pull over (fa)

to the side of the white
road, get out
and light a cigarette
this is nervous
this is the concrete trapped
under ice

you don't know where you're going
but you know
there's something you need to get right

warm your hands on the hood
the snow melts on it

you're at the frontline now
a balance of
comfort
and war

this is where you leave
it all
to be buried alive
in the snow

your hopes
and notes
and postage fares
your worried songs
your gloves from home

this is where you leave
it all
to stop breathing
in the snow

f.a.- Jean Genet's sunken beauty;

the flask

off the coast - song (fa)

cool down the beast
blow it away from me

i'm burning everything
a choir in a forest breeze

i know the drum in your chest
fields of dead let them rest
you swore that i would be blessed

hold the knife to my chest
or break the bottle unless
it fills to the crest

simple minds of cities
i wonder what you're doing here

your phone is off the railing
you haven't been awake for years

i'll be the bird in the cold
i'll fill my heart with old smoke
the best way to be alone

ride that barge off the coast
keep a gun in your coat
you are a ghost you are a ghost

but the blues is just a thug
and i talk as small as thelonious monk

jack daniels wearing a sundress
like a lover in a mining town

i've got fire to hold onto
i've got love to hold onto
i've got work to hold onto
i've got the ax to hold onto
i've got the rails to hold onto
i've got the hills to hold onto
i've got the ghosts to hold onto
i've got your hips to hold onto
i've got my hat to hold onto
i've got fire to hold onto

impetus (FA)

this is the flower that drowned
persephone. a violent
beauty
a wisp of white neck
flesh asleep on lake of love
collar bone, flow
down
down the center
down
to the angel skin
pressed but quiet
on my shoulders
beating like slow wings

catalyst
spread like god or sweet heroine
the length of this undying winter

the bed never warm
without a pistol under the pillow

Dear Vincent (f.a. book response)

A series of short poems written in the voice of Vincent van Gogh, 

with quotes from the book "Dear Theo". 

the longhouse, 1998

I've got to write of "indian wealth",
fill in all the blanks. There are
your screams of lines
and subtle burnings
then there are the rosaries
in your murdered choir,
a shelter I prayed in as the rain
played tin. My eyes were ravens then,
foggy feathers in your hands.

promise (FA)

This I finished writing when sitting in Paul's Diner with a friend, waiting for an orange float. There were some ideas for the poem I found in my notebook, which I think I scribbled down mainly to keep myself from falling asleep on a bus. But this is how it looks now. The orange float was delicious. 








a crystal white brick building
nondescript like cancer
smokers outside coughing kerosine


hide the summers, fill in
with graphite
tonight context is a shadow moon


he will never forget
to write you 


even as the telephones erupt
in saxophone soma
and crawling alarm clocks
shout doom

Ethsmé (FA)

there have been dozens

I've called Sarah Jane
each a lioness
with cloudy dirt caught
in her eyes
defacing mountains
breaking the teeth
in my small mouth

your hills are more wild
crests of calloused gold arrive
in the treelines
and when the winter plays
she spins her breath
like scores of wool
tight across your thigh

my mouth and eyes are closed
I've been bowing for five months

Ethsmé
all I could do was lie

your bed
of strong grass and wildflowers
won't be so quick
to the whisper of sparks
come this fire season

the old neighborhood

on the sidewalk
the season swelling
steel toes cracking
those flammable leaves
thin Colt's face like a crow

he laughed as his hand
caught at my throat
and in that second
I was breathless as oil

Grandpa
your hands thick with veins
have hung low and ready
at your sides
since the time another boy
knocked the cigarette from your mouth
and you whispered to him
"I been saving that one for three months"

I felt your eyes then
watching diamondback black
maybe from the grass grown over
the front yard
all golden ghosts
or from the quiet windows of the trailer
parked down the road

Grandpa
you steadied my eyes
as Colt's hand let go
and breath filled my lungs
again

braeburn

I heard the sound of your voice
through the trees comin'
from far out in the shadow brush
the knit pines

strong boots heavy with mud
cigarette turnin slow into wind

this is dangerous
I whispered back
and stood the ax in the oak
the winter's so thick
it's hard to breathe
and I hate the way the porch light
flickers in the dark
dusk till dawn
stealin' the night
from my dreams

honey
you should know
when I get home
before I get the money
from the red birdhouse
before I punch Johnny in the mouth
for trying to kiss you

