beard poem

walked past this blind girl
into the street

saw her once at the coffee shop in my office building
she turned and said
you have a beard

it was true, but i really didn't know what to say back
so i just smiled
but didn't know if she saw that too.

theres blood in my mouth a lot these days.
stars say im going to be dead soon.

i might shave tomorrow.
actually i will,
flower arrangement on my jaw--

drunk guys always yell at me
they see my beard too,
it reminds them of other people who have beards.

i told you the time my face was ripped off
you didn't know what to say either
so i just

politics

the name change confused me
she spells it like,
my president. or like,
the earthly image of venus as a woman
as a star
when my birth is closer to other stars
or why they tell me things are looking up--

gonna make more money this month.
she said
she was hurt,
long before the first Bush adminstration
as a joke.

my life
is in sequence by decades
out of line on the 4th year.

where was i
when i had my whole life ahead of me,
on my death bed,
in my dreams. even dying now.

zebra

throat the moon
shine cherries outta Tenn.

breathe fire, like a Dragon
push from the south diaphragm

my chakra bent drunk on mountains
makes you sorta squiggle

legs kick up
makes it sorta hard to go

hug

say where the bed goes, my smoking
indoors, windows open
damn humid inside

sweatty, or the bodies that don't stay there
telling them to shift around,
lake

swim, the fish that don't travel
miniature sharks
livng in a puddle.

when i'm older i will drink less,
maybe i will be able
to walk.

never odd or even

saw these
half the way in water is sunk

how strong must i be
to break the moon,

or a butt
sticking out of it's pants.

will you tell me
that this isn't fucked up.

earth day

sing a funeral, in your brain
random is.

death in a god will make you.
fake money, or faker anything to agonize,

wish for them back
the shadows of comfort

or standing there naked
quiet

wait for everything to notice
you exist.

your dad dies too

nothing strange happens
just laying there naked in the lawn
where the dog burries its shit.
come to conclusions.
think how normal it might be
to never speak to him again.
maybe still love him.
not sure.
you write a poem about it.
you call it a poem for your father,
remind yourself when he told you
the dog was hit by a truck
because maybe
he thought you would hate him
for telling the truth.

for ACK

a beaten filthy golve
flexes best around a pop-fly
swinging branches
pointing them out to distance
these are the jokes
call the sun big sun
call a girl anything
holding cigarettes in our left hand
waiting for the next sizzle
not at all like love, Jack
unless you know where it comes
from.
and noses to water
the motion of moon waves.
why would you scream at me
pain vomit,
why is the death of us so important

salt

im sporting the smell of your breath
i lick my own neck
with my pants down to my ankles
my body
floats on water.

morning

remember the deaths of.
that is not
where the hurt is.

watch the coffee drip.
you
don't touch it, yet.

i'm calling you to leave
a message.
please don't call back.

take away the hands.
soft
is a weakness.

forget to lock the door.
someone
is home. that you don't know them
is what makes it.

april

trim my nails for me, the toes
i'm moving to get away from you
all to silence myself.
i told you the sun would expand
came out of nowhere, there was nothing
hanging heat in the sky,
not enough water in the ocean
to put out a star,
too much chaos banging
from beneath us.
i told you i wouldn't bake,
told you i would save someone.
but there are too many, too many
ways to save myself.
my love will hold me accountable for hate
or the violence inside of me
that i cannot show.
blasting drums beneath the face of earth
you do not have to hate me
to hate me.
my smile does not mean i am alive.

breakfast

feelings of top heavy-ness, i steal
the chill bending over for spring

and isn't it odd?

monotony of mortal feeling
it was my love, my love, burning

centered around your form
there is always a shadow there is always
the face side.

throw yourself at someone who shows no interest
isn't it odd?

the difference is what we don't remember.
difference in monotony
this is your brain on mortality
this is your brain
livin'

end of the world

ambling, river walk hey lady
does the angelic flutter into dark
and rainbow trout
hides the hook hooked under a roundish face
ray of light, oh god
the gays!
ambling lazy street walk
the weather makes you
talk, a life like tornado
i am the moon ripping the waves of pain in your metal jaws
i am a songbird singing
i am the wind and the wind and the wind blowing
storms of jupiter into your mouth
Woman
sideways eyes on a snake gargling hiss at the black spots on its face,
the inevitable swollen sun
you are the watered lawn
you are the grass growing
Woman fosil, sinner of freedom
pressing the green against me
moon never sways
the lonely endless midwest
surfing to galaxies.

