Borneo Grass Snake

Aurora borealis, she said, like a fawn nudging brown mushrooms
for worth. "A young creature, we'll say, testing it out,
maybe a magic spell lesson, bad or good, maybe a sniff
gone awry, maybe nasal curiosity." Whatever the reason,
Angela was taken aback -- Aurora, the goddess of dawn,
had awoken. "Your job!" she grieved, her countenance
lowered to the refractory dining halls below her tower
quarters. "You cannot possibly make breakfast in time
for your orb's precious ascent."

"That's true," said Dawn, "but I'm not hungry."

EVER

Lonely little love dog
that nobody knows the name of

give your life to be that

switch switching off voluntarily
like a man returning his car keys
to his mother
in a fancy restaurant:
"You were right about
her," he says.

"Yes," somebody recalls, "but
haven't we been down
this:::::road:::::before."

Which is funny, you see,
because we hadn't
ever been there--

Coffee Might / Gun Spring

now you truly know the secret, but so does everyone,
they all watch you in the theatre.

Mister Toad, His Wild Ride, Et Al,
Dear, That is, I should say,
This is my title: capitulation
To the rude girls outta town
Back coming from; this is your homeyard
Which should be a word
Calcify or strength / Brush or floss

Where there are fish
There are bigger fish

Like gasoline I’m distilled
Into various aliquots / burn my palindrome
A MAN A PLAN A CANAL, PANAMA
Central American tales of fire
And losses worse than coffee blight.

i hate my name

twenty-five years ago, whats his name,
came up from below.

never going back again, a dancing fool,
flies around like a grocery bag.

now he's walking on the phone lines,
tapping two-time, making friends and enemies and disconnections.

i heard his sister has a big kite, likes to soar high,
to steal the earth from the satellites.

now when we go out daylight walking, we know they see us,
so our bodies wear our brightest colors.

yes that's the price we pay for drinking, from the fountain,
that no one told us not to play in.

it stinks that all our foes surround us, call us by our name,
for they are the ones that named us Larry.

i wonder when the stones and rocks will rise up, sing hallelujah,
then do away with both scissors and paper.

no one has ever heard that mountain, scream in ecstasy,
our ears are too full of children.

so take the time to wake the lover, winking at yourself,
finding only what you hoped was not there.

now you truly know the secret, but so does everyone,
they all watch you in the theatre.

PlantNap

magic...
the call of horses & foreign porches
purses pursuing purchased Porsche's
and handmittens lingering in nightlights
slug seven times trailed
like Doug paled in comparison

to his firstborn newsy timeline
plot, forage, deceive
a twisted mister / spraying water / plantnap

occasions such as these broccoli
for the unholy knee

knells departing and quickening
threads of music strong-licking
every last corner of the noses.

Christmas Eve

(C H R I S T M A S
eve is like dreaming about
sugarplums & fairies faxing
jingle.

Smoke coming from chimneys

impossible yule log
descends from glowing clouds.
Is this fire? Or reindeer's
nose... modern magic in the tale
and the short bobbing trail of
magical snowflakes
that follows Santa
wherever he lurks.

Santa lurks not. He jollies.)

GRE vocab surfeit

Now they're training us like picayune pygmies
wearing pj's... meretricious words to take in
brains like testicles, when the pith is hidden
by the pitch: the ball's path is specious, capricious;
it is, in other words, a knuckle-ball. Given to
freakish notions and whims. Given generously?
Why, that's munificent. Salutary, for example,
means healthful, also salubrious. But dare I be
pedantic? Betraying a scholarship lacking in
common sense and relative motion? Which is
important - the relativity - for even a taciturn
mouse (not a peep) inures fracas when seemingly
saturnine rats prove mercurial, all along, the
truth obscured by an opaque window that fronts
-- what windowed effrontery! -- the rat's
capacious home.

INS Mysore, MV Gibe

We're getting away with Somalia.
Pirates at night grenade lights soar/
bones into a dark globe. Morse code.

What's more cold than a pirate, straight old
like an island rum fermentation pro-vi-sion.
Robbin hoods like I'm chillin with my goods.

Trying to be those number one guys. Coasts
grow towards you at night, coves come
under your girl's blouse. Some impossible

Blagojevich, toy czar us. Wasn't the last one
a tyrant? The man tyrannosaurs in black
gold bands; black neon snow seas, Aden.

Ethical Pragmatism

Ermine Daughters Swap Coats

maybe not more moon-caverns tonight.
tonight, i'm going to tell it like it is: I fly
kites all day likes i am told to. it is the only
job available to me in my county, but by
Jingo I've got to be the best kiter in the
bromine!
painting in which we live

the pain painstakingly entertaining
the idea of shining less brilliantly, and
then it expands, it enlightens, in brands
its demands upon everyone surrounding:




yes, this is the birth of my conscious. yes,
this is the birthright of my father's father's
father. this is the weight of a million gray
cabooses letting out their steam, perfect
unicorns, urinating in the shadows

exploding prose so that nobody knows
what to fucking think
well, get a drink, puke in the sink, fuck in the pink,
clean chicken off of bones
in public

as at Rendez-Vous, World Famous Ribs in Memphis,
TN, Since 1948.

No More Pomegranates?

Which is more interesting: Word-babies or baby-words?
I prefer the former, like the fruits of a dictionary tree
like::::orange:::::ads::::::spur::::::sprees of citrus shopping,
days on the blackberry, distracted from the task at hand:
buying--well, berries, of course, grapes, lettuce, I could go
on, but I won't.

Ok, i lied: POMEGRANATE. Lie over. The only time I
raw:::ate:::one

was in Andrea's kitchen in Palo Alto. It was sexual and weird,
the fruit, that is. Her boyfriend prompted me to see it akin to
cunnilingus, which isn't gross per se, but IS pretty weird
when actually eating

in semi-polite company.
No more pomegranates for me.

fern / cancer / daylight / boydrapes

layers of ferns elongate in perfect harmony
to make a fern-layer. you already knew it would
happen: all your house plants have been quarreling
for years now, and it is high time that
somebody does something. green plants? green
quivering bodies? "no locomotion," botany
department memos read. they have to remind them-
selves of these things: no muscles, no brains, just
green cells making life out of the sun like ingenious
brainless chordates. chords ate in the music luncheon
what they spoke of: feelings and scales. on this level,
all the meatsacks are empty, and speak of longing for
protein and something more substantive then a word
that means mealtime in every walk of life. sun. carbo-
hydrates, getting high on forks before being eating
or getting distracted by sunscreen and cancer-fears.

Watching Apartheid TV

Does nobody blog any longer? Is it wrong to
take pistol shots in anger? (At the dangling
participles just now participating, at least,
) I smell something, honey, like minced meat
oats suit the money men adventuring like
day-glo boybands in bondage wear
:::::trying on their delicate torture gear
"How do I torture you?" One eager stag
asks another. "Here, I think you twist this
sprocket... Oh yes, that's it," he trails off,
murmuring incantations

of slain vegetables like broccoli who hold
no malice towards those who eat legumes.
(Think beans.) And boyband toilets where
the business gets down, and the million drab,
indrawn, loathsome places where ordinary
things happen to extraordinary people, but
nobody listens.

mint eater: take 3

the blogger buzz

is that the full slug cinema,

the orchestra (like they had

in the old days) exiting its cartoon doors earlier

this morning. from here, i

can see everything:

your wallet, her sidecar, your dad's

people. your jubilee is not yet over,

is it, father? or do you wonder

how we got over

train tracks

like mints in a man's mouth;

this isn't just any man, it's

a mint eater.