I'm gonna love you til our bodies
turn the kitchen tiles warm

I'm gonna love you where the night is full
and winter holds us in its arms

diamondbacks

wet with tears
rain
in slow eyes
impatient
tired
from heartbeat
solitude

you don't like
what you don't understand

but this is what I was made
from
gas stations
lit up bleeding into black
freeway evenings

constellations
become so small
when stars are traced through
to make you

your crisp laugh
like a ghost

though it's life
we've met

o god
your eyes
through a winter
stream of smoke

o god
your eyes

the second pack

the birds blessing
in the night time
sleep barely
like i do

i'm not looking
too good
when my heart pours
out my toes
and my mouth
is a gambling hall

i should let you know

this isn't a man
you should be waiting for
when you've got breath
like wind held on call
and sing
so modestly

i could win a fight
i could drink it straight
i could spit and roll up my sleeves
call any soul a motherfucker

but i'll always shake
catch a small hurricane
in my eyelashes
when i see you
new

monday morning - six forty-four am

when the water

dries
off the bathroom
floor
i will know
you're gone

over

you sing
bravery
my fingernails chewed
and eyes done with
i could starve you out
strong
mark me
but let
my words
breathe
on a banister
of smoke
we die
in our shoes
every night

the shape of absence

there are still traces of your smell
trapped beneath my sheets
but it's your breath that's missing
on my bare shoulder blades
when i sing songs of war and defeat.

how to not write down thoughts

this is old.

forget your self
and echoes of it in others

let beauty be untouched
and lonely
neglected
like hills that have never
been painted

and a girl like sarah jane
somehow never loved
with words or hands
or bare skin sinking
into deep rich blue

where do hearts beat
without her?

trade

the last time i saw you
your face was gold
in the apartment building
parking lot porch light.
I could see your stubble
and old scars
from last decade's fight.

they say you can tell a man's story
just by following his scars
if that's so mine's a pretty short one
about skateboard parks and school yards.

but the ones that hide behind my quiet
raincloud curtain eyes
tell a greater tale
of migraine dreams and cigarette lies.

in a box
i still have the valentine you gave me
when i was a little kid.
when you made it
i think you were trying to fight ugliness
with a cigarette in your mouth
and ball point pen in your hand
wiping the ashes off the paper as they land
seeing your ink run black into the valentine
river of red
like blues make up the man.

we both stood outside your door
under the secret-moon sky
shifting our weight
with a hate for hellos and goodbyes.
any car on the road
was parked like a tombstone
in quiet after midnight prose.
i didn't have a lot to say
though i spent every minute
we were apart
hoping to god you would be
okay.

louise (song)

i'm breaking parole just to be
in the cold of that stream
dip your ankles in the cold
and send off some leaves

i left louise on the hill
and forgot how i could love her still
now i live alone
and don't pay my telephone bills



louise i set my arms on fire
to wave you home again
but the flames became a wildfire
and nobody could catch a train

i left louise on the hill
and forgot how i could love her still
i could still smell her when i
started working at the oil well



and i'm just trying to say goodbye
but i don't know how
the river runs in my blood
oh but i don't know how

i'm going down to that river
and i'm going to drink my fill
i left louise on the hill
and forgot how i could love her still

i left louise on the hill
and forgot how i could love her still
i'm going down to that river
and i'm gonna drink my fill

love

he draws you naked
on the stairs

a weather beating
sipping up
the cigarette smoke

your skin takes dust
off the wood

tremble in stillness

think of the wild lines
under his eyes
roadmaps hot with crying

over your color
a railway in back hills
at sunrise

tideline

run tideline
down the shore
sign of smoke
caught in dream
chanting
through night
into afternoons

where it breaks
write
it bleeds on
feel night now always
so much closer
to hiding us

books taking to dust
cards on the table
she's gone
remember? just
dreams now
so
bleed on
just dreams
now