I'm Perfectly Composed

My heart

is Yeats,

It aches.


My soul

is Lowell,

it's old.


My ass

is Plath,

it's cracked.


My feet

are Keats,

they beat.

In Waiting

When I'm waiting in the lull,
between the things I have to do
and all that waits for me to stop,
and all I have been tethered to,

I occupy these idle hands,
composing pointless poetry
and reading as it were a job,
but sometimes I gets mad at me.

The wasted hours, joined at ends,
spent smoking, writing, making love.
I say these things distract from life.
What life have I been dreaming of?

Mockingbird

I'm a mockingbird at heart.
A gentle soul who just wants
to make music for you to enjoy.
Most people fail to recognize this,
assume I'm shy,quietly judging them,
but cats know the truth
as they paw at my chest,
probing for the sweet
meat at the center
as I lay prone
on the sidewalk.

The Slippery Slope to Enlightenment

I decided to give up smoking,
as it is a vice
and vices are the tiniest threads
that anchor us to this material world.
Next came drinking
and after that, fast food.

I was feeling fantastic,
meditating, packing
my possessions into boxes
before they carried me
into the grave.

My house is for sale;
a braid in the rope, a braid
to affix some well-meaning
family of four. A braid
doused in kerosene.

I want some matches.
I need some matches.

The Forecast

I've hovered over you
too long, threatening rain,
and grown heavy,
unfulfilled again.

Whether or not we will
collide, cold fronts
creating heat, wild
storms encircled in frost.

I'd like the world to know
such things are unpredictable:
The who what where when why how
70% accurate at best.

February the 16th, 2006

Woke up at six,
Needed some money,
But how do you think I got where I am without cunning?
No bitches coming through with that cash for ass
So I had to come up with a plan to buy glass.
Started my car
Drove to a bar
Forty ounces later I was ready to start.

Stumbling to the curb with a glock in hand
The bank across the street
And I am one man.
I called for a crew from my side of the block,
but they were laid out, been smokin’ the rock.

Walked through the door
Out on the floor
Checked out the teller, she’d be a nice whore
While it may seem I was pressing my luck
Even more than money I like to…..

Sirens to the back
My mack attack
Would have to hold off for the “gat gat gat”
“Put down the gun and your hands in the air”
Grip on the trigger and I didn’t care
This was my day for feelin’ too hot
Next thing I knew it was black,

I was shot.
And I died.
The End.

Pileup at the Bottom of the Sea

I saw a plume of smoke
curling from below the coastal shelf.
I took off running,
through the turtle grass,
stirring silt,
and when I leaped over the cusp
it felt like flying
down
slowly.

I arrived in a cloud
and emerged in the middle
of a crowd of octopi, starfish,
clownish. All of their features
were distorted with a mixture
of unthinking, open-mouthed awe
and horror. As I wove by,
I did my best to remember
the chest compression to breath
ratio, but when I arrived
I was a useless as a marlin
consumed with grief.

It's tough to tell if something
is crying underwater.
An octopus nudged me with its...
elbow, "He just lost his wife
and all four of his kids.
His life is in ruins. You
should say something."

I tapped the great fish on the...
shoulder, he turned to face me,
"What happened? Maybe
it would be cathartic
to talk about it."

He let out a sigh,
threw his head into the air
and screamed into the black ocean,
"O, the huge manatee!"

Modern Times

The jester has become a king.
The player, like a God.
The merchant now owns everything,
he holds the sacred rod.

You're Such a Lovely Audience

Hello there.
I don't mean to scare you, but
I couldn't help noticing you
across the room because
you are the room,
every last one of you.
No!
I'm not coming on to you.
That's for later.

For now,
let's take it slow
and share some poetry.
Here, I'll start it off,

"Spread open your minds
to make way for my diction.
I brought rhyme for lubrication
and some assonance for friction.

Now I know what you are thinking,
I wouldn't speak without protection.
My syntactical structure will guard against infection
and its extensible structure will stretch over my erection

of some monumental words:
sesquipedalian profundities for your consideration
without the necessity for amelioration
because it is length and not girth that garners attention.

I don't want to alarm you,
but you will get pregnant
with thoughts so heavy
you will mired in silence

with emotion of the ocean,
the ebb and flow
of thought in meter,
because my lines go
so deep
so deep
so deep
they'll put your ass to sleep".