Everywhere

People read poetry every motherfucking day
they don’t see it ‘cause its always in the way
Advertisements are
poetry
text messages from your wife
poetry
the tape on the roadsigns
poetry
the shape of a coastline
poetry
next lesson you learn in life
poetry
smith and wesson and a knife
poetry
even mistakes of mine are
poetry

for God’s sakes poetry dies at doomsday and no earlier

Full Moon

A full moon suicide
a boon for the few girls I’d ride
and overstay my welcome
while they mentally plan
for the times after me
disastrous catastrophes

no strophes
could release me
from the disease ridden empties
trophies
relentlessly tempting me
hopelessly

Justice

Nobody writes acrostics anymore
Obviously they're annoying and poor
Bloated and cloying and stupid and sore
Objectively worthless and scores upon scores of
Dog-dead acrostics, compiled and left to expire
Yielding ashes in the wilds of library fires

Writhing and smoking like chimneys or tires
Ripping and rippling and rasping smoke higher
Into the atmosphere, dithering, dissipating
Tithing and withering, falling on unanticipating
Editors and forgettors of verses lost to our poor forms
Stupid and bloated and cloying and annoying and worthless and sore

Actually I'm rather beginning to like this
Call me a liar but I think I could write this
Resurrect a whole form through my pen
Or maybe not. But I won't tell you when
Suppose acrostics fade to black then finally end
Time to bring it back, like a grade-school friend
Inspiration and in the day it made you grin
Contemplation make you feel that gooseskin
Suppose you never read acrostics ever again?

Professor

“Professor” holds such weighty connotations:
Professional prose profferer,
profile of prolixity,
proveditor of verbiage
for a
paedarchy of privileged pupils

Intertext

Whatever sound I set
it signifies something
tugging at my heartstrings
getting my blood pumping

a little text
nimbly prepared sets
of finger pecks
characters from whereabouts unknown

I pray that they’re hers but I haven’t yet checked my phone

Apply Within

For this position

the best applicants are animals
cannibals who handle well
vandals on orangutan swells
sandals clad in carcasses and shells

We accept resumes

written in a foreign tongue
fought and wrought and slowly sung
bought and fraught with lowly rungs
like ladders matter to the young

Joblessness among black male youth

reached 35 percent
government subsidence
victims innocence
missing like this month’s rent

money spent

Citron Clouds

The clouds were eerily orange all night
despite the insistent bluewhite
of moonlight

there is always orange and purple
rummaging among the clouds
however, at the height of citrus season

the oranges marinate,
saturate their
moist brethren with a citron glow

unmistakable this time
winter:
apricot,
auburn,
bronze,
carrot,
coral,
Dancy,
electric,
Fanta,
ginger,
Hyssop,
Iyokan,
Kinnow,
lemon,
lime,
Mandarin,
Meyer
Nandina,
orange,
peach,
pumpkin,
Rangpur,
salmon,
sandy,

and finally

Tangerine.

Prison

secret infidel hedonism
breeding isn’t even
on my mind but reading is

seeding this vixen
eyes unwinding my mission
comepletionism,

Christmas.

Love.

and fucking

Prison Systems.

Success

Is it sexist
that successes
are measured in
such excesses?

No Accident

I know that that
“I love you”
was no accident
or force of habit.

but what of love
hidden under sewer grates
and flown tied onto ankles
of carrier pigeons?

love like blades
lurking beneath cloudy water
ready to butterfly
those who dare wash up

this love or less
more or less
painful than before
a dutiful, beautiful mess.

Ice Cream Cone

A softserve cone
swirl
half-anger, half-denial
sprinkles of shock
and after it goes down
smooth and creamy
lactose-intolerance
acid-reflux

the hearth in my chest
cannot be fed with sugar
and the kindling is screaming
as the fire dies down

Paradiso

while i was reading paradise lost
i came across adam and eve
so i imagined you as eve and me
as adam and we were
beautiful like apples

it just so happens
when you think everything is lost
you come across someone to believe
so i imagined you as eve and me
as adam and we were
beautiful like sanguine pomegranates

i could never take for granted
the comfort of being lost in your sleeve
with a cross of arms around my back like eve
so i imagined you and me
could have our own garden
beautiful like apples

Something

Something splendid in this night
butterfly nostalgia and pretending
we aren’t still teenagers

I haven’t worked these fingers
in too long, not like this
not wrenching them inside my chest

