You and Your Back Roads

you love the arrows at the bottom of the page - fool.
shooting arrows down country roads and watching them fly,
watching them skim your face.
pull back, prepare, release.
you have country roads across your lips
and I can see them wind all over -
you drink beer while driving on country roads,
you speed you car on dirt on country roads,
you let me drive down country roads
and tell me I am terrible.

lean back in your chair love
for soon I will leave you and soon
I will be back again.

feel the dirt fly up in tires,
see the cows,
stack the hay,
don't stop at corners.
large generalizations love -
your lips,
your roads,
your eyes again.
let's roll in the dirt and lie in country fields.

I will be home when the first snow falls,
my country, country love.

Seasons Greetings

Hello dear.

I've been thinking about you. I had a family Christmas party the other evening and the love of your life showed up. You remember him, don't you? He wanted to start a business that sold the skin of the chicken on its own and then he wanted to start his own television show. He asked about you. I told him you were doing fine. We made out in my hot tub for two hours after the party died down.

I really love you dear. I do. This isn't just the alcohol speaking at all - I've been thinking about you.

The Trees, The Trees

someone stole your table!

i know, i tried to stop them but i couldn't -
i was two floors down, you know.

someone asked me why i like you -
why do i like you:

your hair is wrought dry like hair held too
long in fists and never brushed.
i can imagine what it would be like to grab your
hair in my fist and few by few twist until
it was too dry,
and if you tried to do the same to me,
i would demand you desist.

the lines in your face by your mouth which
i touch and draw squares from.
i can imagine what it would be like to take your
head in my hands and one by one kiss until
it was too dark,
and if you wasted my pale skin like that,
i would attempt to resist.

i know!
i spoke, i know.
do you remember when i spoke?
it was the last straw and you were about to fall -
i know, i know.

you left,
i know!

your eyes are like mine in these flourescent
times and i'd like to keep tall
and not staring at all search to find the resemblance
and try some until we got over the ground
and not caring
if you tried with your eyes to resist
i would attempt to insist.

you looked,
i saw!
i know!

and the trees, the trees -
do you know you're such a tease,
what is it about those god damn trees.

Pigeon Kill

just so you know the reason that i
hate you is because when i see the
glint of your skin i already
know what you will taste like.

even though my legs are tall and my foot
is strong to stomp you,
i know you could kill me -
you have a beak and i am scared of your skin.

your skin glints different colours depending
on the light and every time i discover a new colour
i hate you more.
your feathers don't even look like feathers anymore,
they look like pieces of paper painted with gloss
and metallic shimmers.
you have a beak and i know it could take my eyes out.

just so you know i hate you because i can already see
the path of your skin,
i know where you will end and still i can't control you -
when you come crossing near to me i turn and run.

even though i know you will be served on a plate when you die
i will not eat you but i will take your meat and throw it
against the wall, and even though i fear it
if i had the chance i'd take your claws and one by one
i would break the bones and one by one i would pull
the feathers from your wing and leave them on the ground.

i found you the other day, freshly shot and dead on the sidewalk
and i could not run. i saw you the other day with a puddle
of blood more red than your claws pooling around your head and
i did run -

the very thought of you dead
makes me want to revive you and kill you again,
makes me wish i was responsible for the kill.

i could have lifted you and put you
right into my mouth, i already know
how badly your skin would have tasted.

Heavy Mind

the daft one smokes her joint,
and so do i too feel the need,
the allowance for this deal -
sacrifice the mind for want of nothing,
sacrifice the thought for want of nothing -
the word means other things,
the lack of sound, lack of pounding equals sane.

i used to care for clothing but now i bear it,
wanting only the look of some trees
while i sedate my mind with the passing of the bark
into paper.

can the earth be rolled and understood,
can the matters of the earth prevail?
and if not where am i found -
you probably wondered why i am so quiet,
you probably wondered why i have nothing to say;
when we talked i wasn't right until i smoked it.

we undress and i am shocked by your bones,
i would never want to lie between your bones,
just so you know,
but still i am shocked by your breast and your chest with my legs,
and my chest and my breast with your legs,
one is perfect, and one is not -
what do the words mean?

what does it mean to care for the earth
when your foe thinks just of paper?
what does it mean to know for the earth
when you still have need of paper -
when shall we be measured and who by?

this intuition of trees, this intuition
of paper does not exist if we still try.

i'd like to take your baggage and compare
your want to mine -
did you grow up in the trees?
i will take your baggage and roll it next to mine
until the leaves become the measure of the word
and paper dies.

Characteristics of a Gifted Child

when I was twelve
my brain
was too good
so i drank
because at least
with the drunks
I could talk about something -
with the books i got bored,
eventually;
with the drunks I never
did because they gave me
something to write about.

Murder (Sorry Mother)

when I was twelve
my reflection time resulted
in a paper full of the
word H A T E
in bright red
from one corner to the other,
from the top end to the bottom,
and the entire time I wrote it
I thought of my mother.

Midland Town Docks

i know where you keep your boat,
someone told me,
someone told me you keep your boat at a dock
near my house where i live -
your boat is kept in a place near where i live
and you come here twice a year to use it.

i come from a town attracting tourists from the city
who come here to be on water that is clean
because all of the water in the city has been used;
the water has become dirty in your home
so you come to where i live twice a year
and use my water.

sort of like the way you use
my body twice a week while we
dwell not far from each other
in this cold, city town.

in the tourist town where i grew up
people seperate depending on the time of year -
in the summer people come into the streets
and work their trades,
in the winter they hide in their homes
leaving the streets to freeze over -
every so often some members come out and not
seeing the coldness of the street
fall down despite them.

i heard you don't dock your boat in Midland anymore;
it reminds me of the feeling i got when i left your place
the last second time of the week we met - we haven't spoken
since because we traded goods and now we have no reason
to keep each other at all.

Stop Calling Me

Do you know what pigeon feels like
when it is between your teeth?
Rubber.

Do you know what pigeon looks like when
it has been shot dead?
Like a sidewalk full of language barriers.

No, I never said I wanted to kill all of the pigeons.
Why did you kill all of the pigeons!

Like: When Can We Meet Us Again? You Will Call Me
Tommorrow? We Can Meet Us At Noon?
No.

Like: just eat the fricken food because you're in a nice place
with nice people and even though the bird tastes like rubber,
everyone else is eating it.
Tastes fine.

Like: good morning skatter, guess what I did this morning,
I killed a pigeon because I know you hate them. Come outside
and see.

Rage ie. Pop Culture

no. you fuck,
i don't have time for you.
i was in the city
with some people
to get away from
the likes of you.

my father orders rocks,
orders tractors to be moved
to calm his shaking limbs,
to loosen stiffed up limbs,
to make his mind off of
the legs he has not gotten -
my father is my friend.

i think you're a fuck sometimes,
you know that.

i met a person and i went
on a date, a date where leather
pants were accepted and patterned
tights were worn and where I
ran and I tripped and I fell
and did a face plant.

you're a real fuck.
take a look at my knee you fuck,
there was a cut there and now it is
scabbed over. i had a friend
who slept with a boy i loved and she taught me
to destroy the likes of you.

fuck. i'd like to shut you up.

i came to the city to get away from
the likes of you.
the city is a place where people like you
dwell - I'll fuck you up girl.

Come Not Often

I slammed a boulder through the window.
I did, I got a crane and I learned how to use it
and I picked up a rock and I dropped it into the
window and I smashed it.
Twice I have been witness to the repositioning
of large rocks, both moved by men whose opinion
I liked and both times I have been shocked
by the desire to move such largeness into unnatural,
man-made forms.

The glass was perfectly clear and had been washed
with windex by a man in white who had been
sitting in my head.
I ate an apple and then I smashed the
window and I stood at a safe distance
so when the grass cracked, not a single piece
would scrape my skin.

Just So You Know

it was good to see
your bones.

do not look in my direction.
i may lose my mind and then i may
lose my head and then i may lose
my neck and then i may lose my bones.

Usurp

i'd like to hear your side of the story,
i saw you and you are still too skinny.
i want to know, is it cocaine, is it sadness,
is it madness, is it craving, failing, liking the dark,
needing the light, needing the bones to
be seen, tell me, i'd like to hear your side
of the story, do you think you'll be alright,

friend, i'd like to hear that you are okay
because if you are not i'd like to lend my pencil
and draw you skinny and help you find your way.
skinny friend, i do despise nights, the way they ended
the way your side of the story came out empty, skinny
friend, i do despise mornings, and i do despise

how skinny you have become since
you changed my favourite syllables, dear friend,
you are far too skinny, is it cocaine, sadness, madness,
tell me friend, i am mad as well, i am sad as well, i have been
wanting some cocaine, dear friend. skinny we are, have become
and i am sad that your skinny legs are skinnier than mine
and that you are too sad to sit still and speak, you are so sad.

Skinny Legs, I Saw You

your skinny highway jeans drew lines across my legs,
your skinny highway legs left lines across my eyes,
your highway cock killed me three times and i wanted to die.
four hundred skinny legs tumbled together like kindling,
the windows got shut to prevent the cars from driving through
and i wanted to creamate you there between my lines.
your skinny highway lines drew eyes across my ties and you
told me that skinny highway lines come often.
(but i want you)

your skinny highway planks of wood left lines across my legs
in broken skin and your skinny highway planks of cock left
me silent in your skinny highway lines of springs and following
skinny lines of stepping i watched you do in skinny sight
lines and you told me that skinny fucking love was hungry for
some hungry fucking love and lines across your skin are not
meant for leaving along lines
(but i want you)

your skinny highway legs left imprints on my brains speckled
and purpled like bruises that come from evenings when too many
drinks have been had and too many people have gone home alone
leaving lines in the road (but i want you) and your skinny
highway jeans leave too many lines at the bottom of my nose
too many lines at the top of the ceiling, your skinny highway
of rails and lines goldened like the sky above the treeline
(and i want you)

skinny highway love goldened hard against the reflection of the sky
against the skin covered keys on the sidewalk, i want you and skinny
highway jeans and love and lines and four hundred skinny arms tumbled
together in piles like fire wood, clanking and bruising skinny highway
lines into lines we were never meant to be and skinny highway sightlines
do still the air so skinny highway jeans are meant to be here in places
where your highway cock and skinny jeans leave lines across my eyes
(and i want you).

Here are a List of Reasons/New Muses

Here is a list of the things
my muse embodies:

Wheat grass.

My muse embodies breast plates decorated
with jade and amber and fluorescent pink
stones that belong at the bottom of
a pool of water coloured aqua (the jade

and the
amber are found in small
markets;

the water is
coloured by the
floor on which
it
finds itself
floating close
above -

sometimes it is dark
because the bottom cannot be seen).

My breast plate has become an arena
for bones

and for jewelry.
My breast plate has become an arena
for

decoration.
My breast has been wiped
of the seeds of the earth and
hungry as a breastplate I
have become clean.

I have become gaunted and blackened
and darkened at the eyes;
my skin has lost its rosy glow

but it stands still across my bones -

before we can create for the muse
we must become

the muse
(watch muses
through glass, through mirrors,
through windows);

my muse stands still, knowing watching,
knowing less the reprimand he has

upon my planting of new weeds,
upon the planting of my skin behind glass windows.

Apartments Behind Alleys Onto pages

can you see across the stream,
the angle of my pen,
the way it squews the letters into
shapes that have gone sour;
can you see the scratch of pen,
the scratch of language,
scratch of the mode this text implies,
momentum this implies.
i once smoked a tube packed with
need and i felt clean -
that is i felt beside myself -
like ecstasy obscuring curtains
and keys and pages of books
into things i can identify with stories
out of our cynical tripping to
scratch hands, make bands;
can you feel the scratching of this suede
against my toes, braided vinyl pushing
leather to the side where i found you
on the sidewall scratching hands,
stealing steez between the rings that make
imprints on your skin.

Maybe Means Yes Here

7:00 am: bike ride into town on bike three feet too tall,
bottom of seat digging into small of back,
antler horns and elbow rests.

7:10 am: man with dog in park.
7:11 am: man fishing off pier.
7:12 am: dead mouse.
7:13 am: elderly man with baby.
7:14 am: fireman smoking in back of station.
7:15 am: giant bell.

8:23 am: dead raccoon on side of road;
dead cat on side on sidewalk,
hitting dog on side of bike.

10:13 am: water.

12:26 pm: vegetables.

1:13 pm: water;
1:37 pm: water;
1:50 pm: water.

4:47 pm: stiff knees.
5:10 pm: purple aprons.
5:57 pm: blasphemy.
croissant with spinach.

9:27 pm: mountain bike with loud wheels,
stunt bike with suspension,
road bike ten feet tall.
posse on easy.

[Summer Lover] I have taste -

once again you stand alone beside me,
dear friend, don't tell me we have lost it
once again;

its been a while since i have felt
this screaming in my head,
its been a while since i did think
that maybe i am dead.

i love you like cocaine,
i love you like tar driveways peeling off the gravel
and all around my skin,
i love you like black tulle sewn into dresses,
i love you like new years,
like salads
like the sidewalk on the mainstreet,
i love you like kissing,
like smoking pipes,
like cigarettes,
like acting my age,
my suitor,
i love you like my mother,
i love you like the city (and more)

(i have gone unmad and i have gone silent).

if you were to rip my head open you might find tar
where you once stood and you might find strings that
do not work but i am still happy you were here

and you were here,
like cocaine, tar and ramala, i love you.

Think Something

you are nutty,

son!
get your shit togetha.