Walking Away

This layer of the holograph had never appeared
so clearly before where to begin maybe
there was something to the story
walking for days in wooden shoes
across burnt grasses same names
fever up and down spine long
forgotten plague ache remembering
head fever a mild word in the new place
west seeking it seeming friendly enough

It So Happens

State that can be found most places but yes
going there really would take focused effort
hopefully it would be more than party talk
saying yes been there right where it all began
way back went way way back even got itself
translated through the states not quite unchanged
dancing singing colors tears partnering up
checkered eagles conspicuous how absent of bears
So that's why we had to go to Hiawatha to snoop
visiting old couples living together in one room
strange stone statues just hours dead ideas eastern
seeking what is already there all along the way

Before Today

Rain moving thinking loss
getting lost what to take
desire for the warm pond
goes without saying absent
found some high octane poetry
milky turquoise sun unwinding
Yes the greats were also clerks
fitting fingers around clips stacks
corners typos and postage sealing
envelopes closing boxes vacuuming
wiping hauling closing the front door
then mailing Jay his two brass keys

Time Bureaucratic

Consequences of the now
time races runs to find it
turning over stones
they are heavy crumbling
there the grasses writing
fuck it all wanting to

Renee

It does not matter now
my white jeans the ditch
bullheads horny toads
Donald Wayne Rudy Carl
our hatred of the teachers

I left for the other world
my face not fitting there either
goodbye to our bikes horses to tame
basketball Walker River Reservoir
finding sage black alfalfa
cottonwood oasis and caves

Silence Says

What is it silence says

alive 

even when 

smothered 

slick.

Quietness

lack of sound shushing

a noisy movie-goer

nothing is heard

empty 

opposite of 

a noisy racket.

Glug glug

in the new

urban dictionary.

Increase

Condense it into a line
that way it will be clearly
seen how this outcome
is happening carve away
what you want to keep
mistakes are okay know
there's the other side
it has to match mark it
so you know which way
is up that way things won't
turn out upside down

Goodbye Cruel Island

The Kiss of the Fire Ant
all the Water in the Sea
the Mood Dangerous
failures too many to count
(12) William Burroughs.

Layer

It didn't stay within the confines of the park
the fence the road the trees the ground.
They wanted to stick their feet into it

just a little bit.  The lava was a tough animal

sensing danger in the name

of more information
continuing to tuck into itself
strangely opening
rumbling another day began
ended torn-up breathing piles of burning tires
and then not torn up--detouring the main road--
anything was the present time.  No matter
how pitiful no matter how active.

Thinking Makes It So

Thought about it and thought about it
checking out various meanings
some parts will be pulled away by the process
other parts will be left Sunflower beautiful
details slipping away the path tall grass
so what if there's the immediate shove
isn't something always on the horizon?

Catnip For A Brilliant World

1. another week. What was

It didn't take long to realize it was too much even for


• described as chaotic really wasn't. Time distortion he called it. Plus, I should buy one of those special pens that check for counterfeit.  At Gadgetcopy it completely slipped
•  
• my mind even
•  
• though I had thought about it
•  
• the whole way over.  
•  
• There will be nothing to take away
•  
• only to disintegrate.
• 
  
• 
  

Words Wept Not Spoken

When she remembers she remembers this way:

lack of understanding overwhelming past present
future tense in all forms of he she we they I you

little boat of electric tears
held so tightly so long afloat
food water shelter we others

Calibri Lurking Light

Nothing nowhere endless
onyx sweating Emperor
Empress ding dong
tracings left by Times
New Roman Courier

Calibri hummingbird
poems archiving
heart's linoleum cuts
that's the plan spilling

Fire Eaters

Under the same uncaring sky
clouds build eating shade
stripes feathery beneath palms
heat dropping huddling hoarding
last moments of dead beauty
We continue to elbow aside

untamed chewing sipping hell
while in heaven symptom-free

Blaues Pferd I

The distance one travels does not one
a Bohemian make We become friends
Of Our Youth.  I mean our own time
spent there She was very upset
semi-colon I see it as icing on a cake
dripping down onto the plate Very
noticeable how everyone (non-Orchidland)
was there for the music in a big way.  Wondering
if he saw himself as a rabid animal needing to be
put down.  He certainly didn't need any sort
of encouragement.  The Cave talks about how
someone wanted a tiger and they got a dog instead
how this is accepted.  All those dishes Now at the part
stashed inside the cave waiting to be used.

The Taming

Creep of a thing slight
fur deciding hairy
oily black rainbow pelt
Killer Kitten at 3 a.m.
can't it wait til dawn

Nest Of Stones

Thwarted by the dusk
work partly done--

realize skin
is part tree part leaf

small comfort hanging
back then moving along past
hopscotch diagrams

left

by the Beat Generation--

an obstacle

at every step.  Consistent.

Singing About 1976

Raindrops falling falling down as rain drops rain
love a blast up in the mountains there's thunder
something to pray for all about praying
the poet wrote about setting dynamite in places
getting sad orders unable to say on the job
we don't want more war hey we don't want it

Man's Fate

The teacher asked if she could keep a copy.  I said yes.
It was a requirement for funding purposes anyway.
Everyone wanted to know where the idea came from.
I didn't name drop but hinted at an important friendship
and that this was something I had thought about for awhile
even though two and two came together just yesterday
rereading and finding tons of mistakes in the manuscript
also noticing how poetic it really is and this was by accident.

The other image was of a werewolf in a boat.  This, I had seen before
maybe it was in a dream but I thought if all else fails this would also fit.

I Could Make A Poem For Your Eyes

But what about the rest of you?

Fingers and elbows everywhere

yourself looking what's in the stars

aspects known and unknown.

I could make a poem for your eyes

but would this be enough for your hair?

For your eyes I'd go 

even though I'd been there 

a place forgotten already?  

How do I know this is true?

For your mouth I will see if you'd kiss 

not stop kissing I would remember you

no such thing as stopping looking no sense.

Confer & Concur

The glamour wore off after the first hour.  Maybe Jill St. John would do a lot better here than I seem to.  At one point, the meaning of the word agent became the other meaning with secret attached. I mean, who wouldn't want to know the life story of a dead writer's first wife?  Even if the story mainly takes place in the sub tropics, the narrative remains clean and relatively free of bugs, that is, until the part about How To Kill A Teacher.  Then things turn dicey and no mystery is revealed except some bones and teeth.

Garden

They said to go through the tunnel of trees.  The road did not have a name but was the oldest.  It took eighteen of them working thirteen years.  Industry in their faces. It was plain to see how strained things were, the crosshatching so tiny, lots of rose petals on the ground.  I walk there normally carrying my brush my mirror.

May Nutshell

Yes I am there Dreaming
image crowding image
rose paint so Quiet
careful meadow trees
Room Continuing room

Family Reunion

Otaheite, Society Islands, 1769

Mape, Tahitian chestnut.
Other members include string beans
shower trees, peanuts, monkey pod, alfalfa
and koa.

Tiare.  Include coffee, quinine, lxora Pentas
and noni.

A close relative of nettles, ramie, creeping Charlie,
artillery plant
and olona.

One of the canoe.  Other members include cotton,
ilima, baobab, chocolate, okra
and kapok.

Other members of Myrtaceae include ohia lehua,
guava, eucalyptus, allspice, cloves, tea tree,
java plum
and mountain apple.

Tobacco potato tomato
eggplant
angel's trumpet
chili pepper
mandrake

miniature
jade tree
jewels-of-ophir