How is it that my words
continue to come out of your mouth?
I haven’t heard sweet in savoury

in too long

For Sylvia

petal by petal, we sheave our lies into the wind like falling cherry blossoms
or plane crashes while the insects and the frogs vette our plans for signs of
the inaccuracy and doubt which is the hallmark of our species
the infamy of humanity will eventually also fade
like kites caught in tree branches,
forgotten by the moonlit hawks and dreary beetles

Pain Perdu

I counted my chickens before they hatched and
damn if I didn’t get less than half a chick

foul foolish poultry
moldy poetry

what did I do wrong in this instance?
I can barely forgive my mischievous instincts
this stinks

I can't think of anyone else
my pain piles up like cookbooks on a shelf

Uncontainable Butterflies

Uncontainable butterflies
I shudder when I
feel them pressing, pleading my skin like
a balloon’s helium
a feeling then like
ignited cotton
the exact opposite of rotten

Bilge

How can you be so bold as to define my rights?
While you send children to refined fistfights
my sleepless nights are filled with informercials:

But the only commercial prospect for me as a consumer, see:
Is abrogating the very concept of me as opportunity

Is advocating in every aspect the puny rumors

That we are collapsing under the weight of our own tumors.

That we are redacting the facts that could soon cure us.

That we are backtaxing the lax and the clueless

The rich that spit filth into greed-pumped sewers.

Well, I'm through with it.

Possibilities

just for one day,
if i could leave this awful loaf of meat

i would become a thousand things
the leaves on trees and kids on swings
i would be the flowers the delivery man brings
empowered by the freedom newly found in me
i could be the sunset, i could be the breeze

i could be the palimpsest for all of earthly history

i would become the housewife fucking lividly
the woody panel for an artist painting vividly
the brushes and the solvents and the pigments could be me
i could be the air that dries, the easel onto which it leans

i could be the man that cries, his fortunes lost on lotteries
i could be a helpless child, born doomed to deaths disease
the wild underbrush of prairies that few men have seen
the udders of a dairy cow whos milk is turned to cheddar cheese

A conniseur whos palate can distinguish one trillion tastes
and i could be each one, if my soul would just make haste
and leave this awful loaf of meat we call the human race

Mutiny

theres a new fine rising on the horizon
a fee for living in a time of uprising

not that new tax is surprising
but why do police have the right to start fining?

if i held out a gun and said pay up or die
id be tried for extortion, id be demonized

yet we accept laws, the collective lies
that our rights exist for other men to deny

we are but a nation of beggars
pleading for freedom while lady liberty pegs us

im hoarse from the anger, plagued by frustration
of course im no stranger to tv and radio stations

propagandas a gamble but if we read and believe it
this land isnt meant for us, lets get up and leave it

lets give up our arms and wave flags of surrender
return america to its original lender

melt down the badges and level the towers
id rather see prairies than masses of cowards

if that sounds scary, and fills you with terror
remember the power you signed off on in error

white men with muskets and manifest destiny
divested this land through conquest and lechery

Old Chub

The fine line between fun and destruction
a function of why equals ex squared consumption
exponential combustion of liver corpuscles
dilated blood vessels, water drained muscles
my wine vessel, a vassal in my vast empire
my last camp fire, fuel for a funeral pyre

I Yearn for a Life Full of Objects

objects do not object to your whims
objects cannot get up and walk away
like people can

objects yield their secrets with time
and can be reverse engineered
better than any man

obviously objectified,
obsequious objects
secreted away in Tupperware caskets

My own private audience
of gift bags, baskets, and wrapping paper:
a life lived objectively

Time Marches

january, in spanish they call it enero
time to start thinking about this years dinero

february is all about cupids arrow
love between the doves and the sparrows

march reminds me how time marches on
april im blazin weed til its all gone

may i may be choppin the first crop
june is when my lovers birthday drops

july blasts off all the mexican fireworks
august california discovers how wildfires work

september is a month to remember
the beginning of fall, the first hint of winter

october celebrates black cats and a witch
november is when derek has to sew on one more stitch

december makes me sad because another year is gone

even between christmas and new years
time marches on

Depression

Depression,
economic recession,
unanswered questions and
freshman politicians second guessing
the essence of american professions
professional liars in the service of
secret senate sessions seven fourty seven jets

jettin,
this is my depression.

