Poetry

Poetry, the effectual lover. She will leave you
for your brother;

drapes torn, while the taste of her is
still on your tongue.

Poetry knows your lies,
collects lies,
makes you believe.

Poetry is a plastic bag in the wind against August.

It is the unkept self in the morning;
with nothing to do but rhyme.

It is the weed pushing, drawing air
deep into its lungs, corrupting,

assuming parking lots.

Poetry makes love in the dark after fucking all day.

It will lame you, lead you,
find your most intimate words,
then leave you.

Poetry is the blind man singing beyond his sight,
a song made for everyone-

and some will not understand.

morning construction

I awoke this morning to the sound
scaffolding makes

against cold hands and sidewalk.

Dimpled backs carried graffitied blocks
both

old enough to remember the days
when Unions gave a damn.

They moved fast, screwed fast,
hanging the nets and blinds before

my coffee boiled, naming it
Tuesday. I always ask

them about the weather; no one
knows it better then a day worker.

They know it like a baker knows yeast;
using their noses and
the feel of the air.

I watched as the new kid awkwardly
thumbed a hammer. Dropped it, in front
of a cute skirt wearing train wreck, walking past

them all-teasing us all. He'll get it
for the rest of the day,

but he had it coming,

the new one always does. When your new
you get it twice as hard, taking the shit
the rest went through,

all the days before you arrived-
just so its even.

Their always trying to make it even.

unfiltered communication

I dreamed my father lived in a hallway,
painting clothes; hiding prose and

a cell phone between lucky strikes. counting
down the hours spent awake, and not

counting at all, days spent asleep.

he was younger then, stronger then, eyes opened
at the edges then.

I saw him planting tones, speaking vowels, reading
words everyone loved to hear. but he stood there,
showing me and

only me his knuckles- painted red like a sound
that covets the tongue; displacing meaning,
displacing thoughts.

displacing what it can.

I turned and stole his pack of smokes-
his words they could not see me-
and, plugged them into the

wall for a chance at unfiltered communication.

parades

a toast to parades. I feel the noise.
the awkward setting arranged to let one stare
unmoved, watching life behind fences,

and catching free candy.
a movement of time,
like shitting on the street but with flowers,

or masks,

or plastic cigars

or elephants

shitting where ever they feel like it.
people dress in franchised clothing,
rented, appealing to fever-

colors, bent by the Sun and group think.

everyone waves. i see you. look at us now.
its fun because its true. its fun because
it doesn't last.

the imagination, the power to speak,
type, create and walk using just two
appendages is what separates us

from them. yet sometimes i'd trade it
all for the ability to shit and fuck where
ever and whenever.

i found it hard to practice care

i found it hard to practice care, even though
the night was young, the tricks, flowing

like the bay to the next mouth awaiting
ruse.

there is mistake in practice, and no one waits
for leaning to curve; leading, persuading entropy-

but you can call it mingling.

i'm good at lighting cigarettes, playing
games of chance and creating holes that

loop, but i'm not good at you, or
me rather, and i've forgotten the cross streets

already.

a joke

late one evening, a man, walking into his house, sees a snail slivering across
his door step; the trail drying behind him as he slowly makes his way.

the man picks the snail up and tosses him into the garden, walking inside
he commences his evening activities unmoved.

a year later the same man sees the same snail gliding passively
across the door with reliable fragility. the man picks up

the snail and asks why he is so persistent. the snail looking
up toward the man, stretches its feelers far into the air and replies,

"go fuck yourself."

-

your mouth opens, surging argue. you feed trains
of thought railroad ties and square traces

of kudos; left to their own demise and
not yet understood. you reck syllables,

comforting enough to fuel oil jets speed; flying,
falling ungraceful.

you smoke and lie awake
fretting, thinking foul mouths end swiftly

but can not be controlled. you
can't please them all. so you please few;

candied tongue severed and aimless...
obtuse and unworthy to touch the one you

wish to please the most. you hum dirty floor
blues, swept

away by the next set of wills filling, foaming
cats tails-a cropped candle burning

with no place to drip.

you grow a beard because you think she'll like it,
but it won't pay the bills.