Man in too tight girl jeans
Looks like a mannequin
In the midst of reassignment
From gents to ladies
Denim cross-sects genitals
Cut create hips
Not quite as Adam’s rib Eve
But this Steve to Jeanine
Wants to believe, spent a sum
As the tag implies
To commission an alternate Designer
Too costly to be a fashion faux pas
Or perhaps a bargain
Cheap as far as sex-changes go

He can’t bend, and moves like Ken
Reminds me of dolls I dressed- snow boots and evening gown
Sports a hat, had one like that at ten
My idle time exercise, making these strangers my own

Someone sat down, wearing standard administrative assistant issue
Pursuant to the case, I suspect she’s a temp, cheap valise
Travelling out-of-the-loop, she’s no one’s ingénue
Mother of cats, too many for coquetry or lease

Femme Fatale aka Black Widow, waits as someone does who is being watched
Man whistled at her , pretended it was the train, but there’s no prerequisite steam
She’s wearing hybrid trench and clutch apropo to the dated, not those already slated
But she’s his wife, the familiarity explained

I can’t complain, every ride provides a super stretch, extra-long accordion envelope of characters
Packed in by population density
Commuting time, making art out of interstices' intergers
Mark Twain’s river, transit lives in the city

everyone returning from whence they came
riding over pavement
and past regret
from extension class
granting amnesty degrees
for extended adolescence and absence without leave

into the eve
like Santa Claus and the wicked witch
anthromorphic manifestations of late night TV dreams
electrician, artist, financier- all without background or credit check
making their final rounds across the moon
or as planets burning out
paint the sky
brightest colours
in last attempt
rote formation, shift work
all aboard
wannabee super stars

tortoise shell print and sparrow
veritable sales' man sample on sidewalk
patches from scratches
swatch from side swipe
fanned out, in a spray
predatory trajectory
an act of nature
stage-set for crime TV
sanitized for viewers under 13
would be arts and crafts
synthetic fibbers

the well-dressed corpse sits across from me
sans jewlery
nightshades on
tabernacle of Old Testament
heeled and wrapped
ready for the tomb
dead already
too much pancake makeup lady
makes you a poet's
morning bus ride muse

I saw a rabbit run across the road
petting zoo escapee
on the lamb from his wood chip
water bottle enclosure
scampering for his life
past bus tires
held my breath, no thud
he made it off exhibit island
scared away by security guards and electrified fence
and then I realized , it was closing time
he was trying to get in
no one (rabbits included) really wants to be free
at liberty to make their own way
and I knew the rabbit saw no hope
in snowbank, being he was no snow hare
bunny Valhalla, booked for the night
he'd have to bunk with the squirrels

I need a bureaucrat
someone from the thought police
a censor librorum
or at least Stalin's eraser
the power to say, think and feel
without regret
license to speak
sans error, attitude and avarice
not choking on sentiment cement
from inadvertent insult
and intent
a zipper for my lip
a valve for my emotions
a damn to ebb the flow
or a beaver to chew my pencils
an electrical eel to short the wires
connecting me to the information superhighway
a chronic degenerative disease
disabling the synapses
paralyzing "profound" punditry
a vow that makes it a sin to speak
rather just a mistake

girl in a quilted jacket
with upturned snoot
and genie pants
of course carries
a needlework
cat bag
laws of nature
always apply

Who cleans up the dead birds?
And the throw-up on the streets?
The wind, the rain, the street weepers in steel machines or work release.
Who processes the remains? The regurgitated? Psychiatrists?
Microbes in the dirt having dinner?
And what is done with the contents of stomaches and the shells of avian aircraft?
Do the spirits and smells dissipate enough to be considered a homeopathic cure?
Faded Memory? No longer the source of dreams, of birds, like Hitchcock's
smashing into glass, into psyche.
Is recycling religion or superstition?

riding on a train track, in side a tin can frame
glass canvas view, seeing
through moving pixels of paint
making free associations
plein air, confabulations
kerouacesque landscape imprinting, on
drops of rain, watercolour palette
raining down, usurping colour
microcosms, mini-prints
beading, bleeding mosaics
impressionist painting see-through decal
light fading, fall illumination
pressed here, text etching

she has a face
I do not trust
it slants all wrong
mugshot form
shoplifter eyes
on low-beam
mousey brown hair strung
out
as if on the run
lips about to lie
absent chin, on the lamb
smallish brow, more an erosion
cranium sans monkey brain
I can see, based on her take of me
written on her expression
knows I am on to her
everytime we meet
she acts as-if
it's a line-up

