Left to Right.

A used match, nestled in oddly speckled dust,
together with remains of food from the distant night before.
Scars of the house bleed out dying fires.
Beyond?
The portal to the world with vintage lights floating over
a neon green setting sun.
A shadowed forest creeps its fear to the tiled,
pot-holed streets of America.
A forged Impressionist, hanging proud in con.
What's this? Empty space.
Dotted blue square of nothing for anyone.
A Soviet spy in a frame looks over, watching
in the name of Papa Stalin, always!
A sketching elephant sits meshing colors and lines to art.
A bag sprawled with traveled clothes and wise literature
with stupid letters and words.
Some gifts from neighbors lay unopened, unappreciated.
Finally, wooden guitars wait to impress,
lay against the wall.
Rested but in a state of unrest.

Genesis

In the morning when grey white skies wake up early
and Dante's Divine Comedy stops the traffic in my head,
that's when my hand speeds over paper, my fingers cold with inspiration.

It's a never-ending tale in literature,
hidden in attics under Adam's roof.
Dances with snakes, tripping over apples underfoot.
It's just a short fall to Europe and Asia, and their Eden-
Tanks, metal, and computers, all that twisted imaginary faith.

Ash dirties the bare feet missing their golden sandals from above.
Orchards melting in acidic screams, Eve is crying in guilt-
fur coats and ball point pens.

Millions molest the cover of this edition,
licking the ends of the pages, smelling the text.
Prayer in schools.

Seven Presidents.

Driving on a road I'd been on hundreds of times
in the crevice of the past,
but never alone.
Its sea-misted cement runs with me,
edging me to the final release of
perfect calm.

Waves of gulls stretch their hollow wings
in the rushing wind
as I spread my arms and feel the lifting
of my soul's feet to the ocean sky
and slowly touch back
to the sifted sand.

The water's currents break in
unnoticed harmony.
The birds' quiet song, an opera.
A water-colored cloud filters divine
hues of light, and the cold bites
the refreshed skin back to civilization.

The shore nods in silent understanding,
the gulls cry again.

Advice.

Standing among the rows of labeled vitamins
clutching at my back-
months of ignored strains.

Up walks the dark haired deity,
smiling and feeling, sharing,
my pain.
"Stand straight, eat bagels, and feel your muscles
dance to health!"
She smiles, rolling on the balls of her feet.

And then!-
Out the door, into the shower
of headlights and winding night road-
forever.

Small.

A movie runs its course in my thoughts.
The hero awakening on the moving island
of dirty science.

Exploration leads to monopolies and Walmart
in your home town.

Pater sympathizes with little evidence or cause.
Invasion of dream, psychedelia,
and summer.

Phone Calls From the Family of Nobel at 12:16 AM.

The clock has long been sleeping,
snoring my minutes.
R.E.M's a thief!

Animals are composers with organs
and mescaline.

Songs of soul and simple life whisper
into muddied reality.

Slow moving time revs a motor-
sneers at my habitual nocturnal trips.

Swan Lake.

'No Parking' read the sign, as we quietly pulled in.
Walked up and around, anticipation and a grin.

Across the bridge, there it lay, a river of soul-
Swans lazily abandoning their busy patrol.

Suns reflect across the whispering stream
As we cheer our success as an All-Star team.

Zarephath

A marathon on the interstate today;
us versus the gold medalist lane dividers.
Through the northern forests and mountains
where the clusters of ice cling to the rock
that shadows over speeding eyes, to rivers
reflecting the sun, shining under swans
and their songs of vernal winters.

Appalachian hikers and territories of deer
come together and spew out the skylines
that we drive along. Symphonies narrate
the landscapes building around us. Cities
gasp their deaths and the country finally
can take a breath. And those plains of foot-
marked snows and visionary constructions!

Bridges engineer our route as the cleansed
sky is patrolled by the birds of surrealist
dreams, themselves incarnates of Icarus,
breaking their wings in Limbo. We rise the
elevations and wish for intimacy with the
genuine population of the north, bearded
and with a pack on their backs.

Cross into modern Amsterdam, as biblical
heads watch from their hanging perches. The
setting sun blinds us, and we turn back
to the homeland that we dread, the fingers
at the ends of the branches waving us goodbye.
Parkways shoot shuttles to our doorsteps, and
to conclude the adventure, we smile.

Season.

Lion's in a coma,
All's on meltdown,
Images of yellow
and trails of chalk.

Watch your step-
Commies'll grab ya!
Pull you off to lands of ash
and snow.

Rabbits conference,
chores assigned.
Fires in the leaf house-
Oh the sounds!

And the sloth runs now,
to smoke, drink,
and live.

Open your throat and gut society.

Notes.

The building of oceans teeming with exotic fires
of life,
inside this old piano.

