It’s Come to This

instead of combing a paper full of news

we only truly enjoy predictions

when the lights need to stay on

& there is time to practice excuses

there is a science dedicated to disappearing

amidst flamenco dancers and their guitarists

so i keep a passport in my nightstand

ready in case of the untelevised riot

we cringe at the silent spring

ignoring the notion under cover of social niceties

where i am an elvis with rattling chest

who does not despise the gambler

even though it is his faults

that remind me how i must survive

Your Ride is Here

here is a list of facts i have told

you & was completely wrong

the sky is made of empty gestures

that dance with a kind of duende

and make the shadow of joy on the ground

we meet in places we cannot be found

with public service messages pinned to my sleeve

they appropriate the names of bands that

play the tourist in a garden of french accents

in my five year plans there are no years after

my confidence calls for a vote

and  is a decisive voice that repeats in my ear

it is philadelphia in the autumn

and the sky is made of falling objects

War Cry

babe, you have to let the pizza cool

when naming names just to be bellicose

despite the brides of dispossessed peddlers

who trades their trades in rough instances

in vain hope to invent the circuitry of the stars

that is present in circles somewhere in roshambo

you follow the guitar and expect rock

and the ticket is yours so there are no choices

any fool knows this human experience

but i am hostage to circus bears in vienna

and know nothing of the language here

dear marionettes, we cannot articulate

our needs properly sorted from our wants

we just wait until we think we beat the system

Build

For CG

infatuation moves like a dead girl

looking for a mnemonic device

for ethanol taxes us all in school

as we alter addresses to find

apparently, it’s a thing

band names in the sound qualities

there are waves in Egypt

kept in ceremonies of construction

passed by an ecology of books

in a string of characters like the genome

where gods are more jealous than we are

to make judgments along a  practical axis

here my catharsis is a blackbird by a spring

by resistance, i am becoming

Apes of Apology

one third of this life is at war

on the side of  investments and inventions

based on loud mouthed south philly men

scared sons, the kind of who prove far easier

to pass through the eye of a hurricane

than through the pages of a bible

but please make sure not to recycle it

ground quakes & do you know the language of heaven

it’s a thug life at risk under illiterate stars

we read the birds as they drop from europe
another whispered hallelujah chorus of poor kids

sing out like weeds in a hated garden plot

behind grey mansions like de maurier

i am in the ghost of your first wife

Your Blues

i am drawing a map of our highschools

on the back of gas station napkins

this is how we started, i think

play music: free beer,

my math was decent enough to find west

and you know, that’s a charter school now

in the old testament to our lifestyles

what seems exotic, ends up a fake british accent

drains our interest in what is called the cost of living

dear brother, it has been exactly one week

and making noise isn’t what it used to be

the truth is, I lost my cosmology in a national park

and somewhere its theater deadens me

but we get to come home rough and immediate

Black Shoe Sonnet

there are nice ways to say anything
given my taxonomy of utensil drawers
this becomes meat for dehydrated lions
kicked off just inside the doors
that pass for volunteers of occupation
decent forgeries in acts of surprise
would welcome the vaguest smile
to name the specters that aren’t
appropriate for the attention of children
tossed into communal living spaces
in a parable of the inch of blood
it takes to form the resistance of splinters
even though there is no word for farewell
it is clear we both follow our own suns