I Wasn’t Born Scared Of Water
Current mood: okay
Category: Writing and Poetry

There was a roped off beach at Sloan's Lake

cigarette butts peppered sand

holding hot sun treasures like pimentos in shit.

I was about ten learning to swim

up to my neck in cold water rapture.

Baptized my cowboy like fantasies away.

Silver gun glory sheriff badge

cut from plastic stars

and I grew out of my boots

not a day to soon.

I squinted at the sun with outlaw

Josey Wales eyes

and inched farther out.

The water tasted like fish shit

the wake slapped me softer than

my father ever did

fuck Jaws my mom said it

wasn't a real shark anyway.

The lifeguard screamed get the fuck out

high as opera type tragedy on the beach

and pulled a dead man behind him.

The scent of what humans become

is some what like carp thrown ashore

but the stomach doesn't glimmer

like bottle caps or fools gold

fish scales do.

His arms and legs swollen and bent

in an easy rider pose

oh shit eyes followed us like

mannequins sometimes do.

I wondered if he still dreamed

and if people really shit at

the time of death.

The motorcycle was still

underwater.

It was probably a piece of shit Honda.

Nobody would ride a Harley to a suicide.

Currently reading : The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry

9:43 PM - 9 Comments - 18 Kudos - Add Comment

D.A. Levy Will Never Be Made Of Marble
Current mood: blank
Category: Writing and Poetry

I made love to a juke box in the ever open cafe.

Rode my bicycle through dreams deferred.

Gazed up at angels while I layed in the park

came to a realization of chinese fireworks and rich men

in airplanes are not the sweet after

taste of freedom we fight for.

The rockets red glare has become

an allergy symptom and can be cured with

prescription eye drops.

I clicked Jack Ruby's slippers three times

but they never took me home.

They took me to the streets of Chicago

where Wesley Willis jammed on the keyboard

head butted me and yelled

ROCK

demons in silk shirts tangoed in his head.

Took me to Cleveland when it was still

smokestacks belching into the face of heaven.

Twenty seven is the age of icons

Jimi Janis Jim Kurt Tupac.

D.A. Levy had a year to go

to have his own statue

for pigeons to rest tired wings

before they became some bird more glorious.

Like a bald eagle

or a swan.

I'm a meadowlark hatched on the Wyoming

plains singing alone

singing puffing my yellow chest

until I am heard

singing the song of myself

singing for mornings

the hope that maybe

today will be a little better

than yesterday ever was.

7:02 PM - 13 Comments - 24 Kudos - Add Comment

I Watched The Stoplight Change In Your Eyes
Current mood: chipper
Category: Writing and Poetry

We drove to the sex shop.

I said I'd by you that purple water

proof dildo that curves

to the left.

Just like me.

But the sex couldn't wait.

You took my swollen ego in your mouth

as I drove the shadows of branches

brushed your back

through stained glass cathedrals.

Me I played with your hair

tried not to crash

used turn signals

and drove the speed limit.

Streetlights in rain ran

the length of the blacktop.

Obsidian in the throes

of city heat the cars

pulling up next to us honking with Barney Fife smiles

and a hemp necklace I wish

was a noose instead

raising thumbs up

like dumb simians do.

We didn't care

and suddenly the price of gas

didn't seem that bad.

Four dollars is nothing

compared to the warmth

of your mouth.

The place where I came from.

Your smile will make

you a star kid.

So we drove

into tomorrow our future

windshield wipers

pushed yesterday

off into the street

and I watched it

fall on it's face in the rear view.

I finished off and pulled

your head up for a kiss.

The reflection of the stoplight

turned green

in your eyes.

