used shoes

When you called

you told me a little too much

about how life is scraping

your bones down

to a no man's land

of trenches  and craters

but there's "still too many trees

for you to burn it all down

and leave it to the jackals"

  is what I would say

if i was decent

  

  Still, I let you have my

monumental insight that it gets 

   better and we are not

put here to be happy, but

      to do the will of the gods

which means making things

          and bringing things

       making houses

           bringing lights

and at the best, most blessed

   doing a little bit of 

         smiting  the ones who 

             deserve it the most

                        

The New Style

 

Have you seen it?

  Where once we had the complex nautilus spiral

of intention making love to words

reflecting the light of experience,

and beckoning us forward from one line

to the next and next

We now have

We now have the source 

as the poem

that makes it a poem

by a Korean or Native or African American or

insert the colonized here

let it be gay or crippled or both

a pretty good poem by a  quadriplegic, lesbian

negress married to a Choctaw woman with

irritable bowel syndrome is 

way better than a great poem

by a European American 

cis gendered 

working class 

oppressor

All we need to ask ourselves,

is it good

does it make our heart sing

will we remember it at breakfast

do we smile

do we cry

God save us from

the new 

style 

 

#3

  Turtle was a piece of shit, more precisely, he was a piece of shit criminal who always seemed a day late and two dollars short.  He was a petty thief who always seemed to not quite get the angle. When people were stealing from warehouses, he was trying to steal from corner stores.  When guys were selling dope, he was selling rocked up pieces of soap.  He also lacked vision when it came to pulling a fast one.  He stole from your grandma, stole from her neighbors, shit he even stole from his own granny.  When we were younger, he always had some girl to stay with.  He had a gold chain and got them high.  One time, he wanted me to help him smash and grab a store and I told him to fuck off.  He called me a queer ass pussy.  In my own mind, I thought, " Yeah, I might be a queer, but I don't steal from grannies". I told him, he was a bitch.

  Well, his master plan was to get a cinder block and throw it as hard as his little chicken ass could make it go into the window of the liquor store and grab cases and cash and "get paid".  Several things went wrong. First, the window was made out of some real burly shit and the cinder block bounced right off and hit him in the face, knocking him on his ass and giving him a busted hare lip and a shiner. Second, the alarm went of loud as shit and summoned the police.  Third, am I on three yet? there was a camera, a brand new well lit camera on his stupid, bloody face. It captured the action.  Dumbass was staring into the camera and turns and stumbles off with his pants sagging down and runs off. 

 The Crime Stoppers video made it onto the news.  Not because of the seriousness of the crime, but because of the hurricane force stupidity and the slapstick failure.

  Heedless of his new found fame, he and his girlfriend got high and hungry so they went to JimBob's diner.  This is where cops go because it's greasy and delicious and the staff is super friendly.  Sometimes it looks like a roll call in there.  Well, in he walks with his girl looking all banged up and strung out and the cops and everybody are just staring at him.  The news comes on and there's silence and just a little bit of laughter, and then it builds as it shows him getting hit in the face over and over again and then his slow witted escape.  

  He gets arrested, but it gets worse because the girl he's fuckin' is a  thirteen year old runaway from Houston and they stole her Mom's car and they had an eightball of coke in the console.

  I saw him downtown years later and he looked like he had been dragged out of a dogs ass. 

Story hole

 #1

Chet was a skinny boy then,  He was also funny looking.  I swear to God there was always something off with this one.  Tape on his glasses, dirt on his pants, always had his shirt mis buttoned.  He lived across the alley from us.  He and his sister were in the house alone a lot when we were younger.  She used to leave him there when she went over to her friends house.  She seemed normal, she was skinny too.  One day, Dwayne Stihl came over to me at the bus stop and pointed at Chet and whispered to me this story.

        "Hey, man, look at Chet.. You know what?  I saw him last night in our trash.  My Dad heard a noise out back and said "Your Goddamn dog is at it again"  so I went out to bring him in and turned on the light and there was Chet eating watermelon out of our trash."

     Shit man, damn. 

I felt a sense of pity and revulsion and a kind of mystical hate for him.  Not long after, the state came and took them away.  Later, I guess he ran away and lived in the junkyard where we used to hang out at after high school.  He was pretty big and he was the first person I knew personally that had a tattoo.  I don't know for sure, but I don't think things turned out okay for him.

#2

 Denise always wanted to be loved. Both her parents were librarians.  They loved books and watching Star Trek.  Sometimes, they would sit at the dinner table reading books, not saying much to her.  There was a feeling she had that they each lived in their own bubble and barely acknowledged her. One semester, while her mother was in grad school, she had to spend almost the whole night every Thursday in their station wagon reading with a flashlight.  She didn't have many friends because her folks were the kind of people who hid from doorbells and never talked to neighbors.  It didn't help that both her parents were grossly obese and quite comical.  They would take her to renaissance festivals and science fiction conventions, and she would hustle along in some ridiculous getup and she would have to stoop down and pick up things that they would drop from time to time. 

