A GOOD LIVER

you wanna hear the worst part? he said. and i didn't. 
then he said are you ready? 
and i wasn't but i said yes, i'm ready. 
then he said they said i can't eat sushi anymore. 
and in some way that is the worst part. 
that's where we sit. 
we talk about our road lives. 
about our music. 
we talk about my children. 
talk about his lack of them. 
talk about our spirit lives 
and promise each other to do better. to dream weirder. 
to cross some thresholds. 
we talk about our love lives. 
what there is of them. mine mostly. 
and we eat what the chef brings us. 
piece after piece. 
hot sake and beer. 
near the end of our conversation he said i should look 
for a new friend. 
and i said i would. put an ad on craigslist. now. 
tonight. so that i have a couple of weeks
to accept applications
before he starts chemo. 

WANTED: NEW BEST FRIEND

accepting applications for a new best friend; 
this one's just no good anymore. 

Wheezing at 30

Strong affinity for Bronte, E.
One parent cold, One parent buried,
Hell is Bronte

Soothe me

Hand on your barrel chest
my words circle around you
not knowing quite where to land
in acrid air.

my cracked heels
your pistol wit
and sand scruff.

quick to the trigger
let's meet at a fixed point.

moisturize, moisturize, moisturize.
tell me the good one.

the stock gun and lotion metaphor.
you find in every love poem.

mmmmmmmmm.

Amtrak

Acela or not
It's where I long
To be
Seeing the backsides of
Counties I do not know
Rush by the foggy window.
While I zoom backwards,
Out of sight
Out of mind

Haiku

Sweetnlow packets

She piled high on display

but I’m left empty.

A poem out of season

When is a poem ready to be picked
from its brambling vines?

If you slice it open and it's seedless.

If you see it
lazing in the shadow of itself
squandering its heat from lunch time sun

If it sits in the palm of your hand
and shrinks second by second

A poem that has clearly gone bad
Yes--now it's ready to be eaten.

no time for full thoughts

a meeting about goats
quickly derailed by a
rising tide of acronyms.

it started out fine.

real words // a leisurely clip.

but like florida swamp water filling a sink hole
LMOs and PWBs and EODs percolated up
& by the 1/2way pt. we'd reached max. lvls of verbal eff.
+++++
no more real words were spoken that day.