"Roadside Watchman"

Discounted as a deaf-mute witness

to the changing flow of time

I sat back to watch invading armies

clad in colors of victory and pride

retreat after mere centuries of tenuous rule.

Moss-covered and rounded

by Mother Nature’s humbler forces,

epochs pass as days as I witness

mankind’s uproarious notions

and attempts at unmitigated domination.

Amused by the frivolities of fleshly desire,

I stood sentry as my brethren were crushed

to make the Via Appia and were carried

in the cracks of wagon wheels to

continue our vigil in foreign climes.  

As Father Time’s blade whittled away,

I passed the days contemplating the importance

of mysterious words like “Exxon” and “Colgate”

and waited to be kicked like a bumbling drunk

to amuse a child playing railroad cop.

"Shattered Perfection"

All I want to say is “Fuck You!” as you stand there,

swaddled in your rice paper thin perfection

looking at me with your syrupy, sympathetic grin.

God, how I’d love to rip away the clever plumage

and expose the gray inner you. Shoving feathers up your

ass doesn’t make you a parrot, you know.

Your attitude grates upon my nerves like a modernist cantata—

all dissonant chords and broken phrases.

You are the lamb—a simple, standard symbol.

I am Blake’s Tyger—both terrible and defiant.

I pity you, trapped in your mealy-mouthed mediocrity

waiting for nothing.

Am I bitter, envious, insane? I hope so—

for hunger brings about the blood red revolution

and the smell of fire upon the wind.

Wake and see

the tiara you pinned to your fucking forehead is tarnished.

Like the phoenix, I will rise from painful recreation

and leave you in the glory of my ashes.

Once I coveted your image, but now I look upon myself

in the reflective shards of your shattered perfection.

"Silent Yellow Musings"

Pain forces us to staple open
the lids of our drowsy eyes,
carry yellow banana bunches to Buddha
in our never-ending scavenger hunt for joy.

We are all slurping up our little puddles
of spilled happiness from life’s polished bar,
counteracting the occasional disappointment
or the seventh rabies shot in the abdomen.

For life is a wild animal that will leave you
alone only if you walk past. Should you dare to stare,
attempt to garner its submission, you end up
chewed and mangled.

And for my scars I’ve learned
a few important things. Foxhunting is only sport
for the dogs, only a mime is truly given voice,
and if life was supposed to be all sunshine
and gummy bears, we wouldn’t have Zoloft.

"Southern Yarns"

The town elders, holding court

on Hugh’s dingy front porch

always manage to fit in a story

about the flood of ’38 and how

it changed the course of the Mississippi.

Drinking glass-necked bottles of

Coca-Cola pulled deep from the ice,

Leonard suddenly remembers how

he counted the fish swimming

under his cabin instead of sheep.

Between calculated domino moves

J.W. recalls playing pirates

with his brother Boyce and their

notion of discovering Davy Jones’ Locker

in a flooded cotton field.

After dark, Mason jars of moonshine

make their rounds.  Horace tells of

his winter discovery of the Turtledoves

frozen to the sodden chapel floor, and how he

set them free with his grandfather’s penknife.

Every old man who comes by

throws his story on the fire

of remembrance in a vain attempt

to stave off the oncoming darkness

that eventually claims us all.

"The Scream"

As I lay staring at the cold stars

I felt the whiskey induced scream

clawing at my throat.

Frustration and rage, mixed like a Molotov cocktail,

threatened to scald my tangled brain

as they erupted from my lungs in a shriek

that was half agony

and half orgasm.

Tearing me in two as it was released.

Drained. I lay here still

speaking to the void in a hoarse whisper

under the savage sky.

"Tiny Piece of You"

In my mind, the tiny piece of you

is a hook left to snag memory’s elbow

and pull threads from my fabric.

I forget to remember, put on a new costume

and you make your cameo,

ruining my night at the ball.

How long will it take me to learn

that tear is love, ripping calluses

so my heart can weep again?

“Trod By Unknowing Feet”

Alone. I stand gazing at your silhouette.

Black on yellow in a far away portal.

My heart beats wildly in rhythm with the pulse in my head.

I spend my drunken, wasted youth

beneath this shadowy image of you.

I burn…

You are the subject, the object, of my desires.

My observations of you give me life,

A reason to breathe, a reason to wake

and sleep.

I obsess. I love. And I hate my need…

as I stand here, lost, beneath your

unknowing feet.