Parade

 

It's just business
my need
and yours
kids with drum sticks beat stretched
skins in the mild winter grey
kids in folding chairs flagging
passing flatbed trucks dressed in drag
we sent our sons to die
we send our sons to die
how I begged in bent prayer to take
their place
using every sales technique taught
on Mrs Jones' summer porch
in some celibate auditorium turned
tomb
after midnight
rehearsing charm school script over eggs
every morning
singing it's a
it's a
it's a
great great day to be a bookman
but the Lord ain't listening
he ain't being sold
"must be something y'all put in the water"
he ain't got a place we can sit down

so this is just business
I died a long time ago
when I was rent from my destiny
by cowering
by loud decibels I couldn't detect
in my left ear
someone else's son was sent to die
what started in Africa passes the
Main Street throng
throbbing pulse of parade
in lock step marching child soldiers saunter
in high school colors
on a soft grey wind the pomp extends its
touching thread through my threshold
this heart is for anyone
anyone who wants what's left
take it
if you want it.

TA

Sunday Sharing

 

Sharing this Sunday
with spent spool of spoiled
intertwined porcelain penmanship scribed in
crystalline signature across my faded wall-to-wall
carpet, long lost of its mongrel musk,
that canine perfume and dullard droll witness
to an ongoing amalgamation of orgasms
plenty,

With serpentine spirits woven in spider's
spongey webs spun in the complex columns of my
intestinal fortitude, moxie of grit and concrete chasms
where climb
and claw ghosts of all kinds of unfortunate
natures, in spinning rags of silver smoke
cast spells I am obliged to carry forth,
either in clodpoll quarters or fancy my phallic
fingers do go dancing,

With a clawing echo calling to-and-fro from
the cleavage of my breast bone to the red wet
lips of my lover's lonely lilt, in her own
criminal intent clove to the core of her heart
with a mother's strength
while I crushed that sweet dream she
called life from her black lungs deep, no plumbed
compass felt bottom below,
she was known to dream in continuum,
in boundlessness,

Sharing this Sunday
with a coming darkness,
an exodus of the day's last luminous moments
retreating in collapsing colors of scarlet
and cinnamon, misfits in mosquito slippers slip in
a low voice tacitly into the low light lingering
signaling to the local denizens in all directions
a lonely
white man
sleeps on the open prairie tonight.

TA

At Invisible Shadows

 

This idle pervert standing pensively
atop your grave, the threshold
of my captivity, in curled signature,
in chrome and lace
and every wet rivulet running in
rapture
from the source of your libidinous spring
to the sea,
overlooking the outstretched famine of
my unfulfilled ambition with
cast eyes
and a voracious appetite, my craving
in unfolding bulk,
my design culled from a craftsman's
calloused hands, an unclaimed
warranty of insatiable dreaming,
hooded but exposed
on public display,
this whistling breeze playing
me
like a forest god's whimsical wooden flute,
you'll find no immunity to magic

in the marrow of my bones, the
collected years of my decay, the
spittle forming at the edges,
born
a madman cursing at invisible shadows,
haunted screaming to no one
in particular, no one
in particular will listen
anyway,
you're there, in that empty corridor
between sunlight
and where ever you are, in
your unforgotten absence.

TA

Sunday's Undersong

 

Play those flirty notes to
someone else's neighborhood infant child
topless in a too big lightbulb head
and white diaper
some son of another white man
polka laughing at passing cars in flippant melody
melancholy Sunday sounds
fresh lawn grass cut to a carpet's relaxed charade,

the sun's sharp evening shadows stretch
o'er renter's roof tops
angling over old shingles
and in the pine needle blasts cling
outstretched red bark fingering the last
golden curtains of the weekend,

over here it's the smoking hour
wreathed in a witch's crown climbing
fists of silver foxtail smoke
the color in my beard finally
beginning
to betray my age
openly defiant
those lonely notes
calliope through the chain link
yard notes
above the din of Sunday going down
a thimble-full of undersong
of dusted flower olive drab
and pyramidal
some truth hidden now laid barren
in these ageless bones,

glow of the hot fire in my glass
rush of blood
stiffening the life of my soul's manifest
the last of the light
vanishing
and now, we wait suspended yet again
this beacon in bondage to our every hope
to reappear
to steer us onward past morning,

open window
open so my little green gypsy can thrive
the crying infant son
the treason of gray growth
the flute notes flirting still.

