everyone around you is greiving

Category: 1995-1997: early poems

it’s getting dark out

and damned

if i hadn’t

been able

to shake that

all day



i’ve yet to see your eyes

stainless pain


and harmless

i’ve yet to hold your
postmortem smile

and feel the darkness
shine through your teeth

and it makes me want
to kiss you



i’ve got a tremendous gorge of rocks

i’ve got a tremendous
gorge of rocks
beside me
waiting to hurl them
through anyone comes close
and i close my eyes
for the steel knives
in my back
to grow dull
pleading with myself
to take a bath or
buy some flowers
but the guilt
and my sadness
is even too much
for me
to realize that
whatever it is
or was
or has been
is just a violent movie
i’ve seen
too many times


i am

i am

tattooing the shine

of absent light

upon your darkened



he bites down

he bites down
on the steel rod
between his lips

tears on his forehead
as he tries
to wave
trains whistle blow
slow melodic notes
fade out

in his bruised fingertips
under the vacant light outside
i can still pick up
that perfect slur
in his voice


got my heart stuck

in a ravine

on my way home

from her house


give away your books

give away your books

save the art

or burn it

resort to the familiar

then trash what’s left


five years old

five years old

burning giant

moaning statue

writing songs

about children

laying awake at night


and he says things are futile

and to the people

that matter most

he says

we don’t

but with a smile
drawn across his face
like somethin’
tellin’ him
we were next

he says

the things we sacrifice
the things we sacrifice


all around me death

and then there’s you

so gorgeous
and innocent
and beautiful
at the same time

and your long eyelashes
carry the grief

the dead and death
you’ve passed

stepped over

dodging cracks
in the pavement

and all that silence

sitting still

VIOLENT words in your head

as you smile


we are scurvy ridden

we are scurvy ridden
bottom dwellers

searching through
shit sand and solace

for an at once

a cotton fold napkin

with enough space

write a poem


words transcend

the essence of using words


thousands’a grey clouded

smoke infested war ships
closer to us
than the horizon
as fire engine sinkers
and thousands’a beached
torpedo strikers
are on their way
straight from world war II

and as we leave
the three of us
in attempt to escape
the thousands’a headlights
and head lamps
comes searching fast
for what’s left
as we hold the master plan
in suitcase

treachery in our step
we gently stand
to fight by way
of the tennis shoe

our war
and theirs



there’s one thing as a rule

he pats my shoulder

i never
to my friend’s


the tears from a soul

are dark and cold

the tears from your eyes

are wonderful


the poem is ajar


popped a tire


and the sun
is masking the seaside
with her gorgeous
hazel eyes

glassed over
with a mirror like

and as it burns
and lights the road
for the road side

i sit fixated
that this set
of circumstances
comes like waves

hot air
as it blows
and cools down
the long


picking up her shoelaces


one step behind

tripping on my own



know the rhythm

pat attention to your math

tend to the details

bit by bit


often embracing

too often emmerced

somewhere between

splashing water

and drowning

in it


my first enlightenment

came as black-eyed susans

found light
in the midst of kansas

my soul was as young
as pickens go

lord have mercy
read the signs

i was touring hospitals when

my cousin and i

found new light
in blue lips

how nightgowns nurtured

what seemed like an accident

at first


life long and divide


take a break
if that’s
what you need


true art touches nothing

in the big picture

just easing the hinges
on the old hardwood doors

when they bury us


who to be

i can’t decide

could be me

but i think he died



i descend onto the night

in shades of spades
and gleams of light


short legged poems

bored and incoherent

lazy and ritual

beat and pulse

the page away

this is mine