How Mary Became a Saint

This one is about a wonderful/magical Summer night riding our bicycles around town...

We were moon tossed
saint streets secret playground park
where the diplodocus is measured by the tops of trees
and bats fly willy-nilly through the stars
bending our backs into the cross-cut wind
drowning on the night air
tracks snake behind us in the cast iron glow of
the few street lights like lazy comets at the edge of the grass
we descend in madness through the
sleeping streets
peddling our laughter on the passing doorsteps of strangers
fancy streamers flying from our knuckles
knee-deep in aluminum
and the city
and everything there is to love about life
drifting gently along her spine
where tar and tile and asphalt flow

ardent adventurers were we three
conscious of following some unknown
pleasure
tickling her tarmac
pushing forward into the future
aloof in the tears that streamed backwards escaping
the corners of our eyes
hopscotch playground plunder from one puddle of light to the next
spilling slippery pearl smoke from the
heartless soul of an apple
concealed in the one corner where the cameras can’t look
stealing each other’s reckless absurdity
sneaking past sleeping soldiers
spinning yarns
and rims
and rooms
kissed softly by the maniacal lips of darkness
of madness
of every joy that rides in with the night

until our tires slipped the bounds of Earth
until our loosed wolf cries echoed off of the
brick and glass canyons of The Drop
and the stars were caught in our hair
and we lost each other again at the end
so they heard us say
we will never be as young as we are now!

9.2011

Ode to the Mosquito

I was born and raised in South Louisiana... Basically, it was a matter of time before this poem was written...

Little Wily Shit-Winged Bat,
Him with the thousand brothers,
Times ten thousand more,
Proboscis needle-nosed vampire
     walking the vast tundra of my skin on six striped legs,
Who cannot speak but whines incessantly instead,
The sound which tunnels through my ear canal
     and deep into my brain,
Into my heart,
My soul,
A sound that no man can fall asleep to.

Little Perpetual Purveyor of the Water of Life,
A connoisseur to all varieties of the finest human blood,
Deviant drunkard dancing languid on someone’s soft flesh,
Feckless curiosity be the owner a cook or a queen,
Whose toes have you tickled tonight,
And at what cost, my tiny friend?
How are you so unconcerned in the peril of your own minute life
     as you attempt to steal some of mine?

Little Dark-Horse Angel of Death,
What manner of mayhem do you bring today?
What kind and loving God would
     breathe you into existence,
And for what purpose?
To give us a reason to stand in the bed of a pickup truck
     and spray heather mists into our neighborhoods?
To validate stagnant water?
To populate the forests with millions of unseen thirsty minions?
Or to canvas our skin with your puncture marks
     and give new use to our fingernails other than for back rubs and biting?

Little One-Horned Wonder
     hiding in the corner of my room,
My tent,
My car,
A drinking straw permanently attached to your face,
Born a thief of the living,
A bird on the wing,
You both fascinate and annoy the hell out of me!
For what creature is there that exists,
Who but you can I smash on the wall
     yet still spill my own guts when I do?!

9.15.2011

A Storm in the Field

A fitting poem for a morning like this; my open door sweeps tendrils of summer rain onto the kitchen floor but I don’t care – It’s been raining for two days and there is music in the air, there is still soft skin under my sheets and somewhere, somewhere, Fall is opening her dark, sultry eyes. Perhaps life goes on after all…

The rain collects along my fogged windshield

Gun metal clouds and a drummer in the distance

Stench of workman’s boots

Of the armpits of my shirt

Of that ticklish place behind my balls

My aromatic presence no longer a bother in the long halls of my nostrils

Bread crumbs in the khaki clefts of my crotch as if I am awaiting some horny grey pigeon

Bird boned

Or beak blow job

Take your pick

Outside in the building barometric pressure the air is crisp and certain

Folding over me like a cursed throw rug

In and out through the cracks of my windows

Cracks in my sanity

Cracked heart dulled the chisel of rational behavior

Finally the storm breaks

Some freak wave of atmospheric mayhem with blood sucking fangs and long clawed tendrils searching for destruction

Swallowing the breeze and periodic camera flashes

Ongoing growling in the mist

Her legs spread open and she is wet, wet, wet

Wherever I look

Paddle me, she says

The clouds blend together in a colorless, shapeless mass of floating tissue

Removing from view the world outside of my truck distilled and forgotten and disconnected from the shadows that swim past the ether

A baptism in the tears of lonely mother giants

Heavy heart

Lungs of diseased breath

I watch the world wash away

There is anger in the mob

Crowds with distaste on perch along their dry lips

A fever of sex

A fever of restlessness

A fever void of ambition and swelling to the brink with dreams

Great gray clusters spewing rain and torrent

Willing me to feel alive but my feet are in concrete

And the dreams are just dreams

Dead beneath me

Seedless and short

While my father’s ghost laughs in the distance.

11.2010