Winter never really settled in.

Leaves still clung to the trees through February

and geese honked overhead all season,

not all heaving sigh and heading southern-most of existence,

melted sense of precipitating fears masked in rain

and cold leers from the weary drainpipe.

All this water should be snow

frost climbing up the window

starts at the corner panes, works its way center,

the drier vent releases lint steam into the shadow beams of side-porch light,

lost mandolin chords and child support out the door,

metal prospectors aligning laser measurement scopes along Pocock Road,

the menial block of daybreak christening the horizon unwittingly,

to be corroded last and latest in the evening

after others have been stationed precipitously on the iron fire escape.

Liars driving the sacred highway after late night trysts with Hollywood,

no one is famous anymore.  

Who is paying attention to the global scale war we are waging?

Living on a ship in a white whale’s belly waiting for him to sneeze heavy,

grow me a nose limb and settle me safely down

on Inquisition’s shore of beveled reflection,

refracted mind traces of last night’s scuffles,

the armed rocks stacked like blocks on the far bank

and nothing is quiet on the Western Front—

does that alarm go off every time you open the door? 

Once more we’ve caked all the labels in band camp,

staked all the tables on fins and deep fried sandwiches,

po’ boys and hush puppies,

Maryland crab cakes are never battered,

they should be broiled or baked without filler,

real jumbo lump, none of that stringy imitation God-knows-what-shit—

it’s kind of like boxed stuffing,

you know it’s mostly breading but what else is in there? 

Steam them in Natty Boh or Yuengling to achieve the proper flavor,

layer the Old Bay to keep the live ones in the pot

it blinds and subdues them,

to be cooked of their blueness,

eat them red off the newspaper,

tearing out the devil and piling up the shells

on the front page headline perceived travesty of the week,

the more mustard the sweeter the meat,

the back fin is the best part without a doubt

but he prefers the claws,

the rest he saves to make soup and feed the homeless shelter

on every day except Christmas under the overpass,

the lasting effect of bogs in the homeland,

hogs enjoy the banjo like men in the mud

and now they’ve converted the neighborhood:

you’re a snob if you want to pursue higher education,

millions of hard-working blue collar Americans make it every day

pushing car parts car parts car parts

through the factory assembly lines so their children can struggle more

and have none of the things we can’t afford—

Santorum, seriously, take a long walk off a short pier man

like a screen door on a submarine,

a hoagie and a gold medal dream of Olympic glory,

four stories and seven scenes ago we sent the Natives tracking,

packed up child on Mother’s back

and wrote them chattel on the rusty Mississippi.  

I’ll sell you South I will, I swear I will,

grant us pardon, for the remission of our sins,

on this, the day of our pre-game commentary,

cotton berry ought to go sky high this season,

not making any sense of dry humor and plastic metaphors,

allusions to movies I’ve watched a million times as a child

and now they’re all ruined because I have to look at them with a critical eye.  

The liberal elitist institutions have indoctrinated me

to fear the purported upholders of the Constitution,

the broom closet molesters and wage agitators,

beg the Socratic gadfly dodging swatters in the glass atrium,

shots fired rapidly without aiming

the grunt dies for two thousand poorly placed rounds,

our faith in the ground unshaken by earthquakes and tremors reached out for mines,

fire hydrants jilt open water pressure

and city kids go running through them like fountains,

dancing laughing flip-flops slapping on the puddled pavement,

the muddied wave length of summer extending well beyond its reach,

straining spinal chord and totem pole,

well wishers kind words of wisdom floating gaily

across the maple branches that say no to fix-it camps,

you will not have a son if you do that to him.

The difference is we can look at things

and call them what they are without having to label them,

destroy the heritage of verbs, with constant pecking at their suffixes,

suffocating trombone players go blue in the face,

debase the mental canyon into chalk erasers and overhead projectors.

Foam representations of the human brain make it seem more friendly than forgotten,

the problem we face today is so rapidly changing

the moment we think we’ve defined it

we lose the question again—

lock the oxen and ford the river,

forge old wagon trails a mile wide,

bison graveyards pile bones high as sycamores—

I don’t know what they’re looking down on.

We pause on old cinder blocks

and mutter to Victoria lily pads

about pre-marital intercourse and storming the French Bastille,

stale bread and pepper spray are no more harmful to a child than the elderly,

so lets mosquito everybody. In a reckless last stand,

He rolled all of us in one swift motion of His hand

the Sea split before us and closed behind us.

Corn

Not much of what I write is literal,

it’s much easier to let everyone draw their own conclusions about what I’m trying to say.

