POEMS

Thrift Store Mornings

He has thick calves. His words get stuck on his overbite. His hands are kinetic, unguided: fat. He is collecting Xbox games. I am looking for Banana Republic dress pants longer than a thirty. I don't want pants. I want a bigger bank account. I want business cards. Three of the pairs fit. He has found five Xbox games but his mom will only pay for four. If I come back Monday everything will be fifty percent less. Will he be here too all thick tongued and absent, beautiful, plain, simple? I put all but one pair of Banana Republic business card, bank account pants back. Fifty percent less. I grab a copy of the Lorax on
VHS. What's the hurry?

Caricature

Have you ever tried to draw some one's face precisely?
Have you ever tried to draw some one's face precisely only to end up with a caricature of her with only a chin that has the least bit of resemblance?
Amy Lynn's caricature hates me
Amy Lynn's caricature hates me and it is all that I can draw.
I draw it all over notebooks and bathroom stalls.
I draw it in loud rooms over coffee.
I draw it in the air with my finger, in heaven, on dry land.
The more I draw it the more it hates me.
The more it hates me the more I think I've got it right.


scrap metal moth fights

She says to call.
She is still angular, small: scrap metal.
She is the best sex.
I call.
Seven years have passed.
We compare accomplishments.
She wins... again.
But...
You can't compare flight patterns
Beetle, butterfly, king sized moth.
Her art is unhung.
Mine is unwritten.
Her voice is the same.
The bay hasn't diluted
the way she stretches her vowels.
Single now.
My perpetual state.
She has another call.
I have insomnia.

Sunrise on Parkville

I awake to sleepy gardens in the corners of my eyes. My mouth hosts a sticky paste and my wings stab fire down my back. There is no time to spread myself open. I amble weirdly over the main street that separates the side of town where there are still roots in the dirt from the broken down canvas of bricks that dress down Parkville. The sun is whispering in high plum octaves from beneath the overpass. Its sound waves bounce off the snow and hiss into water puddles.
Sticky sweet yeast rises into dough that rises into bread so that the smell of sugar loaves is the Portuguese perfume of early morning Parkville. An old woman in a red chicken fat greased nylon parka wobbles her way through the snow, her ankles are holding court in support hose. She passes the bakery and reaches me saying, "Good morning" as I say "Good Mornin" and leaves me with her scent in my nose: pressed powder and rose petal bubble bath- the smell of the bathroom in my grandmother's trailer. I am a long way from home and the bread is all gone.

Bus Stop Conversations with the Buddha (unfinished)

i met the Buddha
in his over coat
who smiled hard
and cleared his throat
said "you can rub my belly
if I can pat your head"
I kid you not
That's what he said
the day I met the Buddha
in his overcoat


buzz cuts and cajun songs

hiss rattatat hiss hiss
says the morning
hitting like a low flying plane
as the neighbors buzz cut
the wild green overhang

and breaks decompress
on delivery vans
meeting main road men
in the hard hats of the main road man
with sweaty athletic tees
and main road dirt
on stiff standing dungarees

hick tick tick tick haroooming
comes the new face grooming
to the old chicken joint
where in the midst of
self recession we seem to have
missed the point

but on my front porch
cajun painters paint
whistling cajun painter songs
and though I do not know them
I can not help but sing along

It's another crash test morning
that makes no sense
to the greater goal
of recompense


city buses and sun dials

the sun parts the high backs of city buses
open schedules rustle
as morning clears her throat
to time stamps on receipts that act as sun dials
and 31 one day passes that fill in
where calenders leave off
the air is thick with the ozone and designer perfumes
that only smell right on the well to do
puddles leave pockets of salt and periwinkles
bacon grease lunges from the curb
oil slick rainbows paint the asphalt

afternoons that end to soon

Snow covered Sunday mornings
smell like children's hair
slept on and unwashed
Cinnamon cartoons
and charcoal pencils
cheese breath
on pink faces
and peppermint lotion hands
that color outside of the lines

still life secrets

the buds on the trees are
neither green nor gold
but an entire pallet to themselves

over night the grass gained an inch
now lost to bowing dew
the air is spiced incense
and rotting pine fences

the side walk is framed still lifes
feet press silent prints
of morning reciting secrets
to the back of her hand
it is unnatural to hoard beauty




ode to jack kerouac

oh jack kerouac whose unclean rhythms
i can run my tongue over but never taste
mister down to my last dime, nickle, penny
poor
Poetic Beat Bum Lord
making waves
talking trash to the sea
never common place
mister just one benny
one benny
one benny more
who left without a trace
to tell the pilgrims
with plastic wrapper cackles
that all the roads
were repaved by repentant doo op boys
who gave up chasin ya ya girls for
shiny metal toys
mister hallelujah without the sunday's best
mister unclean rhythms beating in his chest


wood peckers and musk

i see the shine of thumb width
beetles with greased wings
as my feet keep time
with a wood pecker i can't see

sun hits the front of
south paw trees

horse shoe prints in the mud
of last night's epileptic clouds
leave no detectable hormone musk








I tell the morning

I tell the morning,
"Nice to see you,'
and ask for better news.