TA  

Wally

 

I looked for him
blind in my left eye
and in my right eye
Wally masking his heartbeat
soft on the stone in his summer socks
wafting in warm light from a fire I could
   not find
Wally in waist hosiery laughing
ghosts among the vaults wailing too
climbing architecture
former house of God
of bat of bone
Wally in and among the dozen lost souls
a man at home
my fingers following
   where blind mice lead them
surfing along the slick rock girders
I hiccup

and the sound that left rose upward
climbing architecture
angels with faded fangs faded back
old hawks leapt into empty abyss
still, rose my throat's chuckle
Wally gazed on
Wally in his gifted two-step hard to catch
hard tonight
watched my breath burst through the rafters
reach starlight
and midnight's magic

was gone

Wally in glazed focus teary now said,
"see again,
   let there be light"

and there was light.

TA

Lost Nobility

 

I read SupeGirl when I was a kid too
I knew about booting up
stretching the rules
straight to the main vein
I knew what you meant
   when you wondered should she be stiff
glossy magazines
cigarette diaries
a tree with a shallow grave underneath,

these were learned lessons
fast
wasn't enough
asleep under the blue glow
big brother-turned-stranger thumbing soft strings
and the sound of the real world,

I've heard bears in the woods
I know what it means to become stale with fear
useless,
and I know what it means to be at peace
useless,
I read what the Devil did
carried the guilt 'cause
I believed it
I was so young dammit
spent too much time bent over yellow toilet water
wasn't fast enough
hadn't heard that elk
in that canyon
yet,

now I know
time is of the essence really
madness is not merely enough
elk pass often if you know where to look
singing to one another in the night
like whales beneath the sea
velvet crowns and silk stocking'd
guarding their wooded fiefdom
a baron's ballad echoing from the dark trees
lamenting lost nobility to the stars
a trumpeting to outpace Voyager's golden heartbeat
a bellows of exploration
a call to wildness
don't say you are alive
if you are not.

TA

The Black Wood

 

I smell you
the black wood
pulse of subsonic desire
the white stones
and wet pine
blurry shadows with yellow eyes
with dog breath

I awake to the scent like a song
cold wind just above the water
a morning fog
his majesty in velvet crown
with birdsong calls the sun to rise

I hear you
in hot hymnal
breath from the black wood
that alluring edge of whispers
tangled roots
footprints where silent the wraiths passed
silence to usher me awake
heart throbbing
the blood in me stiff
struggling to gain air
to tie my boots and start marching.

TA

Left Knee

Skinning you from your witch's robes
proffer your naked flesh to Old Moon
with wet lips plucking sadness in your voice
soft midnight blue like first snow
   settling on your round breasts

left knee

realizing too suddenly that capturing you
is impossible
not in four lines of long-form poetry
not from a man who isn't sure how to own his name
a break
and then a single left knee?
of what is essentially an endless linear loop
like time itself, I guess
like the way I loved you in that dark red wood
bleeding from the parts of you the asphalt took
so clumsy the wine hour falls
not from a poet nobody's ever heard of

three piece combination
right elbow one
left elbow two
Sal Paradise
and all those beat mother fuckers.

TA

To Last The Night

 

Citrus twilight climbs the distant canyon wall
in pursuit purple evening
a crown of broadhead pine
atop the shadow
charge the last of dying day
color collapsed some time ago
into somber tones
monosyllabic ghosts
a gathering of minion spirits
stewards brokering for the day's undress
mothers clinging in killer's claws
to their surrogates
affiliates not yet disconnected to the source
that power of the womb

from cold eclipse of bough and stone
a panther wandering willy-nilly into moon whisper
her orbit pools of quiet footfalls
her soothing rhythm inaudible
a lull to sleep nevertheless
a false promise in that pussy's purr
 
Callisto
like Europa
and strange Io
her revolutions no more reverent
than those captive to Zeus' heavenly embrace
brightest diamond winking in the swelling empyrean
yellow like the cat's eyes
soft of paw
hardened heart
a nitehawk in whistling spiel propounds for all
his hunger
the night comes fully
and the things caught in it
we have only ourselves now
to blame
until morning's glow.

TA

A Night

 

We sucked until the smoke ran out
in the red light
sober like a Sunday forgotten
this mirror me wearing folded stockings
boiling magic inside his crystal glass ball
frankly I'd rather his golden curls be on his head
but they're on the floor in roadkill agony
positioning me on his chest
like roadkill ecstasy
not like this
like this

once a southern sugar swallower
a traveller kept like his pet
ogled by the jewel thief
no no little pet
the ball is dangerous
and hot
come curl inside my lap.

