new poem

“Osprey”

I woke up belly-down in Osprey, spun-out
and swollen near a Salvation Army.
The sky was bloated with clouds
of automotive injury. In the distance,
a siren cried like a baby, drowning
the ringing in my right ear. I could see
the accident clearly from the vacant lot
where my body lay heavy, surrounded
by soggy garbage. There was blood on
the gravel, and a uniformed man with
a Senator's stature overseeing
the stretchers.

Soon, my thoughts were unlucky
creatures waiting to be slaughtered.
I remembered a night in Wisconsin,
wandering naked through the snow, four
years old, my mother finding me frostbitten
before calling an ambulance. I remembered
my face full of liquid morphine.

new poem

Year Of The Reaper

Last September, you jumped
the rafters after
leaving Lorna's with a
tongue of cinder, dark sockets, and
pockets full of tranquilizers.

Outside the emporium, I
cleared quarts with Justin until
your memory scissored me
to the floor, where I
commanded you to come back.

Later, I required medication,
and so the days fell
through me while
death built an engine quietly
in my body.

The Almighty, I learned, is
only a perverted vigilante, a
stranger listening through the door,
rallying vultures when he decides
to knock.

new poem

I Remember (Brainard Tribute)

Mostly, I remember drinking
myself bloody, falling
from the flatbed as you sped
off to another county.

I remember a flock
of tweakers approaching me,
then waking up in the grass
where lost pets drag themselves.

I remember you
through smudgy glasses
and a skull full of vices,
too pinned to leave Palmetto.

Do you remember me
looking younger last year?

I remember nothing.
Last year was a woman
quietly leaving the room
as I passed out.

I remember the first time
I took drugs was when
a deranged orthodontist named
Phyllis fed them to me.

I don't remember
third grade as much as
the doctor says I should,
but I remember

a girl named Sara,
whose anemia made her
bruised legs look like
those of a Dalmatian.

I remember shitting
myself at golf lessons.

new poem

Thought Brigade

we started off
quietly enough
but outside
there was too
much stuff so
later that evening
we went back inside
where something
strong in a cup
stitched us
up

new poem

Poem About Sleeping

yesterday
some hours
fell through
me before
night sank
its

(en)
gin
(e)

deep in
my body.

new poem

Poem

by then,
we’d become strangers
in person, in a flood
of cold light we
fell through the
prism, stoned, in need
of attenti

on. off

the ledge of the
island they found
us drowning before
returning

to lunch. in a two year
total we’d become
visibl

y older, y
ou’d risen to
the median, though

I never saw you

as you were:

fucked up,
puking pills
in your parents' backyard.