The Plexiglas Flyer

Inspired by truth and fiction, as told in Catch 22 and the real-life events of my friends in the military. In the end, all truth...

Rain fell on the dialysis machine in the

Army tent by the long dry creek bed

where my Army buddies often took their whores,

long lashes no longer batting caught in the gunk of

too much muddy makeup,

The soldiers loving every minute of it

as their girls watched them live

their fantasies on top,

neither never able to look away,

despite the stones and the dust,

where a half-Italian boy was both a

fisherman and born,

The sound of hammers in the rain

replacing the heavy artillery on the bombers

now limping their way home

carefree of the burdens of war,

my Army buddies laugh when someone

drives a nail and tells a joke,

forgetting the way they cried

to the empty caskets of the ones no one will ever see again,

like the whores whose dilapidated brothel was

smothered under the thumb of a brave bombardier

scared enough to never forget what lies below,

insane enough to do what he was told,

Forgetting the dry creek bed

that echoes with the sound of once unbaked rocks

and foreign love that seemed real

replaced with the nagging of a hammer

that has struggled unrelenting to

keep the rain off of the dialysis machine.

6.10.05

The Violence

A poem from another series called The Lewd Tales, from another corner of my mind, inspired mostly by texts to a friend, where in the confined closed-door sessions of those dialogues my degenerate art flows like honey in a hot kettle to my fingertips on the touch pad...

Be a sweet tiger pushing your furry cock and balls 

     through a thick plate glass window,

Thought you were the bones of Michael Jackson dancing 

     moon-style to the smooth jazz crescendo,

Heron turned heroine in the thick black lips of my labia laden libido 

     slurping up the last blood stained cum from the carpet 

          next to the year-old bag of Cheeto’s,

Slush puppy,

Slush puppy,

Hush puppy naw,

Took ya’ titties from your chest and made coffee cups 

     with the milk skin and the exposed tissue mess,

Told me that you hate the word and begged my penance to 

     from now on call them breasts,

Using yellowed semen to fill in the circles on my scantron test taken 

     in the rear of the restaurant where we use the eyes of homeless men 

          as marbles to beat each other’s best,

Slush puppy,

Slush puppy,

Mush puppy naw,

Would you dare drop two sharp copper pennies into a 

     scrotum full of worms and expect spaghetti,

A hooker’s nipples in my mouth and blood farts on the wall 

     like glistening globules of crimson confetti,

Headed somewhere south tomorrow with a rusted and unsteady machete 

     in a sheath of rotting sheep’s skin to wander willy-nilly upon 

          those bastard plains of the Serengeti,

Slush puppy,

Slush puppy,

Don’t rush puppy naw.

2.24.2012

What Will

This is an older poem from a series I did way back in 2003-04 called the "Smith Poems", about events surrounding the life of one of my very good friends. I've come a long way as a poet, and rarely rhyme anymore, but it's always great to see the origins of artistry that eventually made me into the writer I am today...

Michael Smith,
A long night’s restless day,
Intertwining morning sun and moon,
And ready to make his way.

Sometimes refusal
   To the awakening night,
In order for slumber to show its might,
No sullen days will be his plight.

Sometimes acceptance,
And the night begins,
A lack of sane thoughts,
Muddles in friends.

But had he refused
   Her call (In the midst of a sunning land),
Her body with his should be lost,
No dancing hand in hand.

His eyes too must surely cringe
   At the thought that chance could have taken sight,
A moustache’d avenger,
Seen that night.

Sleep still begs this boy to come
   And find his place to things well missed,
Such things in rooms
   As a misplaced kiss.

Michael Smith,
A question lingers still,
This next night’s chance or peril,
I beg you, Sir, what will?

11.28.2002

A Death in the Ghetto

This is from a new set of poems I call The Maryland Letters, written during my time spent in the impoverished, and highly dangerous, back alleys of the low income, forgotten neighborhoods surrounding Washington DC. From the warm interior of my truck, as the windshield wipers kept the snow from the glass, I conjured up this scenario...

Finally,
I have left the Earth,
Reached a hand into the sky
     and pulled back a fistful of sand,
Constellations sifting through my fingers,
Orion reading the secrets buried
     in the lines of my palm,
Cassiopeia whispering to me my fortune,
Stars stuck beneath my fingernails,

Three black bandits stand over me,
Eclipsing the sun,
Staring down into my eyes,
One with a ski mask,
One wearing a child’s cowboy hat,
One with a red knife,
Left me framed by a puddle of
     my own blood,
An oversized ship on a merlot sea of stilled
     waves,
My fingers seem too far away
     for me to feel them,
But I know they are drawing dark circles
     on the concrete,
Painting abstract designs in a rusty color
     refreshed from the leaking hole in my side,
The day turns from summer to winter,
And back again,
My teeth taste like metal,
My driver’s license floats past my cheek,
I no longer own anything,
Except my soul,

From the rich shadows of the moon I
     watch a beautiful blue planet spin slowly,
And everything is swimming on its surface,
The cracks climbing through the bricks of
     the old tenement above where I used to lay,
The low-hanging grey clouds
     that hug the roof,
Dead vines holding up an old fence,
My heart getting dryer and dryer,
Obsolete organs in the darkness of space,

The North Star never moves
     so I decide to go there next,
Racing against its light,
To find it as it is now,
To look back into the sky again
     and see who I once was,
When there was once a quiet alley in the ghetto,
Big grey tabby cats mad at one another,
The smell of forgotten trash,
A blind corner,
Around it three bandits caught accidentally
     with a glass pipe and some money in their hands,

I stand at the edge of the Milky Way
     and look out into the distance,
Every point of light now is another galaxy waiting,
Waiting,
I have only to jump,
To leap across that cavern
     and into the darkness,
Leaving behind my fears,
Following my curiosities,
And the winds that blow in the emptiness beyond,
I can carry nothing with me,
Except my soul,
My memories,
And my love for you.

2.4.2012

I Gave You

Don't give it all up, little bub. Some New Year's colors in the sky, a girl between my knees sitting on the bottom of a kayak with lights reflecting in her eyes...

I gave you crooked walks
And twisted fingers
Dancing geese in milk shadows on your skin
Fingered your teeth
Kissed the hole where the doctor’s broke your jaw
I gave you a little kid’s insight
Didn’t care for fuck about who I was insulting
Mad river logic from the mouth of a fish
While rich people popped fireworks and laughed
Their colors on the water
The sounds of someone else’s life
Your hair in my face
Touched your knee beneath the blankets and felt the shock of your love
Doozie as it was
As it was
You cried into my chest in the hospital
When no one else was there
All was broken
As it was

I gave you eternal youth
In all its grotesqueness
You remember it happening one way
And I remember it another
I gave you something, right?

You gave me pink underwear
And eight hundred and forty eight days.

12.2011