Rhythm

Though the stars twist in twinkles
in the holey sky, I can only stare
at the hodge-podge light and cry
with earth-intoxicated frowns. We

know the earth is silent as it spins
but the screams seem to contort me
with their Munschian mouths agape
sucking in the dead skin of life.

Floating and tucked in scarlet covers,
this life tastes like rice cakes
at the county fair – wanting more
salt in the dark remnants of light.

I stare down at the the frosty ground
and wonder where the streaks of shadows
congregate from – where did the light
shut itself in? Who slapped it sideways

Until it crawled on the ground, bloody
and spinning in silence – tasteless?
Light bruised and buried in the ground
cold and saltless in its dead cure.

I pray that the light and the salt
would seep like a mist from the ground
enveloping the dry world in a wet film
of unsuppressed growth, green and gross

like the beautiful vision of algae
snuggled on the bottom of boats
at rest in the dock, locked in tight
progressions of shadowy saltless light.

I stare at the light and the shadows
and the people drinking their hopes.
I walk out into the morning dew, lost
in the salty slips of broken boats.

Grateful Prose

My eyes are red like cheap beaujolais, burning
in their own tired drunkenness. Drunkenness is
a big flat word for such a stumbling cumbersome
condition. Maybe we should call it aufbedrunkenstadt
or something German. German is proof that even
ugly things can be beautiful: see Rilke or Goethe.
My words have left me alone in a gutter laughing
like a hyena or a mental patient, pointing at the
prostitute shoving her breast into her bra
gyrating in offensive gyrations, shaking her
fat ass with style; the sight makes me laugh
more and more, pointing out her ridiculing
face and laughing with the voice of a child.
What is it to taste one’s elegant bride?
Going to hell in a bucket and enjoying the ride?
I’m grateful I’m not dead or discarded, though
my words may have left me that way. My words
flaunt themselves before my mind then emerge
trite and sewer flushed. It seems to have them
taste like cinnamon rolls on Christmas Day
will require much sober practice and patience,
praying if ever they roll out with white icing
I will not greed them and goad the into more
trite high school thoughts, unaware of their
own unlearnedness. I taste bourbon in the back
of my nose, itching my throat with its yummy
bite, not enjoyed by all but I love to be bitten.
Even if it’s just the bite of moderate bourbon.
They say to keep your day job til your night job
pays. Sage. I estimate the prophet who spake
these sage words had no day job but at night,
one long hazy memory on Grosvenor Square –
yes we’ve all been there, look at it right and
the turn of the song is the turn of her moves.
I let my life pass by watching scarlet begonias
waft around the corner, inviting me into a room
of hippie chicks and flower-dancing hugs with
wet kisses over shared elegant pot- loving kind
bud: to which I slapped the scent from my face,
choking on the wind from the willows, the blue sun.

Rambling Rumors

This world has pulled the blankets
over its eyes and lain
frozen in catatonic fear
that its children will slowly
gnaw it away into oblivion.

The earth has seen its share of shit,
carbon footprints are only yesterday’s
ice age. Surely we may be poisoning
our ability to watch a sunrise
over a distant mountain peak
across the life-bearing ocean
but we hide and watch and laugh
at all the ants scurrying,
gathering food for the coming famine.

I want to be a scurrying ant;
instead I hide and laugh
in great company.

Wilted Grapes

Often upon the wilted rose, I
hang toward earth and swing and sway,
fold my arms in feigned irreverence,
furtively murmuring prayers I know;

so soon it seems our lives unfold
so soon we see in doubtful reverence;
we chomp on this our undernourished day,
pleading for just one quiet afternoon.

Heavy with the weight of foot-pressed grape
we glare blood-eyed and thoughtless yelp
of every unsuppressed, disreputable tale
on which we squint and contemplate

ourselves, our world and our soul-isle;
alone and beached, our stare dead-eyed,
sucking air like a spectacular washed-up whale:
between each breath our secret prayer to die.

Our world is clinched between the structured
and the free; both giddy and forlorn.
I have nibbled the imprecatory psalm –
tossed and thrown, smiling and wave-worn.

Drunkard Dreamer Dreams a Song, or Time II

About ten hundred years have slipped away.
I do not know the time or place, nor how
I could watch my life turn into yesterday.
But that is history. I must, somehow,
Awaken from this slightly altered daze.
I amble here and there, smiling at birds.
My life has become a trite paraphrase
Of dreary adjectives and sloppy words.
I always thought my life would be carefree –
Like an actor lost in laughter backstage.
Now I recognize that dreams are where we
Flail, in a bored apathetic rage.
   Dreams are helpless in their timeworn quest
   To launder this sober-wrecking unrest.

Discipline

Somewhere someone in  some back-room
Of a pipe smoked sofa driveled club
Said Appearances are all we’ll ever see;
Appearances are all we’ll ever groom

Nibbling French bread and sipping warm tea
Licking tobacco marinated lips
Doesn’t surprise the children one bit
Grown accustomed to such philosophy

Knowledge is a slippery, layered thing
Not found in some finger-printed book
On an oily shelf in a well-observed room;
It is an acquired taste, a third look

At letters, sweat and bloody rules;
Penetrated through calloused, hardened skin
Sometimes learned in pedagogical schools
Sometimes found in accidental discipline

Appearances are all, she said; they’re all
We’ll ever know; all we’ll ever see;
I asked in a most understated tone,
Whatever could a prime number be?