White sky bares the vulture flock
Frost cloth shelters the strawberry crop
five.seven.funk
White sky bares the vulture flock
Frost cloth shelters the strawberry crop
Do we smell as good to death
when he strikes us down as a
chard stem split?
Frustrated in the beanbag chair.
PS2 controller battles the wall
and loses again.
I’m a few barons
shy of an industry, so
no one minds my blight.
Change the subject
but the bachelor uncle
is also an expert in that.
No clue about C.O.D.,
just that it wasn’t good enough to order
Elastic Plastic from the TV.
You got a message to me
despite my Lisa Simpson avatar
and inside joke handle.
bent over the tub until the
Mr. Bubbles washcloth renders us
sore and immaculate
one of us finally lived in a place
with central heat, so we gathered with
guitars and our pet Springsteen covers
The ash tray, an heirloom,
draws half the aunts to the porch,
leaving the others with dishes.
there’s doom and there’s
grocery store misters
water-logging the cilantro like this
was a beached whale rescue
it’s gotten away from us / I
dust the baseboard with a socked foot
Am I the ostrich chick
under your dark dome or a pup at the foot
of a blue agave
at the mercy of the next careless
weed whacker sweep?
I try to read your face, but it’s just a map of unattended neighborhood citrus
All the discarded fats
clogging my pipes this winter
once were loved.
By my child’s third birthday,
I’ll be able to tell them with certainty
whether daylights savings makes it darker
earlier or later
at least at first.
A whole clan raised in Rochester
and only the middle brother claimed
the father’s Pittsburgh accent
German shepherd guards
the persimmon tree whose fruit
the owners seem oblivious of
Slow bike ride
in the rich neighborhood. Clouds
above, restored Dart in the driveway.
We met in my Khaki Adonis phase,
and by Bootcut Botticelli,
you were gone.
Scan the treetops
spot what’s probably a hawk
and like a high school class
or a hit movie cast
who’s got the best ten years ahead —
eyes, pine, or whatever that blob was?
No rest when you’re both
horse and rider, straw and breeze.
At least the new neighborhood mural
is shaping up to be less lame
than the one across town.
In our private corridor between
surf and dune, sand streamed against
our shins like it was sick of
not being a river.
a gust of swallows swirls
above the plaza of muhly and scrub,
part thundercloud, part lung
bad mail all week, but
my brother-in-law’s grilling
burgers tonight
bike past what was once a punk
house, a living room rumored to be
hosting a Lifetime reunion every weekend
Quite the scandal,
the first time I
ordered falafel in front of your parents
forty soldiers trapped
in a cave and only Phlavius Josephus
knows how he silenced their colic
Papa was an ant
dangling from a cobweb;
Mama was a white wall
the fear that I spent more hours making
your mixtape than you’ll spend listening
is fucking with our parity
my namesake, the mold
endemic to cars abandoned
streetside all summer
Rummy and ham hock;
bowed over picnic table spooning
sides of each other’s breath
After-dinner porch gin
reconnects you
and mosquitoes.
Envelop me, autumn, and
Suck the ants through my floorboards
Back to the underworld
Despite what my boots say,
there are limits toÂ
my faith in the honky tonk.
I didn’t crawl my way
out the gulf just to blow my
knee standing up
Cream ale, amber ale —
Rain undermines umbrella —
Soon cool evenings.
Whiskey slime coats the
remaining ice |__| a patience I can’t
muster in myself
my mother tongue
reduced to “mangia”
sunlight to sugar to syrup
At 32, I reached the axis
of mastery and decay. But with
no arena in which mastery to display,
all I can practice alone is decay.
mom juices carrots
singing the same half of a
cowboy junkies chorus
Cross the street between
bands for two slices for four
dollars and to piss
Shell of a second
Beer at the fray of my jorts
Nodding and swaying
I check the stove
I check the dryer
I pray my cat would run from fire
This blog is sponsored by
the Plymouth Dealers of America, who sell
the car the pilgrims discovered America for.
