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