Shapes in the Fog

He split the kindling painfully slowly into kindling matchsticks
With his hunting knife
He did hard time for killing his best friend
With his hunting knife

Mr. Fluorescent bike rider came fifteen minutes late
He always does he is reliable
Only this time
He also left fifteen minutes early

Mrs. My divorce is worse than yours
Talked about her mentally ill daughter
And son
and husband
She says she is OK though thank god!

We look at each other expectantly
Who will move next?
We thank each other for helping each other
And then we motor away

Shifting shapes elusively emerge
The fog so wistfully drapes
The sun tries to break through the mystery
Mr. Florescent biker man pulls the hill

All the Best Places

All the best places
Have attached somewhere near the door
A no photography sign
Or maybe a camera with a red X

All the best places
Are really, real places and are quiet
People dying tiny deaths inside
Victims of their own demise maybe

The minute they say no
You want it more of course
My shutter fidget twitches
Irritated iris itches

I don’t like being put on a digital diet
I want to eat my fill
To satiate my hungry eyed fear
To fill my belly brain with kicking color

I want to consume all the best places
To clean my plate proper
To leave no experiences left
For the rest of you

Peek-a-Boo

Many of us have said:
So universal to try trust
Taxis drivers will lie to us
Swollen tongues-a-searching
Today’s starry story lynching

There exist many shades of red
Babies’ birth teaches
Peek-a-boo looks a bed
We say a universal game
Round the world the same

No matter where a traveler treads
People try an easier way
Universal sloth
Cut from Darwin’s cloth
We yearn to learn leisure

Many a bed we lay our head
And dream the bright dreams
We think we think our thoughts
Falling snowflakes of desire
Flickering flames of fire

The Lord's Manger

Homeless, sleep most everywhere
Grocery carts precision packed
It’s kinda hard not to stare
Lacking lives in disregard

We love them so in our hearts
Tho’ our heads say they’re bad
We could be pushing those very carts
The fact we aren’t makes us glad

They don’t ask for help from us
Just money for the high
I shake my head and simply sigh
They sleep in the lord’s manger

Animals don’t want to live this way
Animals want food and shelter
Cold concrete’s a rock hard stay
To see this makes me sad

We all don’t choose their fate
Waiting for death to cut us hard
Because their pain is so very great
The poor men’s souls are scarred

Heaven Sent

From Me:

Michael Patrick thank you
For being such a mean kibbles man
Michael Patrick thank you
For showing us where to stand

Michael Patrick is a flamer
Who claims he isn’t gay (claims)
Michael Patrick is insaner (than most)
Just listen to what he has to say

If there is a feather-bed heaven
All sleek and blue and fat
And Michael you are in it
I know that’s not where it’s at

If people like me belong in hell so hotly
Then we will reside in love
My hell-suit will drape me just fine
AAnd your hell will be above

You can judge your angels
For flying with two left wings
And I will polish my hornies
Till I know they will truly sting

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


From Michael:


THE SOUND OF ZOMBIES

"The halls are alive with the sound of zombies
With drunk-a-logs they have sung for seventy years
The halls fill your brain with the sound of zombies
Your brain wants to explode to every drunk-a-log it hears

Your brain wants to rip the steps to shreds
which rise from the dead & explode into hell
Your stomach wants to “puke” like a zombie that flies
to an AA meeting & the higher power

To laugh at the big book when it trips
and falls over steppers on its way
To cry through the night like a bill & bob clone

You go to the meetings when your brain is "loony"
I know you will hear what you've heard before
Your heart will be cursed with the sound of zombies
And you'll vomit once more".

Is Death Like Sleeping?

Is heaven like dreaming?
Has jelly-roll jesus
Rough hewn my suite

Holy hand wrought
Before human thought
A delicious golden teat

Is life like cheating
Crawling creeping charm
Jitterbug in haste

Is death like sleeping
So very chocolate warm
Give me her to taste

Quaking nervous moments
Chiding my higher power
Purple lost and dour

Sleepiness of aches
Painful pill to take
Waking the wrong hour

The narrow hissing road
Tongue testing tear
Biting streams of thirst

Will they help you if you ask?
Will they reach you if you grasp
When you’re at your very worst

Let me close my eyes
To dive dark inside
Swimming through the heat

As I lie down beside her
Let me smell her hair
For someday we shall meet

We will kiss each other’s mouths
We will arch each other’s brows
Forever we will sleep

Big People Magic

As a scheming child
When the storm grew dangerously dark
The brazen wind shifting shamelessly
I would sneak outside
To crawl in my red wagon

For my mast I had a splendid bamboo pole
My giggling hands found it insanely suitable
A blanket served as sail
The wind whipped me wild
What fun for me!

