61/365: care and feeding of demons

demons are the stuff of strangled dreams -
crib dead, aborted -
they speak to us in sonorous
blue
and bloody tones;
they walk in forms made
from the husks of desire and lust.

one-handed, we feed them
from our radial artery -
all while we wail about injustice
and point about meaningfully
with the other hand.

this is the price of life support
for a thing we cannot let die.

72/365: John's Story: Seeing Her

when she came out to pick up the milk
that's when I saw her
bending over the tin box, flipping the lid
in her green silk housecoat

green like a fairy forest
where you might be lost forever
and no one would go in to look for you
because you would be gone.

I tried not to see her
really
but I couldn't not.

and I couldn't not think about her hips
afterward
and the ribbon that wrapped around her waist
that held the gown closed -
kept all the secrets hidden -
just one knot

I couldn't not undo it with my brains -
as I drove along my route,
house to house, door to door

nothing but the curls of her black hair

I couldn't shake it out
couldn't smoke it out
couldn't tell anyone cause
I don't have the words.
No one has the words for that.

60/365: coin

the coin upon my tongue is electric metal.

heads, guilt and shame,
tails, humiliation.

your hand on my chin, closing my lips.

59/365: God made me, too

God made the birds in the trees
The fishes in the stream
And of course the puppies and kittens
And little children.
And me,
My demon adds,
with a grin on her too-small mouth
with its bone crushing, perfectly white teeth.
And me.

57/365: 4 in the morning (published in Phantom Kangaroo)

at 4 in the morning
it's just me and the truckers on the road

and the psycho killers in their minivans.

no one else is up and dressed,
pants on one leg at a time,
coffee sloshed.

there seem so many trucks but
it's really the same number as always -
just the lack of other cars
makes them look like Stonehenge
has decided to relocate.

there's the truck from Sysco
with its cargo of
Bloomin' Onions/Awesome Blossoms/Texas Roses.
there's the truck from Wal-Mart
with its cargo of
Chinese plastic wrapped electronics.
There's the BP truck
with its tanks full of black
paid for in blood.
there's the psycho killer's minivan
with its grim sacrifice
carefully wrapped -
a Chinese baker, perhaps
who had stopped to get gas
too late at night?

citizens with day jobs
and for-profit criminals
are all snoring -
it's still yesterday's night for them.

us,
we're all driving into the morning of their tomorrow
(except for the Chinese baker,
who will have no more tomorrows
or even today).

55/365: morning stories (published in Mindful Word)

the fall sun just over the trees
leans shadows that are long stories
from the fence posts
lining the road I am running on.

my own shadow stretches out to the west
broken by the rough of grass,
then granular with the asphalt -
this is suddenly the measure
of what is left, I realize.

the light has a metallic truth to it,
unavoidable hard realism,
not like the fairy twilight
that blends the worlds of waking and dream.

but the sweeping reach of the shadows
do not put me into the present
the way the noon sun will,
hanging overhead like an inquisitor's bulb -
undeniable and demanding of truth,
but only the truth of now.

instead this early morning light
forces reflection over what is yet to come.
one must wait until the evening
when the shadows trail into the past
to ponder what has been done.

 

54/365: walking on water

the downpour on the highway
is partly recycled, kicked back up
by the tires of the cars in front of me
and the 18-wheeler clinging to my left
as if we were Siamese twins.

the mist skirts each of us
and it seems as if we hover, tireless, on grey spray -
our taillights like afterburners.

indeed we are barely touching the ground,
the water coming between us and the earth
is as close to walking on water
as mortals come.

there is no secret to walking on water:
if we could only walk fast enough
the surface tension would never break,
and we would not sink
into the dark waves
but glide along,
the lights of our afterburners like shooting stars
along the firmament.