All anyone can do is speculate.

I hate sitting in class with a professor asking what does this poem mean?

It means exactly what it says on the page and nothing more

but we go hard on talking about all these imaginary metaphors,

the monkey’s ass represents society and the poop he slings represents Capitalism.

One time in ninth grade English class

we all got fed up with anal probing literature

so we decided to be smartasses, and dissect Chicka Chika Boom Boom

as an allegory for the American economy,

a Doll’s House prompted sarcastic misogyny

proclaiming it was all the nurse’s fault,

woman’s job is to make sandwiches and babies,

not to have ideas because the world is so big and scary outside my kitchen,

listen we need to bring your fiancé downtown with us tonight

to watch over us and make sure nothing happens.

Lately you’ve grown to be opinionated,

with often dated points of view I listen to you to be fair

and I’m entreating you to do same:

what the fuck is going on in this country? I wondered aloud,

I used to be proud to call myself an American

and now I am embarrassed,

our government has harassed everyone else incessantly

and honestly I don’t see the logic behind violence—

I mean I understand where it’s coming from

and why we need a military in modern day society,

but rcan’t we evolve beyond this as a way to solve our differences? 

Men talk talk talk about honor

as if they have any slight idea of what it means to be honorable

in terms of human dignity this is all a satire,

the French Revolution is brewing Columbian coffee

I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot,

words always retain their meaning but I didn’t always believe it.

I went through this crisis as a writer

where I was convinced that words were superfluous

that we were meant to move beyond them entirely and maybe we will some day

but there is something in the sound of them

the cadence of rhythm the natural pace at which we speak

and move our hands alternating between eye contact

and imagining something that you are describing

building it in the space in front of you

and nothing exists outside of this conversation

we exist because we are having this conversation

world war three or four could be happening right outside our door and it wouldn’t matter,

I’d lie here naked spread eagled with you

ready for them to come and get us

we are currently witnessing the apocalypse to use your fear mongering term for change,

but I do sometimes when I am driving

get the sense that things are ending

and I am half expecting the undead to come ghouling over the crest of the horizon,

I mistake mailboxes to be people walking in the road

and I momentarily slow down and could smack myself for smiling

for falling asleep and rising each morning when the sun’s still down

it feels early but tell that to the cows

it’s late and they need milking,

wavering like a hot air balloon over the planet

and satellites bouncing signals around the earth to one another,

blinking lights communicate encounters of a foreign kind,

a knightly sigh for the belle dame sans merci buckets

of water carried up the stairs from well to tub to fill the lady for a bath.

They serve Christ Chex halfway through mass,

in Jesus class I used to color all their robes in bright patterns,

make their faces green and grow them long beards,

I remember early on wondering, how do we know we’re right?

and when it came time to be confirmed our parents gave us the choice

and we both said hell no pun intended,

I un-friended Mary on facebook when I found out she wasn’t really a virgin

when Zeus came to earth as a swan it went something like webbed feet on her thighs,

she cries to Joseph who does the honorable shotgun thing

the knee jerk reaction the heel flip and crack jaw the whip,

alligator man ready to gnaw your claws off

and sell you to the circus bug show

they thought they were heroes but what have you done today?

Half a quarter, second stack, bedroom post

knocking against the wall, if all you’re gonna do is play me

then take a number buddy you’re not the only one nor the best,

the rest all flow together in a stream of consciousness,

the reckless abandon of Kerouac’s novels makes them more poetry than anything

but then again that line is always debatable,

put your head on the chopping table

and make yourself available for a few days after taking it in the ass

you’ll be shitting funny cause your butthole muscles can’t clench properly

especially with his rocket ship porn star cock

that thing should come with a surgeon generals warning

and if he reads this I’m sure he’ll know its about him

but don’t flatter yourself Otter you’re not the only one, I’ve lied too.

What happened was I got hurt bad once

and ever since then I decided I would play the damn game better than the boys and I did,

then in college I got bored of that and tried to be faithful to someone for once

and karmically he shit all over me.

I told myself afterwards that I deserved it

for some of the nice-guys I had screwed over in the past

but this string of douchebaggery has lasted longer than I anticipated:

The last guy I went on a date with was pushing forty

and I realized quickly I wasn’t trying to be his midlife crisis,

dude just got out of a divorce was ready to get on my horse

and I was so not having it,

he was definitely attractive but I couldn’t get past it

he kept asking me to send him nudey pics

even though we had never had sex—

you don’t get to see me naked via camera phone

until you’ve seen me in person,

in some other version of this story I’m a stuck up bitch

who left him with the same blue balls he’s had for the last fifteen years with one woman

who was running around on him so maybe broads are just as crazy as ya’ll

but slipping into your hob-knobbing vernacular is so simple and debasing

it’s delicious, I hate when you liken me to food and sugary sweets.

