home economics, November 4, 1956

scalloped cauliflower flickers
frame by frame on the white hollow
partition cellulose wall chambering
the larval wives the pupal mothers in neat shoes
straight-skirts coiffed blonde threads
splashing elegantly down slender milky stalks
across the tops of prim curled admonishments
the lesson today is Terms boil stir bake after all
duty the magnetic grip of starched marriage
so much depends on the isolated conformity of constructing
a pan of limp brassica
drowning in an ocean of milk scum

portrait

The heat is going to melt the grass,
a brown film that slides out away from the house
onto the broken pavement,
glass long fled,
shutters hanging on pitted steel
failing to conceal the wounds.
Coiled under the leaning wood of the deck,
bleached and dry
a hose still hangs off its pipe,
loose end trailing off into the lawn,
a sea of sand and rocks that cast off the sun,
scratch the mirrored air with mirage.

Husk of a woman is curled on the stoop,
tipped back and tired in the shade.
Inside, the boy cures in the rubber pool
too small to contain his frame,
the heat eating his flesh as it has for weeks
(twenty pounds in June).
Black brush crackles as she pulls it through
the tangle of sweat and static
and listens to him
drink the air
in gasping pants
that push water out onto the floor,
a miasma of salt and sweat
and the yellow scent of burnt copper
snaking out from the fridge,
easing out down the hall.

She slides a few feet further from the door,
the smoke of her cigarette
twisting and curling around her head,
and watches the quiet sand.

at the edge of the woods

the trees stand outside the door.
a gate,
adrift from their brothers,
a port on the sea
of brown arms, green fingers,
breaking waves.
wind pushes silent giants
sweeping arms a mad swirl
the wash of limbs
turns me, plants my head
knots of memory
root out
break skull
twist into loam
crawling feelers
wander, search
my brain reaches deep
cracks foundations
and my feet spread leaves
soles warm in the sun -
until the wind dies
and the branches still.

the drift

the bones of those lost to water
disappear. the currents eat them, erase.
no hollow face gazes out
into the murk above a broken hull
or the hood of a rusting car.
not long, that is.

a thin shell is all that separates him
from a drift into the cold.
a scarred pike wedged into the rocks below
watches his pale twigs break the mirrored glass,
the fingers gaunt and bent.

the water whispers
as it laps about the seeping bottom
and the walls
against his back and legs,
his shoulders.
there are no stars.
they hide behind curtains
damp and still,
unseen. shadows wait
just underneath.

red flower

my father burst a vein
deep inside the gray mud
he used to sling
in graveled slugs of leaden words
that slipped between the surviving teeth
and the cigar that filled ages
with its dank fumes
but never seemed to burn
except for the holes
in his clothes, polyester blends -
his battle scarred shirts
carried the ash
of every hazy dive
he'd ever tipped a glass in

did he see the tear
the splash of quick red
that bloomed in his left eye
caught between blinks
his vision fixed by will
his frame clenched
in his wicker chair

the chipped wreck groaned
with imperceptible strain
his flask
an accident of steel in his left hand
his worn boots in his right
silent.
still.
he watched the crimson trees break
like waves in the wind

twos

it isn't every two that adds
that can add to more than two.
you might say that not all twos are created equal
i would

they say that it takes two to tango
but i hate maxims proverbs platitudes

so

if it takes two people to perform the dance
the "tango"
the tangle of two
sharp angular trees...

what then?

Some beginnings.

My ideas never seem to go anywhere.

--

The hooded voodoo man came prancing out down of the swirling green wind-filled high mountain forests when the seasons turned, fall rolling into winter, the icy razor of the northern air slicing through the needles, howling mournful songs.

--

A stillness hung on the beach, muting the cyclic crashing of the waves. Individual particles of sand traced chaotic patterns in an imperceptible breeze. They shifted restlessly but remained constrained in their tiny orbits. A boy sat surrounded by thousands of Brownian walks, but oblivious to them, the breakdown of order that dragged traces of the beach over the tops of his bare feet. His thin arms were wrapped around his knees, his chin resting above them, and his pale gaze slid out beneath a cap pulled low over half-lidded eyes, watching the surf. The water was gray, shrouded by the morning mist that sat featureless and immobile above. The waves crested just enough to spill crumbling foam.

