another old, old poem

PLUCK

in the post-rain neighborhood gloom
local cats dart
into unseen seams between yards
where space folds onto itself
darting dark to dark on my walk back
from the packie

i remember a dream
from years ago
where all the women
I have ever loved
are falling softly
down onto me like petals,
as if they all
sprung
from one source,

it has become darker since I set out

the streets narrow and widen
without warning they turn violent turns
without yield
almost squirming

i'm lost
this isn't where i live
or what I want
there is no road-map
for a can of worms
but at least
there is the dark

i feel my keys
in my front pocket
across the street
another cat
stiffens
in the dark looking
not at me
but my front door

old doodles

old songs

More oldies

ENTROPY

under a tarp
under
a small
muggy rain
i lean over
tacos
light beer

the air mushed
in petrichor

just past
the restaurant's brick edge
the sheer gray sky
capsulates
me further

i've been in new york
too long
little prayers
for each beer
to get me home

More from the Archives

THE UNCANNY VALLEY OF PROPER HYDRATION

I am working at the kitchen table,
cricket ray-guns at war in the hills,
sticky tick-tick-ticketing in the hot shadows.

I walk to a green, plastic canoe 
under shadow in the ruins of the concrete garage.

Walking towards it, an old roommate's dead car 
sits abandoned, gloomed in web.

Shattered slabs of blacktop driveway
wild with scruffy weeds,
there's a treadless car tire,
and BB shot beer cans.

I'm going to need this canoe to get across the river. 
The bridges have all been blown out.

I must get north.

If I could keep a clean apartment 
in my past life, I can slaughter 
a dog in the post-apocalypse.

SOME BIRDS (from 2011)

I stood in the waves and watched pelicans, or some birds, fly single file, bellies skimming the water. I felt future zits pulse under my skin. My hair was reggae. Too much sun, salt. I was almost 32 before I swam next to a jellyfish with my tongue out, probing. The shore was death. The ocean, death. My feet were standing in death. All week the sky was the color of a gun the color of a thunderstorm sky. What a big throat death has. What small hands. Look at the jaws of death, the rubber teeth. All kinds of death in single file. All kinds of death in a show. Girls in stocking-ed legs. Cocks laid on appetizer plates. Long lines for the bathroom. Beer cans versus sand castles.

It is hard. My friend, I spoke with you and you were not listening in the beautiful way you used to never listen. Your hand drifted up towards your hair in the vanity of the rested. You were never at ease. You were always tired. If it were only ever for show, well, you saw my heart break under open curtains. The show is the show.

ACCIDENTAL

I don't trust 

our bodies

        I don't trust our 

minds

this accidental 

smuggle

after nature 

       tripped

over a stump

I still 

        love you so much

still dribble         a bit

when I pee

from Cross and the Switchblade (1972 Spire/Barbour) 

I don't know where this came from.

Re: Found in parking lot

found pair 

        side entrance 

red gloves

the building 

this morning

the light

next to the side entrance 

       the gravel parking lot

small video small song

when I point out my goosebumps
what I mean to say
is look
           what have you done

o hick
oh ice
ick

-E.D.

desk herbs dying

beneath the copy machine's
lurching

collation bell
beneath cognition

boss brought donuts

this morning

it rained

Birds playing guitar at Montreal Museum of Fine Arts