December 2011
1 post
Etc.’s dartboard (for Barrett Johnston)
I hear you humming
childrens’ cartoon themes
A ghost is born x-ing out
calendar days
Here, though, pages flipping back
in a reverse uncoil
time pressing trees back into soil
Evening slips loose its daylight robe
golden descending
February littered still with firs
A glad man singing in holiday light
sad & popular songs
over dropped mating calls
Temptations crashing, falling hammers...
July 2011
2 posts
Raining in Westerly (a respite for Sisyphus)
smith intersects johnston atop beacon hill
thirsty with an eyepatch and a $10 bill
diagrammed a solar system
on a tavern napkin
the axis is slipping
bodies in limbo
hearts and limbs akimbo
Sisyphus on a speedtrain
his futility reprieved,
meditations a blur
summer showers
an outdoor ampitheatre
stuck in a honeycomb
your time worn teddybear
and a melting ice cream cone
dimly...
Tuesday Weekend
~”The devil is in the details”~
opening line, monologues
all end as a howl
dress rehearsals, laundromat
spin cycles; on a turntable, the Faces
smiling actress, the braking trains
screeching deserters’ names
the buzz before it slips into its groove
Tuesday weekend
almost independence day
this will be our year
the arc of infatuation
crimson and clover, chardonnay...
December 2010
1 post
Midnight DayDreams, Late Nov 2KX
The tunnels rumbling below
shake & rattle today’s pay
Pagan angels, Christmas shoppers
toss nickels & quarters our way
on the sunwashed Broome St I play
in a sidewalk brother bluegrass duo
the snare and vocals are mine
backed by our father’s passed-down banjo
sons of the steel valley, every
one & thing split by rivers
patient lovers construct bridges
with the...
October 2010
1 post
June 2010
1 post
The Leonard Cohen Baths
The 10 most popular names for girls, based upon Social Security Administration statistics as of May 2010:
1. Emma
2. Isabella
3. Emily
4. Madison
5. Ava
6. Olivia
7. Sophia
8. Abigail
9. Elizabeth
10. Chloe
…..
Stabbed last night in the guts
Barefoot in a suit colored smoke
Dropping your blue bodega tulips
And awaking with hands clenching
An unscathed midriff, unable to speak
...
May 2010
3 posts
GONZO, Broadway (birthday bleeds into the edit)
a narrative in verse,
memoir fractured & reset like bone,
but twisted
Broadway, the artery of an island
the length of the hypotenuse is
approximately the same as the
geometric volume of my desires
swelling within
valentine hangovers
metronome hearts frozen midbeat
a generation in pre-spring restlessness
I’m named for a saint
I’ve been told I resemble that
desert...
Unemployment Blues
the samson reversal..short & sparse & animal..i have not yet begun saving for my million dollar funeral
stability, thy name is untitled
hold fast to the mantra in ‘the orchids’
the weightless charge of sparks
creates the rouge stars of
a streetlight consumed sky
drink deep the light, daybreak stability
breathe your fears into my mane
rest your head upon my palpitations
stormchaser, shapeshifter
in and out of tune
certain songs, they get so scratched
iinto our souls, goes the line
spin the black circle,...
March 2010
1 post
Chaos/Nasher/A Friday'd Morn in Pieces
They just don’t censor like they used to…
Scuffed stories & cartoonish states of mind
my shoes fray & my head wavers
rEST
transparent charity
cylindrical chambers
splintered museums
Created space, the drawn room
stars align to question
misspelled flags unfurled
misspelled constellations
scribbled patterns of humanity
scanned
artistic overcoats
At some point everyone...
January 2010
1 post
All Untitled Saints
east village cathedral steps
snapshot cigarette break
parked between safecrack fingers
smoke curls, skyward swirling, a cyclone smell
of metropolitan transit steel stained fingers,
and communion inside
east river firebreather dusk
tilting slowly towards terror twilight
and further into the violet hour, a palette
of sky harboring silver nimbus
All Saint’s Day & homeward bound...
