Steam Engine

there are days, sometimes weeks,
when the attack hits you from every possible angle,
firing at you with the speed and precision
of a boiler room piston.

and if you're not a part of the steam flow
everything pushes against you.

until finally, used and wasted,
you're forced up through the cylinder, 

and out the stack with all the
smoke, the soot, and the embers

with not a bit of form left to you but

vapor
and sky. 

 

Umbrellas Change, Too

 

 

There are two umbrellas in my parents' coat closet
that have been there for 30 years.

And I have never seen them used.

They are tall, with red and white stripes,
and brittle, plastic handles.

They give me a false
sense of stability.

For there has not been a single moment
through the course of my life when I have opened
that closet and those
umbrellas haven't been there. 

My parents are now leaving forever.

And that closet will soon be empty.

And I suppose those umbrellas,
through no will of their own,

will finally see rain.

 

 

The Tall Grass Prairie

 My love for the prairie stems from the fact that my thoughts move too fast to ever be a part of it. It is untouchable to me. When you stand over a breathing field, unbound by rails of human fence, you are standing as close as possible to the world as it exists without you. You are witnessing the order of things.  The open prairie is a powerful allegory of a silent and still mind, and it is something few people will ever experience.


The Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Oklahoma is the largest protected remnant of tallgrass prairie left on earth.

MAKING cookies

MAKING COOKIES

there's an underlying sense that sanity is so fleeting
that you'll do anything
that sounds remotely engaging
to forget about it all.

but a full life isn't compromised solely
of wonderful times.

it's a thick dough of nonsense
and the richest lives are lived by those that

lick the fingers,

the spoon,

THE BOWL,

and then do the work to cook the rest.

MORE FANCY KETCHUP

 

 

  • To read a book and retain its knowledge is admirable.
    But to stab someone with a book, and break through the skin,
    is down right impressive.

  • All artists dip their brush into their own soul,
    and paint their own nature into their pictures.
    Except, of course, the artists that paint pictures of fruit.
    They dip their brush in their ass.

  • There is nothing more more noble than to take a bullet for a friend,
    while pushing a child away from a speeding car,
    while shedding all material possessions...
    simultaneously.

  • What did God do on the 7th day?
    The bible says he rested.
    But I have a pretty strong feeling he was making paper mache pumpkins.

A Blur of Reflection

A BLUR OF REFLECTION

My eyes point outwards,
and so
I don't look at myself very often.
I see myself briefly in the reflection of a mirror in the morning,
or perhaps in the evening, while getting ready to attend some social soiree.

Or sometimes I catch myself passing by in a car window
or trapped inside a friend's photograph.
But even then I don't really SEE myself.

 

In the morning, I scan through the mirror,
look at the different bits and pieces individually,
fix whatever mistakes I deem fixable,
and move along.

 

But every now and then,
I glance in the mirror,
and my vision suddenly sharpens to a needle.

 

And as if time whispers past my ear,
I notice just how much I've been aging.

And it is always a surprise.

It's as if I watch my own decay
through short bursts of clarity and acceptance.

I don't decipher the slow, meticulous effects of aging
on a day to day basis.
I see everything with sudden epiphanies
like a blast of sand to the brick.

 

It is a strange thing to be human
and so grossly aware of your own decline
but with such limited attention
in which to process it.

 

It is happening now.
It is happening right now. 

 

And it is a very intense thing to witness.

Another Nightmare for the List

I opened a bag of cat food today to find it FILLED to the brim with roaches. It was like a sea of festering, crispy pecans boiling and rolling in utter desperation. I couldn't see the top of the chow. And when they came charging over the lip of the sack, I dropped it, and they fanned across the ground like grass seed. Abdomens and thoraxes crunched under my soles like dead leaves.


Just another nightmare for the list.

The Fighter

there are stentorian voices inside his skull
that brood about influence and worth
and possess a callow need for attention.

they love to traipse in, mill about, and interrupt.
and though he fights them
with his bare fists
until the skin on his knuckles is shaved and grated down to the meat
he eventually loses his footing
and drops like an empty shirt
or
a solid piece of steel.

others do not vouchsafe their opinions
when he reaches for the ropes to pull himself back up,
his arms quivering from the strain.

but as he gets older,
his progress slows to the crawl of apple mold
and most can't help but wonder, how much more
of that broken body he can lift. 

he's an aging prize fighter.

and he won't quit.

and it doesn't surprise anyone
that he's scarcely on speaking terms
with his own mind,

what with how many times it's knocked him down.

but still, he just keeps on going.
like a machine.
pushing through the day
like an auger through the grain,

all the while
nervously swinging

at the air.

Driving the Night Away

at nightfall
i roam the city more than anyone i know.
 
i drive the alleys.

i search the bridges.

i look everywhere.

i roam the city more than anyone i know.

i pass sleeping bags on the sidewalks

like old feathers at the bottom of an empty cage.

i drift by carcasses and empty buildings.

police cars and boarded windows

and shards of glass that liter the road

like cake sprinkles.

i roam the city more than anyone i know.

every night.

by myself. 

for hours.

i do not remember my dreams anymore.

i only remember the breath of the moon.

the sound of my tires on the gravel

breaking the crust of a silent, desolate world.

it is where i keep my memories,

my loved ones, my friends. 

it is where i store them. 

and they do not know this, of course.

i take everything with me on those drives.

it is where i visit them the most,

in all their beauty and glory. 

i roam the city more than anyone i know.

to visit myself.

to burn off those sleeping bags
and uncover shallow graves
of undisturbed memories.

to refract death.

and to be truly thankful
for all the birds

inside my cage.

