Penny Candy Too much trouble thinking I could just get of bedand maybe play, but time froze and let's pretendmy hours are built like pennies,over slow years,into towers.The copper dollar.And each tootsie-roll moment (bent sagging in the heat)if used properly,could buy me a boaton which I'd sleepfrom the exhaustive amount of infinite labourit must have taken to have such patience!!!!!!And untilrecently, I would have said "whoa.""that's not for me."My candy bar, my phone, my guitar, my kitten, my pouch, my house, my car.My fine white line, my mice army of children I haven't yet had. My golden dream.My viscous Ame
Potatoes PotatoesRobots have overtaken the yard.My house is a cage.Out there in threatening bluethunderheads the sun sculptsrainbowTheory:meditation hums usdown with the mountains.No more pilgrims chewing oat.My thunk tank has ingested itself.Methinks thought may be bored.How do we save it, poor thought?In the cellar again,shoots of stellar activitycrawl along the walls.A stranger has been in.I know by the shadows of his shy step.What is it about usthat we feelwhen we thinkwhat we breathewhy dust where went the sun?Spooks smoke.Holes leave heavy heads.Still none of us are dead.Down here fingers poke
Another Poem I fear this.I fear that.Let come what mayI fear nothing.All stuttered sentences stuff themselves and be damned.I need a reckless thought to whack Havoc with.This reeks of Nothing.Ain't that something?No.Just dry ramblingsfrom an ancient penhalf-cracked from the mad foolwho held it last.
My Penmanship Fails To produce accurate reportsparticularly on the points ofPainPowerPerfectionSilenceBeauty (lOvE!?) Death. Reflection.Render life unto my eyesso that I may seebeyond my desperate self.
That Door Sometimes oak, often iron.Altered Infinitely every blink of eyelid:Certainty scuttles to the corner, and I make haste evaporate.Dreams are not clocked.I am no hurried soul.If Hell was on the other side,would I?reckless into redness ashes for eyeshands everywhere and rings eating through fingerscrowns crushing skulls, every man woman childelf and ugly ogreface-in-hands without sense.Would I?feed into a classroom scenewith an evil teacherknee high straps and leatherskirt every inch of hercounting taller than sight,and I demand to be punished!But she calls me out for a fool who knows not his want
Headphones ON I can feel myselfall I want is sure to besureness, a steady step,foot in mid-hover.A cloud of comfort,some bullshit about a beard, hair in my eyes, it's there,in front of me.Pinback is singing it.It's a loungy cool soft step groove.
Bonding Time girls bond with serious discussionI've heard them talking.They think boys bondby video game adrenaline,but they are only partly right.They are right about boys.Men, however, never play.We only keep each other in checkwith constant vigilanceand endless tests.Not of character, but prowessin case a real enemy happens by.I mean one that cuts us.Kills things.Takes our home by storm and ruins night and day.Not that sneak who whisperscreeps through windowswith needy eye sockets.No. I'm talking battle.Where it's a long knifeor a sharp applecutting it's way past your earto crush its core in your girlfriend's
Don't Leave Me Here Don't leave me hereringing in dead airmy buzzard liesone breath awayfrom crying outleaking my crazy tears,pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseDon't leave me here.
Whining My poems don't have time for me anymore.They talk like there arebetter places to bereal people to see,like life's a movie worth watching,but I'm not on the screen.At least I can still sing.Well,I have a cold right now.Oh well.
The Edge Always watchingalways awareI'm a criminal edge,point of sword.There is no point. ...then it's through your chestand suddenly it's coldout here alone in strange alleyunder false blue moon.Then the wind blew me home.(and I still figured this was MY poem)
Seattle Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.Wake up.No need to prove it.Your words unravel you.You're a tool.Shot down.Your mouth's on fire.Your eyes are full of need.To prove yourself to me.Oh,but I'm just a fool.Guess I'll move to Seattle.Lately my friends have all been itching for battle.Even if I must walk to get there.I know if I tried I'd hitch-hike everywhere.(but i ain't going nowhere) Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.Wake up.Sell your shoes.I would walk with you.Over the earth.Look down.At our small feet.We're pounding down the
After Battle Good to see you smiling.Glad my world isn't crushed.Glad the Chili Peppers are here with us.I'm allowed to be wrong.I thought I might explode.Now I'm no longera smiling bomb.I'm a timeless grin,toe-tapping internal rhythm.Hot to the touch!I don't care if you freefallinto feeling old again.Right now I'm alive,and I don't care.I don't care if I'm a liar.I never meant any harm.Right now I'm alive.Right now I'm alive.And I haven't murdered my friends.
