Cake Walk

words are known 

to gravitate towards graves

and chalkboards, slate

canvases ripe with abecedarian

scratching, billowing dust 

floating over the lesson 

soaked in stone, students 

and warm shovels, and always 

the work is present, the spirit

part law, part trick

crosses itself

stepping over the mound 

the fresh little mud loaf where 

dirty hands perform for answers

and tiny feet shuffle, elementary 

festival cake walk theatrics, daring 

the lucky one, jumping on twenty-four 

to rip open the shredded 

shirt, rend his ketchuped guts 

and collapse

to the asphalt, shrieking

“t’was the Baptists, 

the Baptists have halved me…”

the iced pumpkin muffins

outperform the pastoral 

scolding, he nods 

off in the back seat, hooked 

to death and conjuring

Houdini’s free falling alphabet

Friday Writings #201: On Halloween

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Instagram

It’s in the sitting, the unstudied control 
of your bent frame for the light, the eye

batting hair unblown 
the aerobatic housefly’s 
derring-do, unswatted 

all the world zigging, it’s all 
in the sitting, the sitting

for the generational blessing
of a stern visage with flock
unattended, ten minutes

of unsmiling photons 
weaving silver waves, clashing 
on copper plates, a one hundred

and eighty year wait 

for just a shade
of your face

Friday Writings #200: To the power of 10

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Unpenned

you could say we lost our child
or heaven gained an rogue, or parents’ bodies
doubled and shaking mimic the broken stalks
of a species native to hell, or say Christmas 

cards languish unpenned 
in shamanic silence, tucked 
in a box of locks 

you can say we gained a PIN code
pecking out grief’s numerology, attached 
to every account, every transfer reborn 
and wet like fine hair freshly emerged

but, whatever you say, say enchiladas 
are still enchiladas, and music
is still loud enough to stir the ash
and see the moon and say, “the moon!”

say statistics are coughs, and say we
are side-eye dancing, glancing 
into oblivion, you could say

when hands are held tightly
to keep ourselves up, it’s the guts 
that punch back, or you

could say that is a bold face
for a lotus in December 

_________

Friday Writings #199: gut-punch 

Allhallowtide

On the horizon, thin and without reason

October scribbles across the sky in empty limbs

        a pinch from a preseason tyrant—the month                 coughing like a blade retracting

behind a black curtain, disease haunts the stage

shadows long, so certain, so long, everybody 

        burning summer’s sickly sonnets

                in fires barely hot enough to choke smoke

the children contemplate half-emerging skeletons

on the beach, they do not know their parents

or which few of them will pull through

        as the tide pulls back, October reveals 

                bony white reflections in the salty water

there is no votive, no hymn 

for their wordless struggle

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Friday Writings #198: October Writes

Tools

we’ve all been goat-shrubbed
bearded with salt, brothers in gray

eventually the night will be enough 
to delight our empty bowls
after all, what’s left

for four common subjects 
who will one by one step off
this green pedestal
from which we peered
into each other’s years

dad’s yard fading to beige
what did those tools do anyway

who will hide his keys
the snub-nosed .38, now
who was whose keeper

Friday Writing: Poets and Storytellers United

September Clocks In

ants go side-by-side, ark style 
across the sink, called in
 
by the autumnal deluge 

of their little ant genesis

a nomadic gulch 

twig-shadowed and dank 

carries the fluff

of the last goose

the hayrides of tobacco, mugs

and blankets trot across the bridge

the football boys are 

pushing fire and stolen

cabinet liquor, the ritual

of binge-watching a leaf 

nature and cinnamon rhyme 

like dawn and apparitions

the fundamental work of powerline 

squirrels is the last real industry 

until winter hijacks 

our mortal ears

(Friday Writings #196: Hello Fall!)

Excite Your Palate with Meat Mania

when the flavor of the highways

and beelines gets too much

and the salt of wandering lines

crusts over your tongue

beg a little pepper off the sun

a sufficient bubble 
will break forth great rains

and sin will ice your veins
leaving you hungry
for a palate of two 

by two and glittering
giblets by the scoop

a common heat spells out the cuts
of pigeon grit and sidewalk guts

and when you stand on dry ground
face the heavens and throw up

your resounding grace 
for a scraped gray plate
and bowl bursting with
everflowing returns

of a meat soaked meat 
and eyes scraping
barren fields
for daily wheat

 (Give Us This Day Our Daily Spam Feb. 9, 2025)

Y0UU HAAVE BEEEN PAlID 1OOO.OO DlREECT T0 Y0UUR ACC0UUNTT

your bread so abundant you must

dangle it like a price tag to the kingdom

but I’m not buying it, my hands

rest palm down, for so long

receiving was always a whisper 

of last night’s moon

I’m past that, promote whatever 

funding hums, it’s your paper 

balance your gift

in the wind, we know 

your payout is a glare

so forgive me if

my silence is thick, stacked

with side eye, ain’t nobody

ever gave me nothing, keep it

that way, your transaction

idles, nothing comes

from nothing and nothing

will come of it nohow

that is how

my bread rolls

down my street

unpaved on account

of nobody

(Give Us This Day Our Daily Spam Feb. 8, 2025)

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Thinking of resurrecting my Give Us This Day Our Daily Spam project where I use my email's spam inbox as a writing prompt, using words from the email in the poem and the subject line as the title. We'll see how it goes.

