I wish crack was the problem

I wish crack was the problem

 

we have lost our capability to purely be

to the realms of street walkin-busyness.

we suit

[more-decadent] 

activity as time is lineated

 

I wish I had a byword

but I am without elucidation.

so much information

and theory

so many new  inventions

 

a sense of

 half-self

 half-tool          

 emerging from

the pretty images

inconsistent ideologies

moving in separate circles

creating realities without  

veracity

 

in fantasy  character embodiment

we are growing,

 

 defective knowledge

of digression

of evolution

of other

             is  essence flawed

 

the blue firmament is playing with a rubber band

the maples hum low water lyric  slow

the white blinds clank- scuttle-sham

  empyreal concavity  

       the back drop for                

deliberating silence forging through  sub-conscious

substandard thought

 

 actuality is foreign

distant and skewed from comprehension.

 

2003

D is for ‘dicking around’

We never met outside in a busy market.  I did

not breathe life back into you nor did I wonder

how you carried on with such ease or how your

words became perfect statues to be touched

smooth. You never sent me a letter in a white

envelope with my mother’s address asking for

me to reply immediately.  It is too late to go to

your house, knock on your door, pretend to be

selling forgiveness in a black suit and french kiss.

you would have been happy that I came, handed

 

me three stones, and said why are you still here. 

I could have called to tell you thank you or how

you mean more to me now, after we are no longer

acting.  I knew you would leave me alone and

trembling, if I lifted the curtain.  I learned how to

sing, because I did what you said not to. I should

have probably let you know that your words kept

me awake at night and commanded the empty

doorway. My grandfather used to speak of you.

Secretly I know each word that you mastered was

                  

       dedicated to me.  I could have at least let your mother

       know or your long ago father but I couldn’t; the sun

       was so bright. You were a shadow and I was young,

       I didn’t want my shadow to race beyond yours. I

       should have told you I put poison in my teacup and

       after a couple of minutes, flushed it down the toilet

       and wrote a song for you.   It was a nice song and

       I’m sure you would have nodded and said, that’s it halo

       girl, that’s it.  But of course I couldn’t tell you.  you

       were in the hospital dying, and I hate the smell of latex,

                          

   especially so early in the morning, before breakfast. 

   you’ve always been so enormous, and I didn’t want

   to take the torch for you. I wouldn’t have been able

   to see my hand and you would have just silenced

   me with a wave, and said there’s no one else. I finally

               

                       found enough courage to read your poems when a friend

                                   phoned to tell me you were dead.  They’re pretty good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two Cheeseburgers without Pickles

Two Cheeseburgers without Pickles 

                                                                                         

A grey and lovely decomposing woman

sighs, and says, “had a friend once.”

A scrape is the only trace of

their bodies hunched and talking close.  She gags

out words about him. Her body crumbles

 

as she smoothes the past and present.  She thinks

him, after all the morning shadows, sprawled    

and split on the rug with the brown swirls

 

and the two women touching.

After all this time, when she shuts

her eyes her mouth moves in prayer. 

He was a math guy, a fatuous

mouth, big knuckle cracked fingers, a stupid

 

Easter egg tattoo.  His hair was the shore

of Lake Superior.  He’d listen to her

rant and enjoy it. Actually

 

liked to hear her go on.  He kissed her ass

honey.  Gave clumsy 6 foot man hugs. And

he would dance.  Like a whirlwind jerkin down

Chicago rail he would dance, dangerous spins

and kicks.  When he danced he fucked the whole crowd,

 

hit ‘em and clear a path.  She’d                         

flapper dance for him, shut her eyes

and do the best damn flapper dance she could.

 

His smile, it could break hearts, his damn smile. He

was the only real person she’d known, kept

her standing most days, made sure she ate,

read stories, and talked about light.

The only person who liked talking of

 

light. He’d let her rub her face on his

sweater. She can smell his man body

odor and cheeseburgers. He loved cheeseburgers.  

 

She was a waitress. For fifty-three years, that old thing served pie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another Way To Savor

Another Way To Savor                                                     Annie Burie

 

I am in a marriage that is nothing

like childhood fights about maple syrups.

Mother said the kids like the pineapple, strawberry,

and butterscotch. Father said they don’t need ‘em.

Resentment filled the breakfast table along

side the crepes and chunk fruit, coffee and sugar,

uncorrected essays and yawns, hammer

and car keys. The marriage I’m in is not

 

an early childhood of packing items,

father standing with gun. Those were not marriages

My marriage is a hardwood floor bowed from

the hodgepodge of a king size bed and a

blanket, a rattling round table with two

chipped cups, a spent teapot of green and a

silent slice of lemon. Not a hungry

thing under the bed. In my marriage I

pretend I am rich, and put butter on everything.

 

every time i swallow my ears pop

every time i swallow my ears pop

 

 

i have a infection in my body that my body can not

stop

 

i lay on the couch and dream of a little brown boy

huggin his legs

and crying and screaming

 

 

and i say who i am to complain

 

 

i try to think of the great lake

and the cedars touching the water, and the spray

but i find myself looking at a drowning woman in the eyes

as she gasps and flairs her arms

 

 

screaming in silence

save me

 

 

i stand up to shake the vision

to walk off the cramp and the pain but my head floats

and i feel like puking and the air can’t get to my brain

 

and i think of a friend who died being choked to death

by cop

 

and i drink a cold glass water to refresh my body

but the water has weird aftertaste and i think

of the shit and chemicals

they use to purify

and  i put down the cup

and lay back down on the couch that smells like piss

and i think about washing it

but

my head won’t allow me to bend or scrub

or pick up the garbage

from my daughter

who threw in hopes to see another trick

of gravity

 

and i think of close quarters and imagine if there another

14 people sleeping in this space

 

and i see their black eyes and white auras

and i see myself

in their hallow bones

that stretch and fracture

 

 

and i follow the lines and end in the ground with workers

filled with black dirt and chemical sandwiches

and i see the master holding a diamond the size of my heart

throbbing and aching in his hands

that are smooth and delicate

and i see him reaching out to me to give it me

as long i don’t tell anyone what i see

 

 

and i run away but his dogs are at my heels

and my feet can barely keep up with dust that spins behind

my limbs and

i fall into the rock and sand

and the dogs become friends and family

and i stand trying to tell them what i know

 but they walk away as soon as

my words start to flow

 

and i am left on the road with sandals on

 

and the little rocks keep getting stuck between my toes

and on my way i see a lake so beautiful and blue

and i take for swim but on the bottom i see something

move

and large and i think its coming straight for

me so i get out and lay on the shore

but as i dry the bugs come biting

and the blood runs down my legs

 

and i try to get them to leave but my flesh falls

off and my clothes become little rags with blood

 and i find i was

 two sticks with a rope holding me

up and i remember the couch and get up to relieve myself

and as i piss

i see the  tooth paste on the side of the  wall

and i think about brushing but my gums are bleeding

and i spit in the toilet and a chunk a black blood

gags its way out and i flush

and wash but my hands still smell

and i see in the mirror the black circles under my eyes

mounting despair 

so i lift up my heart and ask god, why don’t i die

and i blow my nose and some of my snot bubbles up to my lip

and i wash my face and  remember my ex sayin i would be pretty if

i worked out and got my teeth straightened and washed my face

 and i see at the

corners of my mouth dried caked on brown spit

and i remember how i was back then so damn fucking sick

 and how i had cysts inside

my body that keep bursting and scaring

and it  made me walk with a limp

 so i go to the emergency room and they tell me its nothing

and i don’t have insurance or money and i leave

with a bill without

getting the pills

and i go back to the couch and i can’t get to work cause

the sickness has increased since i had to walk in the

cold and there is nothing or

no one that can help  me now

and i am hungry but my mouth hurts and the stale bread i have

is too hard to  chew

and i think of the slavery and imperialistic control

and i laugh a little

and think how things changed

(who am i to complain)

now they have everyone bent over to screw

now it is the poor that die of

oppression and we are all turning blue

and it gives me no relief to think i have some keif

because its just another

man trying trick me into having a good time

when there is so much work to

do and i having the heart  am too damn sick

to even start

 

so lay on the couch and watch tv

with the only control i have in my hand

 is remote control

changing reality one digit at a time.