University

why does the university charge a fee
information is free in the library
i repeat, i need no receipt
to manufacture lies and propagate deceit

i burned the bootstraps off my own feet
fall like icarus through clouds of elite
liars, living in ivory spires
conspiring commercial desires

stoking the embers of industry's fires
members of congress are industry hired
im sick and tired of being alive all
for the sake of serving a sire's survival

i cannot strive to fulfill the dreams
implanted in me by a scheme - hypocrisy
left with the belief that democracy
worthless than leaves or a pack of seeds

so plant each one you have carefully
grow them as tall as the police building

Advisors

what upsets me about the whole thing
is there's a reccomendation at each stage
but each stage is the curtains, growing more ragged
shutting out each window
smaller, and smaller,
and as all the advice fades into the future we used to imagine
that last window shuts, forever locking us alone
from all those advisors

Ice Plant

hidden behind
stacks of detritus
Fall cleaning
revealing her

vermillion mane
like a clandestine
Poison-ivy Rapunzel

Glistening green
dances between my fingers
turbid and bursting with wetness

with only a pinch
Her fertility multiplied
thousandfold

Utter Revulsion

life is fact-based fiction
so foster your fast-paced addiction
while you're still on this mission
cause even dead president Nixon
couldn't see death coming
they done fixed the election 100 years running

words are utter revulsion
so please poison your wholesome
kids with pills and deals and broken condoms
so that their life can fall down fast false too
since god resigned as number one boss you
redesigned everything without taking a loss cool
and if the devil ain't in charge and its not the Jew
then evil at large is the new barge us can sail on through

words are utter revulsion
so indulging compulsion
purchase everything in store
until your legs are sore until
you feel like a itsy-bitsy flea-leach whore
and the more and more life is empty and even when you cry
drink Pepsi while your fake money bank account runs dry

live life in a dive bar divining
when death might soon be arriving
and upon its arrival your survival ends
so money spent and without even a single friend
no hope for revival around any bend
bent over in pain you transcend
one last convulsion
in the gutter you utter
words are utter revulsion

Base

there's a room under this guys basement where
parties go on all the time without any awareness
from the world upstairs
women with empty-flour-sac bodies and smoke
gyrate listlessly under 255 color lights
while their faces grow imperceptibly older
there's a room under this guys basement

Come

the effects of sex diminish in the circumspect rhythm of
circadian wrecks and chrysanthemum prison love
i wish in retrospect i never ever would have come

Cure

There is an old-school way
of curing oneself
one that involves
panicked trips to the bathroom
and unrecalled adventures

A remedy that calls for
no diagnosis
not even a chronic
underlying condition

Hibiscus

hibiscus tea satchels resemble
aztec goddesses menstrual documents

Mallow

porn princesses ruined by their fathers
the willing recipients of dick for dirty dollars
dolls in collars, lead like followers
to altars of sin hidden in the midsts of wildflowers

empowered by slave bodies, given dirt showers
shallow, hollow, sallow, fallow
virginal white turned to roasted marshmallow

Witches Brew

Witches Brew!
he shouted with a furious roar that
confused the teachers' aids
and intoxicated the teachers

Witches Brew!
he knew this was a curious performance
infused with the cottonshirted angst
of a miniscule powderkeg

Witches Brew!
brewing in his pissoaked and ratty-heeled jeans
the cry distilled from father's fever
and unbridled child's yelps

Neruda

i stood there silent in the concrete
alas, alack
and every engine i heard thereafter
i wished was you, coming back

running barefoot, to the farthest place in dampened grass
i looked over the darkened sea of houses,
awaiting the trembling in my heart to pass
but its still there.

Feelings

not all feelings are as indescribable as these

anger is easy, all frustrated have felt it
frustration is longer its harder to spell it

happy is easy, ice cream and warm noses and bosoms
its even in ice tea, and roses and blossoms

sadness is harder, it seeps in through the cracks
its the feeling of hollow and following lack

there's other types of feelings all mixed up inbetween
slap-happy anger and laughter that's mean

there's tears of joy and the sarcastic cackle of tiffs
exasperation of tickles and hopeful, inquiring sniffs

but then like the samples on a paint-color matcher
there are hues between hues, the colors poets are after

the feeling that senior prom has just ended
or when your friends or your parents abandon you

the feeling the first time everything is revealed
as the grotesque absurdity, organic life

not all feelings are as indescribable as these
crushing snails under bare feet
licking up bodily fluids

theres other types of feelings all mixed up inbetween

Half

half of me wants to fade from the public eye
the other half wants to be part of history
half of me wants to cry
the other half wants no more misery
im in two
and im into nothing intuitive
my shadow believes that everything is opposite
and that i am just his shadow,
the way he is mine

 