autobiography

wants to be
brutal too,
hammerhead shark-like
where the eyes are at,
burried under ocean.


doesn't remember the great compromise
ing it, make the sounds
leap off a do, or i
movement brush
forget what is covered up.


brutally
wises you over
with the glance of unshaded eye
sockets,
owl turning neck of her.


expanding sun, roast
makes the conscious beat
of what we can live,
ing it,
again, and then some.

slow walk apocalypse

holding a body—
sometimes i am an asshole

the eye’s slits
cum in the clean jeans

trapped by environment
look like a baby

whole lives
ahead of us--

your body rubbed soft
red at the nubs,

even with a second body,
in case there is no one tomorrow

quiet you, quit--
squint at the sun. say sun.

i’m not dancing, i'm blind,
i’m not ready for the swing--

deck me,
break all my fine china

digging a hole through earth
to china, easy does

the other side, the other
chinese lives, where.

so the body
keeps growing

does it shit,
we wait to see--

or ass, or bottom
of a beautiful barrel, apples

slice things with knives
ask why i always carry knives

“there are a lot of stabbings
in Grand Island.”

so scary, so wounds cut,
chop noise from cat alley

the sun is increasing in size
night slowly, paw.

am i right,
can you see the dust settle

watch the echo,
bouncing space debris off

past lovers, a fuck
reflections of people you think

talk to yourself
with this new body you found

looking alone with her
wrapped around you.

forgot the words, or
only remembered poems

about falling space dust
ricocheting off some body

turning over and over in your awake
sleep, pretty when you

no, snoring is love,
no this unattractive pile is love

my love, dark as space between
another sun

dust on emptiness, you
you, and the grass growing

under the snow
the beard with all twigs

being afraid of people leaving
or wanting to

lost in a world like china,
not unlike the attractive middle of nebraska

the arms don’t know their chest
well, imploding

she thinks it’s useless to talk to them
but still talks to them.

heavy

born on a lazy river
forget to drink water sometimes
losing the weight

i've gone on long
like my old lady says
sounds like catfish in here

land poem

O! ocean, humiliating in it's prairie
empty as space
no one is a poem; to read

greener than red sight, don't
yell at me when i'm
driving

this dirt
means i am working hard
on me

maybe the poem is aimless
enough
to find 3rd base with your chest
down to it

banana poem

so i was walking with this banana in my pocket that i was going to eat for lunch
and i kept wondering if people would say hey
is that a banana in your pocket or are you happy to see me
you know, as it goes
and i wouldn't know what to say if i WAS happy to see them
the either or, black or white
as if this banana in my pocket
causes me to hate everyone.

slope

remembering how young i am
eases the fear of existence

or what i am
supposed to know when i am older

wasn't meant to swallow that much
nutmeg,
wasn't meant to be so cute

poor isn't what i would dream,
sort of space travel
w/ beautiful women

where we

i was never more separate
than free, zone
off what i want to need

who i am, roll
down the window a crack

wind says whistle

jump while running
jump while standing

stand still
when the shit is scared out of,

i am sorry i loved you
i am sorry i lied
i am sure

about something,
my heart
never caught up with my aging.

there to go

i bought you a waterbed said
it was not an ocean
but i still surf

when i was naked
you smiled

i still am
laying down on that driveway
acting

i wished for a window to sneak
or all sky
for my space travel

find
moons everywhere

wall

happy was,
a hope is easy, sing
to say every thing is;

my love,
dust on what holds
wounds of repeated head-banging,
the wall

is white

happy birthday

here is your fancy death
skin drapes the bones

where did your nakedness go
full of the fat intake

laughing
was never worth it

when you realize how stupid it sounds
being in a universe.

where was your nakedness
grass blades break
under any foot push,

sprinkler bath, you make me
eat tree leaves.

i owe so much.
my underground looks
the way
i am hardly aging,

wet and sliding
across everything

woman

the fur touches
thought they were fair
at foresting
mushroom growth, or eat everything

gone
my fire hands, hot like coffee
a real
ball park figure
of a woman

smokes
closed windows before
never saw anything out there
i liked.

