A Fine Anger

I watched a boy crush
bird skulls with an angry, stolen
hammer all day long.
He was producing
a fine white powder. I was jealous
not to have a portable pestle and mortar
to continue his work. I knew
that I could grind throughout my lifetime
never getting the powder fine enough. Never
excising the anger.

Years later I stumble into a familiar cult worship
grinding and moaning with other robed members
names of: parents, siblings, bullies, teachers,
politicians, lovers and car salesman.
While the enigmatic leader, the young boy
grown, rattles fresh bird skulls
repeating:
Forgive us our trespasses as we steadily
grind those who trespass against us.

Eventually I will be the bones ground
by my unknown children or the women
I have not yet mistreated.
Yet I should be so lucky to survive,
as even grindings -- pure
emotions. Most likely
my bones will never snap
and release all knowledge and pressure.
My grave will never be touched, body
never exhumed. We are all simply left
to be contained.

Unexpected Natural Events

This is a reconstructed and expanded version of An Uphill Espresso Machine.

I.
We wake up one morning
to bright red bombs
dripping from trip wires
in our unnatural garden.

I feel like wizards harvesting
these rich red orbs, called
to grow from the earth.
You put one between
the sun and your eye and I
take the time to breathe
you in. I only manage half
and you are shifting. My wheels
turn too fast and you come around
to stop the spokes for a second.

II.
I'm wearing two pairs of socks.
It's January.
I'm waiting for you
to wake up. In love,
I tell the pink lawn chair
that you'll sit in.

The weather in the paper
is describing systems to me.
They move like Norse gods unable
to care for anyone below. My
eyes, like ears, hear the thunder
shudder from the paper. Storms
are an awful thing to stare into.

III.
Photo albums and scrapbooks
are mushing together in rain-
drenched piles on the lawn.
The upstairs window I javelined
them through is jagged, unsafe.

When my storm passes I find you
near a pile of broken plates, settling.
The dark gray is evaporating but we brought
back a monsoon from an unknown argument.
Some unpleasant emotional travel stuck
us with this rainstorm illness. Made it to cling
on our genes, unavoidable. When I kiss you
anymore it is a bright red bomb. Tomatoes
under the sink call me to pulp them
and rub them into your skin. I know your mind
is fixated on a similar cure.

Late Night Linkage

Here is a bitchin' bit of verse from my instructor at the Wash U Summer Writer's Insitute.

Poem

Check it out. She's a wonderful poet and a fantastic teacher.

Eruditio Et Religio

Academic Excellence & Spiritual Vitality
-Asbury College Mission Statement

The first time that the bells rang for class there was a hard
lump of fat in my chest. It had no sails to travel my gastro-intestinal
system. It just sat, shaking as I did when my name was
called. Before the fat rose back as bile I knew
only a few things. I knew that happiness
was a product of correct identification of self and I knew the way
to the land of milk and honey was sure to come
unobscured. The orientation seemed to make it clear,
had promised, that I would be handed a useful mask in August.
Instead, I was left holding an empty
glass and told that the Savior would fill it up.
Left to deal with an army of entertainers, gripping
each other's shoulders for the apocalypse, I collapsed.
I found it impossible to rise up on wings like eagles
and other such, simple things.

We were born to sin.
We were born to sin.
- The Thermals, 'A Pillar of Salt'

The devil inside of me, who I know of course,
did not understand the posted quarantine procedures. The notes
blatantly handed over and the glares were even more baffling.
The somehow sinful sweating and the clothes piled on top of
clothes made me consider the college a sauna. Something
was about to explode and I wanted to bathe in that release.
My ivory skin squirmed and my clammy body
needed something that no one would acknowledge. Biology
officially told me to cut the dark seed out. My brain function
fell and I was made to go down the evolutionary chain just as
it was revealed to me.

God said you can do what you want Abe but
Next time you see me comin' you better run.
- Bob Dylan, 'Highway 61 Revisited'

When I run naked out in the sun I do not
want to feel my wrists and ears pulled.
I fear voices will be raised over my failure
to bask in rigid moral guidelines painted as:
the structure I'd always needed.
I will always plead the fifth and have grown
overly accustomed to doing so. One day in
line for meat loaf I felt a vengeful finger poised
behind my back, boring into my shoulder blade.
Before it tore my tissue and dug for my iniquities
I raised my hands and screamed
the Lord's Prayer, scattering my silverware. I headed straight
for the exit, tearing off my clothes as I went.

So tell me oh Lord, am I the Antichrist?
- Arcade Fire, '(Antichrist Television Blues)'

I took every wrong turn highlighted and trespassed
in every dangerous hobby. I made myself a symbol
for ashamed mothers. But the way I slept at night
was unsteady. Guilt would try to pour out of my eyes
in looks I gave during worship services. So I would squint
like a lemon drop flood had come on and I was not going
to march with the Lord that day. Still, in daily thought
I tried to construct bomb shelters for the big hurt
that I knew was coming. They always strike sinners
like me in the center of the tract. Great gardens
where disciples idly slept grew from just the sweat
in my palms and finger webs.

Jesus is just a Spanish boy's name.
How come one man got so much fame?
And to any me, it's pointless to anybody
that doesn't have faith.
Give me the cloth and I'll wipe my face.
- Frightened Rabbit, 'Head Rolls Off'

On Sunday Morning now I commune with Stevens
and do not wake. I have crossed the Red Sea and
left it dry behind me. The salt collected and I brazenly
ringed a margarita glass. Yet everything I have ever really done
was done behind a safety net or in simply thinking
dangerous thoughts. I have no need to wear a polished face
on campus. The only trail I left was one too clean and collegiate
for any self-respecting contemporary I hoped for. Dawkins
was not at my door with his car running in the yard. I keep my
headphones on, dodging fire and brimstone deftly. I hope for
a chariot to come down, right my human wrongs, and fly me
first class to a university I can believe in.

