With the Tumbling Tumbleweeds

they say this about mountains

in schools stacked like shelter systems

that pass america so small

to chase debt from the clouds

keep the faith just outside the line

of uncollapsable highwaysides in film

wire in my day to keep touch

by smoking checkers with dimes

free men up in old nine mile

caretakers since the tween years

play with no mention of choice

treaties that keeps the casinos

in the first warmth of burnt dust

on the path of autumn prairie wind

Where’s the Arsonist When You Need Him?

for Chris

like we learned these strokes
brush to find the use of paper
we lost fires, anger and revolution
in a unit of prayer that
scratches like a sunday morning lp
in the dissembled present living room
our nobler occupations around us
that would never stand before
in the bowing culture that found us
it’s the unexpected smoke that wakes
and becomes part of the family
busy with need for stolen flame
we waited too long in our connection
now it’s time to light this tinder

Tinker’s Damn

this town has ears of hens
beside stones in his mouth
and proof of the first noble truth
mary bloom goes on without you
as the taste of malt vinegar
wretches the petty thieveries
of good old greeks and irishmen
married to marx and freud
to buried wives who retell & retell
i am a repetition of bones
broken deliveries in earth paint
scrawled advice your teachers gave
but only remember as some old joke
that places us here in this tavern