Says the morning,
"hate to tell you
but the world's still ours to lose"

The daisies haven't noticed
and the morning dove still sings
In the daze of hocus pocus
and beating wings

Do you remember the man
who said he's take it all away
The price that he was askin
Doesn't seem like much to pay

I tell the brick man "hallelujah"
and tip to him my hat
He says, "The world"s just out to screw ya"
And hisses like a cat

Truer words were never spoken
by saints to the choir
Leave it to the broken
to hate what they desire



bad water

the heat came over night
just as the water went bad
so the city people
stomp clomp stomp along
with dry mouths
heavy under too many layers

and no one notices that
the pigeon pecking at last night's cigarette butts
has a purple neck that shines
in the right kind of light

and the airs molds to paste
but the people on the twenty-second floor
of the building above
don't seem to mind
through the window

on the curb sirens blare cars apart
and the bus is late again
the hydrants boast
but the water went bad
on that day that got too hot too fast

morning scripture

I am trying to make friends with a water snake
that my clumsy feet have startled awake

she has taken back to the river's solace from the heat
as I have taken to sending subliminal apologies through my feet

I admire the sureness with which the current pulls around an unfamiliar bend
with an enlightened confidence, or faith that only the morning can lend

I have read the new testament and proverbs on stone pews
written by stark yellow grass blades heavy under dew

in the far corner of the river's mouth, ducks wear white collars
the sermon of the breeze dances in the smell of flowers

the water snake has gone out of sight some how
I sit hoping she has pardoned me by now


misquitos and powerwalks

am not miles away from mankind, just removed enough to have a better view
two inches to the left of here and the coffee talk connections
drop below phone bills and manifest destiny
love is a folding chair and morning is its audience
here there are only fire ants and moss
birds pecking fresh breakfast out of trees sprouting fresher leaves
I see newness in the mosquito trying to feed off me
I delight in the smell of acorns becoming soil
rabbit holes are my church and pine cones are its parish
there are two purple flowers surrounded by dry dirt and crab grass
they, like us, are white at the center
joggers and power walkers go by
some say hello
some forge ahead
there is a saw buzzing in the distance
and I am on my way
left of the middle
where there are traffic lights and carburetors
jaywalkers and screeching horn blasts
but I go now understanding better why people carve their names into trees

love and chicken grease

Her shoulders are the best shoulders to rest in
not because they are deep or soft
but because when she gives them to you
they are only yours
her head has the damp smell of pillow mites
that almost makes you wanna sneeze
she smacks her food sometimes
when she talks with her mouth full
and she has a mouth that is
ALMOST ALWAYS FULL
she wears a fuzzy flamingo pelt coat
that ends right at the space on her waist
where her AstroTurf green jeans begin
she is the kind of woman who will hold
your freshly peached peach fuzz head
and declare her love for you
to chicken grease and soda fountains
and so it is that you wake up with
her behind your eyes
and miss her in places she's never even been

full frontal

she's just throwin around the word "vagina" like
its commonplace like:
apple
butter
flavor
kitten
tossing "flora"
like my va jj
is a rose bush
like blood is a shade of normal
something that i shouldn
keep hidden
entry forbidden
but i am a hostage to my clam garden
my sustainable
"i don't know how to feel" estate
swab this and dab there
hooha on full frontal hinges
apple
butter
flavor
kittens
ever notice how the word androgyny
rhymes with the word misogyny?

the buffalo went

it is a saturday
there are small strange feet
attached to small strange children
running through the living room in herds
I smell chicken and adobo
there is a card game in the dining room
christmas has passed or never comes
those who notice pretend not to
we did not get it right
and our eyes are heavy
and the pain is lead based
there are dishes in the sink
no one washed them
and they piled up
while strange buffalo children
went free across the throw rug


Snow People

It is morning and I have left the six year old that I live with to english muffins and cheesy eggs with his father.
I barely said good-bye as I laced my pink laces through the work boots my father bought as an act of faith i n me...
Can it really be four years ago now?
I stand at the bus stop for twenty minutes.
No bus.
Just snow people.
I catch myself smiling and saying "Mornin," to them as they pass by.
They look softer so bundled up.
I shuffle my feet pulling them further under me trying to become the snow, the cement, the dirt, the snow people.