these times link to
the Controversy section
of god’s Wikipedia
dude flirting at the
vape shop has his own standards
he thinks he’s nailing
the one cousin
we don’t usually get stoned with
is now stoned with us
jumpshot hits front rim
must have forgotten my legs
now I have to fetch
walk by the room again
wonder when you’ll fix those shelves
if you wonder at all
Hornet at the stone
table, more angry at my ears than
worried about its nest.
my dreams dulled after
the one where we’re ferried ‘cross the tundra
in vegetable-oil vans
What’s so threatening to God
about me wanting to live forever?
I just have more love to give.
Whether or not there’s more to come /
thanks for the work you’ve already done
The Edict of Deerfield Beach
coronated your hips
and my slice of clam pizza
At what point
did I start
dreaming in decimals
Nobody can think
like me. Not even my phone’s
auto-fill, that dumb duck.
Gulls about the cliff
casting shadows I thought were darker birds.
Gone on the same gust.
we were born in time
to teethe on that week of good
peaches that grow here
the only note of my dad’s
fashion I want to play is grabbing anÂ
unassuming cap on my way to get bagels
To nightclub in my
town, return to the steakhouse
where you had dinner
You know Alexa is racist when
she won’t even dig deep enough to
play Hendrix on her 60s rock channel
Puffin of the rock Osprey in the
transmission tower The abandoned
study of timber in literature
Relieved Proust never knew
the rufous sfumato at the heart of
the first U.S.-edition Rapidash card
Papaver somniferum
oilseed thereof
folded into my gums forever
so far between — like a squirrel
descending
a treeÂ
to burrowÂ
into
a mountain
hard rain floods the duck
pond, shores kissed
by a potable god
Beetle over blade
Crow under cloud How did I once
spend my afternoons?Â
the pocks remain,
but no more the pock-marked
leading men
I’ve been in fewer
hands than this used CD
in this harbor town
Surrender our damp,
wooden wishes endless splendor
never much thought
*words from “Bob Dylan’s Dream” and “Changing of the Guard” by Bob Dylan
with the courage of a room;
traveled west breaking flowers;
mending laurel swords|
*words from “Bob Dylan’s Dream” and “Changing of the Guard” by Bob Dylan
it’s not the wasp’s fault
that I also live here and
have inherited better poison
we poured out of high school
into cars into homes back into cars
like sharks with only fungus to hunt
I tip the pregnant
bartender with silver
dollars; she grimaces
Kim Shattuck died tonight
and you want
your trophic integrity tested?
I crash into the king
Pillow between us like surf
Into a sea wall
The old suspense of
ruler bent away from young
wrist spared not my mom
Never made friends so I never knew a dealer
so I never smoked alone and walked its streets
so did I ever even live those years in that city?
I’m a delicacy;
may God drown me in Armagnac
‘fore He barbecues me.
coaxed a condo from the clay;
long day and my dogs are chirping
Co-pain. HR protect th’company
from you. Ache are from you.
maybe matter cannot
be destroyed_________________but what
______________does that matter?
our film’s two settings:
mistake the sun for golden fog
Disney ‘n’ Amazon take
turns as underdog
alright make it quick
the mayor is breathing down
my ass on this one
Clorox spinach can of wine /
Another week of not yet the last time
On the walk back the
sky re-hues from salmon
to whale belly
Bossa nova overhead,
Jaws on TV, I’m at the bar
and know nobody
you’re the smell of fresh yogurt cake I want to fold warm into ice cream
swallows riseÂ
from brush to branch
like opposite rain
The fleas stormed our yard
and got caught in our leg hair.
Baby, peace is coming.
How many more
R.E.M covers before
you’ll want to kiss me?
Will the next one make
me look like the boys you like —
all veins and ribcage?