I am made of rice, with dirt on it.

Taliban murders seven sons and daughters and calls their fathers on the telephone,

I’m resisting arrest on grounds of contempt for the law.

Word Association

Seeds weeds deeds mead Alfred Hitchcock dead clock Edgar Allan Poe Edith Wharton Elizabeth Taylor in the library with Colonel Sanders and a secret blend of herbs and spices,

cigarette vices on the end of the pin barrel table with the proper leverage we can spring free of this

isn’t freedom brother whatever you throw out comes back at you brother good or bad better or worse richer for poorer in sickness and in hell we masturbate on the kitchen table and save it for later au jus.

One time at band-camp she drank his come from a shot glass in front of his friends because they didn’t believe that she would do it another time she licked it off his bed sheets when they were through,

he has a way of bringing out the nasty in a girl the sick twisted side of her perversion is more than the Catholic church can handle all that and a bag of potato chips

you can substitute fries for that it’s another two dollars but no additional service charges or fees apply standard shipping rates and postage stamps, Potter is offering fifty cents on the dollar it’s better to get half than none at all,

Buckingham Palace and Courtney Love Britney Spears dill pickles.

He likened a kosher deli being forced to serve ham with Catholic institutions being forced to provide the option of birth control on their employees’ government-funded health insurance,

Viagra is okay because boners are a medical need but access to preventative reproductive health care is not because he don’t know nothing bout birthing babies,

in the good old boys-club gals used to put a bottle of aspirin between their knees and sailors out at see for a year at a time never engage in homosexual activity don’t ask don’t tell because we are scared of gay people as if they’re all secretly fiending to turn us away from God’s back like a pack of rabid alley dogs.

Poster hogs for childhood obesity epidemic in this country but pizza is now servable as a vegetable on school lunches, look Ma no hands crack in my jaw I hope it don’t dissolve my future like baking soda,

now kids don’t try this at home these are professional Jackasses being fish-hooked and riding shopping carts off the roof of Peter Griffin’s house and his spine is sticking out like stegosaurus scales—is this bad?

Is it bleeding on the inside? Donny bit his lip jumping on the bed he cracked his head on the ceiling the first female President of Finland tells American women you can break the glass above you too

but she doesn’t want quotas she doesn’t what that on our shoulders that maybe we are there just because we are a woman not because we are the most qualified person for the job.

The Americans with Disabilities Act stated that the county courthouse build a wheelchair ramp and they finally did two years later but the only water fountain is on the second floor to which there is no ramp or elevator,

now and later grape flavor is the best it’s the only artificial grape I’ve tasted that doesn’t remind me of cough syrup,

mental stirrups on our stocking feet and hidden by our tennis shoes, the walking blues, bedevil me, riddle me this a sphincter in a cold shaft,

santorum in the bathtub all over his waterproof three speed vibrating banana phone this shit is bananas, b-a-n-a-n-a-s the summer that that song came out I heard it play ten times in an eight hour guard shift, Jason and I almost shit ourselves from across the pool when we realized it had been on more than once in an hour

glass pouring sand metallic rain on the window pane it’s all the same it’s all been said before I am beating a dead horse like an old lady with her purse until I hurt myself sometimes because you touch yourself at night if you keep doing that you’ll go blind.

He thinks the Pope went soft when he asked for peace talks between Israel and Palestine.

What happened to the good old crusading game days of master shit proportions?  Machiavelli liked the ladies and so did Ben Franklin I’m pretty sure everyone was being sexual just fine until they had to start defining different kinds,

and every word has some kind of stigma attached to it, we all have these preconceived notions of what a relationship is supposed to be and that’s why monogamy is a fat joke, why men fuck goats, the Men Who Stare at Goats,

the Venice moat is full of waste it’s really quite rancid I’m fond of answering questions with another question even thought I know rhetorically speaking it’s not proper etiquette but double standards have never deterred me before why the monkey should I start now? my afternoon delight Will Ferrell chorus in the news room,

if you watch this bank commercial closely you can see Jimmy Fallon’s soul die right there when he says he’ll clean all this up but who doesn’t want more money? This cute baby in a highchair says no! and throws Cheerios in his face it’s fucking hilarious I guess advertising works in some sense except for the fact that I can’t remember which bank exactly it was for not like it really matters

but every time I go into Bank of America to deal with my checking account they try to talk me into opening a savings account and I always say no not today as if I will some day in the future I’d rather kick this Depression under the mattress style old school new school they school

we real cool we play pool the red wheelbarrow can suck on these lemons and high fructose corn syrup now lets make babies and replace all the water with Gatorade it’s what plants crave Multi-pass hybrid all wheel drive plug it in plug it in Johnson & Johnson a family company,

