a tree

Jupiter Optimus Maximus
       within you dwells
we leaped across safe shade
     islands
in sunlight lava
    playing summer games
       you were home base
  the secret hideout
    until we discovered
       swimming pools
  the awkward courtship
       of skating rinks
 and Van Halen
    even so, beneath your
          arms, i
read books looking upward
     through your wondrous roof
now my own acorns have
  been growing
 as i lift them up
      for you to hold.

Pieta

Mother hold me between
light and darkness
 against your thundering
    heart,
my ear above the deep well
 of your breast,
Will you sigh with
  me and will you cry
     for me
spread the sky for me
      to cover me
over.
    Take away the sins
         of the world,
Erase the cancer of
     experience.
Roll the hard stones and
      broken glass
 of it all in tumbling
       swells, until
 it becomes sand again
       I will disappear (thank you)
will be unraveled by your tears (blessing)
    my ashes
under the stars
   dissolved by your love.

Son, you gotta.

  Harsh and rasping
         clothes
   is what they wore
        from the salt
in the fearsome sea
        not one moment's
 peace did they get inside the
         wet and dark
       coffin of their vessel.

Skin was chewed off
      the ropes they held and
         the blood never
    stopped coming.

       Bellies stopped and choked
               and then let forth
            roaring and screaming
        (seasick, filled with stale biscuit and cheese)

for nine weeks did they toil and
           pray,
  no respite
 the waves were higher than the tallest
              mast,

 why is there a knife on the floor?
    and no I will not bring you beer

         I was at the part where
 I was telling you
        about our ancestors from
             Holland or was it Germany,
  I don't know for sure, but there
   is an old book
         and a picture of a guy in a
 uniform that looks like a bellhop
      with a small hat,
brass buttons and a mustache
     
   So when they got to Boston, the
           Irish threw rocks at them
 Even though your Great Gran was from Limerick,
         i guess that was later
but fuck those micks, fuckin' shovel monkeys

           and they had manners and could play
                 piano and they would drink
       beer after church,
             your great uncle Willy married a
       Cherokee woman in Oklahoma, and
           they didn't let him join the Sons of Hermann
             and he said kiss my ass
                    and she died of TB only
             our side went to the funeral

        so marry who you want
               i dont give a damn
man or woman, just dont
        pick an asshole

fromunda

 The day was hot and bright and wild, too
was the way we walked together in the playful breeze.
I was full of pride, floating along next to you
on our way to the lake, through the dark islands of  the trees.
You turned and smiled and pushed that strand of hair behind your ear
  I leaned in close and kissed you on that precious golden face
A raw, giant cliff edge ringed with thorns was looming near
 No, silly,not for real, but imagine how that kind of jazz is outta place
for me, especially, with a girl so new, and I just learned your name that day
       but I just had to get next to you and I couldn't even think through it
     and thought I was gonna play cool like I was supposed to
          then I thought "oh hell, I just blew it"
  That's when I first kissed you
   
           all those years ago.

what i think of love sometimes.

All the whores in Frankfurt
made me sad, even
when it looked like they
were having a good time.
She said, "Don't get so drunk
     next time, baby."
and turned away
       her ass a monument
 to the spirit of
         human beauty
in an ugly world
        she turned and looked
              at her TV set, which
became at once
          unmuted
Dallas the show, not the
          city,
 was on and
 J.R. sounds so much
         more like a
strong, dark soul sumbitch
   dubbed in German.

  The spiral staircase
      was a mindfuck
MC Escher
      endless and convoluted
when i think of it
       it's
the story of my life
       a story that
ends up in vomit
      and a fistfight
         in the dark.

A man decides to change his career path

Driving back from her place
 he still smells her in his beard
feels her breath on the back
of his neck

it is a moment he holds on to
driving back from her place
to the wide sky
  purple black
over the flat land just as empty

There is a glass jar full of
coffee with cream and sugar
she poured out
   with weary kindness


her freckled breasts just under the red glow
of her nightgown.
She wanted to make sure
      in her own way
she would see him off

the highway had made him
who he was before
the road made him happy
the road was free
and kept mysteries great and small


driving back from her place,
the road feels like a jail
and all the stars in the sky
 and al the neon
in the dusty world
 could not budge his
      lonely heart
         one pebble's worth

overheard haiku

When I am awake

I like to eat steak and cake

They cut my feet off

she don't fuck no more

He got a Mexican chick

They got no problems

That gun ain't worth shit

Because HE sellin' it ,bro

just give him the dope.

you see that woman

I don't mean nothing to her

that's true goddam love