Reformation

sand cascades from the cathedral
a shard of green glass taxes 
the thumb, flesh has no parallel

so close to the ocean, possibly save
the seaweed pods that pop so crunchy 

charred fences return 
to float off, these are hard days  
for soft structures

the circle surrounding the steeple
fills slavishly with foam
one must laugh theologically
watching wafting water

pull the work and treasure 
out beyond outstretched arm 

this collapse, this laborious loss
is in harmony with buoyant souls

re-forming to skim 
over the weight 
again, and again the

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for Poets and Storytellers United: joy in chaos

The Nose

silent about face, it alone 
can cause humming hair

to stand, back when hair

fought scale and fin

when summer drenched

sweat, the body beat

the rain to the punch

reptilian, hissing

straight to the brain

as if it were the surviving crone

snoring cantos of our names

without use of spine or nervous 

system, this means maggots 

bathed in putrid meat

the predators draw near

this probe can grab smoke

or decay, remove it, sure

leave discernment to the crow 

in verse of feathered caw

unhallucinatable, it knows 

the olfactory assumptions 

once a caravan, once a sum

savior while eyes struggled 

for awareness in deep caves

there, tadpole, the sea 

and scent of salty cream

so thick you taste it

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dVerse: The optician's words (I think I used them all, or at least variations of :)

A Good Return

among the forward, our fervor holds
serpent human and orchid 
go set against each other

so wonderful then, a companion 

to lounge beneath strange trees 

roots like tongues tangled 

where words falter, what is blood 

when we have branches

a fig, a frond, inside jokes

knowing nods for gentle ribs

when fire blooms into the sky 

magma crust and vine

we will chuckle in verse

cling to petals, unmoved

daring each other to go first

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Writer's Digest Wednesday Prompt: Friends

No Nothing

a thunderhead loomed
like a warship sheltered 
in a storm-lashed port

with it, firepower to burn

it all down—the sparrows

 

swooped around the pink elms

snails so calm, I slept 

to research god’s intentions

the hint of rupture 

moved on, as we all 

suspected

____________

in response to d'Verse: take a hint

Incessantly

in the arterial light hullabaloo 
the veins are awake at night
scrolling like ants out past dark

 

the old gargoyle dampness

of intentions gives way 

to mud and smudges

the mirror into hours 

and how the brain

shrieks for pause, maybe

a heart still or silent ear 

please, mercy me 

marrow the mind

 

shut my eyes like lances 

poked through bone 

a stark reminder

for the need of bone

and deeper dream

barely present, I should 

pause the flare

of howling glass

touch cotton and learn 

the names of rivers over time

______________

Poets and Storytellers United: Friday Writing brain rot

Orpheum

when sunrise was young and wet
angels threw forth lyrics
in polysyllabic fire

gabbing gurus

chimed in dawn

their faces illuminated like

a noncanonical manuscript

their music luscious and open

poetry sang, perpetually

speaking in bells, their tongues fold

into camels, rhythm tight

to slide from the needle

and pop the speakers

mother, taking stock

of the dancing crowd, notes

the t-shirts through the smoke

Black Francis and Mr. Bungle

and while everyone stood

some souls rose

for what it’s worth

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Written late for Writer's Digest Wednesday Prompt: Appraisal

Between Us

floating in the arterial harbor 

rainbow balloons bob

in intertwining pipeworks, I lost 

the berry-lipped woman in the hullabaloo 

I imagine she reclines back

in the gargoyled hotel, the leather dampness 

of skin everywhere has not escaped me, the guilt

 

fishers cast all around, please, mercy

run your marrow over the muddy calendar

the days’ blades cut from light 

bring me my eyelids, my circus 

white poodle darting across 

the cinnamon lobby, she’s never 

so happy to see a slumbering me 

learning to hold back my water waking

more in love than the morning before

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Written for Writer's Digest: Dreams

To the Wire

from the hierarchy 

of rub: flight or fight 

anyone? an outburst 

without shadow never 

razor burns

stories ricochet 

all over the face, the structure

of being overwhelmed 

the old brainhall swinging 

away at old age anxiety 

relax—aloe or no 

smile, the authentic package

a new look, cleans up

16 ounces non greasy

essentially fragrant free

each adventure be by 

a shave, biochemical 

and alive

by a hair 

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Revamped from older poem below

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Comfortable to the Skin

In the hierarchy of rub: flight 

Anyone? An outburst or significant after 

With shadow, it never gets a nighttime outcome 

stories+events+STORIES 

ricocheting the structure, being woke

Overwhelmed in the same old brainhall 

swinging more of the age anxiety 

paddlers approval—relax

aloe or no 

Authentically close package

a new look, clean

non-greasy, 16 ounces 

and imaginatively fragrance free

each made adventure

biochemical be

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for Poets and Storytellers United Friday Writings #159:Making It New