TA

Heat

 

Sometimes the heat
the sweltering hell summer heat
wearing gramma beads
and lingerie
choking in my fantasy
hung from a red hanky around my stubble

sometimes I can fall in love with the heat
it's home, after all
sexy like the shadows in the sugarcane rows
baptized in holy water
in sweat
like holy sweat
like holy fuck it's hot
revelations in white rows on a mirror
rap like a rosary keeping time on the radio,

they say a lot of things actually
honestly
it's hard to tell
who's the wolf
who's the lamb
work the hay
go home
turn up the air conditioner
sleep the laborer's sleep
work the hay again,

they say
death makes life sweet,
the heat
it reminds me to live that life.

TA 

When You Pass

 

She rode by in silk skins
in dragon boots
her thigh peppered in purple bruises
   like some very heavy chihuahua had pranced
   in clumsy circles just above her cypress knees
bottom lip ballooned
throwing me the bird with casual affair
legging that two-stroke
and dogging the throttle,

wasn't moonlight that turned me stiff
Sara looking back at Sodom
with a mouthful of salt
that silver shadow at the witching hour
thrown like a vaporous sheet of molten light
gathered a concentration of cloth and coal
blue jeans clustered in aggregate around my ankles
dogma on my tongue
my millions forestalled lock and step
en garde pith helmet horde
sent to battle
again

and again,

ah the pleasure when you pass.

TA

In Threshold Repose

The devil in caricature await the streetlights
in threshold repose
as I do
cicadas clicking crickets chorus
in that brackish mixture
cocktail of air conditioning
and humid southern summer
maybe a cigarette on his black lips
following me in fantasy like a creep
   at the park

she beckons curling that long finger
scorpion bent tipped in painted acrylic red
spreads her knees and pulls me in
my lips mumbling wet stanzas
of her perfect pink poetry

purple evening
maybe a cigarette hanging from his
course black tongue
painted in the night bird's song
the neighbors drag trash to the curb
watch me dance in yellow eyes
yellow light on the street cast
bottles bicker and clank
carcass of warm beer
of youth
each an Atlas holding up his world.

TA

In That Moment I Fell

 

I am unwound
unaligned unright tonight
fishing in a catcher's clothes adorned
at day the sheep
at night the wolf
god grants wisdom
we spit it back into his
silly face
your moon bright
illuminate my midnight minute's pause
interrupted by the thesaurus
by the southern kamikaze
peeking window woman's eye
Sanskrit of her blood
on ice skates on wine
the russet flag
I peel myself away only to be pulled back
into the magnet
the orb of your magic
a radiant summer seduction
pontoons of blue hot lightening
bruises of purple thunder
I wilt
thinking of the ocean
bound to the threshold thrown
operatic arms akimbo
bone still quiet on the trail
that dark northern wood
ferns and witching whipping in between
ancestral sentinels
the tallest trees
the ocean
the long black road
your hard face finally asleep in my lap
never have I seen you rest

and that has made all the difference.

TA

Long Fingernails

 

Hercules crucified
sprung sawtooth jaws of a steel grey shark
the twisting serpent
Eve in her evening dress fig leaf lingerie
a corset of sun-licked golden skin
institutional quotes of courage
longing
and of loss
hieroglyphs in dried ink
black beneath her flesh

her chrome eyes
orb of playful passion and slick grimace
her astral plane
gathered cordage of fibrous being
fingering husk of her gauge deck clusters
this granted grace of the eclipse's shadow
a dark moon to forget the day
drawing star charts in looping script
in long red scores
across the firmament of my spine.

TA

Just Close Enough

 

She writhed snakelike in the cold sand
big cheese bowling cheshire grin
base ass'd moon in the clear desert
endless skyscape speckled with a fine kief of powdery star clusters
we are gregarious gods gazing into a teal wood tabletop mirror
cocaine cannabilism

her silver fish INFINITE-ONE stood sneezing steam nearby
fresh from lonely spacelanes
crimson cockpit canopy spread wide open
worn leather captain's cushion comfortable (but empty)
long legs overrun with stocking'd landing gear
winking soft whimsy from behind the bellows

she bucked like the bony bay hobbled in nearby scrub
would not
the bony bay knew better
the bony bay's bucking days became
bygone days
the day that cowboy came
saddled up throwing up
thin denim stems o'er spine
stapled his articulated asshole to that bony bay's trail-trodden soul
rode till he said 
done

her split zippered spacesuit thrown to the thicket
pitiful deflated invertebrate of latex and legging
unfulfilled without her pressing flesh giving inseam seals purpose
but what need anything else hold her?
when he could
so powerfully?
so feverishly?
jealous moon mean-mugged
two hundred eighty thousand miles up
bright cold yellow orb witch hunting
lonely last lighthouse of the night sky shoreline

just close enough - she thought
staring pallid into that electric potted pancake
afraid the words would leak in whispers
- close enough to touch

while his weight pressed her into the center of the Earth.

