holiday

who shows at the door i cannot help
but lay on the table as necessary
once introduced

the feast of epiphany
is better the day for giving of gifts
with wise men and at least one good woman

passable at least
they have to grant her that

but first we must take to the ledge
as three mortal eyes undertake to dress themselves
in the parish proper
now we are in for a night of it

though it seems only yesterday
rag dolls on the front steps
but now the girls all gone
have come undone

the day that they say
it is of no moment
we leave our things on the kitchen table
and go running the halls
listening to music tormented

for just this one night imagine
any are anxious about the children
as the other s lumbers on
unconcerned, happy for one
that is
that makes
no trouble at all

we all have galoshes now
one for each foot
trotting home in the snowy mud
certain in our drunkenness no harm will come
worse than had we stayed
only more than too welcome

sometimes better a stranger to be
than so lov-ed as you thought of we.

this sucks

this sucks
writing
i wish i could write like
someone else
like anyone else
like some particular people
i will not name
but are several
i wish
i could write the things
other people write
but then
it wouldn't be so good
since i woulda writ it
not them
and then
what would i wanta write
if what i read was as bad as
what i write
it sucks

i never

living breathing fantasy
people pain can't follow here
cause it's mine
i make the rules

There's some things
you just don't tell

lonely killers
empty hearts
living each in tiny compartments
like ticky tacky little pink houses
how many of these are there
for the little spaces we live?

Protected from the others
ourselves
severed just so

Thoughts don't count
nor meanings
or memory
only lies,
yours and mine
that leave you smiling happy
and send us scurrying for cover
like so many rats.

Like you didn't know that was coming
yeah, right
we're not stupid
not exactly

Lies that spread like slow poison
the kind with kernels of corn in wax
driving us from our cover
thirsting til death
in our fealty to family
or is it Jesus?

Turning us yellow with fear

This little space
too small for loving
not big enough for the emptiness
swallowing
like a python one wrapped tight ball

We're going to hell now
first cutting us open
to see if it bleeds.

Only the living have room to breathe.
I've lost our mind, out the door.

My heart cracks and spills
echoes ricochet where a soul
once we thought it to be.

All this comes to an end
It will. sometime
Doesn't it?

suck

writing
a coward's way
ripping the net of decorum
stretched to contain
howling blizzards
searing
tornadic winds out raged

above and through
crumbling ruins
bleak in the light of those stony eyes
we take flight
jumping free for that second,
falling
far away, where reality denied
cannot exist
where no one knows
we are free
to be other than

inching slowly back
like a shiny mirage on the parched desert floor
seen yet ever invisible
never to be reached
not by you or by them
nor any other

We are beyond.

the vision nears
our delirium leaves no room
but to obey
forces greater than we've known
real or imagined
like puppets on strings
they are but dummies
with the master's voice
whispering close in our ears
we wait, we watch
never wanting to actually see

the master tires
memory or what passes in ignorance
each day comes closer
seeping through
small holes in bindings we cannot see
feeling only a constraint
pushing rottenness loose
theirs and ours
laid out in purposeful irregularity
where no one can see
what it really means

paper to pen,
but why?
we don't write
we dare not yet...
words and images
best confined to the silent minds
of those we shelter unknowingly
where we can see but only in the darkest dark
imagery is the devil's work
yet they line up
soldiers ready for battle
forming thick lines of defense to truths
we can't imagine
refusing truths to keep sanity
against whatever is thrashing
pulling at the nets, the bindings
to keep intact what makes us up

Words get in the way
like battle shields raised
against what passes for truth,
however twisted
words like ants march up front
uncaring, unafraid
of our mind
as far away as can be
flowing from the pen
fleeing from the pain
flowing like blood through our vanity

A buffer zone
once used
they lay silently and die
as we once used
lay quietly, pretending not here
untouched
waiting with breaths held
til called again.

there

on the outside
looking
in and through and far away
we may as well go now

death by suicide
is not for the fearful
but only the coward

an ocean of sound
envlops all the senses
leaving nothing but silence
bone crushing
air sucking
dark as night
silence
crushing us down
deeper than we thought
deep could go

its the devil in those ears

a step
a kick
a pull
only ever so slight
is all we need
the rest is beyond us
maybe then tomorrow comes
or not

depends on your view
guess it right and win a prize

you don't have to say who you are
we don't know even ourselves
there's no one here talks to anyone
anyway
about nothing

we won't tell a soul
your reasons for living
no matter how delusional

five of five - randy's picks

...

the grim weirdness
of nostalgia
feeding on the carrion
of life unmoved
and forgotten

Some of us were not at home
when you came in
that day
Who was it
you met that day?

None of us remember
anything more than
sullen moon tremors
through slats of lashes
against eyes squeezed tight.

It was no one you met
there are none of us you know
nor we
As if
anything seen could be said
would be heard
it may as well not have been
You do not know us
You would not recognize us
if we stood
in front of your speeding car,
not in time to stop.

Some they never are
others come undone
but without wings this is home.

