April 2010
1 post
today's poem is brought to you by the letter 'f'
foolings fulfilled from far are foolings not fit for the flag fool any fool can fool with tools true foolers fool the fooled face-to-face
January 2010
2 posts
it is always there
but i often don’t hear it
ticking life away
WHAT MYSTERY IS A POEM'S COMING
it always comes at worst of times & never when pen in hand & seated at an antique table grandpa used to woo with words his heart’s betrothed inspired by trout’s brook bubbling on to finally rest like glass reflect perfect world back through this window to parchment perched atop aged mahogany its scent hugging me & dad’s old chair creaks waltz with mockingbirds while poems pour...
October 2008
1 post
EXCUSE ME!
excuse you! i heard him snip after my failure to deliver train-car-hip-check-box-out gave away last open seat and i left myself that moment to watch me unleash rabid explicatives blushing even Carlin’s dead cheeks and squeal how not one fucking guy has yet lifted lazy ass from subway bench and offered my bulge- bellied wife respite for wearied human-making bones as train cars herk and jerk bride...
September 2008
1 post
NOISE
it never ends now the music in my head an ostinato senza cesura drowns out me and epiphany so my existence persists in that twilight where desires seek satiation and i no longer know what wait means as i am overrun by access and wishes granted and touch or tap or slide a single finger to have what for that moment i think i lack though all i need is stillness and a silent mind or a nothing between...
July 2008
1 post
THE HOMELESS MAN SPEAKS
i wish i would read the new yorker on the subway and appear as smart and savvy as she next to me from whom i hide these words as i write
(tilting my notebook leftward with an ever-increasing incline forcing pen ink to defy gravity to stick to the page)
as i write about her and her reading habits and savviness while a homeless man delivers his verse in the land of the blind
In the land...
March 2008
3 posts
PLEASE TOUCH
exiled from your brethren and your maker by those who hate your voice
i almost didn’t find you this time
banished there to rusted desolation under dying tree a single leaf falling brings no life to your iron stillness
though you still call come and sing with me take hold of me and ring for do not touch does not apply
a less naked shade might conceal your song more to their liking
but winter...
WOULD IT BE BETTER
if i took a rational only-fools-think-people-rise-from-the-dead position
if there had been objective witnesses of the disinterested-in-the-deadness-or-aliveness-of-the-party-in-question variety
if paperwork had been filed by an authority of the professionally-certified-to-confirm-death-and-or-life-remaining type
like for Jarod who hangs an official certificate written by a paramedic above his...
POETS WANTED
are you
abandoned abused bitter broken depressed desperate gay lonely poor self-loathing spiteful tragic troubled
yearning for change discontent dejected rejected injected insane (though only a little)
egotistical egomaniacal pyromaniacal nymphomaniacal or otherwise sex-obsessed
abhorred by culture church family or struggling to function in society at large
if so
send in a lifetime’s...
February 2008
4 posts
A(THANK YOU)CROSTIC
Kitchen’s Ambrosial Refreshment Ever Needed
Bellies
Languish Amid Cookie Yearnings
Silken white buries A darkness we want hidden Come snow, clean our world
Each fragile snowflake Plots to pile its beauty’s weight ‘Til I surrender
Acrid and salty I remember mother’s words Don’t eat yellow snow
September 2007
1 post
THE BIOGRAPHY OF KEVIN G
there once was a gent from up north, who to kansas for college went forth. he got some degrees in saxophonese, and moved with his wife to new york.
July 2007
1 post
DREAM FROM THE SILENT PLANET
that we sailed from all known things to bathe in hues beyond the visible, is now to you indomitable grayness
years can’t be trusted to remember how long i waited for repentance to bow your steely denial, ever-hardened by my molten acceptance
waking doesn’t end the cascade fantastical re-sensations crash upon themselves with a vividness reserved for God and the young
light honey-thick swims down...
