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things i read

i read a journal of books today
i read october in a light brown leather case
i read the winds through a field of leaves
i read insouciance where no one grieved
i read a place where once i knew her name
i read how to water insane
i read about sex on the edge of the bed
where i read the girl did not move to
the center instead
she said nothing
but she grunted and
the dude disappointed
kept on pumping
i read tissues that got layered today
face down on the piece
of the city street
i read the sweeper came down with cold today
a surprise april snow that grimaced chicago
a moss made from where they were getting sandbags for
the minnesota red river overflow, north dakota,
up near fargo down near des moines, the braying
mississippi i read of a slave ship with little kids
disappearing off africa somewhere to make little
nike gym shoes for babies just born
in america
i have seen those babies in those
cuddly shoes with they young mamas hallucinating
off an american tv drug smiling
i read of a riot in cincinnati faux pas
rover i read of him too
of roault whose painting years ago use to
garnish my college room wall the light brown face
stained of the girl english clown painted with his
mock white physician's smock on innocent she
seem to understand how i needed her too
i read that suite 101 had two new african novels
i read how i would never stop writing how
i would trope off the places from other sounds
hanging off red river cliff waiting
stimulating me with their dalliance and a
brilliance where i half expected to
be drowned my girl be at ease with me he
said because i am walt whitman well i am
etabu for leverage you do not have to move
to the center where someone bled in
fact someone is always bleeding i read he
bleeds everyday i read of
red streams that went by the pencils
i read the pixels on the computers too
these i let center by themselves they
did not need me i read that someone
went evil shot two dead in a bar and
wounded so many others after he had
shaved his head i read
that august wilson playwright article
in the new yorker white man he said would not
disallow him to write could not stop him in fact
he wrote them out of sight i read how
vain i was not to pay
april rent what am i going to do i got
to finish something and make something pay
i just finished john steinbeck the
winter of our discontent and got confused again
that a man could belabor mistakenly
pain and truth for everyday bills
i read how the limit would never
be read that i got to do it again keep on doing
what i'm trying to do
the book of you



song in a bar

i wish i could do something
to get this feeling out my head
that i been wronged by someone
it was not nice what they said
if i hadn't been standing there
where i shouldn't that time have been
the words wouldn't have cut air
wouldn't have even caused a grin
but the bartender told me to get out
go away but i stood still
put his hands on me pushed me about
just like that woman her strong will
squeezed out all i had thought was fair
didn't want to do like that small town man
he took it wrong cut off his hair
smiled side way from a mental garbage can
when it was over 20 shot with two dead
two shotguns two pistols he drew
and he couldn't even remember he had bled
what was human what is only true
if only i could i'll ask her again
to let me come in and for one last time
just get a little bit without the pain
of turning over money a pithy dime
and then i'll never go back to that bar
i will never have to i would feel whole
i would feel something like i was on par
to being complete, could i be so bold
as to call it love, a word i only knew
when i was a kid and my mama had me
cutting and trimming flowers as they grew
in the back yard by the fence, a summer bee
i remembered had struck me then
but it was okay the smell of flowers
permeated my dreams i even had a friend
she would talk to me, while away hours
now all i could think about was rule
of my daddy's shotgun in the old car
didn't want to get it but it was not cool
what they had said to me back in the bar
where's my friend now, that was years ago
the smell of flowers gone, brown hued sand
closing off my air, they had said i was po
a willow tree lisping old lean working man,
and that love couldnot pay for itself

come love me darling
smell flowers again
don't let these
shotgun blasts
that clear my enemies
drain my end


cisco kid and puncho

cisco and puncho ran back on outside
i trained my shotgun on the hanging oak limb
right near where their horses would ride
took my money, cisco won it
then took my girl after puncho tied me down
got off with that pear spiced moonshine i made
that could wipe the rust off a tin canned heart
i was so mad , stark livid crazy
like i had failed all the SAT tests
and never would make it to city college
where without a gun i could make more coin
and begin to wiggle out a husbandry life
cisco took my money, puncho then got my honey
trained my shot gun on that oak tree branch
i would stall them in a hurry BAM a crack
cisco hit the ground but puncho stood back up
a whiz of hot lead went past my brain
my shotgun hit the ground i turned around
with my six shooter my honey she walked right past me
puncho got a nice horse she said she smiled
he don?t need no college degree
they rode then through the west awhile
cisco and puncho and my finicky honey
dreaming of them rustling, in the dormitory
tenuously i languored with my pear spiced homemade wine