You arrived first at
double-digit sneaker size
and testified to us the grace of T-Macs.
tie me to an office
chair and launch me down the bike path
like you used to
though in Providence the pond was
still frozen, and I tread it ’til sunrise
when the train returned to Boston
Dredging eggplant makes
me think of my mom
thinking about her aunt
dead giveaway proves
tips from omaha legend probably
prettiest woman in the world
Feel old yet? These punks from
the all-ages shows can now today
get into regular shows.
Too hot for corduroy
but I must dress
like a 70s boy
A fistful of roots held
the dune since Avilés. My
fascia felled by a desk chair.
Place is in boxes, so
I ash in the wok that
scrambled my eggs.
when Moses of the Sawgrass
sang gatorsong in deertongue
Back when Lucy,
enduring that first dark night of
predatorsound, cursed her ears
we spiked our Starbucks and
busked outside the Barnes & Noble;
and we were alternative
your stoned face framed
by my foggy rear windshield
the cop asks me what’s up with you
Coconut adrift so long
it turned barnacle boat
Something discouraged
the heron and shielded the
clam in the current.
Open pool, lone baby
Polish Jew, 1943
Disaster and proximity
Stuffed in a Burdines dressing room,
distresssed that my pants never seemed
to fall effortlessly, like a cartoon’s.
Some noise amplifies silence.
Owlcall, your footsteps.
On balance, are more
voids closed than left open?
I hope we hug again.
squat at the gate
listen to the congress of
cranes at the treeline
sand pine lacks the
aroma of Fraser fir, plus it’s
got that trash accent.
We chew silently
on the osso buco I
started too late.
the cat’s now suspicious
of folds in the blanket it’s
slept on since breakfast
If the sun should rise
over just one Virginia,
I’ll request “Freebird” of Gabriel.
Our love has been blessed
by the magic that tore the
Dakotas apart.
same flannel
adorns the first kid the bus eats
each morning all winter
I’m chewing on
serviettes. I, the landlord
who can evict death.
bloodless fingertips
no spin on the ball
empty court, Anchorage
incoming, cleats up
not so much a boy as
a cassowary
last time I saw a
city, I was cranky in
a tight button-down
Reunion at the mallÂ
we ditched high school for. EnterÂ
any sweepstakes lately?Â
beside the boardwalk
feral piglets
obscured by wild fennel
do you really want
this man with his finger on the button
of the Keurig?
I set fire to my used tissues, godding
(“to god,” transitive verb)
smoldering spineless cranes
your voice echoed
with the thwack ofÂ
a tarot card turnÂ
Signs on county road lawns
and in financial district windows
realize the horror Halloween suggests.
pinesoot to ink
wheatpaste to bind
you ate our acres to shit that yard sign
Bare walls again.
We’ve hung larger frames
with lesser nails.
God save government-
subsidized men’s fashion
for it saves me.
the puddle grows
at the end of the driveway
equal parts carsoap and marchfly
I sold those records
to afford a haircut
for a job interview
I can play silence
in the key of flame
crashing into wick.
Was there even sex before
the ’96 Ford Taurus
queered our windshields?
The arc of the moral universe
is dripping down my chin.
I was a born capitalist.
My mom went into debt
just having me.
I’m blind to ends.
A barber snipping air.
A grillmaster flipping smoke.
stranded clouds
and the cricket static signal
the summer shorting-out
You done me wrong.
Like prose
on a Scantron.
Oh, carpentered heart,
full of Müller-Lyer arrows
and Cupid splinters.
Oh, steady life.
Plum pits cairn’d atop
a cypress knee.
Batteries pass
between Walkman and Gameboy.
Report suspicious baggage.
Your eyes Vince Carter
in powder blue. The knee-socked
looks I’d serve to you.
My computer counts
its own bytes. I guess
it’s honest with itself.
Dance studio at dusk.
Masked ballerinas waiting
For masked moms.
Why, when I wish us well,
does it sound like I’m speaking
of houseplants?
Yonder fallen branch
appears a lizard or cat.
I’m not holding your gun.