Elephant truant

this belief you have in cursing my bones when money problems haunt you is a pose, how to build up a little more fakie power, keep stairstepping over your own responsibility and pretend it has something, anything to do with me, go ahead, keep doing it, aren't your legs getting tired? aren't those splintery handrails lodging intelligent slivers of correspondence between the heart and wisdom lines in your hands getting through to you? take that acupuncture seriously and hold them up in front of your face for a change, a long-awaited change. its a big universe, those huge concepts that get thrown around with such ease and superficial charm, all being launched off the chip on your shoulder, splash into the cup half-empty, oh so tired, so ready to rest, but no, that's not allowed in the scramble for the top, the right, the true cross born with anguish. it continues to amaze me that you've convinced yourself yet again that it is all about me.

Enhance, divide, relegate

when the home run king was reeling in a big trout, corners cut folded around his bulging arms, curved willows blowing streams of volumetric verisimilitude into his eyes, it was all very sad, the crowds were quiet along seventeenth street, his showpiece wife running her hands around perimeter of ranch dip runions, little esther piecing together reports from cnn and cable with hope of understanding how the world spins during a disaster, a comedy, a semaphore, how clouds form when nothing else seems to matter, and rain just will not fall, its time to retire, to ghost around the house for a few years, let the drugs wear off, gamble on some horses, help the russians be the first to mars, dip a bit of soup out into your bowl and let your bread soak it up, then grow tired of all of the attention, give a little growl, perform a dance, heal something.

Carrying four bags of sand

"torn down where the limpets are blue, the pelicans witness, the waters deliver" (from the song "king of the sand") markers along this shore, a yellow cable beaten into driftwood angles, melted foam blasting in wind on howl on salt and stinging rain, correct me if i'm wrong but were they feathers we wore, woolen hats digging into the backs of our necks, fingerless gloves and rubber boots, leaning into the gale, copying the pelicans in our mind's eye like a camera ghost, burnt recognition left from last night's entertaining teenage bash of silence, cornered youth gathered together to wound each other with sorrowful looks, buzzing smoke and whirling their empties out across the brine, whitecaps spasm, and with rock and stone will turn each bottle into beautiful gems of translucent brown for a child to find one day next summer.

Wrecking yard

for the umpteenth time, cherry pie pool of oil, small rivulet coming toward your shoe, brass vernix on a newborn wheel, rusting laughter grilled fresh over coal tar cables twisting in vines of balkan wormwood, my sense of smell puckers, investigations blanched and peeled, seeded underground within wet confines of heat ruling ruthless garbanzo femur kicks dutifully gone to whalebone rikitiki, ah we knew this would corner us, dipstick envy curving to rags and riches mercurial drymouth, shaken not stirred.