From my chapbook, "Maybe a Bird Will Sing."



Dealing with the devil in the middle of the road

time is the pithy sweetheart of my hell

no baggage can burden this war

no relief coming at the light of dawn

there is a sense of failure when the lights go out

I have stopped staring into the night

I have slit the wrists in the wrong direction

the dreams will dry and heal in the dark

only for me to rise again and pretend to know her voice

until the hours slip by like her summer fingers

and then I’ll take that knife

and go to town at dusk

attack

that cat came over on cool padded feet

and sniffed my scent once before sinking

its teeth deep into the muscle of my hand

of course my boot missed the scrambling

fury of spindly black legs dashing back

into the night, eyes dimming to nothing

bloodied raised lines etched a song into

my skin and a wailing into my teeth;

the pangs of evil made music so firm

now the streetlights show nothing but long

empty sidewalks with no homes and no

way to know north from south, east, west

yellow is a feeling in the bones, sickly sweet

and puss-filled with Tangier hallucinations;

water can’t wash away the sounds of thunder

faucets run somewhere as hallways echo an order

spoken in triplicate, the sleek walls hinting ..midnight..,

the comfort of a white towel streaked with blood

as that cat breathes heavy in the night, foams wild

with anticipation of God’s seismic lacerations;

until then, the bushes make due, and the moon too

Punching bag

flagrant night, and nights go on
each like the beating fist
the sway of the bag these deadly months
each growing wilder, the left, the hard right
the impact of a fist against the grain

these nights, thinking of two-ply women
and the decisions we’ve made together and alone
but the thing about regrets is they become
accepted and cherished over time, when new leads
open up and bring us into some distant upswing

red brittle shoulders slacken under destined weight
the night testy and impatient, boiling over in silence
sterilizing needles to joist fragile misgivings
foolish old selves in picture frames stranded in the snow
weeping for lost chances and climbing on drunken
knees to take one more swing at the world

the dust of yesterday like endless red wine
glasses shattering as the bag swings too high and tips
the cupboard, the dish rack, the nightstand over
releasing the blow, bringing the arm back for another
shot at knocking these days unconscious, just to find
once and for damn well all—a solid goodnight
 


-- originally published by The Battered Suitcase, 2009

Juleps

I got birds and knees and spiders
they come hard
and my heartaches, they come
hard; my winter blues
my internal contusions
my thinning socks
they come hard with holes,
with faded grips and damn those girls
the ones with short stunning
hair and hips—bangs, bangs
bangs—in the hottest memories
against the backdrop of willow
trees, siren silent in the heat they stare
from photographs held against the sun
under those wailing willows, holding mint juleps
three of them per hour so the hips
fade and the eyes and all sorts
of wonderful glorious womanly things
the birds sing, sing, sing to me and reflect
in the thin ice in my glass in the setting sun
we can be these things, have been these things
will be these things, and in your heartbeat for me
please see that it is never too late
to help me get out of this chair of grass
and throw my arms around at least one of you



-- originally published in Thick With Conviction, 2008

It only takes one of them to get it right

one of them couldn't get enough

sometimes seven times a weekend

we would come home early from parties

or from camping weekends just

to get the house to ourselves, or the loft

over the garage or even the carport for a moment

but those things wane, as they usually do

and it got routine and comfortable and calm

for good or ill, it became pedestrian

   and so things changed

and the one of them shivered violently

   when in the dark we could not see our eyes

and the one of them didn't like her legs touched

   for some hidden fear buried in her psyche

and the one of them couldn't kiss right

   just sat there while waiting for something

   better to happen with her tongue

      but it never did

and the one of them refused to speak

and the one of them needed to be high first

and one of them needed silk and ice, always

and the one of them never moved

   just waited for something better to happen

well, this isn't an audition

we've all played the lead, played the villain

   played the character charlatan and the walk-on

but she had to learn this wasn't an audition

we're all not here just for her simple times

she'd better start learning her lines too

so when she asked why, I mentioned I'd rather be alone

drinking wine straight from the bottle out in my car

    than to bother with it, with any of this anymore

and that one of them was stunned stupid

and that one of them slapped me so

      hard I bit my cheek

and the wine stung as contented, I sat drinking

  the last bottle of heavy red I had

and even though that one of them left her scarf dangling

    from the passenger headrest like a black plague

that one of them won't come back, for sure

My poetry and books can be found at www.jhdwriting.com

From my book Thrift Store Majestic - www.jhdwriting.com

The lucky ones

shifting moments of fatigue

keep me swayed and planted

thinking of those drives and

short mental vacations of Fall

and October and Halloween

and songs of that time of youth

where life was hardly starting

love was a myth and sex a fable

toys were relevant and holiday

sunshine in a friends front porch

8 pm sundown to dark laughter

decades before the gold rush of

sweet agony and secret defilement

trust grew deep in those shoes

smiles felt real and thoughts of love

like ripe raspberries to pick freely

in every neighbors back yard

you lose that along the way I think

the feeling of alls well that ends well

a constant barrage of dramatic pauses

pulls the youth right out of our gut

and like some lamenting Picasso

we scramble through days and moons

looking for something or anything

the fragile ones break knees and slip

but some of us, the lucky ones

find pools of pure green and blue

fresh water to soak our lips against

absorbing the lush fresh youth we

once mislaid and have somehow discovered

all life is a search for what was lost in

those early Octobers and afternoons

youth is a blessing, and love is our reason why