likes, like he likes
his coffee, as hot
as humanly bearable

takes his religion
to public parks
and is good at foresting

brass tacks

showing you/ your best hands
look like a mirror or all your hands
trophy wife gets old
legs fall off at my bites.

buy shoes again, waste of it
all the walking,
a room carpeted in greenbacks,

sweat your chops for midwest summer
job,

feed off/ the dying
you laugh at me when i come in fear
say, how are you.
answers fall from outterspace.

jesus

make me feel august as a car drives
get it just standing next to the bus
by all the other busses

i used to say that i have read
all the lord of the rings

but i never have.

there is only one city named Iowa City,
where i am from.

people say, jesus a lot. here.

kyle, i know, is out west where he's from.
i have no patience to head west. jesus.
he said, girls are a headache for sure.

i drink normal coffee drinks
and name them things.
like god would if he drank normal coffee.

when i wake up,
or i said the only things that get me going
are women and coffee.

she takes too
long.

over here under the colored light,
we pretend things are always.

i speak about drugs,
or tell people my father almost died.

inside i am almost me,
and growing some.

where i am going

my face the spring
need to be watered is everything

where the twigs, flowers, and grass grow
wind, wind, and the wind blowing

does swivel bridge cables;
hello fog.

even a desert needs,
but it won't take sand to make it

grow under the chin
red mark or eye chart i am failing.

what i meant was
to jump.

TREE POEM

WILL WILLOW WHIP
HER HAIR
BACK AND FORTH IN WINTER
WHEN
BITTER BREEZE BITES

THE CLEAR BLACK SKY

YOU CAN THANK YOUR FATHER
FOR ALL THESE STARS

lips

brisk your face of brass tacks
tell the mouth train to holler
back
atcha girl, i swell in the brain
when you see me see
how goddamned you can be

god

only my mother calls
me by my,
talk to my father
what i'm short for.

lets me know he almost died
or did
shaky in the talk of it
knows the way

growing in home
doesn't have to end,
dad doesn't have a time
line

doesn't have to
create anymore.

moonlight

say georgia the way
you talk, the dust bowl settles
in west nebraska

the way a farmers blow describes
i know
beautiful things,

ruffle the feathers of these crow
shes a real ballpark
figure

standing there where the corn wont
grow, listening
where the train is headed

kryzewski

all men need suits for;
boys do
she was bucked by a bull
in florida, kicked in the chest

did you fall
for it, my greener eyes
canals full of gators

i wanted to kiss
the neck

you came back
to speak to us
through the microphone
held
at the hole in your throat.

morels

write about the fake ways
i know you,
lions mane growth near the city
woods,

thinking about travel words
and such about up
and then the up

write about a poem for you
question the for you,
or what you are for, ears
of mushroom

i just keep thinking about
the things i said.
how you cook them, things.

speak hush to the rib,
chest-webbing
nibbling slowly around the edge.

speak

does it make the news
i was cough--
car pulled too far up the curb,

do you remember
looking at the light,
wind showing the outline, where i will go bald.

can i tell you
how high i was before i called you
and said nothing, over and over.

sunglasses poem

need new pair of sunglasses
need the sun
to leave,

bright mirror or
dusty mirror
or i
am the sun.

the sun is always here. some
times,
like globes.

do you mind that i call you
in california,

or if i wanted to.
sun.
globular is a pretty ocean,
sun, not just a lake of fire

not just the cool look
of sunglasses

memorabilia

in the middle of my rainy days you
stopped
eating for some lengthy time
and made your way to the hospital
so i guess
i will remember sunny days for you

gone bad

flaws form with winter
ending; melt. i call the girl
back, say i am sorry
for feeling blank, still
remember you left the potatoes
in the cupboard beneath
the sink where they
sprout in darkness.

on the shape of nebraska

in me, Nebraska
shaped the way i see you
just waking on your front side

write you a letter
in my mind
say, i saw you once and remember it

cross the Misourri River again
i always look down
to see what is floating

every thought, you think
i could pretend
not to know what i knew of you

mist, over sandhills
where the cranes
make it back

all this silly travel,
talking about our day jobs
listening to the same sounds

your chin i think,
where the indian caves are

da bears

meet me by the harry caray statue
tell me about
the good old--
demi-gods running on diamonds,
find me
a place to eat where i can eat chicago
ask the guy who just
walked out of the
liquor store
where is the united center
and i know
drive through south chicago
think
that its funny
how scared you are.
eat a fucking huge hot dog.

