The Black Lips "O Katrina!" (wild live show in Atlanta) Southern Comfort

The Black Angels - Don't Play with Guns

When the Level is Up

When the level of the Platte is

up before ultimately joining

with the Missouri before

bleeding into the Mississippi

on out, the current glides

by silently save an occasional

gluck-suck mud gurgle

at its brown foamed shore

line and all creatures coming

to it in the torpid dark July night

with blinking red dot lights

over forgotten small-town

water tanks, they know how

deadly its smooth surface

can be, swift silent current

past factories, churches,

            open fields,

general black night mayhem

of what is becoming an untamed

wilderness at the center

of an old old continent.

- - - - - - - - -

(July, 2013) 

Ready, Set, Go?

Coffee brewing on a kitchen

counter top and black dot flies

           summer flies

scurry busy-body through the

           air in split second.

The sun beats down hard in this

our early day to shine like

       a heated bare fist.

Ashley looks for sewing machine

parts on line, I scribble/scrawl out

the newest ground (or less than)

  link

in shadows.

Ever since ‘they’ waved a great

mysterious wand over artful

solid reasonings,

plates have

been emptier than ever before.

Nothing but costs.

Last night we wandered out in a gleam

under-scarred desert or I don’t

recall seeing any stars anyway,

mayhaps

got lost in the greasy grime of that

skeleton standing over by the

jukebox smuggling in his own

song selections by mumbling meaningful

question phrases like ‘What does

                                   this button do

                                   and what the

                                   hell is that

                                       band’

until finally I relent and say

      ‘hell with it man, pick yourself

                a tune’

and he presses the selection buttons

until he reaches the Cramps

and the room suddenly seems

           too small and green.

I’m embarrassed at my own

musical selections (skeleton?)

            - Dead Kennedys,

Circle Jerks, Black Flag - all of

them shouting and thunking roughed

up phrases of a young darting

            enthusiasm and

            mock-anarchy

            idealism

I no longer adhere to if’n I

ever really did,

           highly doubtful.

But last night finally what

else was thar to do

          but gun the car

          west

          up Leavenworth

          after Brothers on Farnum

decide to abstain from going

to see the second band more

or less certain to be as

much of a drag as the

first band and the Missouri

river at our backs gurgles

and plotches on in mud

and rainbow chemical swirls of

ship/boat exhaust and dead

vacant oil deprived of all its

              potency.

Seems as I recall the starting gun

went off years ago

and now I stand around

wondering if I was running

               the wrong race

               the whole

                   time.

(August 25th, 2013)

Old Times

Dream with the

        tips of my fingers -

all logistics set aside, hurled now

off some kind of hot summer wind

incredulous, albeit the true

nature/stink of the city-town

blurs out, crazed - deep anxiety

but no matter, driving

driving driving - can’t go

anywhere without driving

and opening up the methane

fart car choking thick

humid air, me being strange

awkward taking my place

in a long crooked line

of all that is misplaced.

Funeral seat in NOW.

      Say farewell

      to the past.

Recently I was

back in Bloomfield town

United Methodist Church pew

to witness the burying of the

102 year old bones of

my grandmother motionless

          about to be

          buried.

Open casket and she looked

young again, hardly needed

a mortician.  I used to dream

under her roof as a child listening

to music on her

tiny no-nonsense turn

          table.

End of an era.

Now only ghosts reside in Bloomfield.

------------

(sometime in June 2012)