After Months of Living in My Ford Fiesta

sun & guitar strumming through space giving
breathing life-music concertos into me the grass

the G-minor wind the black garbage bags
I have picked out only a few t-shirts to wear

this year or any year could be the lifespan
of the universe or an endless pot of coffee

all my pants in the trunk I have driven
the cavernous columns of west U.S.A. today

& yesterday & tomorrow is my bent mind u-turn
steering wheel a strained muscular twist & cat-tongue

rubber consuming thoughts which are broke &
banked & rivulets of rust & cash the downstream

trend of my feral gasoline-fueled dreams

(originally published in Treehouse: An Exhibition of the Arts, Winter 2018)

Duplex

the muffled songs
made me wonder
who played violin
on the other side

who cradled the bowstring
whose long haunting moans
whispered my name
in its dried throat
beyond the wooden wall
who itself whispered
its own ghosts
its dead fingerprints

are clamoring
to live again

 

(originally published in The Bond Street Review, Summer 2017)

East Through California

I argue with the music in my car again
those rock’n’roll pots and pans clanging
in the soup kitchen of my imagination
the Steel Reserve of my rumba rumblin’
stomach unfilled from Maruchan ramen

really I’m running from anything but home:
in the apartment of my car the desert’s
a sandstorm of faulty A/C and mountains
obscuring the view of my future and
there’s nowhere else to go but here

 

(originally published in Outcast Poetry, Spring 2017)

All the Bulbs are Burning Out

I am scared to death
of death.

Not just the big death
but tiny deaths, too.

All the bulbs are burning out
in my house one by one.

In living, we accrue small darknesses.

Mirror to mirror: void
where my eyes should be.

Hung mauve towel.
Vines of black mold.

Plastic ringlets steady
stained curtain infinity.

The silver shower faucet was once
a sunflower dreamed of fluorescence.

Now, downpour, no bright
for every prayer.

Gallons of black shower
(plead with God just–).

Gobs of

gobs and gobs of hair
cling to the drain.

Genuflect in the porcelain pitter-patter.

A feedback loop of weeps.

Hot water, cold water,
no water.

 

(originally published in Isthmus, Winter 2016)

10514 National Blvd

the couch a forlorn slinky
stagnant. f-stop set to zero. focus:

predestined flickering lights
where dreams meet swan
matches and peel, lit & untethered

jaunty flows
the air beneath
the vacant couch

warrior of staleness & mildew

ambassador to dust-covered curtains–

shards of dreams
in beams of sun
stream into the room; at least
what is breathed, what can be seen
through blinds in deep sleep–

 

(originally published in VerseWrights)