Poison

in

she found the wheat inside the shed
'neath a shotty, rusty sign

ne'er did her eyes attempt to read

and when she fed the farmer's hogs
they choked and fell asleep

a barrel's worth victims... lost to poison feed

the rabbits in their cages
were as silent as could be

curious but hungry
for anything, yes anything

beyond the wire windows
that stashed them to their seats

the kindle sucked the poison,
further warnings to redeem

Lost Adelade the Child...
mixing wheat into her cream.

Poor Adelade the Vanished...
mixing wheat into her cream.

 

You Can Tell A lot About a Man...

in

they say, you can tell a lot about a man by
the state of his front yard.
how often he tends to it,
what he keeps in it,
and how tall his fence is.

they used to say, you can tell a lot about a man
by the condition of the shoes he's wearing.

these days though, shoes don't mean anything.
no. it's all about the front yard.

i think you can tell a lot about a man
by the items he selects at a buffet
and whether or not he eats everything on his plate
before returning for more (if he even does).

but that's not the industry standard in the "you can tell a lot about a man" system.
no.  right now, it's all about the front yard. 

but what if you don't give a shit about front yards
and the only thing you care about is crocheting sweaters?

can you still tell a lot about a man by his front yard?
what if he just pays someone else to groom the damn thing?
what if he lives in New York City and doesn't have a front yard?
can you tell a lot about a man by his bird shit covered cement stoop?

perhaps we need another form of measurement.

perhaps it's time we
tell a lot about a man
by how often he donates his time
to concerns beyond his own
self-serving interests. 

 

Wooden Brain Blocks

in ,

i will never give up writing.
though sometimes i worry it will give up on me.
sometimes it just isn't there.
and i have to remind myself that
it's never there all the time,
for anyone.
sometimes it disappears for months
and then suddenly,
it just shows up,
right when i need it the most.
it's helped me get through so many
harmful evenings,
those nights when i've wanted nothing more than to die.
it's turned me around
and made things better.
but then again, it's also abandoned me to my struggle
and left me to fend for myself.

and boy, those are the hardest times.
when you need it
and it isn't there.
those nights when you can't sleep
and no one answers the phone.

those nights you find your self stuck,
paralyzed in the confines
of a small airplane seat,
or a straight jacket,
locked in place for days,
watching your knees rust shut.

watching everything pass with an absence of meaning.

those are the nights you need it the most.

those are the nights it saves your life.

 

Killing a Colony of Red Imported Fire Ants

in

sometimes you have to cut open the dirt
with an iron rake and detonate a
thousand pounds
of cyclotol
to kill a colony of red imported fire ants.

to kill a colony of red imported fire ants
you must act quickly. 

they are an aggressive and invasive species.

they are... your vicious thoughts.

and they have no natural predators.

if given the chance,
red imported fire ants
will spread and eradicate
your plants, your animals,
your family, your hope,

your security.

and when they colonize inside your head,
decisions must be made.

kind and passive folks will not prevail.

decisions must be made.

and Earth must be scorched.

Sheets and Sacks

in

when a large dog becomes lost under a bed sheet
he turns into a dumb, rambunctious
watermelon
and thrashes his head around
like a fat, mechanical bull.

he makes clumsy attempts to
escape his costume,
his confusion,
his fabric burial.

and he always stays in one place.

and dammit, you can't help but think
that throughout his epileptic efforts to find that pinhole of light,
he's kind of having fun,
excited and laughing,
even in the grips of total blindness.

now, when a cat gets its head stuck in
the bands of a plastic sack,
the opposite occurs.

upon the first scraunch,
he PANICS
and turns into a schizophrenic, over-cranked
dumpster cheetah.
he tears across the house like a
movie star rape victim, spastic and desperate,
he runs into chairs and knocks over a lamp.
he gets stuck in the curtains and tears them off the rod,
then shoots behind the shelf and unplugs the television.

when his nightmare is over,
he emerges, calm and contained, like a seasoned politician,
acting as if nothing of great significance ever occurred,
and advertising his phlegmatic image with a confident gait.

and it is in this response where these two creatures
draw their similarities.

both animals emerge from their cages seemingly
unaffected by their previous turmoil,
unable to apply meaning to their quandaries
they simply go about their day,
happy and content,
as if the whole stupid thing was
just
a part
of the
program.

Head on Collision

in

lately, i've been chewing on bullets.
too tough to care about any finger that goes
waggin' in my direction.
i can drown out the sound of a howitzer
with the music in my head,
let alone some disapproving soul's, "Tisk, tisk, tisk." 

and i ain't afraid to kill again.

some people get along through life, just fine,
like a straight line.
they move forward by the book, just like the text inside it.
it's true, straight lines survive the longest
and they live the healthiest lives...

until...

of course... 

they get in a wreck
with a curvy bastard like me.

sMaShInG tHe WaLl

in
a week ago
i stood up in the middle of the night
with a nervous firestorm feeding deep inside me,
unquiet,
out of control,
and fretful.
anxious, but restrained,
a monsoon in a mason jar,
i had to vent properly.
so, i quickly decided to
remove the wall between my bedroom and my living room.
 
