feeding the ro[o]t

screen door askew

an open maw cringed,

noisy birds banging wood.

its grey now.

the house in the orchard,

bones and stone.

her face is crumbled.

her innards fall across

my nervous fingers.

not so pretty; my

minimum wage hands,

bitten nails, frantic veins.

but she knows me,

her dirt sighs in,

nestles into my grooves.

torn jeans, fit right,

hug my midline scar'd,

grass stained memory.

black currant wild

with hollyhock droppings,

little lost planets, red faces.

i sit cross-legged in

grass level with my head.

lay back in the bounce.

watch the tips of

mighty pines tickle

the blue out of my sky.

prone between two little

old men stooped, skinned,

ashy layers of history[s].

their children rot into

their feet, sweet and

cloying; i remember this.

this is where i come

from. i stare at the sun.

its dead here too.

from a lost suitcase...

my mind reached out and snagged
the whip of blades in watery windmills

from a crown royal purple burp
and turned over the edge of sleep.
you woke in suede sighs,
when the whole of the sky cracked,
(or the ceiling fan was vibrating too much)
velvet pieces fell in separate nights, face was set still.
a portrait in waving panes,
the ripple beneath
the crater of your vision moved in a fit
of morning after fuckery coughing.
this is the last thing i heard before the fade.
and its a bloom of classical music
falling through the clutch of gusts
caress of liberation. no no no its not the same thing
as the persistent hiccupping pluck of a sixth string

a blue hued soundtrack;
my moods tripping daisies
with bruised hearts past,
and there comes my hand from the earth.
my parents walk
through the window of your eyes.
you deliver me the last rattle
in the chain of a dying continuim.
they raise up into the shadows of my steps
walking the wake in the wash
of trailing in the wind of apple blossom,
lilac blanket lining the cradle
of home lost
and so carefully found
in bare threads fluttering from tree limbs.
if i turn the sky my way,
it'll be that nostalgic tornado that carries
the final rythym of our tighten up away,
and it'll blow that tapestry all to hell

cold breeze making stuttered love
rides a watery current and tongues the panes
to glide up on sketcky lubrication.
wraps my arms poetic, or not.
the justice of a deep kiss laughs at the
injustice of the stain bedded into
rainbows on alabaster thighs,
the smiling tear tinting the colours angry

open your mouth.
let me climb in.
i want to etch the backs of your teeth with mine.
carve my intitials
in voodoo ink from talking snakes,
the bastards that ride my calves tight.
soak my toes, my soles,
into the salt sweet salvia river moving
that is your fancy tongue
run the whole of me into your frightened throat,
elixir borrowed from a gypsy cart
a thirst for the wine slamming the floor
of your tipsy gut.

i sit here,
wondering what it is i should be doing.
what i am not supposed to want.
if it never matters after the after
what fucking difference does indifference make?
everyone of us with sideways feet
fall through the cracks we stomped
into our gawdforsaken floors.
we are traversing the hungry gullet
of something emaciated but foolishly revered.
if there is a price
i dont want to be a regurgitated afterthought
spit out into the mix of minds
i need to keep me and my light
somewhere woven through the whole
i want to be the fucking meal that exhausts you, boy...

i am the foggy shadow pushing shapes out
against the wall of womb we roll around in.
smoke of minds tripping
and the spiral walking the jamb of cool morning,
when the sun cocks out the strongest wants
the cure of listening,
steps from the fat of my lip.

speed and heat of the last time
i heard the thump
the beat torn right through
the pause between hot shots of blood
its the electric in the air
riffing the shapes of your bone.

i want this.
i want the illusion,
i want the lie for a minute.
i want the smash and stick of it all.
i'm hungry.

these balls are only for show...

l hoist a bottle of amber
joy aloft in a drunken tilt
to eye level, pouring
his 3rd a shot.
the 2 ft between my
fingers wrapped around
the neck, his leather chest,
familiar cocky ass
smile, whispering a tip,
shrinks in sexual buzz

he leans in, hovers his
perfect mouth close enough
over my hand to feign a kiss.
he likes the way i hold
the neck, he whispers,
strong and sure,
but quiet. his full
courage is still
$10.03 away.

he blows a slow
hot breath through
my grip,
fogs the thick glass,
stares sex and sweat
right though my skin.
he says, 'a woman like
you, has the kinda
balls a man could
learn to suck on.'

something wilder
and curious stirs, in
a clutch of fast wet heat.
and i wonder
what it would be like
to fuck him right
there under the
no smoking sign
in the dim shadows
between the speakers.

he says 'you've got a way,
that comes natural,
brewed long,
an exotic vintage
that needs to breathe
before you taste.'
and he's damn near
got me...whether
i know better or not,
is irrelevant.

deep breath,
raise my eyes,
stare through the tiny
40 proof sea, and say,
'you want that on your tab?'
but i pause around a smile,
keep my eyes on his
while he backs away.
we volley power in
heady silence.

he chuckles, i wink,
[because fuck me,
he's some kinda pretty]
he backs himself slow
into a low slung chair
and watches me. grins
around the lip of his glass,
smokey eyes have me
naked before my 
rag touches the pine.

