Today I saw my head on a silver plate.
Today is the kind of day for running away.

And slamming your forks
into the drywall,
stacking the plates in
an order to fall.

Projecting, prongs embedded,
we hang our coats
from the marks we've made
-shells of men shot dead-
and walk out the door,

our ghosts hung on the wall.

Throw spaghetti, burn out bulbs
then leave a few spares
for the inspectors to find.
let them see the damage clearly;
provide them with light.

Make the mess and leave it
observable. run away but
in good conscience. take
this energy you find
between 10 and 11 a.m.
and fly; sprout wings
and leave through the window.

i beg you, do not continue.

O Beautiful, For City Streets

I am interested in all of this shouting
because when has this happened
in the last hundred years?

When has America danced?
When have we poured
into the streets, over the barricades--
and not for AIDS protests, or national debt--
but national pride?

Honestly I'm happy to
see the city-slicker turn-coat commie-pinkos
dance and shout and cry
"this is America giving a shit!"

Think of the art: all the
joyous, beautiful art which will pour
perhaps a bit too percipitously--
a little too like pent up streams and dams burst forth--
but at least not bitter wounds and bile ducts bursting.

The red midwest has always been
limpid, devoid of expression, growing
grain and old as the years pass. Give me
blue Chicago in the night, wailing it's love

to the reverberate Hilton's. Think of it
like sex, a massage, the Cubs winning the World-Series,
releasing the toxins of the pent up Northeast
into the air, dispersing hatred, breeding love.

Let the farms and the countryside sulk,
for tonight I indulge the City's rejoicing
--and pray--
only that we touch not the other extreme
but that magnanimity may overtake us all.

Break

Break
a dollar into four
pennies, five
nickles, six
dimes and the interest
owed.

Break
a silence into yes
or no, or i don't
know! Cast a stone
into a chasm
hear the echo
break and shatter.

Break
a habit like a stick
of sycamore wood dried
five years in your
neighbor's yard
waiting for your hands
to come and sever
without remorse.

Break
a promise into a distrust
that lingers in the hallways
rattles in the teacups,
settles in the corners
and seeps into the bedsheets.

Break
a finger playing ice hockey
with your neighbor of ten
years, the first time knowing
anything of him or what he
loved. Say something
besides "Shit!"; you know him
not well enough to swear.

Break
a heart into the answer
that it never wanted you
to hear: the season's changing
color; I have to move be-
fore winter's here.

Can't change human nature

Look, when you talk
about the sub-prime
petticoat crisis like
it's real, you scare the neighbors.

I know you're losing
thousands a month and that
Burlington Coat Factory
just filed for
government bailout
but try to keep your voice
down, ok?

And really, how could
the fashionistas be so foolish
as to think that they could change
immutable human thresholds
of preference and opinion?
You can't force fashion trends
on the masses,
dearie.

Beat.

...Especially not 18th century
Paddington Bear type relics, really.

Now where did I put my Crocs?
I'm going out for a latte.

In a tight dress loosely fit

A girl in a tight dress
passed me swiftly in the hallway
underneath my office building.

Her dress was taught, lithe yet
loose; loose enough that I could've
torn it from her with a flick--
and made me want to.

?

Some things communicate with swifturgentsilentmotionthings--
and I wish we all heard such language
daily.

Which begs the questions:
Am I the only one
who picks up radio signals from your heart?
Who detects the faintest wiff of your distress...
...
Am I?

?

Back to the dress,
which I'd like to tear from you with a flick:
can you hear it snatching, falling,

cascading; and you: gasping, your breath
catching, and then relieved? can you feel the air chill
and then, my arms, warm?

?

Can the world dissolve with a harsh action?
Can a rough twist to make it crack and break?
Can we drop all work, and, please(?), proceed to play?

I am full of memories
of the recent hallway
I wish I knew your name.

Apology

'Many hate God having only seen his backside,
Caught him on the off day, sunglasses on, riding the train to work in a haze,
rain outside, him powerless to affect.'

--for a girl, disaffected.

I owe you an apology,
one big fat stinking reeking apology,
a pile of rubbish I pulled from my old house
to show you that I’d torn down my walls.

I want you to see me sitting here
perched atop that landfill of my old life
picking refuse from the dirty heap, smiling deeply,
banana peels for crowns and bracelets.

I want you to take a deep breath,
and know that I am well, cascading against my own past,
like a waterfall over rocks it once was,
and when you hear the sound, rejoice,

for I am found.

Weather Forcast

Prologue:

Pretty girls flock together
For protection from the slightest weather
And act as if its common sense
That everyone worries about bad men

Like fingernails or body hair
Pedicures and petty things
Every little detail counts
Every inch and every ounce

Act 1.

I’ve seen pretty girls come and go
And know one thing

  They never stay.

Like the weather of a summer day
They storm from thunder straight to rain
Then hurricane on back again, and sand storm
into every drain.

Whirlwind and dust cloud commeth,
Quiet days and haze that buzzeth.
Many different types of weather
pass for sane and sand us to a hue

so strange and rough we oft do think
it normal, but horrible is the color
and the taste, of hesitating, and of waste.
Like the changing of the temperature

  The view is sure to fluctuate.

Act 2.

Don’t stand, don’t follow,
Don’t move with the changing seasons
Don’t leave your padded seat to chase the view on the veranda

Take up your cross and walk
Not towards the setting sun or rain
But stand instead and talk
Of the weather and of coming pain.

Epilogue:

All storms will deviate, dissipate and clear to nothing
All suns will sublimate, dissolve and disconstrue their wanting.