I corner the shadows of a cold heart
in a flesh coffin. Run crazy, run free,
by carefully folded reason twisted
into the paisley of the crooked jacket.

She is a creature of peonies and pansies
of hurricanes suffered like iced cream
in a blizzard. I water her, like dying flowers
on the crisp and cracking back edge
of a droughty late summer’s day.

I release the rays of light from her dead eyes
into the wilds of a lost mind. Wait raucous, wait shackled,
by the chaotic ruffle of irrationality’s winding
palsy of a broken woman’s faceless face.

She is a creature of clay and concrete
of rented folding chairs suffered like yesterday’s news
in a dust devil. I order her, like a cheap wedding
on the muddy and sinking frong side
of a flooding little early summer’s day.

I remember the dust between the light of her gray dreams
falling toward the civility of her last hours. Break hard, shatter
in the twisted calm of sweet sad entropy
– the cold sickness of cruel denial, promise and a love unkind.

If I were a southern bell, I’d think of war
but I am anti-bell, the long ummm
that wonders under the clang of history.

Perhaps, If I did not already know
how sweet every letter is but’T’ and
steeped, fresh and bitter lemony

Alas, I carry no ring, I am beloved
of war, I sort ideas into piles of maybe
and wander history like an awkward silence

If I were a southern bell, I’d buy dresses.
but I am not that cat or ill, or un
der-appreciated, dancing with daddy’s guidance.

This is a matter of faith – what is
what is not provable – a gob of spit
in the face of certainty.

I watch a beautiful woman with long dark hair
standing in front of her philosophy class.
She says, “There’s no God, you imbeciles.
You’re a moron if you think there is.”

“Are you sure?”

She says, “There’s not one iota of proof.”

“Are you sure?”

She says, “Yeah, I’m sure.”

I listen to a short young lady in her class
with black hair and thick black framed glasses.
She says, “There is a God, you imbecile.
You’re a moron if you think there isn’t.”

“Are you sure?”

She says, “All of creation is a joyous testament to his greatness.”

“Are you sure?”

She says, “Yeah, I’m sure.”

I feel my smile crack
on their impenetrable heads
as I slip quietly out of the thick idiocy of the room
nauseated by their certainty.

in the monkey suit beside the bed
I saw the donkey snore his head
and twist the zipper as he said
“I think that I’d prefer mine red!”

in the monkey suit beside the door
i saw a giraffe and giggled more
and took a tiptoe on hardwood floor
unaware I suppose just what’s in store

in the monkey suit beside the book
I saw the Rhino sneak a look
and shake his head as if he’d mistook
me for some half-mad half-bad halfway-crook

in the monkey suit beside the pan
I saw the mommy make a plan
and grind her teeth to understand
what sadly only the good Lord can.

in the monkey suit my dear
there is no room for such things as fear

Why are you so afraid to get drunk enough
to want to be drunker enough to break
into the auditorium forget the alarm
drink beer after beer from the tap
dress up as spiderman and wonderwoman
run from the police when they arrive
hide under the bridge in the tent city
with the homeless and drugfull and cold
vomit on their clean black shoes
as they push you into the paddy wagon
and spend the night in jail
with an angry puerto rican and a violent laotian named Sam?

Are you that worried what people will think of you?
If that’s all it is, don’t worry,
I’ll wear the wonderwoman costume.

The story of cow-tipping
begins on a dark road by a stone wall
nose twitching in the thick odor of manure
and cows mooing nearby.

It ends stooped over panting
in the unhealthy blue smoke
of the revving worn out V8
in a pal’s rusted out old chevy
laughing about hamburgers.

In between, the realization of the myth
when the cow does not tip
but that is the part of the story
we do not tell our children.

YOU desperately need to know my every inkling inked or scorned,
my every wink and burden born.

YOU (quietly) inherently desire, dear,
to know, to see my loves, my hurts, my fears,

YOU want, you need, you hope to know,
the when and where and why I go.

YOU smirk, you grin, you love my sin –
this is why we both work and we both win.

The voyeur in you (not so daring)
loves me loving and so caring –
weeps me silly, willy nilly,
as you ask yourself “Oh MY GOD.. I wonder.. will he?!”

Pretend if you want you’d rather not haunt
the snicker-verse of my snorts,
but I know the lie, behind every sigh,
and laugh when you’re out of sorts.

Ever wonder when the endless poem
had found it’s way to fallen Rome
to slip the satin of the sheet
and leave us here half incomplete?

Ever wonder when a poem’s a poem
and not a note from a garden gnome
covered half in grass and rose
unaware how the mad verse goes?

Ever wonder when a poem’s asleep
in pajamas dreaming deep
the dreams of men in banana hose
panicking for a stolen nose?

Ever wonder when a poem’s a friend
unrhymed and simple honest to the end
holding on for all his life
through peaceful peace and angry strife?

Ever wonder how many poems, eating cheese,
disguised – some as mice and some as trees –
crawled under our diligent eyes
because none of us were so wise

Ever wonder if every life might be a poem
sketched quickly on some Goddish tome
then left to read with an open heart
– perhaps that is how each story starts?

beneath the smiling raven’s shadow
the poet-girl wore turquoise and feathers
around her neck like a dream catcher

her hair, darker than his feathers.
when she whispered poetry, he listened
for her ancestor’s spirits on the breeze

her silence lifted his wings
to circle above. in perfect syncopation
her body danced in his shadow
as it twisted in and out
of the long autumn sun

a single caw recalled her song
– the joyful celebration of elk bones
and the great turtle swimming away

a second caw forgot her song
– a gentle push of feather upward –
her spirit guide was gone.

in the intensity of sunlight
brittle morning cold, she
thumbed the turquoise necklace
stoked the embers to flame
alone.

I watch the lightbulb pop

imagine the darkness darker,
the furniture still

waiting for me to move
amongst the moment

the silhouetted image
burned in memory slowly fades

I navigate to the bed by rote
strip naked, lay down, think

of the world before the light
went out. The world before

intensity and darkness called me
to wait alone for the morning

to reveal inaccuracy of my dreams