5 bucks later he reaches out,
pushes his knuckle gently
into my pendant,
waiting on my flinch.
i lean into the pressure,
he says, 'jesus, where did you
come from? you're like a
fucking gypsy, with some
heavy deep secrets,
aren't you? can i have them?'

and i wobble the pour
he doesn't touch.
he notices,
and in a hush he moves
his finger to tuck a stray
curl behind my ear.
whispers something about
apology for whatever
nerve he hit,
about tomorrows & love.

i step back in a deliberate
careful glide, watch the
confusion working his jaw.
the question tighten
his smooth cheeks,
and finally the understanding
settle into his warm gaze;
before the last note
of that last word fell,
he had lost me.
'

killing puppies

it's so black tonight. walking is something like slicing though rancid ink. tinney smell picking my nose
non too delicate, giggling frantic photographs front and center. i don't like the way a scent can cut my
chute and upend me into a tub of 1979 blackcurrent bushes waiting on transplant.
yeah, i hear him breathing beneath the rustle.
its like a niggling whimper, a puppy breath cry, nuzzling my jaw, streaking little boogers over my chin.
the sweet warm puffs of pablum and mama milk stuck to their pretty prickly whiskers.
except rot comes to mind.
brain soup, grey matter patte, if you will. and my old man's got no fancy peppercorn crackers left
but there's a plastic rainbow disguised as a 2lb bag of smarties on the table beside the blackened
antique spoon; circa 1919, gramma sarah's finest. have you ever tried to pry vomit from your
gramma's velour chair, while part of said gift was still attached to the arm hair, hence the arm, from
where it came?
course you haven't.
it's almost as disturbing as assuming the man petrifying in his own filth is dead in your childhood
haven, while your baby bellows for a bubba behind you. almost. taking steely steps forward, finger
on his furry chin, thumb on his caked nose, crouching eye level to wear the puff of a rotten exhale,
then chewing on it in gagging relief and annoyance and guilt like a forkful of scalding hell,
when it wafts right down your closing throat, is worse.in the dark belly of this, my beloved season,
i close my eyes and murder a pups innocence as he morphs into a person, who is a child, who is a
dead man walking,who doesn't remember my name. what i wouldn't do for the moons light to curl
me ribbons of rescue right about now...

a daisy in the snow

sometimes the universe just hollers into the open spaces in your

being,rattles its massive banging pulse through the holes in your bones.

they click and clack like dice minus a side. and the pull is a tide

calling into small hours between slumber and clarity. the brightness

of heaving fire hanging overhead stitch a dot to dot that your heart

traces in imaginary twine. a fraying thread from here to there. the

world webbed in points made, filed, forgotten. only a scar over the

atmosphere in faded grey stain remains; that sticky shit that whispers

across your eyelids when you try forward motion. i pull out the myriad

of pictures that line the inside of my skin. the wrench it of sounds like

mad crows descending fast, low in a darkened room. they perch on my

head, my shoulders, my arms, lay spindly claw over my toes, until the

weight of a feather is the cold in a stone.i tricked the moon into a

shadowy fullness tonight, stared at her long enough in her robe of

crescent, to coax her dark side to show itself in all its silent promise,

and she cackled. Autumn pushed a want into my mouth, chilled wind

scooping drops of lakefront to cool my neck. i could feel it finger my

loose hair into a lion i had fought to tame beneath memory. fucking

roar knocked me on my ass...pretty sure he had that damn goat roaming

his throat, pipe n'all...but for one unbelievable moment i watched

the background, where a shooting star sailed through my line of sight,

an owl released a trio of rippling howls behind me. the weighty night

shook me into it's belly. and i tripped circles up a slippery rise balancing

past and tomorrow. different faces, challenged choices, and timid affection

all laced in a neat bow of guilt. how are we the gentle one's left standing?

how is a clash of heat, steel, want & flesh a sentence that binds me to a dead

pocket of years? i have done no thing wrong. yet stumble on words i cannot

speak, songs i cannot sing any longer if the listener has anything resembling

a pulse. the box is filling and i want to stretch my limbs and kickout the sides,

bleed the darkness till it explodes violent color and light. i am afraid of my

own voice so say no thing at all. silence wrapped in pretty sentences...

