Collections

Writings on the Shithouse Wall
Duology: Good Time Gals Bad Time Boys
Haikus: 366
Everything: Indexed

ramble

The time has come for me to ramble.
Making every step a sort of gamble.
Crossing paths and making ways,
Cutting ties and sinking quays.

No homefires burn for my kind
Those who leave our hearths behind.
Forever hungry for what we seek
Swimming strong and stilling weak.

I evade an existential unease
With bowed heaed and bending knees.
But not to country, land or time.
I pledge instead to new ardors climbed

Trading stability for tranqulity
We shed our pasts like shed motility
We resist our tap roots sinking down
We find new nutrients on foreign ground.

Since I am drawn to die alone,
give me a death of unreknown.
No one please remember my name,
Someone else can take the blame.

Golden

I love golden showers
and I have a vested interest
in seeing the kink normalized.
So, I will write a reflexive ode to it
and sing its praises.

Zeus started it.
He used golden showers
to impregnate
a buried woman.

Think about that.
Think about how that’s stood the test of time.
Then, think of that heavenly ambrosia,
that stuff of legends,
gunneling down your partner -
painting their marbled torso,
etching abs and curves,
sliding downward with
a pungent warmth.

Think about what it is like
to kneel at the feet
of your god or goddess
and receive.

Zeus started it.
Golden showers,
Preserved in folk tales
of the people who
perfected the orgy
and were idolized by Germans.

Abrasive

We used to value grit.
It served a coarse purpose
In the hands of the maker.
It built bureaus and cut curios
and wore away the excess of elephants,
revealing only the polished products
creating something
by removing everything unwanted.

Of course, we valued grit.
It takes a rough hand
to move mountains
and to clear forests.

There is a certain destruction in creation.
A time to be as loud as a blasting cap.
A time to bite like the edge of an axe.
A time to split the core and get to the heart.

We selectively sheer the accumulated layers
Wood and stone,
Blood and bone,
House and home.

We will always need grit
when it comes to the finishing.
That pernicious insidious scraping
The stubborn scouring of the surface
Until all that remains is someone’s conception,
who saw something beautiful and useful
and set to work destroying.

Orchid

You remind me of my mother
who planted long rows of delicate flowers,
using only her hands and her coping mechanisms.
Every hole troweled with the fury of promises yet fulfilled
and seeds sown with deliberate, calloused hands.

She too could make anything grow.
No matter how hard the soil.
How acidic the water.
How unbalanced the bases.
She possessed an aspect of Gaia.
for she could bring new life to barren soil.

She had a greenhouse
lush with strange fauna
not fit for our respective climate.
She conserved an orchid.
Her mists fell like tears
and the stubborn bulbs flourished.

You remind of my mother
For you make me grow no matter what the climate
Even in the frigid months
When other flowers perish
I am shaped by your bell jar
Safe in possessive glass.

Mourning

Mourning

Eos, you cognate of the dawn.
Each history had a word for you.
For you leathered the face of every priest.
You energized every holy land.
You illuminated all our prayers.

Why do we no longer write poems in your honor?
How have you become some post modern cliche?
You built our language as sure as our pyramids.
Should we not pay homage? Should we not worship you still?

You’ve been replaced by petty deities.
Human kings divined of flesh.
No wonder we darken the skies to hide from you.
Little wonder you wax scorching, inhospitable.

Everything Indexed

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A

A Poem About Beauty
A Song of My Self
A Visit from St. Atticus
A Walk through the Garden
abcs
Abracadabra
Abrasive
America May 2020

B

Baby Boomer
Bad Time Boys
Be My Therapist
Because I Can
Bowflex
Burn it all down

C

Calla
Cats
Coming for Us All
Consent to Let Go
Creator of Worlds

E

Ecuadorian Dream House
Exegesis

F

Fatten the Curve
Forty Two Poems

G

Golden
Good Time Gals

H

Haikus From the Coal Region
Halloweened
Helios and the Local Colours
Her
Hey, fuck up

I

I Am a Bicycle in the Rain
I Break
I Left It All Behind
I Love You, Mom
I Prefer the Sea Days
I Remember Cape Canaveral
I'm Already Packed
I'm out
In the Mountains Oblivion
Island Gaze

L

Lady Libertine
Landmark Erosion
Love Sucks
Lover's Tanka
Lsd in the Afternoon
Luminescence, Cinnamon, Fire, Juniper, Piano

M

Model
Mother Earth
Mother Issues
Mourning
My Ass Is Full of Stars

O

Ode to a Dangling Sword
On Isolation
Orchid

P

Potential
Push and let go

Q

Quarantine Day 39

R

ramble
Rather
Remember

S

Sanctity of Morning
Satre Causes Nausea
Shades
Shelf Full of Dick
Smoke
Staten Island Mating Call
Stop

T

Thank You, Mitch McConnell
The Mistake of Enlightenment
The Northern Lights and a Dead Moose
The NSA took the Imam away
The Perfect Moment
The Philosopher's Stone
This One is for the English Majors
Thoughts on a Fire
Three
Tulla

W

We Fuck Stone
What a glorious day to be alive
When You are Stoned
Whiskey Kiss
Will Song