Modern Medicine

Staple my brain
so I can
only think
a few thoughts

Staple my heart
so it will
only break
a few times.

The Irony of Injustice

Coltrane's
Giant Steps
blasting through
these tiny,
tiny speakers

Ballad for a Young Couple

I have become an oboe -
blaring and loud.
She complains about it,
but this only makes me ignore her more.
Making love to the entire orchestra,
she makes her complaint better known.

God Bless You!

I laid her out on the table
and began chopping her into pieces.
Each one smaller than the last
until I there were none to be seen.
I blew at the dust she had become
and scattered her across the room.

Where I am

The proximity of love
and
the remoteness of its leaving,
all stamped with the bitterness
that lasts in between.

Criticism playing peek-a-boo
in a landscape of jokes.
One Whack-a-Mole game at a time.

Wedding day -
alone in the basement
preparing a toast.

Freshly Squeezed

The blend of citrus and ignorance.
Love and compromise.
The first sip of freshness
melting away.

Wedding preparations -
she stops eating.

The strain of your depression
The strain of your self image
The strain of your anxiety

on me.

Resistance to My Destruction

Rounding the corner
I at once turned to plastic.
In the microwave
she tried melting me into
a distorted figurine,
but
plastic lasts a long, long time
my dear.

Footsteps above -
maybe tonight
will be different.

new mailbox -
neighbors crowd to gossip.

The tired woman and the hammer

** I know not so brief **

He searched underneath the tired woman and found nothing good to rest upon. Just the floor pressed against her skin. He looked over the smushed edges of their union and decided that he would become the floor, so that she would press her skin against him, much as she was pressed against the floor now.

He had fallen in love, he thought. So he positioned his body next to the tired woman and went to work.

He began with his toes, smashing them with a hammer until they went flat. His feet and his ankles easily conformed to the shape of the floor. His shins were slightly more work, but it didn't take long until he was up to his knees, which became knots in long wooden boards stretching across the room where the tired woman lay.

As he pounded away at his abdomen, he looked over at the tired woman and wondered what she was so tired from. But he just smiled, and continued his work.

Kitchen Near Tennessee and N. Dorgenois

Tennessee and N. Dorgenois

Above there is brown.
Muddy walls climbing
a ceiling of mold.
Below there is more brown.
Broken fish tanks and
shattered sliding doors.
Inbetween there is
an unopened jar of dill pickles and
an untouched bottle of rum.

A dusty calendar still reads
August 2005

shortened:

Brown
Muddy Walls
Climb
Mold

Shattered
Fish Tanks
and
Doors

Left
Untouched
Jar
of Pickles

August
O-Five
August
O-Five

Signal to Noise

We are swimming in it,
but I have drowned her out
in the signal to noise

An empty room -
too many words
have driven them away.

Mutual Contempt

Like the strep-throat passed
back and forth last winter,
our newest virus spreads
through our sighing.

Morning Tea

Waves of pollen
from the evergreen.
Yellow dots dancing
on the surface of earl grey.

Late night call -
a green truck
with one less tire.

Unspoken

A woman came home
and fell apart.
Not again, she thought,
but it was too late to say
as she watched her jaw
tumble across the floor.

Tough Decisions

I am stained with her.
It is all over me.
I wonder if I should cry
or make an effort to clean it up.

Pile of seeds -
hollow carcuses
left behind.

A ragged doll in the corner,
a few friends gone from her side.
Sewn together with contempt,
our unraveling is effortless.

A phone message

The jerk store called,
they are all out of you.

Resolution

The momentum of being wrong. Precision like some opposite of drunken wandering. The illusion of incapacity filling each breath. The subdued twitchings of strangling with my hands.

I am convinced: destroy everything with politeness.

In the Examination Room

My doctor laughs
at the notion
that mental diseases
could be contagious,
but I know better.

Wedding Day

A brushing of branches
in the breeze,
blind to the beautiful
bride-to-be.

Proof by Induction

1 Soldier Dead
2 Soldiers Dead
3 Soldiers Dead
The answer is 3,506.

Just Another Day

Johhny's thrown himself off
the roof top
and shattered himself
on the driveway.
Collect his bones in a bucket
and soak his blood with a mop.
Put him back together
just perfectly.
Tomorrow we'll do it again.