Like mother's ships in a bottle-
Delicate yet prepared for immortality in the grass'
record books, like wearing a suit while waiting for
the call.

Ink shaping the veins of the crumbling architecture,
Zeus doesn't care for the contractor as he pulls
brothers and sisters from his knee.

I'm leaving anyway-
to the piano.
Always and on repeat.

Away.

Predictions for cemented futures;
The film always rolling,
my head rolling, off-off-off
away.

Macbeth's advisers always stopping by,
papers to sign or things to see.

I just read through the hours, flying in time,
breathing the pages' air and life.

Gentle river's song and that American neon glow-
Bz, bzz, bzzz the colors declare to photography of the era.

Historians trip over the cemetery of unborn thoughts
in the young, decayed, eaten minds of the youth,
in their words.

Keif.

Retching in the salty Arabic waters
of keif smoke-
Aladdin winks and steals away.

A collective of animals parades the lonely streets
of my dream-
The misty cobblestone shining with screams
of rain and belittlement.

If ever the genie lends a hand, always that
price of confinement.

Rubbing Goliath's shoulders-
chamomile on the way-
We can cry together;
grieve.

Aladdin always shares his pipe.

A Scream.

She can boast-
Stand, make that noise;
smile.

And we dignify ourselves,
just some for the good feelings.

And the playthings of old.

Botched.

Faulty circumcisions by junkies near the pier,
and sexual experimenters makes Jesus shed a tear.

Domesticated wildfires, here a common sight,
and interstaters intrude, even shine their brights.

Francesca.

Streetlights focus to illuminate the falling night's snow.
Toss butts, light another, and walk the untouched frosted
pavements-

Discuss varying degrees of retrospect and freedom.

Avoid arithmetic responsibilities as artistic callings make
heard their voices and a lonely soul farts all about-

Alligators too!

Silence purges my pain, and I set down to learn desolation.

Express.

Santiago and Dunbar-
Camel's trails to Eldorados of gold and European dreams.
Queens and jesters travel to my meditations-

Oh how those literature beatniks speak to my desperate
and needing soul-
Cars, mescal, disputes, religion,
and words.
Words are all-

Read and write.
Watch the world.
Moons, hills, cigarettes,
and our nocturnal philosophies.

Spontaneous Jam.

Again in this place-
Down below the wretches of midnight despair.
My fingers lag behind accelerated thought.
Streaks of cinema and desolate mountains
lingering in my heart-
Tales of befriended travels igniting my soul's
ambitions.
Higher frequencies-
Sounds, sights, thoughts, lights-
Blink.

A funeral for the past-
Weddings in retrospect.

Dormant inspiration-
awakening, sprouting, springing, flourishing,
breathing, being, seeing-
There.
Storms of fog and wind encase the
north-western fire-side chants.
Coyote-chorused deserts dream of Alamo
and the cactus fields that weep-
Stars, beasts, hallucinations, rocks, Buddha,
Menthe, the hunt, and ink.

Now amused, pleased with wit and humor-
Smirk, games, pills, engineering, a bridge,
engraved memory-
sketched into the bark of Life's forever universe
Tree.

A feeling of gravity to the comfort of silks
and Persian king's opium dens.
All systems pumping out last fumes
of exhaust, plague, sanity, energy, feel,
and cold.
Now all stops.

Dances with Dead Presidents

Aristocratic arithmetic shoots through the Middle East
Holy lands morph their shrines, make way for the priest!

He'll feed you syringes, sex, and avian flu
His concubines will dance and leave your balls blue

Ballot cast, vote vote vote, John Smith must win
Careful though, these wolves would gladly eat their kin.

They'll get you to buy their loud safety rated car
Big Brother no longer only has to watch from afar.

Text books, Bibles, pamphlets of medical use
Lose them all! And add some rum to your child's juice

Lewis Carol giggled, and tripped through Wonderland
Now he can't buy anything that isn't government brand

This massive takeover, psychiatrists parade the street
Lobotomies for everyone, for a price you just can't beat!

Drinking my sewage, I need vitamins A and C
The Chinese give up, sip their pure green tea.

Advertised religion, on Costco's payroll since Jesus
Steve Jobs reads his sermon, makes sense of all of this.

There's a whole big world, where the all lemmings land
Science is at the scene, already taking command.

Space's frontier is bought up in international political greed
And for your health, mind and soul, please smoke some good weed.

Rumor spreads to Washington of Ohio hiding gas
Now Iraqis stake claim - irony up the ass.

Dead presidents rise, ask to ballroom dance
Terrorist housewives get lost within the trance.

The Russians, Church, and junk dealers hold hands and kiss
As society altogether dies deep in an abyss.

Living here, it's all moments, freaks, and words
You'll always step in shit but keep your head with the birds.