A March without Movement

I awaken to the ground hard,

vestiges of melting winter come at me

downward from the slate stricken sky.

I awaken to the dawn

of madness bearing down.

Of b-ball bracket worship

and faux celtic drunk-fests,

of emergence from snow-swept silence

and the last gasps of ice storms fading

while the boys of summer stir to life

in grapefruit cactus play

and the alpine calcifying snow-bound zombies

recede into the mud

of fool's days to come.

I arise from my slumber

through a fog into sunshine,

floating past in a quandry,

stuck in stasis along the way.

I feel close to south of empty


yet still somewhere north of broken,

smack dab in a permafrost

of the perpetual in-between,

swept into a March without movement

toward teasing promises anew.

Dyslexic Misanthrope

The softest side of empty

is plenty hard to live with;

the quietest despair,

a dissonant dementia.

I am a dyslexic misanthrope,

driven to self destruction,

content with self distraction,

left with self delusion.

I stand in repose

wrapped 'round life's tangle,

with the knowing smile

of a joke played on myself:

The horrific

and the beautiful

are but two sides

of the same straight razor

and Leonard Cohen called

to let you know

you need a shave.

Dance of Drunkards

The Wicked Witch of the West

was but a patsy

for the evil goody two shoes Gilda

perpetrates in perpetuity

on munchkins blissfully unaware.

"It's not easy being green"

is not Kermit's lament alone

and the companionship of flying monkeys

are a cold comfort indeed.

Thoughts of the shifting moralities

of these Ozraelites

haunt me needlessly,

like all good hauntings should.

Meanwhile, the cold rain

of February

bleeds wet upon the overcoat

as I remember Father

and his perpetual legs-akimbo

dance of drunkards,

steps as ageless as cirrhosis

scarring time

like the wizard that he was.

"Ignore the man behind the curtain throwing up onto his slacks.

The great and powerful Chuck has spoken."

wordshit

I drain

my excess wordshit

onto the pages

of this abyss

lest they abscess

into a volcanic metamorphous

of nonsensical tirades

struggling through the social niceties

that choke

this sweatbox called life.

... meanwhile, a cold wind blows

through drunk town ...

April Gray

It's April gray,

a morning lost;

one Sunday laced

with the duped and doped;

a Fool's Day fallen on deaf ears.

It's April gray.

Summer of '74

My hometown blooms

in twilight fading shades of grey

as the summer simmers

and then slips from my mind.

There remains only the house.

The room.

Them.

There, no sunlight penetrates

to disturb this tomb.

The dead don't notice.

But I do.

plumbing supply chain blues

My father danced

from the gallows of life,

a Don Draper swinger

gone to advertising seed.

Should you find yourself in need

of plumbing supplies

or second hand cirrosis

and can wait out a Strand Hotel

bender or two,

come on down to North Everett cira 1969

and darken our door -

my daddy-o, he can oblige;

this hep cat pappy,

with his dad gone mad skills.

Sweet sounds of sickness

and Aqua Velva whiskey fragrance,

deep thrusts of indigestion

and tortured circumspect;

the fury weighed heavy

on this slightly animated corpse

but he'd be glad to help you out

for just a taste

of formaldehyde distilled.

coyote smile

It's February lately,

she's April in a hurry.

Lost in a winter

of temperate goodbyes,

I rush to her chilly

but coyote smile.

raining afterthoughts

it's raining

afterthoughts before her,

blowing

pissed-off into the wind.


Somewhere Monday

but not yet.

Sometime tomorrow

but not now.

Somehow broken

yet unbowed.

Some things tear

and won't cauterize.

My mind is a patchwork broken,

threaded with cobwebs

and moody medicine,

aching to break clear

just once.


My past is taking on water,

soaked with salt

and nausea's backwash,

passing as nerves

chewed to cheesy bread,

cloaked in this carcass

I call home.

pebbles & petulance

My nose is running

but I'm not.

My head is thick

with thought;

my eyes unsteady

and crossed;

my legs bowed

and bought.

She's up the block

past icy accusations,

dropped off the face

of reconciliation.

I've given up the ghost

of meeting expectations

without a whisper

from that spectre

long since given up on me.