feel occupation
for gould

is what you said or to feel
as if its fur on me
and sounds like rain drops or
all these boys,
always a boy there
grabbing little marshmallow-hands
at a nip,
or things that sparkle,
singular as you
nest at the end of a bar, fully clothed
just
make it work,
the boy says sometime later on
as if words will do

february

tell you about the sugar
i consume
or the winter other than weather
just say
a lot of cool things
like the weekends, see
i am a sucker
for purity
or whatever it is
you call it.

aquatic center
for anthony

did i make that last one up
or these new
sheets i bought

for you again, i think so
so about it
i am lying

about how good i am at
swimming
with propellers on each hand
gliding through the water
like a fish.

we said rhymes were silly
or just off
rather
we could just repeat the words

but you aren't paying attention
anymore, just
thinking about me swimming.

horse
for gabe

not really your face to show
van stache, cashing in on the high end

after the camels got there chance
the also-ran runners ran

at last, so i'm stoned
picking up left-overs so

the kid cries
about his hot dog i snatched

you can't bet that
he won't leave it around these tracks

poem

i had a flask in my pocket, whisky, some change
laying on my back, drive-way
the clouds where your head tops
broken in there.
the pigeon shark, the peregrine.
you were made for this city,

snow goddess, spit on your season rite,
focusing on the birth of things,
of more yous only... stranger. i
sound like a sad man i guess
but my back is grounded
with fire belly full of answers

drive after we
a poem for a poem

your phone thing walk-
talkies to my phone thing,

using phone words
hey, and um

breathing, but the shoes don't get used
or the snow works like rain on them

finding plants with names
pretend we know

i wait for your pillow to say
face, you are lovely

or i just whisper this in a poem
about the interstate hours

be dead air for awhile
pretend we know that too

hear sounds others make
bathing and washing off travel

go home
maybe, for the speed in my ankle turn

let it be anywhere
back in a small room with a smaller bed

facebook oriented sci-fi novel

the movie 2012 was the modern retelling of
the great flood
when the gurus of facebook
get fed up
with making all that crazy greenback
and suddenly with out warning
vanish
facebook
from the walls of the internet
to revel in their new found demi-god status
while the world
eats it's self in the chaos.

george w. bush

i tried feverishly
to get it done
get it over with
i tried violently
so i wouldn't think
about fucking
all day at work
i tried everything

this morning

charm me a late sleeper
kid?
i know who hogs the sheets.

grab at you with my eyes
shut
reaching for your snooze.

horoscope
for taurus

when i see you in my spring i
kick up dirt
next to a lake i used to dream
i drove one of my old cars
a white cavalier my parents bought me
to get rid of money before
their bankruptcy
i drove the car into a lake
in my dream
and somehow this is about you

sand.gravel.limestone V.

did you expect me to be
this beautiful
bum you my arm for awhile

tell the day god, day
god
keep this thing going on and on

so the she of it stretched my
everything
i said
begin with the nose
so she

knows that i cannot be trusted,
and keeps thinking
of why i might not be as
beautiful

becoming, of you

thats how i met my
current girlfriend, overheard--
etc. stories
of how she bathes like a flamingo
pink; pees down her leg,
digs through soil as some-other
animal
searching for crawling meals

the girls i love
make a museum few would care to see
even w/ minimum donation;
stiff-dead grizzly bear
in mid-fish.

anyone

round me off at the back-bone
under my kidney
so i will know your wing-span

the speckled mole line
where fingers will run
know that i have been there before

but yours
is the one that makes me
lay on the floor
watching your shows w/ you.

beans and motherfuckers

tell the story of how i never
peed the bed
and the purple lightbulb

maybe some early sex dream

the roads are dangerous tonight
so i can use
war slang like in the shit

million-dollar-wound

someone once told me
about roadies blowing cocaine
into stevie nix' ass

station

so you faked the sad parts, my arms
cry big boat-
load the shoulder, making turn
after turn, after

you notice my lack of ampersands
and teeth
the venom kind, kinda like
poetry is not.

