Resignation

First hearing the news
of the captain's reassignment,
I felt brushed by the ever-nearby
ghoul of the future,
before I could even stop working
to consider the implications
of such a transfer in angry seas.

Vines of seaweed
have made their way up the hull.
I cross the deck, pretending
that the wood struck with sunlight
is magma, and skip across shadows.
The captain is loud and livid,
an angry sheep out to get the wool
back, having been shorn enough.
The captain expects
another star in the sky each night
he lays his head to rest on deck.

Without falling out of line,
I've looked farther ahead than I'd like.
There the waves of faces grew taller
than the mast's shadow,
and the captain was captive and quiet,
and I crossed the deck feeling
a splintering warmth in my feet,
shrugging as the water rises.

Familiar Poem

Pull of my orbiting life,
though I've had my doubts,
you sometimes pull through.
My heart has a critical debt.

The rippling fabric of embrace,
more abiding than the fans
that have long cooled me.
The hesitation of hands

as they are told not to do
what they wish to do.
My defect burns brightly,
my blood in full monsoon.

I could make it to anywhere,
my feet will have to suffice.
To be looked on again
I would riddle any sacrifice.

Orbit, you are as you are.
Pull me further for any number
of years. I will pay so many debts
while our murmuring vows slumber.

Mickey Drama's

I saddle myself with thoughts
of not thinking about it,
before I bundle in last season's
uniform, take a few last swigs
of the dawn's dense aroma,
and absently use the back stairs,
forgetting my destination.

My palms part the air
as I depart down the avenue,
beckoning purpose out of graffiti,
conditioning the sidewalk
to carry the weight of my shame.
I check over my shoulder
to make sure I was just there.

I bound along with haste
until I arrive at the cathedral
of the morning, before the floors
have been scuffed and muddied,
and the lobby holds silence dear,
except those at the judicial counter,
listing off the articles of the feast.
I limp home on nail-board feet,

reconvening with my darling thoughts.
They flock to me, watching with
pearly eyes as steam ascends
from a paper bag, seeing what
I am too thoughtless to see,
which is that once again my treasure,
where I would go anywhere for,
by morning will have turned to shit.

The Good Old Flight

The ninth night is nigh,

panting at the doorway

with the tongue of a mammoth.

The bearer of bad news

lives in a hole in the wall.

His aura erodes.

The thrill of things melting

is melting into a paste

with no decipherable purpose.

The living room looks so empty

in daylight. I have been living

on an edible rubber-band.

Man, to think I am out there,

learning to spell my name

across the redwood pages

of whatever's silent, 

of whatever's ancient.

The rough new prizes

handed to me, I keep

losing them among

glass and receipts.

If you asked me 

for a mid-year review,

I would hold firm

to the rippling dream

that is progress:

I ache, I falter,

I am a poet,

hear me groan

and roll over.

Filter

Thrice-used filter,

I think I am abusing you.

You have tried your best,

but this coffee sucks.

I find it productive,

placing the blame.

The streaks of red

resentment overhead

are settling on my shoulders.

Failure is unstoppable.

Even though you are battered,

soaked to the paper-bone,

and sick of these mornings,

you strain to fill my cup.

Thrice-forced fulfillment,

when will you up and collapse?

Caravel

Today is a good day
to tie a mast to my spine.
A distant light clears the fog.
I promise to make it mine.

Time Trial

My bed is a dust bowl

of cereal crumbs.

Past closed doors,

I allow myself 

to be a monster.

I stretch my sleep

as far into the day

as the surface tension

allows. The gallows

of sudden return

to limp consciousness

yawn and stretch

with the rest of us.

I stole an apple,

the crispest one,

when the world

was sleeping.

In my guilt,

I had the delusion

that the only way 

to correct the wrong

was to eat it whole:

stem, skin, seeds
and core.

The hour 

of indulgence

is running out,

soon comes the 

long, trodden age

of the working man.

I am in a rush 

to start having

fun forever.

For as far as I can see,

there is a train of hurdles,

each one in the shape

of a smiling moon.

I bend to the challenge,

vaulting lazily past

my stumbling ghost,

fixing the race.

Emergence In E Minor

A born-again hornet gets saved

in the walls of your skin,

infesting you with its fate.

It's not enough to flush

your system with repellant,

to preserve it in amber,

to drown out the buzzing

by storming your muscles

with aches and expectations.

You must listen

for the distant rally,

for the acoustic theremin, 

for the trembling 

falsetto of your pillow.

It's not enough to lie

with the deeds of the day.