December 2009
10 posts
Durham, etc. Blues [pt. 23b]...
(b)
Durham, I’ve become
an alumnus of your orbit.
If only I could gather
my fellow passengers, memories
and monuments, massive nights,
erected and intact,
into a bindle and label it
etc
Durham, I promise you that,
when I revisit intermittently,
I’ll be sure to supply the
punctuation.
Durham, etc. Blues [pt. 23a] (some farewells come...
23(a)
I’m not sure.
Maybe it was the words of a playwright
whose lips I’ll never intersect.
Or the epitaphs struck on headstones
in the parking lot cemetery.
But my present situation, a triumvirate
of the was, here and now, and the unknown,
has finally learned how to strike the
hidden chord within me, wishbone brittle.
For a week here I’ve lingered,
a vacant rambling coda...
Durham, etc. Blues [pt. 22] (variations of...
22
Playful reminiscence.
In the fall
of 2006 the Avalanche
nearly overtook me.
Innocence must be like some sort
of vacation; it wouldn’t exist if
there wasn’t something a little more bleak
on the other side.
In a parking lot, midnight,
a knife was sure to donate
harsh gravity to me.
Some 20 months later, giver or take,
the final...
Durham, etc. Blues [pt. 21] (circling back around...
21
Eunoia, capturing mounds of
visions in the net of 5
simple vowels
you’re found fumbling
again with yet another
morning hangover in a dress,
and the perpetual search for skin
to graft with the sun invading
through those same blinds
that can’t seem to muffle
the carried echoes of cheerleaders
stranded somewhere in a field.
...
Durham, etc. Blues [pt. 20] (flood)
20
Unfamiliar with his own exhaustion,
the nocturnal one burrows
into a cocoon of fresh laundry.
He kicks, like a dog gently in dream,
with the drumtap of a fetus.
While misguided skeptics lash themselves
to the wires of the phantom box
and burrow themselves into a
network of boorish anonymity.
Narrow halls in a crypt
the floors are gathering water!
Durham’s drought in reverse!...
Durham, etc. Blues [pt. 19] (debris, imitation)
19
awakening,
she replays you her nightmare
discovering,
I find another set of bare-
bones blueprints, burnt
to cinders
unwrapping,
the day light unveils yet
another gate slammed shut
decomposing,
scribbling ammunition verse
in a McDonald’s booth sipping tea
...
Durham, etc. Blues [pt. 18] (restless, peaceful...
18
in an abstract lullaby, a
bed in slumbering
moonlite, eyes blast
open in panic from
a 3 AM (awakening,
the #’s are a blurrrr)
wakeup (dis-
tress) call
NO OXYGEN
a quick scan reveals
the brown-skinned
forearm of your lover...
Durham, etc. Blues [pt. 17] (dreamscape, unlit...
17
& in the dream
the big top sat atop that
courthouse downtown where
I was exonerated.
Tumblers & trapeezemen adorn
paper plate masks of
preschool doodlings.
Lions, elephants, tigers
all slightly askew.
This man in a red unitard
pulled me aside and handed
me a sparkler.
...
November 2009
13 posts
Durham, etc. Blues [pt. 16] (transformations,...
16
He was a prisoner to his follicles
a Samson hoisted blindly into
the light cutting through the vines
of a maze of beards and bards
You transformed with the Equinox
blooming in reverse amidst a
season of electricity
Shaving away one’s shield
your internalized metaphor
develops into a foil balloon
seeping helium, the voice of
your detractors scaling higher and piercing.
...
Durham, etc. Blues [pt. 15] (bleak awakenings)
15
Picked up today’s paper, read bout some guy
Struggling on his last legs, ready to die
Was given a dead man’s heart
Was granted a fresh restart
Blessed with a second life
He acquired the dead man’s wife
Masqueraded for a dozen years or so
An eerie replacement for a widow
But
to be transplanted to ‘nother world
its burdens inevitably unfurled...