sand on the cement for slip
control'd behavoir
in the lost pit of midwest territories

cabin fever'd and
name yourself log-hands

cry, and cry until your brain fizz'z
interlock
knuckle bones
mention to me more about this secret
world you got

river poem
for reggie

when i is all there is
i

river you,

see the movement
salt on
the bottoms

the lazy way
i
will never

the bloody thing
mend with water

binds
the rest of i

minnesota

the slick leaves
i wiped
out on my bike in front of the drivers ed car

i know how to swim i'm just
bad at it
reminds me of swimming naked in the pool

and im walking now
while im writing this
down
my calves and shins a wreck

i think of you though
walking
faster than me

the genie of rock falls

'dutch' reagan wished
he could be an actor
maybe a cowboy from brooklyn
a kid can dream
for cheap cigarettes anywhere

swinging ladies from swinging vines
turning anything into wine

locals claimed a miricle
when two menards sprung up
next door to each other,
the selfish and their wielded weapons

the distance is a river,
no the stretching arm of want
claims more lives than a boot
legger,
where is your boot i ask

can you fix your pot holes
can you stop slashing our tired travel
because i said i would be
the coolest person in rock falls

someone already wished for that,
fifty years later
they were able to wish for it again
right before dying
because, to be cool is more than a fonz
more than being
the next american president.

chicago made paul go bald

the messes of dircetions
extended caffiene life
forms the top

yell out the moving car
fog, why are you still here

then it clears
for the towers
the one with the richest
woman in the world

she will never be my woman,
she will never ride in my car
lost through south chicago
blasting biggie smalls
waiting for the fog to clear

beard poem
for paul

the jaw angle hangs fat

do you still believe in ten
commandments?

were my hands any stronger
i could hurt you easy by saying it

look up words
to say

say, the part of me that hurts is
every part

so i eat less--

heroin is nothing to me, me.
unless i want to 'come in my pants'

and i told you about this
train, i said you took

but you took absolutely
nothing from me, the haves

my dirty underwear maybe
my lonliness

or the spit
on my hands

to grip the grip tighter
to nail it

to leave my face
at home.

print

form of worship, your head
on my thigh, pillow dog
i am less naked when you are
looking

the befores and afters are when
my clothes come off
or simply wont hide

you found the time
when the sidewalk
was smoothed.

fish jaw

i will talk
under a mouth bone
artificial structure added
but unable to chew

through, thumbs for teeth
plucked at the joints or
cherry picker

will i talk
nice words about you and your
pretty bacteria
unseen on my swinging

knees bent in unmoveable buck,
hip tall boots
grabbing at river darts

show me your true talk
over in the shallow
where the river moves slow

re-application

use the feet for function
all the ground being tight-rope
damp in romantic

because socks are for sandals
here, rotting wood pile
a poem about trees

tall living soulless, is
nose stubs, bent up branch
run my licked thumb over your eyebrow

girl thing
bite at the air passing between
your arm and ribcage, skinned

and jacketed
covered in water, can you
stop thinking

you are such a forest, moving
toward the moon
the top of your head breaking clouds

merry x-mas

haiku 27

write this down about you
without you's

why am i fixed
on parts that will break

on this body there
is no body at all

poetry reading vidz

CHECK OUT VIDEOS OF R. WOLFE AND ME AT OUR FIRST FRIDAY POETRY READING :D thanks jessica

sex poem

sewn in by the winter monger,
sweat feet in the dark, socks,
walking.

does the Atlantic make you gravy;
heroes and heroes are the same
as anyone making it.

it is just work,
the things i do for you, you etc.
kissing your hip too soon.

it is a bone but
i would like to thank you for
the sex i guess.

porn poem
formerly known as kryzewski

a proverbial winter wonderland, i
never saw it coming

beautiful ice sculptures of naked women
and large
toys

my brother lost his job when the porn shop
burned down
many people lost their
jobs

the things you can see, or subject them
into being actual people, on fire.

i haven't decided how it might affect me.

the only time i have ever been in a porn shop
was for moral support
when dane wanted to buy playing cards with naked fat women
on them.

that was around christmas too.