 

who i am to complain

Dedicated to Jeanne on her birthday

Dedicated to Jeanne on her birthday

 

I was never used to being in public spaces with  

people who sprawl and touch like roman streets,    

with bedpans splashing out barred windows, and girls who

play games with ropes and oral traditions.

The catering stopped at fourth street, and the sneakers

came in red-yellow-blue. So simple and intoxicating

were the prices of malt liquor that the

little man thought nothing of putting it in

his tight pants. Slide and lift, concrete and weeds

make creative entrapments for the toddlers

that swim in the night before fester. I

knew these things and yet I did not know they were things

to know. The houses have large beams holding

them up. The volunteer fire department rakes

the ash in long columns of if we would

have trusted the corn we may have more bread to come

around.  The words of a man who never

see the back bend of a leaf is more than 

the void left by the factories closing. Supposedly

the factories made things that nobody

wanted. When they started making things that people

wanted they packed into Mexico where the

factories could pollute without the greens screaming

not in  our backyard.  But it was never   

their backyard because they did not pick the chamomile.

This is easy to tell. The rains make mud pies and

lasting loyalty to mother singing old songs, that

everybody knows by heart, but her heart does not

know a damn thing. I should have went back to

climb up the center, to reach my cracking  neck.  Long

ponderings of what is the point of the

void have left nothing of an answer.  Blood and oil

are replaced. Fuck a question long enough,   

hard enough until the answer is numb and bleeding.

Its hard to think of love and hope when things

fall on the heads of neighbors. The little floppy

head bouncers leave a pile of candy wrappers

next to the dumpster with the broken tv, preservatives,

microwaved baby, shattered wine glasses,

plastic packaging, a searching man.  The man is

a worn out street.  There is nothing new working. No

choice of finding stemma.  Winter is coming on

paper back novels, with towers and mountains. 

The poetry collections have smears of an artist trying

to make something like a single flame.  Pies

on text books, lighthouses on recipe collections.

I should answer myself in public debates.

I hear beggars give away cans of spinach and fight

for foul hamburgers.  The lines of items in

the store is a wild thing’s dream.  If he has

a twenty dollar bill, he can buy shoes, knives, friendship

milk, eggs, white bread.  He can buy a symphony

or an interactive bible.  I’m sure

this is the future somebody wanted,

the expired and rustic frontier of the biggest

wet power damn.  This is not what I wanted. Grey

patience for death is in the homes of almost dead

citizens who rank of shit and poison. Who

get used to it, like a doggy doing his stuff

on the wood floor while they fry cancer potatoes.

I can imagine the two arches of McDonalds

but the forest of my youth is slipping. This is serious.

Cars with oil, lights and CO 2.  Christmas and summer

holidays. My brother is a warrior for humdrum.

Suppose his life is not value. I have other

brothers. Everyone sometimes gravitates towards

extinction. Creators of voids are holy. Water

freezes the same. Nothing brings out the best

in a day, then sun and water, warm sand, light beer.

Slender pieces of jammed together assholes crisp

on the grill, chunks of delicious arms of a grazer

sizzle. Yum sun and family.  Bikes with wet seats.

I am probably a downer, a thick coarse hairball extended

into the dark regions of folds that came from a void.

Long distance expansion, hold on, history will smite

me for a revolution, for a doer and hopeful idiot

who doesn’t know I am damned sinner rotating

in confusion until the lord  comes which does not

happen until I destroy myself which is beautiful

to understand. Some don’t know they are poor and some

climb trees, sing raspy tunes made in moments listening

to moss older than collective memory. Some

have cake with ice-cream, and sip lattes. Others give

up in hard times like porches in a flood and let the nothing define them.

 

 

Lame horse

I.

 

i’ve been reading bukowski,

 like it is a bible

 

telling me bad things, good things

about my equality

          he writes a lot about beautiful asses

 

          i have a pillow ass

 

i guess i don’t see people the same

 

like when i see a good looking man

i don’t think of his chest

 

or his ass

 

or his strong loner boner

 

i look at his smile, and

see if it comes easy

 

and if joy dances in his eyes

or if he has peace

           in pocket

then his beauty is realized

 

 

some men give off a golden hue

 

like a child’s laugh

like a breeze off lake s.

 

and then i start to see him

for the first time

 

and i hear his music

and his tendency

 

and i start to wonder

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

II.

i know girls who talk about guys

junk like it is the am. 

i never really

understood the fascination

with that

more like a desperate hunger

more like a foolish lie

 more like a buzzing fly

 

III.

they are

all with a

 need,

need,

loneliness

and hands

 

i really don’t like that part of them

they seem like fakes, like losers

that can’t see past

their swollen thumb

 

(hold up thumb and smile)

 

IV.

i have lots of friends-

males, walking sticks

 as long as i think their

intentions are friendship

i respect them

but as soon as i see them as

desiring to enter me

i stop finding them

 

i start to think they

are problematic

 ignoramuses

 

i start to want to teach

them a cucumber paint by number lesson

hello

 

 

V.

they think i care if it feels good

or they are good

or they can last a certain amount

of time

or if it gets bigger

or if they can make me cum

they think i give a damn

 

 

about their organ

as if i wanted to start a band

with their junk yard

drum hard

 

so i could be famous

on their stage

 

VI.

i hate flowers that have a purpose

 

and make shift cotton dust words

  pesticide eat it or wear it noise

plumbers ass fingers down the back of my pants

 

VII.

they say shit like your teeth are

so sexy, come on dude

your brain is so squishy

oozy-transparent

I can see you tick tock dick flop

 

at least don’t wear your failure

as underwear.

mighty mouse is better

bed wetter

it means nothing

you were born with it

so

I was born with something

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

VIII.

i would rather read

monkey piss in the blue

 or the local journal

or guide post,

hot mashed potatoes

on my naked thigh-put some butter on that

or tabloids in the tub

then your soggy loins

bones, sticky groans clones

boring form stones

 

VIIII.

and its not that i don’t like

to fuck. its fun, I like fucking

  I like going

swimming, hiking

or ski diving too

 

 

 

its like sitting under a big maple

or waking at dawn on the shore

sometimes

it is like green grass dew magic

and time is paused

and the world’s hum seems

necessary

 

 

 

all things slide off

and

i forget everything else

I hum

dumb-dumb

 

gentle, pure moment when i

forget all the washing, and breadcrumb debating

 

its a good time

 

 

but that rarely happens

  - it’s like reading a

    book on the bus

 

 

 

 

 

 

X.

sometimes i start to really

like the person

 

and all i want is whiskey binges

and fire chats

but i get him trying to stick it

in me as i peel the carrots

and I start to despise carrots

 

because he never waits for me

or lets me be in silence

or stand still.

