Desert Rat Haiku #2

Bottom of the glass
Something seems to be stirring:
Sudden memory.

Some Days

Some days the skies
Hover too closely
Pressing away our breath

And all we lovers
Huddle close together
In the clouds’ shadows

And invoke that old sun
That’s never completely failed
To brighten and lighten some way

Out of whatever darkness
Deepening into the hours that
We knew and feared and found

Pineapples

Stumbling, stuttering, vacant and lost,
The old man with the Billy-goat beard
And the 15-gallon straw cowboy hat
Cut through the crowd of consumers
At the Wichita shopping mall
Like a machete through a pineapple
In an old South Seas survival film,
One that the old man had seen often
As a child at the now-closed cinema
Downtown by the Harley dealer,
Where one of the dudes has a similar beard
And a fondness for blades and forbidden fruit,
Though pineapple is forbidden only by fools
Who’ve never been to the Oahu roadside stands
Where the old man with the beard and hat
Used to take his girlfriend for a treat
After a long day of snorkeling and making love
Before his Naval hitch ended and she stayed
And he returned home to the aircraft plant
And his high school sweetie who’d broken his heart,
That same sweetie who died giving birth
To a daughter who died later that day,
And he started in with pineapple juice and rum
But soon shucked all pretense and decorum
And took to the thick strong wine
Straight from the brown bagged bottle
Until he couldn’t keep anything in one piece
And bit by jagged bit he burst apart
Though that bursting took twenty years
And this morning he went to the mall
For no reason, no reason at all,
And walked its sweetly-tiled length
Until the security guards ran him out at closing
And he sat down in the empty parking lot
And watched the bright moon over Wichita
Turn slowly to the ripest of pineapples.

Desert Rat Haiku #1

Stars and tequila
Both fill my spirit tonight—
They twinkle, they shoot.

Accident at the Wishbone, 1979

When you pour hot
deep fryer grease
On your arm
You get your attention.
Your skin ripples
Like bubble wrap
Popping into pain.
Your best friend
Drives you
To the local E.R.
For your very first
Shot of morphine.
That night,
After Wild Turkey
And a couple of pills
You drowse through
The football game
Take off your bandages
And let your scalded arm
Scat through the sudden,
Impromptu party.

It was May. It was 1978.

Our river ran roughly that day,
Carrying our canoe over the rocks
That lay just under the water’s loam.

You’d wanted to stay home,
You felt feverish, foolish, and weak,
But it was my twentieth birthday.

So we went down the river that May,
The river high and wild, spring-swollen
And flowing very like our young lives.

What the river takes the river gives.
We finally floated stable under the stars,
Pulled up on a sandbar, bedded down,

And watched lightning lick the town
We knew lay over the knobby hills.
We smoked—innocently—a joint.

Back then nothing really had a point.
Today, we’re all angles, nothing but.
We’ve lost a lot, but mostly our flow,

That led us one wet May to go
Down our river very together, yet
Even then beginning our slow drifting.

A Little Ditty for Norman Vincent Peale

Try again.
When all else
fails, try a-
gain and a-
gain. Then you’ll
learn the truth:
when all else
fails, fails, fails,
so will you.

Minuet in a Minor Key

Sound familiar?
This sad music
Means so little

To most of us,
Who guess quite wrong
Most of the time.

You hum that tune
So awkwardly
I want to hush

You forever.
A terrible thought,
That I could kill,

That you could die.
We could, you know.
Sound familiar?

Playing Doctor

Nothing changes, but everything does,
And the sky flies away every night.
We circle each other tentatively
Before crashing together at first light.

You awkwardly smoke, and I crave your fire,
Wanting to enter you like a disease,
Unseen, unfelt until my work is done,
And your fever burns brightly and higher,

I’m like a virus seeping through your veins,
Sweeping aside corpuscle confetti
But also obliterating your pains.
Let me infect you. Come on, Hon. Let me.

Nightmare #1

The charismatic alcoholic
Sees faces in the bathroom wall:
Monstrous, looming visages,
All teeth and bulbous cheeks,
When he crouches on the toilet
Late at night, too drunk to read
And too drunk to stand,
Sitting like a woman,
And he hears his dead father
(who may be on the wall)
Railing at the hospice nurse,
“Goddamnit, I’m a man!
I won’t sit down to piss!”
And he sees another face,
Briefly young and handsome,
Phase slowly to bloat and sag,
And he remembers that
He needs another drink,
Just one more before bed,
Where he’ll lie on his back
And stare at the textured faces
Falling dizzily down upon him.

