Like an Upside Down Lawnmower
Scattering the Squirrels
and Scaring the Kids
there's always a space in the middle...
of the house, the hallway, the room.
next to shelves filled with tiny fingerprints
next to dustbeams and wooden canes
a place where the draft neath the door cannot reach
a place where the warmth of the grill does not touch
a place where the music does not play
and words crease the aging, leather chairs
as old hands motion silently...
to sit instead of stand.
How To Repel Kids
in a robe, i stood in my front yard and smoked, watching loose aluminum cans blow with the leaves. then i heard spokes. rhythm. flickering spokes. bicycles. kids approaching. that's no good. something must be done. i smoked. i leaned against the chain link. i nabbed the lawnmower. i ripped it. i started it up. i flipped it over. i flipped it over on its back. i smoked and coughed with the motor. it staggered. bolts scraped the concrete. i watched its blades spin sharp. second hands stirring dirt and dander. sucking it all in. sucking my exhaust. we smoked together. sputtering. screaming with bloodshot eyes. sputtering. choking. screaming. "this isn't a lawnmower anymore. this will kill you." the upside down lawnmower. chopping squirrels and scaring kids. fighting, spitting, and scratching the pavement all in one jerky, violent, rusty, mechanical seizure. until finally... fuel flooded the engine and in a puff, the awkward struggle came to an end. and the kids were gone.
yes. the kids were gone.
in the classroom i will shape their young minds,
but after 3:00
fuckers better stay away from me.
things aren't right here.
America,
it pains me to admit that
out of sadness, madness, and boredom
I've taken to reading a fanciful bit of literature entitled
"Expressions! 334 Treasures for Everyone on Your List!"
which is an expired Christmas catalog for old women and aliens.
Here are a few of the items listed in this catalog, in no particular order.
I find that they're even better without pictures or descriptions.
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Granddaughter's Keepsake Pillow Sword
Jewel-Dazzled Penquin
Ooh La-La Dog Prints
Darling Companion
'Trash Bin' Sweetener Service
Good Clean Fun Tissue Dispenser with Two Secrets
∆
l
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An atomic bomb of true desire on every page. Nothing but time, sadness, and madness to attract us to that circus of wasted freedom. Don't stand too close, or you just might believe you need a monogrammed mushroom cloud of crap.
everyone's got their own little world that they're fighting in.
and it's hard to find the people you deem truly genuine.
my fellow specks of dust
how many do you trust
and would you die for them?
This afternoon I was driving in the country,
and there came a moment when the world was even,
the east and the west,
each side echoing the other.
Two level fields, with virgin winter wheat, equal in height
to my right and to my left.
There was an early moon hanging opposite a purple sun
and the same hackberry trees lined
the brim of the horizon line for miles.
The land was windless and there I was,
perfectly placed in the center of it all,
open
and effortlessly traveling down the division line
slicing the crisp skin of the world
like a pair of
fresh, sharp scissors.
there is a tree on this Earth,
a living spruce tree,
that is estimated to be over 9,500 years old.
and there are people on this Earth,
living, smart people,
that actually believe they know where they're going.
The family that lives next door to me,
which consists of two young girls, a mother, and a father,
keep a strict regimen of trampoline jumping every day
at approximately 6:00 PM.
They jump on their backyard trampoline
and they do not take turns.
They all jump together
like happy balls of fat, pink rubber.
When they do this,
all the squirrels gather around
and S T A R E.
Though I want to believe the squirrels are conducting research
on the behavioral patterns inherent within
American nuclear family rituals
I am to inclined to believe that the real reason these rodents gather
to watch the official bouncing family of The United States of America
is to investigate the high pitched squeak of the trampoline springs.
Perhaps the springs are speaking squirrel vocabulary words
or even mentioning names?
i often look for a foundation.
something to drive rebar into.
and although i do love to f l o a t,
i sometimes find that i'm at my happiest
when i have something to anchor to.
something
my brain can trick itself into believing
is vastly important
whether it really is or not.
it doesn't matter.
there are also times in which,
my brain loves to humble itself.
do you ever experience that?
when you're own mind
rips down the willow trees
and lines your guts up
with the center of the crosshairs.
for me, it happens a lot.
and it often takes a whirlpool of energy
just to keep it from traveling
to the abandoned strip malls of civilization.
those places were desperate mirages of meaning
once stood strong
and my sense of purpose had enough fuel
to push my body through the day.
the usual.
the god damned usual.
but...
and there IS a BUT...
as i get older... i seem to become less and less worried
about purpose and meaning
and i've found that the matters concerning such dense subjects
generally just
f l o w b y t h e w a y s i d e.
and when i scrape away the poetry,
and the shell,
and the drama,
and the glasses from which i view my surroundings
it becomes clear that the only thing i really want out of life is
to watch the world move, peacefully,
and enjoy my brief moment in time
with the people i love.
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.
This is my footage of the Mid-South Wrestling Championship at the Golden Goose Flea Market in Spencer, Oklahoma. It was a bizarre experience being there by myself and it felt like a dream.
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.
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.
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.
a shimmer of old, broken glass
seems a wink of stars
or a field of amber diamonds
from a 100 yards away
so you go a runnin' after it.
but when you get there
your skin gets minced,
you get cut up 'n' stuck,
and you're left wondering:
should i run to that next shimmer?
well, i just don't know.
i suppose it's the only way
to build a callus strong enough
to walk on the shards
BRAND NEW PENCILS!
with old, crusty erasers
that crumble and smear.
dang it.
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.
"That's a good idea," I said, peeling the paper scab off the corner of my bottle,
"buying that church van. The cops will never bother you in that thing."
Red scanned the bar and took another tug of gin, straight,
sipping lightly as if he was attending some royal tea party.
"Yes," he said, "that's what I thought too...
until I was being handcuffed against it."
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.