I saw this documentary made by one of their heirs it’s the great or grandson of one of the original Johnsons and he’s all confused about what he should do since money is no object he goes around interviewing other wealthy young adults all of them products of exorbitant trust funds and basically what he’s trying to say is it ain’t easy being rich but seriously? That’s like let them eat cake Let Detroit Go Bankrupt but now Mitt loves Michigan because the state is shaped like a him and all the trees are the right height,

the traffic lights turn blue tomorrow, Butch Cassady and the Sundance Kid go running blind into the suburban night ruckus jackals come to pick the lion’s leftovers—

A certain subtlety is required of words and the using of them

curves and the driving of them,

humpbacked, back packed

for Appalachian smokestacks

that will not be un-hidden of hill,

foot pedal will, moonwater still laced

angel faced high on sassafras and ginger rocks

the mountain top surface climb,

meadow find the peer ridden grass

whiskey pass the moth light,

crystal gaze of star ridden escapades

masquerades at the tree line,

Macbethian riddled brew.

Irregular Bird Patterns

Pots and bowls are really one bowl boiling in a pot on the stove in the pink kitchen, the ladies luncheon hosted her sprawling flat-water estate, a flock of swans drifting gracefully about the lake, taking an afternoon dip to fight the vapors of humid come soon mid-May the Earth sheds her waking bones and dances like a river, fence the shiver never forget the sod that meeps under the rocks, her favorite thing about nature walks is the moss, cigarettes and cell phones until we decide to get further lost on the dirt path what’s up with this gravel future? I can feel it melting on my eyes like mint julep coats our throats in the summertime, Mayberry porch rhyme about nostalgia and black and white, grainy photographs of holy sheiks at their water pipes, and the rare lonely gas station between Hyattsville and Park Heights, the cherry tree flights into the city and the sky was grey, the Potomac River slated passing under the highway, the gilded bridge into Georgetown where there is no metro stop, we drop into Mie n Yu for their crab rangoon and blueberry lamb steaks, we learn dancing at Maru Montero and slip through the FDR memorial after sunset, the slow wending procession of oxidized statues and granite proclamations, watching the city fall asleep from the roof of his building in the hub of Adam’s Morgan, Madam’s Organ still cranking wildly a weathered blues rock jam from her greasy pipes, the caballed fight of motorcycle flocks sawing the night in two we are dancing on the roof in my ear, as he walked through the door where I was pouring more wine in the red sauce on the stove—

            

Over Tea and Crumpets

“My Marxist feminist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard.”

            --The Internet

Adam pissed on the apple tree to claim it for his own

mark his alpha bullshit territory

scum the air before we tasted the flesh of nature’s dirt in your eye

salt in the wound, canary in the mine shaft,

precious metals my ass what’s so impressive about a diamond a mirror and falling into Hades’ river a mythical joke and a fraud

mistaken for the music is always buffering

putting a stopper in the whiskey bottle he was saving

but now seems as good a time as any

as he locks the stairs that lead to the attic at the beginning

or the end of a b-list horror movie

quite frankly Scarlett darling I don’t understand the point of scary movies,

I mean if someone put one on I could sit there and watch it

but I wouldn’t necessarily enjoy it

unless it’s so bad that we all can laugh about it.

My cough is mucus in my palm, the last of too many cigarettes

it’s one of those things where I have to surrender control

and admit that even if I haven’t had one for a week a year whatever

I am still trying to quit.

The perks of being young and beautiful

far outweigh the responsibilities of being someone’s midlife

appendicitis of the mind and now the monkey is out of the bottle

once Pandora stops playing and a commercial pops in

I’m going to shit myself thank you Mozart

but all artists are crazy. 

A house full of writers is a beautiful frightening thought.

I couldn’t limit myself to my roommates or we would all join forces

and self-destruct by default.

I can’t speak for the others, but Van Gogh did chop his ear off.

Tapping the keyboard like a piano

harpsichord mother Southern California here we come

pray the baking sun can break the smug of L.A. swelter

palm trees suffocating locusts preying

praying mantises eating off the heads of their lovers

under the covers with Bob Dylan again

and the world is ending outside right now but we don’t care

he’s talking about World War III

and I’m talking the Fourth, the after party

the coked up stage fright

muscled age right about eighteen seems kind of young but it’s legal,

if it were the other way around you wouldn’t call it weird.

