Someday

Every morning these pills march down my throat,

whispering promises of days when I will

wake up when my alarm clock squawks

and appreciate

mediocre vocal jazz.

My wallpaper is made of blueprints of half finished inventions

My carpeting is sawdust and dirty socks and empty Coca Cola cans

My shelves are bare, the Arthur C, Clark and Dante have wandered off

Frank Herbert lies under a stack of year old homework.

Who gave me a drivers license and a checking account?

I am a child with mud on my wrists,

who never learned to tie his tennis shoes.

This is my birthright, a handshake and a pot of stew

In the bar and grill I've never been to,

the freckled girl with the raven hair and tattoos on her chest asked if I was hitting on her because

I think she was interesting or

I want to have sex with her.

Yes, I replied,

throwing back a shot of imaginary whisky to take the edge off this emotion pornography looping in my gray matter.

Guttural harmonies from my chest, reciting forgotten chants from an ancient right

My humanity fell with Troy. My soul sank with Atlantis.

A titanic pitted gear shifts in the clockwork of eternity.

A second passes in a waiting room.

Yesterday the cars seemed to drag light behind 

them as I was waiting at the cross walk

unsure of how to queue myself with the other waiters.

and I was so lost in my placement that I didn't notice the lights had changed

until a severed orange hand told me to stay where I was.

These

Moments Force Distance

between the mirror and minds eye.

The tongue will not move in praise today.

I used up all my hope in the ski-ball arcade

I read the words but the sentences do

not curdle

The digits make their rounds

and I wake up yesterday

to the same lead made bed,

the same ant pills,

the same cut-time brain

and 3/4 heart.

Luna

You did not mind,

my voyeuristic gazing in youth.

Peering through lens and mirror

at your tranquil maria,

and majestic terra

A plate,

A silver coin,

A pool of light.

I have insulted you with comparison.

You are Luna,

and nothing less.

Forgive me

lady of night,

for I turned away.

I have sat in your beams,

sucking on gamine girls

with garish grins.

Seduced with your liberal light

on their waxen faces.

We are linked

by lusty lycanthropy

draw me in with your gravity

raise me up,

like gentle sea swells

let me dance in that inch deep

infinity between us.

Speak to me with

second-old words.

Square Matrices

I

have seen
truth in

you who bind
separate
instances

determinant
column replaced
blindly finding
Kramer's answer

not only order
in the numeric
but in space as well
finding the whole from
the boundary states

cupid

Love at first sight is all well and good for the romance novel crowd.
Instead I subscribe the sight at first love.
And that leaves me, desperately trying to force affection for rumors of shadows.
All while cursing the air I displace.
I wouldn't recognize love if it used me for archery practice.

Labor

Few things are more satisfying

than cleaning a toilet well.

Brushing the rim of the bowl,

wiping down every alabaster surface.

Making sure the dried urine is removed

from the under the seat and hinges.

Dusting off the braided-metal supply hose

Reaching to keep the dark buildup between

the wall and tank in check.

There is also enjoyment to be had

on garbage day.

Hefting the gray plastic barrels

onto the big blue eighty-four F-150.

When the kids in the kitchen

fill a fifty gallon bin to the brim with slop,

I must grunt and strain to free

the ungainly brute from the cement

Into honeycombed, truck-bed alignment.

And to my delight in the evening fire,

I see a familiar maple log, with a knot

where a branch once was attached on which

I stood, tying a rope to guide the giant's fall,

on the edge of the back 40 field.

When the humidity met the chainsaw

met the trunk,

and they all baptized me in

sweat and sound and sawdust, Leaving rounds

which needed halving by the hand maul

before they could be raised to the splitter.

fate

I dressed up like an old gypsy woman,
and set out the crystal ball,
in front of the mirror.
And I said to myself,
"I see only darkness in your future young man.
every action will end in failure,
everything you want will be beyond your reach"
And I said,
"You must be reading someone else's fortune
I am smart and resourceful and even a little handsome"
And I replied
"These are all true,
but your heart will never believe it.
It will be your own hands and lips that will betray you,
like dumping seeds onto the fire."
I laughed at myself
"You are crazy, old hag"
"Yes I am." I replied

The Hiaku

Snowflake
six points
perfect before melting