final draft:::
"Summer Day"
Bukowski kicks morbid today,
his shoes sporting spurs. He
craves blue pearls and scribes
history, beckons four favors
from the local taxidermist.
Bukowski spills vodka on my couch,
taps out melody on my coffee cups.
I dampen his rhythm:
ba-domp-domp-dmph.
Plumes sprout from our necks;
we are prepared for the next
utilitarian crustacean to arrive.
-----------------------------------
first draft:::
Bukowski hates me morbid today
for craving love or meaning, either
wither, but which? Ballerina history
hates me today because I am too
stubborn to ask my boss for an advance.
Deer hates stale me, but doesn't know
why - he's too far to understand, and
we never seem to change except that
we both get more stubborn. A constant
Summer is fumigation for mildew, but
it's not very effective. So how long are you
doing this? Where are you moving
when you move? I can help you move boxes.
No!!! You torment me. Prick
my finger, and I cut too far, but I feel
something, at least. I know I feel something, and
I'll never live close again. You'll never touch my box, moving or otherwise.
Evasive, I am not. Evasive both, but not I.
Bukowski is sitting in his living room instead
of my room, because I am not good for his craft.
I dampen his rhythm. Badompdompdmmm. . .
He likes me but doesn't - me. Ballerina sits
on the phone, asleep, waiting for a ring to wake her.
Not quite on silent, but not quite on ring, either.
She wants to love me. Deer is away, silent, like he is. He's probably a sociopath. All deer are.
Let me remind you that I hate this coming holiday.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
July Blindness
I'm rather out of sorts just now,
bothered, no doubt, by uncertainty.
I cannot see beyond the 30th, June,
as if on that day all things must end.
For as it stands now this just may be.
I've not the purchase to peer o'er
the constricting lip of the world
into the spreading advance of future.
bothered, no doubt, by uncertainty.
I cannot see beyond the 30th, June,
as if on that day all things must end.
For as it stands now this just may be.
I've not the purchase to peer o'er
the constricting lip of the world
into the spreading advance of future.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Sunday, June 8, 2008
It use to be
I grew up in an age before modern residential "development".
The house I spent most of my childhood in was built by my parents on a new street at the edge of the city.
At the time around here people bought a lot, drew up plans and built their house the way they wanted it.
When you looked at your land you had to imagine the sea of blackberry brambles cleared away and decide which trees to keep.
On a street like our construction happened piecemeal.
Maybe one house a year would go in.
Even when they extended the street up the hill through what had once been a shortcut to school and a playground of dirt paths this slow pace continued.
In the winter houses under construction became the bombed out battlegrounds of our neighborhood snowball wars.
In the summer we'd sneak down to building sites in the evening to play on the idle earth movers.
All year round we'd scavenge for scrap wood and fresh nails for tree forts in the unattended, half built homes.
It was exciting.
These days big developers buy land by the acre.
They scrape the land bare, down to the red mud and throw up line after line of identical houses.
They name the developments "Oakwood Estates" and other tacky names that stand at odds with the rape of the land.
I pine for the before times.
The house I spent most of my childhood in was built by my parents on a new street at the edge of the city.
At the time around here people bought a lot, drew up plans and built their house the way they wanted it.
When you looked at your land you had to imagine the sea of blackberry brambles cleared away and decide which trees to keep.
On a street like our construction happened piecemeal.
Maybe one house a year would go in.
Even when they extended the street up the hill through what had once been a shortcut to school and a playground of dirt paths this slow pace continued.
In the winter houses under construction became the bombed out battlegrounds of our neighborhood snowball wars.
In the summer we'd sneak down to building sites in the evening to play on the idle earth movers.
All year round we'd scavenge for scrap wood and fresh nails for tree forts in the unattended, half built homes.
It was exciting.
These days big developers buy land by the acre.
They scrape the land bare, down to the red mud and throw up line after line of identical houses.
They name the developments "Oakwood Estates" and other tacky names that stand at odds with the rape of the land.
I pine for the before times.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
treadmarks
thick red written on the mirror,
lipstick, but strawberries
taking over
warm orange encased by shadow,
construction, but sunlight
of the cliff's face
pile of plums kicked off a balcony,
malevolent, but fun
when the rain stops...
there is no purpose
or closure for treadmarks
lipstick, but strawberries
taking over
warm orange encased by shadow,
construction, but sunlight
of the cliff's face
pile of plums kicked off a balcony,
malevolent, but fun
when the rain stops...
there is no purpose
or closure for treadmarks
dirty shakes
The sky is wrong for this time of year.
I wish someone would do it up nice.
Clear the mess, add some bright lighting...
There's a duck pond in the parking lot,
and those dirty birds don't take no shit.
Not from the cat... or even my truck.
I guess this is my summer break, but
I feel like we've skipped strait to fall.
I need the heater in June? I mean, hell...
The cherry crop's wasted, strawberries late
and four dollars a gallon? Eighty bucks a tank?
'S like prison bars on the city's vague edge.
No where to go, nothin' to do, no job, no friends
and a fine new beginning to life after college.
At least the vicodin's starting to kick in.
I wish someone would do it up nice.
Clear the mess, add some bright lighting...
There's a duck pond in the parking lot,
and those dirty birds don't take no shit.
Not from the cat... or even my truck.
I guess this is my summer break, but
I feel like we've skipped strait to fall.
I need the heater in June? I mean, hell...
The cherry crop's wasted, strawberries late
and four dollars a gallon? Eighty bucks a tank?
'S like prison bars on the city's vague edge.
No where to go, nothin' to do, no job, no friends
and a fine new beginning to life after college.
At least the vicodin's starting to kick in.
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