you won’t find me in yemen

i have no reason to go, yet

you may have to search for me in the second round of torture rows that froze my nose in areas of those who decided it was better to paint my portrait than flip a fortune for when a friend comes up to me and asks for that one time flat fee i wash my hands and give them away, that’s not how i extend my hands these days it’s paper machete fantasies whistling by your grave and hoping it’s not only kentucky fried chicken that left me a slave without you to pretend i have an enemy as he galvanizes a country over a common threat wars of the past have turned to ideas and tan faces he’s a martyr for us all it’s just that we are too stuck to hear the call that one man shouldn’t have this much gall. he’s screamingly sarcastic winter marches matches and no one can pick those latches to freedom it’s a consumption of ourself that shackles our hands holding that screen making reversible plans discipline without this again trapped in steam room situations barely making out who comes to see us these days with lock doors drowning demented decals growling stay away in gay and this levitation you see is the only way cataclysm at baptism water to sustain and all you did was watch the drain and let us piss away in the falling rain. 

The following is a poem from Amelia Mae, our 10 year old daughter

Snow Come!

Rainy days are no fun,

Waiting for the warm sun,

But when it gets below 30 degrees,

Everything starts to freeze.

And when it is done and the weather clears,

you look outside and snow appears!

Laughing and playing with snowmen galore

Makes you wonder if there is school anymore.

There is so much snow everywhere

That school closes and locks up your empty chair.

And everyone stares

At the snow milky white,

As soft as a cloud

Shimmering under the bright sun being proud

You roll around happy and free,

And that is why I want snow to visit me.

I tend to think in lyric and motion

people getting from here to there, mostly by foot and with every situation comes a song, something from the past, a connection, the sail climbing up the mast on SS humanity setting in motion cross ocean travels to be more descriptive with the vultures they swoop from nest and gobble our pray carrion rotting one more day or way and whose to say whether the temperature rising is what we need to sort out it’s more of this flashing feeling of guilt that we should doubt with missiles aimed and jock straps adjusted spit that shit and let’s hit business the swipe of a jaw is easier to unthaw in history rather than a conversation bleeding the typist and her mystery of who and where it was honest and fair i swear we counted to one,two, three before wiping those people to their destiny without a final plea or calling of Uncle sam how do you do it’s crossword puzzle antics confusing my soul you lost me with that final dice roll when sixes meant nothing and talents were spoiled so you could loom at reflections with a wink and nod the past is rich with stories to repeat pick the pitch to finally defeat the one who sits stationary never moving mary the Saturday paper gave us garbage to collect i’m neglecting a theme trompsing through shotty rhythm with no scheme it must be monday and i can’t see a way that this will be acceptable. i have to let it go the jumbled thoughts causing me to wonder about you

staircases were the worst
you ran 
i counted 

well rehearsed

everything left to its own pace

i found comfort in your jean pockets

why so fast?

i mean, it was our usual

me, behind you.

every day.

the door was always closed when i got there 

a simple twist and push brought me into heavy situations set up for years in our misinterpretation of what becoming one meant

we sucked at math

thanks for leaving it unlocked

there was that, at least

i was cautious, but continued the game peering the corner searching for more it was the sound of the door scraping the floor and then there it was

i was met with that vacant stare

a shake of your head and glance back down

were you surprised, or reminded?

the mail couldn’t of been that interesting

shuffling through

i walk by, open the fridge and grab a bite of yesterday 

you click past, your motions splashed an anxious flash transferred and spun through to me. 

we still pass forks and know who’s turn it is for dishes.

paper plates are piling up.

i’m not without a part

i didn’t take you up on your count to three race to the door

we did that years before

both panting at the top

taking turns being polite

“after you”, 

you’d welcome with your stretched wide smile from both eyes 

home

who cares about the piles of bills

take out drivers delivered our meals

time and ritual didn’t dictate when we found our sheets, it, also, wasn’t always in bed

nice and neat

moments of remembering turned to rip flip renderings of flesh seeking souls pressing passion filling the hole and completing this role, a goal, to reach down and know we’re whole

we were good then

i didn’t worry

and never had time to notice

the crumpled bandana 

you carried

in your back right pocket

when did you decide to raise the question of how we had been getting on these days with doorsteps hopped over and windows left open i drearily drip your passions in a cup for one this isn’t fun anymore the way you find the floor without bending to make certain you’ll be caught and teenage corner posts handing out schemes and facades to freckled bystanders who wish they could decide transferring power to a jacket and hat with nothing left honey i got your back dropping an accent attack so they think i’m down to get up and then fall flat through their glass table stained with chalk residue a final taste to glue this night of burned feathers and pill popping crews blasted pupils pumping, gathering the light it’s darkness we’re covering to stay out of sight suspend me please i need a reason to blame and stand with this huddle all the same 

hand curved out is it foil or cellophane that will enter my brain twisting colors and figures pop culture miniatures mixing well with the mood of fluidity i have to adjust your altering me then i stepped out and left this ring of greed pushing plasma slosh stingrays suspended under our feet hands down finding a seat. i have to get out. you kept repeating until your heart stopped beating. 

