Desert Walker

A scene from another planet

2012-01-29T14:07:00.000-08:00

His pants cuffed up grazed rippled glass

her skirt teased the waters edge.

Their calves cooled in the shallows,

while bees were lured

up the tulip poplar’s blouse.

Holding hands

2012-01-29T14:02:00.000-08:00

The desert marigold

holds nothing back!

I was there

2012-01-29T13:54:00.001-08:00

Kiss, kiss.

I was there with each
inquisition.

I was the witch, monarch,
priest.

I was the guy under the hood

with

a freshly ground gleaming axe

aiming

to lift myself & the infidels

closer

to that bastard St. Peter

at
his pearly gated hell.

How?

2012-01-29T13:52:00.001-08:00

How can youth comprehend

an old man’s writings? Where

bone no longer stacks on bone

and eyes water day and night

and grief is his nagging wife.

Universal Knowledge

2012-01-13T10:08:00.000-08:00

There is only so much

juice in an orange, yet

I insist that the same

orange give me ketchup

too.

Pick an Emotion

2012-01-13T09:32:00.000-08:00

It’s raining; like a

factory raised turkey

I looked up to taste

the holy gift, only

to drown myself.

Relationship

2012-01-12T19:22:00.000-08:00

There are these small

yellow pomp-pomp

flower clusters that hum,

and there are the bees

quick as caffeine

that covet them.

(2011)

Asking

2012-01-12T12:03:00.001-08:00

What does

the dragonfly

spell against

a blue sky?

Mother’s Thousand Little Daggers

2012-01-12T11:51:00.000-08:00

Cutting and stitching

Drawing and quartering me

through childhood, teaching

me the ways of love.

Cutting and stitching

(2011)

Perfect

2012-01-12T10:51:00.001-08:00

Perfect is

an obnoxious

hungry ghost.

(2011)

The Heart

2012-01-10T15:44:00.001-08:00

The vast sky

changes

from silver blue

to deep indigo.

Empty, it

holds everything.

Fodder for $50.00

2012-01-10T15:41:00.001-08:00

Wrapped in the Tower of Babel

words are made useless fodder

for game shows.

(2011)

Cave Dweller

2012-01-10T15:29:00.001-08:00

I’ve lived in a cave for so long,

I mistook my campfire for the sun,

that’s how it goes with love and shame,

childhood, and anger.

(2011)

Joy and Dread

2012-01-10T15:25:00.001-08:00

Joy comes the same way dread comes,

dressed in ridiculous costumes,

both stringed on the marionette call me.

(2011)

Monkey

2012-01-09T10:32:00.000-08:00

It’s one thing to acknowledge the monkey

and quite another

to snapped the vertebrae in your neck,

twist it 180 degrees

and stare that hairy beast in the face.

(2011)

My Judas Heart

2012-01-09T10:28:00.001-08:00

Oh my dearest Hell,

thank you.

I’ve hated you for so long,

yet, you’ve not forsaken me.

The Quantum Theory of Gravity

2012-01-05T09:53:00.000-08:00

You look pretty.

What’s your name?

(2012)

ICEE

2012-01-05T09:39:00.000-08:00

Once we lose

our top, we’ll

slush endlessly

into Antarctica.

(2012)

Lightning Strike

2012-01-03T10:26:00.000-08:00

The first tree (2011)

The first tree.

Was it apple?

Pomegranate?

Mesquite?

Oak perhaps?

Grown from blood

in an overcast

chartreuse sky,

shrouded in fire

branded

by the first

god ever born?

(2011)

Is there a Post-game show?

2011-12-27T19:38:00.000-08:00

At the end, after my four quarters

have been played,

are there commentators

analyzing

my big runs, foibles & fumbles?

Are ex-players turned orators

spouting my reasons, explaining

my whys

like a Sunday post-game

show?

(2011 football season)

Like a dice game in the backend of an alley

2011-12-27T19:00:00.001-08:00

Blood numbers - CE (B.F.M series 2011)
Giclee prints available; 16"x20"

the gods decide

or are they too

at the mercy

of a universe

mathematically

cycling forward

spitting out

one species

after

another ?

(2011)

9 a.m.

2011-12-27T18:54:00.001-08:00

You’d think

the walking dead

would rise early.

Not here

his shift

starts after

9 a.m.

Soylent green perhaps

2011-12-26T16:02:00.001-08:00

In this country we can all be millionaires. We just -

just need a million dollar idea, capital and the stars aligned in our favor.

