i dare not speak of sand
of dusk of loss and moon
i dare not sing of keys
and locks and cries of loon
i dare not wish for water
for youth for love for touch
i dare not want for anything
it’s a sin to want too much

i dare not speak of filth
of stars, of lust and sun
i dare not sing of doors
and games and the things bad men of done
i dare not wish for water
for youth for love for touch
i dare not love anything
it’s a sin to love too much

i dare not speak of sand
of morning, loss or time
i dare not sing of faith
and prayers, or cries or rhymes
i dare not wish for water
for youth for hate for pain
i dare not wish for anything
or i’ll surely go insane.

larry ate a cheetah
joey ate a kid
i only took a sip of tea
and pondered what they did

larry ran a circus
joey ran away
i just watched in silence
as they ran another play

larry was a monster
jimmy half as bad
i was almost worse, I think
i said nothing for the lad

larry snickered ‘handcuffs?’
joey smirked, ‘thanks so much’
i slipped off to die again
my keys upon the hutch

larry ate another
joey ate his kin
i sipped only silence
and that’s cruelest sin.

Knowledge of stars does not float on the ocean
nor the underbelly of a shark
sneering up at the shadows of seals

The rabbit moon is unbolted
as it scatters the hidden path
in plain view of winter’s first ripples.

Sunrise is not a matter of intuition,
whether pale a lemon juice stain on a white shirt
or cruel as a mosquito trapped in amber
light – a shimmering hardness lost
and petrified in the forgotten forests.

The harvest moon bolts the summer
for a smattering of frost along a widening path
leading inexorably toward another year’s end.

Sunset is not a matter of faith,
whether salvation is a magma flow
fifty miles below or a solar flair 50 million miles above
– a quivering softness of song
or the ethereal energy of the unexpected.

Spring will come soon
like the revelation that knowledge is a body, not a ghost
a fire, not a glow
a slow setting into the dark
a regal rise from the dark
a window on the sky and heart,
a divine apocalypse
intuited from the word
deduced from the the body
and revealed in the last memory of the moonlight.

Don’t ask me for proof in matters of faith
unless you want a hearty laugh and a silly poem.

the last thing you need is a friend like me
covered in orange juice, maggots and other things
worse than you’re able to imagine in polite company

a friend like me full of odd ideas about the nature of
breathing, the purpose of a fibula, the destiny of a man
in a black jacket sitting on a jetty in november

me plastered with tracing paper and aspirin
uglier than you want to picture even for a laugh
under a fading moon on a frigid night

that’s the last thing you need, a friend like poison ivy
irritating past the point where you want to rip
off your skin and bathe in rubbing alcohol

I feel the maggots eating away the dead parts
that used to be as much me as my fingers are now.
I am happy they are full. I imagine you watching them eat

a friend like me, with ideas, odd and otherwise,
fermenting until the truth nature of man is revealed
in the awkward nudity of words and impolite heavy breathing.

you, plastered on orange juice and vodka
more beautiful than i want you to be, but still
i take a picture and say something about destiny before I leave.

the last thing i need is a friend like you.

Angels have notoriously bad healthcare,
I don’t mean to get you upset, I’m sure you like angels, everyone does.

Still, it’s a fact.

Their co-pay is outrageous, and they don’t get any sick time,
never mind preventative care.

If you bump into an angel, don’t bring it up, they’re a bore,
a God damned bore,
of the highest magnitude. And don’t ask them about how well they dance
they get pissy about that
more so if you taunt them with pinheads and pretend
like they have the most exciting lives.

they don’t.

grunt-work is grunt-work,
wings or no wings,
even if God is your direct supervisor.

your best bet is to just smile and nod at the holy folk
and move on to the cribbage game with your fat neighbor.

I
Alas the future held in store
divinity, at least in part;
this may be valued so much more —
a break of wave upon a heart.

II
Forgive the past, it has no worth,
though, a weak man it might move;
Divide your heaven from your Earth,
without a fear who disapproves

III
In me, forsake this present’s stain
the second, the minute, the hour flies;
Let go the notions in your brain,
of time when we know love’s the prize.

IV
I’ll weep later, in some future spot
with joy and most tenderly
as all these pains shall be forgot
and only love will dwell in me.

V
As an albatros hangs on gull’s cruel raves,
I will endure what this present sows:
a silent contemplation of the waves
when a violent storm so vicious grows

VI
Alas, in velvet night so deep,
the soft bells of tomorrows toll;
Then on every breeze as I sleep —
I see no future for my soul.

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