Sunday, December 28, 2008


POTENTATE


You called me the golden calf
but I ended up with a silver tongue
where the knife has started
that’s where I’ve begun
no shortness of breath
no palpitations
this corpse immaculate
upon inspection
I speak no further than this body
and I need no further reach
I’m the bankrupt slaughter
every fear that’s ever slipped past
I hold the lease

Friday, December 26, 2008


BANKRUPT


I am the father of many skins;
I wear them duly, in the procession
they were meant to be seen in.

I can’t abide a wayward son,
stripped to his skivvies,
and guessing the capitol of Mexico.

I am a free-range thinker,
and it’s thirsty work out there.
I carry the goblet, you provide the rain.

I’m a miracle worker who’s lost
his devoted flock, I’ve gone bankrupt.
I am the father of many names…

Tuesday, December 23, 2008


TURBULENCE


You are beside yourself on the tarmac,
taking an illicit snapshot as evidence,
proof you should be at work, or home in bed,
anywhere but here, arguing
with a switch-bladed matriarch
about the very validity of a claim
to “the Friendly Skies.”

We’ve all been robbed.
Saint Peter’s in foreclosure.
We trace the tainted line
on the map closer and closer,
drawing our breath to match
the wagon trained limits,
till we get to the red scrawl
at its’ center, the arrow that points,
“You are here.”

You are beside yourself.

Sunday, December 21, 2008


XENOPROBE


I erased that last phrase from
the official transcript; you might
want to keep track of that, it was done
in your honor. Though your tail wing’s on fire,
you’re coming in for a perfect landing,
courtesy of my immaculate muttering.
I’m sure you’ll understand when I say
you must be quarantined and kept
separate from the general populace.
You are the beginning of something
that can’t be said, a delirious silence
that starts now…

Thursday, December 18, 2008


SEMAPHORE


My arms are blind, but can’t you read them?
I have achieved Downward-Facing Spiral,
but all you do is lightly perspire and shrug it off,
like it’s none of your business, like your business
stretches out to the outer rings, where farmland
lays wisping in the limp breeze and the occasional
highway light winks on and off. I’m way past
that fly-over zone. I’m done. I’m coming
in for a landing, my arms spread open,
collecting bouquets of empty air…

Saturday, December 13, 2008


REENACTMENT


Marie Antoinette, re-headed, says,
“Let them eat yellowcake uranium!”
The Civil War re-enactors stumble about
blearily in the pre-dawn battlefield,
hoping for a second cup of coffee.
Nixon, being Nixon, pretends he’s Elvis
as he daydreams about robbing a bank.
A billboard in Brazil is torn down.
Someone in Hanoi wires the Paris Hilton.
The word “love” is tracked 4,638,000 times
in a single hour by the NSA.
Sleep is declared an Olympic sport;
dreams are disqualified.
I’m taking my position.
Are you with me on this?

Wednesday, December 10, 2008


MONKEY OMEGA


The last monkey will not know
he’s a monkey. He will shoot himself
in the foot and count it as a blessing.
He’ll consider his tail a be-all and end-all,
a line in the sand that’s already been erased,
the last shell game played on a block
condemned to demolition.

The last monkey wouldn’t think twice
about shanking Darwin in the back.
He’s writing crib-notes in the prayer books,
selling his spine as a holy relic
on the street corner of his ancestors.
The last monkey wants nothing to do
with himself, just wants to jump through
some tired hoops, be done with it.

Monday, December 8, 2008


NOTHING HOLDS ME


The sky lashed tight
to bright-stitched stars,
a glittering skin that cups down.
Off in the distance, a late
clatter of geese calls.

We never know what holds us here.

My breath steams against the cold,
snaking away in grey-shoaled shards.
I pace back and forth on the back deck
and watch the sky grow darker,
the stars bright.

Nothing holds me here.

Sunday, December 7, 2008


CONCEIT


Are we not men?


Far from it!

The milk of human kindness?


Excuse me, do you have a 10% off coupon?

The airports are full of detainees.

There’s a scratch ‘n’ sniff form
pertaining to their release.

Heaven has been violated.

The rest of you, just file through.

Nothing to see here…

Tuesday, December 2, 2008


FECUND


Don’t you hear it,
in the sea-shelled howling of night;
a single bloom unfolding in its’
flesh cup, a withering of tendrils,
a grazing of fingertips, a brush
like seaweed against the cheek,
a hush in the breath
of the oldest ocean?

Monsters