Oklahoma

When I left my cell phone on the porch
long enough to tie my shoes
and admire the wings of a butterfly,
blinding against the backdrop,
I knew why they called it the dust bowl.

Covered in a thin layer,
my touch screen seemed antiquated,
forgotten in a rush
of thirties survival adrenaline.
The kind that saved settlers
from an early burial
beneath the sand of an unforgiving hour glass.

I could see it sitting on a porch rail
as the extended family piled into the old Hudson,
headed for Route 66 and heartache.

Or maybe it was lost, flung among the apples
on the day Floyd was gunned down,
the whole red orchard riddled
with hot, momentary life.

We know nothing

about life
that will remain true. We know
death before birth and after life
like the sunlit opening between
two tunnels.

Writer's Block

now I'm left

with my ear to the wind

eyes darting across the landscape

waiting for something

literary to happen.

no matter the mad howling

the taunting clock

or the alcoholic jump start,

my mind screams for any kind of fix

flips through every kind of useless shit

hoping to strike a single match

in all this wet dark.

our fathers

the sweat drips thick from
their humble brows or
from their necks, from their arms
and fingertips

it is not nature that keeps them
there, in abstruse and rambling bondage but
man, part themselves and part all others
the perennial owners of

vapid toil.  but they think
not of themselves in what they do
crank and lever, valve and measure
wood and wire and brawn

until progeny or matter
the fruit of chronic endeavor
surpasses them like
time itself

Divining the Present

I am not afraid of the moon, as it comes down
to hold my face in its encompassing gaze,
its light soaking my skin like a warm bath
of star parts and cosmic cremation.
I am not afraid of the moon when its crimson
blush rouses the hemispheres
and powders every rock and sea.
I see the full moon set upon mountains
like a seers orb, divining the present
splendor of gold washed sky
punctuated by immortal stars.
When everything else is gone, I can trust
its luminosity, every waxing, waning curve
my companion even as it is chased away
night after night, it returns to me.

ambitious shelves

Few things are perfectly level
the devil's in the entirety
of nails, screws and bowed boards

no two pieces fit
without a breach, without a bent
or hint of coercion

the surface ever slowly weeps
gravity sleeps in the buff
dust, polish and white lies

every arc and angle yearns
to fall extended, to meet content
with infinite degree

late to rise

walking an open market
I saw a refrigerator magnet
that said "early to bed, early to rise"
and thought it typical
magnets are always giving unsolicited advice.

but I took note
only to reject it
for the opposite mantra.

now, I'm not saying it
changed my life but I've awakened
to not so severe hangovers
avoided rat race traffic jams and
other common entanglements

and I set two alarms
not to wake up
in the morning but to sleep through
both of them.

screams of daylight

I awakened to humidity and the old takeout bags were alive
cascading down from the pile on my desk,
The bedside was vacant
and the empty bottles full of fan blade reflections
provoked me in their green and brown attire,
The sun was wide awake
and screaming over the neighbor’s radio,
I shaved, needlessly
to feel the familiar burn
a young man who could not recall youth
but to burn for it,
That’s the tragedy of living
the hollow glass, the screams of daylight,
and I stepped into the open air
native and confident,
alive with time
to change.

childhood relativity

It is hard growing up with stained feet from lack of
sidewalks in this town and bottle glass
mixed with sand and cigarette butts make mortar
for pestles pounding the trough between ditch and highway
as they wave their little hands at speeding strangers
their mothers wary would worry if they knew
where they were.
but the street lights are off for another five minutes
time enough for mischief
for magic
for mocking time hanging like linen
that won't be taken in tonight.

5:23PM

home from work
I collapse onto a soft sofa
absorbing dark solitude
when there's a racket outside my window

my neighbor is home
and shooting country music down my ear canals
like folksy electric bullets
Will I survive? Probably

but long awaited relief
is bleeding out
the quiet dark ground to powder between my teeth
and I can't feel my sense of humor

turn that shit down I scream
to myself
as he scrubs the same truck tire
a third time