Letters and Soda

touch the puppet head

I might be somewhere else now
the pace never changes

the train shrugs me off
sighs and then rolls on

I look down to find the ground
but you are always moving forward

what happened here? where did we go?
i hope you all discovered the truth
and are hunkered in the gutter
sucking marrow out of rats and freezing

nevermind sunsets
afterglow settles against the horizon
and fades
bus loads of characters
with their front row seats
stare down at their feet
I see it all the time
another day sacrificed
for the big dream

they sat on their sofas
reading faulkner and wept
or cried rivers
flooded bathtubs
and drown themselves
or their children
for the sake of the poet

they made the beds
walked under bridges
to the station
their suitcases filled with
incense and handkerchiefs
a copy of burroughs
a pair of handcuffs
sleeping pills and ink pens

they sat on the hardwood
in lofts in the ghettos
took out their pens
for the sake of the soul
and began to repent

I found a piece
 an old canyon picture
under the bed
my spine twists and I lay back
my ribs are sore
from bending

a vertical shred
from the bridge of your nose
to that bent and mangled beast behind you
I  turned back
to watch it dissolve
but you just sighed over
your tattered shoulder
and looked past your reflection
as the city flashed gray and pink outside

if “tumblr.com” wasn’t so ridiculously difficult
to remember to spell incorrectly the right way
intoxicated or otherwise
I wouldn’t have stumblered upon this website
and my life wouldn’t have been quite as complete.
Don’t ask why, it’s just one of those things.

http://tmblr.com 

your red car
the moon reflecting
off the sunroof
sleeps on the street
outside
not dead
not damaged
just resting
and taken
for a drive

your mother, in her kitchen
i watched
from outside the window
she swayed in
the great yellow
fluorescent flood
a water color sprung
from the depth of the buffalo river