16 November 2009

Sweet Mary and Joseph, in a rocket machine, travelling the void, not a star to be seen





~more wrecked cars...and more Everette Maddox

What I Said To The Sky

I reeled out of a 6-martini
candlelit dinner
& stood in the usual gutter
clutching what was left
of the 20th century
& looked up into a sky
the color of a bruise
It looked like Mr. Hyde
in Classics Illustrated
& I shook my fist
at the God that had vacated years ago
overdue on the moral rent
& said "I came up a romantic idealist
& life has made me a mean
cynical pessimistic piss-ant
fuck you & the clouds you rolled in on"
& some wise-ass passer-by said
"But what about Suzy"
& I said "Suzy
blew the last blast
on my toy trumpet
that's all"

Composed On the Back Of A Dark Green
Muddy Waters Poster


When I woke up on the batture
& you were not only gone
but had never been there
& I heard the aluminum
silence of the river
I was scared--
it wasn't metaphysical
exactly
I just thought they were firing
cannons over the water
to make Huck's carcass rise

A Proposal

The sort of sigh
of light
around the white
nearly full moon
between the telephone
wires
Above the blasted site
of the proposed discount
drugstore
pre-minds me
of the sigh
I expect to expel
if I ever get
to kiss your lovely
mouth

"Several Million Of The
Most Amazing Things I
Ever Saw"


were several million stars
hanging over Highway 43
between Tuscaloosa & Mobile
one winter night
when I was out there
taking a piss

The other 2 most amazing things
were the way your tits
stood up to that flowered dress

Flowing on the Bench

As I was going to sleep
on the iron bench
in the back of the bar
I felt all right
I felt I was joining something
Not the Kiwanis Club
No
I felt like one river joining another
I felt like the Mississippi
flowing into the Ohio
Right where Jim & I
passed Cairo in the fog
Right where the book got good

1 comment:

Tema Stauffer said...

These are lovely in an old rusty kind of way. Good talking to you.