 

like a puppy, a damn little

puppy that won’t learn

 

 

 

 

XI.

so i start to avoid standing still

so he can’t catch me

or see me,

i have to move fast

act like I’m unbalanced

mad about the dirty clothes on the

 side of the bed

 

or pretend that i have to

scrub the floor

or mow the grass

or buy coffee

 

or take a shit

 shave my legs

because he doesn’t realize

 

i have control and meaning

and purpose

and I’m not there or here

for his fish-design laying it on the line

 

i have to swear at him

and lose respect for/of him

because he lacks patience

 

its bad trip

and then I realize i’d be happier alone

 

 

but that’s fallacy because i always

think there is one man

who is like me

and not a nick knack dick pack

but i never know

cause nobody can prove it

 

XII.

and eventually i see his nature v nurture

mentality-insanity

and all that insecurity

and i get sick and tired

and stop giving a damn

 

 

 

 

because i have whispered in gentle bubbles,

 yelled in useless charms

 dried leaves tears crunching

 denied bed bug biting smiles

 

 

 

 

but he doesn’t get shit

 

 

 

 

XIII.

it’s called space

 

its called get off dumb fuck

its called i see your need

as weakness feed, as fat-man greed

as rotten mutton

I don’t have a an on/off button

glutton

 

you would rape if it were legal

just take what you wanted

and never think this is a human

a life

a soul

a mind

a unity

 

your missing apart of your life 

and its not in there stud

 

lame horse

I want a divorce

 

life

life

is hard, and I don’t blame

anyone but mybigbuttlard.

I’m the dirty something,

still to discover the meaning

behind stained glass windows. 

The sun comes. I stare.

No conclusion why light hits.

There are gold and purple lines

on my white inside outs and my

chapped lips make an upside pout

I found the blue button in my stout.

IF I Had

IF I Had

If I had a cure for a broken

heart I would gladly give

it to you, even if it

could only be used once

If I could end the little outbursts

Or see you look at me, without

the sass, or convince you, someday

you’ll be a fine lover. Practice.

but you don’t listen to a damn thing

I say, and so bless you. Do you realize

at this very moment sound is coming from

my mouth, careful thoughtful sound,

a clumsy, thoughtful line

I’ve said so many times

it seems to hardly matter

You are in the bathroom with the door closed.

I should’ve been a prune

This is a beginner’s mistake.  I am a leftover

raisin sitting on a green sofa.  Make love with me.

My hot bottom is new and fascinating.  Lets

ride a white horse with out a saddle until we

tingle from grain.  I am lonely without a white tiger.

 

The wind is picking up leaves and beer cans. 

I’m a lover of silent hunger.  May I have

a cheeseburger.  I’m sick of eating hash browns alone. 

Can I use a cell phone.  There is a someone I’d like

to call and say something to.  Damage me oil, go ahead.

 

I have lovely two-sided conversations in my bed at 8:15.  There is

no where I’d rather be. I may be a Buddhist.  The conclusion hit me

like a ton of knick-knacks.  A white bear put his paws on me. 

I let my belly relax and hugged him with all my fat.

I kept singing how nice it is to love for love’s sake.

 

Hey   I have a friend I call Stan the crayon.

Its not his name but I still say if Stan can’t do it,

no one can.  I gave him a pink petal to drop in the snake river. 

He wanted to take my moleskin journal.  I told him no.

Take my heart, but not my plumes.  I feel awkward about it now.

 

The last time I saw him was in Wisconsin.

I called ‘don’t go.’ He didn’t take me serious.

there are old stories

there are old stories.  nobody reads.  i dreamed i was

inside the ocean looking up, bucktoothed at the sun.

What the hells wrong with me.  I love you. 

 

don’t be scarred. it was a joke.

I liked the taste of the rotten egg jellybean.

it tasted sweet, then perplexingly awful. 

 

its a lot like a fart on the tongue. 

a lot like a lover reading a book that never ends. 

or song from the shower.  some people sound better underwater  2007 

i once ate sand

i once ate sand.  it did not make me thirsty. 

I enjoy a good wine and sometimes a lover. 

hold me.  i am not a masterpiece. 

forget it.  i’ll cry when you leave.  

 

Another Day is a Victory

 

 Another day is a victory. 

 Someone sent a voice to haunt me

Others get mustard seed jokes.  I do not. 

 

 

Last night I had a dream.  I do not remember it.  But

There was a man with golden hair and he made fun

of my grin until I refused to smile. 

 

  i awoke with a twisted neck and a husband. 

my how the time goes by.  it is bedtime. 

 

 

2007 

Dear God

dear god,

help me through the headaches and anger. 

i know it is the diabetes and gout.

help me with self-control and sugar.   i am a petal. 

 

take this wasted cherry experiment and toss it

in the shade on the blanket.

   i am happy to be an idiot.

thank you.  the pain in my body, lord, is violence. 

Dissipate the juicy molecules and the one more time atoms. 

Send a wind that kills

If not, I am sorry for mess in advance. 

 

 

2007 

I have a headache and it is mother’s day.

I have a headache and it is mother’s day.  

 

 

john denver sings colorado

and I am thinking about pagels research.

 

nothing is true.  

 

I am in a valley and there is a shadow that looms

i am not sure what it is from.

 

 

every poem I write sounds like a colon song

where am i going.  where have you been.

all my life I have been dying.  Stevens is mocking religion. 

I am afraid to listen.

 

every novel i begin has a lady with a shotgun to

her heart.  such an old story, that everybody nods off

before the gun enters. 

 

 where are the little men and the flying women

the dog that sings opera, and the blades of grass that clap

hands, and repeat the name of the lord.  the blue painted pigs

and the orange monkeys with sharp scissors?  where are you?  

 

 

this is an old lost but it is a new one for me.

words do not help. 

2007 

the priest and me

 

hold me until i fall asleep

i know we’re not lovers but i need

a space to let my body fall. 

 

I heard a priest say love is a decision

  it did not make sense. I wanted to

believe him.  

               his eyes were sad and red (i think he’s on dope). 

on the shore of the great blue there is a turtle

on the shore of the great blue there is a turtle

the size of a house, and I

ride on its back to adventure.  I am careful not to

hurt the turtle.  Life is good when your in

the north. there are no jobs.  there are

manifestations of poverty and all the dangers of

human previsions.   there are even angry men.

but I am fat spring robin.  

Age First

I sit here, thinking of childhood

 and warrior games, and fist fights

     growing up with five older brothers

   has its bruises.

I’d rather be a child at war

 then a man

on the news they aired the recently

 dead…age first….18,19,20,18,19 etc, a list of young

from ar, fl,wi, mi, oh, cali, all over, from big cities

and little towns,

 

I think of my brother. I think of

how after Christmas, he will be sent to

combat..  I tried to tell mother

       war is not freedom, this is

about money markets, control, and oil

the question I have now is

how do I treat him, while he opens

Christmas socks, flask, and cards

 eats mashed potatoes and

Peanut brittle?

 do I tell him I love you, do I

hold onto him when he goes to leave

or do I act as though, for certain I

will see him again..