You can take any good thing and corrupt it into a bad thing. Take pre-made chia or hummingbird food – first ingredient water then sugar.

I can take any love and ruin it.

A respectable life and crash it.

If only I could take the idea of homelessness and make it into a million dollar idea – soylent green perhaps.

All the opportunities are in place – we only need a treasure map, Red Chucks and a MBA – unless you have the million dollar idea. Then you need a ship, a crew, a parrot, an eye patch and fire power.

All the opportunities are overseas.

But we can become millionaires.

One day I’ll learn one foot in front of the next. It wasn’t a million dollar idea, however it gets me around.

(2010)

She

2011-12-26T15:54:00.001-08:00

She tweets under – Lovedog.

She cuts hair.

She always looks like a million dollars.

(2010)

Dirty Napkins

2011-12-26T15:43:00.000-08:00

Napkins pile up like Pavarotti

singing Christmas carols.

The tea stains page after page

the way a desperate writer

wishes to write line-after-line.

(2010)

Hey Thanks

2011-12-26T15:38:00.000-08:00

Rolls and rolls of cash are laid against dying grass

by immigrants, getting five cents on the dollar,

so we can golf

enjoy this pastoral scene

while drinking limes swimming in Coronas

and eating guacamole made by the maid.

(2011)

(2011)

Fearless Act

2011-12-24T20:44:00.000-08:00

A male Gambel quail

walked a tight rope

without arms or net.

He stopped half-way

looked at me and said:

“if she can do it, so can I.”

(2011)

Desert Bell

2011-12-24T20:40:00.000-08:00

Sabino Canyon winter 2011

Rain hitting rocks

awakens Sabino Canyon

to possess the torrential

drops between her legs.

(2011)

Peep

2011-12-23T10:00:00.000-08:00

(2008 BMM Collection - Giclee print)

My youngest cat,

a collage,

plucked off

the sale racks

at a quilting store.

Loose threads swim

in oceans of white

surrounded

by orange coasts,

and inland

she is various

grays and blacks.

An idiot

with no imagination would

have called her Patches.

You know all the rules

2011-12-23T09:56:00.000-08:00

Parcheesi

was your favorite game;

you’d read the rules

inside the back box top

like it was a Keat’s poem –

that’s why you never won.

(2008)

An Art Opening

2011-12-23T09:51:00.000-08:00

When you leave our conversation about this painting,

with it’s red marks,

a shape like a head,

a shape like a boat,

a shape like a bird,

a tree colored blue,

and after you’ve had dinner with friends at table for three,

and you’ve gone home without having had the crème brûlée,

will you pet your cat,

brush your teeth,

floss, open the mail,

or first find the vibrator,

because it’s easier than going home with a conversationalist?

When I grow up

2011-12-21T07:57:00.000-08:00

When I grow up, I

I want to be a canyon

whose rock edges are

ravished smooth by

water’s falling madness.

2011-12-20T18:53:00.000-08:00

Mary Christmas

Giclee Print

From my Ollie M Collection

The Love of Space

2011-12-20T18:46:00.001-08:00

I’ve thought about what you said,

About the economy of space within the walls of poetry.

About not using the same word

Over and over and over. Then I decided

The rules are all about fear, about control. About dread.

About the de-evaluation of poetries dollar

On the page. About the plummeting value of words used loosely.

Then as if none of that matters, I turn

And think about space. I love space.

I love to turn in space,

especially the space between sheets.

Mad Love

2011-12-20T18:28:00.000-08:00

The lady in the white sleeveless

satin blouse coughs up

a toothless fairy that proceeds

to grant her three wishes.

Her first wish was to love like a tornado; second

bend like a willow; third flow like the Milky Way.

So the fairy

turned her

into a fairy.

(a lighter one for L.G.M.)

Brighter Ideas

2011-12-20T11:55:00.000-08:00

I thought of you today. I thought of us.

Differences, similarities. Fear. Thinking.

I thought of gratefulness. Then asked

myself – what do I want? – more than once.

I thought about being and being coupled

like a cufflink in a brighter blue shirt.

I thought about driftwood drifting

like canoes down a polluted stream.

Then I thought about the sun, it’s rays, flaring up,

burning it’s self to death, like our bed.

2011-12-20T08:11:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas

Angsty Foreign Film

2011-12-20T07:22:00.001-08:00

Damn my emotions are loud

swinging a wide wake, like

a barge down the Cumberland

carrying every one else's shit

the way I carry on like an angsty

foreign film.