The deeds of days drifting

like clouds through your

big blue existence,

you must lie with them also.

A swaying branch,

determined to poke out

the eye of the storm,

holds on for its life.

Nestled between teeth

of raging timber,

holding dear to the dream

of becoming a nest.

We rage and pray

toward our best existence.

It is enough

to tuck a smile in the shade

when the north star drifts astray.

The appointments

that just can't be made,

the milestones unshatterable,

the tremors in your blood

when the hornet first pierces

the skin you could've sworn

was bulletproof.

Graduation

Make way for the alma mater,

whose warbled notes cling

and clang off the warped 

metal chairs of the auditorium.

The procession of bookworms

and widows and snugglebugs 

funnel into the open mouth

of the sparrow, full-song.

Mark this moment a success,

a catalyst of ruinous dreams.

The list rattles under the weight

of so many boundless names.

And my father on the sad height,

fiddling with his loose connection,

watching the grains of my face

disappear behind the velvet curtain.

Prayer That I Don't Get Carried Away

Though I have not had a drink
for something like 3 weeks,
Josh and I came from the bar
ecstatic and in good form.

The neon quilt of faces
were pulling their finest moves.
It's downright royal,
having a home such as this.

They do seem a little stupid
now, auto-nice-to-meet-you's.
From now on I will be
more vigilant, so very vigilant,

when stumbling across
an affable stranger,
who could as well be a thief,
or a clown, or a downer.

And for this, I thank
God, el sol, good ol' Ra,
whoever gave the signal
to carry my voice away.

Thankful for my key,
for the properties of growth.
Lucky to live among friends,
and for the smile in the doorway.

My ancestors!

There comes a time once a year
When a gentle thought appears,
Oh, what ever would I do?
How could I be without my Lou?

Waylaid

You could not imagine,
is how the book of terror
begins its dusky reign.

Such a slippery start.
Whose sad hand
penned this farce?

The waylaid dream,
so it continues,
giving me inner-cheek

paper-cuts. Perhaps
there is a story here
after all. The fall

of solitary pride,
the holy hustling
of goose-flesh.

My hands tremble
too wildly
for any excavation

of this immaterial
tome. I take the
slippery route home.

Defendant

When we wake
in flux
and yawn
shedding
the prism
from our eyes
in droplets
we are
discarding
the prizes
of our
conquest.

The hallways
are sharp
and malleable.
Pay no
attention to the
trembling
beneath the sheet.
I find it so
curiously sad
how quickly
our loathing
adapts.

Am I building
a weapon for war?
Will I stand in court
and protest, no,
not possible, 
I was asleep
the whole time?

None
have seen
the destruction
of this
arcane memory.
When I wake,
the lonely legions
disintegrate
to the light of day,
and the halls
still ring
with the battle cry
of Om Nashi Me.

A Moveable Feast

Mind's been robbed.

You can see

where they broke the lock,

the splintering

around the brass knob.

I cannot finish a thought

without getting up

to get a tissue.

I cough deep,

booting out crud.

The real issues

are worming

their way out

of my blissfully

swiss-style mind.

I have not paid

any attention to 

the trial of Dhozkhar

Tsarnaev this week.

I have not paid

any government loans

and who knows if I will.

When I open my eyes,

I want it all gone.

To think myself human,

one among the crowd,

as you are one of the crowd,

the peaceful, good crowd.

I admit I want him dead.

My own trial

is being

trampled underfoot.

A Penny And Me

Drop your anchor
and look upwards.
The flecks are flexing
their array of colors.

Wobble with me tonight.
Flood my face
with the pearly beams
of a basket-case.

Embrace that I am sick.
The new handsome is haggard.
I draw whichever eye I like,
though who likes a braggart.

I raise the flag
pale as her cheek,
and likely dissolve it
the very next week.

We lie disturbed
by the empty form,
the animate memory
that keeps us warm.

She warned me, yes,
and I dared to play.
I think of that
every day.

I see the road,
the twisted route.
No wonder men die.
Such abundance of loot.

Though plucked from the panorama,
the effect remains the same.
It will steal your breath
under a brand new name.

To clutch what is closest
is a poor sport.
I split the deck
soon as I left port.

I eat my prophecy
with peaches and cream.
My sickness is nothing
more than a waking wet dream.

Cool

It's just work.
They're just pizzas.
These people are just hungry.

I'm at work.
I'm just working.
I am filling the days.

No time to work
toward the idea,
the corporeal dream.

I try to make it work,
the numbers crunched
between gnashing teeth.

It doesn't work.
Tiny scrapes cover my hands.
You cannot eat words.