THE HOLE PUNCHER

his father was stricter with him than you or i would be.

heavy drinker, raised him on a chicken ranch in montana,

that's big sky country. back before there was, you

know, cable tv. back before he was dead from the heart down.

back when he was lonesome as a rubber raft in new fallen snow.

the girls didn't like him, his nose was red as a stop sign.

the boys didn't like him, his hands were warts on buffalo meat.

and he wore a tie to school with graffiti written all over it.

stop the war. stop the madness. you don't mess with

texas. hey lookout i'm a sick motherfucker.

in winter he drank soup from a soup can.

the summer he graduated he went away to

the lake country. laid on a tiny raft in the river like

it was a postage stamp and he was mailing himself to cleopatra.

when autumn rolled around he was happy again.

like a politician with an awesome war chest

and a double digit lead. that's when his face broke out

into tiny buttons – vote for me vote for me vote

for me vote for me! did i mention he got a job as a hole puncher?

well he did. biggest hole puncher in butte, all right!

all day long he punched holes in things. railway tickets.

leather belts. policemen's uniforms. young people's

delicate ears. once he punched a hole in a thousand birds flying in the sky.

he punched holes like he knew what it means.

1:55 AM - 15 Comments - 26 Kudos - Add Comment

AFTER THE FLOOD

the mississippi rolls by like a stream of steady bees

down their private highway to the queen, ordinarily.

not bothering with people much unless riled. they've

got fruit trees to invade. fields of clover to think about.

we've got our own mouths to feed.

surely there are enough peaches and pears. grains and

wild grapes enough in this wide world for bees and men

to co-exist. if the bible didn't say so it should've – live and

let live makes for a productive garden.

but i'm talking men and their machines, dammit! i'm talking

yellowjackets, with their stingers and their mean jazz and

their angry death grip. both of them willing to use any weapon

at their disposal and at the drop of a hat.

ok men are greedy. not satisfied with their share, always

wanting more and plotting to get it. as for the bees, they

don't want anything at all. they just keep soldiering along.

they have their queen to feed and protect.

meantime here you are, o davenport. you've done it again.

your ass is a basket of pears turned upside down and

all your fruit spilled out.

your streets are flooded with rich muddy mississippi.

your busted windows stare the world down, from the

court house down to river drive.

all day long your eyes hollow as an acoustic guitar. all

day long in the silence and the sun, your eyes hollow

as pears plucked into by yellowjackets before the pickers

could get at and rescue them.

7:07 AM - 12 Comments - 24 Kudos - Add Comment

NOT LIKE FABERGE'S EGG

not like fireworks, set off

to distract the factory workers

but like a red tail hawk

sailing through grand tetons

not like faberge's egg

for the amusement of aristocrats

but like an electrical storm

on the edge of a prairie

there is a force in the wheatfields

that wants to sing your name

not like the tallest chimney in the world

but like the moon in saddleback mountains

not like arclights across the klamath

but like a cherry pit in the mouth of a child

like nebraska in a heatwave

like a cow town band on parade

a force in the wheatfields

like a hummingbird nesting in a crust of bread

a force in the wheatfields

like a shoeless afternoon in summer, reading ivanhoe

dolphins cruise the continental shelf

trilobites! snapping turtles!

polar bears in deep slumber!

i can hear them all

and when i hear them

i am your boy again

a tree at the beginning of time

a brood of fox, gray partridges

a wooden toy pulled across the sun

a force in the wheatfields

that wants to sing your name

6:31 AM - 19 Comments - 34 Kudos - Add Comment

THAT OLD PLACE WAS A GOOD ONE

that old place was a good one but the smoke kept coming and

the flames wouldn't quit. so we covered our necks and our ear

holes and our mouths and our eyes and we went into the place.

it was hobbsie's place so we covered our noses with bandannas

and we went back in and we fought that fire until our throats were

burning and also the soles of our feet. we pumped so much water  

into that place it spilled out of the attic holes all mixed up with hot tar

and ashes. it fell on the skin of our arms and spattered our helmet visors.

and someone said doesn't this shit just sizzle like piss-soaked linen.

and that was pretty funny and we got to enjoying ourselves fighting

that fire until some of it fell on old hobbsie himself and down he came
through the ceiling. he dropped down the ladder like a new cut log.

WE CAMPED BY THE RIVER THREE DAYS

we camped by the river three whole days

the rain came in and to tell you the truth it didn't matter

because you took me away you blew me apart

with your cashews and champagne

and the forest stunk like a wet lumberjack

with no chance at heaven but i didn't

mind i didn't care and we had plenty to eat

beef jerky with beans o god you said the taste of it

o god you said 'dead as a dead cat in a clatskanie railyard'

and i laughed like it was the first time i had ever

laughed in my life and your hair tangled up in

my hand when we slept and the feel of

your body beside mine and the rain

pounding on canvas walls and

the forest surrounding us

it made me my own self again

after all these years and i knew

you were partial to neruda,

not me! i knew you like it was

the first time i knew you

like it had been ten thousand years

like the rain like the river i knew you like

a shit storm on the back side of the moon

but who cares you said all that's just history

and although i knew where you were headed before

you did, lying there beside you with our eyes

for each other and our hearts wide open

and the rain falling into them

it didn't matter so much that your destination was not mine

all that mattered was you

holding my hand

and wondering out loud

what would it be like to be a tree

'don't you want to be a tree' you asked,

and me saying 'no not really,

no, i don't think so

no i wouldn't'

maybe i do want to be a tree

3:19 PM - 27 Comments - 54 Kudos - Add Comment

BROOKLYN BROOKLYN BQE

i like to drive you after midnight

when the panel trucks are all

gone when the kosciuszko

bridge when graffiti watchtower

when domino sugar when rooftops

and secret apertures of night

gazing into red brick apartments

when the last stragglers from manhattan

a day's hard devotion to the pursuit of the lucky

lady liberty gone! all locked up! clear sailing tonight!

