no safe haven in the steam caves of an understatement

a poem i wrote sleeping in a closet in Austin Texas

dolphins break waves on miami beach

as i lay dreaming of fucking

breaking my own waves

in-out-in-out

Nothing excites me anymore

I'd pay to see two hookers fight each other

there's no sex left in this ugly town

all the pussies dried up with the oil wells

and the dicks are limper than the armadillers.

i ain't kiddin' - the city's a shit show.

i'm ready

brought back two gallons of memories from the once empty wishing well
overflowing with words whispered in worn out ears
did you see that last shooting star?
no i wasn't watching

* * *

used-up bottle rockets and rented chemistry textbooks
told me about love -
behind locked doors where shadows of crickets
laughed in the space between
the first and the last time
those grasshoppers ever thought
of their asses showing up around here

* * *

i fell asleep in a bookshelf
where heinlein and hemingway
issued orders all night
and i woke up in a wheelbarrow
where william carlos williams
let me watch
just one more dream.

* * *

fuck

ridin' with jesus

that last thought brought me back to the first round of drinks
back-words up the mountain - i thought you said you didn't mind it when
the smallest tree on the top
looked like the biggest fly landing
in a mixed up summer
cocktail
so turn your head when you laugh at me

i don't wanna catch that.

history

thinking about you
leaves five hundred tiny holes
in the walls of the grand canyon
which fill with dust
and fool future geologists
into predicting past ice ages.

prosthetic solidarity

what have we seen? with eyes sunk in skull sockets and
what have we heard? with grub wax canal filled ears
what have we learned? with rot addled suffocated brains
when two men tear apart each other like so many leaves on trees
and burn up our brothers born in new bodies
cut off ringed fingers
appropriate prosthetic limbs
crush bodies fingers limbs souls
burn truths food loves lands
friends hands tears lives
history's past mysteries
melt it all together in a forge
for a recycled gun and a dismantled playground

been there done that

All the best poems
are lost to the sky
so i'll write one instead:
3 am, drunk, heard you on the telephone
recorded voice, fading fast, left me all alone
did ya ever wonder what i was up to
in these days future passed
where i was, where i'm going,
where i've been to last
where the sun's shadow rises
and eclipses 'cross the moon
or if i've wandered westward
or if i've come back too soon