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

French Bread

Issued a ticket for parking in my own driveway
Why don't the police park the fuck out of my way?
Better yet let me prove that crime pays
by running naked down the sidewalk my car blocked today

I can't park at my house or even in front of it
without government; spying on some of it.
I'm done with it, if they want to take pictures
I'll stand in the front lawn buck naked, dick-itcher

They might get creative, shackle my wrists
Tackle me like a native, attack me with fists
Taser me, laserbeam dot on my head

Go ahead and kill me
I can't afford your french bread

Do you see the same TV picture?
Addicted to worthless and similar fictions
The friction I feel on America's streets
doesn't come from the law, or come from the heat
It comes from the maw of the greed that we reap
Bundled in hay bales and fed to the sheep

the revolution cant and it wont ever happen
with people asleep in their prisons, LA and manhattan

Dollars

as the faces on dollar bills inflate
from the size of a quarter to nearly
touching top and bottom of the bill
or even exceeding the edges--
windswept powdered wig myths

so too the balloon of currency
expands as each proprietor
forfeits more territory becoming a point
on the thinly stretched membrane of economy
inverse dustbowl money munitions

when I read in god we trust
i ask which god and who are we?
franklin tells me in linen whispers:
our god is the dollar
and we are the bills

Cough

my teen immunity finally wore off
unclean beauty queen even worse off

grace me with your curt scoff
short and smoky like a hurt cough

Conspiracies

Does it matter whether the conspiracies are true?
The police want to control everyone, me and you
It’s not even secret, theres nothing clandestine
about being destined to defend against weapons
biological, psychological, totally illogical:

white phosphorous in your eyes searing them
vans emit screams to destroy your hearing then
incapacitated with a tazer and a heart attack
and when you are a blind, deaf, lifeless sack

you are finally under control citizen,
thank you for not resisting,
insisting innocence is identical to guilty