~Treehouse~

If you were a tree
I would want to be the house
held in your arms, and,

as lovers climbed you
to enter me,

they'd hear the birds
sing in your hair,

and kiss
as their legs dangled
from my scrap-wood mouth.

 

 

 ~Avian Flu~

The crows
have cawed-in sick today,
as crap blows around
the Studio 7 dumpster
to ruin the Bandido's view.

Their motorcycles,
parked along the sunline,
lean slightly
like the crows
who cawed-in
sick today.

"We're sorry,"
says the SODO Association.

They should have known
the crows were due
to caw-in sick today.

It's been
in all the papers,
and now the Bandidos

have been caught
selling hotdogs
without a permit.

It has begun to rain, but
down comes the tarp,
their bun's only protection,
with no one to eat them,
because the crows
have cawed-in sick today.

 

 

 ~A Glaring Presence~

The moon got huge
and erased all the stars
so you decided
we should leave the pool
and go indoors
to have sex.

And as we did,
light and water
played like little children
in our back yard.

 

~Cloudburst~

All my friends
are falling from the sky.

The cats
don't like them,
and run inside.

 

 

 

 

 ~Haircut~

A soggy crow
looks better
than the haircut I got
from a gay old man.

I think he was nervous.
The electric pruner
shook in his hand
as my hair
fell to the hardwood floor.

"I think you should go to a barber." He said.

"Yeah." I replied.

Two months have passed,
and I still haven't gone
to a barber.

No one seems to care.
I haven't heard anyone say:

"Your hair looks worse
than a soggy crow."

No one has asked:

"Who cut your hair? A nervous, gay old man?"

No one has said they love me, either,
but nor has anyone said they hate me,
so I'm in no hurry
to get to a barber.

Someone did ask about the rent,
which got me to move
right away.

I jammed my clothes
into a bag
and walked to the bus stop
across the street from the apartment building.

The bus arrived
after about ten minutes.

After taking a seat
I noticed a fat chick
reading a copy
of Brautigan's: The Pill
Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster.

We began to talk,
and soon it was decided
that I would join her in the
cheap hotel where she was staying.

We got a bottle of Southern Comfort,
because that's
what she liked.

When we got to her room she started
to take things
out of her large purse.

The bottle of baby oil
caught my eye.

I wondered what the
good people
were doing this
afternoon.

Most
were probably
working
or getting an education
of some kind.

Boy, I thought;
how easy it could have been
for me to have become
one of them.

 

 

 

 ~Night Cloud Over Seattle~

I saw a clown,
and the moon was his belly.

He wore a wild smile,
but his stride was so long
his belly couldn't keep up,
so it was left behind.

His head wisped and spread
east  east  east
as his feet stepped west.

It's a regular circus
around here.

 

 

 

 ~Now the Flies~

Flies buzz the kelp waved aground
as brown eels monkey pool to pool
beneath the foam where broken urchins
churn to sand.

The cafe's dated tablecloth
is checkered blue and soiled
from years of deep-fried fare
and the handfull of shells
you took to your dryland guy
with his basket of loot, sunny car,
and common sense.

I size-up the prevalent wind,
and from where I sit the finished wine
tastes like more is due. My glass,
your glass, the spent bottle and sourdough crumbs,
still as life becomes without you.

The waitress steps forward with check in hand:

"Is everything alright?" She asks.

I stand, deal out the tip
and head for the register
assuming all is well
as the surf mumbles "leave" 
while  thunder-gray gulls
lift away like smoke.

 

 

 

~Perhaps the Odd Angel~

All I own would not fill a crate, and my gut
holds neither god nor demon
since the boarding-up of my faith's poor shack.
The demagnetization of the compass my father
left behind as he sailed away on his warship
has nixed my direction. All roads are forked;
lead to air, water, and dirt dead ends.

I cannot worship the trees or rocks or hills
since I've witnessed them being wrecked
and thieved by master hoarders and poets
who speak of silent seas. The sea is never silent
except to those who dwell inland from its smash
and hiss. I'm weary of liars and the love piled
on their images by household sages.

If I could find a timer I would set it. Let its
tick torment those who never want to leave
this year or the next to someone else. The ding
would smack of finality and smooth-faced tombstones
stacked for the engraver's eye and hand. The spark
behind his spectacles, kept bright by his muse,
would blind the naive angel who would try to intervene.

 

 

~Sky Aquarium~

On my back in the grass,
I look up and watch you sway.

There is a song in your head,
and you let a word or two
bubble from your lips
between smiles.

The blue/white white/blue backdrop
of your face
gives the impression
I am looking at a sky aquarium.

I want to tap on the glass,
but then you might swim to hide
beneath a porcelain bridge
set in gravel
by someone else.

 

 

 

 

 

 

~The Sun~

Crows are panting
like small feathered dogs
as Pedro's sweat falls on the handle
of his lawnmower. A local wino
shuffles along; his eyes meet
the sidewalk's rude but tidy glare.

The plague of dandelions
in the neighbor's yard
grabs rays while the grabbing
is good and creeps to his open door
as a witness to the mental beating
he gives his wife. He's

too starved for air to swing his hands
towards her face while Venus and Mars
scream "fire!"
as they circle the sun.

