to flower and fruit

.


what is
a broken mind,
to flower and fruit?
intimate bile, and gaze and
breathe in.


.

her name is shelley.

her eyes are blue.

all these flies in the room

.


getting the hang of timing a
twelve top, with appetizers, plate
splits, and side dish manipulations
utterly alien from the printed menu,
i sit.

bar stool back rest collecting
perspiration, and squeaking against
wet, polyester scratched, cotton soothed
skin.

across the barroom, i see lives
creased into the faces of co-workers,
sitting and drinking and keeping
separate from my sobriety.

i order an iced tea, and
ignore disbelieving scoffs,
scuttles and retreats to where
comfort and companionship are
chemically enhanced.

huddled around
dysfunctional over-foaming,
under beer-ing taps, a semi-circular
conversation never makes its way
around to me. i was sold an image of
"a restaurant with a bar, not
a bar with a restaurant," but
after hours swing shift soirées
plop caustic thinner over
melting stain and a peeling off
layer of smooth skin over decalcified
and crumbling cheek bone structure.


.

mal

.


make out, without the cop watching.

her pants down pushed her over,
like sideways and on the chair.

wiggled around; licked the ass hole
inside my head and then pumped

while she rotated her hips-
came on her ass crack and

cleaned myself up.


.

the scenery

.


driving a winding back road
in wine country pre-dawn
pitch darkness, i hook a u-turn
back to view a discarded pair of
boxer shorts :
folded by landing. rolling, thrown from a moving
vehicle window, and
tempting flies onto the
middle yellow stripe of
bump reflectors glued to the pavement.

white horses stir their heads
at the squealing tires and spinning
turbo fan blades. radiator fins suck
cold air through the funnel exo-
skeletons of beetles' carcasses, hollowed
out. high pressure, pops, secretion-

strap a baby to a dyke and
watch a tidal wave crash.


.

dead summer

.


dozens of brown finches scatter
and swarm the highway shoulder,
picking at morsels
among pebbles,
pecking through half grown,
dead summer grass.

with the turbulence of mid-day anti-
commuter traffic settled by gridlock, overpopulation--
battered flies, dismembered by catastrophic
windshield redirection, litter median buffer gravel.


.

so it seems i've found my berries.

i've been sick. a cold has gotten the better of me, and my snot filled nasal cavity has put some overdue pressure on my brain, it seems. sitting in bed, no time but the few hours each day i've been able keep myself awake, and a good book of poetry have gotten creative juices (as with a fair deal of muccus) flowing.


Area 51.

the US millitary base, built decades ago but only recently aknowledged by the "higher-ups" as existing, has more cover up conspiracy, and government ill-doing theories swirling around it than the Kennedy assassination. people wouldn't care nearly as much about what is or what is not going on up at groom lake, nevada, if the D.O.D. position of utter denial had been altered.

i'm losing my train of thought to nyquil induced dementia, so i'll get to the point.


information.

in the "information age," the population of this country seems staggeringly out of touch. before you go writing letters, i'm not on about our election. although our current President doesn't exactly ring true with me as "adequitely informed" for his high position (the man could pick up a newspaper, now and again), i'd say the problem is with our basic, in the bones, deep-down thirst for knowledge; we're losing it. the fact that "ivy league liberals" are painted as such by their rivals to score political points in rural voting districts, and the fact that it seems to work, is terrifyingly loud in screaming that our children are in trouble. public education is in the crapper.

since when did a c-average, being plain spoken and a "regular joe," while decidedly ignoring educated journalism, and promising to beat up countries that looked at us funny add up to a presidential campaign?

when did respect for education die? and no, this is not a partisan matter. i'll take an educated [whatever] over an "aw shucks" pandering democrat any day.

wasn't i getting to a point?

if you can, do. if you hope our children can, teach.





i'm not sure how, but i've found where my feet will fall.

i want to be a teacher.

jon

.


home to oakland, and the first night spent
here. we each have locks on our doors;
each is left ajar, and this homecoming is made
complete by mutual understanding- in motion,
new lives, spread-eagle and seducing us both.

this man's footwear precedes him. hand-made
moccasins sit beneath our couch, and orange
boat shoes crush a fan beneath blankets layered
on the floor in an interim fashion. my mirrored
antithesis builds tiny houses, cookie cut in
synchronic anti-consumer consciousness.

art fags in early morning underwear, breakfast
mode, and milk steaming espresso machine
credibility. we leaf through "the male nude,"
observe specific information, bare supporting
details, and put fourteen thousand dollars to use.

learning to critique-- learning to tell another that
nothing is working, nothing is right, does not
mean we know anything of how to do it ourselves.
paying for time in the same room with thinkers
of great thoughts won't be worth a dime store
dictionary, unless questioning every turn is
elastic recoil-- rubber banded reflex.


.

do women turn their heads and cough?

.


she carried a globe and a half over her
head, lifted what she could out of my ear-
shot. groaning gears and stress fractures
left shavings and residue to fall through
cracks. building and layering rocks in the
works; they coagulate and collapse into an
infinitesimally small black hole of misdeeds
never done and goodness strapped of
vision completion.

there were moments in the months spent
home, in the bottoms of wine bottles

one thought invaded sweat soaked,
two ay-em, in-transient, teddy bear
movements in a river of thumping, heavy
boulders- white water and rainbow trout.

it was like i put closure on lay-away,
and that was the first installment of
grief over her death.

a cathartic, concentrated dose of
grieving. four hours hiding under a
comforter- of all things- crying and breathing,
then resting and sleeping
in peace.


.

"idea based movement"?