garden man


I stopped smoking
Your gun
and I am pressed tonight alone
Against the blade of
Tight sheets
With the stench of old sweat
Your masterpiece
Those keys, tap tap tap
near your legal pad
Touch me
with such burning care
fierce and
Stumbling passion
As the evening churns
to misty emptiness


And oh,
to be a fly on the wall

the weight

the pills slide down the ledges of throat
and spill into the acidity like too much coffee
vitamins like small rocks
the distance skipped measured by
notes the band plays out of tune-
they go unnoticed
and you wonder if there are
enough quarters
for a few loads.

and your strange habits...
only seen by gnats that flutter, mock
the mindless movements
the lack of interest taken by your hands,
who would rather press themselves
against pen or brush
sugar or water or dirt and sun

what appears mysterious
is really only cyclical
just another thing you don't quite know the purpose for
but embrace anyway
and you sigh as the day pulls tight
and seems to halt
if only momentarily
you feel the exhaustion set in
before picking your feet up
and turning up the southern rock.

warmth of true sleep is most evading
right before spring breaks through the earth.
respectable people eat their free bread
warm butter and cracked skin
smile at passerby
as the wind creeps in faster
and they may lie to their loved ones at night
but their waste is still swept away
time, always the time

sometimes things are so true
that it's easy to forget

your circulation stumbles
such small breasts
will round themselves
into an assigned meaning
that fades with the onset of evening
and the pounding of drums in the distance
thickening, thickening,
and thickening.