A Ghost in the Hills, and Fog on an Open Road.

Hainted
Cotton gins
echo
wing beats
of martin birds
and bats
borrowing time
from tomorrow's
dawn.
In the cool
night
warehouse dark
mice
move up and down,
suicide runs,
squeaking like
the tennis shoes
on waxed wood.

In the distance,
resounding around
the bend of the
creek bed
and the snow-white
silver limestone walls,
a shotgun blast
is muffled
down to a small
low rumble,
belying the destructive
flash that was the
last thing
one coyote ever
saw.

The Hickory nuts
land with a "thud"
all hours of the
night, while their branches
crack and snap
loudly in the
midnight wind.
Hoodoo hexes
scratched into
birch bark telling
secrets
to the needles and leaves.

Hoodlums
hold open a
concrete crypt
to smash the innards
like so many pumpkins,
and sacrificed
cats,
their entrails
scattered about
the grass
or the brick wall
or maybe asphalt
county lines.

All the Saints
come out to wail
and faces paint
their flickering smiles
all over the dark.

And What Have I Become to You?

I have
come
to be the
gambler
and the thief;
gambling at
tomorrow
and stealing all
my yesterdays.
I have
come
to be a
liar
and a prophet;
delivering
all the news
that never
was.
I have
come
to be the
sick
and the
poor;
licking up
the tonic water
for the drink
and the quinine.
I have
come
to be
the pusher
and the
priest; selling
just to buy
a way to
heaven.
I have
come
to be
the dog and
the horse;
nipping at my
own heels
to pull.
The more
I run
the
faster I die
and
the darker
the day
the brighter
the moon.
I have
come to
be the
gambler
and the
thief;
losing all my yesterdays
at a crooked game of
tomorrow.

2500 give or take (Another Question)

If someone looks out
across the straits of Sicily
To the Island itself
Do they see the
ocean
between?
Or the sweet
sands on shore?

What if it were the
expanse of our
ancestors?
The thousands of
miles of
undulating grass
and massive waves?
Would we
still see
a home away from
nowhere?
Or would the
ocean of dirt
and sand
and dead leaves
keep us ashore
on the Island of the
Known and Familiar?

I Verb (2006)

I've seen women
wanting to be men
I feel sadness
coursing through veins
trains, planes, and
water mains, I see
men that
want the woman's life

I feel hatred
exuding from seats of power
in the desert erg
or the river's eyeshot

I know why there is
blood-fire all on the
TV screens but I can't
recognize
how it got there

I hear the poor
longing for feelings of
lust and greed
to motivate them

I still hear the respirator
and the funny sound it made
when it was unplugged
I saw that chest rise
and fall for the last time,
those lungs that breathed life
into me
never to fill again

I feel the cold feel,
the dark feel
the sense of
majority disapproval,
disgust, and disdain

I hear the laughter
through the jeers, because
some very loyal
fans are in the crowd
tonight

I've smelt death, and
tasted cancer, I've heard
death rattles like a six inch-long
locust that could freeze your soul,
that's what a death rattle sounds like.

I've felt the iron grip
and giant thumb of
authority, and I know
how to get away by saying "NO"

I've seen many, many
grass huts
and I've heard the sound of
a Porsche
pulling into a eight-car garage.

I've always seen blistered
fingers and sagging cheeks
and tear-welled faces.

I've always heard the Jet-planes
and felt their low-bass rumblings
in my gut, but now I
see their contrails more clearly,
dropping payload-lines of
ice, water vapor,
and god-knows-what else

A Pile of Dry Manure, A Buddhist Parable (as told by Alex White)

One day,
a famous official from
a the state government
met a highly
respectable
Buddhist master.
And, being very
vain and conceited,
the official
wanted to make sure
that everyone knew
he was better, more superior.
So, as they were talking,
the official said "Hey, old monk,
you know what I think of you
and what you're talkin' about?"
and the monk said
"I don't give a shit, you're
entitled to your opinion, I'm
entitled to mine."
and the official laughed derisively and
said: "Hell, I'm gonna tell ya anyways!
I think you're like a
dried
up pile
of shit!"
And the master just sat
and stared at the official.
Seeing that his insult
didn't hurt the monk,
the official asked in earnest:
"So? Whaddya think about my ass? Huh?"
And the master spoke quietly:
"You, buddy, are just
like the Buddha."
So the official left
laughing and bragging.
He went home and boasted
to his wife about this.
When she heard his bragging,
she rolled up a magazine
and smacked him with it,
saying:
"You dumbass! When a man
has a heart made of dry shit
he sees everyone that way!
The master has the heart of The Buddha!
That's why he says
you're like the Buddha!
You're not gettn' any tonight..."

Warmouth Teeth and Bluegill Spines

Have you ever
pulled a free
meal out from
some muddy body of water
at a public park?
As unappetizing
as it sounds,
it certainly
is rewarding.
The tug on
a clear blue
line ankle-deep
in emerald pools,
the din of
rippling water
over granite
stones,
keep me,
and all
other good
fishermen,
in a state
of zen-like
repose and
calm
serenity.
And if I were
to choose
between this life
of clutch-dust
cars and internets,
and warmouth teeth
and bluegill spines,
undoubtedly I would
choose the
latter.

Where Denial Lives

I may not be cool,
but at least
I don't get mad
at the
Hot Topic
employees
when they don't
have the bondage pants
or the scally cap
that I wanted.
I may not be smart,
but at least
I know what happens
at the end
of an "Alamo"
movie.
I may not be nice,
but at least
I don't
mock someone
when they
stutter.
I may not have
a normal life,
but at least
I don't
take out my troubles
on other folks.
And I may not
be perfect,
but at least
I'm not afraid
to admit it.