I wrap myself in regret
like a syran-wrapped mummy.
I'm not exposed,
but everyone can see.

Vomit Colored Passenger Cars

The inertia of stillness
on a train derailing.
The chatter of passengers
seeking novelty
in forms beyond perception.
Last stop - Inarticulateville.

How far?

Our skin a few inches
Our minds a few feet
Our hearts a few miles
Away

Bad Day

A question kneeled
and asked of his maker,

What the fuck is going on?

A Family Trip

A man became a horse.

His mother yelled, you were no good as a son. A horse is no better.

So the man trotted out of the living room and into the world where he disappeared forever.

When father came home and asked of his son, the mother said that an ass had left just a few hours ago. The old man nodded. There was much to agree on.

The Four Legs of Loneliness

A desk is always alone.

The couple tutors closely,
attempting to undo this.

But a desk is always alone.

After the Carnival

Painted faces
rush
the door

then promptly plop
upon the
floor.

Huddled close
to watch
cartoons

They sleep
away the
afternoon.

Carried soon
to bed
I find

A rainbowed
spot of drool
behind

In the spirit of brief poems

Check out this haiku from Haiku Poet.

The Church of Breakfast

The bowl limps toward me
in an act of faith.
We stare silently at
grains of wood, but
our prayers are unanswered.
Soggy and rich with contempt,
we reconsider our conversion

Anatomy of the Unspoken

Sulfur emissions seap out
the corners of my mouth
as I try to keep quiet.
The cancerous truth blackens
every fold within my lungs.

She worries about the coughing,
as I tend to other things.

Shortened:

Sulfur emissions
out the corners of my mouth -
a cancerous truth
to blacken folds of lung.

A respite

Violence swings
on the front porch rocker.
In the sway of a warm breeze,
it gently nods off.

We try to remain quiet.

Irritability on a soap box
lathering wounded words.
A small piece breaks away
and swirls toward the drain

The flickering away of sadness

On starless nights
in crooked turns
the light of matches
flared and gone
strikes the ghosts
of smiles forgotten.

The blueberry muffins have all gone bad.
Wielding uncrumbling power in their blue and gold uniforms,
they terrorize the neighborhoods of
Pepperidge Farms and General Mills.

Anxiety oozes like a bloody
steak. The Bold and delicious
transfer of panic revealed.

Outnumbered

A woman is in battle
with the girl in mirror.
There are many mirrors and
many girls.
She is simply outnumbered.

Silent Pact

The patience of virtue exploding.
Calm sets in like a traffic jam
exposing the rhythm of steady denial.

Question and Answer

What has happened to Mildred?

The sour sting of moldy juice fuzz
washes over my thoughts of her.

Oh.

Residues

The hardening edge of desire
soaks its feet in milky waters.
Drip by drip the faucet sings a song
about the unbirthing of our romance.
We listen with the valves of our hearts half-open,
waiting for the thud thud that never comes.

Experimentation on Pretty Things

She tried suffocation
first and then drowning.
But none of these would do.
The resilience of plastic
dolls unanticipated.

What will my daughter learn from this?

Power Play

The crumpled sheet of paper
storms across my desktop,
demanding to be read,

The illegible palimpsest
gains some ground.

An old man waits

The old man settled into
the soup pot,
ready to be boiled.
He sliced his hands and feet
like tomatoes and onions.
His arms and legs
like ham.
All that was left
was to wait for his wife
to fetch some more firewood.

A colony

There is a collapse
of structures within my brain
and insects now invade.
I tell myself,
think of pesticides
and not of picnics.

She cries
in her bed -
a flower
blooming
in reverse.

Dear Self,

I miss you.
please come back.

High Tension Wires

A wishbone
thrust into
my vocal chords,
The strain of
the world
twists in
the key of C

News of the Engagement

Back to the place
where sad
puppets
danced.

We question
the dead
thing
he has brought
back to life.

It'll have to do

It is carving day again.
The day that sad thoughts
are scraped
into a bucket
and forgotten.
She laments that
it isn't big
enough,
but that'll
have to do.

Unsaddening the girl

Rinse and Repeat
Rinse and Repeat

[insert break]

Rinse and Repeat
Rinse and Repeat

The wrong direction

Panic sits quietly in
the passenger seat.
Pressed against
the glass,
octagonal pixel
raindrops
obscure
her view.