The Conversation

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?

-T.S. Eliot 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'

Did I even check to see if that
bookstore had an anarchy section?
I didn't. I just bought another book
about special post-graduates.

Did I buy something at the Wal-Mart
yesterday? I bought a two-liter
of Coke and some white flip-flops.

Did I punch another cop
last night? Oh. I have
never done that. It was Veronica
or Dave. Somebody who did what
they said until they disappeared.

Then what did I do last night? Um.
After work, I surfed channels with a bottle
of orange juice in my hand. I fell
asleep to a washcloth infomercial.
Woke up slowly, wiped drool
from my disgusting face and took a
long, deliberate swig from the warm bottle.

Do I really manage a hot-dog place in
a medium sized, middle America mall?
I'd work anywhere to pay the looming
rent and rid my life
of roaches and diseases.

How would a doctor diagnose me
now? I am a very tired anarchist. Too
tired to move the planet from its course,
at last.

Did I once consider myself a radical
Atlas figure in one community of
disaffected, scabbed, and angry kids?
(laughter)

Basement Feeders

Hung on the shop wall, forest green finish, pulled down
to howl and buck. Power chords
chugging through stations in my arms.
Ringing out such sweet, unnatural tremors.
We left it there, finger printed, our hair hung
low, whispering, and high-fiving.
Both gave more furtive glances
back than we had agreed on.

Clerk, his sticker plastered counter, hair hung lowest,
nodded at us in a righteous agreement.
Maybe only to some song stuck hammering
his head. He knew we weren't fit
to sit or slay on the throne. But we pulsed
with confident waves gathered from overblown
basement amplifiers and a diet of reverb
and juicy, full feedback. We had listened closely,
hovering and swaying until our eardrums
were taut and our bodies lean copies of magazine
pages, charts, and chord books.

There came a day, after climbing mountains of torn
tickets and half eaten popcorn buckets. The paycheck,
first of the first, evened up my eyes with easy divinity.
A host of Hendrix torpedoed my junker
to dangerous velocities. But we clung to vinyl seat-edges.
There, hands caked around the shining, strung trophy
the register released our victory and we scurry
to my basement, hungry to hum along.

Two Class Poems

Ed in Dark Blue and Khakis

Says the same sentences everyday
too-close static rings from the cone as:
"It is currently 8:55. The Goodwill
will be closing in five minutes. Please
bring your purchases to the front of the store."

Ears unclench and a wild shuffle in housewares
moves to men's jeans and abates
he sits back and crams his hand
into the greasy Dorito pit, feeding
his fingers with the last morsels

Fred, maybe late, brings the key
"Let's go." A slack parade follows to:
a hollow switch flick lock clicks
motorcycle roars and one cricket
with timpani, leads to brave blacktop

At home in a potato salad cage
head pats and easy math flash cards
stairs lead to what horrible offense
let the oppressors wash their own ears!
as for him he shall remain untouched

In solemnity's grasp he is stuffed, a man, in flannel
poured into a goose-ridden pillow
for one last night his head touches
a place where a map was constructed
carefully by collectible, glow-in-the-dark light

A door is creaked and cracked as he slips
down the slope towards the night
which is the forest, of course the map
so carefully outlined that part for him
the man descending into the oaks

He runs for they will come with keys
to carve new cleanings, special nouns for him
his oversized agility, trips when he goes to turn
a slow struggle, he yells in defense: "It is currently 8:55..."
Fred's flashlight finds him finishing his sentences

-----------------------------------------------------------

Friends' First Place

From, I heard they were living in Livingston
To, Nice place, hard as hell to find
Sauntering in, wondering what to say
So overly positive of everything in sight

The grody carpet with ground in
Stains on countertops, dish piles
Piles of laundry from the slim closet
Fifty or so disposable ashtrays tossed
Around and over, cradling Camel smell
So dense my temple tenses
But bottles and cans crack open easy
Alleviate smells with laughed half words
History so inconsequential, a novella of experiences
Tossed around, passed down 'till passed out

Their garden grows, harvests healthy spinach
As my envy, both put in Ziplocs and stored

A quick tour of their bedroom, total privacy, a liberty
Pictures of the Dalai Lama and hanging
The Communist Flag with irony; bookshelves
Bursting with what we will absorb
The drywall is magic, front door blessed
With a power I idly yearn for
To hold myself up, straight-backed

They explain plans for a grand, messy mural
As I wander, wondering what to learn
To build a better expression of growth
I think about wood floors, bean-
bags, giant television worship stations

Suddenly their cat paws a couple empties
In the recycling and as we look
He is, all at once, my wild-eyed cat

Little Stories

I will float you along
With little stories
Made up instances
Hand shake hiccups
Worn out tires
Torn down Tie Barns

Work ethic
Political persona
Shaving sides
Squeezing down doorways

Piggly Wiggly
closed at 6
today because
there was a
fire that i
think i started
it all began
when i shaved
hadn't for
awhile but
i might be
a werewolf
now or
something
waiting on
the tests
but I need
bread to take
the pills just
to get something
down and

yeah
I shouldn't have burned down the Piggly Wiggly