the Sheep-to-Shore phone rings you say ignore the elephant in the room during Thanksgiving dinner its ass-end smell turkey and gasoline from the fuming motor of democracy winching it through the doorway hoping the walls don't burst then we can just go back to where we left off our regular grift and holding our noses for Isaiah 53:6 all we like sheep
Author: qbit
Lives and works in NYC with wife and apartment-sized dog. (Wife is regular-sized of course...)
TSM 134
what is a turbinado and how did it get in my coffee? this question stirs and then dissolves my mind needs a mulligan just one day that doesn't crash test my brain and blow out air bags or leave me punch drunk from the rope-a-dope news a la Ali with me praying for the bell can we go back to simpler times? like Nixon Vietnam and the National Guard opening fire on students at Kent State? OK no bad plan Manson no no not that either good god no '38 and Kristallnacht gaaah! There's no end! Rawanda Cambodia Sri Lanka the Armenian Genocide and The Terror of the French Revolution this is not going well my poem not yielding up the calm surface of Haiku – Old Pond blooms with scum fine no headlines today no nervous sounds of clicking like the tiny claws of squirrels scrambling across the shingles I'll just read about science this piece on no my god Murder Hornets and they are orange too like stinging lights behind the eyes of a four-year long concussion
TSM 133
the sound this morning's breaking broken light the blues made me happysad because muddy waters do not baptize us holy wholly with salvation only part the red sea into blue and you and I sing "Halleluiah" but we're lost as heaven knows Leonard's lonely heart 'cause "love is not a victory march" I don't know how all our voices can open the soul when only the gospel in bluenotes are sent on a red letter day
TSM 132
writing my friend's eulogy dead man dead man his body double shot of bourbon casket strength in AZ asks are the leaves here where I am all high in the treetops in skin tight red and yellow camo like floozies like his groupies like light line dancing as they fall baby baby baby hit me one more time death in the air Halloween in the bag man he said it was hard to die the music hard rock pulverized to grit like chips off the old block his skin lost to grindstone the sky's wheel towards granite and gypsum the hard times ahead hard in the ground
TSM 131
Did you hear the one about the alcoholic liver that went on a road trip with Jim Morrison, Janis, and Jimi? Me neither but your wife snatches the phone from your ear while you cough in spasms of laughter and screams at me what are you trying to do kill him? because your liver isn't coming home from on tour either I ask you what it is like to die, is it interesting at all or just boring or a pain in the ass do you wish it was finally all over and before she can click off the call I manage to yell I want a preview and can hear you choking but a good choking like the bong hit really landed deep when we were in high school and said stupid shit like death is the ultimate trip. Only you and I know what I stole from you, girlfriends were fair game but I took your poem and never gave it back, it's still here in my pocket where I unfold its origami of blotter acid like rolling down Colorado Boulevard with you at the wheel tripping Van Gogh, me riding Dali shotgun, and Liz our very own Kahlo shouting Lucky’s speech from Waiting for Godot out the windows The words of yours I took were more precious than sex or dope or rock and roll in one perfect moment, everything I had in me needing transgression, needing violation, opened naked opened like the doors of your car at the red light with me puking tequila and pinto beans from the all you can eat buffet at Casa Bonita How long now have you lived without poetry, how long have I held friendship hostage to words, how much of you is on every page I write, how much unspoken has been dying between us for years and I stole what I wanted to say on the phone If I'll see you no more in this world* I'll meet ya on the next one Don't be late Don't be late *Apologies to Mr. Hendrix
TSM 129
tape your hands with light jam horseshoes of light into your gloves lace light across the leather and pull it tight with your teeth after pushups of light speedwork furious with light heavy bag swaying with body blows of light your jump rope braided and hopped up with light running dawn's steep miles as you eat sleep and breath light so that tonight even with history against you bending not toward you but away the fix in you punch so hard into the sky that darkness explodes and night falls
TSM 128
feckless butterfly flight that stuttered orange is the new black a dead monarch on the sand its wings pressed flat by the unabridged tide the dictionary of water from anemone to zebra fish I said to you pointing that's him that's the bastard the one who's tiny hands fluttered and the flutter became the headwinds the tornados au poivre the chaos the hurricanes that tore apart our shore and I have butterflies in my stomach in the twitch of my eyes, the itch in my arms to fly the downlegs the doglegs to visit the graves of the flight from Egypt or Mexico or even Ohio to watch the rain of silk
TSM 127
this morning the ocean soft as calf snout slow-eyed waves of a seaweed manger you began to sing newborn to the water each note translucent curled and umbilical yet I fear your voice will wake and beckon another such hurricane as those just now as if all joy were oxygen and bloodline to catastrophe I let go your hand and walk up the shore because my heart seeks the lost ground must learn again the shape of salted firmament
TSM 126
I've been reading about the French Revolution and the Terror how the sound of tumbrel after tumbrel rattled through the streets of Paris all night like semi's out on I-70 from Indianapolis St. Louis Denver diesel smoke of our oil-black Amazon burning cross country from truck stop to truck stop where waitresses keep vigil praying the rosary on their order pads and how the whisk of blades was as casual as you my love chopping peppers for our ragout last night then chicken & onions with that same satisfying thwack at the end of each stroke and me cheering you on the more the merrier I christen this dish Marie because none of us are ever any more or less than this because you can howl black robes into black flames like a bellows to the supreme heart of the news this morning you can write all their names on wings of a death's head moth and tape them to the internet because don't kid yourself one moment your baguette smells like bread the next it smells warm and sweet like an iron pike one moment you laugh at yourself in the mirror and the next you grimace at your wig of raven feathers this isn't a prayer or excommunication dear child of God only a reminder to look up and see what angel wears your face at Passover
TSM 125
I press feathers and bits of bone into the earth like seeds like teeth thinking gestures of futility might bloom into foxwomb or begonia eyes but only wormwood will grow a magic flute from my ribs thin as a reed and hollow the chunk of spade in earth from my Mr. McGregor shovel harrows a shadow its vole darts across the path in front of me returns the favor of surviving another day