Manipulate

I was once a lapdog

but the day I found

my stink was the day I grew

my teeth was the day I buried

myself in a shoebox and lapped

my soul from cupped hands and

realized I had hands.

What work is there for hands but making

planets? But tickling blades of grass up

and brushing through a field at full-speed caress?

There is more, there is much more than making planets,

than planting daisies or scribbling walls of sprawling spray-paint rants

to crack your knuckles at.

There is a kind of silence

digging in the ground,

as pounds and pounds

of hope are shoveled out, are piled aside

a space to hold a new word

or the quick rush of realization.

What work is there for hands but shaking

out the terms from nonsense verse?

But boxing the world

and twiddling for a turn at naming formless clouds?

There is more, there is much more than shaking out the terms,

than hoisting up the sails, than rubbing down the rails,

than flattening the map and pointing where you are.

I was once found

in the shoebox of growing up,

cupping water from the sink,

when a real life realization

handed me the world.

Bold As

Jimi's looking down from the wall, and I think

he's awfully condescending, way up there.

But I put him way up there, a king

to frown on my muddling. His face is an open stare,

the kind you only give to strangers and dogs

who soil the carpet again, because a real

person could climb inside that look and mug

your soul of its lunch money, could sneak and steal

all your ninjas from their lilies. But I'm you,

Hendrix. I asked the Axis and it said, as is,

I'm bolder than love, than coffee or typeface, too.

Bolder than earth. Bolder than bullshit. The catch is

that through hazy gaze your head is still

miles, and all my bold in awe of your broken skill.

On Laughter

If none of us are different,

and every hand's a shaking tree,

if fish are men are birds are stones

then where does that leave me?

He peers at despair nearly

and sees patches on a quilt.

But what's beneath? Where does it end?

And what's the harm in an hour spent

upon a tilt-a-whirl?

Empty versus Empty

the following poem has been modified to fit

your mind. it has been stretched, it has been shot, 

it has had invisible words edited from it.

those unhatched ideas cloud and blot,

diffuse the infinity ink into something gray,

something raggedy shoes something blah-blue

something two-toned flat trombones would play

WAH-WAH with. it has been imagined, construed,

it has been confused. it has a life of its own,

it has no life but its home of stormy letters

and snow-melt brain cells. it has been studied and shown

to wash the grime out of creative gutters,

to shower drops that plop down like fat men. 

It will be rated rain, we’ll watch it again and again.

Adam

the day he came home

his face full of anguish so fragrant

it hadn't been invented yet

what the hell happened to you?

she asked

poetry.

he said