7:24 PM - 20 Comments - 38 Kudos - Add Comment

Carrying Her Like Penguins Do
Current mood: sick

Life happens between tooth aches

and the two seconds after

lift off

I catch my breath

A room to dream in even if

they never come true

I price used books

in a used bookstore downtown

Black Boy Dubliners the

9/11 Commision Report

Outside the sky falls

on old ladies in sun glasses and tortilla skin

boys drunk in sun burns and jello shots next door

God's rifle cracks like some

outlaw in a Louis Lamour novel

and we weep

For the man sitting in

the children's section with his daughter

She calls him poppa

and her blonde hair

makes her seem like a picture

that hangs on the wall of heaven

or a picture that comes with the frame

on some store's shelves

somewhere

She wants a Scooby Doo book

Poppa poppa poppa

her voice

an untuned harp but true

They have been sitting back there

for three hours

and his head hangs

like a broken sail slapping

breeze

Lost at sea

How can I say

May I help you

When I can't

People help save whales

but a whale would never save a person

He usually rides buses in the rain

burying her head in his chest

carrying her like penguins do

The library is closed on Sundays

so he is here

amongst the aroma

of human suffering yellowed leaves

in Araby

The self-help

section is upstairs

Kid's books will only teach you that

policemen are our friends

doctors really care about us 

and how to brush your teeth

He is an earthworm washed onto sidewalks

only to be stepped on

or fried when the sun finally shines

on everybody else

I let them sit back there

and when I see him slipping

the Scooby Doo book

into his back pack

I pretend not to see

I look down I price books

Fast Food Nation

The Human Zoo

Sometimes A Great Notion

7:51 PM - 25 Comments - 44 Kudos - Add Comment

If You Find God Keep Him In Your Pocket
Current mood: breezy
Category: Writing and Poetry

My old man saves quarters

with Wyoming's bucking bronco

on the back.

Only Wyoming

never New Jersey or Vermont.

Like they will be worth twenty six cents someday.

People never find God

unless things are going

horribly wrong.

Prison cancer addiction

being lost in the Amazon rainforest

with cutter ants gnawing

on your broken leg

while an airplane writes

Will you marry me?

With it's exhaust.

The pilot never sees you.

God sees everything and laughs.

Michael Vick found God

so did Tonya Harding.

Yesterday I found a quarter

with God's face

on the back

a stern profile chiseled in silver

a handsome white man

with his hair parted to the left

a cocky grin

and it said

"In me I trust"

12:43 PM - 26 Comments - 48 Kudos - Add Comment

Thoughts While Drifting Off In A Kansas City Backyard
Current mood: drained
Category: Writing and Poetry

Lightning bugs have asses

like shooting stars. Sleeping

in a Kansas City backyard I

reach for them.

They disappear

and pulse again

seconds from fingertips

and miles away.

I want to ride in airplanes

with propellers and die

like Buddy Holly did.

In horn rimmed glasses twisted metal

guitar strings and broken glass.

I am a negro league star.

A Satchel Page fastball.

A long bus ride

to obscurity.

A stand up bass loaded from

the back of a minivan

up the stairs the cash  only bar blues.

Black and white pictures on the wall.

Signed like shaved pussy  lips in smokey basements

jazz club bops and blows notes til six a.m.

Barbecue teeth and wonder bread eyes.

White people pay for soul

and go back home.

Open box cars open

to The Paseo rattle and roll

gentrification sounds too much

like genocide

or gentleman.

The beats the beards the carma

bums. Binging

down highways desert solitaire

monkey wrench gangs

in John Dorsey jackets

gas fume mirages

fucking up the system.

Burning out like the ass

of insects.

We never

go

home.

7:56 PM - 26 Comments - 50 Kudos - Add Comment

Mister Misery
Current mood: angsty
Category: Writing and Poetry

Elliot Smith stabbed himself in the chest

with a twelve inch butcher knife.

Between the ribs

a sharp tongue poking through hot teeth.

A tiger mauling a tourist

through the bars of the cage. 

He caught his final reflection in the blade.

The kitchen was a mess that day.

The dishes were piled the drain dripped

like the hands of the clock ticked

the last minutes of love.

The space shuttle Columbia taking off.

Three two one.

He died of a broken heart.

I wish I could of told him

the monsters are in the head.

Kurt Cobain knew

but a shot gun doesn't leave any room

for self-improvement.

I always tried a big shot

of dope

a warm train that always ran on schedule.

My heart Promitory point

the needle the golden spike

in my transcontinental railroad.

At least that way

I would have a few seconds

so I could feel

what it is like

to never have 

left the womb.

Currently listening : XO By Elliott Smith Release date: 1998-08-25

4:37 AM - 22 Comments - 44 Kudos - Add Comment

Sometimes Hamsters Eat Their Young
Current mood: hungover
Category: Writing and Poetry

Sometimes I climb mountains

just to punch an echo.

