DO_NOT_REPLY

blinking bulbs shifting floors
traffic hums obscenity
smoke break at the end of the hour,
meeting at the water cooler in five.
apologies for lunch.
and while my skin has never held much comfort,
the bench marked
DESIGNATED SMOKING AREA
gives a sense of place.
outside sprinklers make grass green
inside sprinklers put out fires
something to own
a day logged and filed accordingly
MEMO:
I AM ONLY WILLING TO ADMIT BLAME
IF I CAN BE ABSOLVED OF BLAME
please respond
something to be said
something to be unsaid
difference between them
outside sprinklers work on schedule
inside sprinklers untested
agenda, oct. 19:
DON'TFUCKUPDON'TFUCKUPDON'T...
agenda, oct. 20:
...FUCKUPDON'TFUCKUPDON'TFUCK...
agenda, oct. 21:
...UPDON'TFUCKUPDON'TFUCKUP...
agenda, oct. 22:
(entry deleted)
FROM: DO_NOT_REPLY
SUBJECT: DELIVERY FAILED
ORIGINAL MESSAGE: i am sorry i am sorry i am

homeskooled )q.e.d.)

Johnny asked a question
   his momma couldn't answer
  billy popped a pill
he knew he couldn't handle
   then the dog got hit
 runnin' the street
that boy limped home
    and he got him a treat
so i woke up late
    and left my bed unmade
 so I could come home
     and sleep again
some love too much
      others too little
both
    snip
       and
           clip
 what held
        most tender
  cause the lesson
           done took
much more
    than it gave
so see
  i dig me
   some shallow graves

mr speaker

let's bend the bracket

and roll it towards

some misplaced comma,

an escape to make in these

harsh sentences,

we can give ourselves

space to breathe

while we let out the seams

growing fat and old

and joyous in our

predetermined defeat

let's bend the bracket,

those quaint little cubes

at the chopping block

of time where hours

are portioned out

to a 40-hour/week

combo-meal served fast

while driving the distance

between here-nor-there

only to stall out midway

in midday traffic jams

it's true what we heard,

I have charted the holes

in the landscape

tailor-cut for each shape,

yes a hole for everyone:

they get squeezed into ink,

the existence of the capital I

the finality of the period

let's bend the bracket

into a parentheses--

we can live as afterthoughts

in the grand scheme of things,

commentary to history

and footnotes to progress

where one might stand

a hand on his head

and beg mr speaker

consider us,

his two counter-points

let's bend the bracket

and define the space

where we smoke

the obligatory cigarette

and say it's not you

it's not about me

it's about Them

it's them that's the problem

it's true what we were told,

people speak there,

digging eloquent graves

to lay their desires in

packed and parceled

and distilled as they were;

they would make mummies

of us if we let them

let's bend the bracket,

we can trash the yard

and claim it as a step

towards revitalizing

the neighborhood;

we can whitewash stop-signs

to protest the laws

made against motion;

we can be the blight

to the whole block

so come

I have a curb to sit on
and a boombox that plays
just one beat
too loud
for all eternity

Theogony

Transubstantiate
the unsubstantiated
and bend to receive
the miracle--
you are the wood
I beat into paper
the paper I stain to word
the word I make law
the law I sinew flesh
and the flesh
I petrify back into wood.

Hangover Moon

Even the sky turns to rust

just before the moon

shuffles in with yesterday's

lingering hangover,

punching in late

to perform his ageless duty

as the gears grind back

the clockwork

of a working man's day.

Early birds' early bed,

still wet with dusk's rust,

was not fashioned for us,

not while the city slips

into its dizzy dream

where even death can sit

unsolicited and drink till last call.

I can see him there.

At the end of the bar.

Been mean-mugging me all night.

But that's alright,

for now we're both into our beers

and no one seems to be moving.

And I know how life's shortness

could feel so long

to human hands.

I know there is hope, too,

hope that rusts

as well as the pipes

draining the sky

of its quiet relief,

spilling out unto unsung vistas.

We would collect there

some nights,

but those nights

never felt so light

as when the world

would stop to sit in them,

perhaps mulling over 
some question

in the dark.

And I know

that there are beautiful women

in the bar

across the street.

They're sitting on barstools,

sipping on cocktails,

drinking in the room.

They want to be spoken to.

But if I found the message

in the bottle

I've been slowly nursing

back to health,

I would walk right in,

take off my coat,

and be at ease.

But most nights,

I drink the words too.

And I heard the call-notes

of a song sung

from some sobbing saxophone,

belted out

like the breath he had been holding

all day to play

for the moment

the world

would stop to listen.

Oh, 
and being is no easy thing,

after all the hope

and all the women

and all the music leave,

one must still stumble

out into the day

and fumble for the keys.

Oh, 
and time,

time too decays,
and often the breaks

needed replaced

when the passengers feign

their use saying,

“not so fast,

and not so close”.

The Spaces Between Them

I've heard the talk
of this and that,
these and those,
juxtaposed like pins
stuck on a map,
strings between
the ends stretching
across the barriers
of the jumbled means.
Yeah,
        I heard you.
But I was distracted by the
      click
         clack
            click
of the ticking pendulum
on its perpetual swing
between neither this nor that
neither these nor those,
a singularity sprawled
across the polarities
as the thoughts
we only believe-true
travel the vast proximity
between me and you,
between right and wrong,
between God and Devil
and a million other frightful things.
I have watched as Lucifer
stretches his hand across the table
while God shakes his head
and exits the conversation.
Yeah,
     I heard the talk.
But when asked,
I pull my lips back
and bare bloody gums
and dope-ground teeth
because I still search
for something to sufficiently
        stain my soul.
But this is the sound my bones make:
      click clack click
             rattle-tattle-pop
I want to hear a tear drop
and bury the sea
till fossils of drowned sailors
rise to clatter their last confessions.
I would bless the curses
left dangling in their mouths.
When I was a child,
I exorcised my own demons
and watched them dissipate
like smoke curling through door-cracks.
When I was a youth,
I saw God walk past me
in an empty parking lot
while I smoked my last cigarette,
and he refused to acknowledge me.
   Sometimes, I still want
       to call them back from the swine.
So what now?
     What talk?
If I saw the Devil again,
         I would embrace him.
If an angel passing
       would but wave, I would weep.
So tell me now
    of this or that,
these or those,
  and I'll show you
the all-too-nearness
  of the spaces between them.

Attendance

         I.

We stood in circles
round grandfather tree,
old and withered
gnarled round eyes
which searched
the ground for faces
he could still call names.
But how the names they raced,
running round the place
like children at restaurants,
scraps of dirty memory
cluttered round the floor
for some poor sop
with a grandson's name
to sweep into another room.

                II.           


Death is a secret
the dead keep,
huddled hordes
lining the eaves
all in black
talking of things,
things unknown,
things unseen,
things unheard,
movie-goers
trying to make mystic
when called
to the occasion.
And the rain
tries to touch them,
leaping from puddles
just to lick them,
tugging at their heels
just so that they
might be noticed.
And the air fills
with the hum
of voices
across the street,
amongst other eaves
and other dimfull
visions of things
projected, perhaps,
between the theaters.
And the drum
of choices,
the splatter
of tires throwing
devil-may-care
indifferences
that lead you
to seek such
minimal shelter.

            III.

At my grandfather's viewing
I thought I saw his chest move
up and down, up and down,
thought I saw a lip curl
round the inside of a joke,
thought that in a moment
he would rise and laugh
the deathness from his clothes,
stretch and ask for attendance.