calling it how it was,
when blinded by the mist and

the feeling you get when touching.

if that's what it was? niceties
not spoken, but

released was broken with the fog.
rain drenched silhouettes...
a guise in comment

of the mind. but being optimistic
i'll too say it rained that day.

And what of the rivers

And what of the rivers, where one used to drink, cup handed and smiling? It happened in secret, behind the clown nose and jive shows, and they only charged a buck-what a deal. Cutting fish heads they count the dead, laying them back where their found. They don't loose count for it takes only a lunch break, paddling through plastic waters that smell of profit to the right noses. We have traded water for air in rivers of wheels, spatting down the 101. And kids pealing orange shaped juice boxes-instead of oranges. Sometimes I envy the Sun, so far away, and burning bright; but even He lives cursed to consume and can not touch be touched, get close enough to smell the scent of life before it is stretched, ambiguous and dead. In time, only ghosts will be able to count all the money they have made.

I once dreamed of a waiting room.

I once dreamed of a waiting room
where sunless light fell across dead shoulders.
Lists of life peered through

the glass, and I could pick my next life.
a gopher
a whale
a dragon of pixels
a man
an ass

and all where there that was not
here. A quiet room, with no
need for sound,

left actions lingering, falsely
awaiting comment or something

to judge the space between static

and infest. A normal dream, meant
nothing and more

seemed to project the out inward
but reversed for easy viewing. With
so many options I

couldn't decide
and what was the hurry. The need to

live after life was strong, like
the urge fuck and
maybe that

was it. I found myself
in the land of ice cream,

and all I wanted was cake.

I saw a picture of me, when jumping squares were chalked to the sky, left there by jet streams and understood as magic. Untailored shirt sleeves and broken skin I sat, thinking of the future- a possible dawn of thought waiting to be blanched, stored then used when needed. And now the same boy sits, sweatered and hopeful, and running out of world. I rushed to scribble a word then two on a parking ticket, hopeful to pass it through the plain that stood between me and me; until I realized I already knew what it said. And where is the good in words when rain can be made or not depending on the bidder and the cost of cheetos.

A blink that lasts until the dream seem
real. They never come to me, were to

active in thought, I knew, to look
past the sea that flows there,

when the eyes are busy, looking
behind. An incorrect
state of mind.

I ventured here to find them seized?
Because the words you spit,

drain me of rhyme. You live across
the land so dry, and getting here took

three horses-but you sour tagged breath

still finds its victim. How dare you.

A tangled bit of lie,
letting go the bridge's stare

on windows of shops
across the street where we
sat and drank tea.

We ate toast halves and sang

wet love songs when the
day moved west;
giving liberal dues to Fog and

grass fed Winds blowing your
hair across your face and making

it harder to breath, think and see

what else mattered. I thought if tea
was free we could bet on the stars

and let them choose the light

that guides us. But the message
was lost on

graveled rooftops
of a city, indifferent to the rain

and the snarled streets below.

We left, to get out of the bridges eye,
tossing money on the
table and casting shadows of our

own. A nearly finished plan, well
dressed and cured for the night-

shaven neatly and laid upon
the concrete to be eaten

at leisure.