Time Trap

The neighborhood sits & waits
in boredom, waiting for flamingo hell.
Waiting for those stick legs
with fat gleaming faces
on their porches and driveways,
those fat owners fucking those flamingos,
those flamingos fucking en masse on everyone’s lawn.
Time spent with those flamingos being seen as
“good time,” time that they gave their lawns a blatant grope, again.
Husbands and wives fuck the flamingos right in front of each other,
fuck the flamingos right in front of their children as well.
This is to teach their kids that a life is a good lawn AND a good flamingo orgy, I guess.

Kids tread across their lawns,
marching their flamingo armies
against the other flamingo enemies, each kid named John, I bet every kid within five miles
is named John.
The Johns fashion their hands into guns so they
can shoot the other Johns with swift justice.

If one kid gets lucky, John grows up to be Johnny.

If not, then John grows up to be a flamingo fucker.

The women involved bathe
their kitchens in bleach.
They fuck the flamingos because they can’t get their husbands
to simulate the act.

All day, flamingos, grass and gardens.
All night husbands and wives sleep on the far sides of their beds,
dreaming of flamingos.

During the night wolves armed with baseball bats
go flamingo hunting under the primal moon.
The flamingos sleep like rocks, dead-tired from a day
of fucking and fighting.
The wolves fly through yards, arms cocked, bats ready
whack! there goes a head whack! there goes a leg
whack! whack! whack! There goes an abdomen, a neck, a little metal crutch.

Blue night light sings a bioluminescent death on fields of broken flamingos.
If one kid gets lucky, John grows up to be Johnny.

The neighborhood pours into their lawns in their Sunday attire,
hysterical over their dead lovers, dead soldiers, dead fuck buddies.
Dead lives on dead time,
the last days work is pronounced dead on the scene.

The neighborhood waits for paranoia-night-lights,
and for their husbands to return from the department store,
trucks full of new flamingos
ready to be fucked and sent to war.

Direction (a ghazal)

there’s all sorts of people who can sell you maps
all handing you destinations derived from direction.

signs and syntax and symbols all favoring interpretation;
as hard as they try they can’t prove the direction.

I was admiring Her as she gave me eyes and affection
and would follow Her grace in any direction.

street Kids with rhythm, giving fingers to businessmen,
being such strong presenters, not thinking about direction.

Old Men sell papers and wisdom with conversation,
but when asked for the way, they too lose direction.

Metaphorical Jugglers and their easy-ear delights,
asking all to be quiet so they can find direction.

rhetoric battles between people with strong ideals,
telling each other off and that they have the wrong direction.

Televangelists bursting with conviction
conceal your brain and guide you in their direction.

Hotel Hostesses at night, desks with tired agitation;
Restaurant waitresses with bloodshot eyes, losing direction.

that affectionate Girl giving away more than realized,
how does she take me and pull this direction?

Angry Families of pregnant daughters, believing in tradition,
tell scowling neighbors “that girl just lost her direction!”

there’s a Boy getting stoned while someone plays his infection,
believing he’s someone, hearing tunes of direction.

Painters with full palettes, but empty canvases, with
an untrained monkey telling them that they need direction.

lost like a locket in a brown sea of rebellion;
taking it in, taking it out, all out on direction.


hand-drawn maps made by Chatters in boxes
who “find your soul” and point you in the direction.

Mama-crystal-ball has a million ways of persuasion,
and can charge you for all sorts of ways to take direction.

and there She is again, giving me signs but no clues,
I wish I could just stand up and ask her, “what direction?”

there’s a circle of Teenagers, banking the looks
of the Surprised as they awkwardly stare in their direction.

Howard! I’ll call the man that gives correction
Howard; he needs a face for all of his given direction.

Drag Men laughing at their Drag Women, pushing
them into comas of phased expression and direction.

Drag Women with dreams, T.V. dreams, and
dreams of owning T.V’s, see lines between direction.

Mama, did your children see you pull that insurrection,
pull that card and send them the wrong direction?

She still catches my eyes like a light-socket-explosion,
and other “suitors” lean hard, hard in her direction.

Liars who huddle around, and produce soda’s for the thirsty,
shoving them down their throats and giving direction.

there’s a Dad getting frustrated with the child’s determination,
He rubs their teeth with whiskey, and turns them the other direction.

everyone’s best dressed lie doesn’t fit like it should,
giving all the other’s they pawn it off to an unsure direction.

Cities hold Huddlers which cry for attention,
and how can they not get it? I see their direction.

hazed-days bring nothing like a good cold-cloud
of offers from your own gray mind of some need for direction.

so called, “Intellectuals” burn coffee shops for the right
to point and yell at other’s in their level, demand answers and direction.


I look at Her one last time, try to find with a resolution
behind each hand, then I blindly pick one, and take that direction

They all look one place, every single one of Them, one inspection,
of the stars making faces, and wonder if they’re giving some direction.

Me? I’m just handing out clips for some imagination,
walking in circles, and wondering when I’ll find direction.

the Jealous Train

somewhere between the last stop
and the current one, I took some time,
acted like an urn,
held some flowers and sat in the corner
and took the time to realize, that
fixation is becoming a
relentless boxcar of strain
full of the passengers’ baggage
(and someone else’s belongings)

I saw the Girl in the passenger car
with charm to throw away,
letting loose her red hair,
winking at everything within her eye,
gripping some vices that
were either New or lost (or both.)
She took her time, yet moved so fast,
steady rolling steel wheels made
the intense flow of boys from her cab
look like a cat chasing butterflies,
adorable really, until you really
look into it.

I saw the Boy order whiskey
with the worn out shoes.
He had been walking for days,
wondering and wandering,
taking his life on the side of roads and
dim-light diners.
He wasn’t standing now, so
he sang with every breath.
His voice carried his song
as far as the car could stretch,
Voice like an old oak tree, misplaced
in the center of a quarry, smoothing
the gravel with its motion.

No one in the car minded,
‘cept the Old Hag with the
new trench coat. She had died
way before her time, but
was still finding excuses
to scorn the scores of
Vagabonds and filthy others.
She never stopped to realize
that she was the miscreant
in this hallway, angered,
wrinkled expressions making coarse
contrasts with the Girl’s easing grin,
or the Boy’s pure, honest melody.
The Hag wants them all dead
(or at least in the army.)

The Hag pushes past me as She
makes her way to complain
to the driver (having already
complained to the rest of the staff.) Muttering
the only verses She’s ever known,
and only will, with no reason
to attach meaning to words,
concerned only with the form.
The stewardess ignores her and
wonders how much longer the
Girl will ride for, The driver laughs and
ignores them both, wondering
why the Girl doesn’t spend
more time in the front of the train.

I laugh and make my way,
back, back, back to my chair
easing the Girl’s laughter
and the Boy’s song
into each ear where I
let them settle down deep in
the back of my head
and wonder, just wonder,
why I’, not as soulful
as they are, why, their presence
could fold all the old texts
into footnotes!

I don't think they know it,
and I don't think they will.