Ready, Set, Go

Race against time
or something less abstract.
The decay to wisdom so
driven by the path.
The lap time varying
individually.
All striving to break
the personal best.

Race to satisfaction.
After the tape is torn,
rest , of course,
but when will the next gun
go off? How many green
flags will fly before
the white cloth is fluttered
before the onslaught? What then?

Race to death
Full tilt forward to erase
any trace of achievement,
personal, communal, universal,
the trophy case passed by
a million times
but never noticed by the eyes
focused solely on their own prizes.

Room (With or Without)

The Renaissance Masters
wielding hammers
flaunting brushstrokes
penning ideas with
a ferocity that has impressed
from then on,

Room to be sat in
Have been sat in
Leaving the talk floating,

Today, is not that time,
this week’s chart topper
out did by next week’s
release. The New York
Times keeping track of
what the public can stand
the most. Bootleg DVD’s
too expensive, anyway,

stale, undesirable to those,
not involved, not accepted,
or have moved on, unable,
unwilling, unaccustomed
to the thin stickiness of it all.

Rainy Day

Always walking in
Beat red by rays

Bursting seams in
Technicolor flow

Drains to dips in the floor
Mishmash brown

Runny rainbow
Never walking out

Soaking in carpet
Reappears only
with applied pressure

Decayed fabric matted
Fine toothed mites

Losing their way
In the fray

Sitting With Kenneth, Alone

“I smell heartbreak up there,
Jack.” He told me once, through
the melancholy. I was speechless

for a long time, looking over
the houses as they came and went,
the towers on the triangle, up, down,

up, down like the sun. “Heartbreak
at the center of things.” The trumpet
player stops to inhale. The silence

tore his mind in half, as immeasurable
seconds flooded the emptiness left there.
His eyes still sharp as the stars

in the country yards where children
kicked half inflated rubber balls when
he was young, before speed and steel

built themselves up, around the bench
Life sat on to catch its breath, aware
but not prepared for the next stage of

its journey, grabbing a newspaper
before it blew out of reach, laying
on wooden blanks, the night dropped

below freezing. The concrete never cracked,
the tiers never dropped, the glass shook
in the frame from the atmospheric wind, but never

splintered, eyes looked out, down, as far
as they could, to see the tops of dusty heads
they left below, and laughed with so much moisture

to find they couldn’t see them
from such stark angles. The birds found shelter
on the staggered roofs. Those dwelling

inside read articles of poverty, glanced over
snap shots of war, straightened their ties, and
drank spiked coffees, tossed all their paper

money out into the updraft, just imagining
the dirty faces clawing over each other
to grab at bills as they came feathering down,

so many miles away. Back on the bridge strut,
I heard him sit up, saying, maybe to me, maybe
the river beneath, or the houses on the hill, or

to heaven, or himself, “And show you far worse
things than your father sees.” The sun cresting
eternally along the ever shifting horizon,

I too covered my eyes with my hands,
“And show you all the things
far worse than your father sees, Willy.”

Scene, Not Heard (Bwahahaha!)

Teach these cats how to vocalize. Then let’s
localize, and begin. Because sin is tired
of taking it on the chin! Get up and win,

if so, do it again. Veils thin out the ranks
to see who’s truly strongest. Honestly flaunted,
ain’t nothing but contrived constants. So let’s

bond it with unconscious thought and show it
off to an audience whom we can tell what to want.

Deconstruction

The town was left abandoned
Destined for greatness at the turn
of the century, the houses still stand.

Still sturdy in the simplicity
of honest construction.
Grass growing tall in the concrete

Enclosed yards, the perimeters
dismantled by the roots, gaining
voices, heard. The moss

restless, the deteriorating
porches, doing away with the spray
painted, hand woven furniture, quickly

for the comfort of a cushioned softness.

Emptiness

He sits, in the silence of the technology
and passersby, uneasy. Who are these people
moving around him, talking to ghosts on
the other end of the world? How can they be
so content with this cluttered spaciousness?
So pleased with everything that fills it?

Then, he thought, as his mind tends to
in moments like this, why could he not
bring himself to overcome this fear
of terminal collapse, the terror of any moment,
any arrant blink, or half minded decision,
being the difference between tomorrow
and the ultimate knowledge of the universe?

Job Description

She spilled her plant, potted,
in the lobby, suddenly my responsibility
turns from asking obvious questions
to those a full blown botanist. Logically,
it’s all our fault, and thusly, our
problem to be taken care of. Duh.
After all, we are on the clock,
and like police officers, our job
entails only everything the tax
paying public asks of us.

Image, Ho!

Subject matter scant,
disconnected, disproportionate,
disputable at best, rolling
around in the lung choking dust
of disposition, digging deeper
toward that undiscovered, as yet,
something, surly it's definite,
defined. In the distance, an image!
Holy handlebars, it’s an image!
Let’s take a look.

Hosanna In The Highest

Somewhere, someone
is laughing
Praise
be to the glory
of god

Someone is laughing
somewhere,
with old friends
Praise be to
the glory of god

Old friends, somewhere,
are laughing
Praise be
to the glory of
god

Laughing old
friends are
somewhere
Praise be to the
glory of god

Praise be to the
somewhere of old
friends laughing
in the glory of god

Good day to you sir!

Beauty Personified

The eyes play tricks in the mind’s
moment of avid readjustment.
Weary rods meet mischievous cones

for a late night light show, while everything
else is trying to tidy up, dust the cob

webs from the gears, to get back to work.
The majesty of moving shadows, so long
and short stories moving over the surely

historic brick. The gradient sphere streaming
from the street lamp, a thousand desert suns,

wind moving debris over the dense, solidified sand,
the decadence of the hour, so adventurously devastating,
dosed on the offbeat, twice daily. Delaying, she fixed

her high heeled shoe and continued
on her staggered way. A cop saw

the whole thing but declined the opportunity to make
quota by acknowledging that particular, ticketable
incident for a woman stumbling around without a ring.

In the distance, there are morning birds singing, alarm
clocks bringing a new day into being. A truly fresh beginning.

Beauty personifying possibility by disguising the repetition.

Sunday, Laundry Sunday

Sheets stained, tossed floorways
never to be changed, read over, thought
about again, as the rush to ruin more

drags wallets through the machine
in linten pockets of dusty denim, mashed
up and pulpy, to be found, carefully

unwrapped, only to be discarded from
frustration, along with the piles
of perfectly readable pages.