Wagon wheels screamed and so did I
As I contemplated future mysteries
Delighted, in the knowing, that someday
I would no longer have to be childish
Confident, in learning all-powerful big-people magic

I could explore many matters of my making
Like little girls
I had cute kissed nearby neighbor Laura Hamlin
Her blonde mouth tasted oddly, salty sweet
But I liked it in some inescapable, inexplicable way

I knew these girls had something cooking
Working feverishly to figure it out
Playing Doctor to explore their nakedness
Were they an acquired taste?
What in hell did it all mean?

And now I see your appraising gaze
From your learned, limpid, lake-like eyes
Your festive hair
Your nubile twisting body
Ripe with ecstatic, esoteric girl knowledge

Now no wagon can thrill me with a scare
No furtive sail can pull me through the air
Before I was forgetfully fine, ricocheting down the hall
Now, lately, I am lacking and a little lonely
When you are not there

The mysterious sameness of powerful promises
Thoughts simmering on low heat
Halloween winds whistle near
Deliciously, you are salty sweet
As you whisper stormy kisses in my ear

The Wet World

On Haines Wharf's ancient spine
The timbers would hop and jump squealing with pain
Of various vehicles long remembered
Sea salt smell and boat motors blue smoke
Ever-greedy sea gulls gliding

In the back, in a "off limits to public” place
By the small shake shack, with opaque wizened windows
Where the boat lift motor was haphazardly lounging
With murky mysterious mixtures milling about in rusty cans
And old tools and rags of course

There was a large crack amongst the boards
And peering through this rent in the pier
A door to a watery world was opened
The information revealed varied with the tides,
The sunlight, the weather and nature's perversity

Once, a huge school of piling perch had gathered
They had bunched up in a fixed formation
Sculling in shaded standstills
Slowly, silently, they slipped along the sand
Revealing the secrets of their species

I never studied schoolwork more studiously
Spying intently how they ate
Visually separating the blue perch from the silver
Whispering to my buddy Brock
As if they could hear our impish intentions

Imagining shallow water stealth spookiness
Instead of fat contentment
It seemed like a Rockwell black-and-white print
Piscatorial perfection
Until all hell broke loose when hooked

The blurs of fat fighting furies
Stumbling, squirming, yelling to stay connected
Threading the beauty into steaming sunlight
Into our world
Of secret smiles and crayon color

Silver sides shivering with sparkling scaled stripes
Miracles of cunning creation for us to touch
A true wet wonderment
We exchanged an intimate knowledge
Until we sadly kissed them and sent them home

Fallen Skies

Fallen skies, dream me gray
My lord, my soul to pray
Fall leaves, straining sunbeams, holding fast
Honeymoon moments, seeming too good to last

Woodsmoke, football and graveyard’s bounce
Windswept darkness, character building drills
Holiday specials, prettily poised to pounce
Summer she long gone, no hot weather thrills

Seasons change for their reason
Enveloping fog as cold dead breath
Hard headed shorts wearing heathen
We rhyme away time for winter’s death

All hail the stinging hail!
Swirling leaves with lightning pepper
The morning dog walk would try a leper
Remember us spring and do not fail!

My Words are too Little

As I lay in bed I miss you

I think of all the things you bring to my life
Sometimes I don’t feel like I can express it
So I say I love you
And hope for the best

So much warmth
And humor and closeness and intimacy
When you left the show was still on

I thought about watching it
But is seemed weird without you

Things like movies don’t seem like movies anymore
Unless I can share them with you
Sometimes I am mad

I didn’t meet you earlier
We most likely would have a couple kids now

But if a 25 year old You was injected into the life of a 33 year old Me
We would still be drinking
And most likely get divorced and hate each other
Although it would seem awful hard to hate you

Maybe you have come along at the perfect time
Maybe it was all planned by God
I am just really glad it happened
And I wish I could tell you how glad

But I can’t my words are too little
And so I try and show you many different ways
And tell you I love you
And hope for the best