TA

(painting by Darrel K Sweet)

And Bite Her Neck

 

She growled like a mean winter in the Winds
like a Cinderella canine
like a loose wolf loose with bent pagan corpse
not her morals
ripping at my exposed
lording the lengths of my torn flesh
in her mouth proud princess speaks somber poetry
the last parts of me melt on her chin
she nips like a cub
she hungers like a shark
hovering pale prism over the milk
dead gnats
etched glass bowl of kitchen light
she won't riot
too frightened
two pink legs spread under the bath water
turquoise orgasms
two dirty tooth brushes in the coffee mug
in ceramic overture
a dirty secret
a crucifixion

because no one would chase her in the woods
because no one would pull at her clothes

and bite her neck.

TA

(painting by Jean-Joseph Weerts)

Rather Than

 

What sort of path
has led me here
wanting only to be   alone   tonight
only the mist seeping like river fog over my tongue
down my neck
knuckles torn but tamed in lion's cream
street light creep crawling over my wet spread cuck flesh
dressed in the kingly garb of pagan poetry
my mother
somewhere on a maiden path again
prays to the great grey christ against

kind of sinning makes the moon smile
my fingers float a moment
string of that planetary violin vibrates
from here
to forever
tonight a perfect melody
playing o'er the grand spaceways of the Universe

mother
I'm alive more than you can imagine
in touch with the true god
and the true goddess
equal happy
but equal
sad

I'd rather be here

alone

tonight

rather than
be with you.

TA

(painting by John Berkey

Shannon & Sue 4

 

I was erased
a faded smear where in elegant crescent silver
once a fine character stroke was there
this nuevo kid cowboy bombardier
shuffling in quicktime
in flash
in javascript
this the unconscionable ape folded faded flat Spingsteen cap
denim pocket post give a shit spaceball queer
rooftop pervert in pecker palm prints
splits you for two hot weeks

then splits

a hickie like a blue finger smudge
glowing on her translucent skin
Shannon wept
for the years that slipped suddenly somewhere
lost
misplaced she would not confess
and in sheets of grey tears she fought
Roman army hard
to find meaning
for her's was a heart dismantled
a maze
for him

the folded paper rose
was pretty
was not JUST pretty
was also a hidden note
although decades had since stolen her breath
   before it was discovered
yellow'd and still sharp a bulge
in a book since forgotten
those twisted fingers like oak roots
   remembering childish fever
   disentangled the parchment's surprise
penned in faded ink

she fell

Shannon
collapse
collapse of the human stain
collapse of that holy temple
   and them animal bones
the message like deer entrails from a fresh kill
slipped forth
horror
of the note
of the voice that fell from her throat,

- Touch me,
she read softly,
   and I'll sue.

again,
- Touch me I'll sue.

TA

Shannon & Sue 3

 

Shannon bounced
like a brick of cocaine
like my grandma's unconscionable afternoon diaper
she was butterfly bulk and taffy
giggling like lesser apes at the coming of a comet

and so that was how I measured her
as a constellation
a star in her elbow
the tiny pinprick speck of a distant grand galaxy
in her ankle
rubies across her asteroid belt
a hitch in her kick
a clumsy cosmonaut clinging to the rusty nailhead mole
   near the soft folded hood
   hiding her oyster pearl.

- How was prison?
I asked

- I've taken lesser shits,
she said
hard.

- Have you forgotten the face of our love?
I asked
bewitched
dragging heavy on the fag whispering its way
toward my lips
that dancing tip
red hot micro supernova
explosions just
beyond the perch of my crooked nose
illuminating the inadequacies of my disfigured face,

Shannon bounced again
repulsed
swung with heaven's spit
fired her chambered fist of folded knucklebones
@mycheeks
Shannon
she was precision, sure
I was speed
eluding that missile of mayhem I click quick closed the distance
between
she and I
stepped into her embrace unbruised nonplussed
these same lips
   found themselves listing lightly
   on the doorstep of her outer ear
that dancing tip,

- I am no devil,
I very softly said
drizzling my words into the cup of her consciousness,
- But...

  I am a snake.

- What?!
Shannon said
shook,

- Touch me,
I said
reminding her of the mantra of our years,
- and
   I'll sue.

even closer
and lighter still
I said
again,

- Touch me I'll sue.