Dava

A baby’s toddled
Into our house
Blonde curly locks
And stubby legs

She smiles lemons
Fragrant oranges
Traces of sea salt
And two new teeth

She’s being weaned
And behaves badly
A cyclone of sorrow
Flung on our floor

We love her screams
Laugh at her tantrum
Because she’s someone
Else’s unhappy baby

When she departs
In her father’s arms
Our eyes waltz in time
Our babies now drive

Flight of the Last Bat, 2034

Sonaring into the soft night,
The last bat sails
From lonely upside-down
Onto a dark, quivering branch
Battered by a deepening breeze.
She receives no reply to her pings,
Audio hieroglyphics fading to silence
Throughout a lengthening moment.

Populist #1

Hey man,
Where you been?
And what’s up
With that sign?
You say Obama’s
A socialist?
Shit, I thought
He was from Chicago.
Man, I don’t know
Where you get your info,
But if I’m a red
For wanting folks
To see a doctor
Without going broke,
For desiring
A cleaner, greener scene,
For wishing our boys
And girls back from Iraq,
And school for them
When they get home,
Then, hell yeah, I’m red,
Red as central Oklahoma dirt,
Dirt that clung to Woody’s boots
When he sang (they
Called him red, too)
“This Land is Your Land.”
So it is.
And mine,
My red brother,
My sweet sister so rose.

Kudzu #15

Woke up to thunder
Far away in the southwest
Sad, lingering dreams

In a Yellow T-Shirt Holding Dante (for Kris Manasco)

So I saw your picture today
In an old photo album,
Red hair falling around you
Like the licking flames
Of a house burning down.
You held your green iguana
And it flicked its slim tongue
At the camera, and you smiled
A smile that’s lasted ‘til now.

Kudzu #14

Late morning sunshine
Bearing no real shoulder heat—
Autumn’s falling fast.

Widsom Poet #13

My mind failed today
But the river kept moving
Washing away fear

What did Kierkegaard Know?

And the Lord God moved
On the face of the waters
And my boat is rocking still
Riding the random waves
Of a story that never ends
Or does it
Ah that’s the question
And you and I never know
Never know never know

Spaceship No. 2

At first
They expected worst
The gnaw of hunger the throb of thirst
They swore they were cursed
Then burst

Spaceship #1

Your night
Isn’t like my night
Except regarding the lack of light
Darkness isn’t right
No sight

Apolitical

The president made a speech tonight
And all the markets trembled
In anticipation of most dreaded change

Me, I made myself a cocktail
Watched the night swallow the day
Along the west horizon

I listened to the oratory
And it was very good, but
my cocktail—and the night—were better

Nordic

When the wind first whispers winter
Doesn’t your skin crinkle with joy?

The dog days lie under the porch
Panting into their shadows.

Leaves fall freely into your pool
And you skim them absent-mindedly.

Let others have their flowers and heat.
All you ask, and ever will, is the chill.

Labor Day

No massed marchers down these streets today—
Squirrels and birds the only pedestrians.

Celebrated by moving furniture—
And scrubbing an obstinate counter.

Not a single phone call all day—
Instead making love at 3 p.m.

Tomorrow reality returns—
Those in power hold all the cards.

But I still have my ace to play—
Memory of one almost-perfect day.

Illinois River Blues

Do you remember the summer of ‘79
When we floated the river weekly
With our trash bags and contraband beer
Brown as the bark on the dark submerged trees
And all the women had flat bellies and tans
And we were all young and very high
So even the maggots in the trashcans
We had to empty almost daily
Didn’t discourage us—much?
The crazy old man named Glen
Managed us with a gleam in his eyes
And a slingshot in his pocket
With which he brought down a dozen squirrels
In the parking lot where my lonely Ford lounged
Waiting for the end of the day.

Haiku for J.K.

Where’s Jack Kerouac
When we need his speed and tears?
Silent forty years.

Labor Day 2009

After so many plains
Mountains surprise
Rolling green bulk
Under smaller sky
Our car rolls on
Into a sudden fog
Careful on the curves
We’ve miles to drive
Until the morning

Then I Turned Off the Phone

Something sad on the radio
Something bad on the news
Something white on a dark shirt
Something quite out of place
Something missing a piece
Something hissing downstairs
Something blue in your eyes
Something new has been born

Wow! You Really Meant It

Under the curve another curve
And on and on
Light bending down
Veritable rainbow bridge of swerve.

Reality is a construct
And on and on
Minds bending down
The only player left was Brecht

What if all you needed was love
And on and on
Hearts bending down
I came to push you came to shove

Nuit Mauvaise

Slowly, old nighttime slithered in,
Black tail filled to the tip with stars,
Tight breeze the tongue with bitter brogue
Cursing the failing, falling light
Haloing our hollow shadows.
You started to stutter a prayer
But forgot what followed “Father…”
Damned, we cling to our shared darkness.