RCA Victor Warning Label: Caveat Canem

Beware the blunted needle- beware the Jabberwock!
A blunted or chipped needle
a chipped tooth? A needle already used? Draw the blood up, into yourself
can permanently damage your can permanently damage you
most valuable records lock box! lock down! safehouse!
A worn needle no sharing, please
will impair what won’t impair? What substance abuse won’t impair?
the quality of the sound reproduction
quality of life, corrupt DNA now infinitely spiraling off
you hear you hear nothing! You can’t even hear your own heartbeat-
Make sure your needle is in good condition how? How if you don’t test it?
Put the point to flesh and prick skin? How? Drysuit contaminent biohazard fears
before you play just pass the j, pass the blow, pass the horse
the record there are no records subrosa no trace no shadow man following
If in doubt all there is, is doubt have it checked
by the hatcheck girl who holds the bag for the puppet chest of wannabees in their fedoras
by your dealer NUFF SAID
or buy a new needle.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

They banned kites.
‘Too distracting to vehicular traffic' as it careens down onto the Belt Parkway.
But once upon, the sky was a crayola pastiche.
Laying here, at the end of nowhere, two Japanese box kites dance,
the cherry blossoms framing their tails, sky so close.
Smaller here, at the Gardens, bits and pieces of scent hover, gardenia, roses, rot, heavy.
How do the kites stay up in the hevy air?
Before they had an ocean. Swallows, diamonds and yes the ubiquitous Japanese box kites,
elaborate flying machines lost in a blue so big the steamers passing underneath were toys.
Curlicue tails tickle me, wrap around my big toe and sink their teeth in.
I hold the tendrils, up here, where I can touch the roof of the world and mourn the finite space below

Grammatically Incorrect

They string together as many adjectives, adverbs, helping verbs, subordinate clauses as they can, hoping to make something, anything, that looks like something, anything from the hollow insides, polysyllabic language and twisted metaphor masquerading as truth justice and the american way.
Obfuscation is cellophane, reversed order and pronouns unrelated to any noun, proper, concrete, common, abstract or otherwise, earlier or later mentioned.
It's the emperor's new clothes.
If they read it, can they understand it?
If they can't understand it, will they give it an award?
If they give it an award, will it go in an anthology?
If it goes in an anthology, will it be revered by the ages?
If it is revered by the ages, will they read it? Does it matter if it says nothing?

We're Not in Kansas Anymore

Ellis Amber-Eyes stares out,
little girl lost in a bed of poppies
perchance to sleep, perchance to dream.
The Scarecrow and the Tinman
Brainless and Heartless, leave her there.

How could anyone be so stupid, leaving a child alone, unprotected
in a world of backed up sewage and mold encrusted corners?
How could anyone be so cruel, leaving a child alone, unprotected
trails of candy and lost kitties to be found?

But Ellis Amber-Eyes, smooths the grassy knoll, lays herself down in the poppies,
thick scent cozy tucked up to her chin.
She won't remember her dreams.

If she's lucky.

Awesome

I wonder. Is that arrogance, for me to wonder?
Is it?
Am I so self-important, so self-righteous that I dare to wonder?
Because I do not wonder
quaking in my seat
tongue buckshot riddled to useless
arms and hands and fingers spasming in envy desire to hold their own
legs tense, feet squelching invisible mud in glee.
No, I do not wonder, feeling any of that.
I do not wonder ‘awesome'

I wonder, what's the point?
Are you trying to con me with gussied up plastic filigree flatware?
So yes, I am presumptuous, insolent, puffed up.
I am proud, drunk on my own oxygen laden blood cells.
I'll hold my words against yours, raise an eyebrow in disdain and walk away, thinking,
‘Pathetic.'

Every Breath You Take

Hummingbird heartbeats,
same beats as mine, that's word count.
Four, three, two, one. TIME!

My Right Foot

My third toe, right foot,
It's name is Bill. It still moves
any way I want.
But one day, maybe
soon, or not, it won't.