i grabbed the first thing i could find,
a golf putter,
and i smashed into that wall with a mad urgency.
i screamed with every impact,
and to anyone but my closest friends,
it would have seemed a psychotic episode
worthy of the finest restraints.
the wall turned to pie crust
and flakes of it
salted the floor
like stale bread crumbs.
the air filled with powder and ash,
which to my surprise
swirled into a thin cyclone by the force of the ceiling fan.
and when the putter snapped in two,
i ran across the room and grabbed the leg off my piano,
and smashed the wall with that.
powder was everywhere.
in my mouth, my nose, my eyes.
and beams of porch light began to appear in the fog
peering through the threads of the blinds.
after 10 minutes of mad smashing, i stopped.
and thought...
"this is a nice piano leg.
i don't want to mess this up too much. 
i should probably get a hammer."
the next morning i woke up...
worried.

and felt very grateful that i had not yet destroyed the studs
in what turned out to be the
most important load bearing wall in the house.

oddly enough, the place will look so much better without that wall,
and when it is finally fully removed,
it will open up the house to a breath of fresh autumn air.
sometimes you just have to get rid of it all,
destroy the house and powder the room,

to make it
bearable. 
 

Bland to Bold

in
BLAND TO BOLD
 
occasionally i give my cats canned food over bagged food.
and when i do this, i sit and watch them eat.
i imagine that for them, it's an unbelievable experience.

it must be like eating old, dry cereal everyday
and then suddenly being presented with a moist, roast turkey dinner
with grrraaaavvvvyyyyy.

 

those cats wolf down that chopped horse meat in complete desperation.
and they don't do that with the dry food.

 

when i was a kid, i used to play outside in the creek,
under the hot summer sun all day.
and when i'd run home to get a drink,
i used to pretend that i had been lost in an egyptian desert
and that the first touch of liquid to my skin was the first bit of moisture
my body had received in days.

 

i would close my eyes, and focus on the dry, coarseness of my throat
and then let that liquid roll softly passed my lips.
and i'd feel chills go down my limbs, and i'd shiver
at how grateful my body was to receive that life-giving sip.

it was bliss.
nothing tasted better than that tall, cold, glass of pure ice water.
and i don't think anything has tasted that good, since.
a fast reminder of how powerful a false but forced perspective can be
when you're young enough to believe
your own lies. 

Another Thing for Granted

in

another thing for granted

what if he said
"you'll never walk again" ? 

what would you miss the most?

i would miss
s t r e t c h i n g  my legs
after a terrible flight.

i would miss standing over the grill,
catching the heat of my floor furnace,
in the dead of winter.

or picking up a pencil off the floor
with my toes
like a monkey.

but most of all,
i think i would miss

walking.

just walking.

buy a small audio recorder

in

buy a small audio recorder

today, i thought a good while about how strange childhood is.
not necessarily how strange MY childhood was, but
how strange childhood is in general.
you know, how it comes and goes, and whatnot.

and how it can only be felt once,
from a first person view,
by the very child that's doing the hooding. 

and wasn't it strange?

childhood?

that this giant block of time,
the potent mold that forms our personalities and our values,
eventually just disappears.

and if you try and dig for it,
all you'll muster up are some artifacts and pictures
that hardly summarize a drop
let alone an entire waterfall. 

who was that small person?
was that me?
i can barely remember what his voice sounded like.

i want to.

i do.

but i can't.

sometimes i can hear it in the middle of the night,
passing on a dark train, with a pitch black, steel furnace
pouring ashes and soot,
and fueled by a fire as soft as candlelight.

and just as the voice comes to me,
that empty train screams by,
and vanishes into the rain and wind,
and takes all my voices with it. 

i want to remember my mother's voice, when i grow old.

i want it to be crystal clear in my mind.

and i want it to comfort me, when i die.

i must remember to record it
while i still can. 

CLIMBING

in

climbing

i have a consistent inconsistency
in my pattern of living.

when you climb a tree
you generally face the trunk
and look for anything you can grab onto.
you look for any nook and cranny to sink your foot
and slowly begin your ascension.

if you were to climb a tree
similar to the fashion in which i've lived my life,
you would climb with your back to the trunk,
eyes closed,
with a ripped shirt,
bloody cuts,
and a song in your head.

a chaotic, unusual, and equally frightening way to climb.

fingers crossed.

hoping not to fall. 

meant to be

in

meant to be

I love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Yes I do.
I love the explosion of flavor derived from such simple chemistry.
Peanut butter and jelly is effortless. It doesn't try to work together. It just does.
And though they can be quite delicious on their own,
combined they create a unique taste sensation that has become
a staple in American cuisine.
Peanut butter and jelly make up the harmony and the melody
and they were destined to be one.

I remember the day I killed my wife with a shovel.

We were not like peanut butter and jelly.

The Bush Dog

The Bush Dog is a nice fellow,
but if you get between him and his apples,
he'll cuss you out.

The Bush Dog is considered to be the most mysterious animal in the zoo.
He eats, sleeps, works, and breathes... in a bush.
It has been this way for many centuries.
In fact, scientists believe that The Burning Bush, as described in the Old Testament,
was just a bush dog,
smoking a cigarette.

It is a well known fact that Bush Dogs love calazones.
Calazones and leaves.
And if the Bush Dog possesses one crippling addicition,
it is this:

PLEASURE.

Pleasure
is considered the Bush Dog's soul weakness.

LEISURE
follows as a close second.

The Bush Dog loves to relax and soak it all in.
It is not unusual for a bush dog to spend hours just sitting in a bush,
SMILING.

Smiling like a princess.

Many bush dogs want to learn how to play the piano,
speak Gaelic,
or become Marine Biologists.

But unfortunately, for the Bush Dog,
the act of sitting in a bush and smiling,
feels better and is frankly,
soooooo much easier.