Vingettes On Direction

I remember the night we met,
You just got back from Pittsburgh
You were a cosigner of the notorious agreement
That would bind us forever, in a pond full of discarded tire swings
Treading water, we broke the surface
Bashing like the best
Dirty mana all like liquid stained glass
In the sunset of that night
You told me you might see me again
In September’s numbered days
Bindi blazin’ like a mood ring
I went to catch a plane
In my butterfly net

You were worried about me
So you gave me sordid means to protect myself
A pink-transparent automatic rifle
Legal Weapon
In the age of Aquarius
I have it holstered to my every facet
In a leather antique strap
Count to eight and waiting
For the second round
Not enough arms for all the ammunition
But a heart full of storage space
Some wooden crates with your name
In my left ventricle

Portrait of Le Petit Prince
As a young adult
Regina is a tiny planet
You planted flowers on,
And I watch you draw all my secret desires
A trick you picked up from someone
When you were little
My body would encase every perfect little lamb
You made me desire you

I became your sidekick on a part-time basis
But sharp-shootin’ wrists hung limp
While I stood by mute
The silence of a ultra-violent admiration
You commanded everything
To back up
A velvet rope signifying arm’s length
For us to stand behind
Some inside jokes and Private Eyes
Playing on my little red turntable
Shot-glass with a matching fire-truck
And Minnesota vodka, healing aneurysm deaths
Pre-emptive sarsaparilla, for Butch Cassidy
And his Sundance Kid


The moon radiates united
With industrial park lights
And although we hide, our hearts are swelling
Ready to burst with night-passions
Adorned with the jewelry of the silver anodyne
Our lycanthropy is kept at socially acceptable volumes
And we still howl sometimes
But it is softly, and in each others ears
Our mutual cave of Echo
Conveniently located between our faces
I get lost in your beard,
And all it’s beautiful possibilities
While you try to imagine
Where all my silver hair will be

You are Cary Grant
In a Mexican wrestling mask,
And I am a gypsy in pleated pants
A little female vagabond succumb to the
Ebb and flow of magic and the lunar cycle
You stooped to see my possibility
And this was our Holy Almost

Memories left incomplete
A history in a shoe box, a shoe box sent to sea
Drift west young man,
And make a newspaper sailor hat
In my absence
And I will honor you with theft
My hand to caress
A voodoo doll you gave me
Of yourself
Each day I reverse it’s spell
And kiss it’s hands
And trace it’s tattoos with my finger-tips
I’ll see you again soon
The next eclipse.

Sleeping as a Series of Shapes

Woke up frequently together
with your brother you talked
about familial responsibility.
Two blue shirts from Alaska
creased underneath the weight
of a couple more hours
of sleep.

Drank blood for the first time.
It tasted like cola, it
dribbled down your cheek.
A French ship picked up a sailor
in sixteen-fifty-three.

Eight A.M
or something. Construction
work never ends apparently.
Goose flesh precedes the
the skinny dip taken. Cold
tonight, it’s late. A haze
seen from a distance an its
eventual sweep curtains
across the bay in heavy
breaths. Yard lights,
crickets, frog and
squirrel noises.

What will the future be like
fifty years from this moment?

Space tourism, satellite cafes, x-ray
glasses and crystal power harnessed.

Wonder if your sister has ever
thought about having kids?

Three altogether: two girls
and a boy for balance.

How did anyone ever settle and
inhabit what is known as the “Arctic?”

Men thought it a challenge,
no other reason was needed.

What do you know that is
not fantastical but true?

Time whistles
like a vacuum

Supe O' the Deigh

I cut my fingers on the cheese grater of logic
And strawberry jam creeps down the drain
As holes like little correlating scales prompt me
To call in the final favor owed to me by Aqua Man
My open palms reaching out through slimy sewers,
And into adolescent streams
Finally cupping the breasts of Mother Ocean
I beseech her on her daughter’s wedding day
For a flashflood to come across the prairies
Saline revenge against the poisoned ivy and the stinging nettles
Benten gave me a one-eyed gambler’s luck
And I know my song-request will be granted
Before I’ve even fastened my patent leather shoes

I truck over yonder
Spinning out of control, rolling forward
At an unreasonable wine-drunk pace
So
With one fluid motion, I tear the training wheels off
And simultaneously open twin wounds
In my slender sides
That gush the gradated color of rust
Spilling tones of orange and brown across the asphalt
With metallic flecks of pink spraying outwards
Like sparks from a welders torch
I am a blinding spectacle

Now and forever
An open book of disquiet*
A non-sequential autobiography
Written in a cryptic language
One that we all speak, but seldom stoop to understand
I hang my head in exhaustion
Noticing the slit of beauty in my navel
I decide to travel there
A temporary trail a la Hansel and Gretel
Will take me to a candied destiny
And a bodily inferno
Who knows when I'll come back?
There will be no answers
In the back of the oven.