Words
hear in my mouth
clenched tight
held close
imprisoned
like the others
the ones you never met
only to be flattened
by your intentions
smashed flat
like the rest of us.

a limited mind















the effort of a limited mind
to know a truth
to express itself
net zero
like a lobotomy

i never said anything,
did i ...
no reason to say anything
when none can hear
and these thin lines
formed to shape what we call words?

words bound in dictionary,
meaning lost to the vacuous mind
convey nothing
when born to a vacuous mind

but i didn't say anything,
did i...
if none read this
or even you
still i've had nothing to say
fear, yes but to keep calm
your gentle mind
one can't imagine, will not believe

and if none should ever read this
did i yet say anything?
But you are reading, tell me why ...
unless like the rest you cannot say anything
But you are reading and so cannot answer
even though
unknowing what was said
when this was read
unsaid when writ.

The efforts of a limited mind
to express itself.
Even the day i swung from the fixture
no one had a thing to say.

names not poem


what's in a name ...
a rose by any other name and all that sort of thing
i can write whatever it is that comes out
when the pen opens and flows
though of course there are no pens
only digital
series of numbers, of gibberish
all things reduced to ones and nothings
the same stick lines
in another posture
as words

numbers as words
is that why i can't write ...
because my numbers are mangled
and won’t walk a line?

it is what is is
but how to know what it is that is...
that it is this one and not another
or that is has any name
but if so, how did it get there?
the letters in this order
a word and in another
the same
nothing at all

how to name anything written
what makes that series something called poem
besides loosely used is the word
an this series not?

what makes sin
other than white collars saying so?
if an act is a sin
it is like the words used
elsewhere
maybe yes, maybe not
but who is the arbiter?
what makes this event
sin to confess --
is at always no matter
place and time
or rather absolute?
some eternal others not
but how, why the line?
how to confess
when you confuse what is sin
or just never knew ...
everything wrong is sin we do
everything is sin
nothing wrong is sin they do
nothing is wrong

define sin
name wrongs we did not sins
tell me wrongs not sins
tell me who decides
what to confess, who absolves
sin or not but only wrong
if such a thing

then tell me
how
to write a poem.


still nauseous

They're out of it.
It could be something in the air.

That lie has been living for over forty years
Jesus wandered in the desert
Don't eat that or you will die
We all will.
Maybe there's something under here.
Maybe we will find buried riches.
Maybe they will leave us alone.
Maybe we will not die so young.
Maybe you will listen to us.
Are you there?

Talking's no good after a time.

Curious stuff happens there.
Can you be homeless if you're incarcerated?
Have you ever seen the oracle of the music?
Listen
to the intense hallucinations going by.
The miracle is that people keep believing.
Listen carefully.

Night is coming
We're tired of being broken, being seen in pieces.
Tell me, at the end of the day, one more time.
God sent a message but I lost it.
Hurtful beautiful ballads from the
scratchy far away stations knock and come in
far across a desert sky.

Every fence has another side.

Don't misunderstand me
just because you can.
Tact and diplomacy have no place in art.
What of poetry?
If you don't have a great pile of songs what's the point?

Wear your comfort loosely.
Today's a day as good as any
to fall for the sky.
If you cry I'll never take you on vacation again.

Sometimes when you're asleep
I think the dark wants me
when you're not awake to remember
I look through
the yellow stains of your eyes
trying to see.












other areas



Blow yourself up the
middle of your enemies
suddenly, your right

Hear the firing
run as fast as possible
carnage everywhere

Open defiance
We obey the sadness of bombs
of deep eyed faces

After school
boys play cricket
in the dust,
for girls
death is the blessing

(only with permission from the father)

children are tools,
they satisfy god's will and die

No safe haven, they
justify suicide as
father land runs red

No matter the peace
despite it we instigate
to spite you we are

shot in the stomach
one eye missing, vacant hole
who hears anything?

The only way free
to destroy peaceful valleys
cradling mountains rendered impotent

Love's temple chorus
dogs wailing, mothers lost, tears
no more, emptiness

we are not welcome
they warned us, we will be killed
men, the only chosen

Deliverance coming soon
making fantasies for you
God makes us fools of ourselves.

nothing said

is there anybody there
anybody cares

music to any one's ears
night terrors
screams
tortured young voices
to another

enemies public and private
friends no more
but facades
garish smiles,
all white
nubs of bone
sharpened
tooled and fitted
straight in a line like little soldiers
or automatons
toothy they are

a terminal diagnosis leaves
no room
for anything else
Life is different how?

Prayers
to be kept in
spoken, whispered, pleaded, begged and cried
for what?
A blanket at least keeps you warm
but words

words are as good as the source
unless the source is not

cold words
coming from those
nubs of bones
lying in wait
"the better to eat you my dear"
he said
but
he wasn't
joking
the only laughter
at an other's discomfiture

the right words?
who says you're the one
to know
to say them
to put them in my mouth?

i die
you win, they do
sometimes then
we must
others not
but we can't put a word to it

you know all the words
you pick
you can't be more wrong than this.