April 2007
10 posts
PORTRAIT OF FRANK
fixed on each step their eyes unblinking dare not miss
the dry, cracked boardwalk bows from the weight of a man-made glory
in the moment so close to you bikinis and boardshorts don’t hinder their worship
as though before them now walks the risen Christ his brother and the three
SHE, THE NEW YORKER, A HOMELESS MAN, AND ME
i wish i would read The New Yorker in a subway car and appear as smart and savvy as she next to me from whom i hide these words as i write (ever-so-greatly tipping my notebook leftward making the ink in my pen defy gravity to get onto the page) about her and her reading habits and savviness while a homeless man declaims his verse in the land of the blind with all the panache of a homeless man...
CENTRAL PARK
the sheep meadow is not the place especially on sunny days to come to find a brief escape and undisturbed meditate in hopes that i might generate a verse you would appreciate but i can’t seem to concentrate with all this hairy PDA
TOTAL DEPRAVITY
sometimes on my way to church or bible study i feel guilty for turning up my ipod and pretending i didn’t hear that crippled old man ask for change
COFFEE SHOP
microeconomics and the Chinese airline industry go well with a biscotti and a redeye on a frigid monday afternoon though i’m not sold on Haydn
UNION SQUARE
some people are like an unripe persimmon firm and flawless and smooth on the outside but break the surface and they suck you dry
LATE
it’s not worth waiting i heard them say as they dashed to make the 5:15 in agreement and three piece suits
advertisement read let’s meet someone smooth tonight it meant the whiskey
IN MEMORIAM
it is not for them a place of mourning nor for me
no more life ended than would have yet enough to dry tears turn warm hearts cold
now arrogance and impatience stir a longing for convenience’s return restoration of a false peace a forgetting of the grave
HOW? OH.
ask to know answers not questions that remind again
puzzles bring wonders and wonders bring puzzles
again remind that questions not answers know to ask
January 2007
5 posts
FRANKLIN STOVE
hot, dark hideous black beast an iron face
i feared it as a child
grandpa was brave sinister demon mouth pried open him feeding flaming guts
they told me, fear not i didn’t believe
situated, sitting on the sofa i’d stare silently waiting
waiting for movement for life i was ready to run
i was fast faster than its stubby legs fast enough
family laughing, dancing, singing unaware of the...
A ROOFTOP LONGING
It seems the laws of physics you can bend. You make it look so simple and effortless, Like gravity and momentum are your friends. I wonder if you ever need to rest. I’ve stood on rooftops and I’ve thought of how, You leap and gracefully swing from wall to wall. I dream that there are forces which allow, A mortal man to leap and not to fall. The hero’s heart inside me dormant lays, Full of courage,...
PSALM
stand o man and answer the angels for to them great mysteries have not yet been revealed though long have they dreamed of death and the resurrection of the dead
gaze upward and call out to the heavenly hosts tell them of a love which stirs the soul to die for love
for they know only what has been shown and understand only what has been seen though their beauty and power humble the proudest of...
GENERATIONS
remembered by those who follow those who went before until all that was worth remembering is forgotten
and only dust remains upon which will be written triumphs and tragedies of now a reminder for those who succeed those who are next
to remember
EULOGY
“We think he’s in bed.” Spoke the fish blue and red. “We think that we saw his Round, balding head.”
“Or he just took a trip, And gave us the slip. Oh the places he’ll go On sliptrippity ship.”
“You Whos are confused Like Private Snafu. You’ve spent too much time At the river in Nool.”
“Haven’t you heard Or haven’t you read. The great Ted is dead!” The hatted cat said.
September 2006
1 post
say typhoon with me and feel air swirl from your lips like a hurricane
August 2006
3 posts
IN A BRAND NAME BOOKSTORE
too many books printed on too many pages filled by too many words scribed by too many writers with too much to say for too many years
we should have put a stop to it last december
GOLDSWORTHINESS
that Scotsmen unpiled centuries of tradition and craft escapes passersby and squirrels for 30 or 40 human paces
the hill crests and by trees rowed like cornfields that seem to have grown for this alone genius uncoils
inefficient and beautiful evading use embracing form
this stony serpent slithers wayward past moss and man into dark pond and followed no more
ON RIDING HOME FROM WORK
sometimes I play solitaire on my cell phone during the commute home from the city
like a good new yorker i ignore the goings on in my subway car
people talking to themselves or even to me
June 2006
6 posts
FEDORA-LIKE HATS
i wish i could wear a hat everyday on my way to work not a baseball cap or a bowler one of those fedora-like ones that i don’t think are actually fedoras
that way i could tip the brim ever so slightly in respect for a lady if one would pass by
i would be protected from the rain and dust from the sun and bird droppings
i would never wear it indoors or in a church and i would toss it in the air...
