Clean Start

My sheets need serious cleaning.
Stained with deception,

a dry, coarse substance like gravel
flakes with fingernail picking.

A slender old man washes his trousers,
socks and underwear together. No

color coordination or fabric softener. Just
the roughness like coveralls or dried coral.

I threw my sheets in the industrial washer;
More room for detergent and warm, clean water.

Outside the laundromat, two girls smoked cloves,
but weren’t very talkative.

Everyday was dirty to them.

Where Do You Belong

The fog plumed through the gunshot holes in the train windows like
the ghosts of old outlaws looking for home.
They’ve been drifting in and out of
eternal taverns looking for fountains of whiskey,
beer flowing from angel’s teat.

Movements like dancing fists punching air,
tongues licking heaven’s windows.
No more laughing and/or crying
at St. Peter’s poker table.

The fog teeters,
sways as if in an
ocean of scotch and
naked women. Fish

caught in weeds without hooks
to pull them from purgatory.

Stuck, always
stuck.

October Something of Every Year

The wind detonates the wicks of oak trees; a
releasing of leaves. Arboreal rust particles
descending heavily against the top of my head.
Gliders, the color of tarnished sheet metal,
propelled by northeast gusts, burning angel wings.

I wander about through rows of corn, wind up in
soybeans. There’s unnervingly large paw prints from a
massive cat. I judge by the size that it has to be a cougar.
The tracks lead to the shallow water ripples of Peck’s Creek.

What’s next? A sarcastic fog, a hilarious hail storm?
I diverge throughout all this and wonder how long the winter will last.
I’ve got valuables on the over/under of when the bats will be back.
They’re annual laughter compels me think of childhood, trapping lighting bugs.

Vegetation nose-dives from wooden limbs like
drunkards plunging off the wagon. Life saving

moister trickles out of the oxidized spigot.

There is Never Enough

There was a sound like a rush of flames climbing
my femur. A pain similar to that of the weather which triggers
uncomfortable hobbling on two fake hips. The

titanium implants burned sockets, the soul.
I smell the recently cut grass of the little league’s
infield and outfield. Dandelions withered by the sun’s
radiance. A spark of transition showed a problematic collar
asphyxiating around the throat like a mushroom-cloud necktie.

I’ve got a few dollars to exchange for a beer
at the concession stand. I request my desire in front of a faceless mirror.

Loved By All Men, Cherished By Zero

Watching over her children with a
loaded shotgun,
a drunkard’s grin,
my neighbor waits for
falling tear drops.

A police car
drives
past.
One taillight
burned
out.

In her ranch-style house
the windows have been exploded out,
holes decorate the walls,
an empty pill bottle
dances with the breeze.

Bills are piling.
Spinach spoils on the counter top.
Bloody toilet paper balls tossed in the trash.

There’s been no sleep for over three days.

Wickedly entertaining behavior
that never wanted change.
A modern-day maternal outlaw.

An angel in love with the devil’s goodtime ways.

The Break

For Steve Rupard, Neighborhood Barkeep.
Thanks for the paper to write on.


1.

The snow helps the craziness; an
outspoken crime spree, love tossed aside. The
uncertainties of the future shield your departure, your

excuses. Made up or not, you left. A suicide of
relationship. Am I saying you’re totally to blame?
Well, no.

Hell no!

2.

I’m done for. A meteor never puncturing earth’s atmosphere.
Nothing but hydrogen, ice, and dust particles

lost in purgatory.
No joy, no pain, suffering or happiness.

No warm guns.

No smiles showing orthodontic teeth.

Confusion caps
white like the tops of waves rushing in on shins.
The white that sits, just for a second,
on top of the waves.

The break.

Miniature moving mountains
sliding gracefully along
tectonic plates,

sex on clean cotton sheets.

Time Clock

1.
When I came out the overhead door, I thought I’d
never come back in. No more upstanding American
taxpayer. No more responsibilities to keep my hands

curled hour after hour. I have no fascination in premature arthritis,
early balding, squeezing stress balls. I don’t want
to fill out another fucking W-2 or hang out in the break room for
a half-hour.

No, I don’t want my own locker or office to keep my meaningless tools of
confinement locked up in. That’s where I should sleep, upright,
for the rest of the day.
I’m moving to lands of mandatory siestas, lax bosses with
no corporate mustaches.

Fuck ties, wrinkle-free shirts, pressed slacks!

2.
I dredge up the time when I was employed as a telemarketer, calling other pathetic
American dreamers at dinnertime. I phoned a woman in Arizona to offer her some
mind-boggling deal on an auto club membership through her credit card.
She screamed at me to get a real job. She informed me that I was
interrupting Wheel of Fortune and her tapioca pudding session.
That the likes of me were the leeches of the workforce.

I attempted to read my automatic response screen, but stopped short of politeness.
I’d had it.
I let her know that I would be sending her information about
accidental death and dismemberment plans, then hung up.
I put her down for a five year plan in the auto club.

I want to be an unemployed scavenger of thoughts, imaginings.
I’m going to paint time clocks fetus pink, cover the secretary’s office in
poison sumac, arrange all the files the wrong way.

3.
I haven’t ended up in the land of forty winks yet, but
I do have a job in a book warehouse.
Nightshifts in the summer allow me
listen to Chicago Cubs baseball games on the radio,
drink beer.
I also help out the homeless wanders by
pitching out my aluminum cans. I think they get around
seventy cents a pound these days.

After a few nights of me drinking,
they can collect their goods and

punch their own kind of time clock.

War Plan

Welcome to genocide, brothers and sisters!
Just think of the fun we’re going to have.
Mike’s got the helium balloons on order,
Tricia has three microbrew kegs reserved.
I’m not sure, but I think Clem’s bringing West Virginia
moonshine.

Hell, maybe I’ll pick up a veggie tray,
cocktail weenies.

Oh man, can you feel it?
Doesn’t it make you want to jump up?

Punch
the sky.

What’s that you say? How’s this maneuver going to get pulled off?
I’m glad you asked. Well, you see, it hopefully will go something like this,
mix two parts luck, a pinch of subliminal patriotic-pop-music-horse-shit,
a warm smiling dash of organic propaganda, and unrestrained force (optional).

Good news,
Clem is bring the
moonshine!

Have you ever had some? Oh, man does it have
a pleasant scorching personality.
A lasting first impression.

Pardon me, but it seems
I’ve deviated from the goal.

Where were we?