grizzly poem

Fuckt a cow; do not know
how. Fuckt a bear,
twas pretty fair; end-stoppt
a sheep; didn't
make one peep. Befowled one
longtailed lynx, sext
its six; a howl-prooft hole.

topside

Walking west next
to the canal between the water
bodies of lake union

& puget,
bombed out by a messy
cascadian mist,

I, murmuring, wonder
why moss grows topside
on horizontal branches.

I inquire a kilted
cyclist thrushing by.
Through his beard

he says
wanderlust seeks sun
but a dead body

open-casketed for a wake
dries out a chapel
from inside

& the seeds split.

no home

In the far-off cool of evergreen forests, no home
for me, my body not born
there;

not far from here, over yellow hills
blasting heat and yellow light
brush-stroking the sky,

no home
for me, my heart not
born here;

My two prostitute mothers
present me to Solomon;
their struggling

saws me in half.

writer's workshop

God you bores me, gores me
slow, filing us
in your paperwork shuffle. Fix-it
and fix-it again, retaliate
not and filch from every poor
bastard that ever wrote realist
fiction, prose so shopworn
and dull as a spoon. Lacquer
and lacquer again. Lick the cross
of Carver and his "editor"
and then you may begin
to come into your power as
writers. As if power
is something come into as a writer;
but that's a dictator's view.
The screw turning us now.

catfish in the hole

In darkness 

a serenity; no one to holler

me, only the trenchish sea-bottom

of darkness: of the morning that is night,

the 2am singing, soft, sweet

over sycamore leaves. The churchyard

wilted, the county fair a fistful of trash,

the river silt 

swallowed by a catfish in the hole,

his belly yellow-white, ripe thankful

with fat, with flesh, possibly also

screwdrivers, penknives and paper clips, 

edges of an ancient Budweiser can; 

he loves the night, too, and my papa

sets out hooks for him. (Night: hookful 

thing, not hateful.) The night is true

love: no holler of life here 

smoking up the corrugated 

corridors of my brain, no 

encircling black birds, no tripwires,

only darkness, darkness 

without ire, envy or lies: only the truth 

of the moon, shedding light,
the catfish in the hole, 
river cat
sucking river silt.   

All of the first responders are dead
and they sent me to you with these
pliers.

Help yourself to them before the fire:
the more the teeth, the more
the pull.

I am filling up my chalkboard self with
what else
but more chalk

and more aspartame, because real sugar
is for diabetics
I guess.

recurring dream person problems

You grew a beard in my dream
last night, switched sexes
and declared yourself
as yourself
in a final sense. One hazy
night a month ago you
possessed my lover's body;
becoming her. Blonde hair dyed
black, tan skin
drained fishbelly pale.
What are you doing? I haven't
spoken to you in years and
don't intend to. In my dreams
you're like a man found facedown
in a pile of shit and trash,
enjoying himself. My own face
in the between the burger wrappers
and puss.