Throated

mantras in the throats of hounds
choking on our bones

the dust has yet to settle
the rot has yet to set
and I still hear the memory
of paper dawn and butane

we tried to flee
the beast in every lovers’ eyes—
a stake through every tongue

Orphans

Homelessness, like all orphans
Is the child of social neglect
And the dead beat dads
write the laws
With a pen and a check

These tents on the riverbank
Are a looking glass
Through which one can see
A future city of empty houses
Surrounded by a sea of
empty children
Forgotten
in the shadow of profit
Cast by the sickness
of the have-it-alls
Wanting it all, leaving ruin
Slavery, and half legal
Loitering lives
on park benches
Or bus stations, on ledges
Between alleys
At off ramps and traffic lights
Holding cardboard signs
Announcing the shame

Of a system that has pitiless
empty pockets,
with no change
And refuses to change

Wall of Pervs

We were renovating five floors downtown, 
office space in the Atrium Building, 
and at noon, all the trades 
took the passenger elevators down 
to eat lunch, on the street.

More than a hundred construction workers 
that spring and summer, sat down on the edge 
of the veranda, out front, 
facing the sidewalk, all along 4^th Street, 
from Main down to Sycamore.

The office women shed their winter coats and 
we could see their endless curves again 
bouncing within their blouses,
their haunches loose, then shifting taut 
again as they strode on by.

And for every quivering, 
wobbly peach in yoga pants, 
we hurried down to gawk
while chewing some basic boloney 
and cheese or egg salad sandwich.

‘God damn,’ said DC. ‘I’d do that.’ 
‘Thick,’ said Wade. 
Big Dummy just stared.
‘I’d eat the corn out of her ass,’ said Griff.

And while most the guys talked discreetly
to the persons next to them, 
Pretty Boy stood and whistled at a 
young blonde in a pink dress and heels.

‘Come on, man. You can’t do that,’ I said.
‘What?’ said Pretty Boy. 
‘These women aren’t dressed to sex you. 
They work here. They’re dressed to feel confident.’

‘Shut up,’ said Wade, 
‘She knows how she’s dressed. 
And if she didn’t want you to look 
she wouldn’t be showing it off.’

‘Well, she ain’t dressed like that for us,’ I said. 
‘You don’t think she’s hot as fuck?’ said DC.
‘Go sit somewhere else,’ said Wade, 
‘You’re ruining my fantasy.’

I couldn’t argue with them, and then 
Herb summed things up: ‘My girlfriend walks 
by here with her coworkers sometimes,’ 
he said, ‘They call this the wall of pervs.’

‘Do they, really,’ said Wade.
‘Yeah,’ Herb said, chuckled. 
‘Oh well,’ said Wade, 
‘I guess they’re right.’ 

Hemingway’s Shotgun

I need Hemingway’s shotgun.
I need Dylan Thomas’ shot glass
Filled to the brim.
I need Bukowski’s Leukemia,
I need Anne Sexton to leave the car running.
I need a stein filled with heart attacks,
Strokes, aneurisms,
A robbery gone awry.

I need birds streaking across the sky
As I fall to the earth with a dull thud.
I need wolves tearing at my empty flesh
As the carrion-devourers 
Await their turn.
I need my words tossed unnoticed
Into a dumpster
When the sad little estate sale is over.

I need them to cry,
To think about me a decade later.
I need you to never recover from such a loss
Although you already dismissed me
Like a General too old, wise and senile
To lead more children into battle.

I need the affliction that would end me.
My hands are too shaky,
My mind too disabled
To load a shotgun
And aim.

Anaphlan

You walked in, 
found me naked, hand
clenched around my cock,
strain for release as dominant
as necessary as breath now
ragged with manipulation 
and exertion. Your eyes never 
leave my hand as you strip, 
slow, lean over me to pull 
the pillows from behind my 
head, give me an all too brief 
taste of pure pink nipple 
before you kneel, your thighs 
astride my ears, eyes still fixed
on my now-faster hand
as my tongue delves
into your deepest secret
places. It is never
long before the
outcome you
expect, desire,
the beautiful,
sticky release
and your shudder
against my 
tongue collapse
to chest and
belly

TAP TAP

The knock on the door
always comes
at the wrong time,
when you’re lovemaking
on a sunny Sunday
afternoon,
during a drug-drop
when relatives pay
a surprise visit,
when the post delivery
hands-over a court date
as the landlady hammers
the door for way overdue
rent,
when your new lover drops
by with a surprise bottle of
wine and you’re already
fucked-up on narcotics
and your previous lover
is waiting on a call,
when a political or
religious pusher
relentlessly pounds 
or when the
season of ghosts and
demons from your past,
rip the door clean
off its hinges,
it’s time to throw
away the key and
look out at the
countless shattered
doors left in
your wake.

Wild

Dance with me, baby.
Make me big.
Let’s reconjugate the verbs 
    of life.
Start a whole new grammar
    of joy and abandon.
Put it all up against me—
                I’ll do the same for you.
Let’s be naked 
    and dressed to the nines
    all at the same time.
Let’s go where we want
    right now and forever
    and fly, roll, bounce
    to the music of our pulse.
Let everyone else gawk,
    cluck judgments and choke.
They can go back to dust—
    and we can give Hell a run
    for its blazing money.

JOI

when what you say
is both
what I want to hear
+ what I didnt know
I wanted to hear

when what you say is real
not pretending
shows you understand
w/o me having
to explain

when what you say
amuses you
when my enjoyment
is your enjoyment
is my enjoyment

when your confidence
overcomes my doubt
that this is real
when your words are real
when you are real

More Better

when I was young
chocolate was ecstacy
when I grew old
the dope tasted better

now I’m somewhere in between
and my tongue is shorn
like sandpaper in the snow

nothing tastes like first time you hate it
nor the last time you learn to love it anyway
and it only gets cheaper
by the pound when you buy it—
stolen it ‘mounts to fortune

Burnt Sugar

White knuckling days in black lingerie
beneath the candied apple tree where we
once strayed. A wily ancestor laid 
the enchanted seed into ancient soul she 
tended feverishly.  What trade was made 
for this peculiar fruit to glisten like glass 
above two dissolute neighbors, limbs splayed,
below an edible chandelier which casts 
rosy penumbra on lust now disappeared?
Limbs lingering above fecund, extant 
with dulcet if distant flesh, jeweled veneer 
elicit no hunger, no longer enchant.
Smell only burnt sugar if you return — 
a sticky seared stump, something singular spurned.