 

 

 

 

~The Futility of Solitude~

A black piano,
alone in the rain,
its keys exposed to downpours
makes poetry
that a bird,
dry in the leaves
of a nearby tree
finds questionable,

but the bird's ears are tweeked,
its eyes, open,
while a new spark
in its tiny mind
gives rise
to a rare tweet
heard by no one,
because there's nothing
but a piano
and its bad poem
within earshot
as the rain plinks on.

 

 

 

 ~A Yellow Doomsday Dress~

 

Crows don't rile the local pigeons;
'tis raptors who raise their ire
among rain-beaten avenues
littered with busted lives
downed on the poppy dope
that's got them wan and cornered.

Church bells don't rattle heathens  
where Jehova Watchtowers fade by bus stop posts.
Yard-sale signs on power poles point the way
to exercise machines and National Geographic
magazines while Wanda's corner chills.
The law has bumped her down to Tacoma.
We're both victims of yesterday's token sweep.

A folly of sirens suddenly punctures
the "Emerald City"
as concrete hips and steel bones
crack under blistered clouds. Blasted panes
shred pedestrians while those at home
vaporize behind irrelevant doors.

The wind is done
with these yellow dresses, boys.
Let's put them on and sit among
the pesky dandelions;
behold common sparrows in the weeds
as creatures rare and wonderful.

It's our last chance, oh, brothers!
Let's sing! Let's dance!
in these yolk-yellow dresses
'til we fry.

 

 

I barked, then stood on point
as you rushed from the house
to shoot the evening star
beside the moon's white smile.

Your aim dodged the wind-rocked wires
and trees between us and the sky, 
and, as you fired away,
this old dog of an uncle realized

that you may be his greatest great niece

and hoped we'd go hunting again, sometime.

 

~A Plane Crashes Into Mother~

 

~Evolution of a Neighbor~

 

 

Feathers may have been
the final refuge of the dinosaur.
An old neighbor in her bamboo blind
dwells on theories such as this.

Feeders hung around her pond
lure finch and sparrow remnants
of down-sized monsters who perch
within inches of her frame, bent now
and shorter since the time she sang
and whimmed by night with lovers;
flinched through work by day.

The birds leave as she stands
and walks across her lawn;
stops to curse weeds grown thick
where tar pits may have plagued
her wingless and slope-browed kin.

 

 ----------------------

 

~Something Beautiful~

 

---

 

~In On the Outs~

 

 ~Kansas After Midnight~ (Hale-Bopp Comet)

 

 

 

~When Joe's Memory Failed Him~

Joe sat down for breakfast
with last night's dream of flying
clearly recollected and then the dream
of climbing a rock of knowledge reoccurred
and the dream of walking naked down
a city street came along then the short dreams
started rolling by. The fraction-of-a-second
dreams flickered across his eyes mind between
the completely out of character and morally
outrageous dreams that caused him to wonder
and worry. The fear dreams
of heights and crimes
came through and  then he placed
the barrel in his mouth,
and when the earth turned
a little bit more 
the sun shined through the kitchen window
and onto Joe's blood and brains
sprayed all over the walls
and his bowl of Shredded Wheat.

 

 

 

 

~Prairie~

If you were the prairie
and I was grass,
married to your skin,

mustang and antelope
may pound me into you
as they run wild over your body,

and the occasional fire,
born of lightning-gay
nights of merriment,
would turn me to ash,

and though you'd feign sleep
as your body cooled,
your smile,

mottled with my black remains,
would unearth your passion
for the wind-blown seed.

 

 

 

~A Chicago Picnic (1925)~

Seven mobsters
and one pigeon
spread a blanket on the grass.

Their basket contains cheese,
wine, and sourdough French bread
all the way from San Francisco.

"It's the 'Frisco fog,"
Mr. Capone explains to the pigeon,
"that makes the bread right."

Then Bruno breaks
one of the pigeon's wings,
then breaks
the other one.

Louie the Face
takes the pigeon to the river.

Mr. Capone
walks alone down a narrow trail
into the trees.

"My father never hugged me."
He muses,
then picks up a stick,
to use as a cane,
although he doesn't really
need it.

 

 

 

 

 ~Christina's Sow~

She skips the freaks,
all the rides, the dime-toss
towards the carnival glass prize.
She never gives the barkered games
of rings and darts a gamble.  

Christina pines for the grower
of award-winning squash,
and would love to help
grow his crookneck
though she's never strolled
his stall of gourds
set beside the strawflowers.

She returns to straddle an up-side-
down tub beside the sow
she hopes the judge
dubs fit for blue.
  
Her thirty-year collection
of second-place cherryred ribbons
has faded to the pink tint
of her 4-H friend,
the rose cut and doomed
to a diary of squeals and wounds.

 

 

 

 

~Fly~

I watch a fly bang, bang
its green ass
against the naked bulb.

"Goofy bastard."
I say out loud,

then return to my keyboard,
and bang,
bang, away.

