I Should Tend to the Campfire

 but I have Monet's madness
haystack fever
captivated by evening's descent
every breath brings a new color pattern
a fresh gold
an aging chartreuse deepening into lit periwinkle
a thin shaving of the light

in electric cursive a lonely lightening bug
pirouettes in his sporadic penmanship
writes an incandescent poem
o'er darkening forest palette
about every five seconds or so

so let the fire die
I cannot be bothered
I have the last of the world's color to worship.

TA

A Mardi Gras Psalm

We throw hands on the front porch tonight
we chase the dinner cock at sunrise
don't show me your face, stranger
let me fall in love with the mask
     and then be surprised

somebody's cousin up on the back of the flatbed
french crooner with a fiddle crooked in his hand
crack strangers in a roadside ditch like unleavened bread

these Carencro boys aint built for a brawl
aint nobody's fault
hot glue poets parade to pasture like tattered hens
into sacral mardi gras tent
two-step and pass the copper liquor around.

TA

Killers on the Radio

Just when I think I'm done
writing to you
Human is playing
when I start the truck

I am suddenly back in bed with you
strangers intrigued
throwing toilet paper into the ceiling fan
your new gossamer skin
on the black wrought iron
gom jabbar at the edge of the bed where the
cat's claws cut and rend

teetering towards the edge of the world together
bandaging your clumsy blood stains
falling dancer
fucking in the tall trees
the dying firelight

you carry my handprint like an artist's signature
you carry that empty wine bottle like a caveman's club
driftwood smoke and the red sun in your hair
silhouette your naked lines
so sad to be this happy
in love for just a few days.

TA

Corpse of a Friendship

We buried the body in the black dirt
corpse of a friendship
the gravestone was an old empty redwood tree
gravel stains on your naked waist
wild curling wrestling in the starscape
flashing the dark forest
   like a crime scene

I lost count of the miles by midnight
blurry highway lines become your ribcage
cavern of your phantom laugh
a little girl crying for caress
a specter moaning evergreen
I am haunted by that perfect terrible fit
   of your skin against mine.

TA

Captive Repetition

I am prisoner
enjoy this library, I think
someone else chewed tennis ball on my soft
swollen lip
dance flamenco

at my typewriter proud and plenty
woozy pissing beer every thirty minutes
aggravated assault

entrapment
glass cage of manhood
glass hood of man's cage
little boy is happy lost
in the sugarcane field
lost
rescue me next, please.

TA

In The Green Sea

A climbing violet bruise belches from the sugar mill smoke stacks
we rut like feral dogs in the black dirt swill rows of raucous stalk
dark mud smearing across your hard rust nipples

parade march of knotted cane boogie woogie on windy breath
a violence in the harvest
a little taste of rotten mulch
drunk on the thick sips of sweet molasses from the open wound of your hungry mouth.

TA

This Is The Last One

No more pretty poesy
of the chicken soul
written just for you
this stuff ain't for dead girls

besides

you broke my heart when
they said you vanished
but I won't admit
I cared enough.

TA

Roach Motella

Felt a little like Jack Kerouac's dispirited specter
crawling across the faded cum-colored carpet
ghostly chorus calling beatnik rhyme
hookers in the hallway drumming on the sheetrock
night cops catcalling crime screeching radios
whoop whoop the speaker shreds
do a dance in the strobe light
stroking midnight's throbbing whistle

I leech to moldy leeward
plumb off-center to avoid some soiled stumbling stranger
pinball wizard in the labyrinth
an exotic spice spilling from an open door crack
faceless violence and muffled arguments
my head retreats into the safe fortress of my shoulders
some exuberant orgasm in apogee

the door is locked fast but the seals are public
Missouri's morning alarm clanging into my consciousness
I go slipping from sleep to sheets to permeation
He is risen
the tornado sirens decry
twisting swish swish spreading the gospel on tangled ribbons of barn tin
the motel a mezzanine to purpling concerto
chorus of the cavernous industrial washing machines
in the downstairs lobby
behind which a gelatinous receptionist flashes a sad gray smile.