o how the skyline rises up to greet me

fdr williamsburg downtown uptown

empire state madison square

grand central bleeker bowery the whole

shit and caboodle of new york city

sandcastles built on the

impossible shore

negro graveyards

old dutch bones

fat and famous

glamorous false

men with pride

men with sex

and money money

money money

a continent of money

a turtle island of money

hudson river palisades

jersey city meadowlands

half past ts eliot

whore on a bedsheet

american money

shamelessly

i knock you out

i lay you down

i put you behind me

strung out sea to shining

sardine tin dock shoal

saltine cracker

slipping past slipping by

slipping on home to

you, where you will be

sitting at the kitchen table

with a skyline of bills

in front of you

waiting for me

and wondering

which one should i

pay tonight the milkman or

the electric meter

9:31 AM - 25 Comments - 50 Kudos - Add Comment

LIKE A LOAF OF BREAD FLOATING IN THE BULLRUSHES

what if you woke up on the edge of a town

in a country you had never seen before

a city in the northern hemisphere, say  

in the willamette valley or missouri

or central iowa or standing on a riverbank

in southern illinois in the late afternoon snow

watching a polar bear paddling south

or else on the overflowing mississippi at

flood time or like a loaf of bread

floating in the bullrushes

or a box of waterlogged manuscripts

in a cardboard moving box

in raleigh north carolina
what if you woke up

and you were an orphan boy

or a nestling fallen out of a tree

or the hull of a rotten wooden ship

or the wrong bet or a new tin whistle
in a tin whistle factory what if you woke up

with a name like moses or samson or

christopher columbus or jean d'arc
or you woke up and you were a washed up
prize fighter named jake or the right horse in the wrong race

or swung like the door of a tobacco barn

or a forklift seized up by a tornado

and stuck into the side of a cow

or a tractor wheel tossed one hundred

and fifty six miles into a stained glass window

what if you woke up like a sperm whale

in a bed of spartina grass

like a moose grazing on the edge of

a shimmering atlantic shoreline

or like the last buffalo to roam ted turner's

montana plains or like a leaf that's

just landed in a grateful gyroscoping misty pond

or like the unfastened lapel of a fisherman's raincoat

or with your hair tossed back in stormy weather

what if you woke up like me, the way i woke up this morning, without you

wearing your father's empty suit, lying under the next

shroud of turin or with a martini glass

spilling from your hand

like a waterbed with a leak in it and

all the water racing away

out across the carpet

out through the window

out through the door

down the driveway

out past all the parked cars

down to the long

steeplechase of the sea

10:54 PM - 24 Comments - 46 Kudos - Add Comment

O HIDEOUS WORDSMITH UNHAND MY LINEN

o there you are o look out

asinine dreamer o hideous

wordsmith unhand my linen

remove yourself from my

laundry basket you and your

writing which cures compassion

not to mention the sticky fingers of your latest confessional

o noxious o pantoum maker

o poison pen-pen you

and your roadrunner

you and your bunny

rabbit tricks you and your

barry manilow embrace

you and your teeth

of stainless steel your

jelly donut eyes and your

faux pornography o ghostly tacklebag

o satchel of tricks o puddle dog

o wonder o wonders

dream merchant

nervous lemon drop

linguist of lost hope

o refuse collecting bible-beating

lost boy of suburban trauma

o you who bare your

cross of words

in the checkout line

in the college cafeteria

at the perfume counter

go goose the stars!

you who chatter like a

used car salesman

o you who write essays

about shanty town but

never lived in shanty town

my asinine my jewel my

wordsmith with bent head

clothed in the world's

worst underwear

i hope you get stranded too

the way you stranded me

at the alphabetical airport

you with your eyes rolling around

in your stupid poet head

5:22 PM - 20 Comments - 42 Kudos - Add Comment

I SAW YOU WITH YOUR HAPPY SPECTACLES ON

o i saw you by the light of your

plutonium radio with your unearthly

glare amazed by pictures of

something you had never

seen before except

now they broadcast it

all day long on fox news

o and in the half light of

a truncated moon enjoying this

enjoying that o i saw you

with your happy spectacles on

looking up the dress of planet america

o and you with a set of miracles

how many remote controls

can you hold in your two 

damn hands and them playing you

like a toy piano like maracas

o in your california

shades o in your vinyl

side pants hecha en mexico

o right here in the good

ol' u.s. of a. like everything else

destined for the scrap heap

destined for the mass

grave o cough o cough into

the microphone of hope

o tomatoes o like the latest

plague coming to a theater near

you coughing to one side

like you were taking a sports physical

i saw you by the light of the

one way funhouse mirror

how is it we ended up

waiting on line at the meat

counter how is it we took

our place at the lunch machine

o joy o we are done for

o we are done in with all this

horseshit there will be

no more shark dinner for

two and the rivers frothing like

the dog who drank near beer

o and the levees

breaking and

o sweet potatoes!

we're rotting in the sun

and o grapes! we're lost

in earthly slumber

too late for protests

too late for fear

the people in power

control that, the people in power

do not pay much attention

to the people who are out of it

unless you commit a little

9:28 AM - 24 Comments - 44 Kudos - Add Comment

I LOVE YOU LIKE AN ENVELOPE