I always want to say wired when I see the word weird

some kind of enjoyment in the term dyslexia

established itself when Mister Gorbachev tore down that wall,

we set fruit bats loose in the hall and called it a prank

a tank rolled down Tiananmen don’t be a square

you’re already there she wants it anyway

but he has concerns about women being closer to the front lines

the point in rhyming is to draw your attention to something

don’t they teach you anything in school

the complete repertoire of white trash mental retardations

and masturbation in the library, coming on Dickinson’s collected works

jerking off on Hamlet’s Ticonderoga No.5

masticate my wenis Mister Feeney

Mean Girls and 1980’s jocks with Ken doll haircuts

he’s twenty four and tries to act forty

but he’s as immature as the rest of us

and Napoleon he’ll have that for the rest of his life

unless he deals with Electra

which I guess means the complement is true

that I have penis envy.

I’d try it out for a week to see what it’s like

but I’d rather be a woman

keep your brute strength, the only way you’ve maintained your Goddamn tree

is with the threat of it.

It’s really ill evolved and brutish of you

the whole notion of the Art of War.

Put your gun down or shoot me.

I’d rather die than be put into stilettos and tube top

rot in your sacred halls of pedophilia and extortion

vestment and greed are cousins of the same closed mind

the unreceptive brain drying out slowly over a lifetime

shriveling to a walnut before it heaves and gives out

leaves the child with doubt in their own happiness

to be listless and follow is the proper knowledge of our tradition

and we are to uphold the good family name for posterity and reputation sake

it’s all about saving face in this our great nation

the state of the union is in peril and we’re freaking out over Whitney Houston

we have a problem worth solving

the proof only takes five hundred twenty one thousand six hundred pages to solve,

a computer could do it in half a second.

I’ve always been fickle in taste and in subject matter,

format and punctuation patter, cobwebs in my diamond play ball if there’s grass

swing a sword of knightly phallus and so win fair ladies fart

candle lit bromance on the bearskin rug with Natty Light

and pornography pin-ups are not what they used to be

it’s a Martha Stewart good thing if the women find empowerment through it

but overall feminists argue that it does not help the situation of our status.

The climate surrounds us like African mothers

blocking their government from leaving work until they would stop the violence,

We are sick of it they told the men who stood there

deer-faced and bug-eyed not knowing what to do

but acquiesce that they have behaved poorly and badly and ugly.

We are busy studying the same tired old wars as if they are glorious

yes please Texas text book editing company

censor my history to pretend like your being sensitive

what’s really offensive is not Janet’s wardrobe malfunction

but your complete lack of ability to highly function as a human being

clinging to indifference and fat ass consumption

the presumption is that I would stop driving when the light turns yellow—

Salt Shaker

I want to break through my self and find my center,

my heart cave and chakra modem of peace and unity

the blossoming truth of reality beaming toward me lightly

sparks the mental crib of disenchantment

and brews a soup we never knew this life

or any there after before the balcony shiver climb

in the dusty wind break,

ornery shoals and grey sails against the stormy sky

the deviled bone of Earth’s roundness,

Her full belly of bass baited on my hook and wire reel it in and throw it back

cast the liquor and drop the stacks of bells the church door bells

the record sales the protest picket sign wavers and coke machines

bastard reemings down the hall shake my gyroscope

in fast wave hope of dashing for the shore

the pickled rhinestone and white liver rhinoceros

hide in the brush and trample us when we come picking at their door,

taking all the grape vines and storing them for winter like a squirrel

but we some how ended up in Africa and winter is different here

we can’t keep our acorns on the ground in a hole

or they will be swallowed by the soul and sand,

the constant racketing on my window in the rain

my body laying out before me like a soldier

a wounded woman accused and torn

born and unborn the purple morning creeping up the mountainous clouds

the blue mist of the trees fading

gradient into the sun.

I see my son born years from now

a Kosovo Albanian boy facing crest fallen in waking nightmare,

forsaking childhood in the name of bread and food

carrying water and chopping wood to lift his soul to Grace.

I’ve wasted another go of it

and found my self un-centered again

which is why the words are still separate

and my mind is desperate to find what it’s trying to cling to so painstakingly

my soul is aching and I would love to have him here quaking inside of me

but I fear that I’ve scared him away.

