habitat friction [2012]

a top shelf tiny two is

hunkered down between bowls

surveying

this forever home     (the third)

is a shag-crushed landscape    salted and seasoned

strewn with commercial cardboard

downed jazz icons

festival frames broken

and long strands of Timothy hay   

also     several size 13 sneakers

          a pair of wool socks

an ottoman surfboard

and papaya hands

but anymore is leaving in the a.m.

a conversation is harmonic

and thumpers rise to thump

an attention

a ride of rubber?     (to Cuties or...)

Visceralum artwork: "Brass Curtains" [2015]

hunger [2010]

this is with other words     sweet

chewed     as one might chew soil

breathing a support     condemned

— an intermingling of particles — 

in another mouth     an open gnashing of

language     gaping and voracious

(as a child, this was known only in a glass jar)

it is a reckoning with an endowed past

a lick upon a Scottish top pattern

wrapped     a memory preserved in foil

it is a statement regarding a disease

a manifestation of eternal yearning

exposed     a behavior of dubious nature

(as a teen, this was prevalent in all arenas)

a struggle with the swallow     dry

within the anticipation of warmth

flush of your understanding     starving

an implication of a tonic line

not to be tongue-crossed     twice

contrary to the palate     a dread delight

(as an adult, this is a pathetic allowance)

you may make a posthumous arrangement of these lines 

                 and connect them

                 to an impetuous title:

                Maple Walnut Crunch

untitled [2009]

on the cracked pave of the drive

outside her pains

she realized a pause

to collect her scattered angers

from the porch

and from the yard

and from the freshly graveled road

away from what her way meant

she could find her daughter

(thirty-five years hers)

crying behind the wheel of that again stuffed truck

waiting, between sobs, for the parking words

and she could indeed say them 

(lips crusted with hate)

those words that ached right within her...

but she didn't (gathered angers clenched, trembling fists)

instead, familiar tires cracked and popped

under weight

and over the freshly graveled road

glances were taken

like the key

and the dog barked

until the tail-lights faded

into scarred and obscuring memory

and she held her angers 

like loved ones

on the cracked pave of the drive

Underarm Music [2015]

building [2011]

a burning down and another articulated

light...

there is a happiness in the leaving

a beam    and a structure to being

missing

this is called

                      architecture

#TBT [2015]