hong kong foot

hard as it would be to wash some socks
for your boy

let him run around outside barefoot
for the wild of it

make him dream of playing football
for jon madden

science fiction

everything burns

the minutes i sing song,
another man, or man thing--

exit beauty, you
on heels. call me.
venomous coward/inward boy

know that you leave me; know that
when two quirks combine
a mass is lost or
i wont think about that

for winter, and drinking

then the snow fell, again
the pears from the pear tree still on the ground

have you ever been this warm
in my old sweaters

and did the birds see it coming,
or
were you asking me.

deer poem

deep into the deer season
my idle neck bucks

the leather here
is the tannest of all
reach to the drop tine

take hold

scout on what might leap out!
you
from the cover of indian grass

my knees rubbing the dirt
begging the earth
that neither of us is armed or wanting.

translation

markings on my face from berries,
my face the abandoned house.

my hands are dark purple today;
they never are
on normal days.

normally i would like to be lighter,
ignite wheat, or your other fields

do boys grow taller
where you're from, stilts and flat-tops,

the question doesn't know what i meant,
but all i want is to be
thin and a whisp

short

rememebered my rabbit face
or excuses to make up jumps
calming bridge sway

when i am alone in elevators
i shake them violently
waiting for the cables

my reflection makes me laugh
queitly
like i am not actually there.

kryzewski

don't know the last i wore
overalls
both straps hung loose
during a kris kross phase, i think

used to try and sneak out the apt.
w/ my clothes on backwards

that was before hurricane Andrew

moved to Gering near the Scottsbluff border
w/ my dad and brother

then the huricane finally came

i was friends with a Broncos fan
named Joey Keener
we played at his parents ranch
climbing hay stacks and throwing things at goats.

gone right for the kisser

untitled

you know i cannot light my cigarette
while i am walking, laugh.

the wind from your upper lip;
small appalachian hills

feeling my arms hang loose
and flap around aimlessly.

slipping on the ice
where my warm body sticks to--

avocado

hold you in my hand,
aligator pear.

pull my mouth over cinnamon stick,
caphor or bay laurel;

leopard speckle or do i call it
sun rain,

whisper to my fingers,
let them know the softest parts,

tell you, i will write this story for you.

tell me, you will be there.

gently separate the fruit from skin
with a spoon, working around.

sugar

so the awake in me is from cane fields
or sand hill birds
as in flying back to nebraska

do you dance on my bed
even in the winter, or more then.
against my chest w/
long pink legs

the lips you bite
sewn to the nibble, a bit
for you to wear
when confronting the Hells Angels

telling me stories of them,
w/ their hammers.

follow

my winter beard flutters toward
your cunning snow steps

diagonal zig and retrace
or does the heat
wonder where all the cold goes

the wood begins to die,
ash is not what i am filled with

i am a child

stop your sad look
you look at me as if i forgot something

as if i was meant to zag in the snow
to get lost

krzyzewski

that was a stolen sweater;
arms forever

where going west only means
wyoming and more wyoming

vampire christ, hail
marching roman like, around, around--

the death of you
is not forgotten, yet. my mind.

totem truck stop
blown the youth of your

face.

bone-chew

does your god know i
don't exist

the dollars of your can
feed it

who doesn't collect
shark teeth on the beaches of florida

the flattest place
on earth

even the alligator in the canal wouldnt
eat
my mother.

winged it

did you abandon me here,
do you cum in your pants

on the train.

forget every second of,

in the distance between here, and
another here

the voice of my hand
slapping against the hood of my car
pouring coke all over the battery cables

does this picture make you giggle
while you are faster than i am.

fly colors

the saying of flea in your ear
or as all hands, all hands!

in between the fingers he smells
of deli meats,

will you call him, thunder voice
and all, your worth in words

every last word by thunder,
she speaks like a boat

all riddles and sea charts
that lead you to more of this.

