Let each gear-head
cruise Love?s website
on a Harley

to sample middle class
access to
transgressive skin

but give me a backyard
chair and a tall
gin and tonic.

...

Do you sense
the residual hiss
of hot tears in a thermos?

Baby, I?m not looking
at dry-dock
to repaint your boat.

Singed
by an operatic torch,
my mood has escaped

a gated community
where serving hors d?oeuvres
to golfers playing

with spectral balls
was de rigueur.
Par is not for the coarse.

Like any self,
my face leads with its chin.
Desire shoves us

back into the ring
before we know it.
But what of emergency workers

dispensing earthquake meds
near bulldozers
burying the rubble

of shoddy product
mere inches above
the haircuts

of crushed school kids?
Irreversible events
dictate.

Air drifts on sponges
of bloated custard.
Morning brains the sky.

A half tone of lucidity?s
decisive snap
can reduce this reader

to tears.
Dear Moe Juiced,
Dry up and blow away!

The alley sport of Time
surges anew, a frightful river
of pure regret

skimming stones to the far shore.
Why not paint love handles
on garden statues,

hit the puddled streets
wearing Venetian blinds?
Art pays extra for poetic clouds.

A tank-top on a lyric maiden,
a goat feeding on the petals
of Até?s flowers. . .

Splash me with eau de relativité,
Gandolf! Each bird?s whistle
agitates the air just

beyond entropy?s reach.
Crop rotation delivers
nitrogen to our veins.

Cola hawks scout
credit card debt
in search of carbonated lucre

while eagles dig
their talons
into endangered sushi.

Chromophobia, thy name is mud!
Together we perch
on dark ramparts

chilling in ebony lawn-chairs,
the global moment
a convocation of

urban gnomes
caught in the act
of dealing illegal arms.

Overfed consumers
with teeth like actors
suffer hellish years

with no idea but in things
as media streams
the infotainment each future

skeleton thinks it needs.
Here we go loop-de-loop
lifting belly dreams.

Pink-hued with steadfast regard
we de-brief our doubts
in a concept

called stay-at-home.
Is that a scrap-book in the making
or a soup kitchen?

Our eyes take the shape
of pontoons
landing on Echo Lake

on a bat-filled night.
Welcome to the ultra-violet
bug zapper

crackling in the yard.
Three grackles on a white cross
confuse ?juxta? with ?multi.?

At sunset
benches glow in the park.
To no avail I shake

the word?s maracas
at drug traffickers dealing bags
of frozen berries.

Massive is the restored façade
of the venerable
Hypocrisy Theme Park.

Shock me
with your vote, affluent bicycle!
My flower pot

leaks hi-de-ho particles
on time-share hedonists.
The plot of ?The West? dallies,

the plot of ?The East? dines
on spasmodic growth.
A hallway hung with stag skulls

calls all herd movement
profligate,
but dear Activist, press

?early Bird music?
to close an army base,
press ?bamboo? for more pandas.

I am painting my hat
the color of spiked punch
because Orpheus was caught

trading his euphonium
for a tuba of popcorn.
Flip through a book of faces,

and pick yourself
a new one, veteran.
Rain floods River City

moments after sandbags
unite the populace.
An alphabet in the alpha state

strips each sound of sense,
but that?s no way
to treat an aardvark.

A wedge of lime is crucial
to the summer
taste of gin and tonic.

JUNE 2008