Oh, So Many Thoughts

fluidity forms straight
if that
were to make any sense.

pretty pretty timpani
doom doom doom
heartbeats and a snare

ebongation
the act of
becoming bonged

The Music
is not real but would
anyone else like to hear it?

The Walls can open up
and swallow
to a downward fall.

The Music Kills me!
Twang of strange
horrible alien cities

The Measurements
are taken in the river
for us to swim in

Screens and windows
fingers moving so sprightly
daintily around

Circus tunes
and a calliope
but rest is wished not joy.

The neck hurts but
it feels no pain
until the weather turns warm

It's just chunks
of Melting Color
and a soft flourescence\

And is the backslash even
there? where are
all these things meaning things...

green though
this flourescence
is natural

green is our
mother color,
and home color

if green were to
be the mother
pink is the father, then

THE WHITE
IS TO THE
RED RED ROSE

but lines are just
lines, and nothing
more, divide not

smokey milky
shadows lurking
among strings of mandolin

this song stirs
sweet in the memory
of chilhood woods

just chants
and songs and
incantations!

Flung to heavens in
fits of rapture and
exctasy!

These wonderful tongues
that speak us
truth and vision

these that see me as
a shining light
in the dark!

Sing those songs! fill
the skies with words
of salvation.

And only see the visons
as they arise

and only seek,
what is searched for
when you are searching.

these so many
many words
by way of man.

flight
means wings
and a means of escape

I don't have enough
late nights,
very few
extra-productive
nocturnal rantings, and
hammerings on the keyboard.
I don't have the
scrolls
filled with my
philosophies
and stories.
I don't know
any professors
or gurus
or yogis,
to teach me
how to please
the elite, good-taste
coffee-drinkers
who might buy
my book.
i don't have
the beat's revolution
or skag, or the 69'ers
acid or Vietnam.
I don't have the
street kid background
or abusve parents,
or the old-money
blue-blooded
silver spoon.
but I do have
the everpresent
fear of
incarceraton
and the lingering
worry that hangs
low over my eyes.
I do have those
that by
aggregation
I'm reluctant to
lose.
I do have a will
to continue,
be it on
a dry-cracked
highway
or in the house
of The Devil Himself.
I have the
victory, the future,
the glory.
I have an Angel
and a Sprite
on my side.
I have karma
and God
and the universe.
I have blue
skies and
green rivers
and golden
stretches of harvested
soybean.
I have empty
railcars and
a hitch-hiker's
thumb, and
plane tickets
and gasoline.
I have sweet
honeysuckle vine,
and the smell
of the river
after a rainstorm.
For what I could
want, and for what
I have, I dedicate
this work
of attatchment
in hopes
of
letting
go.

That's What You Get Fer Thinkin'

gazing out an open
door, into the darkness
of an Alabama night,
I hear many spring peepers.
I wonder if these frogs
could sing for eternity.
I wonder if maybe,
they never stop,
and I just notice
their songs
at night.
But who's in a place
to say that the
river never rises higher than
it is right now?
Who's got the know-how
to determine
what kills a deer-tick
the quickest?

Standing in a grove of Pine
and pink dogwood,
i notice that there are
lightning bugs
in the air, again.
I feared them victims,
of poisons, and
climate change.
But who am I to
assume
that lightning bugs are
gone, never to be caught
in jars by
our children?
The fallacy
of
Thought.

Visions of the Afterworld

A man ravaged by calamity
broke the silence this
morning by throwing the tarp off
the jagged edges of an old escalade
He peers back down into the front
floorboard to see his penelope, lying
in repose with a small boy,
playin' with a broken toy
in the front passenger seat.
"I'm gonna go on and get to huntin'"
and his penelope says "I love You!"
shouting so he can hear her outside
the run down car.
Although the hunter does not hear it,
he understood it.
And as the hunter stood straight
and peered into the sky,
he could make out where the Sun was,
just vaguely. The fallout clouds have destroyed sunlight
The Wars have destroyed our monuments
and our aesthetic beauty.
But when the post-apocalyptic hunter
bears home supper on his back, he sees in the
eyes of his son and the face of his penelope,
the stolen light of the sun,
the beauty of the once high-standing towers
and the monument of love
present in the small boy,
who is playing, content
with the dirt, the death and the broken toys.

Loss, Love, and Corny Poems

The sensation
of loss
is beyond
the realm
of adjectives.
Words thrown at
an idea
only bounce
and fall heavily
back
down.
Forced to feel it,
is more accurate
because loss
pushes itself
on its host
and never
lets
go.
Violation
might be a
synonym
or maybe
Trauma
means
loss.
Losing her
then her
then him
then her.
That's the last time,
maybe,a woman
will seem important.
But there's a reason
for this vivified
lifestyle.
She's an enlightening
lumine, a candle
in a moonlit room,
to keep the darkness-addled
from stumbling
on the threshold
of happiness.
But ignorance
is a warm
blanket, that one
can throw over his
head, and let
the world
pass above.
Some will never leave
their warm,
comforting, and
woolen
ignorance.
They choose instead
the easy route, a
path of denial,
sadness,
and torpor.
And all along
I sail the seas
of Samsara
searching,
with my torch held high
for enlightenment.
I
am my own vessel of enlightenment
I
am my own blanket of ignorance
but She,
You are
my lighthouse,
my four winds in a bag
and my map of Ithaca.
My Penelope,
I'll sail the Aegean as far as Thule
for millenia!
If only you'll resist the suitors
and wait for me,
just wait.
Once home, I shall make
of you a Queen for all
the world to envy, My Penelope
with Her Odysseus,
proudly striding above
the beautiful, white columns
of Our Ithaca! Can you see it?
I can.