These four walls are not my home

rather my heart is my sacred tome of Old Testament,

the plaster firmament on which we take our stand for masterpieces

the monkeys toss feces at each other for comic relief

and Mick Jagger and David Bowie go dancin in the street

in possibly the gayest music video I’ve ever seen it was beautiful,

the muse was dutiful he

rose constantly full of breath and ready for the pricking of the vine

the blood fueled through the wine

and beat us into baskets, mummied wicker cabinets,

instagram madness I’ve lost it again.

Shut my mind off again and listen to the whispers and simples

of washberian blasphemy creeping up on me because I invite it so.

Keep your cool Caitlan and remember

that earlier today you wrote you were so happy it’s stupid,

but it is not stupid to be happy

and it is not foolish to love somebody who clearly loves you back,

stop giving a sassafras what other people think because you kick fucking ass woman.

You used to not waste any rap on the automatic reactions

of fictitious magnets of attraction,

slipping into that Latin magic is so easy every time

and you fall for it every time as if I’m saying something that matters.

I’ve gotten into the habit of letting my hair down and not wearing a bra.

I get a little self conscious about it if I’m at work

but it’s hard to be bought and won

when you are not being true to the son that you know you will have.

I’ve often thought that I am useless but then I remind myself of what I’ve found

and I return to the home in my heart

my holy engravement and pine needle

my thistle weed beetle

my crack whistle thimble and rebel scorn

grassy yet fistless to carry the thin webbing day

beating the sand into glass marbles

to fill the eye sockets of the Earth that’s in decay:

it makes me sad to say, but it is the fact at which I have arrived

and there is no denying it.

I feel like I’ve been a bad friend and lover

I spread my self too thin and need to leave room for my self:

do not split between the two but keep them together

and you’ll weather this trouble like a voodoo blues woman,

keep it grey and keep it real in this rawhide gin bucket

tuck the light in the birdcage and cast a whim on the fire,

the kindle wood briars and box elder winds in the way.

Postulating

If money is the root of all evil then why do we pass a collection basket around the church?  We broke our backs lifting Moloch to Heaven, the leaven dust unsettled on our minds, molding festering fermenting a sour apple mash hidden deep in West Virginia wood hearing range of Episcopalian waders in the holy lake who make a mockery of me again and pass me from hand to crippled hand as an old woman becomes a burden on her family after birthing and raising them all to know God, one would think they’d carry her lightly but they go fighting into that deaf night, the cleft lip and marked mire for where to hide a sinful body, the warm blanket coddle, worry and wobble like a top spin, tumble weed through a no horse Texas town sprung up eerie around a gas station on a desolate stretch of highway.  We better fill up here, we don’t know when we’ll come across another one, I reckon we aren’t from around these parts they don’t take kindly to our type, hock us off as lose witted and too friendly, take a look at them pearly whites, no way they’s real, steal me away from here on a stagecoach bound for Montana homestead and copper mines still manned by hands into great wooden baskets carried on a shoulder yoke like having wide woman hips, a forty foot goose and wing span, spatula and pan, slap a Thanksgiving dinner together like it’s nothing and not for nothing we praise His holiness o Father forsake me not unto your patterns of hopeless wealth, save us from the pittance of human madness that strangles itself reaching for air as if it were tangible, a handle on how things are, how we lived since the beginning of modern Judeo phallic worship we can’t have women at the front because men will forget their duty, be true to me and all that is forgotten—

Freeze Frame

She is a portrait sitting in the sakura trees

sipping on jasmine tea prepared slightly off center the heat,

the metal coursing slowly to the boiling point.

She will later dip his britches in the broiling pot

to steam them of their daily grist

gathered in the sulfur mines.

The universe binds together two fortunes

who would otherwise never be attended,

the masterful lattice workings of dark molecules

that make up thousands of characters,

slight variations of inflection and emphasis

make a horse into a mother,

a chamber into the cover of night.

The childhood fright of fire

and milk in their eyes stirs to a whirlpool of insatiable

old magic delight in finding sense

in the whorls of fingerprints,

the lines of palms and crowns on faces.

A bamboo flute song has nothing to do with morality

it’s only about whether you fully covered the holes

as if nothing could phase you in your moment of need.

If you’re sure she will stay here

waiting patiently as jade

petrified wood laid to rest on the banks of reassurance,

the pulsing currents of blood stream meadows

and cricket love lingers long after the moon culls itself to sleep

in the hidden keep of hung gorilla nests from the strong trees,

we find ourselves closer related to our primates than previously believed

and relieved at the thought of sleeping out under the stars. 