Protest

they say morals are relative
judgement overrated
but if theres an unjust law
they also say to obey it

we can protest freely
in the free speech zone
that used to be the whole country
my only home

 

Little Balls of String

as i sit on my couch, accidentally on a little brown ball of string
i think about how much i wish we could tie ourselves up together
knit into a garment like a poncho or an afgan
and so even when we became worn and began to unravel
we would unravel together,
back into a little disorganized pile of yarn
and maybe birds would make a nest with us

i couldnt live without your nimble fingers
or your assortment of multicolored hooks
im fascinated by your art
and despite what you may think i have intimately invested
i laugh at your jokes because i think theyre funny
and i laugh with you when you think your water is tainted
but it turns out to be ice

i just wanted to say i find myself lost without your little pieces of string
to guide me like Theseus and sometimes to wrap up my body
and keep me warm throughout the night

Formula

the formulae you leave on
scrawled on
unused disused paper around my house
its written in an ancient, understandable
language to you
but its not for me to understand
unless i am tutored or even schooled
the root of the problem is
the formulae you leave on
scrawled on
unused disused paper in my house
its written beautifully, and as it remains
un-understandable to me it becomes
more beautiful
as you write it
and later
i'll find it

Force Feedback

they snap their fingers in unison
oblivious to the career cancer
of their temporary pleasure lives
the pleasure lies however in

a shirt with matching shoes
or a Jack in the Box small fries
the seasoning is colored by
industrial taxonomies and machine
gear orbits, regulating the singular
regularity of a new future

which exchanges consumption for
simulation of the aforementioned

in a forcefeedback loop of
questions and comments
which can be endorsed by calling this
toll-free number
for four easy payments
of two thousand and seven
or nineteen ninety five

Oranges

Sweet and oppressive blossom scent
about-to-be-oranges hanging in the air
so dark and far away
so close and lightly dancing by dew
it is new

It is brought here heavily
billowing
by thick trunks and green
light dancing across leaves
white trunks with garbage underneath
sweet mud summers and cold
crunching falls beneath
a moon and nothing more blue
a moment
half a moment inside another
inside a smell
recalled and forgotten like disappearing
mists among the grove
next to the barren lane which now hosts
holds bags of oranges
smaller than ever before

October 28th (Ventriloquist)

camies clammy hand clasping
around my obnoxious mouth
her voice rasping
excitement down south

if she could be my ventriloquist

well you get the jist
better than a therapist

i'd never miss her, my eyes would never mist

if she would realize how my body fits
perfectly against her sides
and our gently sliding hides

wheezing and breathing heavily
into simmering night

 

Ode to Isco

jaded is a coping mechanism
for certain maidens
no-left-hoping, sexist, left-wing famous

if youve ever had plans abated
you know the feeling of pain and frustration
but it doesnt go away with day-in
day-out machinations it only increases
in this combustible nation

in california

our disease is
more homeless than homes
where the buffalo roam
scum on the streets like nits in a comb

 

Islands

i feel lost
without cause and without cost
the foreclosed lots and locked up shops
remind me of my childhood
and as the neighborhood declines
i recline and open one more box of wine, cryin
the sad shine of sunsets like the mane of a lion
the mad drive of success plucked out like a violin
violence, trials and people like islands
adrift in the ocean, waiting for the sky's end

Power Point

students are the slideshow slaves
while minorities are kept where the
sideshow saves

Bay Bridge Haiku

Cranes: dogs and horses

cable tendons glistening

Indian summer

Ebony, Ivory, Emery

we say this decade sucks
but sure enough
someone else will examine our status
it matters to the future for substance
and pattern all of our actions turned
into factions and fractions, fractals and taxations, ambitious machinations, impatience and complacence
and back in the golden days
golden by age and nothin' less
we old motherfuckers invest our memories
ebony ivory emery

New Fears

New fears

greater and yet more intangible

microscopy allowing for

this terror

a dream? A hologram? A holy place?

none of these is a satisfactory base

to collect and somehow

through reverence

destroy our anxieties

Impossible and Dirty

On the precipice of currency
infuriatingly
drugged and delirious
impossible and dirty
courteous out of insincerity

Squash

My heart still tingling
your food left in my fridge lingering
its not pizza delivery
deliver me from this sadness
woe as me

no

It’s rotten butternut squash molded over
what I wouldn’t try to squash for one more “roll-over”
but my plan’s expired, no rollover
even if the spoiled summer is leftovers
in the toaster oven, I can see the smolders