Intro I recvd. recently:

I firmly believe that Laurel Graham's feature at Waiting for the Bus this evening is further evidence of the emergence of various new, more nurturing, and less harsh, non territorialized structured anarchic geo-political realities and possibilities more attuned to humankind's neglected inner life and natural rhythms accompanied by the best in the old traditions as well as neoretro crazy sane folly wisdom accompanied by sheer craftsmanship, punk polish, and a willingness to explore the nearly forgotten common sense secret public knowledge of the latest kabalah-Koran_gnostic_lamprey_druid_book of j_Sufi young elders which will be explored further in past future published unwritten books that will not be sponsored by Kraft and Wall Mart, but rather will exist in an alternate planes of consciousness elevated by an upward spiral of disillusionment. What do you think?

lost list
one year gone
since discovery
save stylistic differences
today all the same
juxtaposed in an alternate reality
reminiscent of a child's matching game


looking closely
discerning differences
between like scenes
pay bills, return books

check answer key, yesterday
see, how many I missed

procrastination's cost
compounded interest rate
pounds and pounds of flesh
waiting reminded me
getting done, doesn't mean completed

paper high

the brevity of this life

blue is the color of dreams
and ice and skin on ice
of death
I guess too
middle-age
that era of false hope
before one becomes
a blue hair
but Tiffany claims
on a bus shelter ad
read by the targeted demographic
that necessarily only stops
at the light from their four-door luxury sedan
middle-aged to old
or maybe the few, the proud, the nouveau riche
that dreams are indeed blue
I can't help but think
it's rather sad really
their blue is the blues
the upper-crust's expression of
insert German-word here
what we all feel
come this time of evening
young or old
what will be
longing for
ephemeral
their answer
material
try applying to your soul
that sparkle, that dies once the lights go out
present IT on Judgement Day
St. Michael's ruling? (God has outsourced you know)
immaterial
without Mary's intervention
your fate will be
mockingly
wrapped in a box festooned
with a Blue Tiffany's bow
weighted down
to the bottom of
Dante's hell
the place for souls
etched by
avarice, lust
name your vice
but mostly mined from sins of commission
especially omission
not carved by mortification and
sacrifice

hedonistic obscurantist

if i have a belief
it's in the make believe
and the practical magic
obscurantists preach
Hogwarts like seminaries
and plastic beads
thrown at worry
like Mardi Gras
Fat Tuesday
every day

i am on the verge of
piety
will redeem sanctity when
i turn in x number of envelopes
to my parish

indulgences are all mine
in my head
in my mind
especially when it rains
champagne
i mean Holy Water
rain
salty tears

well, it's wet and
it keeps coming
i thought you were only baptized
once
but maybe i was never

maybe it's that
veil of tears
real after all
and life after all is a process of dying
to ourselves
and in the end just a matter of where
we Fall

trying to be super glue
ending up elmer's
applying words and spit
meant for children
and paper hearts
simple constructions
shoebox scenes
not courtroom dramas
where gavels fall
and cannot be held
by the processing of bone


listening to: Johnny Mathis

read his behavior
salvation army clad
scarecrow/totem pole
shakes and smiles
look of glee
given a $5 dollar bill
seated outside
McDonald's
collecting change
hoping for
a twenty
pleased with the bill
I looked to see
the donor walking
quickly away
shedding the scene
I looked back at him
wanted to determine
sincerity of need
DTs or muscular dystrophy
complicated by panaoply of indigent
infirmities
passing my visual eexam
I internalize
and realized
my capacity to determine
sincerity had been
compromised
you gave me your disease
emotionally crippled me

how do feelings age?
what is the shelf-life of a tear?
I wonder
Love
is like an artifical sweetner
has the half-life of a cock-roach
an insidious gene
passed down through
hosts
who live long enough
to suffer
no, no love is transcendent
propery handled
stored
it will keep
that's what the label
the cover
the Priest
said