On the occasion of

grandpa died tonight
he always wanted to be called
Grandfather
and now its too late
to change

erosion

a surprisingly clear voice slipped out of the man
(a mountainous ruin of dirt and melanin
strained through decades
of beard and a thick bramble of graying hair)-

behind the glass the gleaming children
under wedges of thin fluorescence
smiled and slowly
wore down ice cream cones, shepherded
pressed, by the captain
of the white Mercedes parked slightly askance
the lines
demarcating the adjoining spots --

"do you have any money?", his voice held
no fear, no resignation, no pride
no shame
there was no salient thread to grasp and unravel
the man had no story

a simple question
a simple implication
a rock settled and eroding in a river,
smooth and tired and still

Bob

smoke curled from Bob's nose as he contemplated
his palindromic existence. an advantage maybe,

a state of mind

Mikes and Kevins would never know.

angst, after

all the stab stab
stab
of youth
the anger of the young
just a twisted mouth
and a pinched gut
a bitter memory
of a taste that lingers
on the tongue

the bridge

fifteen men take
fifteen years to build
this bridge
this pile of stone,
cut lime

stretched out across
dusk river
hands sand-
peppered, cut to raw
leather by years
of grasp and haul and
lift

fifteen men take
fifteen years to lay
this road to cut
this stone heart

stalks

sweat runs
down hard
shoes old
beat up
mud caked
cling to
bird legs
that knife
cut through
still air
they lope
machine
calves roped
by worms
snake veins
swollen
the beat
unchanged
the strikes
that stay
in time

smile

the pumpkin perched on his neck
was ripe and thick with scent
opened his leering pumpkin maw
filled with fibrous stands and
seedy teeth

i caught a glimpse of a black
dull feather
sticky with pulp
some unfortunate avian
meal

one sided conversation

i'm trying to design
a gun cane

i'm going to make it out of

titanium
no no .20 .22
is lethal once

you give someone the power of death

you never sleep

alone the last thing you see
is the light fading
in their eyes

bloodlines and
that's enough the whole
kibbitin caboodle

diluted

i'm not saying
you're going

to be hanging
trash
on them

they can sit outside
the anteroom, they don't need

to hear what's going on

sit down to a table

work through the manuscripts

you're entitled to know

how they're going to act
that gives you insight
into how they're going to be

you don't have to throw
pebbles on the sidewalk
in front of them

or anything

he did an x
number of years
in prison he got out

that was the first woman
he hooked up with

the strongest force on earth

man/woman bats eyelashes at him
he's done

with that girl playing
a casino game

everyone is looking
for something better

it's in
the people the mental
matrix too

it's like a swimming pool
if it's cool

you stay in if you jump in
and there's a bunch of lawn furniture in there
you get out

cameras can't take a picture
of me

oh that's not

true

they have facial identity
now

at a baseball game
police scan the faces

some of our brothers
from langley
you know

recognition

identity

you guys are still brothers
but sometimes that pot
boils man

you just have to get through the shit
on the top
and talk

about the rest

is that VW all that good

ok,
let's talk
about this
let's talk
about problem child

let's step up
into a world that can do
something

put 8000 hp in that puppy

you heard, you felt
8000 hp when it went by

you felt it

and it impressed
you past
your soul now

check this out

you sitting at a curb
and your motor is idling
at 60000 rpm

your whir is going

at 60 grand

in traffic you're getting
90 grand if you crack

the throttle you'll burn
the wheels off
the car thats not crazy

if it will give it to me
i'll take it, it's just

a 30 dollar fine
for overdrawing you
take out 40 dollars or

a thousand
the fine is still

30 dollars it's all the same

you're my friend
man i won't tell you anything

that will get you in trouble

i've got bank robbery in
my blood you know
i was born

into it i'll figure out a way

to rob a bank

i'll do it electrically

mother

tide lashed out with twisted gray fingers
grasped for purchase on the rock strewn shore
curled its nails into the sand, dragging back the land
life that escaped its silurian clutch

sodden corpses of honeybees that flew too far
stingers pointed out of the sand
like a thousand tiny anti-personnel mines
a half eaten seal hollowed out by wind and gulls

bright polyethylene ribbons
a faded towel
tangled cords of kelp

under assault
the maw of the mother
pulling pulling pulling