The Harningway

When the liquor’s got your bones in it—
your ash, skin, and spit—
it’s no longer good for sipping.
Drink that shit.

Siss like leaves
Churning leaves
On May-June wings,
But really all the kisses
Of ice on bare trees.

Wind (with a cartoon curl in it
And bedsheet ghost in it
going oOoO through branches
reaching over your body to put out streetlights
without saying goodnight
(deliberately))
shimmers with static particles
Like the TV kind that perspire in waves
Up and down the spine of sand dunes
Or on a sheet of puddle in a stagnant place
Where little waterbugs disrupt the surface
By impressing themselves upon the water.

When I look at the untouched plain of snow
settled on the road, I cannot tell if the motion I see
Is powder contacting powder
Or the shadow of the snow.

I know it’s not kind for the fortunate to talk about the homeless--

especially when rain pisses cold night early
like a dead drunk on the sidewalk,
filling ditches with frigid water
pooled in ankledeep depressions
unnoticed ‘til rain pisses
gutters down asphalt
heaped in middlestreet impressions.

Heaped against curbstones
fed by asphalt,
the heaps of middlestreet form
blackpool gutters
that shine like sun can’t
off daytime things
matted by diffusion.

On the surface of the blackpools,
the greenlights and redlights
and yellow streaks ripple
like dreamtime falling out of phase
with the walking rhythm of cold-soaked sneakers
squashing ‘long the greenline
ripples of a redlight
nighttime.
Soaked in piss and inconsiderate snow,
it melts before it’s supposed to.

He’s an obvious imbecile,
now handicapped or special. *(exclude?)
A sweetness caps his voice
like the accent of spice
in a cigarette that got wet
then dried then smoked once fished
from under a passenger seat
like a nice surprise—
like a tipped hat
after hello and a brief discussion
of snow and the rain it followed
and whether or not this snow is the symptom
of a cold front;
gone tomorrow,
here today.

He wanted money
to get through the night.

(He had no nurses to give him
what he needed to get through the night)

I gave him cigarettes and useless sentiment instead.

“You look soaked to the bone.
I hope you have someplace to get dry.”

He said,
“Don't worry.
It’s not the rain that gets to me.
It’s this snow.”

A poem about myself.

I’d like for you to lay down
the things you find important,
the people you spend your love on,
lay down your arms and move around with,
touch, laugh and sing with-
Me in my bed

or on my shoulder when there’s no reason not to
except important things
and love and song.

I want to be exceptional.
I found you in the crowd
and you called on me when I said hello
and made myself available.

It’s only fair I am the same
as I imagine you to me.

So I do

Mmm. Yes.
High times when times are final.
The boom hound lapped me by miles.
Its panting echo leapt from the barrel and struck the rim edge,
Rang it like tracers overhead.

The phosphorous melted off the iron
And the ringing echo settled.
The cartridge spins,
and rest.

But Odor remains,
Nestled in the fat of my firing finger.
I’ve anodized my tongue
shredded my palette
stuffed cotton in my mouth.

Another year is going
And so I do.