Wednesday, November 30, 2011

May 13th – 19th

Its five days before, one of,
my best friend’s wedding.
I have to pick up the tux
on this black Thursday.
While I’m there I also
Have to return a defective
button-up shit. The scar of
an iron defaces the left cuff.

On these random years, such
occurrences happen.

1955
A wild crowd riots in
Jacksonville, Florida when
Elvis Presley said,
“Girls, I’ll see you backstage.”
Insane spectators cause the
first such rampage ever
triggered at one of the King’s
performances.

1974
Over fifty people, in
Washington, were cut, sliced
as fans fought the ground and
the walls with bottles. Shards
of glass leapt from beneath,
backflipped off cement
barricades. Points sharp.

The Jackson Five
played inside.

1976
North of London
Keith Richards, of
the Rolling Stones, wrecked
his car. Drugs were found.
A fine levied later. He still
continues to party.

1984
Andy Kaufman. Dead at thirty-five.

1998
Los Angeles was the home of
Frank Sinatra’s death. Heart attack.
Age eighty-two.

Seinfeld signed off, too.

2007
Neil Kelly got sunburned on
the whiffleball field. Wrote this.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Animated Consciousness

An inside-out sensation watches me from within.

I feel like a Robert Crumb characterization or the
calm normalcy of one’s reflection in a cracked mirror.

Time goes around a coo-coo clock.

A grandfather-type piece; the thickness of dust,
a coating that would make a chinchilla envious.

The threats hang over thoughts as the corn ruptures
the soil, stabbing at the sun, the fireball of life.
Creating, scorching and prematurely aging the soul.

I need some mental sunscreen.
Blockage of padded silence
beating down like alien ray
beams probing noise.

The outside has now gone into the inside.

Like the girls of your insane dreams buzzing with
the humming birds, cast off far from shore, the wind
pushing all of them over the edges of their nests.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

A New Joy to Carry

For Kari Kennedy

Hum a song in an olden way,
one colored cherry.

An unknown pleasure escapes
with a current jones.

Names sit in a green box.
They still remain there,

where everyone left them,
so long ago.

Here’s a blue ribbon to reward
the most frightening frown

in all of the land and all of
the generic towns.

Sundays will never be the same.
Not even Super Bowl Sunday.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Oh Yeah, the Pilot’s Drunk

Years after appearing,
the ugliest man hides.

Shadows life from afar,
dizzies those close, and
angers strangers.

An emotionlessness like
mandatory overtime.

Grueling labor brings tears,
self-doubt.

No time-and-a-half.
Definitely no double-time.

Where’s this plane heading?
No safe spots in sight.

The landing gear is stuck,
engines out, gauges spinning

Friday, November 11, 2011

Pastime

There was a sound like a rush of flames
climbing a diseased femur.

It lasted the length of an exhale.

A pop, a scream, an orgasm,
a pain, a crinkled love letter.

Dandelions withered by the sun’s
radiance added to the cliché.

The smell of recently cut grass of
a little league’s infield and outfield
announced that it was time to play ball.

Wednesday, November 09, 2011

Social Contract

The once ordinary advancement of
thoughts to actions cowardly sobbed away.
Transmutations growled while traveling
through songs of endearment and patriotism.

Misfortune slices softly like paper cuts.
The side effects are more humane than those
of prescription drug pushers.
TV salesmen telling you to tell your doctor
what drugs you want to ingest.

Happiness, but diarrhea, suicidal.
Normal urinary flow, but no erections.
Functioning penis, but migraines, nose bleeds.
Healthy ovaries, but miserably depressed.

Silver sopranos and blooming bassoons wail
injustices, slow economic paces pinned
between the market and Chekhovian examples
of human relations.

Windy City Beachfront

Impotent waves from Lake Michigan
stroll onto the shores of Chicago like
tossed horseshoes from old men.

Children form makeshift castles.
Wet dogs smell like Lollapalooza kids.

The sun shines down on a crowd,
a lure sparkling enough to attract
a school of freshwater fish.

Boats on the horizon cut through vision.
Appearing as works of outsider art as we
sit, always too high, with mixed drinks
never out of reach.

The muscle-heads are out there cursing
the rising price of SPF 40, parking tickets.

Burn or wait for traffic to die down?

Tuesday, November 08, 2011

Slipping Away

Similar to liquid drips from
the mouth of an alcohol sick.

Like a fading moral fashion
or a dying life breed, I expunge
the memory of things lost.

Lost. Not a polar bear island,
but a way of life that strangles
reason and logic.

Out beyond cubicle thought,
individuals dope out the maze.

In the center, the middle of it all,
promises of prize awaits discovery.

In someone’s home I rest.
The bats have the attic and
I hide where I can.

I meditate in a clothes hamper,
comforting a shadow’s flaws.

Days and nights have been
crouched behind a stained-glass
door listening to families drinking
and playing cards.

Conversations are lip-synched, tired.
Words mumbled as the last of
the vodka trickles down.

Monday, November 07, 2011

Witnessing

Slept in the drunk-tank, just another cheap motel.

135mph in the car pool lane, alone. Playing
chicken with school buses, passing in the bike lane.

401k plans smudge glass ceilings.
Cattle farms sell their manure to the rich.
Recycled syringes pay the rent this month.

Stopped at a check point for not wearing a belt.
Suspenders won’t be permitted by the board.
Paint-thinner aromatherapy sessions
sold at the bed and breakfast on Sundays.
Coughed in a mahogany coffin afterwards.

