Bomb Dream #16
Napoleon pinned down by sword thru his guts,
they had no problem aiming the Bomb right at his heart
and blowing the city into a new seaboard
a harbor of boiling blood
and me splashing away in a fervor of survive! survive!
Jesus O Lord save me
as burning ocean laps my ankles with flame
and I wade thru water thick with fat and atoms
past dead dogs and cars transmuted to coal and iron
floating atop Munich's ash river
and under the glare of a European dusk
God willing I nor anybody will ever see.
What do all the movies mean?
I ask my sure-footed shore, my grunge god.
Nothing at all
as he calmly smokes his cigarette
and waits for me to wake.
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Country Boy
Where is she who loves legs swinging over farm gates
eyes trained to the cowshit
the crunch of drought-bleached gravel under boots
the sweet-sour sweat soaking chest
under St. Christopher hanging desperately around my neck
like a noose of the interstates I've known and loved
and fill me with a lonesome dread
so that here I am, walking meditation
remembering when this tree was a tree
and not a lightning-torn stump
just egg rolling back to cedar nest
just drying fish flapping like dead man's clapping hand
towards creek towards spring basins.
This I offer.
Take me for what I am.
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Of Those I Miss
Of those I miss
I miss their faults as much as their perfection,
their lies as much as their love,
for we have shaped shaped shaped each other
beyond any semblance of ephemerality.
And now we wander
with feet planted opposite shores
among the ruined foundations of bridges burned,
and I can't remember their faces
but I love them just the same.
-----------------------------------
Twisting A's out of twigs,
kissing all the wrong backs,
worried about my parents.
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There will come a day
when I'm judged not for my inability to cope with small talk
with people looking down their noses
Me swelling up like a tick
like a balloon like a ballast of love
a raft on tides of shame.
Fuck no, that day is tonight
and here I am,
sober as birth and as deadly serious.
Electric fence,
a live wire stare with towhead and mean fingers.
Rebuild my crumpled body with bricks and cable.
This heart will never know the difference.
I need love and raw meat
I need love and dead leaves
and we all float slow and screaming
to rot in Heaven.
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Ante
I've been rolling my eyes like dice,
going all in on the small blind first hand,
playing people like chess.
There are no winners,
the game will end the same.
Ha!
Except I will live til the end!
Swear allegiance equally to passion, whimsy, and folly!
No regrets, by God!
I've loved!
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Mildred
Sitting quietly in country static,
a radio tuned to night bugs
and the occasional snuffle from a tired hound dawg,
I can hear the draw on my cigarette.
Watch mosquitoes land on me,
fly away without molest,
I am unprovoking and without resistance
to those who suck and bite
so they neither suck nor bite.
Nothing to do with how I taste now.
More to do with how I choose to sit;
silent still sad content.
A bird couldn't alight from my shaking knee,
My ribs would spread like legs
no, like a curtain
and the bullet would pass through
and I walk unharmed.
Maybe a little lighter, I've lost some weight.
Maybe a little more humble, I've lost some pride.
I've lost nothing.
The goddamn son will rise in the morning
and there I go.
---------------------------------------
a constellation of cigarette burns
with a burning cherry satellite
while I'm a space station
still spinning mute
--------------------------------------------
You're beautiful as frost,
I'm stunned as Valium,
thinking floating eating memory,
pure as
pure as snow
pure as hate,
clearer than swollen hearts
is the fading plea,
the choice to about-face in this gunfight
draw and fire.
---------------------------------------------------
New Orleans
I don't consider myself an extrovert in any way.
it's a scam.
Today I got my first lapdance
I loved her, smelled her on my hands
the rest of the day.
met people at the metal show.
got punched in the gut at the metal show.
I don't know.
I guess they're alright
these people
these people
------------------------------------
Thunderstorm broke the night
like a fever
5 am
hangover.
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