weisbuden breduntasch

spelling bee

whipping cream

sour path sylvia

babysitter's dead

gautama of old
india gambling
grease at cockfights
in venezuala
venice beach dreadlock

dr. dre's chronic pasta pizza buffet weed

you dug into something with a lawnmower
that pitched into your head
like a jagged tooth
into hot spaghetti

a landmower that
mows the fucked up
lands of grass
to cut it's beard

and fucked up
and picked a tooth
from the grass
with a hot metal
machine

smoking cigarettes
cut from lusty tobacco farms
where that shit is sweltering in a
Virginia variety show
just a puffed up
donut cloud
dreaming pancakes
dead berry trees
planting people
in rows
growing their
hair long
and cooking it like
hot spaghetti

eternal like those things

when i met you
it was familiar
it was a thing
like tires spraying through the mush of wet snow
or the way beads of glass dip and hang from
the tightrope stretching
through town

it was eternal like those things
and there were powerful vibrations between us that
resonated in perfect harmony

i rolled like a barrel
down a federally protected dune
chasing red water
in a seaweed costume
and dartboard snowballs
with motorist degrees
made a fire ceremony
in the mead trough

we almost drowned
foaming through cold salt

roadside attraction

i find all kinds of wild crap by the side of the road

shells and coral
sweden vs. nigeria VHS tape
grilled corn with beans and cheese layered into the open husks
and salsa with nectarines
Funk and Wagnall's with pictures of penguins
box of crayons
ice cream cake
audio cassette recorder
silver snow and
dream dust from Sudan

and then there is the matter of a mama cardinal
nesting in a lilac bush

i see an orange beak poking out from
a tangled wreath of

hair
bark
grass
shoestring
spaghetti
dream dust from England
Scottish whiskers

lost poem

i see one arm rolling up the carpet and the other is brushing a taxi man's teeth.
the signals are crossed and the head falters.
"bring it in for a bath", someone suggests. let it settle down,
it's spinning like a top and i mean, it's trimming hedges, it could take a finger from you.
this dangerous thing has me all tied up, and then i notice a redheaded vulture
with no moral compass gambling with your last wheezing cloud of talcum powder,
hastily, and without remorse as if he meant to lose.
but how did he happen upon it in the first place?
you were saving that one. or I was anyway.

air freshener

sunburnt banana peels
and cigarettes make
my car smell
like banana bread
and cigarettes

the curl

i was reading a story
when my book melted like
wax over my hands.
suddenly, a deep heat seized me.
i stepped out of bed and
my feet sank into the carpet,
now a swamp of hot fudge.
the bureau yawned, it's drooping drawer,
sagging wads of socks
like marshmallow teeth.
the radio, looking like a licorice brick,
went wonky, bending songs into soup.
sour sweat soaked my shirt.
overhead, the ceiling got drips
that dipped into the room like gobs of honey.
i watched the cat cook down
into an orange and white paste,
until he was just a creamy
smudge in the muck.
my own body curled and squirmed like putty
and then i turned to face the bed
just in time to see
the whole thing blink
like a sleepy whale's
giant eye.

DREAM OF DRIPPING PAINT

I coughed up some jelly
spit in the trash
and everything
washes out
like an overflowed dishwasher

we bubble and slide
through checkpoints
turnstiles
border crossings

my crossing guard
hobbles beside me
wearing a dreamy yellow smile
in my dream
of dripping paint

GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

a vandalized bank weeps
for a rash of crime

the madman is a thirty year old
gumball machine

a storm rolls in and
the gumball machine
is shattered by a violent wind
which collects the candy
in a cyclone
and makes a rainbow

an artist goes to work
with the glass
to record the rainbow
which hurts an old man
to see

the old man has a clipboard
and a petition against pain

a seagull signs white shit

the artist cuts himself
on the rainbow
and bleeds out
into the creek

the old man
is saved
from his body

a giant fisherman in a yellow slicker
drags his net through town and comes up
with some good meat
for a story

undercoating

jesus y maria
and the marionettes
put on a sludge coat
to marie antoinette's
little vest
to make it match
they showed
it burn in public

do not disturb

this mealy pie
will only
chide and rile
these chessmen
let it rot
in that pretty white
bag instead
and the chessmen
will have it out
on the bricklayer's
walk

let your eyes out
of the meat cage
have them a stroll
and sponge
up the
blood

we'll go for
more pumpkins
and emergency candles

geez, this waitress
is somethin' else
my coffee is piping hot
again and again and again and
a sock full of worms
to whoever all else
is eating in this dutch mill

dad...what!?
well, i don't know but
why is that other boy crying?

sugar paw

first to admit
that i lost sight of
the apple just before
the bloody jungle gym

and the chocolate snack pack...
i also flushed down the toilet
sputtering
the cats saw everything

suddenly rain pouring
smeared on the windshield
by a crooked black wing
like glue across your eyes
the hot dog guy
gave the thing hell
with a socket wrench

i crashed my car
after a phone call
to see a rainbow
mashed right into his ex-wife
i was almost home
and i really broke my car
thank you larry
and thank you hot dog guy
i'm no good with cars
not since the bloody jungle seed
and those black-brown apples

regular

a purple chest of drawers
overstuffed with artichoke hearts
wet the bed

poem 3

this tomato is wounded
in the field
gold stars all around
a gale stirred up
the lilacs
it sniffs good

anthill

a pair of mango's
for socks made
my shoes turn sticky
the goslings waddle
snake and bob
i spy a fat little chuck
and a wild turkey
blows away the whole colony

trapped in a spiral of death, which can happen to anyone

stand up and
go blind
a six pound crow
rattles a branch
have a seat
in the devil's chair

annotations

sternly, aloofness
in an arranged marriage cemetery
i couldn't resist the temptation to look
possessions
tub
corduroy
peg
enamel curator
plebiscite tassels vanished
fraternity duel
pool of his own blood
i protested by crying
in the expedition
derailed carnage
cue
insane
hear the music and laughter
rolling over the lake
mussels
crayfish
toads
surf a beatnik
expelled

corpuscle

a scrape of mashed beans
on a crusty rind
handcuffed to a suit coat
on a coasting crest of cock-a-doodle-do

leeks, scallions, radish
single elements
pissing up the bathtub

a rusty cart chugs
down the ladder
racing to meet the fire

lemon wedge

A lady carrying a heap of white bags stopped to say, "your purple moon is fading". She walked off into the fray and I rubbed my tattoo. I was locked in a morbid spell cast by a vagabond witch. That's not where I like to be. Stale air. Rat shit popcorn. That kind of thing. I opened a small wooden door in the brick wall beside me and hunched through a curious archway. Inside, a sickly yellow bulb dangled, barely illuminating a small ceremonial mound of raisins. The significance of this particular type of fruit mound was not lost on me. I carved a protective rune into the floor with a bone and bid the cursed room a fond adieu. Alas, the spectral tomb would have none of it. It was as if the door I had come in by was never there. Only bricks. And then a silky gray flower mashed up through the floor scattering the raisins and from the flower's mouth the sounds of the swedish jahaina swept me through the wall and away into a clear blue river under a hot purple moon.

power thoughts

this dog watched a risen corpse ketchup a wet hot american sandwich. doesn't even know what one is. one word. her pale blue face turned inside out before the accident, then darkness. in the plastic tub the earwig wood smoked a string of teeth before it's a done and done ornament. grindstone indian corn into patty cakes and basketball my head off while the cat peeks through the curtain to announce the arrival of the long awaited, a cherry drop finger prick from a milk snake charming.