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

Oh Papa, is this how it ends?

What of cows?

The men that watch them from the road? The Women folk
that stand by and let them be milked for all they’re worth?
The fields of Pennsylvania are browning now. Too late for hay
for long hours of sunshine have passed and now the cold
is revealed in our wordlessness. The boys watch them stand

chewing on some long held hurt. The men stand on their shadow-tips
praying redemption is enough, if only they can wait long enough.
The women folk, they do not know the manure, except as stains
and a vague scents of something wrong. The fields of Pennsylvania
roll past the Poconos, out to Harrisburg, and the boys play

in what is left of autumn. It has been so many years since
the lion stood and watched the boys and the cows and the men
standing on the feet of their own shadows. Perhaps it is hell
that holds us foot to ground, lip to lip and tongue behind?
A heavy rake, a plough, the men wait. The boys off, out of sight.

Perhaps it is the drain where faith was washed away that leaves us
standing by a dry hole wanting back the dream before the flood?
Perhaps it is a drought, and every farm must fail for now.
The men will eat the red steak. The women will bow their heads.
The boys will pop wheelies in vacant lots when their friend returns.

What of the cows, well-milked, or slaughtered? What of the truth
of the duties left under the golden Pennsylvania pale of last weeks sun?
Dare I say, they do not serve any but their own cold hearts,
those who only stand and wait?

My word, which art
hallowed, be thy name
poetry or prose – thou art
beloved.

the cool edge of sunrise aches along
the long ominous eastern horizon

a fat old pelican waits above
the almost blue. he watches her

long dark hair hang in the warm still air
her toes dig in to this sandy shore

on the gulf of Mexico
her thoughts cast out into the storm

she can not see.
like the pelican, she hungers

for something out there beyond
he looks back at her, then on gray wings

cuts a path through the void between them
smaller and smaller

He grows in her mind
until he dives and finds

something.

His mother drinks tepid cola
from a neon pink plastic cup
and dies a little bit more
every day.

His mother eats penuchi fudge
naked in the back of her closet
and thinks this is what it is to be
alive.

His mother sings soft music
to her sad little gray kitten
as if the words could pat him
all night.

His mother screams at roaches
on the granite kitchen counter
and dies a little bit more
every day.