Wildfire

what you've burned
and surrendered to the
flames licking the night

soot for shadows left
on dusty roads, the grid
laid over a barren land

the earth only bearing
those who can bear most
anything or anyone or...

what you've burned
in the hordes that march
across the grass and stone

smoke for held breaths
in deflated dreams, rising
to contaminate the infinite dark

a taciturn sky blankly
gazing on tattered fires of
the past or present or...

what you've burned
with words and looks
with dormant action

allowing it to feed
on what's left, those
remnants of the cold

bones and flesh bleached
by the sun and time to
feed the old or new or...

Body

that piece of paper
I've scribbled on
I've folded
I've creased
I've erased

that paper is wrinkled
that paper is torn
it is stained with skin
oil and coffee drops
and the ink has bled
and pooled and dried

that piece of paper
I've used up
I've lost
I've rediscovered
I've endured

the paper is aged
the paper is yellowed
it is stained with sins
and waking nightmares
and the words have smudged
and darkened and faded

Life is loss

life is loss

loss of yesterday with its

childhood and youth

loss of evenings drowned in 

gin and vermouth

loss of weight from

the sickly wasting away

loss of warmth and glow

as night consumes day

loss of those both long ago

and those a moment before

loss of pain we welcome

and the joy we choose to ignore

loss of colored canvases

that fade and wither to gray

loss of sparks of interest

and desires once craved

life is loss

loss of skin cells, electrons

and other particles

loss of hopes and dreams

and other carnivals

loss of shirt and house

and of skin and bone

loss of the surrounding 

world that once was known

loss of perceptions that

keep eyes from seeing

loss of sense of self and

definition of being

loss of the endless skies

with their soaring birds

loss of breath and air

and whispers with their words

What may be

warmth
sun shines
blue background
now and then breeze
prancing through the air
shiny cottonwood leaves
shutter, shake and flash
bird bending bough
flies away
into
blue

sky
biding
float of fluff
soaring seed silks
drifting on a breeze
away from shiny leaves
down from heaven heights
down from tree crown
floating low
into
earth

Rooster Roaster Roller Coaster

tickets please for
your freakiest show
more than just your
mind I plan to blow

don't have to wait 'til
sundown or dark
so park your amusement
in my amusement park

ride my rooster roaster
roller coaster
gonna make you scream
as I pull you closer

ride my rooster roaster
roller coaster
if you got the gun
I've got your holster

spin round and round
on my tilt-a-whirl
I'll lick your lolli
with the rainbow swirl

cruise my Ferris wheel
going up and down
paint your face white
like a freaky circus clown

ride my rooster roaster
roller coaster
the ride of you life
as I pull you closer

ride my rooster roaster
roller coaster
gonna make you scream
so says the poster

My old friend

it is always too easy
to be with you, my old friend
to slip into your
deep dark depths
to lose myself
in your sullen breaths
to meander through
your clouded corridors
with all the other pests

in you, my existence skips
a broken voice on
a moldy wax disc
bound to repeat itself
and greet you again, my old friend

it is always too easy
to stare into your cavernous eyes
to peer beyond the
desolation of stars
to inhale the fumes
of what molds and mars
to behold the affair
of what was then theirs
and what is now ours

in you, my heart is silent
and is frozen,
removed and violent
as I take comfort in the quiet
in the company of you, my old friend

RAV service

a box squawks
a tick tocks
in this setup
made up mimic room
I only wait for
them to pamper
the beast that feeds
on the blood of people
in somewhere once removed

a box squawks
about that blood
and the dinner plate
of the somewhere once removed
and the savage hogs
that shove their food around
that dinner plate
of that somewhere once removed
with their savage snorting snouts

May Day

a day in other words
screaming for help, for
aid, calling an SOS
least back in '89

with sun in the eyes
and gravel giving way
to a river of gray tar...
that one particular car

and a moment flows
into a bright warm glow
while a mother screams
and dares to do what
others won't to keep
a child's life in this world

a moment flows into
an ocean not so blue
where a child was digging
at an ant den just a few
years before this crash

the intersection beyond
the gravel and the tar
a cross of time and of space
of fateful and divine pace
that shrugs off accidents

where the child went
and what ventured back
what glows in that sky
the when, and where, and why

wakens to a piece of glass
pulled from scalp and hair
the shattered moment that
flowed into a bright warm glow
passing through the window
as Alice had done before
and many will do again

night skies have ever changed
and nonsense is more logical
chaos has even lost its charm
this crash did little harm

Gully-washed desert

the faucet has no tap
it seems, outside the window
'cept for the tapping tap
that raps upon the window pane

the tap has no faucet
it seems, inside the window
turned too tight for leaks
of any drips or spills

Roar of demons

of spiders spinning their aqua webbing

the bowl darkens in their murky satin

of beastly clouds trampling the horizon

roar of demons threatens to flatten

of monstrous conspiracy in heavens above

the hellish electrical gnashing of teeth

of serpent strikes in venomous downpour

roar of demons fall on those beneath

of solar wane and spinning weather vane

the towering leviathans have taken form

of siren calls echoing in the shadowy halls

roar of demons soars throughout the storm