Flamingo Drowning

I really like this new jam but every band has its rocky times,

songs and wires wrenched with pliers from a rusty metal bolt.

The tires hadn’t been changed in so long that they were rusted to the plates,

and so there we were jumping up and down on the crank of the jack

hoping we don’t crack it’s joint, the coal bin flue,

the bayou crew of crustacean cobwebs,

mossy beds of katydid and locust stew.

The red weather brew of old southern pilots who are drunken down old wrecks of solder,

ill farm fodder on the wood stove for dinner,

you’re supposed to eat it right out of the tin foil but she put it on a plate first,

the worst would be leaving my cat behind; I could deal with my ferrets but not Luna.

What was that about landing among the mouse in the bucket of milk?

Christopher Walken talking antelope about champagne and lions in the Wardrobe.

She said boy come inside the fence and bust up this old chiffarobe for me and I’ll give you a nickel, and next thing you know she’s yelling in the courtroom about Daddy saying whodunit, whodunit—

I hear real nice in a sarcastic tone from downstairs in the kitchen,

wooden spoons and pots-and-pans in the kitchen.

I think it’s a mixture of snow and freezing rain,

she’s heading south I don’t know what the weather’s like down there,

do you see what it’s doing out there? but I don’t think it’s sticking to the roads.

I watched WJZ-13 this morning for the first time in years and Marty Bass is gone but he always rubbed me the wrong way anyway.

I used to hate on Monday mornings they would get a bunch of Baltimorons to stand out in the freezing cold and sing just another manic Monday, woah-uh-oh, wish it was Sundaaay—shut up already I don’t need to be reminded that it’s Monday, I just want the Goddamn news.

Even with the window open the tar fills the room and I instantly start producing green mucus; I am perpetually sick with being in the warm water all the time.

You can park two minutes for a dime, which may or may not be ample time to get your shit and wait in line at 7-11, those go-go taquitos are the shit, 

Item 9 is the bees knees, why are we under ground right now? why aren’t we in a field?

I’m in the weird part of youtube again, quickly navigate away, lets look up lulz friendly memes instead.

It hurts so good snorting blue pixie sticks across two desks,

he was fine at first and then he starts coughing and sneezing all this blue shit

and the seniors talk him into climbing a tree so they can pelt him with snowballs

and girls give him blue balls when they take him half the way there

she tied him to her kitchen chair and he liked it bitch boy

which boy, rude boy, unequivocally revolting parrot molting

with sand in places I didn’t know I had--

I know I’m not making any sense but this is all I can do to make sense of my brain’s constant evolving.  I have these moments where I sharply feel the shifting of my magnetic poles, piercing my brain, and it’s almost painful but each time I recognize what is occurring and I am learning how to learn again.

My feet will still be planted firmly on the cold ground,

the winter sight of white sky stadium lights,

the snow between muted pops of batted Converses

and shots of Fireball cinnamon whiskey.

It’s about relaxing the muscles to loosen the gag reflex:

expectorant cough medicine and anal lube,

the after which effect is Anthony Weiner boning Rick Santorum like a hound hog,

squeal for me Ricky-Dicky-Tavi, soooo-wee! out of Burroughs night-capade,

The medieval escalade up the fortified walls of West Burgundy,

we captured Princess Peach and held her for ransom with Natalee Holloway.

I think about you when I’m taking a shit, in the sense of removing waste.

It’s a good time for meditation, the one room in the house where an eight year old boy

can sit in privacy and decode Little Orphan Annie’s secret message,

a crummy commercial hanging like a bat in the plywood shed,

the sea groan bed of coral and dead fish of Father’s hands

are Japanese fisherman, plying thin black netting from the grey sea

to find it empty and tonight his daughters go hungry, to understand emptiness he says,

the fetid sense of a musky old cottage perched on precarious cliff edge

Sakamoto sea standing fiercely its watery ground,

the earth pounded by tide as a lying child caught foxing the neighbor’s chickens.

Killing kittens is the first sign of a future serial killer

and someone found a cat skin at the pumping station

where an old Susquehannock man used to live before our houses were built,

Rocks State Park was a sacred ceremonial ground,

a natural outcrop so you want to stand on the edge and hold up Simba to the sun,

watch the antelopes bow the elephants as one,

everywhere the light touches except the armpit of America is New Jersey.

In a Facebook survey, people voted that Snooki was a worse role model for girls than Kim Kardashian, but it was close by only six percentage points,

count calories, watch food intake, maybe take a break for a week from drinking when it’s been one of those nights, and one of those mornings.

The best thing about him is that he will cook you breakfast in the morning,

but the dude has a serious Napoleon complex.