*and three randoms that filtered out:

‘standing in the shadows’

i remember jessica simpson’s sister singing this song about being jessica’s simpson’s sister and wanting her own name 

i don’t know it.

i know what people have called me throughout this forty year history from peanut to johnny and mayo most recently, well, that is mayopolis rutherford jones iii if you’re into the brevity like the dude would say friends that gather to pick and play when shoes sink in wood tick fields grass catching in our socks while we face the trees running faster to feel the breeze fade as we nest in the ferns splayed towering birch leaning to gather shade for the heat we felt when desires to gather in grey this is not the place we went with giants roaring, lurking for the touch to find when i’ll be back crawling into a cave with disrespect john kennedy was jack and his car got wrecked i listened to the travel ban 
lifting the soil to turn over a fresh view for life to suck in and take the few that want out of this world so desperately a final plea for balance 
not much got in the way of giants as they stomped their way through last monday afternoon the abandoning of a game that was not in their hands and then we went back to our hollow house to hear what was haunting our heroes,the way we were found out in the rain while passing through another night of temperature raised moments friction and blinking a lightning storm shrinking all that could have been buried by the soundscape leaving everyone squinting try not to enter when feeling this way figuring you’d left limping last year languid 

they hopscotched one another’s heart and learned the lesson that couldn’t start until finally breaking everything apart so they could reassemble 
it took time to listen and stop for the glisten that moistened eyes give in times of missing the ones we reach to when nights pull a lonely string leaving a melody in the distance trapped in a single note humming over and over, vibrating and finally catching rhythm while i crawl away slogging through stations i need to wash out this stuttered feeling this drone of meaning 

i figured a crash cycle with certainty would create a new identity looking at me must be tough knowing i can’t tell what’s enough of where you want this conversation to go i’ll continue to wake up in trains hoping this time the lips i left lingering while i laid on the floor will wait for me to rise up, i need regularity. how do they do it? those others, who stretch and move shuffle through and groove always getting approved for dendrite deduction cell reproduction and i’m stuck not understanding my own destruction or definitions of words i use they sound nice so i leave everyone confused hoping they feel me instead of understand this babble of rhyme that sometimes catches time it’s a device to work through the shit in my mind that left unattended will leave me blind cluttered concepts chunking up my ability to drive straight perhaps i could sit at home and figure fate would deviate me from this rocky road. i do like ice cream though. 

I wasn’t sure which way to go
my only purpose that morning was to run into her

i crossed the street and quickly glanced back

she was talking to a man half my age

i rearranged my jacket, stuffed my hands back in my pocket and continue walking

where did she go after the glow of a nighttime show

a fixture 

i turned left, stopped, shuffled out a cigarette and put it behind my ear

anxiously knowing i couldn’t stand here, between her and there

i ducked into a low lit after hours gym i asked for the time, used the bathroom, and headed back to the spot we met

other feet now filled the space where we stepped closer to feeling our place

i leaned against the building, threw one shoe up with a bent knee, retrieved my cigarette, looked around, then four inches out, igniting and exhaling

she consumed me

an exact infatuation of her habits

how did she get groceries?

i conversed with her with every inhale about the inane detail of our afterlife

she didn’t believe in death

i knew her voice, it sheltered me the nights i couldn’t break free from my own ruminating thoughts of days i forgot to pay attention to the other ones who enjoyed the joy i bought

the rain started

a last exhale, i pushed off the wall and started to head home. 

He didn’t like it when i told him it wasn’t raining

it was an affront to his senses

obvious

the umbrella was less about rain

and more about being remembered

he walked away

scraaaaaapppppe dit dot scraaaaaape

a rhythm wearing down the point

he turned around 

lifted his finger at me

and said 

‘you, you are what drives me to ready myself for rain.’

he turned back around 

shook his shoulders

and walked on

it’s then she bumped into me

all of twenty-three and holes in her knees

upon closer examination

black ink swirls decorate the worn out denim

‘sorry…ugh’ she swirled to untangle the unintentional wrangle

‘it’s fine’ 

she stopped

‘i know you don’t i’

inches from my face

cigarette and coffee laced

if it wasn’t chance this would be our embrace

‘i um’

stepping back to regain my bubble

‘yah maybe, i’m…’

her eyes crystallized and bloodshot with living

blue

she hesitated ‘yah, you’re that guy. you sell hotdogs on 5th right?’

i put my head down with a half grin positioned my hands in my pocket, met her eyes sideways and walked away

‘wait’ she said as a question

i kept moving

with wonder and amaze we waltzed around summer days handing everyone we knew something for the new craze a bed ridden silence lifted by the far off memory of slipping into a summary of reel to reel moments spliced together fragments when noticing your belly button pushing out

it’s then i ceased to doubt

that times alone would be forgotten 

drifting cotton wood in a sea of rotten souls someone grab the bowls and fill our senses with something other than this killing a mass everything super size my diamond ring we are dulled blow it up just to see just to hear a touch so rough it causes fear and smells of the dead take over the night the bitterness of that past bite that left my left jaw aching he warned us about jeremy and what it would take to turn the world black to lift this weight of piled up bodies in containers at sea floating off to a new found destiny where we no longer can imagine the possibility of creating some greater legacy of hope and it’s that word that binds us as human the thread that weaves through civilizations buried below or swaying with the breeze we need to seize the cord and pull together or die.

she doesn’t want to go i understand and sometimes demand too much from the one whose hand is full of heart as right from the start we knew she carried a different part in our lives with the rain that poured down this fragmented fall day 

mom is away and in another direction a friend fell to fade as city lights pass by i want to shelter this cry and it’s sneak attacks moments i couldn’t predict washing the dishes i’m met with a pin prick to the cornea flooded with images not of you, you pulled the trigger and now i have to figure which way i’ll take this and i tried the destructive route with little success cause this happiness keeps finding me in times of distress it’s learning it’s burning and fuel is forever found in the above ground play pit never to sever cause here with cascading melodies sauntering over valley floors lifting until we can’t hear anymore just feel the sonic symphonic blast of cool air hymns washing our forgiven forays into folly that we volley to test the waters of love and chagrin come in its warm it’s cold it’s nothing i’m told its where you belong, and where you’ll behold all that is.