God V2

2011-12-18T09:59:00.001-08:00

God v2
Giclee print
16" x 20"
2011

Ancient aunt

2011-12-18T09:55:00.001-08:00

Blue eyes I've never meet, but knew,

an ancient aunt perhaps – kinder than

my mother – said: "you look like an actor."

Mother, hellbent on filling my

life with her story, said:

"my hair was wasted on a man."

My distant auntie goes on:

"You've got the stare of an empty parking lot filled with

upturned push pins, just like a matinee idol in New Brunswick."

I tell her: "I've never been to New Brunswick."

So we plan a trip by train, to feel

the clanking metal wheels on metal tracks

getting hundreds of miles to the gallon.

I bring my family photos for entrainment. We’re

lost for hours, until we come across a young

photo of my mother, she looks just like my traveling

companion on a good day.

I close the book, gently put into her lap.

I walk hurriedly to a door and jump from the train.

Blue wheelbarrow

2011-12-18T09:51:00.001-08:00

A blue wheelbarrow

Dies on its side, waiting

for anyone, it’s not picky.

I lie on my side emptied, blue

waiting like a dead clown found

in full gown blacked out

in my trailer. Blacked out

waiting for anyone.

11-18

2011-12-18T09:47:00.000-08:00

18th.

day one, of two

two day tomorrow.

sorrow sounds off

a handball court.

ping, thunk. day three

the cats won’t eat red meat

laid out like a cadavered cow.

day, then a day, then a day, day four.

the 18th, i’ll wake, maybe, too

breakfast sausage, eggs, buttered toast

rosemary peach jam. getting me out

of the jam i’m in: strawberry.

blonde vanilla ice cream

passes for day five.

then, the answer on

day six to eternity:

the 18th.

Mirgraine

2011-11-09T19:01:00.000-08:00

My head continually throbs

from thinking I’m spiritual.

Clouds

2011-11-08T10:35:00.001-08:00

What else need be said: “clouds”

You're clever, you’ll figure out the rest.

Flaking

2011-11-03T11:31:00.000-07:00

Dust before dust is how some die.

The white flecks on the dash – flakes

from the old man slowly blowing away.

Earthworms

2011-11-03T11:24:00.000-07:00

Under all this lawn

gravediggers tunnel

night and day.

Boxer’s Training

2011-10-21T13:35:00.001-07:00

I carry my father’s battered single edge blade

in my back pocket. The bulge, a reminder

to stay on my feet, least I fall on my ass.

Poet’s Curse

2011-10-14T11:44:00.000-07:00

I love to watch the sprinklers blow like whales

against an ocher ocean of dying grass.

The curse of the poet is to harpoon every moment

with verse and punctuation.

Step-Father

2011-10-14T11:40:00.000-07:00

Every morning that he wakes late,

I wonder if he’s in there breathing

or has his soul descended to Hades.

There he can freely abuse

Persephone who’s wearing my mother’s

go-go boots and polka dot min-skirt.

The Surgeon

2011-10-14T11:39:00.000-07:00

Shadows are precise, unlike the wind.

The winds a clumsy oaf scattering leaves,

breaking limbs, toppling trees, whereas

shadows cut daylight in half like a medical

practitioner qualified to practice surgery.

If I could only name them

2011-10-05T19:58:00.001-07:00

Every man lives in a valley

limited and protected by the hills

of his making.

That was then

2011-10-05T19:53:00.000-07:00

I watched a man, similar to me, pulling

a weighted roller over newly laid grass,

like a man trying to crush his past.

Foreign Exchange

2011-09-30T14:04:00.001-07:00

Have a nice day

Within minutes, I dawn new gowns:

neutral, sad, happy, oblivious, present

and fear reigning with her three tiered tiara.

Then, I do it again:

neutral, sad, happy, oblivious...

Dying Alone

2011-09-30T13:55:00.001-07:00

blood numbers

For forty-five years

he’s driven me away

using numbers or facts

as a prodding rod.

Breathing

2011-09-30T13:39:00.000-07:00

I know longer care about

the big questions:

tuna or chicken salad

and all it’s variants – god, no god.

I’d rather watch the landscape

turn from dawn to noon to dusk to stars.

I’d rather lay my head on your chest

with it’s moving up and down.

Warehousing the infinite

2011-09-18T09:26:00.000-07:00

For my taste the infinite

is better boxed, labeled, and

safely stored in an out of the way

forgotten warehouse guarded

by grave robbers and the CIA.

Signs

2011-09-18T09:22:00.001-07:00

Is it a good sign –

the down feather floating

from heaven, or has

another pigeon been

sacrificed for a priest’s meal.

