Weak for Kind

This beautiful assemblage of chicken bones
a facade barely covering more loss
and abuse than anyone should
have to know in twenty years.

I have a hard time not only holding
this ground but just knowing
where I stand.

In a parking lot
under a stenciled moon
who is this in my shoes?

Young under the sky
wanting somewhere else to be
the imbalanced weight of missteps
chicken bones assembled sadly,
still and eternal.

Yes I would,
but probably for
the wrong reasons
disguised as right.

Twelve Hours

It's a sport of sorts, competitive yet entirely individual,
it's a trial, something that engages the spirit,
the whole entity,
it's a long god damn time to stay on your feet
moving forward.

this time I really noticed just how heavy
my head is to carry around
both physically and otherwise.

A Touching Display

Artists Write For The People

I'm looking for this story for you,
really paging through volumes,
trying to find the one in which
the world is a safe place
and all the predators are in the zoo
happy now and taken care of, a place
where wild is just a ride on a roller coaster
not tooth and claw and red.

I want to read to you
this story in which
people are who they say they are
set in a place where it is really
bad to lie, cheat, steal
and hurt each other.

I want to tell you  a story about
a place where people are free
and responsible
where the weak, sick, old, young
the less fortunate
are taken care of
because it's the right
thing to do.

I'm looking for that story now,
maybe I should call you when I find it?

Victor

In the photograph
he looks like a painter
from another age
Van Gogh or someone
capable of suffering at that level
and a moment of something ecstatic
swirling stars, everything wrapped in light
and panic.

Of course you hear suicide in his lyrics now,
not that you or anyone else did fuck-all about it.

Cinematic

What are those men doing?
down there in the depleting river
with the water level shrinking daily
and less life visible

There's an old couch on the bank now
and a muskrat trying to pretend there is enough
water to swim in
in more than just a few spots

This creeping drought
we are tinder
and madness swirls around us like hungry horseflies
like bullets at the movies cracking over your head
and leaving someone else dead

We can't believe it because we can't and so we
try thinking of bare shoulders, sun-browned skin,
try thinking of your children and you watching a movie in bed
and your small boy, happy, telling you that you smell like wine
even though you've had none,and that you are the best dad he's ever had

You're glad water still comes out of the tap.
You hope you are cancer free.
You pray to a storybook illustration
that the light on the good things stays on.

Calling Hours

A cancer death
a mother with two young boys
surviving her
they watched her go slowly
unable to stop the progression
or comprehend
the inevitable outcome.

They were all kids when I
last saw them,
so was I, and so was she.

I recognize their eyes, but it's
as though they're in costume
peering through middle-aged masks
theater make-up

Waiting for your life to happen
it went by
and we are all now a little
terrified.