Save that metaphor
before it slips from your hands
and crumbles to dust.

I had a line in my head 
as I arrived to work on a Sunday
I thought of it as I passed a grove of tall pines
where I often see crows playing

It was a dull and dragging line
heavy as death 
I thought, that’s a prompt of a line… 
asking me to further describe                 .

The kind of line that needed to be lighter
that needed musicality, to give it a sense of irony
to glorify it at all

The kind of prose that doesn’t sing
or ring around the pines in brilliant blue 
A music that falls backwards with a thud
an ambient hum of mud or blood

A line that I knew would be the last line
The rest of the poem would stretch in the other direction,
like one of the underdog Wile E.’s contraptions–

a slingshot which would fling you face first
into a dry cloud of dust.

One less fist through drywall 
probably wouldn’t have kept me here,
but you could have at least tried
not to swing at something we painted
together, as if three coats of semigloss
were cement around those combat boots
I was always tripping on in the hall.

One more rosebud in a dainty vase
wouldn’t have kept me here, 
but at least one is more than zero.

Light of memories 
threading a needle, silver 
knots in soft gold moons

You were so loud

So proud

Untested shield and microphone against the world

Big ideas and faith of what was right

What was wrong

Silly plans of president from a country song

Unaware of the clockwork of America

Sweet child.

If only I could tell you to keep running

To keep getting on stage and not look into the audience

Their whispers, their hate from the dinner table

Are not for you.

Find your light, hit your mark, ready your que

the world is yours.

Im sorry I lost you for a bit.

The vase of creamy, dreamy peonies posed
a series of scenarios she tried 
to track and trace across his face
so she would know what her she should supply. 
She chose the sweet, submissive her she knows
will keep his ruthless rage and fists away.
A smile complete across her bitten lips,
she tests a touch to gauge his mood and if

he’ll let her leave the cage. “Are these for me?” 
Lowered lashes, reading the room, she knows
the ways to weave herself to keep him calm. 
Her tiny finger brushed the velvet blooms,
“I made your favorite, chocolate almond tart,”
She served dessert with freedom in her heart.

When we were still Virginians
I aimed to manifest my destiny to the western lands
Eager to speculate
I laid down four logs and called it a cabin
I planted three stalks and called it a corn patch
I never got my 400 acres
And I never left Kentucky

(1969)
skid marks
kid sparks
bed race lost
along central avenue,
do what you have to,
mute the love
making up for it
with teeth so tiny
your bite’s a mere bark.
at the river park
trees without roots
& suits spilling beer
with someone’s hot
rod lincoln
down in its water bed
amid the jazz jump
of the old duke boys,
eight on eight
way better
than the other way
where the upside 
is downtown,
be what you be
see what you see
flush when you finish,
start at the end
’cause
around here
there is no street
called helsinki
 

“dead bird hit the window.”
“huh? excuse me?”
“dead bird hit the window.”
he was right.
there it laid on
our concrete sidewalk.
poor bastard must’ve
not noticed the glass
in front of him, and
broke his neck
in the process. 
or maybe,
he saw something he wanted,
that made the risk worth it.
or maybe,
he just didn’t care,
and did it on purpose. 
I don’t know.
dead birds can’t tell truths.
what I know is, 
I picked him up,
and at least gave him the right
of lying dead on the grass.
and I hope
that when I go,
someone at least
has the decency
to do me the same.