IMPRINT

The full moon hung like a bright
frozen explosion, seen from the tip
of a telescope, or the barrel of a gun.
A birthday was a party hat stepped on
near a puddle of a booze. A smile
was a river that had to be waded through.
The black pavements gleamed with their
secret etchings, the heat of the day rising
up, dissipating. The last light to be turned
off stayed on, a little bit longer…

THE PULSE’S THROAT

…is open for business, and taking no
prisoners who aren’t willing to shake
their money-makers for a greater cause.
This is a free economy, after all.

The pulse’s throat is looking for the beat,
like a deaf-mute by the road side, about
to break into song, like a second cousin
second guessing the second coming,
and the pulse’s throat is really more
a matter of suggestion than law.

Please act accordingly…

SUBJECT LINE

Press the compass to my forehead,
select the GPS location from there.
Oh, did I say compass? I meant compress.
As in compress all this into a proportionally
acceptable segment. OK—Derek did it,
with a claw-hammered family heirloom
in the back garden. Wait—who’s writing this?
I got dibs on the man running out the back door…

COBALT BLOOM BLUES

Strike my eyes from the record.
Put my tongue in rehab.
Wipe the smile from the face
I haven’t made yet. Have me
be born asunder, halfway between
a lamb’s ear and a petal’s slow withering.
Lift me toward the heights that plunge.
Deliver me, an incomplete package,
to the door of my maker, insist
they sign for me, inspect the scrawled
blue ink of their signature, the DNA
bloom upon the page that proves,
“I am the one, I am the one…”

NATURAL’S NOT IN IT?

Why am I not surprised?
Contents implode upon ingestion?
May cause Digestive Armageddon?
Was that part of the social contract?
When the wood was stripped of its’ grain,
when whale bone found its’ way to
spear head, when the princess phone
could dial up a cluster bomb,
I stopped asking who you were…

TRACKS

Well, apparently, Jesus left a few
on the beach, but so did Toucan Sam.
I’ve been tracking them both,
and I’ve got plans, man.
I’ve got plans…

THE TALISMAN MOON

…spoke through many nights.
I found a friend in front of a church.
We were both eyeing the same guitar left
for trash beneath a tree by the street light.
It was fret-less, unstrung, gutted of song.
“Probably full of bed bugs,” you muttered.
We debated the meaning of the night
and then each went our separate ways,
leaving the guitar behind.

EDIT

I figure the final edit is up
to committee, that as one hand
clasps, another one cuts,
but I am porous enough to fit
into what’s missing,
to turn an awkward segway
into a great entrance or exit,
depending on what’s asked of me.
I’m the fall guy.
I’m the burnished saint.
I’m 25 minutes of
you-wished-you-never-asked.
I’m the tin star and the black hat,
cross-roading at an undisclosed location.
I’m a recipe for disaster, and a discarded
dress for success. My interests include
soft focus close-ups, and a starvation diet
of 20-second sound bites. I’m already
getting word that this is going on a bit long.
I can take a hint…Cue the music…Fade…
Cut away…

THE MAGNITUDE…

…of this beast is vast, but its' nerve
endings can be stretched to the finest pitch!
You, too, can speak fluent Off-Shore Account
after our 90-second tutorial, you, too, can isolate
the thermal stress points of the melting pot
and predict appropriate economic fever zones
from within. Congratulations! You just made
the best of all possible vacations.
Your windows are shuttered, all mouths
are open, and the vociferous wind is blowing in…

CURRENT

Are you so lonely on that far shore
that you can’t even answer yourself?
Are you so sure of the shadows
that you can stand up between them
and say you found a channel through?

Is your throat the one tide
that is breaking?
Are you saying what I think
you’re saying, that I’m past
all that, I’m beyond you?