Tomorrow we will look down as we walk and pretend not to notice each other but today it is so still that we have forgotten our pretenses, our armor, our separate missions and have come back to the middle.

Poppy Vagabond

She is the mote that we swim in
One of them untouchable women
Ambiguity waged
Her eyes un-caged
WE MUSTN'T THINK SO MUCH
My sweet Baboo
We must think far less than we do be doo
She has white hairs below
That vagabond old soul
That stares through
Her painted poppy red hairdo
And them wings
Man, them wings
Gonna get her
Further than any of the strings
That hold us tightly as we cower
Here outside her Plexiglas tower
Unfair maiden's hair donated one day
To folks who don't much mind the gray
Maybe we are all just here
To notice time run dry
And watch them fluid vagabond
Red women as they fly by

Just Another Gender Bent Queer 2-10-06

I am not a fucking drag queen. I don't tuck. I don't stuff but these nails are all mine, Honey, and I do buff. Sir??? Do I look like a fucking knight in these heels? Jessica Tandy was a ma'am. I simply am what I am. So what if one day I feel like a Jack and let my five o'clock shadow grow? Tomorrow I may feel like a Jane at 4:49 p.m. and let that fucker go. I refuse to piss in a urinal! You would too if Eric Fucking Nightingale had shoved your pretty little twelve year old face down into the puck of one while Kyle Fuentes wrote FAGGGGGGG on your favorite Calvin Klein jean jacket when, for the record, you were only looking at his hands. Strong hands. Hands you could bite into. Hands you wish you had. Some times, hands you wished to hold. Do you know what a fucking urinal puck tastes like? Try licking the scrotum of fifty geriatric men in Depends after popping an Altoid. So, yes, I refuse to piss in a urinal. I hold my cock in privacy, thank you. Some days I feel like a fucking Heman brute when that fucker gets hard. When I think about having tits like Angelina Jolie in Gia. Poached eggs on helium. When I think about Heath Ledger drive, drive, driving himself into me, dripping his musky man sweat down my back. When I think about choking meterosexual true fucking faggots like Justin Timberlake by shoving my manhood down his throat. Come on, Baby, try to hit that high note! I am not a fucking pair of Banana Republic tacky ass Madras pants that you can box up and gift wrap with a gaudy silk bow. I love the way satin feels on my legs when I shave them. I get hot when I see tight cuts of muscle in my pubic trimmed thighs. I don't pick or choose. Some days, i am a cock with free swinging balls! Today I am a sea urchin hidden in the see of life! Come make this cunt your wife. Your labels itch like damp wool on my delicate skin. So go off and be your jock, your gentleman, your fucking muscles from Brussels . I'll be over here sipping my mock martini through a swirly straw. I may be just another gender bent queer but I at least have the dignity to treat the world like my oyster. You treat the bitch like it's your fucking urinal.

friction and symmetry
the friction of our words
becomes the shiver of the omen
neither blue nor white
that we bring out into the open
on a stone cold night
unkempt and unpolished
we try to prove a point
we can not prove
so we preach our vagueness
in words unsmooth
in the view of the street lamp
the lights seem to impose
my shadow upon him
until we have the same nose
in all our uneven symmetry
I fall into him and him into me

ode to my sweet jodie j (or watermelon and bucket chairs)

if love had a flavor
hers would be watermelon
by campfires in bucket chairs
she is too beautiful
to be seen in one glance
or with eyes at all
recognizable only through
the swelling in my chest
and those sing song funny faces
she is my poetry
not my muse
but my purpose

the kamikaze beatnik collection

beatniks run with scissors
and drink away their livers
and doubt
in bodies that won't give out
and just let them be
so they keep
tryin to put into words
a world too absurd
to get a hold of
let alone talk about
so they make conversation
with the ocean instead
under furrowed brows
and frenzied heads
they have egos like freight trains
and 747 airplanes
outta control on kamikaze missions
in a world too small to hold their ambitions
or is it just all too empty?
beatniks are as alive
as any dead man can be
seeing things only saints and poets see

big boy pants

my home aint my own
I'm still payin for clothes
I since outgrown
momma's in the ocean now
and daddy's plum broke
and I aint laughin cuz
life aint no joke
too lazy to read my school books
too proud to shine shoes
givin away all my nothin
til there aint no nothin
left to lose
"what the hell kinda artist,
"he axed me
"can't paint?"
"the kind,"
I tell him,
"that aint!"
and there aint no more
money in love than
there is architecture in dance
so if I'm gonna eat tonight
I gotta wear them pants