Death plays solitaire

2011-09-18T09:20:00.000-07:00

When death came to linger

he was slow, tender and deliberate.

He did not demand entrance

instead he tended and care for the quail,

the ravens and coyotes.

He pulled weeds in the front and backyard

whistling lullabies and singing

an old Arabian folk song.

At night he lit his fire, tended

the stars and was content to play

solitaire for the forty-billionth time.

Questions 34,451 & 34,452

2011-09-03T09:20:00.000-07:00

If the universe is expanding,
what’s it expanding into?

Who’s the marionette
behindthe marionette?

Break in the clouds

2011-08-27T21:53:00.001-07:00

The muscles around the eye
twitch and flex,
the pupil grows large
acting surprised
that the sun chose
to see through it,
causing the eye to sheds
a thousand million tears.

Deskless lizard

2011-08-22T21:49:00.000-07:00

I’m overwhelmed by the simple tasks,
clearing my desk with it’s useless stacks.

Here the wheel of days spins counterclockwise
mocking me like the mocking bird mocks the desert wren,
and the sun mocks the deserted calcium crusted soil
and the deskless lizard mocks mankind.

Heartache

2011-08-22T21:40:00.000-07:00

The wind's heartache whirls in my chest;
a thousand chimes clang an ungodly clanking.

In broad daylight

2011-08-14T20:27:00.000-07:00

Surely, that flying armored insect
is not blind – would god do that?
Yet like the wingless me,
it hammers it’s head
into one wall, then another.

Torch of Hades

2011-08-05T18:54:00.000-07:00

The wick lies fallow; the cavern’s air stale;
the guardian’s hiss silent.

She lies tangled, sleeping for some fifty years.
Her rattle a lady in waiting.

Her fangs safely tucked until the sacred initiation:
a stumbling fool, me, beaten black and blue,
falls headlong into her den.

She strikes; the number of man.
My eyes, my cheeks, my lips.

Stunned and marked, I collapse
ready for the pyre;

ready to become
the my own torch of Hades.

Sunscreen

2011-08-04T13:03:00.001-07:00

Barrel cactus
acting out;
dancing in public.
While I put on
more sunscreen.

Asking

2011-08-04T09:40:00.001-07:00

What does
the dragonfly
spell against
the blue sky?

FlatEarth

2011-08-04T09:33:00.001-07:00

The earth is flat,
I’ve found the edge
and jumped.

Consulting bird

2011-07-28T10:38:00.001-07:00

It must be a good morning,
a Lucifer hummingbird is whistling
between bloom and home.

Desert Bell

2011-07-28T10:34:00.001-07:00

Rain hitting rocks
awakens Sabino Canyon
to possess the torrential
drops between her legs.

Kiss, Kiss

2011-07-25T15:37:00.000-07:00

Her lips sink over mine,
a cloud clinging
to a mountain peak,
for a perfect second.

Desert Magic

2011-07-25T15:34:00.000-07:00

The warlock next door grows spikes
making them bend under weighted spells
of fuchsia blobs.
All for the sake of attracting arial incantations.

My Opponent

2011-07-23T19:30:00.003-07:00

Everyday
I play tug-o-war.
I pretend
my opponent
is faceless,
lest I see
it’s my left side
pulling at my right.

Bachelor

2011-07-23T16:14:00.000-07:00

I’m a spider, stuck in my web,
waiting
for you or you or you or you...

Wanting

2011-07-23T16:03:00.000-07:00

Perfect
is an obnoxious
hungry ghost.

Bitterness

2011-07-21T11:26:00.001-07:00

A pill swallowed,
blooms in my throat,
a thistle blossoms magenta.

Golden Barrel

2011-07-21T11:23:00.000-07:00

The desert wren dances
where no angel imagines.

White Water

2011-07-18T21:27:00.000-07:00

It’s come again, like it did two days ago
and a day before that and three before that.

Anguish disguised as wind battering my blue boat
cast upon Hades craggy rapids –
Hells Hole,
The Devils Playground,
Point-No-Point,
Pin Cushion,
Bleeding Out,
Lost,
each puckers up to suck me under
between the gods and the living.
I hover.
Breathing or not.

The blind wind blows regardless

2011-07-12T20:13:00.001-07:00

Like so much of life caught in a crack,
a deaf leaf poses as a dove’s feather.

Trickster

2011-07-12T17:14:00.001-07:00

I came to the desert
to witness a death,
never suspecting
it was my own.