Liquor Store Clerk

Each day he puts five two-ounce
bottles of vodka in his briefcase

I think that he has a problem but then
I think that maybe he has Jesus in his heart

and is just trying to take the edge off.

Urban Planner

Gaborone, Botswana

Some places were settled before they were zoned.
Some cities have intersections shaped like splayed men
with streets that twine as though
someone pressed their hand to your drafting table
and told you to trace out their veins.
So that it would be their heart pushing
you to work with your pores full of dew, their heart
drawing you lymphatically home.

Silly Common Meter

When you've measured out your poor, poor life

and distributed the blame

You'll find you've held the only knife;

you'll find yourself the same

And so you'll loose your poor torqued breath

and part a space of rain

And rest between your birth and death

with neither joy nor pain.

The sky itself will melt away

and fill a mirrored lake.

and you will finally learn to stay

and admit no mistake

That you are a lithe and free thing

with just your heart to break

while you can't tell when you're sleeping
you know when you're awake

Dust

I am waiting for the bats to rest

I am waiting for the sky to break

I am waiting to cool my blood

there've been no storms

nor even any mackerel to lead them

the world is dust

my skin is a dust skin and my hands

are friction conjurers drawing

a cloak of it over me.

I keep two fingers there

and one hand open to the sky

I am trying to keep track

I am trying to notice

the dust near liquid in my easy veins

my heart that pumps a splitting fist of it through.

Fine so fine now I breath it in.

Dust the velvet on my orphan lungs

dust held, dust cared for and

dust, the fire I spit to the sky

a carnival of dust rising and drawing attention

dust seeding the clouds

particles of dust raising their own armies against me

and falling, stripping the cloak from my back,

wearing my skin muddy to the ground

leaving me stretch-eyed and smiling

and clean

so clean.

Demineralized Bone Matrix Processor 2

They call me wicked here

with his words

on my breath

on your ear

but they're mine now and I can do as I want with them. 

And you can judge me by the way I come apart in your hands,

and by the treasures inside

by the pearl seeds I've held cupped in my tongue

by the nerves which stretch and melt spun sugared against your skin

by the revelries you coax from my thigh bone trumpets

and by the taps

you can circle my cramped untidy hands

and soften them with a season of clutches. 

However sharp
my chisel mind
can only cut its width.

Your open hearts
so brave and kind
remind me what I've missed

and how at night when you sing

I'm just like all the rest

as your out breath drags a moth's wing

against my uncooked flesh.

Survivalist 3

They are below you

minding what's pressed 

from one wet flank to another.

And you with no dogs. 

If you want their blood's attention

you are going to have to do better

you are going to have to realize

that they are not that sort of animal

that they only note the cough and cry

that circles like prairie smoke

and leaves no worldly exit. 

They will note you

and the pitch fire that drips

from your outstretched hands

the sounds you make

as it raises blisters

along the seams 

of your wrists

They will note you

running downhill with the wind,

the storm and the mackerel that leads it,

burning out your star for the unfired