In cat’s pajamas, howling at the moon, fixated on
the world’s revolutions paroled stalker’s bronzed
binoculars and sugarbabies work the streets, ya dig?

You’ve been instrumental in our search.
Bird legs thrive in the cloudy fishbowl.
Cocks-comb standing upright at dawn.
Heartbeats sent out as secret Morse code.
There will be no disappointment this time.

Bongos and horns at an autumn bonfire tomorrow.
Mesquite flavored mescaline passed out for free.
Fermented agave juice thunderclouds roll in.
Freon pumped through veins in the summer last.
Nothing matters in an anti-galaxy.

Noachian issues still penetrate ears in the town hall.
Please veto the Kick-in-the-Pants Treaty.
The doctrine to choose your own adventures.
Lyrical karaoke quoted in the school yards.

Reshape a tear for the sad clown sitting on the world.

Music City

The wind rips through the buildings, the streets
as sound bounces off echoes. Mix matched,
doubled up, refried, intertwined.

It’s rock
It’s jazz
I’m happy

I want a steak, a bowl of lentil soup with a grilled
cheese or maybe a breakfast bagel sandwich.

It’s opera
It’s classical
I’m hungry

Homeless ragged and beat. I see them begging,
dumpster diving for something to eat.

It’s reggae
It’s country
I’m lucky

Cold steel beams atop rough concrete slabs,
asphalt covered bricks saturate the city’s landscape.

It’s rap
It’s metal
I’m angry

Moseyed through the tavern door, lost in the city,
grabbed a stool at the bar gulped flat draft beers.

It’s blues
It’s punk
I’m drunk

Punched Out: Finally a Vacation

A glare caught the bounce of the sun;
ecstasy projected into unexpecting eyes.

Masses sundered from existence.
Their 9 to 5 mass transit revelations
began to wear thin.

Unknowns stumble over the dead,

young and old, stretched out, rotting,
in a solar downfall. god must’ve realized
that they weren’t useful.

A cornucopia of wasted wealth hidden
under a floor of some secure building.

One can see the possible improvements.
Sweep up the freak show remnants.

Barricade bars secure the park’s entrances.
Views of a filthy river never took the time

to watch a plain storm migrate.

As backs were turned makeshift landscapes
and saved blueprints on the hard drive of
a simulated reality

never kept the generational promise.

Thursday, November 03, 2011

Submission

I.

Caught between here and there,
the place where shepherds dream
of a dry New Orleans, where
paper dolls inject rubber cement.

Noises rape the void of sound like
loud cars with severed mufflers.
Confused screams chaperon
the death of a calm outside through
a viewless motel window.

Terrorized by the promise of hanging
from the eighth story’s balcony
as fire dances in the adjoining room.

Torturous lullabies haunt the relaxation
of weary travelers.

The world’s largest ball of twine
will sleep through the night.

II.

Dead clouds disguise the sun’s depression.

Waves of snow collapse with every
whip of wind that chaps the soul.

Winter has declared anarchy in the USA.

Moose, pierced septums, reek of dung.
Lassoed in Wyoming, by way of Oregon,
they herded their young while
trampling the old and weak.

Few escaped the rancher’s rope, even
less eluded the technological strengths

stunning the strongest of bulls.

Wednesday, November 02, 2011

Mountain Time or Where Nights Seem Like Days

Almost everyone I know is either on
Eastern or Central Standard Time.
At night, they are tired when I am
ready for conversation.

Hours before I awake, they are in
cubicles overlooking cramped cities,
or maybe, the souls of fiends.

Who would want the night
to come so quickly?
Why would one want to be
so far from the sun?

Virgins from Utah and Wyoming
come to Denver looking for excitement
as I leave a message for a sleeping friend.

However, on the other hand, it is four
in the morning and friends in
San Francisco and Portland are leaving
me messages as I am dead to the world.

Shunting

Exemplary, mindless, up to date epicene
figures shunting around each other into
the shadows, out of the sun.

Discarded people grumbling in long lines
left behind like junk washing machines,

(or “warshing” as my grandma says).

They stand upright with their bi-pedal
locomotion, thumbs, beautiful scars,
addictions, and imaginations.

Resting, propped up like old shovels
with burnt handles.
Car trunks held together by bungee cords,
red tape on the brake light.

It has been extraordinary hiding below
the belts of decency; the inhabitants
cry and cry.

Solace like picnics behind an unstained
privacy fence.

Glimpses of sleepy heads swimming,
splashing in dreams.
No coast guard for nightmares.

A beacon. A lighthouse by the rocks
lock a fogged vision. A turbulent
arrangement of horns and whistles for

the hellacious carnation monument.
Like a blooming moon pulling tides,

the water wrestles willingly, relentlessly
with lunacy and lust.

Signals

The artist Lorie Leininger’s work sits
around the warehouse where I work.
The black ink prints lean, rolled in a tubes.

Outside there’s a vast amount of rays
bouncing from mouth to outer space and
then to the ears of the breeding deaf.

Mirroring each other, distorted twins,
twisted in a squelch, technological madness.

I look at a piece of hers titled “Baboon”
and think about human-kind.

I’m not sure why, it’s just
a solitary baboon sitting.

Maybe because it looks like it just lost
the lottery or had its APR raised to 23% on a
credit card that rests, uneasy in the damp
rear pocket of imaginary pants.

Or could it be that the baboon’s eyes seem
to lust for truth, redemption for what once
appeared to be so clear.

Only to have it all slither through man-like
hands, a paintbrush never applied to canvas.