poems! many!

The 21^st weekend

I became the train, after sitting in the damp lobby.

The woman sitting next me, behind her trashy magazine,

sighed with her eyes when I wasn’t asked for identification.

Later, Dave Davison or Rivers Coming or a Phillip K. Dick

character brought us slabs of meat and me a Left Hand Fade to Black

that’s rings around the glass became descending tree trunks.

The top of my skull was scalped, when I put my lips

to the billowing bottle, and a roll of duct tape became

the most interesting I had ever seen, as Greg Gillis smashed

the only living boy in New York into Lil’ Jon.

When I swallowed the earth, with its red wax seal

I let it pillage my throat, and felt the blood rush to my toes.

    And when I returned, the flag poles tap danced. 

A Baker’s Dozen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

I’ve actually never seen one.

They’re not the same as crows, right?

It seems strange that a cardinal is a cardinal,

and not a red bird.

Magicians use doves, but sometimes are considered

masters of the dark magic.

Seems like a mistake on the ambiance,

on their part, throwing in some white. 

A sparrow once flew into my sliding door

And I used a dust pan to take it outside.

My professor told me there are exotic birds on the South side

but I’m not sure if I believe her.

Sometimes I see misery sleeping on windowsills.

A pack of pigeons is a misery, or it should be.

I’ve seen pigeons eating their own shit,

and some have orange eyes.

 They’re don’t seem to notice trains, overhead

or bikers closing in.

I’ve heard some eagles or falcons, know not to

fly so high, so when they descend, they don’t die.

Where do birds go when it rain? Do they scout out

locations where earthworms will lie drowning?

Must they form notes on electrical wires, next to

hanging sneakers, and sing with the sirens?

There is a bird in my stomach that eats butterflies. 

Named

I’ve been sleeping on the dining room table, lately,

wondering if I should have been named after someone

in the Bible.

But, I’ve never read the Bible, so I would probably

just forge my name anyway, on time cards, if I had

a job that paid.

When I was kid, I wrote my name in drying cement

and misspelled it, but I wasn’t embarrassed. I lie

about my middle name all the time.

In grade school, I’d write my name across the top

of the page, and wondered if my name would fit

on the back of a jersey. 

Would the letters dovetail off? Would the missing letters

form a new name? My mother skips our three final

letters and just ends ___ like after a death on a heart monitor.