TA

Toothless Landry

I heard you gurgle in the parking lot
a life's last breath blown through the open cupboards
where teeth used to be

his royal highness
Mexico's highborn jailbait
young buck with a paperback book tucked in his back pocket
popped you in the mouth hard
and squeezed your neck

you were strangled in the back of a pickup truck
you're gonna lose your job, man
I only knew you for two months
we told each other I love you

you brought a woman to a Silver City hotel room
but she only wanted coke
we're out here in the desert, man
what the fuck are you doing?

born from a bastard bartender
your father is immortal in the coastal parish
he dates them young
your best friend does

I heard you gurgle
your blue face six inches from parking lot pavement
you helped me with my flat tire
we told each other I love you.

TA

A Banana a Day

from my knees a heathen still
pressing penitent pushups into the stained hotel carpet
witch's brew bubbling in my plastic nalgene cauldron
caffeine inquisitors drip drip drip
interrogators of my dramatic impulses
blood sacrifice to fast-twitch science
I filter mushroom creatine through a pirate's twisted moustache
twinkling gleen of green soup
sword swallowers and men in black masks
my childhood hero parade

coming up red face
aging into a corset I am battling with sugar babies to control
they play a big black piano on my ribcage
I play a mouth harp on my guts
sallow mush of self-hate shoved into my cold morning mouth
once, I was a boy splashing in ditch water
now, I drink that ditch water daily
a mud tongue love affair
a hundred yellow years

could I save a baby burning on the stove?
could I catch you if you stole my purse?
I guess it just keeps getting harder
my lungs like a pair of suitcases stuffed with weekend cocaine
my bank account stuffed with canceled streaming services
I'll die penniless in panties and torn stockings
my gams finally conquered
my torn heart burst on a perfect pair of pecs

but not just yet
oh boy
the best dressed poet in Montreal has confessed his sins
there are still a few of y'all left to meet
without our clothes
kissing when the sun comes up
my hope is to wear this skin well
this suit for the world
for all of you.

TA

Buddy

I'm too hot to drive the tank tonight, honey
I'm too zippered to look away from the screen
cracked glass portal sucking us off
slurping side-scrollers and first persons and voodoo news
twitching and rolling our eyes back
the precum of coma
techno digital side-hustle kind of new world order
old world monkey kind of orgasm

Buddy runs loose in the hallway and the Indians chase him
shake his collar, call his name
Buddy

BUDDY!

life is a thunderstorm formed on the prairie
a Missouri grey clusterfuck staring downward angry
naked stranger in a hotel room
cold grey cusp of some god's wet wool beard
peep as I collapse this world around me
try to spin silver smoke into thread
coiling snake escaping through the open window
it does not seem to bother the bird nest
     or the eggs

but also maybe
maybe it's the slate soft feathery clutch
the cover of the Labia Olympus Mons Pubis
my lover the solar system
perhaps what I escaped to is greater than what I lost
when I left
and when she peers in - that covetous voyeur goddess
she will see
    I made the right choice

they call for him again
beyond the heavy bolted door of my monk's quarters
beyond the framed emergency escape plan diagram
Buddy!
     the Indians call

Buddy
Buddy,
have I made the right choice?

TA
10/25

San Antonio Pornography

hirsute
him in handsome fleece unshaven and stable fair
grey muff to match the desolate greyscale
junkyard no-man land guarded by miles of mangled metal fence
dry river bottom misshapen trees decorated with bowties of blown plastic sheet
pueblo boy with the thin mud-stained lips
pueblo boy unbutton your flimsy blouse flaunt your brown breasts
he sucks in his birdcage
a dingo carrying a flea circus dead around his dusty sandals

upstairs motel shriving pew
a song of intercourse blues through the open window
sleeping drivers pluck the tarmac strings while I whistle green grass
unconscious chords in floating clouds collect along the popcorn ceiling
grey fighter jets fly in and out growling like angry bees
nail the landing
children in dress blues sob with their parents downstairs
in the distant desert dog packs rape my peace of mind
I've been drunk in enough hotel rooms to know where this goes

long pale rider jerking off the ghost of Jack Kerouac
lo, poetry is the granny porn of virtuous craft
one last dying orgasm
tonight I am a weatherworn and dusty cowboy hot from the trail
danger at the edges of my sleepless eyes
dry mud in the cracks of my old boots
a handkerchief bruise from the rope
horny in the town saloon.

TA