5 Winter Haiku

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Winter forces us

Into holes, blankets wrapt ‘round

Translucent snow skin

Hope fires the sky red

The sun mocks us like friends with

Postcards from the beach

You said it was too

Cold to lick the metal pole

I gueth you were righth

If you turn the heat

All the way up we can shrug

Off heat bills till spring

Peeing your name is

Easy... You know what’s hard? Yep.

…near impossible…

work

this place is dark
and i have to leave early
to arrive early

to stay late

Johns aren't Joes

In the mirror you're one of a kind

An ace of spades

Silence the deck when it whispers

Speaking in tongues

Inquire first with the joker

You are a bouquet

But you see a flower

And so the gardener plucks

The wolf's season is over

Hold his breath a little longer

Just another wolf

Just another meal

Mouths remain red

At a table set for a TV dinner

This is breathing, second nature

So many before

Too many after

RIP dreams

Guilty eyes

RIP heart

Never see you

RIP beauty

It's the mundane that drove

And let us out

to view dreams, heart, beauty

love isn't found with torn seems

or dangling from teeth like a cigarette

american dream

american spirit

american nightmare

The wolf's season is over

Hold his breath a little longer

Hold it for him, and it will all be over

We’ll meet in the sunset

And flee to the sunrise

f#m

The shape of these four fingers
takes me there, to the beach house
by the sand and green waters.

Cool cement floors under bare foot
sweat and questions
a piano untuned by the hearth.

This shape has been
many other moments, but
this is the one that rises up

Like green weeds covering
the still waters of Lake Winona.

Kenny.

Kenny kept his emotions all bottled up.

A Long, Fast Night

In the midst of turning towards a six by six saga I danced on the back of a beast. When the moment struck the asphalt like a match on a book, I came alive. It all makes sense when the spark breaks the colonial darkness. Guarded shadows flee as the cherries set chase. The dried out limbs of yesterdays harvest writhe with life as water rushes forth not unlike the gushing of a head wound. It’s here that I respond in the guttural tone of old heartache and tired thoughts.

Trekking down the erroneous one-way towards disability a beggar stooped over a sign creates a rubber neck as I scream by. My mind is filled with a vast, heavy nothingness giving me all the sense of direction needed to change the plot. Hold fast as the ship changes course. Two words is all it took to find my feet travelling in a new direction. Two syllables in two words and I find myself wearing an old hat. It still fits much like the shoes at the back of your closet. Stay the course. And here I thought I knew nothing.

Wednesday last and the feast of St. Basil

You revealed words
like an exotic dancer
exposing flesh.

You uncovered mysteries
like a flasher in
the moonlight.

But men were fat
and farsighted in those days,
the women common
and complacent.

Bright words fell flat
over ages,
while we ignored them.
Like pangs
from dreaming,
silent screams
translated to
distraction.