T-K-W

Odes to VA

2011-12-27T10:32:00.002-05:00

Sky Writing

Sky blue

water towers

don't lie.

Danville, VA

is a world class
operation.

It is practically
written in the
sky by God.

Dick Cross

Flashing lights.
Low shoulders.

Dangerous curves.

Rear entry.
Safety words.

Riding back roads
of Virginia
is less titillating

with the lights

of day on.

Rippled, cracked,

and hopelessly grey

her body is surrounded

by an orgy of

hallow brittle bones

standing bare, erect,

and motionless as if

they fell asleep

penetrating her

downward.

Who Owns the Hands

that wishes "WASH ME"
upon the backs of trucks

or

Autographs paper chests
with inky uneven nipples

and

How dirty are they?

The Shortest Distance

2011-06-21T16:40:00.000-04:00

A naked body
in the center of your road;

I am a dash
to your extended line

that stretches indefinitely
in opposite directions.

"It's a Perfect Day, Isn't It?"

2011-06-21T16:37:00.000-04:00

I agreed.

"I've worked hard all my life.
It was time for me to slow down
so I sold my car a few months back
and now I take the bus
or walk places
like brunch here on Sundays."

He raised his cane from the bench
a tapped the sidewalk one.
His wooden exclamation point
ended our exchange.

I walked home.
But more slowly
that I had I left it.

Vegas Neon

2011-06-16T22:58:00.000-04:00

Swan

2010-06-16T21:49:00.002-04:00

A solitary bird;

there is no flight.

Only two hands

crossed.

Great wings

Rest nestled

upon mute

breast.

Oh swan.

All shadow.

Caged.

Cooked.

Oh swan.

Sky will

welcome

you

again.

A Million Photos

2010-06-16T12:49:00.001-04:00

Roy Rogers and Dale Evans

refused to kiss for the cameras

because Roy said,

“the kids wouldn’t like it.”

Comfort Station

2010-06-11T17:34:00.000-04:00

I grow tall in my bed;

my business here is humble.

Out of my house,

imagine small, smaller.

Between pillows

a giant clears her throat.

An Unremarkable Cycle

2010-06-11T17:32:00.001-04:00

Time is a chore

who lingers like

an uninvited house guest

measuring unwanted hours

who grew up to be

unwelcome days.

More Great Spam Poetry

2010-03-11T15:57:00.000-05:00

Trimmed down a bit but this came in an email to me today....spam style.

organize rightness

flustered nihilistic breakers

animalizes under steer

hummingbirds scalp

& takeout sheets

leprosy lover

neuro-tropic

caustically foreign

gasworks exacerbation

shoot out keynotes

tri-monthly

a

bowlegged knock down

7 & 7 Is Calling

2010-02-24T22:24:00.005-05:00

The only thing I can say about the movie Crazy Heart is that it inspired me to Google two of my half siblings to see if there was a recent obituary for either one of them. My tone if very matter of fact here. Their untimely demise is no longer tragic to me, it is expected just like I expect the timing belt on my 2000 Honda to expire any day as well.

The truly sad apart about this, other than having hurtful drunks in my family with whom I refuse to speak to ever again, is the fact that I don't even know what name they go by these days to find them.

Oh well. I am truthfully better off not knowing. I found this old poem written maybe in 2000 about one of them.

7 & 7 Is Calling

It is a solo act
practiced until he passes out,
his liver shuts down,
or the local police
pull the curtain down.

It is after 2AM and
the audience is hushed.

In fact I WAS sleeping.

It is 7 & 7 calling
ready to take
center
stage.

Great Things Can Come in Small Packages

2010-02-15T10:22:00.000-05:00

Sleeping Beauty

2010-02-07T13:09:00.001-05:00

The Opposite of a Black Hole

2010-02-03T16:41:00.000-05:00

Mixed Crowd

2010-01-11T14:47:00.003-05:00

Freedom Is Something Else

2010-01-05T18:34:00.001-05:00

A beast on a wee leash,

conversations with you

had a limited radius

and around we would go

in shamefully small circles,

never gaining any real territory.

Thankfully there is

no longer an owner,

a chain,

or a fence

to limit me from stretching

out

in any direction

I please.

New Spam Poetry

2009-12-28T09:30:00.001-05:00

This spam email came in over the holidays. So good!

El Between (the relation of Coop)

Tall chimneys,
their pennons of black smoke,
their uglinesses of brick-work,
and their heaps of refuse matter
from the furnace,
seems to be the only kind of stuff
which Nature cannot take back to herself
and resolve into the elements,
when man has thrown it aside.

These hillocks of waste and
effete mineral always disfigure
the neighborhood of ironmo

Winter Byrd

2009-12-27T17:43:00.001-05:00

A Conversation with Cohen (Curiously not devastating.)