 

 

~Help Wanted: Poet~

to show me
the dead tree,
the new grave,
the last gasp
of the whale,
the first sting
of the wasp,
thunder and wave,
flight,
fire,
love's root
and ash,
the dash,
crawl,
and crash
of the world.

 

 

 

 

~I Don't Want to Write a Bad Poem For You~

I don't want to write a bad poem for you.
One that is flush with forced rhyme
and passe ideas
scraped from the dirty fingernails
of an unknown whose future
shall remain anonymous.

I don't want to write a bad poem for you,
even though others have,
and others will hand you theirs
and you will love them
as I sit
and revise these lines
over and over again
while the muses
hold their stomachs
in laughter.

 

 

 

  
 ~I'm Not Interested~

I'm not interested
in meeting women or
anyone else.

There is an entire city
inside my head complete
with dumpsters
and those who
fill the dumpsters
and those who
dump the dumpsters
into big white trucks.

The big white trucks
power down the streets
and alleys and past
the buildings
where those
who fill the dumpsters
are.

 

 

 

~Loners Don't Cause the Flower's Tremble~

Loners don't cause the flower's tremble;
it's the found who pick them
for the windowed home of temporary light.

Polished suitors hit the shops;
purchase them with plastic cash.
Sheathed or vased, the flowers die
where they're placed by lovers
in a rush to sheets and covers.
They die at the table's center,
the counter's rim,
the bedside stand.

Dimly lit tombs of finished symphonies
have claimed petal and stem, color
and scent, pollen and dew
to honor the composers who,
deaf when they died, must still
be able to see and smell the rose
or wildflower on the grave.

Loners don't cause the flower's tremble,
nor unknown poets
and unrealized compositions
found dead on less than grand pianos.

 

 

 

 

~Once a Fool, Always One~

I left my foam Buddha
in the rain,
and when the sun
came out he was
steaming.

 

 

 

 

~Outsource Ours~

Please send this mundane job to India.
I don't want to do it anymore.
There's a tree limb that extends
out over a nearby lake
large enough for me to sit
and daydream from. Please

send my lover's work to China
so she may join me on the branch.
With her voice, my words, we'll try to sing
the philosophy of the birds. Please

send all the gold offshore. There's nothing
I want to buy. Automobiles and malls
frighten me and the deer,
and I think it would be grand
if the gross domestic product
of the United States of America
were to be happy people and beasts.

 

 

~Tatted Stems~

Emerald island visions drift
behind your eyes as you needle lace
into snowflakes that will never fall
nor melt like the last summer days of us.

We once held moments; fingers
entwined to form the vase.
Flowers atremble in our hands,
their petals just a phase.

Perhaps they knew the color
of our fate and theirs,
and how the winter wind
may tat the stems, take
them starward for us to find
strewn about our paradise.

 

 

 

 

 ~The Morning After With Pancakes~

"I love pancakes." I said.

"I love pancakes, too." She said.

"Please pass the syrup." I said.

"Here ya go." She said as she handed me the bottle.

"I need butter first." I said.

"Yes, melt the butter on the pancakes first." She said.

"I need a fork." I said.

"Oh, yeah, you do." She said.

She got up out of her seat,
went to the kitchen,
and returned with a fork.

I began eating the pancakes. The butter
had melted superbly, and she poured
the syrup carefully, and my gut
got full, and the sun was out
and shining through the window onto
our breakfasts as though
the 4th of July, Christmas, Thanksgiving,
and all the birthdays on Earth
were on our plates at the same time
and we were eating them
as one and they were
perfect.

 

 

 

 

~View From a Starbucks~

Rain won't slow the cell-phoned suits
or pop-and-beer-can scroungers
while cardboard pleas for handouts
compete with potholes
sunk by the jerk and shimmy
of the city's non-negotiable fault.

The boom-bred girl of the corner knows
of no kind monkeys. The one she sticks
into her tattooed ankle
bites and twists. She tilts
back her head, open-mouthed,
tries to tongue drops
of junk-ill sky

as the sidewalk tune of the unknown minstrel
is blown or strummed towards Puget Sound
to be caught in the pigeon's filthy craw,
sucked into a cup of  la-dee-da latte,
or falls to the crumbs
of another nice try.

 

 

 

 

~Babes and the Badman~

Babes who hold hands with the badman
may become getaway drivers
or lookouts
or prostitutes
for the badman's interests.

And when the badman
is hanged
or burned
or riddled with bullets
the babes cease to be, too.

But sometimes,
when they are fortunate,
the babes are  reduced to portraits
or songs
or statues
or a poem,
like this one.

 

 

~No Means No. Spring Means Yes.~

 

 

 

 

 She deals poker
to old men
and internet geniuses.

The man she
once loved
sits with the two stacks
of chips she gave him
and waits for fruitful nuts.

He mucks his hands
and yawns for an hour.
Seat three was his idea.

Her year-round fool
finally finds pocket aces.
They get beat
by seat eight's draw.

Her March lamb
never arrived.
The lion
continues to eat her
out of love and home.

 

 

 

~Once Upon a Time in the West~

 

 

~Match.com Reject~