Durham, etc. Blues [pt. 14] (always in love in...
14
alone in abduction dark
couldn’t fall asleep without thinking
of that woman in that flick, pulling
spears from her ravaged torso.
Dreamt of the arm of another
blanketed over my torso
In this same shadow’d room
In this same oceanic bed
In spite of her lack of identity
I...
Durham, etc. Blues [pt. 13] (ceilings and mirages)
13
“given the choice between grief and nothing,
I’d take grief”
~William Faulkner
Subtracting the grief,
elation, defeat,
greed, sexual tension
knowledge love lies
Swan diving into
nothing. Cannonball through
a futon, splashes of vacancy
in a pristine mirage.
Spring break. broke
I sleep. alone
Ruminate in the produce section. alone
...
Durham, etc. Blues [pt. 12] (doubts and...
12
Who am I trying to be with an open
collection of Buddhist scriptures tossed upon a makeshift
Ottoman? I enjoy pondering the possible side effects
of the perpetual logjam of personae I employ.
Oh, I am fully aware of my
doppelganger, ax-wielding, envious, and
perched just beyond this thin...
Durham, etc. Blues [pt. 11] (solitude and solace,...
11
Interstate 40 races by pitching a cold
March wind into my face as I’m strapped
to the backseat of a Chrysler convertible.
Muzzled with breeze I can only hear
intermediate words from the front seats where
driver and passenger, awkward pilgrims, yet
eerily parallel.
To the airport, then to polar opposites
of the country. I’m only there to drive the car...
Durham, etc. Blues [pt. 10] (attempted fissions...
10
Puerto Rican preaching some new hypocrisy called anti love
Anti love being a term coined in my inner circle of Delirious Underground Literati
Anti love, pillage and outrun the overtaking rush of dawn
No shame in accepting spectral lovers
No doom impending when one hides their buxom baggage behind security lampposts
A deadweight martyring for a peephole into my ecstasy
...
Durham, etc. Blues [pt. 9] (farewells mustn't...
9
snaking down supermarket
aisles, a line of tonguetied Cyranos
with their valentine wishes hung from
disregarded stars, each one impatiently
drumming finger-
tips on denim.
Posies, baby’s breath,
every shade of rose
Florist-wrapped bouquets
capture fleeting whispers of Eros.
The price for a few meaningful
words...
Durham, etc. Blues [pt. 8] (forever ago, in words...
8
Sartre once said
“words are loaded
pistols”
but what artillery did
she arm you with?
Courtney saunters to your bed
and deploys her loaded digression:
The plight of lesbians
and the unemployed
the ethics of vampires and
cannibals where did you
get that chair from what’s
the exact...
Durham, etc. Blues [pt. 7] (odes can have...
7 (interlude)
cartoon world
a face unseen
a crowded nightclub
supposed mirage raptors
& empirical sorcerers
the streets erupt into shambles
sudden exile to mountains
a scorned companion
red-headed ex
tramping serenely
a flooded football field
death becomes me
a falling Chrysler
...
Durham, etc. Blues [pt. 6] (a pendulum longing...
6
& she was a firefly
that flickr’d in my room
for a time
& oblique, I stand out
a woolly charmer
a neon swimmer
through cigarette smoke her
words tether me
to this bar,
from her eyes the
glimmer, her lips,
the warmth. she’s like
the heat from the back
of an old television...
Durham, etc. Blues [pt. 5] (the misunderstanding...
5
Had someone ask me what
exactly the durham blues were.
I tell em, Mexico City,
Durham ain’t, and I can’t
bebop like Jack.
The durham blues are like
languid tremors captured in a typewriter
there’s a hellhound in my ink.
We’re a Main St. chorale
in the mouth not of a watering
hole but an oasis
The durham blues personify
the warring anxiety &...
Durham, etc. Blues [pt. 4] (the cold earth is my...
4
Cold corn dogs &
strawberry milk. Trading
nicknames, little boo, with the
5th graders in the cafeteria.
