New Poem - Friendship

Hey.

Taking a momentary break from KING OF THE HOBOS prep/freakouts (opening this Thursday!  Playing for three weekends/11 shows!  www.kingofthehobos.bpt.me

Here's a Patreon poem.

FRIENDSHIP


Two days.  That's all we had.
Abducting him.
Sat him down across a second-hand computer.
Made it plain:  You're not leaving
This apartment, seeing the seasons,
until the work's warm, stapled, and delivered.
Until you graduate.


Joe and me, we slept,
we slept in shifts.  Kept him awake
with coffee, with brainstorming paragraphs,
with friendly fire from burp guns.
Seemed
impossible:  Kueberth put off
six term papers and now,
the clock was bleeding dry.


By the fifth paper's
end, and the last
frappicuno,
Kueberth wouldn't stop shaking.
He was a grasshopper on a
saucepan.    Suffering just so because
he knew how damn close
success was.  Shuttered his muscles.
Closed his eyes, headed for the bathroom, locked
the door.


It was then that I knew that sometimes
you have to drag those you love
into victory's barbed wire.
With what tools and nonsense
this stubborn beast of time provides.


With my father's
creative mischief,
I picked open
the lock.   Found him
sitting, sobbing.  Leaning next
to the unused radiator.


And, out of some
perfect madness,
I began to speak
in a gruff, patchy brusque.
For twelve minutes we spoke,
metal and man.  Called myself
Thermidor (the heater's name),
Teased and cajoled Kueberth
to get those fingers
moving.


That he did.
Haven't done many selfless acts
in this time.
But seeing him take that
stage,
sneaking pictures several thousand
miles away of him,
a wide-grinning wife, a baby girl,
I'll keep those moments.   When I
put my wretched self
to use.

Poem - CD

Hey.

Here's a poem I wrote for Patreon about my oldest nephew (who turned five this month).
I think he's pretty darn cool.

CD

There's an allosaurus
Neck deep and ravenous
Inside a hapless stegosaurus
When he slams shut the book,
Wheels to face me,
and whispers:
I've just released a new song.
He wants to be
a gardener
a singer
and a paleontologist.
All three careers tasked
With the ministration
Of patience, digging deeper,
And solitude.
I clap my hands, gesture to the
Theatre of the living room.
He grins, a bit too tightly,
Spins in another dervish,
(as if shaking himself braver)
Ambles to the center.
A beat, he oversips a breath,
He sighs and with that exhalation
Every bone wresting him upright
Surrenders.
Puddle of nerves crawling towards me.
We tickle one another,
And as we play, I wish I could tell my nephew:
Fear does not weaken us; it simply
Develops a deeper appreciation
For song.
For, before I had a voice,
Before I trusted that what came forth in sound
Was useful,
I'd hold concerts in pillows.  I'd sing
Quietly to push tears back inside my sockets.
With breath finely tuned I'd attend each sore
And aching bone.
We sing to keep living.
There is no rhythm, no explicit coda, no familiar chord in
Our frightening seconds.
We sing for ourselves, a constant performance,
Pulsing like the veins
In a newborn's skull:
Here.

Here.
Here.
Here.

Here.

Orange County - First Draft of New Song

Hey.

In between all the worrying about hobo stuff and just making it through August in general, I ended up knocking out a draft of a song about my old stomping grounds.  I explained more about it to the Patreon folk.  Join for as little as a buck a month, and get all kinds of bits and baubles!

lyrics

first verse

in the year before i left
i lived alone
just on the border
letting dust collect
no self respect
an emotional hoarder
i was
calcified
drought from the
tears i
cried
good friends i
pushed
aside
when love is gone
and youre
three hundred pounds
and all is aching
you just hold tight
dream every night
the plans youre making
for if they
did not land
end up
upon this island
i would have died
by my
own hand

chorus
every weekday id drive into
orange county
the culture of the office park
a bounty
upon my head
the seasons a bleached white
bone
had my fill of the pleasant folk
orange county
germinates
firm handshakes
and a static grin
their keepsakes
its heaven if youve got yours
if you dont
get gone

second verse
in the year before i left
i sold or gave away possession
head down
working sixty hours a week
walling off all the wild depression
didnt self reflect
sever and disconnect
just made some money
to leave this town
when love is gone
and youre the serving class
who wrestles dishes
tends strangers daily
fakes a grin and grants their wishes
heeds
each couples call
brings counsel
feeds them all
meanwhile youre starving
your heart
you grind