TA

Shannon & Sue 2

Shannon still thinks she can save me
can you imagine
Shannon
a savior
iridescent night gown shimmering shivering cone falling
lamp light
bullion breasts in sharp shadow
   like husky bullies in a periwinkle fog
she's twirling in similar spiral as my ceramic teacup
ballerina with the broken slipper
Shannon
looping again and again in drunken stupor,

- Take out your yellow'd corkscrew from those
   cotton candy coveralls,
she barked,
   and come meet me in the street.

- If I come forth,
I heard my voice reply
as the cool night air trembled,
   Will you let me march
   as the man I promise you will one day meet?
   Will you let me twirl (also)
   as you do
   but to a song from a Southern constellation?
   Will you allow me to skip like a proud pimp
   like a purple pulsing she-chimp?
   Will you let me cock my hip to the clouds?
   Will you let me bend?
   Will you let me dip?

- No,
she replied,
   I will grab you.
   I will swallow you.

- Touch me,
I said,
   and I'll sue.

- What??
and her stammer was audible
heard by an audience in stadiums ten thousand miles away.

- Touch me I'll sue.
I said it again
simple
not from the pulpit
but from the threshold where through trod the million minutes
of my life.

- Touch me
   I'll sue.

TA

Shannon & Sue 1

 

- Come
    touch me softly,
Shannon said
her mouth full of gumballs and cherry slop,

- Come
    slither hither in your golden skin.

I was taken aback
having just set her jugs on the shelf
where the tools perch
in the shop,
- You can't help yourself,
I said,
-  In your milkweed maiden fare and charm
   thirsty tripled swearing
   in my arms
   touch me, bitch
   touch me and I'll sue.

- What??
she begged
with pouting petulant milksop yellow lips,

- Touch me I'll sue,
I said,

- Touch me I'll sue.

TA

Just Yet

 

She was his shimmering golden red maddening mane
pertinent lips disco ball light tasting the coke on his breath
breathe again, I begged
don't die just yet
inhale the room and me in it and the pulse and the beat
push unaware push-up up against that thin divide
between friday fabric and skin
push those blue tardingale tits in my direction
what weight he must hold
while you shower in your cigarette emotion
above us glide, honey-child
don't die
just yet.

TA

A Cold Rain frm the Threshold Gaze I

 

A wet winter rain settles over the city
pre-December grey milfoil sheets of encroaching evening
thunder explodes like raucous summer cousins
rattles the tiny one-bed house
with the drywall holes and charcoal
fingerprints of five thousand long nights
with the shark jawbone
with the smell of sex
and grass
worn pattern prints on the old carpet
dance of the dark katana
rolodex of twirling tales
the rope's knots that were
that are
that will come
sacrifice to the goddess
(and to the neighbors)
this naked ember-lit iridescent human life
hot heat flash from above in heaven's black throat

to my cypress knees falls an imperfect figurine
to swear
to never shake a beetle
in a jar
again.

TA

Hurricane Season

Love comes ashore in a maw of purple swirling dark
disappearing in black belly center
thick ink mouth blowing down the sugarcane crop
marsh grass madness
bath salts stalks dancing electric wiggle

cumulonimbus love rips the shed roof off
tosses it into that hungry hellscape overhead
   you never see it again
hysteria howling heaven-sent
banging at maw-maw's shutters
ghosts worm willy-nilly through drywall cracks
cackling
coughing
love's relentless slaughter onslaught slavery
salacious same
same
salvation
pull'd the goddamn house apart
the comings and the goings
dead years of forevers
press your fingers into her flesh until the blood bone fingerprints
scream into that downturned gorge
smile like the dried leftover deer carcass
she doesn't care
she KNOWS
love pilfers
love breathes
falls heavy
love drowns lovers

love destroys all
and 
everything in its path

all
and
everything is left broken

eventually.

TA

In Mutual Understanding

 

She with hair like a valkyrie wearing wolfskin
beautiful
but no longer pretty
long misshapen serpent percolating in her gypsy whiskey
perched on the washing machine grinning
ice cubes clink abstract painting fluorescent reflections
a sleeping child
avenues and directions
golden sips lubricating conversation
in and out in and out
in and out
clammy with wet remark and soused tart
fingerprints on the plastic light switch
dishes in piles drizzled with last night's late-night dinner
our bellies warm
but a pinch below
burning.

boy's underwear in the laundry basket.
empty television noise.
the glow.
the smell of a place
I do not recognize.

the knife on the floor.

she looks at me
cursed
sex
knotted
her stolen youth
leviathan of untamed love
colossus
clown
criminality
deep deep abyss
we both know
one of us HAS to go for it.

the knife on the floor.

one of us HAS to die.

TA