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.

Summer Unbounded

Her melt into happiness

on the tip of my tongue

clots my bloodstream a river

of cappuccino steam

until a stroke of luck

cools me down



to a drip and a drop.

Our capillaries winded last past whimsy

with the rhythm and blues

of a gasping window AC unit

playing harmony to our ecstasy

as we wring sheets of sweat from the mattress,





safe for a moment

from a summer unbounded.

Gone Daddy Gone

A Coca Cola Coffin.

A Marblesque Bobble-headstone.

A Plexiglass Lava Lamp Urn

with Racing Stripes.

Some kind words,

or at least some kind of words.

Appeasement and appeals

to the gods and angels

that they welcome our loved one "home."

The rituals of a species

still early in their evolution.

We bury, we burn, we stuff.

We entomb and mummify

and jettison to the sea.

We conjure up fantastic scenarios

of reunited ghostly bliss

to quell that most primal of fears:

the absence of consciousness,

the disappearance of self.



What a horrific thought,

that something

- everything -

can in a quiet instant

become the void.

We think of that place

as a bottomless solitude,

ascribe emotions

to what is by definition their absence.

This is perhaps to me

the most merciful thing of all:

you're never around

anymore to deal

with what has happened to you.


You are gone, daddy.

Gone.

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.

Ode To Nancy Botwin

She sweetens the light

at the end of my tunnel,

leaking of mystery

caught wayward fantastic.

--

I open my fridge

seeking florescent solace

bleeding of boredom

and anti-depressants.

--

She comes once a week

in through liquid hot crystal

and lasts half an hour,

fading back into the ether.

--

I welcome her home

to my sunny delusions

then sour and sigh

amidst scenes of my sickness.

--

I am bathed in the maraschino

cherry of exhaustion

at half past tomorrow,

dull eyed with regret.

--

She's only a notion

but always my savior

if just 'til hiatus

when it dies of exposure.

--

Her wicked wide eye drops

to a promise born broken

in an eggshell of blues

with the yoke torn and running

--

like a nose choked with coke,

blowing out shards of horse shit

gummed to my optimism

like the sole of an unfortunate shoe.

Broken Bell Bottom Blues

She was perfect

in every flaw.

He was hopeless

but looking up.

Just your average

sad sack couple

born of hard shell

fecal magnificence

festering around a chicken shit

suburban core.

This early morning quiet

remembrance

waxes my ears, sears my mind

silly.

Through it all

the sun still she rises

and the crows collect payment,

mockingly.

The Walmart Empire

finds its footing

even as our sad sacks fade

into avocado

deep pile purgatory,

their dancing days short-lived

yet so sour sweet.

Memorial Sap

Memorial tree sap pastes my car

until the garden hose and chamois sponge it clean.

If only memories could be vanquished

with a turn of the spicket, a touch of elbow grease.

Father bleeds into my mind's eye,

all indigo camel, jaundiced bottom shelf;

Mother's wheels grinding behind him,

all stink-eye pasty, acid tongued whiplash.

People say I have her nose and self pity;

I have his eyes and liver.

The spitting image, but it matters little.

Dissolving ghostly bygones

into the present tense,

I breath a sigh of relief half restrained

and go about my day,

these remembrances pasted still to my tomorrows.