ladders of letters that shake, and fall wherever your eyes wish them to lay.

rake your sight through my guts, if you want to...hell i'll even let you wipe

your shit stained feet in my wounds, go ahead, you can have 2003, if you so

choose. thing is you don't know shit about me, or mine, or that the reason i

hold no hand is because it gets fucking cold in the cemetery this time of year.

and you know, most folks sporting steel toed boots, wooly toques and a $14.99

black tube steel flashlight like a billy stick on their belts at 4am don't take

kindly to jean clad girls singing folk songs to ghosts, walking barefoot circles

through the stones they're keeping a peep on. & the owl sailed over the noisy

moon while the lion fed my shoes to the goat in his throat, all the while

the crows were laughing the wild gypsy memory home like a bullet for my

time, fuck a valentine, splintering messy through my roots up and out from

the underground...well fuck you. i want to watch the daisy grow,

and carry her unchained, for a change, to drink from a blue glass glow

pausing to say hello to morning sun, rather then chew her root while i

lay beneath the earth. together we will watch the leaves gem,

and slumber into now...until i forget everyfuckingthing i've ever known...

ollyollyoxenfree.

7 mins & a caffiene buzz'd notebook belch...

i keep thinking i should know what all the things that have led up until now should mean.

the chilled night i answered the phone, but perhaps more so the time i took to relish the
message left before hello. talk of an old painted man and a quietly graceful woman rocking on a breezy twilight porch with silver hair to rival the moon. chimes pinging the tale of a his and herstory.
the beginning, the stutter, the steps needed to make international miles melt, the pennies thrown at corporation to make it possible. the audience of real kin murmuring and cheering on an impossible but
necessary union in the background, knit to a family tree where the colors breathe like
dragons giggling smoke and ash, where no DNA made it so, and so made it strongest.
the very year that bore me, the few following that spit him, hundreds of miles or kilometers or whatever apart, depending on your perch on the compass.
had we roamed in petticoats and spurs, there never would have been a door...maybe.
maybe smoke signals would have lent scent to a passing hawk to deliver the ghost of charred maple
and birch, to circle his head and flood his eyes. the acrid sting climbing his nostrils and settling down for a nap in his senses.
in a simpler time we may have brushed that wisp aside like a persistent gnat. called it voodoo, witchcraft, and i and my auburn waves would have gladly laughed terribly in the mouth of sanitizing flame, tethered my wrists willingly because i know now, and knew than, the very best part of me transcends flesh and hue.
yes, i would have opened my jaws to the devils kiss and claimed his forked tongue between my teeth and oh, the merriment in my eyes would have branded into the souls of every god fearing spectator at this heretics glee....yes.
just to sleep in the knowledge that it is only ever time.
to burn for the boy whose ocean eyes could temper my ever angry flame.
perhaps he carved the window in the ether with the sharp wit pulled from the satchel of hope at his side,
perhaps i crafted the sill from dust of memory and hurts and the love of maybe tomorrow.
would it be that we both wove cosmos for a crystal net hung just so, to soften the inevitable fall. whether the intricate twinkle lit by gaslight flicker, or an amber electric hum, the story plays out the same;
not for this lifetime, but perhaps the next one...until then the devil takes his bow.

click; some sentences

hopped wooden fences.
dodged the crazy fucking bull.
we were walking through field grasses.
( I found antlers, weilded them well )
the whip was brutal but i liked the sting, can't say shit like that out loud though.
apples under foot smelt almost like rotted flesh before it falls from the bone.
no blood ties left to hone.
we tripped light over remains of more than just a day or afternoon or even the echo of a thought.
northern lights walking.
wild horses talk talking.
no clothes no shame no memory even of what that should have been.
sleepwalking with eyes open.
those berries weren't for eating, purple prose born in innocent fingers, because why not?
its easy when you don't know.
i called thunder.
i rode lightening.
i sang both.
i lasso'd Mary's moon before George ever had the thought..

'buffalo girls won't you come out tonight, won't you come out tonight...and dance by the light of the moon.'
the moon lied sweets.
when i was tripping under gnarled branches, the beam slapped me.
blossoms browned and curled into wet earth.
my feet sucked in enough to dip into hell, fortold;
pretty things writhe.
ugly things speak.
daddy's move out.
mama's drink and dance in the green kitchen.
the woodstove pumps pockets of heat.
stones wrapped in newspaper warm cold beds.
oatmeal is stickyeasyyesteryearhappy.
(don't eat that anymore)
school buses make me sleepy.
puppies smell good.
i know some things.
i know some things.
click....
rewind...