TILT
TV anchors gab about binge-
watching, riots, and tattoos.
The machine has a boo boo.
We are in some deep doo doo.
Blue jays peck red berries,
91 degrees and I am a sap.
Jupiter’s ma pushes old news:
It’s more fun with someone.
Okay, steeple chaser, let’s see
your stuff. Here’s a hot ticket
for the Tingling Sisters Circus.
It’s time to give the frog a kiss.
On mercy’s wings we arrive.
Moving in where silence sings.
xxx
BURNING RINGS
Seven grackles tickle a hickory.
August unties its clown shoes.
On the thirteenth of evermore
in the year of nothing less,
I hold to you a blinding mirror
and you light me like a fuse.
Smell of old oaks in the park . . .
the ache of fading panache.
“Shut up and keep bailing,”
said the old salt to his mate.
You still look fucking great
in the future we’re creating.
Embers of a carousel, we are
burning rings, forged by stars.
xxx
ECHO’S CHAMBER
Mutual love is the law of human life. —Leo Tolstoy
A fat moon trundles across the sky,
a Mack truck with one headlight.
I sleep alone in night’s salon
pining like a nut.
The only thing better
than one guitar is two guitars,
your sunglasses reflecting my eyes
in July’s jonquiled haze.
Resistance is futile.
Whatever you say.
The DJ is my best friend.
Gulls laugh at love’s slaughter.
I hear you rule with an iron caress.
My ears blaze in your absence.
xxx
HERE FOR YOU
October lights a lantern in the aspens
under your window. The river undoes
night’s black ribbon and lays back,
eager to continue swapping whoppers.
After the yawning contest we’ll put
the final touch on our opera bouffe
and bask in each other’s wilderness.
Knockin’ on the lockdown’s door.
My puppets file for unemployment
and burn their orders from Moscow
Mitch. Lambaste the bastards.
Ok, who ordered the turkey cobbler?
I dream I drive an empty limousine.
There’s a place here for you to fill in.