2009-12-27T17:38:00.003-05:00

He died

and in the

realm of things

it couldn’t be

disputed,

rejected,

or even judged

Father’s bow tie

was dissected

and a parting

prayer to speed

him along his way

was inserted into

its fibrous carcass

and buried in

the garden like

a funeral

for the formal

and the final.

Forks

2009-11-06T13:01:00.003-05:00

I found this poem scrawled on a random tiny piece of paper in my desk. It must be at least a few years old.

Forks

Winter trees lean
like freshly cleaned
forks drying upright
between ground and sky.

Picnic Thoughts

2009-09-25T12:54:00.004-04:00

A contemporary of
a well dressed
bed begging
to be messed

undressed,
your skin
is a clean sheet
I cannot wait
to climb upon
and wrinkle.

How the Mighty Have Fallen

2009-09-15T13:54:00.003-04:00

A crown from a New Orleans gravestone that had crumbled off and fallen to the ground.

Ruffling Your Feathers Is Too Easy.

2009-09-14T13:55:00.003-04:00

Mostly unfurnished and small,
your heart contains little
but a perch for you to roost upon
and a mirror at which you can focus
your limited attention
towards your favorite subject
with two dead eyes
while squawking
I'M A PRETTY GIRL
I'M A PRETTY GIRL
I'M A PRETTY GIRL.

I Don't Like Birds But I Love You

2009-09-09T22:10:00.003-04:00

Beneath the murk
of barely morning

lids and shared blankets
shutter early light

but when skin
joins skin

my pulse rises
faster than the sleepy

sun and sings louder
than any stupid bird.

A Day Off Feel a Little like Nirvana

2009-09-07T12:06:00.001-04:00

Honey on Silk

2009-09-07T12:03:00.002-04:00

"Honey on silk"
makes me question
Henry Miller's
knowledge of

women.

A sticky sweetness
upon natural woven fiber
is a disaster
never to be rubbed in
and always to be kept
away from heat

no less a penis.

A good lover
should chose his
words more

carefully.

Bad Aim : Mardi Gras Beads Tangled in Tree

2009-09-03T21:34:00.002-04:00

Seasons Fleeting

2009-08-31T23:30:00.003-04:00

I dare not tread
among
young, fresh, green
for my Spring step
rests somewhere between
Summer and Autumn
these days.

Just wait.
Your delicate blossom
won't only droop
but one day drop

and only then
will our glasses meet
and chime
like Winter ice.

For James Laughlin

2009-08-19T22:21:00.000-04:00

Don’t tell me
You know pain
Unless you are
A parent who
Has lost a child
Or you have been
A child
Who watched
Their parents
Bury their child
And then had them
Look at you
As if they
Have seen a ghost.

More Spam Poetry

2009-08-18T14:00:00.002-04:00

Two in one week - YES!

Surprised Himself
From: Babula

She glanced at the young girl
pointing, with her keen gaze
words which seemed trivial enough.

Mary, her calm forehead
puckered with vague annoyance
disdained to analyze, understood perfectly.

Her hands resting idly
or smoothing the creases
out of her long, soft gloves

E will certainly come
It struck him that there was something
to be done

Ah, my aunt!" she cried impulsively,
"tell me what is to be done?
Lady Garnett glanced up

from the novel into
which she had subsided
with a sigh of relief

"now you are practical,
he has not proposed?"
Mary shook her head.

E will certainly come
It struck him that there was something
to be done

coming a little strangely
amidst the young girl's
girl's habitual reticence

"That is exactly
what I want to prevent"
Her smile had a very definite quality

"I would not cherish
any false hopes, my dear.
Charles Sylvester is a yo"

E will certainly come
It struck him that there was something
to be done

Board Girl

2009-08-18T13:55:00.002-04:00

I love Spam

2009-08-13T21:39:00.006-04:00

A kooky spam paragraph came to my work email address today and while I have no idea what evil product or virus it is trying to trick me into opening,the word nerd in me really likes the far out Victorian vibe it accidentally dispenses. I chopped it up a bit and turned it into a poem of sorts. Maybe spam writers are the next beat generation?

E and Broth
From Heintz

Ster was looking distressed,
speaking French,
swimming in fierce waves,
and bathing in winds.

Mercurious E and Broth.

The pleasure of hunger
was easily satisfied
in the smoking hut
the Hunchback rakes ashes
and gave birth to fish.

Mercurious E and Broth.

Soft things, woven silk
frocks of fine texture
came from London.
Oh the beautiful colors.
So strange. So exotic.

Mercurious E and Broth.

But these are warn now
never replaced.
She never wore shoes
summer/winter
except for her Mother's funeral.

Mercurious E and Broth.

Invulnerable to stones
and bramble
her legs and feet were
tough and brown
but her father never realized.

ROYGBIP

2009-07-31T14:25:00.000-04:00

Eggs, Spinach, and Feta

2009-07-27T17:34:00.003-04:00

An omelet will have to do.

