greenstamps

I will be there again and soon through
The downtown creep of three am
when all the lights are wigging
On the bald intersections, past the pawn shops
And liquor stores over the railroad crucifixes and past the damp
Grainy smell of the chickenfeed plant blended
With the gravel works
Straight along sixth street toward the eastside
Of town where kids ride rusty bikes past
Midnight and poke at vagrant grocery sacks hoping to score
Some greenstamps
And finally past the trailer homes wired to the edges
On credit before we leave and enter
Country, crossing two small creeks, smell of skunk, road
Dashes dashes dashes a drawl of pellets leading
home to punt itself in a foodcan
into pan's tree where nut sees all


stillwater ok 1987

the irritant and the pearl

so we drove to a park
overlooking pearl harbor
kids played at the end of the spiral slide's
continual pileup until as we left

a scrap session ensued
with parents egging them on

"if someone hits you you hit them
back"

crossings depths art(value of
which encased in the
streaming freeway's wet hoopsnake

urgently turning both cheeks
whose tongue is bombing the
squandered stars

but enabling this oyster to grow
a springhill mine disaster
made in a bottle
the size of a child's fist



oahu  1994

steps back sludge

styrofoam still the style
for kona organic brews sitting well
in tourist kidneys whose wallets

one harvests to convert
credit's waterfront condos
overlooking petroleum fields

ripening to mature
as chloroflurocarbon molecules
bespeckling the espresso steam

hypocritical digressions are diesel
powered zits
parked atop oldgrowth stands of integrity

dirty from legislation,
waiting to catch up with evolution
whose steps

back into the swamp
sludge the future



oahu, 1994

the land of nod

after intelligence has feigned
the last vestiges of integrity& his bloat
is rusted, full of collateral pollutions

this mind walks away
across clean sands
to help the baby back to sleep

egypt upper nile nipple oasis
isis gecko guffaw
from the upperbalcony,

tossed dollarbills onto ritzy
waikiki stalls matching the absurdity
of shopping, tier pricing,

these words command inner
astronomy despite faux lizard giggles,
equal-accessing

consciousness refined


oahu  1994

leave it to the professionals

comfort squats on the part time worker,
stealing a rest in the desert
where the prickly pear
blooms bewareness as part and parcel of a wary dumping ground
littered with garden party accoutrements,
swimming pools of undrinkable water
and plastic bottles racing past tumbleneeds
toward the boarder's fence
where squatters hold sway while
trying to do number one or number two while avoiding
contact with an adverse terrain
of colosss husks
and burnt out pintos whose rusty comfort
returns his borrowed iron
into the ground by dropping sweat beads
onto a game floor
ruled by umps in loafers
who decree "play ball or blackball"
who scream "suck it up" while siphoning the gasps
of children fleeing "free tirade"
mad in the USA with boss springing the steens mtn. stallions free
in the movie version, in the disney venison,
getting comfortable with the corn eaters
in the black row of ledgers
running red ink
running out of metaphors for loss
running out of ways to screw with impunity
a stripped out threading where parts, partners,
frank steins brimming with bubbly "hey bub"
as the spokes define a hub
in the radial stretch of making it to the next paycheck
that bounces off the book cooker
and lands not on land but on the backs
of flipped turtles in their empire shells
calling the shots
from way off in lard conditioned eateries
making hypertension the medium whereby one presents any opinion
or addresses the gift of slave labor
to a hole knocked into a saguaro with a tiny sharp beak,
in a residential enclave cul de sac
guarded with goiters from incessant desk loitering
an ugly repose from which to respond
to pretty pleas for basic rites such as washing,
drinking, resting, breathing professional air
with unlicensed noses just out of reach
but easy to smack