Working Title

Through thickets of blackberry and scrub oak on damp spring mornings my dad and I wound a secret path to his marijuana plants. Tall weeds surrounded by 200 foot firs. I learned the word prowler. My dad naked chased the prowler down Hendricks hill. My own marijuana never got that sort of attention. Even when I got older, he always had the best stuff. Most of the hippies I grew up with smoked the ditch weed they got used to in the sixties. But I guess he had Alaskan Thunderfuck or at least that’s what somebody told me after we smoked what I stole from his stash.

L

Once a year I punch a busker
like I did yesterday while he strummed loudly
and he like others in the past
reacted without anger because they know
their trumpet or their pipa is uninvited
on the platform or above it.
It isn’t a concert.

Don’t worry.
I pulled out my dollar
and handed it to the pedal steel player
bleeding above his eye.
He lives tax free
which makes us both feel better.

Inside

Apprehension follows the sense
of the next few months as my range of movement
decreases daily.

The numbness in my right foot started
up my calf last week. My left foot was due up
in weeks.

When it happens in real-time:
being able to move only fifteen feet from one end
to the other end. The world masked by memories.

Someone called and told me that I would soon
think my legs
were part of the earth like the trunk of a tree.

Sometimes I leave the apartment or I feel like I do
or I may as well have. Groceries are in the fridge
and I am sore.

Sometimes I wake up and I am back home in Decatur:
light bleeds through the magnolia in the front yard
and I hear bustling on the floor below.

RDBMS

I.

Every thought I’ve had is a record
in a relational database. Linked
by primary and foreign keys. I query
finding only strand:
dark hair on the pillow
the tail end of her laugh.

II.

Every thought I’ve had is a record
in a relational database. Linked
by primary and foreign keys. I query
and find the Prince of Holland.
He drove us back to Brooklyn in his black GTI.

Exurbs

A Super man’s leg hangs precariously
arm hooked into Simon Says,
its round yellow red and green follow me
in circles,
halved over other action figures.
it was unintended war and brotherhood.

Lawn not sodded picturing the new house.
I hop into the Ryder cab, musky from moving
to Trinidad Albuquerque Waltham Alexandria Modesto.

The Armada Super Cons Transformer leaps on its armrest
surveying with infra-super beams. All negative. Radar beeps beep beep
in view: Built To Rule Tonka Avalanche Snowcat. Rumbling
along the truck seat stitching
farsighted Optimus shoots with Track Laser Cut Ray.

Hearing boxes stack and furniture thud, our gate cinches:

On a Mickey ball I bounced on the deck with Brook
held onto the rubber ears
and hopped towards the rock retaining wall.

And that one snow
bombing down Moon Mountain
the water main snowed, rounded became the jump of death
leaping into the air, feet splaying across the sled
we touched down.

Like that year when the wall was filled with yellow jackets,
Brook grabbed the hose
poured water through deck slats. With a honey dipped stick,
I watched the wasps fly in and out of the rocks we waited for moments.
Yelling OK, I jabbed into the nest and ran as Brook sprayed water.
Covering me.

In the window seat, the truck rolls out onto the interstate.
I jump across blocks and over telephone
poles, bouncing on storefront awnings
they give little under my weight.
Wires carve parallels into the mountains,
my eyes move me
the road curves towards the sky.
We approach a green hill
macroscopic I jump over it.

Poetry Online

So I am going to be putting my poetry online. This isn't really a blog. Its just some shit on paper that will now be on the screen. Anyway. Look for it soon.