Meanwhile, the alley shimmers

with pebbles and petulance

and me here tonight

trying finally in vain

to soften the edge.

a blinding brace (with squirrels)

My father was but a dark shadow

passing down the hall,

a perpetual winter

onto himself.

My mother was but a blinding brace

of robes and smoke,

a withering wind

blown back hard.

I'm but the seed of misplaced rage

trapped in a past

caught on a half torn tape

spinning in my head,

a nightmare on rewind

I can't bear to eject.

Through it all, the squirrels in my yard

find the pickings pretty slim,

the trees stripped bare,

crying quietly into March

and neither much concerned

about poor, poor pitiful me.

perpetual adolescence

I dream of lithium

and lethargy

as a January

night sweats alone.

I burn gas off a sickness

like cynanide

born from a fever

festering always,

undone with a shrug.

So dawns the 50th anniversary

of the year of my birth,

yet still I get zits

and panic attacks

in this perpetual adolescence

grown oh so very old.

idiocy of the ostentatious

She weasels past

in a disco shaded gallop,

dropping trou

but only in her mind.

New York's gone retro

for a wink in her honor;

she is wit beneath

the idiocy

of the ostentatious.

And yet she's howling mute,

rendered silent in her fury,

still locking horns

with seething demons in her head,

trapping an overpowering sense

of righteous wrong

left empty -

turning, bending, twisting

in on itself.

She felt her life flashing

between her eyes,

falling down into sickness

and up into the laundry hamper.

But still she's turning, bending, twisting

in on herself.

And still she's shaking, writhing, falling

onto her sword

of Damocles,

chased by a whiskey

with always the work

left to do.

Season's Greetings

The air stands heavy

and thick as mold -

though not nearly so inviting -

as a sweet December

squats rotting Saint Nick


midst a wind-blown snot-dusted ice sculpture called life.

It's Christmastime

for Charlie Brown

as Linus makes love to his blanket

and Lucy mixes cocktails

of Bourbon and Bacon

for Peppermint Patty

and nobody else.

Memories, like the horrors of my mind

My childhood memories

in the light

remain threadbare,

the core hiding hideous

in the muck

of my mind.

Still, they fracture

my senses broken

punched up from

those hidden bygones -

they illuminate

my present horrors

from down in

those dark recesses -

where I dare not follow

lest be consumed whole

and vanish into

the bad old past

for good.

Falling

she grows aloof,

i fall afield;

she's calm serene,

i rage away.

an autumn sun

bonfires the sky.

october blues

melt yellow to orange,

a gorgeous nonsense,

where acid laced donuts

choke sad sacks lost

into the waxy white

winter to come.

The Throbbing Numb

My mind is awash

in the joyful filth of thought

until a wayward worry

scrubs it glassine clean.


I can't write my way

out of this spic 'n span,

hard as diamond

without the sparkle;

I can't think my way

clear of this sanitary muck,

a throb keeping time

to the beat of my breath.

----

Life for me

is but a raw nerve exposed,

torn asunder

lest stoned to stasis,

holding at bay

the fever and flavor,

baking in nothing

but the throbbing numb.

Almonds & Sulfur

the breeze died empty

on this autumn weekend,

set free to vanquish

into sunday funnies,

her short breath tart

of almonds and sulfur.

the night keeps edging

my reckoning to the sidelines,

for a while past echoes

until at last no longer

yet still sadly yearning

for the comfort and the stupors

of a tanqueray morning

drained dry.

Resolve

She burned cold

then broke down.

He turned south

then caught empty.

We came apart

then ached together.

We lost, naive;

then found resolve

hoping to err,

human as we were,

on the side of angels.

Cold Into Coffee

He hasn't the strength

to dream weary to his weakness

let alone the lift

to muscle out from his bygones.

She's only a tickle

in the lost recesses

of a mind but for that unkempt,

a psyche otherwise unmade.

The bedroom door

peels eaten, flakes forlorn

ground down by withering wanderlust

in the palm of its only handler.

The shower head bleeds

onto caulk-crusted porcelain.

Toweling off dawn's regret,

he faces the toothpaste, mirror and music

of another day.


Blending cold into the coffee as always.