choreographed graphing paper napkin

i spend my mornings killing

flies, my evening watching

the skies turn starlight through this

thin veil of atmosphere. 6,800 feet

in the air feels like watching them back

home St. Francois mountains;

sky-stained humidity-shimmers

and dog-fight planes. despite this light

pollution leaking business park,

you hide on the dark side

of a building and the milky way

leaps out from behind the trees!

today the jet trails stay all day

the sky a reflection of the blue i feel

diving directly into the pine blight peaks

it's really nothing, just like Buddha.

it's nothing, really.

Instructions for ignoring instructions

darkness on the edge of the night drive tunnel

tunnel stardust back into our being

being split grass seeds and milk money wrist watches

watch as it all flows away and on to the first light

light the way for black fringes of cold leather jackets

jackets brough back from the depth of two eyes

eyes that see starlight as porchswings and porchswings as starlings

starlings bursting toward the sea change

change change change change change change

change nothing, feel nothing, change everything, feel nothing

nothing changes nothing, nothing ever does.

does nothing, eat starling, pray light, bathe naked, feel foolish,

embrace your own stupidity and run off with your mistress mysterious.

television's television dinner sinner

by summertime all the pockets were frayed
and displayed like an open wallet
pictures of empty festering nothings
were haunched over laptops breaking
their nails on every keystroke

berta, my secretary at the time
took to riding her bike every day
to the donut shop down on 4th
and kretzel, she would bring us back
a large box of assorted pastries,
but never failed to drop them,
or eat them, or give them away
before returning to the office,
with sticky hands and face,
sweat trickling down her meaty thighs
and nothing to show for it, but
a suttle stench that followed her around
until evening, when we locked the doors
and went home to our television's
television dinners

toothbrush decay

put on your blind shoes and step
on the cracks, rest your hand on the back
pages of some tennesee williams 50 cent novel
carress it's spine and ask it, 'why are you so sad?'

i'm sure you'll get an answer somewhere in there.

grandma grable gets a stable.

finger puppets in the porchlight
swinging wild berry glands of off beat
oft forgotten long lost shoulder wounds
hip replacement latter ladder saints
you better forget everything i've told you and remember nothing of what you've seen here today this long list of mediocrity is no better than a lisp on a short stick walking the dog in august misty heat of two ton town wrecking balls
clumsy afternoons where you watch spiders build traps of litmus paper
stuck to the inside of your long lost cowboy boots of childhood

clearing my mind of nothing, buttering buddha buddy's body

it's hard to look like yourself these days dimented de-minted and all flossed out tangled hair and beard and windswept dried cracked face. cafe sitting and sipping coffee or tea lounging on backs made of muscle and memory floundering out somewhere beyond where you thought the end of your limitations were. - at 4:40 i'll hop the greyhound to manhattan kansas watch the brown grass bowled under the disc fold into the soil, watch the birds return to the rivers the rivers return to the land, the soil swept away. floods are always on my mind, sweeping clean the debris bringing in new crap, car parts, rusted feeders from farmer's fields. - just like that, the sheep die, the crows fly off with their eyeballs and the dogs can't keep the wolves at bay. the coyotes see the steam, smell the rancid odor of defeat and dig in to some good eats. tongues in cheek meat. - i've got a disaster plan, an escape route in case of hostile government take over, a long list of laundromats in case my washing machine breaks, a back up generator for my backup generator, canned food to last at least a winter, and enough winters to last a thousand years- but i still don't ever have enough socks.

last night, the night before

send me dizzy up the stairs,
but i fall down. all
around me, they're tracing white
lines on table tops.
asking me, but i always,
almost always, say no.
and here i am laughing,
telling myself lies.
a little further away from
everyday, every day i live.
-


scrape bottom down
this rutted road
made old by winter
and the big trucks
that just can't sit still.

two trains coming,
running down river
tracks ripe with coal
folding like bricks
around the bent hills.

pass the pipe and know
we will never know
what it was we felt before
our old souls knew
new shoes loose in the gravel.
-