  Unlike her parents, Denise liked to do things.  She started running cross country  when she was in seventh grade.  She loved being part of a team and her coach could see that this was her outlet, her way of being alive.  She encouraged her when she could, but she could see that Denise was always the last kid to get picked up after practice and events.  Still, she must have thought, this kid will do alright.  There she would be, every practice, with her glasses and her awkward headband, ready to do her best.  Even though she didn't have the most talent.  Actually, she was about the middle, but dependable.

One day, she was with her friends in the food court and some high school boys came up to them and started talking about a circle party that weekend.  One of the boys was her friend Tammy's big brother. A circle party was just that.  They would find an out of the way field near a neighborhood and hang out around their cars and drink whatever garbage booze and shitty ditch weed they could scrounge.  They would listen to music and make out.  The key part is that it was in a part of the development that was right by Tammy and Denise's houses.  They could walk right there. It would be awesome.  

  She showed up and Tammy wasn't there.  Neither was her brother. It was mostly guys and older high school girls that had boyfriends.  That was when she met Tom.  He was tall and handsome.  He was all like "I am so happy you're here." He asked her about herself and she felt herself blushing and burning with all that attention.  She felt loved. Not wanting to look like a dumb little girl, she took drinks from his flask and cuddled into him.  He kissed her neck.  The noise of the party faded away. 

  She remembered him pushing her down on the ground, using her. Her pants down around one ankle.

She felt gross and hurt, in every possible way. 

Denise walked home. Tom left her crying and naked.  She stopped twice to vomit.  She was numb.  Denise walked into her house with dirt and grass on her clothes, crying, with bruises on her.

Her parents were watching Star Trek on the couch. Their corpulent faces focused on the giant screen.

Maybe it was a trick of the flickering lights, but she always felt that they turned and looked at her at some point and almost mutually, silently, agreed not to deal with it.

She carried this pain with her and it felt like it was some burden that would attack her whenever she felt happy or competent, or loved.

Recently, there was a news story about Tom.  He had been caught molesting children in a church youth basketball league. She felt all kind of ways about it. She started watching youtube videos about what happens to kiddie fuckers in jail.

  I don't know how people get over that

Fecit lux en tenebrio (make light in the darkness)

 

I am trying to find an artful way

to say

this soft and squishy truth.

I saw a candle with

a ginger haired 

Jesus on it he 

looked like a guy I used to 

do construction with

one time we went to a strip

club after work he

was sure this girl really liked him

whatever he got so wasted

he ended up sleeping with his head on

my dashboard

breathing out all his paycheck

in a vodka haze

he was a big square headed dude

That Jesus candle was looking up 

at me telling me about how

you can be willing to do any thing

for a fake ass bitch and she 

won't give a fuck about you

I spent all my money

and didn't even get a handjob 

  you would do any thing for that fake ass bitch

like being tortured and humiliated and 

you know those Romans would rape a motherfucker

for a quarter

  I thought about Jesus and

how he got treated for all 

us fake ass bitches

      dogged out by lesser men

and nailed to a fucking cross like

the worst piece shit ever

without even one kindness except

the final thrust

by a guy who just wanted to 

end his shift

    I was looking for air freshener

and got ambushed by a feeling

  and no one saw my crying

and if they did,

   they would think me

crazy or religious

   World without end

forever and ever 

      half off.

The way of the gun.

 

There isn't enough bark on

this tree to make a basket

and the wood in the forest 

is too green and wet for fires.

Settle down to the ground and look

with your ear to the dark earth

see the run of the rabbits

and the tracks of the wild hogs.

You are not a hunter born

because your teeth are plastic

it's not the killing you hate

it's the cleaning you fumble.

My father who's in heaven

or some place in between

may your suffering be forgotten

and your injuries stay unseen.

No dogs in the house

 

I saw a dog on the lawn

of a house I haven't seen

I mean the yard or the dog

My mom went outside

without her oxygen tank

and the dog , who was miserable

until then, began to frisk

and wag its tail.

She let it in and sat in her

armchair, the one she and

dad brought all the way from 

England

and curled this long spotted

dog in her lap

she nuzzled this quivering pup

and began to shrink and

draw into a ball disappearing

fading but smiling

the beige oxygen tank

and wistful tubing hissing

ruefully and turning into

the gentle shoosh of wind

until all I was left with

was a snoozing

spotted dog

who smelled of 

lilac and bacon.