Strut

He struts, shakes his pompadour back, preening, I think.
I can't be sure because he's so far away
but it looks like preening to me anyway.
Last time I saw him,
He was biting her neck, hard,
while he bent her over, spread her legs with his knees and fucked her.
She didn't say a word, just stared out into nothing,
and after, staggered away, numb, perhaps bemused by the experience.
Now, he preens,
makes himself pretty for another one.
"Hi, have we met, you sure are cute, anything you want, I can get you.
Why don't you come over here?" and wham!
Another one. Another notch in his asshole belt.
I sit here, sipping my tea, watching out the window.
Ducks aren't so different from people

so i started ANOTHER blog

http://twithaiku.blogspot.com/

Poster Poser

Hamelech glitters
but is really just a piece
of painted cardboard.

Eclipse

The world is becoming a ghost town
jobs families homes towns,
all sinking back into the sand that castles are made from.
Moon comes closer, pulls waves high onto the shore and steals it back.
Holding flotsam, praying for salvage treasure, praying to be salvage treasure,
out and out and out.
Dreams turn into chum,
sharks chew the last little bit of flesh and crunch the bones.

Biting the Apple

It's a cold feeling, not knowing, a cold that starts in the marrow,
leaches out through the skin and leaves a glistening stink of ‘maybe' behind it.
Holding the unknown between two fingers, holding it like a rattler,
just below the jawline,
so it can't bite but close enough to count the venom drip drip drip.
It spins, clicks against the table,
so small it fits comfortably in the palm of a hand.
Deceptive size.
How can anything that tiny, that insignificant, that disposable
take away everything you thought you ever knew about anything?
How?
If it disappeared, sliding between fingers,
coming out of ears and pockets and going in again,
suddenly flying across the room to bury itself in the trash, abracadabra,
could time turn back into before?
But it boomerangs, bringing evil ignorance and the end of bliss, and now,
genie out of the lamp like a long overdue electric bill,
everything is dark.

Summer of Our Discontent

She is bronze, no not the color.
The age, the age of bronze, more advanced than stone,
needles and fishing baskets and barley and survival,
and less so than iron,
steel tools and sharp edges and brittle armor and violence.
The curve of her spine,
that indent where the sweat pooled when she lay there, prone,
summertime, the sleek, sweet saltiness of her flesh,
contrasting with the advanced synthetic scraps
which kept her from being arrested on charges of public nudity.
That was bronze.
And I loved her, loved my bronze age girl,
with her pinniped roughness made to cut through waves with minimal resistance to touch,
occasional brush of my arm, hairs erecting as they come near her,
electric hungry for congress.
She is bronze, melting copper, beautiful tooled leather and horses pulling rudimentary ploughs,
settlements, overseas trade in the hot Aegean sun, bronze.
Bent over her drawing table, rulers, pencils, t-squares and protractors at hand,
all simple tools, or weapons, depending on how you looked at them,
smudges of charcoal and cray-pas on her cheekbones and brow, entranced.
She is that in-between age which is all things possible, 360 degrees available,
no roads shut and she takes an eraser and removes a fractured line which is me.
She is bronze
and now, I am invisible

Fragments of the Future

She could see it, staring up at the sun, fragments of a future silhouetted against the swirling orange light.

Not a waltz or a promenade, how trite those would be. Everyone saw their future or past as moments of glory or fame, but not her. Instead, she saw them turn, walk, reach out with splayed hands, their fingertips close enough to feel the air currents pass between them.

Nothing special. Her visions were ordinary, routine, every day mundane. Kissing her shoulder while she washed the dishes, the search for keys lost in a pile of mail or putting down his hex wrench to watch her type, oblivious to anything except her own words.

Fragments of a future they were cheated of by an oil slick and a rusty 92 Civic.

She saw it until they shut her eyes and zipped her in.

Watching a Train Wreck

I try not to look but it draws me in like a train wreck draws EMTs and polyester wearing lawyers looking for a quick buck. My eyes pass over them. Keep going, I say, keep going, it's not your place, it's none of your business, just keep going and SNAP! They're back, wondering what the hell that woman is doing for that $100 bill tucked in her shirt pocket, sitting there with her hands on his hips and his pants around his ankles.

Maybe she's taking his measurements for a new pair of trousers, a custom made suit, neon green with pink checked accents to offset the lines of his mohawk just so.

Maybe she's rotating his arms, legs, torso so he'll achieve the perfect stance in his Pilates series, balance and breathing aligned to optimize the transfer of oxygen to the blood cells and increase muscle strength and flexibility.

Or maybe she just finished blowing him and she's going to wipe her mouth on the hem of his shirt.

I dunno, but I can't stop looking and I'm afraid my eyes are going to freeze there and shatter.