Seney

The ____ ____ is coming!
(buzz)-(buzz)-(buzz)-ing-
in a lane, off the highway-
a shotgun blast,
slowed down and stretched out.
Bone-shaking, death rattle,
making Big Gus proud.
Slicing through timber (
with the timbre of the
twentieth century)
in one long,
slow,
moan...
sending its howl to the sky,
circling the vultures;
a pale horse,
on a pale horizon
whose sword is
the after-thought of fire...
sending its growl
mind-bending distances.
Never stopping, never stopping (
growing thin, but still persisting)
, dispersing like smoke from a joint
in a grey/white landscape
now stained with red.

Teenage Smog

I know you
like every raindrop on my street
like state lines I've ne'er breached
like a careless suburban childhood
where the sun always goes down too early
and night brings the heavy weight of maturity and crickets
carefully sanctioned by back yard camping trips
basking in the light from a neighbor's kitchen window
Like something too big to be seen
like how a bat finds a moth
by manipulating dimensions,
something I've yet to learn.

Untitled #1

The Truck whizzed by me
cuttin' me off,
nearly killed me!

for a flashed second
(in my mind)
I grabbed the back
- a real Christian Slater meets Stretch Arm Strong move!-
to be whisked down the street,
dragged without blood (because there's never blood in my dreams,
or a necessity for grotesque violence or obscene sexuality)

Here there's just me,
the Truck
and John, George and Paul,
singin' sunbeams into my brain
creating
a chill and tingle effect in my cheeks
a tension in my torso, thighs, testicals
and Lake Eerie in my eyes
- A sensation not dissimilar to orgasm or what I imagine it's like to be Christian Slater.

So I ran home,
in a hurry,
before sunset
or miscarriage

"there are some--
four malities"

you didn't say it, you didn't have to.
- you couldn't,
you had misplaced your voice
(and any hope for mine in the future)
and some kind person found it
floating
outside their house in the country
shaking like a helpless,
tired kitten
hiding in a wheel-well
and you wanted me to go get it.

"But can't you see I'm pregnant?!" I begged.
"I'm sorry", you would have said
and I accepted the apology
as a necessary compromise of what it means to be poor,
but unwilling to use discretion,

even tempt fate;

to go looking

the Prodigal Son

" ... there's an innocence to this place, that's why there's no graffiti on the retaining wall, why every change you perceive as positive... "

"It's also why I hate it."

" ... and why it feels like home."

Put The Kettle On

I live by moments
by seconds
one minute it's there
then it isn't
but don't let that stop you from starting,
or ending
the boiling of water
that you forgot about while I was gone
but not forgetting.
because I live by these moments, as do you,
with the constants- dragging you by the hair- that you've been growing out for our wedding--
ever forward

And so you slept in the car
or pretended to, I couldn't tell (and I laughed)
but that time was not lost
though you spent it forgetting,
(like a name you can't remember, or never learned)
and got home to a house
spitting back
acrid black jam
on toast with coffee...
while you had tea, or intended to, elsewhere-
and spent time forgetting
and sewing the lace
to cover your hair at our wedding.

The Giants Are Coming

The airiness of life,
the light, as it were,
fluttered in and hung itself lazily in the trees.
To be described later as a flicker in the kerosene lanterns
then the bumping of heads in a mine shaft
then as the talkie took your notice, curl a come-hither finger, dripping with the true honey that is temptation on the projection screen
even then, as boxes whizzing down the carbon production line,
each one forsaking each one before it, forsaking each one before it, forsaking each one before it-
but this is the beginning of all that.

Then there was the walk to the beach.
climbing gingerly down the face of time and gravity
to see
the kayaks on the shore, two heads bobbing,
then shoulders,
then shirtless, bare breasts
then the mindless stare as i turned to leave
but, not, too fast.

as i looked back-
the monarchs of time stood idly by
while our perpetuality-
{and my understanding of it}-
surrounded me
and stared me down.

Do You Think He's Talking All Intellectual To That Girl?

Faces blurred now
from too much smoke "But
Mark, you're only home twice a year!"
and I forgot to ask for the night off at work in time
sooooo...
that's where we were.
And everyone was smoking,
as always,
the foul stench of cigarettes, like boiled cabbage, is still comforting and
the confused brunette gave me a drunken kiss on the cheek!
but the lights were up now (which she ignored) as she
ignored my disinterest as she
ignored my fiance sitting
five feet away.
who is one of the few people you care to see when you come back
twice a year
(which is still more than I eat boiled cabbage, anyway)