The Ol' Tiger

Who are you
You asked
I’m the ol’ tiger
Satin fur sliding in and between
          and through the bamboo
Your delicate skull beneath these killer’s claws
          holding captive the thoughts you won’t reveal to us
          the interested audience bent
          on loving you
          on destroying you
          on setting your mind as free
          as the blood that runs like rivers through
     this broken land
Soft claws padding across your night-time lawn
          I watch you take your clothes off
          holding your breasts in your tiny hands for the mirror
Treating your skin in a sexless way I find absolutely palatable
Tap-dancing along the shaft of the hunter’s arrow
          in the shade of gum-gum trees
          where monkey’s glide through jailhouse columns of sunlight
          singing hallelujah hallelujah the ol’ tiger still has his stripes
It could have just been any soul
Wearing that skin like a blanket
Crossing wooden fences after midnight
          to steal through stranger’s backyards stepping
          among the intimate ensemble of their private lives
To catch you in the glass
In the bent crease of those dusty fading vinyl blinds
Like an opulent song-bird snatched from her perch
          by the ol’ tiger on the prowl for perfect things
To feast
To sleep
This ol’ man must eat
And you’ve got the bones best gnawed on.

03.2013

Moon-Man and I

Moon-man and I
Smoking year old cigarettes
Talking out of the side of our mouths
To talk like those old cowboys in the movies
Blood as cold and black as the horses they got away on
His helmet inky with the gas of his world
A reflection of my own eyes where his should be

This the moon-man and I
We talk politics like my parents
Like the old white men who got shot in marble halls
     and in marble hearts
I tell the story of my people
The Christ
And the bastards
The Kennedys
The Thieves
The Trolls
And the terps
The bones
The rocks
And the grey-eyed girl who took my virginity
     on the floor in that apartment bathroom

He tells the tale of a bride
Who In short whispers wakes him up in the red morning
Who reminds him always of how she is lost in his love
Who knows he doesn’t like roses
But she can’t help it
Who stops his bones from shaking
Who is the face he see’s in the night
In the stars
In his soul
In his dreams
Whose smile he knows the shape of despite the million miles
     and the nothing that is endless between

The moon-man and I
Discover for ourselves
That damned conclusion that can only come from terrible lies
And vow together to live in honesty
Discard the cloak of shame we have so long shrouded
     o'er our bent backs
Through spirited debate
Through the winds of exchange
Through the cliffs and chasms in the space between our words
Each sentence a labyrinth where roams for us both - the minotaur
The maze of our misunderstanding
Bends where it shouldn’t and becomes a straight path

My friend, the moon-man, and I
Slaves to the ways of our fathers
Calloused hands but also calloused minds
We the two last standing among a field of fallen combatants
     bleeding both from bodies red and green
Under his ribs a knife
Under my ribs
A knife too

When the worlds have fallen
And there is no history left to record
When each candle in every star has consumed its wick and gone dark
The gods like children grown tired of a game of marbles
     turn their back to search out other attractions
One long orgasmic climax and crash
When even darkness is a memory
When love is sin
When there is no one left to talk to
Remember us
The moon-man and I
Remember us here
Please

Moon-man and I
I cut him down
Holding him as he fell
As he would have held me
And then I died beside him.

04.30.2013

The Astronaut

When I pry myself from the cold hands of the carnival
I would rather not hear any apologies or cries for peace
Miles and miles of your sins
Like the blackness that falls after death
My legs lifting me above spinning worlds lost to the maw
Summers and winters will never multiply again
Purples and golds will never mix
The blackness that eats it all
At this height I am beyond madness
To search for the perfect song
To make this moment become movement and rhythm
          and speculation
To find me caught in your perfect kiss
Grasping like a child whose lost his balloon
          at memories floating away
Miles and miles on a missile
The dragon blowing smoke into the mouths of everyone
          I’ve ever loved
Aimed into the blackness
I let the machine into my heart
Cutting me open like a prison fight
Following the path of the ghosts of Mankind
On this the darkest day, if I find myself unable to carry on
           the mission
Cast up your blue eyes into the stars
Search out the slow red jewel  moving near the edge of the night
And it will be enough

04.29.2013

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Untitled 5/24/05

Another from my days in Denver...

The soot in my hair is a reminder

Carrying me across the mountains

Into the west

This train chases the sunset

And I ride ride ride

Chugging breath like a drunkard

She meets me

Halfway

Breaks my heart

And leaves again

The train carries me away

Into the west

Where no one can hurt

Because the air is pain

Damned

Two homes but no one to love

The sun is fire behind the high rocks

Snows drift

My hands are dirty

My mind is filthy

No one can eat tonight

She scares me with her love

Fear is not understanding

The wheels churn the iron

Round and round and round

Tomorrow I may not feel this way.

5.24.05

The Poets Who've Gone On

Chiseled teeth survivors
hardy har har scuffle prod and push one another
to take a bite out of my knees
my calves
my tender flank ass cheeks holding their own after all
these years
but daring me
to acknowledge my age
and slow down

They ride rockets and comets and successful propellant
falls from between their legs onto my shame
onto my hair
the love/hate relationship of my existence

They dress in tailored suits and they smile
for cameras and they say
“In New York I do this”
and
“In New York I know her”
but
I’ve
fucked a New York City girl too with 14^th St
yelling obscenities from the window
where the potted plants inhale taxi cab carbon dioxide
my head buried in her red hair
my face buried between her legs
the sweet gumball taste of her on top
of warm white sheets in the warm white summer city air

But she turned out to have insecurities and
fears and
a nose job and
perfect legs and
was, after all, a person just like you and me
despite the presence of that place or
her ambitions or
her friends or
the money in her purse or that toilet seat that vibrated when
the subway trains passed beneath
the building

So fuck you and your New York city ideas
sandblasting my decision
to practice my art in the thick brown obesity of
the South somehow staying
just above the waterline
spitting water lilies and leopard frogs from
my cotton candy lungs

Shotgun rock-salt Confederate cadences
calling coos into my writer’s window into
my writer’s skull past the black widow
cobwebs lodged along cypress rafters like grey-brown doves sitting
targets on telephone pole wires

She met me on the dance floor dressed in smoke and
red lights
stealing the sunglasses from my face bouncing
awfully close and leaving her breath in the pit
of my stomach crying years later in a motel  by the airport in
Knoxville
because I would not follow her to Metropolis fucking
those poets who did instead.

02.2013