But it is always out of reach.

Maybe my anger started the day my

mom's hand twisted the door knob.

Her reflection rounded elongated in copper tarnished

by people walking out.

I was only six but I remember birds a train

going by neighbors playing in their yards

how the sun lit one side of her face

the ugly side

through the cathedral arch in our

new American dream on Everglade Dr.

The hand I held on for dear life

in grocery stores and in crowds of strange

faces and legs, the hand

that smelled of cigarettes.

The real cool hand that caressed my face

before she kissed my forehead.

Me half asleep and my parents rescuing

me from some relative's house

after they went out dancing.

You have to know how to dance

to make it in this world.

I was limp in her arms

but I knew I was going home.

The day she left

my blue eyes were crying

but not in the rain

in the doorway of our dream.

Muddy shoes on linoleum

stairs rising behind in shag carpet

like the east crashing into the west.

She promised she'd come back she said

I'll be back.

And I asked, You Promise?

I promise.

She said she promised.

I had a hamster once

that had babies

and she chewed most of their heads off.

The door knob twisted

and she walked out into Saturday

morning

to be

somebody.

3:27 PM - 29 Comments - 56 Kudos - Add Comment

Study Of Pigeons
Current mood: breezy
Category: Writing and Poetry

Aisha sat on the ledge and bummed a smoke

from me

taut chin poking in and out

like pigeons strutting.

Her half-smile, corridors cut by crack.

Lips blistered like

pictures of venereal diseases

on free clinic walls.

Pissed on walkways. Her remaining teeth

tall buildings that laugh.

Early mornings ring tinny bird coos

delayed so they sound

like her baby abandoned calling her back.

Sunlight metallurgy the spark

that creates the weld that locks her cage.

A recent study proved

that pigeons are smarter than

the average three year old. I wonder

how old the pigeons are? And

are they the same ones that pick Aisha's afro

in front of the Buttonwood Tree when she finally sleeps?

Or are the ones that flew in the war

with messages tied to their leg

and purple hearts pinned to their bloated chests?

You good at poetry? Aisha asked.

I felt ashamed to be good at anything at that moment.

I was ashamed that I ate that day

and could eat later if I wanted to.

Ashamed I was white and wore deodorant

my socks matched

and had a place to sleep.

Ashamed I never had to get on my knees

between dumpsters to forget

I was human.

Ashamed I couldn't give her a big fat rock

so she could inhale the blues

and blow out

five minutes of hope.

No.

I'm not very good at poetry.

Currently reading : Howl and Other Poems (City Lights Pocket Poets Series) By Allen Ginsberg

10:45 PM - 17 Comments - 34 Kudos - Add Comment

Brainard Road
Current mood: exhausted
Category: Writing and Poetry

I found people just like me.

Facial hair and hearts of gold wrapped in words.

Nestled between the highways and the trees.

Shell Station misfits

eating cold chicken sandwiches

by the light of gas pumps

singing Skynrd.

It's not orions belt but Ronnie Van Zant's

smile that Galileo worked nights for.

Buddhist monk sits in the airport

next to me nipple showing

his brown robe hangs on one side

he wears Tommy Hilfiger socks

in ancient sandals of wood and yak hide

impatiently tapping his fingers

to an invisible beat glancing

at his wrist like a watch was there

like time is part of eastern philosophy.

Tonight Oklahoma's veins are showing

out the plane window.

Texas fades like a lovers tail light

after a shouting match.

Farm porch lights are stars

but I am the one they point up at

and wish to

and I feel for them and their pick up trucks

and I feel for the kid that robbed our hotel

on Brainard Road

I don't blame you

with the price of gas these days.

Same to the teenage pimp in cornrows

that had Puerto Rican girls holed up in room 127.

Sorry I couldn't buy what you were selling.

You took a nap in the lobby the next morning

while I ate a Dorsey Sandwich and read the paper.

Pimping aint easy.

I realized between bites of bacon

those hoes are your chapbook

your poems

all you know.

Currently reading : Girlbomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir By Janice Erlbaum

9:53 PM - 24 Comments - 42 Kudos - Add Comment