A RELIABLE FICTION…

…just showed up, batting her eyes,
sporting surplus war paint,
saying, “I’m nothing without you, baby”
and me racing to recall whether that’s the code
to break this chance encounter, whether
my credit card # hasn’t already been
compromised, identity theft a forgone
conclusion, and I think,
“Better you than me, mate…”

THE GLOWING IMPERIALS…

…which are just the next door neighbor’s windows
lit through the shadow of fir trees at 3 AM,
which become, briefly, B & W stained glass,
then totem pole god heads carved
from the bone of our memory
and then, at last, nothing more than
what I actually see…

RADIO SILENCE

The wind spins like a derelict surgeon seeking a scalpel point.
The satellites sputter, a sudden
blind-eyed chorus with one push of a button,
and all that’s illuminated is now dark.
All the cell phones just lost their charges, all the servers down, all the wire relays garroted
by larger wire relays
and so on and so on.

All for this moment of silence, so I could hear you…

DUTY NOW/DUTY FREE/DUTY LATER

Penniless at the border, I recant my last cant
(Wait a minute, is that legal?)
And didn’t you just move the border,
according to convenient product placement?
I’m stuck out here pissing into the wind,
while you’re busy keeping warm
off kindling from all the shaved angles.
I look at you, and don’t know you at all.
You look at me, and know me too well.
And the wind howls around us,
measuring spaces…

INTERNAL DOCUMENT

Forgive me. I was busy applying myself
to the fundamental principles of Manifest Destiny,
knowing that everything is free until you take it,
when I suddenly find out I’m interfering with an ongoing investigation…

[This conversation is presently being rerouted.

Everyone is innocent, until the new app is finalized.

Papers, please.]

STARING INTO THE APPARENT DAWN

The veil of air lifts,
shadow itself is undermined.
Out of the mist, a tree trunk
writhes its’ limbs like Gumby
in a passion play on the Cross,
which makes me think
what a pagan bit of clay
we all are, after all!…

WHOLE SALE NIGHT

The moon, immutable, punches
tin-plated grey calligraphy
across the swaying tree tops.
The slow rotation of the electric
fan like cars shushing
down a distant desert highway.
The words can’t be read, or even
said out loud. The night will close
us whole, if we just let it--
leaving us reduced to our essence.
Like the quickly ticked-off items
in the police blotter of some
small town newspaper, random
acts of petty larceny and
drunken vengeance,
the ink of mingled lives
coming off on our fingertips,
as the night’s heat disperses…