          

someone said all you can do is pray

 

  I want to stop the need for war

I want greed to be placed on ship

and sent out to destruction,

 

   let them fight for their life,

          those who Wage war

those who speak lies to fatten their stomachs,

                             in isolation of my youth and  humanity

Sarah’s Pig Brother

Sarah’s Pig Brother 

 

Her brother is a soldier in a war  

she doesn’t understand. She tries to but

nothing explains.  He does not talk about

the tangs and tourist attractions. 

 

He notes boredom, and destinations.

Her brother is the fat one out of six

kids, the baby boy. She’s the last

one to be born. But he is the big pinky.

 

When they were children, he would make

her bring in the firewood, stand outside,

hit his hand with the other while she pushed

the overstuffed wheelbarrow to the backdoor. 

 

The wheelbarrow would tip. All the wood

on the ice, and he would stand with his fist

in his hand, while she worked the wood back

into the wheelbarrow. 

 

She never complained. She pretends she is

ready for his death.  If he dies, he dies

for oil, markets, like all wet soldiers

he dies a sweet and radiant lie.

 

He enlisted after 9/11. Patriot words clashed out. 

She looked in his eyes.  He was lying to make

the best out of a blue collar ancestry.    

 

The day he first enlisted she punched him in the fat

as hard as she could and told him, “you like pain

you dumb mother fucker, then like this.”

 

I want to tell you a thing that will change your life

I want to tell you a thing that will change your

life for the better.  At the mall old women walk

together.  They buy very little but spend a lot

on bottled water. 

 

My brother matt told me he’s not ashamed to like things

that are girly. having a daughter has forced him to do things that

he wouldn’t have otherwise have done.  What a trip. 

 

 

 We hacked in the sun, and drank pop while

the kids dug a whole under a maple.  The bugs

were horrible.  The back of the kids necks

were spotted.  Every fifteen minutes or so we ran in circles

for purity. Something about joy, and impulse. I gave the kids

gum and candy.  They asked if I had lost weight.

 

My brother’s ex wife came over and got a glass of water.

She said I had been going to go school forever. I laughed

and said, I suppose I have. I pretended I was tired

of lectures and reading books. then stared at the azuel

sky and waited for my brother to say something about

a dance recital.  Hannah is the embodiment of grace.

She walks with power. Aware

of her feet and shoulders, delicate, with purpose. 

 

She can mix that with a can of punches and tackles

and silly eyes, my brother’s daughter

 

 

 my Abigail is rhythm. a beat

so steady and on tune it makes you scared to discipline her.

she will sing and tap you to complacency, a warrior with drum.

 She has big blue eyes that rob a person of

anger. so these two wild girls, dangerous, and capable of

posturing the world danced in the green grass with dirty sandals on their tiny feet.

 

My brother didn’t get upset once.  We didn’t debate politics. We just nodded

about the environment, how the farmers are noticing the change.  how the ticks are bad this year and how we are growing hearts. we’ve learned to breathe in our thirties.

now we can say the word love with confidence. 

i have nothing to share

i have nothing to share

i have nothing to give

i am empty

i am in love

 

i wish i had the answers

i wish i had the cure

i wish i had you in my palm

 

my dirty little palm,

my dirty little mind

i never think about

anything useful

 

 

 

2005

The Whole Process

 

 

The whole process is a mess.  It shames them

into spendthrift days alone with pretty

papers and dictionaries.  They’ll never

change the world with it.  They know that. O

How many times they have been told. O how

futile. How destined to live in poverty

with the monster under the pillow

of their restful dreams. O they know.

 

You don’t have to tell them.  Nobody eats it

but them. They have heard it’s a dead fart. Yes

-the successful others told them to write

greeting cards or to become a Spanish teacher

or go back to school for nursing. They were asked

how they would make a living and they always said

they didn’t know but were alive. And that’s

the problem.  They are happy in short spells

 

when the world shuts up and allows them the freedom

to speak.  Some have taken up telltale

strips of ribbon to convince people they stopped.

That they are looking for a job, “Really, yes,

some good leads, any day now” they say.

But they are collections of little white

infractions of selfish behavior. They can’t halt and need help. 

Even when they are at the beach, with their child

 

by their side, racing the august wind and four

foot waves, and seagull floats on lake

superior and lover reads in the shade,

there is nowhere they’d rather be.  Still

they are writing poems on mental scarps of paper.

It’s their mother’s fault.  She raised them wrong. 

When they wrote a poem she would say, “That’s nice,

how lovely, keep at it.”   They trusted her-

 

 

 

 

that there was a place for them in craved stones.

They didn’t know that Shakespeare was dead or

Dickenson mad, or Emerson a liar. 

They were a poor mother’s kid and nobody

told them poor kids don’t grow up to write poetry

but instead go to work for rich people

cleaning their dirt, or join the army.

They should have guessed by their mother’s laborious

 

man hands. The way she’d say they were lucky.

She never had nothing, just one skirt and one

blouse she wore everyday. That they should be

thankful for their four pants and five shirts.

Their grandmother’s slender legs, and knobby

knuckles, egg on her face, always talkin’

how her own mother worked so hard, never

yelled, and how on Christmas they would get an

 

orange and a new cup should have flashed some

critical thought on their lack of a lot but they just felt

lucky to have a toy to hold in their soft hands.

Their grandfather drove milk-trucks in snow and grow

corn in the afternoon hours. Enlisted

in world war two and had an alcoholic

step-father beat him who his mother never left.

That kind patience should have made them question

 

art. They thought their brothers studied numbers

and picked rocks for candy bars and the love

of hard work, not survival.  They were no

president’s son and  no ivy league daughter

setting up herself for the duties of marrying power. 

They should have tried to snag a lover of wealth. 

But they were stupid.  Pretended love was all they needed.

Blame their father and his irresponsibility.

 

 

 

 

 

 

His desire to wander, his love of a good

story and the way his voice changed when he

talked with strangers, adjusting to their slang and infliction. 

Blame their Father’s father, a door to door

preacher man, who used words to save the souls

of poor and told knock-knock jokes to them on

walks to the store. They should have cursed

the supporters and the morals of the hard work

 

Amerikan dream. Should have told them “I

am a slave to the dollar, don’t deceive me.” 

Now it’s too late.  It became the only

thing they could do and still sleep at night.

To make matters worst, they thought what they

were doing was holy. Now they are

sorry they didn’t study chemistry 

with a bigger calculator or worked at an

 

automobile factory. Or cleaned white

houses on the hill or cut down trees in

the back forty. Or laid concrete for the new

wal-mart, or taught kindergartners not to

eat paper.  Could have been a secretary

for a butt doctor or captain of the last

fishing boat on the great lakes. A sales clerk

at a department store jolly at a lipstick

 

counter, or a librarian dusting classics

while mouthing the words of Wolf. 

Could have been a mechanic at an oil change spot

A painter with a brush and a loud radio,

a dancer in a strip-joint where old lonely

men stare at pear shaped butts or horse slaughter

after the races are won and over. But

they decided at seven that they

 

 

 

 

 

 

would be a writer. Now they are poor.