chorus

bridge
just dont give
up
mark it all
down
youre older you
find
that the hell preaches
wisdom
just dont give
up
keep making
time
the works gonna
save you
deep breath
keep your
word true

chorus
every weekday id drive into
orange county
the culture of the office park
a bounty
upon my head
the seasons a bleached white
theyre a bleached white
bone
had my fill of the pleasant folk
orange county
germinates
firm handshakes
and a static grin
their keepsakes
its heaven if youve got yours
if you dont
get gone

if you dont 

get gone

guess i best 

get gone

New Poem - Family

Hey.

Here's another new (again - new for non-Patreon folk) poem.  You should really hop on this gravy train!  10 bucks a month gets you your own monthly poem, one buck a month gets you DAILY curated stuff I make...  GO!

This poem's a snapshot of my childhood.  Poor as we were, we had some great summers sometimes.
This was one of them.  I've written before about how games shaped our family.  Here's a brief window into that devotion.

FAMILY

Three children sleeping across a Monopoly set.

A note squats on Free Parking, impatiently scrawled with a magic marker:

Weenie's Turn. Dozing without blankets.

A thick sheen of sweat coating their syrupy cheeks.

Discarded Slurpee cups, a Little Caesar's

Pizza box, A radio (won in an costume contest), still lightly playing, set to

"Kara's Love Line". And, as these siblings dream,

A caller (Charlene) with a catch in her midnight speaking voice

Dedicates

A song to her husband

(Rafael) serving overseas in Japan.

Kara, the sensual DJ, hums to life. She soothes,

Each word caresses the evening air. A little pause, and Heatwave's

"Always and Forever" cradles the sleeping trio.

There, until morning, these children remain.

Stuffed with romance and sugar and paper money.

Poem - Now

Hey.

Here's a new (new to non-Patreon folk) poem.  If you sign up NOW and become a patron for as little as a buck a month, you get all kinds of daily stuff...and SOMETHING SECRET AND AWESOME will be announced August 1st to you first!

NOW

The web of flesh

between my thumb

and index finger

is a reset button. I pinch

and press it when overwhelmed by

the hazards of memory, the persistence

and manufacture of future time .

There's pain. Kind which slams shut the book of distant daydream.

A second passes. No poems are written.

No elegies of the past held.

Every fiber on my skin yearns for a signal.

Unprotected, eager, accepting each new force

without coveting.

New Poem - Reverie

Hey.

Here's a new poem (well, new to those who aren't patrons on Patreon - and if you aren't - DO IT! Super cheap.  Starts at a buck a month, and I send you personalized, curated things I make daily.

REVERIE

You. You are clad in a slip 

of storm-shadow. Afternoon 

daydreams on a spartan bed. 

Until the moment you rise

and feel the sudden weight upon your brow, 

You maintain that magic circle, 

Feed the mewling, frightened worms 

with stories of her, 

The love-that-is-to-be. 

A soft, time-worn hand cradles in the thin light 

an imagined waist. An unused pillow 

is simulacra for her nape. There is no face. 

No combination of sage syllables 

forming a clear name. 

No sign. You listen for a voice, and hear the low and present hum 

of the living city. 

Two clues keep the spell electric; 

She secrets the faint, gentle scent of chocolate, 

and bears a warm, crackling embrace. 

She presses you hard, and every hair, 

every scent, every mark on your skin 

is measured.

New Poem - Tenacity

Hey.

Here's a poem I wrote recently.  Patreon folk got to see it first.  (guys, it's sooooo cheap and easy to join, become a patron, and get all kinds of perks and curated stuff.  At this point, I just pity you for not being part of the cool kids club)


TENACITY

if 

there's blood, 

let me be 

manzanita, 

sanded slick and smooth by covert growth. 

Let it slake away. 

Keep my diet mean and temperate. 

Find me shining in an unswept grove 

like a crimson-orange bone, 

clutching the memory 

of three month's 

water sip. Breathe, 

I breathe in full, quiet 

comfort. And, should your feet betray you, 

lop me from the branch.  I'll support your wary, 

shuffling 

                gait 

til neither air nor water can further move us