Cutlass!

and he slowly slides back
down the hill
more boyish than a baby may--

try to remember lines from [i]treasure island[/i]
to make sense
of your father as a pirate

think
snow doesn't always stick
when the ground is warm

stop thinking for a moment
say to him
yes, yes, ma'am i, yes

but then there is the meeting
at one point
your age or his, the matter

you say to him
things like
this is who i am today

put down your Cutlass!
your leg is missing
stop your dream.

cripple

the sky can be muck,
or think about the girl stuck in muck
near some Omaha lake.

my beard floats above,
strange as pears scatter on the ground
yellow and halved.

axe

a pile of dirt inside of me,
with my hands, nails.

when the moon is full and the river rises;
again, nothing has happened.

she said the dirt is actually on me,
or she has some,

i can cut you down tree;
i can end you this way.

gold's

three men in suits under a deli sign
talk business talk; notice

rich men go bald the same way poor men go bald
along the front ridge & crown

because i am mad
i will separate the river thames from
your shoulder pass

muffling the voice of adults,
the garbled rumble of whales

the male ones hunt in packs
for love

snore under water as floating device,
wake your baby sleep

listen to what the bus stop people say
with their coats on in preparation of winter
or all things coming.

for kitten

promise to call
warn you

when i walk around the apt.
naked

my socks on silent
the cold kitchen floor makes me quiver

i will taste the deepest thick of
you

because i am mad

visiting

scumming for a like soul
can i breathe your ocean air, nebraska
cold is colder than your nebraska.

your copper hair blondes me, gum
your plumb neck. plump my lips from the cement--
i can bite you, modern world, with my fakest face.

the slope of your back with the back hair
goads my hand to nick-it,
can you reach for me.
take away my cape.

fragile in the sense that a man is,
or why i get nerves in my belly when i see you,
a beauty.

call me for a second; call me while i am sleeping.

call me a word like darling
so my fur jumps
& the coats that warm my shaved shoulders
hide great plains from the belly i said.

more, there is an ocean under here,
you can listen
for the train coming. breathe
the air for me,
the jewel of cattle beds.

mr. october

for the earth of it
dirt cleat, teeth is what you got
& swing like a slugger
secret club, do the tattoos you got
say something.

cry because it died, the person
love that goes on a face
munchin' on xanax bars 'til your heart stops

swing batta' batta'
ask the same question
does a team full of professional men
making mad bank
really shock the world with success

it is the death of it
that leaves.

water displacement: 40th attempt

weathered cowboys live in a place similar to hell
guarded by the mother of god,
then asked 'did you see a titty'
& you wonder if you actually did.

your basketball coach drowned in nebraska
which has a great deal of ground water.

we can wait for hours, wondering when we will see
a t-rex. somewhere near york. but that might be wrong.

in my head i said, i said i complain about things
so that people feel sorry for my life not turning out
like my dreams.

like my dreams, i see things.

the drive across nebraska;
hemingways grave, ketchum; a titty.

i saw none of them.

then we decide to go on a rampage with axes
through the lower step of boise,
we complain about the sex in our sleeping space,
smoke our brains numb.

you talk to cats when you are alone.
the desert reminds you of water,
the titty you saw.

putting your life together;
things that fit inside
of you
become interesting

nest

wild horses draw the head off
you, razor-legs show me
skin of your bite bones
or where the fir trees grow
down to the night-time-water-body, so
i can be a romantic man
talk generic about the places of you:

the off-path covered wagon,
dirt boat
my beard dangling w/ twigs
& prairie flower.
arranged to remind you

krzyzewski

under the plain swell
can you feel all the earthquakes

the man i know from Falls city
saves you sometimes
or so he says
then rumbling, loud like a motorboat

until the forest over here
sang it out for parachuters
when the garlic mustard killed your garden

path cleared of poisonous spiders
the indian graveyard seems safe now

but you realize there isn't an end to this
the spiders are back every summer,
the father still has to have it's kids

canoe #2

bending my near broken buffalo collar
bone down the winding Niobrara, she
lays lady finger between each western rib.
my skin ripples in pond
telling me
which water snake will bite my face
sweet & lonesome
beneath an other-worldly sun
tanning our hide
naked in a boat

pioneers

counting bruises oh, are we
apples
sail upon trampled fields
of water wheat
you grow gold w/ your soiled hands
she
drinks & i
drink redberry-wine cold
behind trails of bison bur & indian grass,
smelling in barberry or
may-apple maybe, we
wait for it
to get dark for
our skin to hide

poem
1.

do
i go at it all wrong; on

deck
for the swinging game

more clobber
out of my bones arm--

cast
the throwing of small

boulders or
am i
poet

2.

poet
am i

falling to pieces in my
pieces falling

zone. so girl
turns to stone

inside of my baby
my baby groans

can i
find a small boy named i
& home



sand.gravel.limestone

I.

a part of me is not apart of me,
voice to lung or wrong tube
a singer & dance-a-thon
queen Anne’s lace or

do you know all the wild flowers in Iowa
the way i know all
the wild flowers in Iowa after i see them.

my cell phone does not work well
in the centers of cities
in the centers of cities
you can buy cell phones for cheap
at cheap cell phone stores

somehow i walked back into
wicker park w/o you
talking w/ my cell phone

& texted: everything you say to me
makes me smiley.