There will be no hazy kisses
to neck, breasts, and fingers
served like breakfast
in bed. Friends let
other friends
sleep in.

He will tiptoe
to the kitchen where
hungry fingers
will tickle nipple
lids upon heated rims

instead.

It Won't Be Thanksgiving Without Wild Game

2009-07-22T14:22:00.003-04:00

For Breece DJ Pancake

Winter's a God damned thief.

There is nothing left of the farm
but skin and bones;
the white dust of first frosts,
twitching skeletal oaks,
and corn brought to its knees
begging for mercy.

Take your rifle
and storm the grey light.

Bring back death
slung over one shoulder
skinned, dressed, and ready
for skillet

A Neck is Bleeding Italian Silk

2009-07-21T00:49:00.002-04:00

Red on curved course
it spills from
shoulder
to chest
and pools upon pillows.

Her hair sticks to it
but choking
laughter softens the gore.

Too tired to undress,
stretching,
I gather it between fingers

and collect the mess
until she
is cleared
of its delicate
path.

Joyita

2009-06-01T14:34:00.002-04:00

Joyita.

It sounded like joy
only slightly smaller.

The ocean
with blank stare
took sick pleasure
it trapping your hull
and making it

as wee
as a wink.

It's Okay!

2009-05-14T23:46:00.001-04:00

Reclining Now Politely

2009-04-22T09:10:00.002-04:00

Concealed by kimono
and barren pinata,
Miss November's
perfect tits (1967)
enjoy gifts from Japan
and Mexico on an unmade bed
of blue.

An unlikely threesome
of bronzed skin,
papermache,
and hand embroidered silk

I pity
how dull your bedroom
door must be.

Saved

2009-04-14T12:42:00.000-04:00

Humming hymns
as she ironed
I couldn’t decide
if she was
praising God
or performing a service
for the badly
wrinkled shirt
before her.

Salamander

2009-04-09T11:57:00.001-04:00

An Empty Impression

2009-04-09T11:55:00.003-04:00

What could be more insulting
than to have nothing good
or bad to say?

I can say
you are.
I am.
We were.
But how boring is that?

Very.

An empty impression is worse than
an empty bed
still holding your depression.

The opposite of epic
Some love is as short
and as shallow
as a sigh.

PS: Why the hell do you smell like strawberries?

2009-04-05T14:05:00.003-04:00

This is
code for
your neck
smelled good
enough to eat,
so I did.

The Wives of Fela Kuti

2009-04-04T20:53:00.001-04:00

Painted faces
articulate identity,
sexuality,
and parent color
to complete
Nigeria's greatest love poem.

For You I Name This Orange

2009-03-26T17:09:00.002-04:00

For Kat

There is some guilt.

People are supposed to do things on weekends
and
at the very least
they answer their phones.

I am choosing to do neither.

Your message is enough
and I am grateful
that you not only hope
I am already out painting the town red
but
know me well enough
to say orange.

Super Bee

2009-03-24T17:26:00.000-04:00

Bare Surfaces

2009-03-24T17:21:00.002-04:00

Winter's waning youth
is wearing a fresh scent
of pink and green.

I have found its odor
commuting and
radiating sex
upon bare surfaces.

O' a body aches
jealous when there is nothing
swellingblushingbursting
like an organic firework.

The Condition Is Called Napping

2009-03-24T17:20:00.001-04:00

but without working
arms,
legs,
and mouth

how is a woman supposed to pass the hours
and
so
many
of
them.

Forgetting the Past, Moving On (2004)

2009-03-24T17:13:00.003-04:00

It's jut not that easy.
The new is decorated with the past.
I am sitting on it.
I tell time by it.
The room is lit by it.
It is cleanly framed and
organized by shape.
It is collecting in cabinets.
It hangs neatly in closets.
It is this notebook,
a Christmas gift from last year.

My home is a fucking calendar
with a different object
to represent a different day.
1976,1998,1981, 2003.
Yesterday's mail.

My past collecting dust no less.

I can't tell you one thing
that represents me in the now
(not even this poem written 5 years ago now)
on October 10, 2004.

I've got this
but even this gets old
and even a new this
becomes old too quickly.

That's all it really can be,
isn't it.

This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This
This

It's a Perfect Day, Isn't It?

2009-03-24T17:09:00.002-04:00

I agreed.

"I've worked hard all my life.
It was time for me to slow down
so I sold my car a few months back
and now I take the bus
or walk places
like brunch here on Sundays."

He raised his cane from the bench
and tapped the sidewalk once.
is wooden exclamation point
ended our exchange.

I walked home

but more slowly than

I had left it.

Dear Mathematics,

2009-03-24T17:03:00.002-04:00

I've been reading all about you and have begun to wonder.
If I am just a number

am I whole or natural?
Irrational or rational?
Positive or negative?
Prime or real?

