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

Apparently, It's a Thing

this is so last year’s meme
that sunk the memory jugs down
tips of our fingers by anastasi cave paintings
culled from victorian seed catalogs
in a ritual granted by IWW activists
to reacquaint us with attachment parenting
by sending us canned screams of acknowledgement
the kind that killed John Henry
sung by punks to the tune of my reignition
i am a pruned branch sacrificed for fruit
handpicked by the felicity of namesakes
who shouldered the touch of fellowship
confer, o rebels for your last stands
there is joy in life’s hard reset