 

DIGGING A DITCH

there's a rift in that field
that just gets deeper and deeper.

and it's not a sink hole.

and it's not a creek bed.

and it's not a drainage ditch.

an old man dug it.

i've seen him.
he lives nearby, across the river.
he comes to that field every night and digs
for hours on end.

his eyes are rimmed with red skin
and he's been digging in that same spot for as long as i can remember.

if you ask him why he's digging,
he'll tell you:
"THERE'S AN OBVIOUS X"
right there in that very spot.

and then he'll go back to digging.

digging on his X.

and the sad thing is,
everyone knows there's nothing there. 
it's just a field.

the neighbors, the police, the passer-bys...
we've all looked at it a million times.

it's just a field.

nothing above
and nothing underneath.

there is no X.

 

 

 

My In-Between

you are my in-between.

the pages between the ends.

you live in-between my daily endeavors
and between my distractions.

and you are the safest place there is.

and the closest I've been
to purpose.

you are my in-between.

a place i can go
when the clouds unfold.

and i am so thankful to have found you.

my in-between.

the one person that
lives

between
everyone else.

The Majestic Walrus in All Its GLORY!

A huge Walrus,
adrift on an Arctic ice floe off the coast of Scandinavia,
the paired white spikes of its ivory tusks
contrasting the chocolate brown of its
chalky, rumpled skin,
can be described as nothing less than
the perfect metaphor for
our
Universe.

Like an old man's
fat, wrinkled thumb
or a cracked, dry
hot pocket
caked in mud and
garnished with two
broken, plastic googly eyes,

it is clear, even to the most untutored eye,
that the Walrus was designed for one thing
and one thing only...
Who among us can deny,
that the Walrus, by virtue of tens and millions of years of its own
turbulent evolutionary trials,
carries the grace of a soggy, drunk lincoln log,
and the musk of a
petrified cinnamon roll
DOUSED
in Old Spice?

And still,
behind the bulky, heavy folds
of rusty hide
and the besom whiskers that
arch and bob from flaky, gristled lips
rests the heart
of a Looking Glass Queen.

A saucy Queen.

A LITTLE SMOKEY Queen.

And
like most Queens,
the Walrus likes to eat.

The Walrus is a voracious eater.

It will routinely feast on
785 kilograms of
discarded rubber tires a day
with a preference
for white walls
dipped
in K.C. Masterpiece.

And it will never stop...
until we are ALL DEAD
or
driving around
on our rims.

Yes, the Walrus is an enigma,
a riddle,
and we as a society
are achingly ignorant about them,
YET
this much seems reasonably clear:

The ways of the wild Walrus appear to be
fundamentally incompatible
with the majority of most modern, human technologies
such as keyboards
and
ski lifts

but the IMAGE of the wild Walrus
continues to fill
important gaps
and answer
dire questions
about
the
UNIVERSE.

After all,
the Walrus is very similar to our Universe,
in more ways than one.

It is a confusing thing
and ultimately...

a stupid invention.

Making Honest Art

You cannot fake honest art. You can tiptoe around it, flash some gimmicks, impress people with presence or production, technique or design, or parade appearance and performance. But when it comes down to it... the music that people remember... the art that people carry their entire lives... are pieces that not only possess the aforementioned qualities, but also hit their audiences

in the places

they

protect

the

most.

Pulling Upwards from the Hooks

The sky pulls on you.

It pulls on you mercilessly.

So you remove your anchor and strap your chains to it.
You set it on the floor and brace yourself,
holding steady.

And the sky pulls.

Slow and unwavering.

Unspeakably violent
and always on time. 

It's dispassion and unconcern
as reliable as
erosion.

The sky pulls.

And it never lets up.

It's pulled for years, lightly tugging on your ribs,
heating up your limbs and forcing them to sleep with
spicy, warm pin pricks
-until the final day-
when your bare feet give way and separate from the sand.

And at last, when your anchor crumbles and burns to powder,
and the coins in your pocket become nothing more than music,
rattling and jingling as you rise,

you will gaze down with love, sadness, and surrender
to the people below,

all strapped to their anchors and holding steady,

fearful and reaching.

The First Day Above Freezing



crispy molds of frozen dew, icing the limbs of the neighborhood trees,
are breaking, dripping, and slipping off their sticks like sleeves.

i hit the brakes and a slab of ice separates from the roof of my car.
it slides off and smashes onto the pavement.
and when i pull over to check the roof,
the sight of my car's wet, blue paint,
now exposed and freed from the ice,
reminds me of how cold air feels
against a palette of fresh, damp skin
the moment it leaves a medical cast.
 
frozen footsteps are everywhere.  their numbers are in the thousands,
like bleached pumice, a cacophony of pitted holes and craters,
salting the streets and sidewalks
like the face of the moon.

i am standing under a buzzing street light at 5 in the morning.
and though the city is asleep and silent,
when i listen hard enough, i can hear the neighborhood trees
crack their knuckles,
crunch their scabs,
and break themselves free
from the terrible weight of winter's splint.