II.

i am jealous of the desert
w/ small you

see
there are no stars
over Chicago

take places apart
to make
small distances you can hide behind
a cactus
leaves no part of me

no matter how much the temperature changes
at night

when bats fly over a desert
to kiss nectar
& move on

to another desert.

III.

measure the unreal
by those who are not real
emptying eye parts or i can
pretend not to,
galaxies forming in the pit of my pitness
& other dark floating bodies
where you can't see

or to make more sense
see,
there is this machine
always these machines
that can carry
a) voice
or the physical parts together in my
thought

IV.

crumble the mountain

is it easier to hear dynamite

does the bridge swing

can i ask small favors

put each arm around my

detachable neck

i feel

going somewhere

fresh fruit

gobble going gets tough
where i leave my skin to skin

in the sun's weather weathered,
leather under where i sun my shaded self

selfish to hide. breeze i can find
seldom despite a shiftless center--

horizon i noticed, the trees are no trees,
but the trees are still planted

i grab you by this neck & this neck
so they tell you the neck is detachable

coffea

gone from where i saw you
or is where i saw you there.

staining things on my hands
now stain the pant legs of my pants.

shower when you might come by;
i do not shower often.

the rich wet dirt you want
is under the hard dry earth.

you put this seed over here, over here
& cherries grow out of me.

oh, profile

i refrain from complementing you on a daily basis
because i am a flirt

when there is skin, or more skin
i will tell you & i won’t tell you at all

a neck wrapped around my arm
while i step on pine-cones the size of my head.

to Chicago

a whim & the fog
rolls, i can say what the fog is. where smart cats keep breeding
w/o consequence, & then the kissing words--

knew the sun would return even when there is no sun for miles
or if it took months
so on & a great distance that i can push back
behind your ear.

or do i dare that rain to/to touch us
with house taps--
scare the dog, drops

a letter
written with small bumps only

you will read to me words like hung, & hair lip, push me
back against the wall & i
watch your mouth

then know my hand is now your hand,
lost in the land of your hand parts. connect to other places
hidden by limited vision, & there
people are

& then a reality filled w/ real things such as
people eat, or
can i see pictures of you before they changed it.
walking on
hand pads for the feet to rest, i could walk like this for days

w/ you telling me, don't be so silly
my boy hands. hold--

maybe more of a man w/ man hands than i want to be
measured by the silent minutes
between the airconditioning unit click ons and offs

but you don't look where you're going
& pass the nature walk, say blind spot
Iowa rest stops
greener as temporary, as green can be for the garden or
just a damn lucky guy going for the turn-around
& walk back towards the greenless things
that we can talk about
when we talk about

or do i know what i'm doing, with it
said
‘i know why fog is here.’
now, you're softest when the rain hasn't stopped
& a small line can be curved into something
like the dirt of me, mud spittle
my mouth runs over your
collar bone
still.

looking

standing naked
in front of my bedroom window
i feel
the cowlick on the back
of my head
running
all the way down my
spine &
tail
the never ending list
of skeletons in me

looking

standing naked
in front of my bedroom window
i feel
the cowlick on the back
of my head
running
all the way down my
spine &
tail
the never ending list
of skeletons in me

five

no whiskers for the thought of it stopping on a
dime

the feathers of this pillow are much more put together
compared to another pillow i will not name

when i am in Iowa
i feel like i am from the city.

it is not as if i do not like how the blood of your meat tastes
i am just forgetful

in a way
i could tell you why your mother and father never sing in the car.

mariposa

laying in the bath
three inches of water
maybe less
& more, cooling
quicker than i can clean
say:
these are teeth,
beautiful white jaws
around me in porcelain, they
beg me to slip
every time