The cycle of poverty and poetry

hangs on human linage like the extra

fat kisses on their ribs. They have turned to sin.

Tell the kids that poetry kills infants,

damns young idealist to hell and makes lunatics

out of the gifted.  That advertising

 

would be better. Tell them to become a

cop or janitor or any other

uphill occupation always needed

and supported. Like you said, “nobody pays

a poet.” Celts have died out, and poesy is a dead

start. A little poem will get them nowhere.

A longer one will make enemies. They

can’t be what you want. So don’t blame them.

 

Just read their poems. Nobody told

them what they would sacrifice for coupling

sound and silence into clean water.

Frozen, and expended, they twisted fires on

pages, spouted fountains and memory

into stanzas. First loves and oak trees into

war protest endings. Baked tears and shame

into heroes songs and birds into spaceships.

 

Honey into fingertips and books into blank

explosions of Sunday afternoons. As lovers

they spooned soup and gruel. Gave jars of hope

to anyone with ears to hear and made houses

for the isolated. Surrounded by hugs and hands

they made their lives into imaginary

bars on windows. On tours with notebooks 

they rattled until their raspy voices cut the right

 

 

 

 

 

 

pitch on coffee tables and tabloids they mastered

strangers’ faces and mother’s death they turned

into a rose bush growing in a made up

childhood backyard. Before the letters could be

sent they pressed them in Zen cookbooks, and saucy

flower suppers. They made beds out of old

poetasters who they believed were free

and poor with nothing to lose, like themselves

 

they thought as they crushed their egos into egg

sandwiches and grilled cheese weekends.

They made wine out of cobwebs and urine.

Always working to change the world for the next line.

Damning themselves when they were weak and tired.

O how they tried, and thought they’d win

a sailboat and a piece of Amerika.

Never realized they would die

 

to light a wick on the heads of their children.

How their children would follow them in their slow

destruction. Wouldn’t have pressed their soles into

bread and jam or spent their weekends writing

scones and chocolate cakes into elegies.

They would have went to work in the factory

if they had known the dandelions

they planted into leather chairs would be

 

plucked and burnt. If they could have tasted

the bitterness of old age and weak stomachs

they wouldn’t have forced down hot-peppers or ginger

tea fingered by doubt and despair. If they

really thought what they were doing wouldn’t make a difference

they would have kept it to themselves

like they had wanted all along. To sing

in the rain and not in shelter of the shops.                      

 

O someone should have told them when they were

young. Poetry isn’t an option, although it’s fun.

 

 

 

 

2007

I understand that life has been hard

I understand that life has been hard

on you.  It seems that every choice

you have made has been the wrong one

And for that I am writing you into a poem

that will take years to finish. 

 

You may not be the success that you

wanted.  The yacht and the large

house on the bay belong to other men.  

The sweet ride with gps and the bouncing bass

has side stepped you. 

The perfect wife has become the ex.

 

The unity left reality before the day

to day things could balance into

a fiftieth anniversary surrounded by

grandkids and lifetime friends.  speaking

of friends, so many are cosmic

 dust, and long-term relationships,

jobs and different zip codes.

most of your interactions

are spent with the kids,

the guys at the factory, in irrational arguments.

 I am surprised at  your resiliency and your laughter.  

 

You have the heart of a 500

year old pine in copper harbor

 

 the kids, the way you

 take of your daughter, the little details

of brushing, and camping, are hard

for most but you, you make it seem easy.  

The son that you did not father,

but are fathering alone,

because the mother is bipolar,

and the real father in prison,

You were not so lucky

to have a father as conscious and caring.

 Your father

was a wandering vagabond.

 he spent more time with long legs than

you, would lie and steal,

bullshit his way just for a sniff of adventure. 

your mother

with her faith and need to be

the bread winner had little time

to devote to you. 

but look at you.

 Not all of your choices have been bad ones. 

You have done

right despite the leftovers of neglect,

I have never heard you

blame, or accuse anyone  but yourself. 

Damn it, you have done well. 

Give yourself a little credit,

have some teriyaki chicken.

2007

 

Patriotic Jettison

 

i may not be the brightest star on

the ceiling of life

but at least i am present

in the constellation

underneath the spinning shadows

you may not like me now

or

think i am worth while anymore

and

you are probably right not to

    - i spent a lot of time alone a

      few years back

 

but at least i answer questions

directed at me

 

why didn’t you come over with the ink and feathers

wearing the green hat your mother made you and the dog that  likes

to walk around in mauve sweaters?

 

 

i stayed up till two in the morning mutterin

to myself about poor choices

and  debating the existence of hearts

and old hands

 

i made a play-dough friend

and we dressed as flags flapping

in the misty wind and we sang about

dropping feathers

and seaweed exploring

until our voices became coarse

and we laid down

and in the morning

there was play-dough and feathers

stuck on my impression skin

and a piece got in my eye

and the muttering became

desperate and i almost

broke the vase you made

out of a jar and ribbon

 

 

 

 

the one that dandelions

graced for a summer and we

laughed saying it would last

forever. 

 

 

2003

a Poem For Theo at Dead River

             

 

theo talks about city land

i fade in and out the conversation

 

i’m thinking poetry

        slight, dirty hand

               touch wet

           waft. tare.

                sand

he says it sucks, and

people hate poetry

 

 

they like pornos better

i say

he laughs, and asks if i know

why

i tell him yeah, soft and shaken

 

 its written for poets

it doesn’t appeal to the

 common person

         jinx i think

 

i drink some more coffee

 

its lost to the professors

and the not haves

i say.

 

 

theo can recite w.c.w

but he doesn’t know

jack shit about poetry

 

 

he thinks it should rhyme

have even meter.

 

that was fun he said

 

he doesn’t think words

are

       sounds, pictures,

       hues, lovers

he doesn’t hear language breathe

nor taste the salt of

 the inadequate symbols

 expressed in hopes to

preach the gospel

to the lost disciples

trying support the revolution

 

tryin to support the evolution

he told me that he would make statues,

paintings. all sorts of shit

   and he loves coffee

so he is lucky

 

i tell him i am building a

life

 

he sees ignorance

ego

youth

 

poverty

hope

 

so thats why i am here.

 

 

 

in the window.

 

i am trying to prove to theo that

poetry is a live

 in his ribs, and bones

 that behind his lips,

in the roots of his teeth

in his hair particles

 

he only sees a man

 

 

i laugh.

 

 

he asks me if i am good

 i tell him i am best

compared to who?

i don’t think he believes me

i don’t think i believe me

if i keep saying it  maybe

i will feel the pressure

and a light will come on

 like puberty

 

theo says he used to like

taking pictures of

naked young women

 

 

now i like a middle aged

naked-woman

 he says

 

 

i smile.  i think of kate

and short comments

grey hair, soft skin

all poets are lunatics

laughing

i told her she is

right

you can’t deny truth

  like that

 

but i don’t care

do you

 

she must have spent some time

with young poet before

must have begged

her acceptance

 praise, and clap

clap, clap

 

don’t clap

 

think. 

 

or maybe

she gets

sick of their

endless expansion

scribbling on napkins

and shower curtains

 

their constant search

for truth

 enlightenment

its exhausting

 to see a dog chase

 

and never leave his front

yard

 

the shadow of his house

always blocking

 

 

i try to act like i

don’t think i am

better because i love

poetry

and if i had a dead river

i would let

 the poets come

and crazy up the place

 

there would be drums

and guitars

clanking spoons

and we would have to call

the place ‘river.

 alive river?