i saw an independent film on the stages of grief
i could have stood up and provided improv
phase two: shock and guffawed
this is a joke right
laughing so hard my stomach is sick
yet, i emit no sound
i am forcing myself through kubler-ross's
scheme
like babies eat stages of table food
i am on watery gruel
that's the bits i manage
to eat between
the veil of tears
like a mall closing
for the night
the gates/ scales fall
and i receive periodic shock treatments
of reality
in the gut
acupuncture for my soul
every bit of denial
pinned to reality
and dried out till
all i am left with is the salt trail
to find my way back from here

if you can get past
purposefully killing your
young
my surprise at your treatment of me
dr. of love
is unfounded
symbolic, symptomatic of
my disease
severe self-aggrandisement
graduated from projectionist
passed stage-hand
I am directing
a fiction
starring you
dead babies in your wake
teary women
fed by a well
you dug deep
veins of venial
supplying a tumour
encrusted heart
does it beat?
or pulse with the activities
of the cast
powered through no
force of your own
imagined all
I ever saw
all you really are
is what's left
over from prior roles

Memorex Me

I can't keep this up
can't you see
oh you'd never
you don't even
read
illiterate of me
I might as well be
ears, attitude and fortitude
I am a trinity of
abstracts to each
one of you
and as long as your
happy
as long as I listen
accept and project
most of all repress
press replay, rewind me
and play again
I am real to reel
don't even need to record
I can play live
like others play dead
and when I am gone
you'll never
know how long

panoramic

the view from the deli case
now I know
what it feels like to be pressed
meat
a lit spinner on a diner's counter
today's special
360 degrees
from the center
customer
became the spindle
the order
center
spindle
I poke my way through
impaling you on me
seeing like a fly
with so many eyes
what can we say
through sight
through being seen
staring
a curse, the evil eye
paused gaze
an invitation
furitive looks
normal sight lines
violated
visual marginalia
panoramic communication

settled
as a sandcastle
under glass
graduated from a children's mold
a core sample
sediment from our many years
at the bottom
dirt
at the top
dirt
encapsulated layers
rings of life
sentiment
grains faded
from the sun's
contant rays
left on a shelf
over heated by a radiator
I am pulled out
when
Good Will needed
handcrafted by
someone in Maine
placed back on a shelf
past my prime
no one claims
an errant cleaner
and there I go
swept up
dust to dust

se·lect (s-lkt)
v. se·lect·ed, se·lect·ing, se·lects
v.tr.
To take as a choice from among several; pick out.
v.intr.
To make a choice or selection.
adj.
1. Singled out in preference; chosen: a select few.
2. Of special quality or value; choice: select peaches.
3. Of or relating to a lean grade of beef.
4. Careful or refined in making selections; discriminating.
n.
1. One that is chosen in preference to others or because of special value.
2. (used with a pl. verb) Chosen or preferred items or people considered as a group. Often used with the.


YAY! My first print publication acceptance. Gentle Strength Quarterly
Appearing will be two poems: Bone and What change from a dollar can get you

it's like revisiting the scene of a disaster
a re-enactment
no longer the victim
I am in the body bag
my vitals
taken post-mortem
read like hieroglyphics
countenance implores
demands
forensics
criminal investigation
mine, like Poe's
beats
bits of me pound out
steady hypnosis inducing
truth syrum
sap
breathe in
I am here revealing
trying to tell you
run

Joan and Jerome

i saw Joan everywhere
she was dressed in drag
(as a man)
her hair clipped
her tiny bones chipped
skin flayed
mounted on a disk
her bosom bound
heard her voice
like she Catherine, Margaret and Michael
saw her name
in spidery script
took the wax seal to mean
this little bit was real
in front of her i cried
symbolic womanhood
at her pire i offered
my feeble attempts
at avoiding sin
a series of mortal near misses
and a broken heart
but actually she wasn't there
off somewhere with Jerome
what i saw was actually
John
no one has seen Joan in along time
except for me

courting a tsunami

there's a space between my brows
where the wrinkles started
and my eyes meet
when i formulate a thought
and get into poeticspace/ speak
I furrow like farmers
till and I remember my only impressive
ability is (skill?)
skipping stones
until I seeI've made ripples too
and courted a tsunami
been stoning myself
and the salty/guilty spray
is man-made