Thaw I am no memory.I am the desk below,the chair on my ass,ankle against legswarm iron in the sun,and outside it is still cold.The wind blows icyfrom our breaking wreckagegreat frozen Lake Michigan.It smells like progress,like the new worldsoft underneath,which never left usonly hid under mountainsand mountainsand before thatfoothills and dunes of severely chunky crust.
GO Every man must face himself,but to let that go, thenand GO.GO, then. Go where? I don't know.Just GO.Even men with mighty mustachesmost often wear a mask.Tear it off!There is a faceand bones beneath skinand blood to color us,and do we need anything else?
In Walks a Demon Some cheap grizzlewas all Al's face could afford.No length of flowing gray,or burst of red power, No!Just a shade of sweaty rough,which had always served him well.His father's friends gathered at the other end,for a hot mug andHow's the knee?Sideways. andHow are you today?I'm vertical. andthen Sam walks inand talk is no longerfree. Not even cheap.The lights dim,the breathing slowsthe jukebox breaks.And how are you today?but he just stares and stares.Jim slams his hands down."Your fiends are no matchfor our old age camaraderie.No trouble can stop usfrom asking about your back.And as far a
Everything Is Fine I've been hopping shop to shopto keep warm on my way downto the arts centerand all their pretty pianos.So I sit in the Horizonbook store, draining the brainof all mutterings and languid phrases.And now I mightbetter battle the keyspound away the sleep,close my eyes, and see no image.If will would have it, my pencould write anythingwhile my brain was away,but he always wants back in (even now he's at the door)What, Undrift me!?Why forestall, the pagestremble with the approach of dawnwhile my moon insists its silver shimmer.Oh no! I've stopped on a moment.But luckily, It's rounded offlike a period.
Black Matter Feet forever trailingunder starry echoesthe thickness of foreverin every new stepevery speck of white tiny light reminds us to look up.Hands swarm us in slow motion.Stop-watch signals.Start to Finish.Start,ToFinish.Start finishing things.As if life were a raceto get Things doneand we are perpetuallytoo nervous to report.always failing falling,behind.Maybe we could learn somethingfrom the black between stars?How about howit holds together every rock & fire,in the great expansive space,all by doing Nothingand filling up Everythingwith the absence of air
You Were Never Meant To Be You were never meant to be.Born betweena sandstorm and willow treewet-dream.Outside of God's realm,You - soulless entitydisguised as man, aretwo eyes coldin an aging figure, andfrowning frozen browfurrowed in thought.You make circles in mud,trying to score firefrom the depths of liquid sadness.
Listen Listen, I've got nothing;not a thing to say.No magicwords or potions,no cures or hoping,no serious plans,no recovery options,no itemized deductive insuranceno positive no negativeno purgings or rebirths,But!On the other hand,I have no fear,no suicidal tendencies,no periodic blackness,no failure or regret, no sad mishap.So what now?Just now.
Slow Dance With A Stranger You say in my ear,as the music turns us closeralmost more hug than dance.You say somethingbut my shoulder swallows itoh how I've missed thisno pulling backslow breaths, onlyhalf of our eyes,you say"Have we met somewhere before?"And I don't reallyneed to liewhen I tell you"Yes. I believewe have."
Here Comes Our Waitress Marooned by the moonlight lifting up your skirt, dipped in wind.Dancing soft hands withhard red nails.Stained glass smilered wine eyes.(Here is where I hide the napkin)You mouth wordslike we were dreamingand I move in closefor the tight pressof a slow dance,my marathon hairon your perfect neck.What were you saying?I don't want to wake up.You call like the echoof last year's springcreeping up the soilthrough a wall of frozen fog.I hear youalmost clearlystating my name,Sir. No that was the question?Do I take sugar?Am I creamy?
Got To Go got to get backgo to bedgot to get sleepgot nothing but dreamsgot to get to sleepgot nothingGot Dreams?got to get out of heregot to spinout of controlgot to gogot to gogot to get back up and over(under control)got to wake up and go to work.
What The Brain Is For The brain was builtto mess with the body.To run tests.To ruin the best in us.To obscure the soul.To lock us up in logic.Lose what had uspuffing up our youthand sweating the acne off troubled twenties,pushing through the skinof early thirties,popping out every inchof what might become forty.Here,this one's my lost job.This one is a repossessed car.Pop!This one is my slimy credit cardoozing over my templeand that?(brain)Oh that's the factory,built to produce these boys!
Sta.sh
