Tango

Tango,

cha

cha

cha

you eternally wiley spirit you

how I praise thee now that all is ash and soot

oh my closest of bothers, lover of the father,

like no other, better even than I could ever dare,

guardian of goodness and frolicking

Dad won his veterans disability claim,

retired to a rented room on Albina

money and free time meant death to the wino

said he needed a woman or a dog

we found you on craigslist

in Gresham digging holes under fences

living in cage near the dryer

a trailer of children with squirt guns

oh how you danced,

oh how you made father love you

he quit drinking for you

he decided to live for you

and I love you for it

dog, more flesh than flesh,

jowls of who gives a fuck

tromping through no dogs allowed

everyday serving him, demanding his stability

you brought my father back to me

Geronimo and back again

but even Patrick Swayze

couldn’t beat pancreatic cancer

oh you dirty dancer

I held you as you went cold

there on the linoleum of interstate

tango, alpha, bravo.

Ashland

Roads better than Rome’s

and we are all so very far from our homes

white lines guide hand on wheel  over blacktop trails for combustion wagons

 to where the trees grow short and the days are as long as dragons

a small town and its gorgeous scenes

of women walking out of magazines

smelling old books in tiny boutiques

admiring the friendly shop owners peddling antiques

is that Achilles break-dancing between plays in Chautauqua square?

There? where a camp dog watches his master blare,

serenading those sun-glassed tourists with Shakespeare on their tongue?

strumming his nylon strings with little pieces of  himself—young

the hat out, a couple of dollars and a handful of silver coin—nesting

we camp under stars that hum—where darkness becomes a kind of resting

I dream of my home in the rain

a place where trains bring grain—to the sea

woke up to rock in the back, damn arm numb and tingly

sunrise shatters the chill of these arid lands

the creek side, is where I wash my face and hands

Mega mom bangs out breakfast for her four teens

they Meer-cat me, sniff the air and return to their routines

tall trees tugging my eyes to the brow, and everything is fine,

here amongst the pom-pom fingered ponderosa pines

I walk off cold to take hot piss near the frog pond and game room

the only one awake is walking off towards his ditch doom

and Mr blackbird, who are you wearing that armband for?

are you too missing someone you see no more?

high above the cattails and thistles

and now I wonder the phrase, chanted in whistles

Burnt bee? Tur-key? Oh no, it must be,

this, this is hur-ting me…

wandering lose in the gravel shoulder

every step I feel somehow older

finding my winding way to a lake dedicated to emigrants and rowboats

there cross-legged on a grassy jetty letting my soul strum the low notes  

And I feel altogether complete and so very alone,

as if one is breathing in and the other out.

Pappy Says

Killed a spider in my bathtub, I did. Yep. That’s all there was to it. Whack. Dead. Some hanky-panky motherfucker wants to let it live. I don’t let things live. It ain’t my style. You see. Yep. You sure know a lot about nothing.  You’re swimming in books waterlogged with lies. You can’t believe everything you read. You can’t believe anything. Don’t ever make plans, no goals, never get your hopes up, don’t wish for things. Acceptance is the key, say it with me, I am poor, no one loves me, and that is just how it is. Get yourself a trade, join a union, buy a trailer and lot of land and call it good. Or just go to prison and read more books, that would make you happy. See no more failure. I am a success at being what I am. Nothing special. Stress free. Eat damn it. Ride the bike every day. A constitutional, some old man once told me, is a daily regimen of activity. Control is an illusion. There is no such thing. Bear mace in my pocket at all times. 

And stop writing that jive-ass poetry. 

It will get you nowhere fast. 

Defining the Word

Cone;             * an ovule-bearing mass

                    * a device for humiliating a dog or cat

                  * any surface traced by a straight line passing through a fixed vortex

Karaoke;          * a method to measure insecurity and courage

                                * please refer to the definition—fun

Distortion;        *a blessing allowing for meaning to emerge from the rubble

Sitka;                   * a variety of spruce, thrives on rough, rocky shores;

        —often gnarly, twisted and weathered beautiful

 *a location, only imagined,

where a woman, with almond-eyes,

fell in love with syllables

Telephone booth;    *an iconic prop from the ever popular science fiction series—Dr.Who.

* a forgotten relic

* Superman’s only decent place to change his underwear

*the best place to be when crying

Kayak;             *a delightful word to write; enjoyably symmetrical in shape,

                      when spoken aloud, the sound wave matches the shape of the vessel

  *from a dream about drowning; almond-eyes again—rowing my way,

          on still water colored with moonlight, spooked a heron, as it glides overhead I become safe again.

                             Liminal;         *an in between state of being or origin

                                                *—on the cusp of two systems

*the life of a trickster, observing from afar

Alaska;

                *a mythical land of monster bears ruling the rivers,  of open spaces that make the sky look small, where old fish fight their way to die in the gravel, edged with icy seas and crab boats

               

                *the air around her, carries peacefulness, a story of mossy places most likely

Beautiful;            *is snow falling fluffed onto cherry blossoms—in the city night under streetlights

                    * an abstract idea with no valid or scientific means of measure

Curls;         * the end result of pressing ribbon with thumb to scissor’s edge and pulling

                * a gift’s garnish

Friend;       *a noun, reserved for intimate companions, and pets

                *an anomaly; perhaps even accidental in nature

                *a highly sought after commodity, unavailable on the black market

Singularity; *a book written by Carl Jung, I have yet to read, and brazenly assume the content

                * an inevitable single outcome for all directions and equations

                * how it all comes together

Corpse Not Now

Corpse not now

I have lived like there was no tomorrow,

since so, so many Yesterdays ago

and now they say Now, the moment of Now,

lasts only a few seconds—heartbeat drums “one-one thousand”

but there is no time—but now,

I don’t believe in time travel

no time like the present, a stationary gift, unmoving,

Now is all there ever was—ever will be,

It is we, in these flesh boats turning sunken corpses,

boxed into limited life spans—

It was we—that made it all up,

We are the only part of this universe that can sense time

an imaginary boogie man,

a mortality salience side effect,

ticking in the closet,

to a moving object, it is everything else that is moving,

the highway isn’t moving, the car is,   

an illusion, time, abandoning us,

slipping away,

and it’s just like all the lovers that left me to die alone,

found in this illusion of the sun,

it appears to be blazing past us, but it never actually sets

for it is the earth that turns away from love

and feels dizzy in the dark

Morsels

Short stories should be written on tiny paper.

No health insurance.

Short Fiction and Long Fiction are only related by marriage.

She left them lace-less; she even stripped out the damned soles.

Does it wonder? Does it ask? Can it discover—what it means to be human?

Lost in the traffic jam at the end of time.

Say something about attention spans degrading over the centuries…

Short stories waste not time nor ink.

Every hellish technological advance,

that we humans have developed

—has done absolutely nothing

to alter the core of the human condition.

Not even fire or weapons or governments.

Victims of Instant Gratification. Convenience. Out of touch of a finger.

A reduction; a cooking term for removing water through evaporation

How can a straight “A” student long for silent death?

Budget-cut educations; a systematic dumbing-down.

Trying to wake an audience, feared to sleep each night,

After another agonizing, underpaid,

“You are dispensable,” assault on her dignity day,

be her chamomile, be her lavender,

be her freshly drawn bath water,

and the rest she deserves,

remember to love readers.