Monday, September 29, 2008

all the wrong eggs, all the wrong baskets

shake my hand now
this is the Pittsburg agreement

take down the screens
summer is over

a letter for my leej
A snowshoe

the silver spur
your tongue
in a jar

a hungry drunk's
feast

Friday, September 26, 2008

Skank Sussin'

FREE WILL
DO WHAT YOU FEEL
PAINT THE ICE
FOR THE NEXT BONSPIEL
M.Q. INC.
DONE THE NEW DRUG DEAL
PREGNANCY PINK
ABORTION TEAL
FLENSING A WALRUS
FLEECING A SEAL
DONT ADULTER
SHO' DO STEAL

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Bill Murray?

Got a MinQ coat,
an I got this miniquote
bout a kid who hates his kids
well they haven't even used protection
so they sit in space
they dwell in wombs

and so the revolution says

"Mark the words, of our holy savior
watch the wills of the everday
gospel soldiers."

Like I believe in death
A believer asks

"It's all regional?"

"Yeah,
It is a fact."

Heavy reality
A reporter gathering it all up
A doctor of journalism
Has no borders


The final concrete slab
On a tortured chest
A shelf of destruction
And all the gifts those privates gave
Pulled down.

I'm too young too die for a cause
And you're too free
To be loving me
I don't need one thousand sweet excuses
Confetti - be released

Gilbert Plains is now hiring
A turn-key
My swelling heart
Your dirty hands
Bibles lodged in desert sands

And all the furs
The five dollars
You don't owe to anyone
In some pocket at Salvation army
The mouse is asleep
And sighing in my lap.

Monday, September 22, 2008

A Proper Conclusion to a Paper on Radical Individualism

"So If Pilgrim’s Progress demonstrates
The self-righteous plight of everyman,
Then who,
And what,
Am I"
My mouth questions quietly
Amidst the leaves falling

The reality of an Indian
Summer sun setting

"Watch as I paint
With every color
Of the breeze"
I’m crying
Atop my sick
And diseased
City on a landfill

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Frances: Northern Friend (Or: How I Pledge Allegiance To Shit And All That Other Shit)

Mere pennies day,
Dropped on twisted leaves.
Walks to shallow pools where:
Reflections ‘aint nothin’ but a Supremes song.
Avert your soul and I pretend,
You’re my Frances, you’re my Northern Friend.
Shoulda spent it on the Freakshow.
Goodness knows that I’m one hard woman,
To impress.

Pressing face into a faded wall,
Turn left,
Where outmoded wallpaper leaves me smiling,
Some grief, why don’t you
Let her rip?
I can’t mourn your warm corpse,
In this ivory cage,
Where you never came to bat.

The octopus watches me undress,
Some lecher, hidden video-camera-in-the-bedroom eyes,
Weak legs, that can’t take the strain,
Yer sayin’ “Listen, Babe,”
Some necklace for your throat,
No coat so warm,
No fucking coat, at all.
All ships back out to sea.

My face is feathers, and my mind is lead,
And what else but shattered glass,
Your mind's not gonna follow.
What I’ll assume is my right hook.
And what is left is …
Just a leash.
Unhook me, Frances.

I am free.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

"Rare please..."

A suitcase of things we left behind
sent one way then another
in dustbowls and through dusty plains
an through the red square I was trying to hide
or, at least it was on my mind
when i paid you a visit and I wasn't present-
a present with guidelines; like being invited to dinner,
while your host makes your order,
you invite another guest to join.
and you wonder at juicy steak tartare,
center as cold as shoulders,
how much it has left to bleed.

Send the Dead to Neighborhoods they Hated

Or rather, Butchering a Sonnet Until it Resembles Shit


Waking up to sounds outside the apart-
ment: car horns, polish folk, one morning lark,
men rehabbing the outside of the old
hotel I live in, kids shivering cold,

black shoes mad at black top, bike spokes and cell-
phones. I hear the harbor waves moan, I smell
the park when the lake winds flutter southwest
critters move inside and become house pets.

Lincoln Park was once a cemetery.
Sat right on the outskirts of the city.
But we uprooted the bleached bones and took
them to a furnace. We turned them to soot.

"Live. Die slow," Chicago said quietly
"Your remains will not last a century."

Monday, September 8, 2008

Lit Up (Further Engagements)

"I'm back with scars to show,
Back with the streets I know."


- John K. Samson


I keep a bottle on the bedside table,
And when you shut up, and I dream*,
Of Minnesota's state fair,
I unscrew the cap.
A little oil, for the tangled coils,
That make up my head's heavy insides.

Imagination nails it perfectly,
I am traveling in a recreation vehicle version
Of my childhood home in Swan River.
The door has a frame of gold,
And all the Frenchmen I have ever loved,
Are gaurding the entrance, with braided beards,
With black t-shirts, with feminist counterparts.

We revisit the sights.
Ciagrette slip-covers made of colored silk,
Blankets woven from human hair,
(Red curls, the cotton/polyster blends)
And I can't stop being reminded
Of sitting in that window in Lincoln Park
When my heart first knew your travesty, your liberty.

Leather jackets made of olive skin,
And the way you two boys coulda been,
Brothers, my brothers, my lovers too.
Champagne with ribbons and good intentions,
And the fifty different ways to hide beneath
A coffee table.

The wreck of the Gordon Lightfoot.
Searching for the North-West passage,
A stairway that conveniently leads you to my smile.
To my fury, and my dresses piled, thrown
Over the shoulders of icebergs.
If you could read my mind, love,
What a tale my thoughts would tell.

It's surprising to find, when you go delving
Into the caves that make me up,
Just how much I didn't let on about.
A sample of my knowledge:
"If you leave bees alone,
They'll do the same."
Bumble, bumble, bumble, bumble,
Bumble, bumble-bum!

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

38 Tons Composition

Amphetamine man, how you told me truths.
How John whispered repetitive;
Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me.
“Later on,” I said.
Canada versus America
We strolled on, me on the curb
You on the street.

I like to ride bikes,
In the summer sun, dizzy and high.
No sleeping, no eating,
No letters left distinguished
In your tattoos, on my keypad.

Jovial girl, bristles like a lost cat
It’s been raining for three days,
And I wonder, what’s the weather like
Where I really would much rather be.

You’re going to score a touchdown,
And I’m going to make a save.
I have parking slips,
And you have train tickets,
Bottles of cheap wine,
And your stepfather’s coffin.

I’m tipsy with an inner ear infection,
I lie when I am desperate,
And I plead when I am drunk.
Can you hear me, can you read me?

The truth is, when you decided to grow a mustache
It was on all our lips,
Not just yours.
Now I am stuck in the stiff upper regions of the world,
Missing you, and drinking milk.