Until the feeling's gone and the act is done...

I now have a poem forthcoming in Full of Crow. It will be in the upcoming Fall issue.

It's titled "The dogs shit just as much." There was an unedited version up on this blog, but you'll find that it's disappeared. Mostly because it was shameful before editing. But also because they retain the right to post it exclusively for a month and I'll likely forget to remove it by the time the issue is released.

Heart beating like a riot riot.

These women of poetic habit
plan to kill me.
They each sit upon thrones
of their own magnificence
and look upon themselves as subjects.
They eat raw metaphor
and spew simile simile
forth from their gaping maws.
And I, childlike, watch in wonder.

Tired and sick, but I don't want to be alone

Mornings in the basement of winter
always bring the cold soul to the skin.
A coffee too far -- blankets too warm.
Outstretched feet beg for sensation
but I have none to spare.
The tissue of last night's clearing lies balled in a mess,
scattered by two successive coughs.
Remind myself that this is not death --
This is life. And it sucks.

To have ambition was my ambition...

I travelled to Burlington this evening to see the finals for the BSP. There, I supported my good friend, Dan Murray, in his quest to make the Burlington Slam Team for the Canadian Spoken Word Festival.

Dan read well, good poems. He made the team as an alternate and I really hope he decides to go to Toronto and hopefully gets a chance to compete.



Really digging these slams, but if it's one thing this style of poetry needs, it's a badass Bukowski figure speaking in plain language and unafraid to show you his balls resting upon his heart. Maybe that figure will emerge someday soon...

Looking California, but feeling Minnesota.

Like sushi with flakes of frost.
Or maybe like the bee that settles
then
in a while
stings.
As if to say
that my begging --
my words --
are not good enough
to stay nature's hand.

This is life. Pay the man.

In the shower, things wash away. The skin I shed yesterday that just wouldn’t fall off is washed off. It makes me wonder how some people can shower at night. To start a day, I believe this ritual of renewal must take place. When thought of this way, it becomes clear why homeless men can’t get their shit together, why long road trips with no stops seem to be one block of time without an intermission, or why we feel the need to say, “Tomorrow’s a new day,” or even come up with the word ‘tomorrow.’
In the shower, my thoughts always seem to be accelerated. In ten minutes, in my own head, I can cover thousands of topics. It could be my recurring fantasy one moment and then I’ll leap over to my job, women, drunken nights, guitars I’d like to buy, what I need to do today, how I might spend some of my money, where that scab came from. Eventually, I need to get out of the shower if only to escape my own mind.

Like Herod

Lightly glowing letters and numbers
dull your brilliance

sometimes things are inconveniently placed
like signs – or the plastic in
your hands.

Sometimes I wonder what the world was like
before cell phones
because maybe I wasn’t living then
or maybe that’s what I was really doing
and now I’m lost in ringing, dinging
and pleasant vibrations through pockets.

I choose to live like a monk
without principle
and I want to lose these materials with which
we build life
because there must be another way
and I need a way out

Gimme back my alcohol!

I read last night at Fine Grind.
It was Jade Alyssa's book launch, "A Book for Judas."
It's a good book.
Buy it.
Published by Grey Borders.
Congratulations to Jade on a fine compilation of poetry.


By the way, I'm sort of picking up the pieces.
I lay them on my coffee table and put on my glasses.
And I slowly, and suredly, connect the ones that fit.