WHY IS IT
that i can’t seem to think far enough in advance to conclude that one should thoroughly cleanse shoes worn in a river then forgotten in the closet for six months before taking them as the sole option on a trip far from home for four days which includes two three hour rides in a mini-van with five people and one fetus who although may be in utero would still mind its poor mom breathing in noxious...
I PEANUT TAKE YOU CORN
i do not like ads paid for by peanut farmers encouraging me to eat peanuts
or how the corn lobby advocates the benefits of high fructose corn syrup
of course peanut farmers want me to eat peanuts
maybe if the corn people told me to eat peanuts i’d be more inclined
unless i discovered the corn people bedded with the peanut people
obviously resulting in cornuts
SOME WAKE IN DESPAIR WHILE OTHERS REJOICE
maybe the some see each day as one more closer to their end and the others as one more where none might have been
WHATEVER HAPPENS DON’T TELL ME WHAT TIME IT IS
it seems no matter how much sleep i get my alertness is determined by a machine burning a blurry and blood-red verdict on my retinae
if farthest left of all LED digits is singed a number less than 7 i arise not
unless it is accompanied by that little light indicating if i lived anywhere else in the world it would be 19 o’clock
LET GO AND LET GOD
read the flowered pewter cross floating just above eye-level
i’m unsure how this encouragementy kitsch found its way to the driver’s side visor of our ‘92 Saturn SL2
maybe a gift given to my wife for the girding of her soul exhorting her to take His yolk upon her be freed from her burdens
so i loose my grip on things that hinder on easily entangling sin and drifting bathe in forgiveness’s...
May 2006
10 posts
I FREAK
five foot five 27 inch arms & waist
equipoise testosterone needles
pissed liver libido dead i freak
THE SEA TEARS
err as she rhea’s heart
stars tether sheath retreats earth shatters
hearth’s heat seethes heather a tree
the sea tears thera rests
THE MONK AND THE FRAT BOY OR ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI...
he is bald or of it just shy
he dons a cap it says Phi Psi his garb is Gap plush and bright
his just cloth worn and brown he chats with the birds and the sky
he talks with hot chicks and the guys
he tills dirt walks in muck
he gets dirt off his truck he thinks of sex gets high he of the Lord Most High he prays he plays
he thirsts for a brew
WHAT IS HIP
dig that sax be-bop 2-5-1 Bird licks fly by rim shot cracks and tom fills as fat hi-hat lays back funk bass strings slap keys comp thick chords horns blow hip as hip to catch big steps riffs and sing that jazz song truth so club folk cry swing cat swing
IDENTITY CRISIS
there’s only one other me i’m aware of he lived in St. Louis and used my rather our bank
that’s how i found out the teller told me
in disbelief i protested his existence on grounds that when i Google my name there’s only me
MARTIN LUTHER DIDN’T WRITE THIS
dump it all drink wasting souls serpent’s debaucherous liquid carnal concoctions lead sheep to sin abyss
hope exists not reprieve never comes white hot pours where cool’s deception tempted hellbrew condemns the wretched blackness
PINT
blackbrown labrador
merino foam
aroma retrieves tastes past
chilled warmth caresses palate
senses await refill
HELP ME
hear the voice in ears in ego
nothing said talk more
no one’s there talk is
hear your voice its tones its rasp
right or wrong talk away
facts fabricated knowledge unknown talk still
silence pain
Rain is yet to come; Dry earth yearns to taste sweet wet, Scent of renewal.
MY WIFE THINKS I’M A SWEATSHOP POET
harsh working conditions inconsistent quality long hours no pay