Puffing cigarettes
in the rain, an orange spark
in gunmetal grey.
The delivery guys crack dirty jokes outside their truck
Mexicans murmur indecipherably at the bus stop.
The air, musty, heavy, but
my nose...
October 2009
9 posts
Durham, etc. Blues [pt. 3] (finally in north...
3
Full-bellied steel mammoth
It’s almost surgical the way
you cut through this late seasonal fog
The leather of her purse feels cool
pressed against my arm Fake gold
snaps will leave imprints in my palm
With every bump and turn the
uncomfortable friction increases and her
awkward smile evolves
did you hear about I can’t
believe that she I am so...
Durham, etc. Blues [part 2] (inching closer to the...
2
When the answers you
anticipate greet you skewed, \
do what any loving father
would do…
Turning up the Sam Cooke doesn’t
quell the crashing
What a wonderful world
this would be, indeed
with splinter’d ceramic
burrow’d in carpeting, remnants of
coffee mugs.
A table setting...
Durham, etc. Blues (epic, odd ending to an urban...
Durham, etc. Blues
1
& on the 1st line is scribbled
the words “durham blues, 2008”
as no lament, but the
passing and arrival of
horizons old & new
Blues to capture the sounds
of this new year’s afterbirth.
The clinks and clanks of
counterfeit crystal
The trembling bubbling over
of bong-water & a
hissssssssssssss
of smoke escaping
into the welcoming womb
of January....
Nocturnal Orphans (first forays into narcotic...
Nocturnal Orphans
Centimeter slices of sunlight
inching across a frayed gray rug.
Blurred pupils, eyes half-pried.
(& I never really knew
how to describe their color.)
Mother, look at your baby boy,
your pride and joy, arising from a bed of
scattered pine needles and oceanic blue sheets
in a dress of matching hue.
I wonder,
there must be some
...
A Look Into Current Inspirations & Mutterings
“What everybody’s looking for. The ever-unattainable but absolutely there part of life that’s slightly out of your fingertips, slightly shaded in the dark somewhere. But within, it contains all the essences and raw physical vitality and blood and bone and sweat of living. It’s the thing that makes it all worth it at the end of the day, even if you just get the tip of your...
Scattered Senryu/Sporadic Spring (scattershot...
Scattered Senryu/Sporadic Spring
Pining for the spruces
beyond the window
from my chair in recline.
A lush green campus
students painted
in April brushstrokes.
Blazer’d man
babbling on about
doubting the world.
I could never
doubt God’s green hair
beneath my feet.
An equation
in chalk set to
prove/disprove God.
Scribbling down
a list of ‘pops’
in a time of no bop....
Harrison Asphalt (abstract summers, electrical...
Harrison Asphalt.
On firefly evenings he dresses himself in a suit of oncoming headlights.
Radio songs hum, a sprawling American lunar landscape, spooky he wanders.
The S.S. Snowbird washed ashore, abandoned & pirated by a gang quiet and lost in a haze.
Like a tomb, the moon is wailing silently and blanketing essence on Thompson’s junkyard shimmering.
Sylvan’s swimming pool is...
Soundview (we're going to go in reverse...
SOUNDVIEW
Where is home, you ask?
in red eyes, camouflaged by sunglasses, taking refuge
in want ads littered with prayers Thanks be to the saints!
and did my morning coffee just toss a wink at me?
in the trains birthed from metro-tunnels like earthworms
emerging from thunderstorms
awashed in an august dusk that hugs the tenement buildings
and So. Bronx steeples.
in the extinction of...
National Record Store Day (it all begins here)
National Record Store Day
(a celebration of substance and sustenance)
times square scribe in digital age lawn furniture
a constant captured background photograph phantom
slow pitch penning a story lacking its end
harvest moon midnight high
rooftop champagne flow
rainbow luminaries
Italian exposure Irish blessing
vampiring again throughout 4AM schemes
arm in sling, switch-hitting...