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 

The Sunday Muse

 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  

The Sunday Muse

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 

The Sunday Muse

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

The Sunday Muse

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
 

The Sunday Muse

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
 

The Sunday Muse

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
 

The Sunday Muse

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
 

The Sunday Muse