Kennesaw Mountain

I went there.

I saw winding roads

and ridge backed hills

the locals call mountains.

The ground was all red clay

and the creeks and rivers churned

like bloodstreams of coffee and cream.

It rained a constant drum roll of rain.

There were minnie balls and artillery canister

bored into the wood of the trees

and once there were fields 

littered with bloody butternut

and splintered Illinois bones.

The land is a battery

holding the charge of marching boots

and railroad currents of human electricity.

There was human bondage 

and internecine defiance 

terminally opposed at dead angles.

It rained a constant drum roll of rain

that sprouted Easter threads of Jonquil

in the scrimshaws of the eroded earthworks.

I saw the will to union 

blossom at the bottom 

of shallow scratches in the earth

meandering in lines,

receding from the Snake Creek Gap

past Kennesaw and Peachtree, 

south to Atlanta.

Man of Many Visions

Here's the thing.

I'm in the Philadelphia airport.

Somebody has smeared shit

all over the stall where I'm pissing.

Real class.

My piss is gold and smells like Bushmills.

I am finally whole.

I am finally strong.

I am a man of many visions.

I am a man of many visions 

you don't want to know about.

No matter what you think.

No matter what you say or try,

it won't work out the way it was planned.

It's okay, though,

most of the time.

Birdfeeder

Manhole buttons on an asphalt sleeve.

Big leaf maple doublet and gold leaf breeches.

Green lichen ruff round the neck.

Rosebush brocade 

draped over garbage can hounskull,

the dented sides muzzle holed with rust.

Telegraph bird flicker awaits the filling of the feeder.

Thistle seed dot and black sunflower seed dash.

Send out the message.

Return. 

     

Two Gold Rings

I see a pair

of gold rimmed 

black panther's eyes

in the permanent darkness

of my head.

Watching and ambivalent 

when I come.

Skull Frequencies

It's Molly 

talking to me

from the deepest gash

in the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

The a. m. radio station static

and muted trombone hum

make the words opaque

to my tired ears.

What are you saying?

It has to be you 

because I'm afraid of everyone else

in my skull.

I saw the diagram 

of the severed dog's head

and your distant cycle

deep in the earth's magnet

bobbed on the surface 

of my lake's memory.

What are you saying?

Onesome, twosome, threesome.

I've got the severed dog's head blues

I've got the voice of Philp Gregory in open G.

I've got Julie and Brent dry humping in the corner booth.

I've got an invitation to threesome.

I've got to stay home next St. Patrick's Day.

It's In The Post Intelligencer

Newspaper boy says 

he's not coming around anymore.

He said that they can't afford 

to print the daily news

just so I can do the junior jumble

and check the sports page daily line.

Apparently nobody wants hire an escort

or sell a rusty lawnmower 

or print an obituary 

enough to keep the lights on nowadays.

The newspaper boy didn't say

he's not going to come around

because it's not true.

There is no newspaper boy

He didn't come around

and

he never told me 

what I told you he said.

There is however,

no more newspaper 

for the reasons I said

but,

there was no newspaper boy

and he didn't come around.

I do like junior jumble 

and the sports page daily line, though.