 

too much?

 

there’s others

 they come and go

 

you can see desire

in their hands.

 

the way they are bent, slightly

shaking around the coffee cup

 

dry, and worn smooth

 

i asked theo to show me

 how to roast beans

 he would rather tell me

how to do it, but once he starts

talking, you can tell he is a man

who knows more about coffee

than i know about poetry 

what he does, hardly nobody cares

we say stuff like this is the best coffee

in town.

but its meaningless

because me and theo know

not everyone wants the best

but i do

and theo is thinking about it

 

 

so i sit in his window

 i would rather

listen to him ramble on about coffee

some more

i could really learn something

so i go have beer and

try to forget his doubt

. 

i like beer

 

i get drunk after one

 

so what

 the wind picks up, i look back at

the lake just to make sure she’s still

there

and blue

and i have to walk there

and put my feet in

and make sure she’s still

  cold.

clap. clap

  good job lake

 

 for one second i

feel like i am special

i  feel united

  and at peace

i  feel strong

and in control

even if it is forgotten after

my coffee cup is broken

for a moment i made history

as a poem in the window

 

trying to teach theo.

he’s poetry

 

[I Hide My Lamp] satire

[I Hide My Lamp] satire

                                            

 

“See, in my line of work you got to keep

Repeating things over and over and

Over again for the truth to sink in

To kind of catapult propaganda!”   -G.W.B

 

 

Not like the prudent baby of ere shame,

With dutiful arms behind the harvest sand;

Here at our gulf-swashed, levee breaks shall brand

A feeble cowboy who tortures for game,

Texas in prison: lightning, and his name

Father of Sulfur.  From his wreckage-land

Grows planet litter; his smug smirk demand

The air-bombed desert that Dad did the same.

“It’s bad in Iraq. Does that help!” said he

With market pants. “Give me your alert, your rich

Your capital top-notch on a shopping spree,

The wealthy rare men of your growing poor,

Send these, the upper classes- pass to me,

I hide my lamp behind the vaulted door!” 

                                                                2007

Another Way To Savor

Another Way To Savor                                                    

 

I am in a marriage that is nothing

like childhood fights about maple syrups.

Mother said the kids like the pineapple, strawberry,

and butterscotch. Father said they don’t need ‘em.

Resentment filled the breakfast table along

side the crepes and chunk fruit, coffee and sugar,

uncorrected essays and yawns, hammer

and car keys. The marriage I’m in is not

 

an early childhood of packing items,

father standing with gun. Those were not marriages

My marriage is a hardwood floor bowed from

the hodgepodge of a king size bed and a

blanket, a rattling round table with two

chipped cups, a spent teapot of green and a

silent slice of lemon. Not a hungry

thing under the bed. In my marriage I

pretend I am rich, and put butter on everything.

 

 

2007

Choice

Choice

 

 

 

Someone must give         in

                   Please don’t make it me

  I must stay hard and cool

                    Or I will be under the kitchen table

Crying and sobbing in my dry hands

                Snot and tears

        I will cry and cry

            And then guilt

               And then I will say I am sorry

                          my hands will still be wet and cracking

   

                        You will try to soothe me

                         Words and hugs

                  And  I  will reluctantly  hide my face in your  wool coat

My snot expanding in all directions on the brown fabric

 

              White and sticky

And you will say I am sorry

 

So please let me have the apple

 

 

                                                                         2003

Raw Yellow Chicken Scabs

Raw Yellow Chicken Scabs

                                                                        

I ate a piece of raw chicken on

accident. I didn’t see all those yellow

 

scabs. The last time I took a piss

was a couple of minutes ago.

 

May I have the blue sweater you’re sitting

on?  It smellslike two kinds of farts in here. I need to walk

 

more. The inner parts of my thighs shift when

my backside twitches. I hate this diner

 

we always go to. The coffee taste like

stale almonds. I noticed a pile of

 

guts on the sidewalk on my way back from

the doctor. It looked like noodles and oatmeal

 

with French salad dressing. I would have stepped

in it if hadn’t been for the seagull

 

staring at me. He kept saying he was

lonely and it caused me to look down.

              

 

 

2006

I heard a soldier say

I heard a soldier say

                                                  

 

Such a bad day to find a rope and friend,

such a bad day to hide the sour touch of hunger, of watchful sin.

My faith is not strong enough to be answered. My faith is

broken. And yet I hold on to a bible and a photo.

 

Outside, I hear a child call, in long and extended

soft yells, of ‘I am lost, where’s home’

 

This little voice sounds like my daughter’s voice,

and I almost cry out ‘yes, dear I am here’

but my daughter is state side, at school,

limping her way in a classroom. 

my half heart says run to the lost child,

hold her, and help her find a mother.

This voice, so patient and enduring, calling out,

is in the way of war time orders.

The child walks in front of the truck.

My buddy speeds up to run her over.

As he sings the songs of boot camp training

‘Kill them on a Sunday morning,

Bomb them on their way to prayer’

 

Like usual I join in and don’t  care.

 

 

 

 

2007

My Friend

My Friend

 

 

Has red hair.  Not fire red. More like the center

of an apple blossom.  This sounds difficult. 

She is an ocean.  

 

We walk together uphill, me in my

man ho jacket, her in goth sneakers.  It’s

an old crocus rainbow after a glut.

 

She has never had a friend that doesn’t

scar. Mostly never make it to the worn-in

pain conversations.

 

When we met she laughed at my reluctance to stand,

talked about social constructions, the interlock

of power, a man’s nose, dark beers, and glitter in a cemetery.

 

I moved in, stretched to hear her say a thing

that was important.  She doesn’t believe

in God or walking spirits.  Doesn’t see a

soul in a tree or hear a voice in a gravel stone. 

 

 

 

2007

Two Boys Cry

 

 

Dad does not toss around with his two sons.

Matt and Sam throw the football at tan siding.

Dad never put money into an account

for his sons’ college education.

 

They’ll get by on their own, like he did.

 

Dad works at a foundry. 12 hours a day, 12 days on a

concrete slab, in a iron dust assembly line

Dad grinds 100 pound parts and is paid for piece work.

               

He has the rooted body of a windswept pine.   

 

Matt, the eldest, is 11, and a fierce disciplinarian. 

He’s afraid at the beach when the water hits

his knees, and makes Sam go in first.

Sam throws seaweed. Matt bunches in his face.

Dad sleeps in the warm sun at the kitchen table,

his black snot,  damp and moving.  

Dad is a gamer. A clean face father,

brown hair with slices of grey, tv eyes,

car radio, a flannel shirt cover,

blood calloused hands.  Not a good cooker.

Sam is six and buds hunger. Matt will make cheese sandwiches.  

 

The boys are violently happy. No one tells them its bed time.

No one sings about disgusting lovers and petal adventures. 

And even if they weren’t, what could they do?

They can’t go to mother, say,   ‘where are you’

She’s dead. And dad, dad’s too tired to wake-up.

 

   Their battle cry is something else.

 

 

2007

 

Paranoia Schizophrenia or A Song

 

On his left forearm there is a cross,

a spaceship, and an infinity symbol.