Do you even know that these questions
own a double meaning?

I worry;
once you solve this puzzle
I can be predicted.
Controlled and instructed to do something
more constructive than both you.

These sterile steps
of recognizing, classifying, and exploiting
makes you a difficult friend to trust.

You are everywhere and nowhere...
sort of like the image
some might think of as God.

Do you get that often?

Infinitesimally Yours,
T

A Girl Wants to Feel Special

2009-03-21T00:22:00.000-04:00

He is an old dog
with too many bitches
circling his bed to lie down
and lick him clean.

Sleeping with a kennel
rubs a girl the wrong way
so go bury your bone
in someone else.

PKPCO2AFFFSTA5

2009-03-19T22:40:00.002-04:00

"Everything Remains To Be Done"

2009-03-19T22:36:00.001-04:00

"Everything Remains To Be Done"
- Godard

Who is the enemy?
Precise forms
or the
space
that lies between
them?

The business of living
is framed by
color
and the lack there of.

Between life and death
how are we to paint it?

Haiku (Inspired by The Names by Don Delillo)

2009-03-13T00:14:00.005-04:00

I count my fingers
after I shake hands with him.
Stolen heart; what's next?

****

Herding grains of sand;
a fool tries to sweep a desert.
Leave nature alone.

****

Domestic forms of
assault; the agreed upon
reductions. Marriage.

****

You gave me a frame
glass free, backless, vacant and
doomed to hang condemned.

****

Curved metal and wood
the language of destruction
violates the ear.

****
Stockings. Whisper it!
The word is meant to be freed
between tongue and teeth.

White Knuckle Does Not Apply Here

2009-03-09T14:38:00.002-04:00

Mine
are the color
and shape
of butter
rounded edges
and all.

Open hand
and it melts
away
to
nothing.

Navy Practice Injury Mask

2009-03-04T12:08:00.000-05:00

Vaseline Lense

2009-03-01T19:39:00.002-05:00

1.

Green green pinata
we hit you with sticks
until you split
your sleepy seams.

2.

You tell me Seattle...
I think wet eyed gingerbread houses,
waving pines, and peek-a-boo mountains.

3.
I watched your pincushion children
nurse boredom and deflate
like birthday balloons as they sunk
to your mossy floor.

They grew work hair
and slept in sequined
epitaph.

4.

Rolling Stone magazine says we will miss you.

Advice to Last Night

2009-03-01T19:37:00.002-05:00

At each end of the line
there must be
a transmitter
a receiver
and some sort of signal.

Exchange when the connection is made.

Strangely
it is more complicated
than the diagrams leads on
Mr. Alexander Graham Bell.

It's Complicated

2009-02-22T13:29:00.000-05:00

Ode To Spring (and Eleven 1st Magnitude Stars)

2009-02-21T04:31:00.002-05:00

I have waked beneath
a string of trees

miraculously blooming
against the black

of night and thought
not of blossoms

but rather

I had walked beneath
a descending constellation.

Jambalaya

2009-02-21T00:47:00.000-05:00

Quarter To Midnight, Secaucus

2009-02-20T23:47:00.008-05:00

Motion turns off my horizon's light
as if she were a parent
wishing her only child sweet dreams.

Quarter to midnight, Secaucus
I leave you and enter through
the tight black mouth

of New York City's sleeping body.

It Was Funny At The Time

2009-02-20T23:45:00.000-05:00

The Shortest Distance

2009-02-20T23:44:00.002-05:00

I am a dash
to your extended line

a naked body
in the center of your road

stretching on forever
in both directions.

Wag For Me

2009-02-20T23:43:00.002-05:00

Show me that school boy smile
once reserved for
class pictures
and your first missing tooth.

Heso Magari

2009-02-20T23:40:00.002-05:00

In Japanese
this means
your belly
points you
in the opposite
direction of the pack.

Oh friend,
I was lonely.
A lifetime of
lonely, relieved
by the company
of your lovely definition.

Sanitized Revolution

2009-02-20T23:37:00.001-05:00

Dryer sheets
chase tails
and
circle prey
like aromatic twins.

French Kiss

2009-02-20T23:31:00.002-05:00

One day
we will kiss
like the French eat asparagus;
using our hands
toswiftlyguideeachone

directly into our mouths.

For Filet Mignon and Spirits

2009-02-20T23:18:00.006-05:00

My family does not believe
in firm recipes.
Today
is supposed to be different than
yesterday or
tomorrow.

Medium flame.
In this order:
butter, onion, garlic, mushrooms.

Low flame.
Wine, beef bullion, soy sauce, ketchup.
Salt and pepper to taste.

Drink wine
S t i r.

This is how
I raise my father from the dead.

Warhol Museum

2009-02-20T23:10:00.000-05:00