cheque day
Category: Writing and Poetry

hours
squandered yellow

air
furls

heavy as the
curtains

in this
house
of
trash

cracked leather
shoes troll
wet-foot

soldier
along the
bottom

line-up at st. francis'
table

yellow margarine

six more days to cheque day.

10:02 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

moving
Category: Writing and Poetry

this word is a fingerprint
and this
a stolen pebble.
this hand
holds the Palace keys
and this
slaps dust from the skin of a goat.
slience is a yellow cat
the beat of rain on garbage cans
the ticking of a drainpipe.

stack these empty words to form a stair
I have papered these walls with ghosts.

6:33 PM - 3 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

the list
Category: Writing and Poetry

they held a street memorial
outside the church
in back of the mall
where the guards don't let you sleep

we held little candles
and shivered
in a light, late snow

and drums were played
and poems read
and flowers kissed and laid on stone
and several politicians spoke
and three young women
read a list
of those we'd lost
to the bright city darkness
to brute boot violence
and the failure of hope

they read this list of dead
and frozen
names and those
found unidentified
were simply recorded
as John or Jane Doe

it was chilly
and late
so they kept things short
in the interests of time
they only read the last two years
the final few
of many pages
and John Doe died so many times
and Jane Doe died so many times
a cardboard coffin of a name
read out over and over again
with a sound like a shovel of frozen dirt

when the list was over
we rolled our drums
against the blinded windows
of the courthouse banktower shoppingmall square
we rolled a hollow thunder through
the shelterless spaces
that surrounded us

then we dimmed our little candles
and we walked home
through the light, late snow
grateful for our warm coats
and our names
and our survivors.

9:35 PM - 6 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

five funerals
Category: Writing and Poetry

great-grandmother's funeral

was distant and bare

dried-up in a wooden box in Sutton

in a room with dubious crosses

a church that smelled like ski wax and

propane

I wore clean jeans and a blazer.

grandfather's never happened

my grandma saved some money

by opting for a one-line mention

in a Sunday mass

we all attended

like it was just for us

they fit him in

a week or two

after the fact

I wore black pants

with hashburn thighs and cigarette pockets

and was high on crack an hour later.

I don't remember grandma's funeral at all.

mom's funeral was sweet but small

we had a picture

from her model days

some scraps of wool

and flowers

I said some things

my wife shook hands

with one-time relatives

and old ladies from the housing project

and served the crustless sandwiches

I wore a new black suit

and a cell phone from the office.

dad's was large and well attended

cameras whirred in the choir loft

I ate a crustless sandwich

the priest forgot my name

my daughter sat beside me

hiding her new tongue piercing

I wore grey uniform pants

I had to be at work by 4.

7:04 PM - 8 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

searching with a flashlight
Category: Writing and Poetry

the interrogance of puppetry conforms my muddled skin

rustic as the plastic potters slain outside the yards of trash.

suffer me in piercing depositions

I will carry out your bones

and starch your corsets white and

sharp

on hilltops made for burning

in the mistiness of Tuesday

and the shatter of a comma dropped

to bounce and roll blood-footed

on a broken floor of glass.

7:52 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

dream confession
Category: Writing and Poetry

so I have this dream
where I am running
and running
across an endless field
of roses
red like blood
like danger lights
and each rose has a thorn
many thorns
sharp and green and razorous
reaching in the dark for my running, heaving flanks
(yeah, I'm heaving
it's that kind of dream)
and then the sky turns
black
and thunderous and wind
whips up and snares the petals that are
leaning in
towards me and it whips
the thorns into a
frenzy and they lash
against me as I run and run and can't
outrun a storm  that
looks exactly like your angry
eyes and each thorn whips against me as I run and run and
run
and
I
look up
and
the wind has caught the petals
into broke mosaic portraits
of your
face described dramatically
against a rude and raging ground of
rough,
pugnacious sky and
you incline the storm towards me whispering giant
at my
ear and you begin to tell
me
secrets
and the lightning is so pale against your
words that dimly scatter to the tide of air and roses and
I
lose
them

in the
babbled rush of waking
and the rattling sighs of
coffeepots
and
toothbrushes.

6:19 AM - 6 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Black Ink Doodle
Category: Writing and Poetry

dogs whine in the shudder alley

snapping at the hanging heels

of salesmen gone and given up

and slung like Chinese ducks

in yellow windows

see! the street has broken

like a blister on Pandora's ass

and all the horrors ooze out

into taxicabs and VIP rooms

the scene will cause a riot and the

cops will make it just in time

to bust some heads and shoot Hope

for resisting

when they drag her from the sewer.

bugs on the pillow

and under the skin.

the cannibal is buying ice

at the corner store

with 2 in the fridge

and the power shut off

again.

the blocks come tagged and bagged

in milky plastic

just the way he likes them.

rain falls

dirty as the sky above the torture

lovers tying

knots in empty

air their fingers never

touching.

time is sealing up the wall

with plaster made from baby's teeth

and photographic chemicals.

the street is screaming murder

in the blue light of an ambulance

the paranoid is nodding

on a block of old revisions

while the lambs are led to slaughter

while the cats are fed his dinner

while

Pandora lights a cigarette

and blots her laddered stocking

and the monster dreams in colour

in a bathtub full of fingertips.

6:15 PM - 8 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

geography
Category: Writing and Poetry

this is where it is sometimes

when all the blissful motion breaks

and you wash up on the tiny shore

of a single bed small room dim lamp

with no glass beads to trade away

and not a word in common

and time plain in the mirror

plain on the fingers

plain in the dust on the walls

where the calendar hangs

a whole fresh book of

schoolyard threats

when the pen on the page

feels like an inkless needle

crossing and scraping

tracing and shading

and nothing but ugly

when the blood is wiped away

this is where it is sometimes

here in the ice on the windows

here in the cans on the table

time stacked in piles

of wasted paper

everywhere

like leaves for burning

waiting

to add their black ashes

to the cigarette sky

that tastes

like the body

rolled in the blanket

far down the mattress

waiting it out

waiting it

out.

2:03 PM - 7 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

a priore
Category: Writing and Poetry

it's a hard truth
but there may come a time
when the only thing
between you and the bridge
is a hollow door
and the cats
that need feeding

and only a dollar
between you and the pipe

the critical moment
the moment of moment
when the total array
between you
and your end
is a flicker
a sigh
and a gathering
of nerve

count the day lucky
to see it done
and pull the covers close
a prayer might apply
when the candles are burnt
or maybe you don't
think
this way

do you?

4:54 PM - 7 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

rejoice!
Category: Writing and Poetry

this magic life
this quilt of hair
and fingernails
and dust in silver mirrors
feathered heads
and bone recorders
playing cards
and factory walls

this magic life
of finishes
and late beginnings
missed connections
social calls
rejoice! this span of whisky air
and jokes
told to the tablecloth

steam burns and gasoline
stones in pockets
drunk again
in bygone shoes

this magic life
these pillow secrets
tiny cups
and tiny bottles
weepy basement children
planted deep
and trained
to plastic trellis
staked against the cathode morning

the air awaits the klaxon
and the bells are poised to sunder
matches in your lunchbox
on the final day of school.

7:06 AM - 7 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment