This Muddy Wake

Soon I’ll molt off my sun dried summer skin
And ditch the campfire and beer songs
To a cowboy’s goodbye, a wink and a smile
Knelling his shiny bell and his trusty steed
A sequin stitched requiem fallen fallow
Of Fall’s fraying executioner’s dark hood

New Anthology

I am pleased to announce that my poem Some Kind of Blue will be published and included in a new poetry anthology by Ingrid Wilson called, “The Anthropocene Hymnal: Songs of a self-defining Era”

My Town

I’m an erect middle finger to the puppeteer
In valleys full of folks sick of California
Doing their damnedest to make California here

Re: Redrum

A carnival of meats
Creaky carousels of subjugation
of the tortured and sentient
Wide eyed and scared
Naked and bleeding
Braised and bruised
Animal corpses splayed
On dinner plates

Men At Work

Curse the tailors
For theirs are the blindfolds and the mask of truth
Curse the steelworkers
For theirs are the bullets and barbwire

Undetonated

Rubbing my sleepy eyes
Peering past them
in total disbelief
Like a half asleep
scared latchkey kid
whose hometown
just burned down

Nostalgia Is Like Herpes

Nostalgia is like herpes
The more we get screwed
The bigger the chance
We’ll find a reminder of it later
If I can just get through this….

Honeycomb Pageantry

Her palace collapsed
Like a mini civilization
Amidst flapping wings
undulating in perfect pitch
along a downward,
spiralling trajectory
and a fusillade of rifle shots

Armistice

Work is just a nervous glance, and a .357 under the desk
And the wafting smoke snaking out from bosses’ mouths
Memorialize this armistice between slave and charioteer
Between the elite few riding and the multitudes run down

It’s Not All Doom And Gloom

Cops push out addicts
Living under bridges
Then talk them down
From jumping off them
Suicide rates are jumping
But it’s not all bad news
At least the stock market
Reached another high