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.

"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."

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!

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.