My co-worker says:
“You look like a cross between a French tart, the Wicked Witch of the West, and a gypsy.”
I welcome his enthusiasm
And he gives me cues to smile for the rest of the day
I glance nervously over my shoulder at him
And breathily mouthing “line”
He rolls his eyes
As if we were playing dice
I catch them as they crackle back from against the glass doors
And see that it is time for me to curtsy backwards
Away from dirty tables, and sexual innuendo
Pleated black pants
Flapping in the breeze, I skulk away
Knowing that for now I am saved

Friendliness Depends

The Owl of Athena is so kind to me
And ours is a friendship born of a single cell
Inside the fortress skull of Zeus
Where we ran our nails down chalkboards
And had loud, drunken conversations
Relenting only when we became deities
And merciless warriors

We allowed for there to be a reprieve
In the cosmic headache
Using the front door
To make our exit
You were giving salutes like a soldier,
I was shaking my sugartits berserker

I am ruled by Mars (submissive)
With a moon in Scorpio (dominant)
And with war-paint on I saunter through the streets
Loyal to a an ever-shifting code
Dictated by last night’s half-forgotten dreams
The Grimm moral half-obscured
By the sort-of memory of gnashing fox teeth
And the feeling of having eaten bricks

A cheerful rose colored flame in a moth’s metropolis
I press my diamond soles down against the pavement
Which yields to me like a magic carpet
And I rise and fall like a rootless ghost
Sweeping the side-walks clean
Cigarette butts and delicate grasses
Dancing around my pure white ankles
I hope to jump the curb
“Don’t find no opportunity”
I make my way inside a city park
To recline beside the totem pole
And get lost playing “He loves me, He loves me not…”
With the feathers of a Ojibwa headdress

And a little red dust goes a long way
When
Making brotherly overtures
With my fine feathered friend
I donate half my sandwich and a mickey of gin
To the cause of keeping living
Like the unicorns linger too long
In the designated smoking area
To miss the Arc,
Yet remain ahead of the curve
In the Animal Kingdom
We swap each other’s secret shames
And for just one day, I lose my keys
In the rain and the silhouettes of pigeons
I know that I can count at least one person of the opposite sex
As trustworthy

A sojourn in Saskatchewan
A fleshy sea of helpful pilgrims
Who offer up gifts of ice and leather
And we participate in the jungle rites together
Our animal intuitions throbbing as one
As the cocaine jaguars of the workplace
Watch us dance with clenching poisonous intentions
And we are courteous to them
Bowing our matching smile-shaped head wounds
Although the fear is in my stomach
And your back is up against the blood red walls
You could cut the air with a switchblade comb
And we try
Like hell, we try

I am Sylvio “Plymouth Sundance” Jones
You are Esteban Garcia De La Boltaz
And we slip through greasy daytimes
With righteous curves, and sleepy eyes
With chalk to exploit on pavement
All others are forsaken before us
The masses are obedient to our commands
Which we are fond of writing on public surfaces
Running our hands over everything
This Kingdom is anything we want
We are crowned with dandelions

We own all that we touch
A kleptomaniac’s advice on living thrifty
I have debts no honest woman could repay*
A peasant’s stolen treasures
Compulsive souvenirs of everyone I’ve known
A book on surrealism, and one about artists, a nesting doll
Some Vietnamese cobra-wine
A page from a school-book you wrote my name all over
I put these thefts out of my head
While we share four X’s for eyes
Drinking from a bottle with five

Rip Torn
We consult the map spread across my apartment floor
I keep telling you we should wing it
But you remind me
What it means to always be prepared
With a firm hand on my shoulder
And a loose grip on your lighter
You tell me to “take it away”