she cut the rope into 6 days and a frayed edge.
gathered up to not really save the falling
or punish the damned. she said, life is a pond
leave me to my frogs. I laughed, she cried, this
is the fact, i hate you. the shape of the ropes became
a boat, a turtle, a monkey, a god, a telephone, and a noose
I was a frayed edge and wished
to hang with god

screw you, she said, handed me the noose
and showed me it was hours
carefully tied it around my neck, tightly
the other end over the oak where our names
were carved.

she said, if only it was february
the chill would tell you this rope is for life
and she let me god
with a snap and fond little wiggle
in her walk

I saw nothing more.

Did you ever have that dream about publishers? You know the one where you’ve called them together in your posh New York City office to discuss the millions of dollars they want to give you to aggregate your insanity into a multi-book deal.

“No, nonono. Look, I realize Penguin has been dying to give me donkey-loads of cash in the form of gold coins just back from their secret storage facility somewhere under the alps, but you have to understand, I hate penguins. They smell bad and they have those nasty pointy beaks that scream out to the fact they’re going to try to peck my eyes out. It just won’t work, I’m sorry”

“Look, I realize Harper Collins is somewhat reputable as publishers go, but, I’m sorry, if you can’t pay me in some combination of Rolex watches and platinum doohickeys, I feel like you’re not really serious. Also, I think I need references.”

“Real Estate? Well, Ok, how much? The state of Montana? Hmmm.. can you throw in the odd little strip of Idaho that makes no actual sense squishing there between Washington and Montana? No? Why are we bothering? You people make me sick.”

If i were slightly more agnostic,
I think i’d focus on the necessity of blue holes
to fill the void left when my pancreas vacations.

Big giant blue holes, so powerful
even the stupid ideas can’t make it out
only swears and jeans and kids who went to tufts
in sadly brown hoodies.

Awkwardly blue holes, suggesting
entire days when the stores are must stay closed
For fear the police will come and buy up all their blue cheese dressing
leaving them with virtually inedible Buffalo wings

Sinister blue holes, enraged
because their rights have been violated by the lack of space
in their mother’s closet, and now they’ve been forced out
into the work force to fend for themselves and pay their stupid
student loans.

Musical blue holes, so sad
and repetitive
even I could remember the words

That’s crazy though, this is me we’re talking about,
and who could believe that?

she was dancing on a sidewalk chalk outline
of a man I knew back in vietnam even though
i was never there except that time i watched 
that movie with charlie sheen before he died
on two and a half men next week. 

i said to her, "her... please, don't
stop dancing." 
so she stopped dancing, and started
to mime this crow that I had seen in someone's yard
a few weeks before when I was ploughing the fields
i have never been to in your life. I said, "her...
what does it mean when you stub your toe
watching love
boat?"

she kicked a rock (not hudson) and lisped
something about julie or gopher or isaac
and i wondered how it all related back to my fantasy
I never bothered to have of her in a lavender tutu
drinking shots of V-8 and railing about choochoos
and big ol' chevy pick-ups. Orange and 
missing the citrus of the moment. 

I said to her, "her... please, don't

so she did. 

Oh God, she did

and there i was it was d-day, or peal harbor
dazed and sitting on the side of vesuvius asking
Mrs. Craib, what was it like
'no one liked it'
she said.

The mule was braying
by the weathered fence
Telling the sparrows,

“We can only love
as much as we hate

There is only as much peace
as there is rage.”

The plump passerines flew about,
lovely, looping, laughing
twitters on summer air.

Until the mule
sad and hurt, watched them
away

“we can only find
what we lose”

he said to no one
not even me.

Oh Platypus, where are you?
Your mother sent a message
that you are lost, and I love you
too much to forget your kiss

The spur that left me longing
for just a little bit of death
is a love I can not forget.

Oh Platypus, where have you gone?
I left you there, happy and eggless
in the shallows where the water
was a warm place to forget the world.

The spur slid into my arm
as I lifted you up for a kiss
how could I ever forget you?

Oh Platypus, where could you be?
Mother sent a message, and told me
that you are lost, you are lost, but
i love you. Do not forget me.
Please.

Suppose I cracked open my head and a thousand images drained out onto the concrete. Suppose you could see religion in the blood and atheism in the brain cells. Suppose my left leg twitched one last time before I was gone, and it sounded like a little breeze through the cat o’ nine tails?

Would you write that poem?

a soul is a boneless basil covered chicken thigh
in a mushroom sauce. first the chicken is sauteed
to fill the pain with flavor, then mushrooms added
to brown them just a tiny bit, before the broth
soaks them.

it is served with wild rice, buttered and salted,
and steamed asparagus.

If you don’t understand, first, how the soul is made
then it is nearly impossible to comprehend
the nature of forgiveness, of gratitude and of course
love.

I recommend the chardonnay with that, or
if you are like me, perhaps too wild, have a smoke
and a large bit of brandy

savor every bite, every moment
until even the moon forgets what you ate
and why.

the street was dark
the girl was wearing a miniskirt
the buick was speeding
the cat ran across from driver’s side to passenger’s side
the road was slick with wet leaves
the kid had his seatbelt on
the police took forever to get there
the ambulance driver puked
the two telephone poles were both broken
the smell of cooked flesh hung in the air
the radio was blaring
the other kid tossed something out the window
the sound of broken glass was hard to hear
the other cars slowed, but didn’t stop
the coroner was there an hour later.

whatever willy said

This is the thing, suppose the night were a pumpkin pie
hurriedly eaten bit by bit by little ants that spit
it out into little piles of goo, and the days
supposedly were you on a yellow bulldozer, pushing

in all the ants and all the goo into giant piles

transformed so that you couldn’t
hardly tell which nights were which and what ant was what – even the
illusion of pie disappears like some sort of enormous
needle in a galaxy devoid of anything resembling
knowledge of the spirit.

Imagine, for a moment that the bodies of the ants dissolve
slowly in their own juices and the smell of pumpkin.

Hope means nothing to them, the night
is lost in the boundless piles you’ve made for
some unknown reason. You can’t separate
the parts from the whole, or even discern each from the
other anymore. Dreams are neither pie nor bulldozer nor ant.
Realize,
you have determined the shape of all you see, and it means nothing.