Drought

Tar strip heaven

and my mother said they used to chew the stuff

blackrock tooth cleaner

for a gypsy-eyed little boy

“Eugene! Eugene!”

and he prayed for rain

and prayed for work

and prayed for pain

and prayed, I bet, for death

(near the end, anyway)

(as Eugene might have)

with a blackrock tooth cleaner

and pocket full of jumbled-dirt

Squirt-eye told me about the grasshoppers

grasshoppers as big as life

or bigger than life

(depending on the size of life)

and her father nailed them to the chicken coop

and watched while dark clouds came

I stood from eighty years' distance

I stood in the middle of a cloud of swarming grasshoppers

they bit at my eyelids and tore my lip

the blood pooled around my ankles

ankle deep and shouting from the soil

and the grasshoppers hit the window panes, dropped dead as dead can be

my father nailed them to the chicken coop

and watched while dark clouds came

My Angel Is a Creeper

I knew my angel as soon as I saw him smiling

At me in the coffee shop

With those pale blue eyes

And flopsy curls bouncing

As he jumped like he had a centipede in his undies

Scratching his shoulders

Where wings might have been removed

Because God would only want me

To have a creeper or two watching over me

Or maybe she was that big and tall creaker

With the pig snout

In the zebra print muumuu

Welcoming me to the joys

Of the afterlife

While nudging me back to the animal world

Where I wake up in that same café

Near the condiment bar

With a bump on my head

And spilled soy milk under my shoes

And an EMT telling me that I am okay, but I will

Need to get checked out at a hospital

And that my two friends left once they knew

That I was alright.

Yep, my guardian angel is a creeper

(Or probably two because I am so much trouble)

And that comforts me in a weird sort of way

Since I know that they are staring at me all of the time

Chugging Bug Juice

Eating crepe-like olives 

In the land of dancing liquid

Where the fierce wind 

Softly hits hard

Against the hand

Sailing through the abandoned barn

Of angel wings

Delicately floating downward

In the scent of the anise orchid

That snickers at folly

With impish sweetness

Of the tap, tap, tap

On the glassine fruit

Tasting the tepid tincture

Of the fading spirit breath of the green nymphs

Buzzing in my ears in the dusk

Singing the old gnomish tunes

Of delight and satisfaction

While the creepiness of the brush

Whisks away the glistening fireflies

Into the subliminal indigo veil

That curbs into midnight oranges

In the sky of my youth.

Mausoleum

I want to hear your breath

force it into me and calm time

your words in slavic god-speak

I could scream and press that stake right through my

heart

I want to hear it and if I don't hear it

I will go outofmymindf*ingcrazy

for that single Polish word on the lips of an angel

give me your breath

or I will suck it out of your still-warm corpse

and a halo rings your head

I could swallow your tongue and never do justice

to those dark eyes and mongolian fold

holy place

holy one

holy

PaleoPolish and Six

slip by happenstance,

slipped it right by the waking dream that leaves the mark

old tin of coffee

lard can full of cookies -

those chocolate cookies, you know, filled with a layer of white cream

calendar on the wall, open to April of 1963

and it has been there since April of 1963

slip by happenstance

slipped into the DNA and causes markers to pop right up

is it a picture or a clock on the wall

a picture of the son gone off to war -

the daughter who was killed in the motorcycle accident

two days after graduation

hit from behind outside the tastee-cone

/ blood and plastic everywhere /

the picture sat on the shelf for decades

looking like a clock

ticking away the same time after time

sometime

slip by happenstance

and a life changes with memories of puppets

and memories of foam-rubber skin and ping-pong ball eyes

little boys rolling red rubber balls and plastic parachute men

falling like spider webs

plastic parachute men

falling slow

look up in the sky

shield your eyes from the sun and the plastic parachute men

fall like feathers shed by a quiet bird

look up in the sky

look at the ancestors falling like plastic parachute men

falling like dew and falling like mist

like plastic parachutes

and when the first one tears you make a new one

make it from a bread bag

red, blue, and yellow polka dots give wonder

to the plastic parachute men

falling like manna from the old country

Did You Hear That Sound?

Basking in a sea of overwhelming memories

Scented with a glimpse of something

Ethereal and unspoken

An emotion touched through centuries

Shared through some outer world, outer realm

Disclosed through time and bloodlines

Flashing ancient remembrances

Of lives never experienced

Except through passageways

On the delicate petals of the cosmos

With a tribute to the swords and

The inner fire ever burning

where were you?

paranormal shoe and a hoe-cake dream

with a list on the tramway a trailer park scream

trailer park shuffle for the lady in red

stick it in a spleen make the other one dead

soulway height make the TV blow

move the rabbit ears - the TV got snow

pop rocks

and pop rock nightmare

jet jocks

and the middle east warfare

pile high, pile high

for the high priest team

the big three networks no video screen

watergate came, watergate went

everythings a gate now

the poet is spent

inflation stagflation recession depression

put a niner to the temple in a jeopardy session

brains on the sidewalk brains on the flag

take the troops outta nam put the body in the bag

schoolhouse rock like a candy pop love

get it out

get it out

nightmares blow

like a triple-tit cow

and the pop rocks melt in the coke and the blow

and the here and the now

drive a pinto to the corner in a flame end purse

for a 40 ounce comfort and the free love session

lovesession obsession depression recession

get it out

get it out

all my memories from TV

and a man called Nixon

and another called Ford

and another called Carter

and we all got bored

and we went off to college

and we went off to work

and we went off to dream

and the dot com bullshit

short sale scream

made a lighthouse eyeball razor in the bag

Marcia Brady wetdream and a three-piece suit

wall street backstreet

and the blow

and the loot

and I stare now

looking at a ghost and a sha-dow

of a 70s kid

and I hide now

waiting for a pop rock sha-dow

when the TV

drop a rabbit ear, and I got snow

soulway height make the TV blow

move the rabbit ears - the TV got snow

pop rocks

and pop rock nightmare

everythings a gate now

the poet is spent

Frack - O - Matic !

Broken hope

With a cash stream that’s run dry,

He packs up his lonely belongings

Along with a wallet photo 

Of a distant dream,

Heading for the Promised Land

Of toil and sweat and dirt

And a paycheck to lure back that vision,

So out of reach,

With the swarming and hostile streets

And the locker-room filth and stench

In a crammed shared room

With others trying to vie their way

Back from a lost world

Where nothing else is left

But the oil and the salt

And the chance of luck

Conjured up in the amber

At the bottom of a shot glass.

Elevator Going...

Floating inside the brain,

Observing the lethargy

That sets in after the pain of birth

And the pain of death

And the pain of every new beginning

That makes us weary and reluctant

To accept any more change

And to take any risks

That will cause us further anguish,

Hovering in the ambivalent part 

Of the gray matter

We cannot postpone the sharpness

And the cuts and the blood

And the wounds

Until we can face that holy unknown

That stops the beat.