I might as well have stayed at home with my vibrator.

It goes on like that for four days and three nights of hard use

and eating little more than trail mix and gold fish,

whatever floats your boat, forget me not,

toss me in the pot with my feathers still on.

Borrower

Floating away like a jet stream in the hollow

a bat scream at the follower do not leave me here behind you

to traipse the forest blinds you

collects me in an old potato bag

with sprouts of green and mire,

mold and mildew solder sire

Jesus sun standing on a sea foam barn roof

in the flurry of Cool Spring Road,

swishes off like a horsetail from Thomas Run

and makes the cut in time to be castrated mentally as a bull frog

jacked off in a Beer Fest laboratory,

the whole story is not quite there yet

and the reader feels like they’re missing something

asking themselves what the hell is the author talking about

and I’ll tell you, she doesn’t know either yet.

She starts writing without thinking too much about it first

because if she goes in with any kind of intention

her expectations are never succeeded,

never hoed and weeded the vegetable garden

and the mint vines took over the tomatoes

crowded out the zucchini

and strangled the bell peppers at the waistline

struck a hard line nose to the grindstone Scrooge

cranking away at the 80’s corvette that sits in our neighbor’s carport,

pays the bank late and defaults on my student loans like a fat kid on cake—

I realize a reference to 50 seems trite but I couldn’t help myself,

I’m trying to write how I would speak to you in person,

converse a different version of the river crossing to Grandmother’s house we go,

backpedal down our driveway and totally eat shit

like the time we hosed down Courtney’s back patio in the winter

and waited for it to freeze over so we could go ice skating in our snow boots,

we used to ice her side hill too when it would snow

and we would ride down together on her Red Flyer

singing we are the Jamaican bobsled team,

it seems like the author is gaining some momentum now

and I feel like this is going somewhere but I am still not sure,

there’s a lot more here and I’m beginning to think she is leading us on

like a bad prom date, this looks like the beginning

of a B-list horror movie, the back Havre de Grace stairwell,

the empty lap pool with rust stains around the heater vents in the floor

duct tape around the door jamb in Mark’s freshman dorm

so we could smoke weed inside when it was raining.

Become an RA and you will see more shit, vomit and santorum than in your whole life,

this is right after you’ve come home from a long day of finals

and work at Plato’s diner, they have a huge turnover rate there

but you can make bank if you stick it out and bust your ass for ten to twelve a day,

personally I think Will’s got it made working at Bamboo Eater—

tree leafers coming from New York City to watch the Quahog seasons change

it’s the episode where Lois learns karate and beats the shit out of everyone

Peter goes around saying Yankees suck Knicks suck Jets suck

and all these hey-I’mma-kick-your-ass-types get dog riled up

and piled in a heap when she’s done with them

kicks the shoes off them and lights their Jim Carrey pants on fire,

chop it up and make some Myers guacamole moley moley out of it,

put patchouli on your armpits when you run out of deodorant

you dirty chinacat bitch, rusty cunt bucket witch

making black magic in the woods behind the Lunchbox

we had a bonfire back there once and the neighbors called the landlord instead of the cops

because they’re illegal immigrants so that panned out great for us

but we did manage to set the bottom of the basement stairs on fire one other time,

long story but it involved a simmering hookah coal

and we did everything you’re not supposed to do in the event of a fire

but it worked and saved us a lot of damages,

damn straight we didn’t get our security deposit back.

If a flat tire is the worst problem we have with the van

then I cannot complain, but that man at the service station in Virginia

looked at John the whole time he was talking even though I was the one who was paying

I’m just saying sexism is still around and it’s stupid

and organized religion is for stupid people

I hope that offends you

I set out to be nice and I try most of the time to literally bite my tongue but I’m done

with that bullshit I always find myself wishing I had sad something

different, fantasized about leaving my last job in a fury

yelling fuck you at my manager and screwing everybody over

but then I wouldn’t get my last pay check

it was in our contract that if you didn’t give two weeks

you wouldn’t get your money

which I’m pretty sure is illegal but the little bit I was owed

was so not worth getting a lawyer over,

Red Rover we call Caitlan on over

but give them all some time to miss it

I could kiss it and make it better

I love when kids are young enough that that still works on booboos

or guys are dumb enough that that still works when I emasculate him

further than kicking him in the balls—

I would never actually do that unless he hit me first

but I can do it with words

I know how to hurt a person sometimes without meaning to I think I am too honest

and a lot of times people don’t know what to do with it,

I’m not trying to be a bitch, but there’s always a but.