Second Life

they packed the town into a big box
and shipped it to southeast ohio
they packed bryan adams into a box
and shipped it to southeast asia
they packed the baby into a box
and shipped it to madonna

drawn up with a silver pen
the EPZs jurisdiction
the cease fires declaration
and the stockyards reopen for business

the hundred thousand leaves shrouding
the white house roar
like a crowd, like a nation
a few man's hands
shake that sound
like snake's tails rattling
into a megaphone

the heavy metal band pleads self-defense
they just play music. that's all they do
they're not protesting
except in a vague way
against everything, they're not sure what
perhaps specifically the chaotic volume
of their early adolesence

a child bent around a pen
is told to count the lima beans again
he counted too fast
a snarling dragon pulled up
and he rode, logically concluding
in a sorcerer's castle's broad construct
of speedy fretwork and overbearing tablature

the card game made us
wizards, frankly, and we enjoyed it
more than being what we were
I throw the dice and the king's head
tumbles with them into a basket

a burmese girl sews the silhouette
of a man performing a feat
not meant for man
into the side of a shoe
that will wing you to heaven
if heaven is as high
as a slam dunk. boys
in a park joust styrofoam swords
and a hand is folded
behind the back to signify its heroic
loss in battle. it is regrown momentarily
to dunk a chicken mcnugget
boys in another park no longer
kill each other for the shoes
they stand and admire and compliment
I don't know what's going on in the ghetto
jay z is in a booth with warren buffett
and jerry seinfeld at daniel

they are saving the galaxy
the only one we have to save
which nobody lives in anymore
the forest is off in endor
the snow belongs to hoth

a boy fights a war
on his television set
in an afghan marketplace

in hd and widescreen
it's practically photorealisitic
the guns sound authentic
coming in 5.1 digital surround
from every direction

another boy fights a similar looking war
in an afghan marketplace
he wishes it did not look so real

the internet, our new planet

i shut the computer down
404: File Not Found

Two Friends Sit

Two friends sit on
the hood of a
Pontiac. A silence
comes over
them
unexpectedly.

The blue
expanse of
night has knocked
them into
wonder.
Stars revolve
above a
dark brush of
pines.

Two
friends creating
silence
together.

Nothing
needs to be
said.

They hit
the road carrying
the silence
between them
a load
too heavy for
one.

Strange Mileage

Plenty of denim jackets in flight.
The day is dim and creamed of clouds.
The rain out-raced our morning light
And left us fast and cheap, nurtured loud.
New York City is a jump away.
Similar beards and throttling seats wait there.
The espresso shot and call it a day.
Someone blew a bomb in Boston and we started to care.
Our hearts went out, our eyes went in.
Twitters twatted, Facebooks faced down, booked.
Everybody reiterated the sin.
I'm here to look after the overlooked.
Los Angeles is nothing like my dreams.
Nothing ever looks the way it does in dreams.
Life is nothing like it seems.
You can have a great time if you stop picking at your own seams.
You are everything like you seem.

Love Song Love

The flowers: Where have they been?
I've excluded them. The rose is falling,
sogged with too much rain.
You did not need to cry that much.
I'm hiking up the ridge again
this time with a new flame,
a recovering alcoholic who sends me
an unusual amount of text messages.
When she talks she sounds like me.
Her eyes are owls.
They have wide, hooting pupils
constantly asking "Who?"
When I first saw her she was hidden
in her own arms and a rambling purple scarf.
I did love her then.

I don't love her now.

It's a peculiar feeling
not being a fool for a beautiful girl
who's agreed to go on a date with me.
It's not a feeling at all.
The old feelings were rotten.
Was love one of them?
Love was all of them.
Rotten, possessed love.
Downtrodden, obsessed love.
Forgotten, confessed love.
Love song love.
Luther Vandross love.
Bing Crosby love.
The real stuff. The stuff that turns
you into a desperate, hurtin' man.
I try not to feel it anymore.
I am successful and
am better off because of it.
The bud spills from the stalk
as blood tumbling from a bullethole.
The sun is high and it is breaking
the wild cucullia into crisp, dry weeds.
The sun is killing the grass.
It does not mean to.
It only wants to watch.
It watches too closely.
The grass dies.

feel it all the way

them california roads
where the steel river flows
they just don't reach far enough for me
each day it's increasingly clear
I gotta get the hell outta here
I just wasn't made to live in los feliz

the kiss you left behind
is branded on my mind
no ocean's worth of tide'll wash it away
the absence of your words
is all I've ever heard
there's a tape stuck in the deck that just won't play

and I feel it all the way
feel it all the way
through the long ride home

this redundant smiling sun
is not fooling anyone
it just ain't got a cloud to hide behind
I wish it'd go away
find another song to play
your tan's the only proof it ever shined

the same day repeats itself
in this air-conditioned hell
I think too much for anybody's good
I been waiting for your call
I waited much too long
longer than any normal person would

I feel it all the way
I feel it all the way
through the long ride home

the stars are trapped
in a blazing light
I'm racing back
to a midwest night

the same day repeats itself
in this air-conditioned hell
I think too much for anybody's good
I been waiting for your call
I waited much too long
longer than any normal person would


I feel it all the way
I feel it all the way
through the long ride home

Marfa Lights

West Texas Breakfast wakes us.
The road rides the land, its hills,
over the old dinosaur shells.
The universe was made
to become aware of itself
and then die. Dinos proved incapable
so God blew them to smithereens
and passed the tasks to us,
the gunbarrel He puts in His own mouth.

Out in Marfa, the ghost lights are burning.
Stars whisper secrets to the desert
that the city can't be trusted with.
This is something else though, something
we repeat only to ourselves,
light from Route 67 caught
in North America's darkest sky.
The compass finds its destiny.
The feet step. I read the road.

Van Gogh: giving bad artists an excuse to think they're neglected since 1898

It is an appropriate response
to a rejection slip
to tell them loudly
in your mind
"Fuck You People"
because you're a genius
and it's all politics
and you gotta know somebody
and you don't know anybody
and what the hell does anybody know anyway?

You know Vincent Van Gogh.
He's a close personal friend.
He's you,
who will blow his unknown
genius brains out
in a dark blue garden
redecorating the sky
with a spatter of new stars
and brain tissue.
They'll scrape bits of skull
from the walls
of his pages
and smatter it into
a posthumous retrospective
but you're not so lucky

cause nobody pays
108 million dollars
for poetry
at Sothebys.