 

He scars with a rusty putty knife, tells

his little girl, “I cut myself for God.”

 

His arm is buttered popcorn.

 

She looks down at her hands, blonde

bangs in eyes, says, “I don’t cut myself.”

 

Her father has robots in his backpack.

She has an empty lunch bag and the leftover wire.

 

Her voice is gonna have to be enough and break

the insanity of her father’s inflictions.

 

Earth is hard. She will have to step soft to

kill father’s lies and stand plucked in song.

 

2007

 

I Read

 

I read 1984

to understand the world. I am

apathetic to the truth and the prophetic

qualities.

 

 

 

 

In secrecy I pretend

there is a revolution on the tips of strange

chins.  Behind the controlled

eyebrows there is a transition.  An open

stream of displeasure. A new freedom. 

 

I cannot be ajar.  The fear of the wrong

person’s zealous stupidity kills the hope.

I’d like to yell and Tip tables. Once I imagined

a voice soft enough for someone else to hear.

 It said,  “May I have a sandwich?”        2007 

Sorry I haven’t stopped off

 

 

Just didn’t feel much for talking.

Had a lot to do. Wrote some people, inhaled some wind,

destroyed some planets, what not,  a new waterfall. 

 

There’s a lot to create and recreate.

I’m so hard on myself.

This man I made, totally cliché. It

smelled sweet, but, well, I worked

three hours.  Here’s one, not bad,

not a dandelion but good. Smells better,

great use of color, see the subtle

transfusion of red and purple, yeah

I’m pretty proud. Has nice petal.

 

Listen, I want to get back to work,

so hang in there, I’ll stop by again. No

really, I’ll be busy for a while but I’ll stop

by. Seems like everything is fine.  Say hi

to your ma.

 

 

2006

Bedside manners Aubade or a poem for U.S.A

 

 

 

 

 

I’d love to hold you to the end of time

I don’t know why, You’re heavy and suffer

Phil

 

 

I’m not a smart man.

Raised in the old orphanage,

that now is a bowl of bats and decay,

I lived in a spitball all my life.

washing windows. humping the pavement. watched this

town live and die in the simple greed of simple men.  Today’s youth,

 their eyes remind me of my childhood reflections.

 

 2007

Hooks

 

 

the old-timers selling hooks

get sick of the questions. 

the youth want answers now, and are

not willing to pay. 

I will tell you why.  

Old-timer, they didn’t grow up

in the comfort of  their country behind

a thin mask of duty propaganda. 

 

Their flag is a stained bed sheet from the whores of war. 

the kids’ placid eyes looked to long at the rising steam of

death to be innocent from the perversion. 

Nothing’s a shocker.  Nothing offends. 

 

 2007

On Gold

 

 

If I was sitting on piles of gold I would pay you

to change, and we’d have things sorted in the right way. 

Frankly I will not take the blame.  Generations before get off my back

Old sinners, war perverts, men of the cloth, cooks, and broom handlers

jet pilots and boat builders. You have bathed mystery in poison. 

There is no time for your excuses. For your skepticism. 

Fall or we will fell you with bare hands.  We are brutal. the blood

is thick in us.  we are justified to purify the sour waters.

we’ll grab you by the balls and thrust back.  stop now. 

you damn the future. we can’t tolerate it. See

with clarity what lies ahead if we continue. 

If it comes to it, we have no problem braining you.  None.  Our hands

are versatile, impatient and clever. 

 

2007 

Hot Coffee

 

 

I sit with my husband, write, listen to bob Dylan.  this is

the best year of someone’s life.  I hope it is not mine.

 hot coffee. strong and black.  a pile of dirty dishes

and a ketchup bottle.  a bowl of crayons.  My husband and I sing up, together. 

daughter is seven. the leaves are red, yellow purple, subtle pink

grasping green.  the wind is warm.

 We bought our first home in Marquette.

 

the fake snake on the floor.  the candy wrapper in the kitchen sink

the painting of a baby bird locked in a egg.  the pink tennis shoes with

white laces tied.  the drip of the water faucet.  the hot sun on the leaves

a bike ride through a cemetery.  My hand on chest, mouth open.  

the year changed.  I cannot sit. I pace, and search.

there is no gold.  There is only a thousand years of widowhood.

 2007

The Sax

 

 

I woke with mankind pressed against

blood.  the pain.  the ache.  I searched up, into

the sunrise.  the oranges of morning stretched and fell.

Granddaughter danced in the new Monday. I surged on.

 “Let us go then,” I said and we walked to school. 

Up on the hill I heard a sweet jazz slow. 

A middle age man played his sax as the autumn wind blew

the children lined like they always do, and

the leaves played a percussion shadow show

The children smiled.  The parents left a little less rushed

The sax played high, then low. My Granddaughter and someone else’s tapped

their toes, swayed their bodies to morning in October

 

I’ve seen wars and depressions, houses fall and rise, in this

old miners town, I seen drunks and hobos, kids on skateboards

and mothers running late. I’ve seen church walls crumble and

jobs move south. but I’ve never. in all my walks

seen a man at an elementary school playing sweet jazz nice and slow.

 

As I skimmed to my apartment, a thought came to me.

pain establishes earth, bows the crust, and feeds the war of eternity. 

 

The blood will bloat and the wind will break branches to toss on the ground

again and again but the world, has seen a man in black jacket

on Monday morning playing songs

for children waiting for school to begin.  

 

 

I walked on and a melody washed my back. 

I thanked the man, the children, the turning leaves.

Sang out, “I’ll suck some of the pain. so you

can taste the seizures. May today bring you pleasures.”   

my feet tapped the sidewalk, the leaves scuffed the arms of this city

and  war,  war wasn’t so important.

 

 2007

Disappearing Coast

 

 

 

 

I don’t know where the Snake River is.  I

never fingered a five hundred year old tree.

I didn’t read the treaties and the broken promises of ancestors. 

That it is not my mongrel America. 

 

I hate to be the a hole but somebody has to be.

So I’ll crap all over and see if you can find a clean spot. 

The rates of poverty are high, crime enforcement

is a problem, and there is a lack of college graduates.

Children are mistreated, oppressed, raped, and forced

to be the hands of humankind for

generations and corporations. 

You could have a share of the free bag Hell.

 

I am not in power. I have little power

over my own thoughts and scribbles.

 

 

I was raised  to pick berries,

plant beans and corn together. I cannot help it.

I am white, European descent. 

I may have some native or African linage.

Maybe some Arabic, for all I know

I could have a Mongol  great – great –great grandpa. 

Probably not.  I am a pallid pig. 

Really either way it doesn’t matter. I am what I am. 

Do you think arguing over resources

is going to help the future or dividing people

into living settlements is going to help the past?

 

See, the real crime of  plundering creatures

is the loss of knowledge, the loss of language,

of tools and know how, of medicines and art. 

This is some loss. 

 

The land is still here. We still live on the land. 

Now we are against each other for

who can pee on the big blue ball before the other. 

Have another hamburger.  Another light beer.  Another pair of green jeans. Damn it. 

I am not a bear. I am not a tree. 

 

I am a bowl shaped belly, and a long torso list.

Together we have became lame,

suffered illness, seizures, internal pain,

hunger, abuse.   Rape, murder. 