the air is soft

the air is some how softer than it seems
I see colors implicating other colors
in unapologetic mischief
I dare not think
I simply sit wishing I could live here
trying to seep into the grains of wood
listening to old women mur mur on
about a sale on roast beef
it is not always time to dance
the man I came with
is shooting pictures in the background
I can hear the click of the shutter blinking
he does not shoot the paintings
he sees things that I could swear weren't there
until exposure
it is good: life with this man
here where colors nod and brush hips
here: where the air is soft


potatoes and belly flops

I want to go to the buffalo place
tall grass, amber, silk, sweet smell
shoeless days and dusk
my high backed seat at the table
thin skin swimming on the gravy
dripping down potato mountains
onto linen napkins
taken out twice a year
fried thin onions on green beans
sweeping up walnut shells
sugar coated belly flops
on the mauve carpet
so carefully picked out
movies about tomatoes
and unexpected kinship
left overs from the olive bowl
capping all ten fingers
waving to blue paper turkeys
in the shape of my hand

over lap

strange seams never line up
but continuously overlap
I am hiding in the folds
warm and happy
peaking out for air
our hair is soft
we wear half smiles
it is quiet
long deep breaths
full of rose hips
soft green flat walls
stationary
my stomach is full
with artichoke lasagna
and love
I am still
we do not always line up
but I find comfort in the overlap



sift

I can not tarnish my tongue
although it feels miles long
and sewn in backwards
I sit quietly folding my fingers
laced right over left
and unfolding them
and back together again
the other way around
coffee grinds darken water
reminding me of smoking cigarettes til dawn
in flannel and hiking boots
at rest stops in mom's burgundy station wagon
our first real new car
I rest here a moment
breathing iced november puffs
until I hear talk of cake
coming from the living room
we are celebrating small things
made large or is it the other way
I unlace my fingers
listening as the words sift through

horse shoes and fire flies

I think of Vermont as
games of Red Rover
in hot pink stretch pants
and permed hair
I smell cigarillos
bought from the corner store
the one with the maple candy
I hear corn husks hiss
seeping their juices into
the fire they roast over
the clank of horse shoes
hooking their intended post
or thudding a near miss
into a patch of sand
I see the blink of fire flies
and people wondering out loud
if it can really be summer again


no rainbow

it is a big dayfor those armed
with picket signs and a purpose
we have all had these days
I could join them but I go look at paintings
with a white man instead
we tight-walk down the midline
arm linked up in arm
asking the other"is there something in my tooths?"
we joke in voices too high to really be carefree
he admires me as I admire
the pulp illustrations
and I am patient with the abstracts
the colors in the big room form a map of oppression
that makes my gut slosh
I should be defending my right
to be colorful and civilized at once
my right to whole grain bread
and bacon made from tempeh
for all the sapphic women
cleaning cold hands with sand paper hearts
but he is drinking coffee and I am eating sweet potatoes
because they are the most vibrant food on the menu
and they fight the cancer that you are dressed to mourn
the rain does not let up today
today there is no rainbow



peanut butter and dirt bikes

I don't think I really know him
if you can ever really know a man
he is taller than me
walks in an uneven gait
has metal for marrow
in both of his legs
from a motorcycle crash

God, he is handsome
though I do not know
who he resembles
his hands are always rough
washed in soap with pumice
like our father's

he reminds me of
the peanut butter cookies
our mother used to make
with uneven fork crisscrosses
to keep them flat and pretty
peanut butter and dirt bikes

he took me for a ride once
it was wet and cold but
we walked all the way
to the gas station
near the bad section of town
my head kept thumping
the helmet into his back
my neck untrained
to the weight
as we road back
sleek against the wind

he snuck out of windows at night
and climbed down trees
our parents always threatened
to cut down

his room smelled like motor oil
and modeling glue
the door bolted shut
but I was clever even then
with my curiosity
and screw driver in hand

I would sift through
his pockets searching
for memorabilia
or incriminating evidence
depending on the day

we played poker
for crunch berries

he sang do ray mi to me once
while climbing a

he was a shot in the dark
tinkering with greased motor bits

he had pink hair
and a thick red flannel
that made the other
look incongruous

he shared his place
on our uncle's farm with me
keeping his actual protest quiet

we ate deer meat
my brother and I

he never suspected
me of wishing I were him
and I never let on