Weekend Warrior
Head’s hot, now that the hurricane's over.
Thoughts cancel themselves for the after-
noon. Don't hold my calls for next Monday.
Oblique pain grows just behind my forehead,
and I'm back to waiting for another event
to collect untidy nerves into a bundle again.
We leave a lot locked up in our safe houses.
Robbers look for valuable sentences and find
nothing but aphoristic trinkets, stolen goods
purchased at a high school football game along-
side Cokes and hot dogs. Pain in the gut isn't
indigestion. It's fourth down for Holy Rollers,
penalized for movement on their offensive line.
Veteran
Gathered spread, to feel all white. On those smooth bikes,
on anti-depressants, each child produces mood in a dark-
room. Maybe you couldn't obtain those gross products
or the silver mountains, but with your interest the bubble
burst, distinguishing its short life in a deep happy lack.
You wear a black baseball cap, black gloves, and a blank
disposition; compare resumés with your winsome sweet.
If the body in your trunk begins to struggle, speak foreign
tongues with just prejudice. Those calls you received last
night from the credit-card company will be used against
you without verifying the presence of Atlantis off the coast
of Cyprus -- someone's gonna do it. When you mentioned
to her that you now suffer from hypertension, she achieved
a certain redness not seen since the end of your last inva-
sive surgery: there was this peculiar civil war in your hair.
Fat Chance
Look back. It's not a never-has-been,
or at the desk, the conversation reeks
of forgotten textbooks. Out, the air
is dark with broken promises and aim-
less wonders, and rain slows to halt
on the window sill with cat in tow.
Once we could know it, history's angel
that provided what located its enemy
at the end, or so computers determine
what's good for you is good for me,
and let's all vote on TV, where I've
forgotten my shoes and slammed it,
not once, but three, the trinity of sad
dilemmas. Public revolt against media,
up in here. Up in here is Texas, America,
or just boondocks waiting for clippers.
I hid the boxcutters well, and mixed
cake from a greasy silver spooning.
If hate is in the icing, it's better going
down with a carbonated beverage
manufactured in some sick factory.
Campus security statistics interpret
“just having fun” as akin to murder,
and you're underaged and drinking.
Unmasking is Crucial
Assume the groups talk in sun-contracted sign language,
so demonstrated by passable hand gestures and scars.
Workers in retro uniforms wave good-bye with no threat
of returning tomorrow. The chase is on for a stolen ATM.
Bullet casings litter the roadside where suspects were
comprehended. Bank robbers don't pay any income tax.
Recognize that old pictures sometimes limp out of drawers
of their own accord, but it's absurd to believe that afterlives
can be captured in a filtered lens, a disposable image bled
by the moon's tidal pull. Sincerely, seek a new combination.
Depress. We have landed on ash; spit its sweetnesses dry.
No, accept view. Now, a new pox upon your soul, my friend.
Hopping
Headcase, he barges dark squares. Winter wrings
an engineer's ladder. Mauled whistle. You heard
they lost his leg there among the tattoo forest.
Appeal to those who could've been pretenders.
There's steam to be collected near the rails.
Itch around the shiniest ring. In midnight, be
at one with counted blessings, those flashlights
in the yard. There's enough jerky for both of us.
Best wishes to the dropout, the one with gold
teeth and dreads. Steeltoed, you connect dots.