Dead children, lies about showers.

There are victims and conquerors. Each would decide to be the decider. 

 

Some of  us will die out, and some, I hope do. 

This our potential. In my hand is one grain of sand. 

No one will miss it.  No one will care

for it or pay a heavy price, 

but if this piece of sand was on a beach

with the other grains it would be valuable to all.  

 

With billions of you, I am a beach.

 

Bunnies

 

 

your old eyes crusted shut

nodding, listing to find the words

to say are bunnies, dead in a heap.

 

 You could be the reason.   you are in the old

photographs in black and white. 

 

 

 

Bunnies

 

 

your old eyes crusted shut

nodding, listing to find the words

to say are bunnies, dead in a heap.

 

 You could be the reason.   you are in the old

photographs in black and white. 

 

 

 

Bunnies

 

 

your old eyes crusted shut

nodding, listing to find the words

to say are bunnies, dead in a heap.

 

 You could be the reason.   you are in the old

photographs in black and white. 

 

 

 

Six Mile

                                                    for W.J.

Your poem made me

 remember the Abram Lincoln

 

 

 

Childhood I don’t admit

to myself or friends. 

The nine mile stretch

where I was left to discover

what innocence was and was not-                                                                                                                

outside back yard

my brothers giggling out window

pointing shotgun

there was no one there

but the markings of  1980’s fires popping t’s

the mattresses piled up by the red escort

gymnastics of the poor back flips

in the alley we were the white trash collectors

 mulberry eaters

 

I remember walking to candy store with cans

for penny candy mother said never walk

up the block two streets down  outside the  front yard

I wrote my 423 poem about little Richie

at 17 who walked with me and seeing him get shot

 on the way home  I was 6 walking

alone and friend Brian after

he read it said ‘ you don’t talk

about that much and I shrugged as if

I didn’t know why years later my brothers

said mom and dad were jugging crazy 

bringin a bunch of white boys

to the ghetto  they called us the white trash

brady bunch. I called

Donny a mixed boy ng

because he hurt my feelings because

he didn’t want to play with me

because he said if you said that to

 anyone else you would die

because he said it reminds people of oppression

 

my friend brian told

 me how when he was a lonely kid

livin northern wisconsin, he used to talk

 to the friend-mouse in his room

I had the fat rats and my brothers telling me 

I better not fall asleep because

‘they will eat your toes off  and I

remember believing them when

they said ‘if you want to hang

out with us you have to break

into a house and steal all the gold

I went in but didn’t take

anything but went home like I

 did and went to my room and cried

 

I remember the tall-pretty black girls

johny mixin up the medicine

trying to beat my nappy haired

riot mouth for tripping a boy

who was nice how I said I didn’t do

it  he tripped over a rock and they

said your mother and I got so mad

because I idealized my mother

because she was never around 

I told them don’t luck with me don’t

muck with my hair I’ll beat

all your basses.

after I made noise and acted crazy

enough with little fits with little

fits with little fists my brothers

came outside and said leave her alone

 I hated myself and my

ignorance and friendless outside

life and internalized the kids

had something I didn’t

 

I remember loosing reality and playing

in dirt alone having that sick feeling ear

ache shakes waiting for mother

to come into my room

listening to gun shots

thinking it is was okay

everything was okay because when

mother came home she would

come and pray out loud even

though I acted like I was sleeping

that was the best time

out of the day and now I peer out

 of those childhood eyes

at what innocent is and is not

realizing I had something I don’t

have now I remember it was called

 a home  -a  mother’s faith

 a better perspective  something

safe to wait for.

 

 

2006

Claque for the dripping faucet minds the slices of bread

 

                                                                                  by annie burie

 

i guess if you knew where this story was going you wouldn’t continue listening. you’d say something about this being a clay shay of claptrap

but since you don’t know where this is going

or what i would have you feel you continue in this twisted jargon game 

 

do you remember learning about string theory and the gigantic brain that we are in that has been named half heartedly

 

when two slices of the bread hit together solar systems are created

like the first step into an idea     with the clash of the second idea a theory is formed the same way a woman makes a lung while sipping tomato juice    there is not much different in the way the woman’s mother made her   mother’s grave dress out of the knitted table cloth that lightened the old oak table   that was forgotten in the last move to the room where on Saturdays an old man dressed up as clown comes and sings ballads that remind the woman how hard it was to make it to the urine drenched chair that she sits hunched forward on      the chair,  which was once connected to the table, which is an idea that was talked about while eating toast and jam    like a jam and toe fused in symbols means the same as growing old and the same as giving birth in small rooms that smell of bread and solar systems where the table and chair and the new ideas with the two slices of bread met jam and toes and her birth

 

 

 

 

the circle of ideology is a scary thing to see unfold for the first time. the second time it is life changing pleasantry

 

today, thankfully i woke   early     washed dishes    picked up discarded papers that wore houses with eyes      monsters who gave candy    grey hair wrapped around pennies      i scrubbed on my hands and knees with a coarse brush and later before bed    had sex with my husband

 

he told me it had a been a good day, and i smiled back a repeated idea

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

today i was careful to focus on what i was doing slowly     banished thoughts about long narrow passages that lead to more bulging tremor passages that lead back to wrinkled diminutive  passages            the red pepper sauce on the green plate.    the crunched up collage of falling leaves with glitter dirt    the tightness of long strands of hair on youth penny dates 1997, 1984, 1976     the grain of wood under soap purifying reflection   the tongue licking up spine into  the mouth of the salt block dream

 

let me make it clear   that there was

no where i wanted to go

no new idea i needed to meet

no twisted game i wanted to end.

 

the simple sound of water dripping out of the faucet was enough to

make every minute not turning it off  a claque repeating positions.   

 

by now you realize this is going nowhere new

nothing shocking    nothing flippant and attention grabbing

no new way to feel insignificant want

you will have to learn to feel the simple inner empty space in your today by yourself

 

that is why i recommend you stop reading  clay shay claptrap sorry for exhausted efforts and remember guessing twisted games that you don’t want to end and  despite large

 

imaginations   logics    theories    your solar voyages

are not much different        than the solar systems’ endings which  by now you must know

are the same as the bindings which lead back to the beginnings of why you continued listening  to this twaddle  that you felt would fill you with some-things.

 

 

 

2006

Creative or sad excuse for a bag butt

This is a place to scream.  It will take time for the scream to be a smear.  But soon, yes, soon you’ll find a spot to color all your own.  Your make new paints out of old things and new colors will come into the world. You are smart and kinda cute.  Why not be happy with yourself?  Why not lose self respect and throw bread out the window to stranger seagulls that loom and weave intricate patterns that you rarely perceive. Sure, they will attack. Sure, it will hurt. You might even crap yourself out of fear. SO? It wouldn’t be a shocker.  It wouldn’t make the news. Not even local. Not even a stranger’s blog. Ha.  What are you going to do?  Are you gonna sit there, is that what you do for a hobby.  At least think. Shut off the TV.  Take your clothes off.  There is more to you than the blue jeans.  Didn’t your mother teach you not laugh out of your nose at hobos? I mean, come on, you know better, you know what is right. You can’t act like you are just, just unaware. Come off it, come off the pickle. It is not a chair.

Poetry Is Not As Good As A Berry

but it will have to do