sundown

light
   moves
      someone’s
         shadows
            crowd
the day’s away, an
evening
   now 
      or
         after
            down
Something still, a
wrinkly fall
starry
   room
      besmalls
         us
            all

Creds.

Full moon haiku stack

Full moon is out there
confounding society
with mad gravity,

sucking the water
we carry around with us
out of our brain pans,

causing us to clash,
to confront unconsciously
ourselves and others.

Streets and sidewalks now
under its influence are
bumping arenas.

Close calls confound us.
Confrontational pinballs,
clueless lunatics,

we pretend all’s well
as the moon’s wry loony swell
amplifies our hell.

Gunny sacks get dumped,
conversations escalate
to ultimatums.

Old relationships
are re-evaluated
on a cosmic scale.

Innocuous jokes
suddenly conceal meanings.
All is amplified

just because a speck
of spinning satellite dust
stares without blinking.

Perhaps it is time
to let awareness guide us
and ride out the tides,

and humor help us
deflate the dark energy
and wake up alive.

Haiku Stack On Me
 
When I was 7,
I was Davy Crockett’s ghost,
coonskin cap and all.

I would watch the fringe
fly behind me as I ran
in my cowboy clothes.

Today, all grown up,
I catch myself mirrored
in city windows,

my hair following
a long tradition of me
reflecting on me.

shaving your legs


I was just dreaming
of shaving your legs

the same ones
I've shaved before

on various continents
in bathtubs big and not

and in this dream
you were comfortable

sipping blood and champagne
out of a tall clear glass

humming tunes to yourself
as I knelt to attend you

doo whacka doo
look at you

whaddaya know
suck my toe

you were singing
while I barbered you

and bathed you
and loved you

the juice


you are the juice that runs
off the plate and into me


the draft that fuels the fire
and keeps my cells alive


concentrated stamina
in liquid female form


the color of blood and fruit
sweet tang of angel sweat


slither down my throat
and turn me inside out


circulate and percolate
and ooze out through my pores


without you I am dry
just dust without a home


ash descending on the sea

without you

people would die horrible disgusting deaths
presided over by me and my maniacal gleam

eyes plucked from sockets would roll
down streets drenched in blood and bile

without you seasons would change
irrationally gleefully destroying civilizations

pretentious morons would commit painful suicide
rather than face the fury of a youless me

oceans would boil at my touch
mountains would turn to mud and shit

every tiny penis behind the wheel of an SUV
& every plastic mammary gland would continuously quake with fear

obsessed accountants and technical assistance dickheads
would make arsenic their new boring linear aperitif of choice

corporations would crawl back into the abyss
from which they sprang pretending to be humans

without you governments would stop sending me mail
fearing their families would reap the rewards of my righteous wrath

obsessive bosses would resign on the spot
heading for hills already teeming with rejected despots

rollerbladers and other amateur athletes would order and insert
costco loads of plutonium-leaking cruise missile suppositories

without you this monkey feces world would get what it deserves

fools that we are
we fall for it every time

like dopes who fell from heaven
we stumble in and out of others’ pain

our delightful wheeler dealer circus
riding along with us in the ambulance

making music out of dopplered sirens
and tapestries from blood and shit

that’s what we do me and you
in between reruns and videos

we rock and roll beneath the stars
and splash god’s face in the pool

and thank the fool who made all this
including us and our silliness and depth

upon which the universe and all its creatures
can count ‘till the day they die

I sit helpless
& watch the blood drain
out of my poems

who used to run wild
pumped full of adrenalin
& speed

spraying sweat on onlookers
dazzling & disorienting them
with spiky hot & cold showers

& huge loudmouthed rainbows
that punched perfect holes
through their unbelieving eyes

now the poems lie here dying
victims of their own success
chained to life-support machines

my hand reaches for the plug

It’s a good thing I didn’t write you a poem this morning because
it would have been wasted on the woman who woke up in our bed.

To tell the truth she scared me and made me wonder
what the meaning of life and living really is.

She barked at me and pushed me around and pinched my tits
and by the time she was done venting there was little left of me.

As I was washing the fear off of me she smacked me in the ass
and told me to stop flaunting it I swear to God.

I missed you more than ever this morning with this poem inside me
like a lump of living rock from the Big Island.

It’s my offering to you, not to her who would never understand
or accept the intricacies of my vicious devotion to you.

All that matters to her is pleasure and pain, heat and ice, charisma and chaos, bodies distended and writhing beneath her touch.

She’s your defender, one who steps inside your hurt and helps
demolish the obligatory agony of openness and innocence.

Tell her who I am so this doesn’t happen again,
or maybe you prefer to keep your poet to yourself.

bird feeder

you hung a contraption
outside so you'd see
them flutter and gobble
and flutter away

you sit inside watching them
as if each one were marilyn monroe
victims of their reputations
encased in wings that hurt to use

landing on your balcony
on their way to somewhere else
where all the food is free
and no one wants a thing

where no one carries guns
or photographs perfection
and birds are allowed to be birds
without ever having to die

they visit your bird feeder now
and pretend they don't know that you're there
spying on them from your cushy chair
mixing good seed with middling

helping them presume every bite is the best
on the house with no strings attached
like it's nice to believe of the world all around
as you fly through the air as you fall

morning poem

what a dream this morning
you and me two noodles entwined
bouncing up and flopping down
eyes bulging hearts bumping

we must have sounded like haiku do
when they're on a break or bender
cut loose from bonds of perfection
allowed to fuck and fly

syllables and symbols sloshing around
inside a cup of wonder
passing fluids back and forth
with goofy glee

bodies like ours don't need a sun
to give direction or purpose or light
we generate all the warmth we need
above and below the covers

there's no place I'd rather be
than inside your homey cave
warm and soft and spewing light
in and out of us.

Breakfast

You’re the first meal of my day every day
cooked to perfection, poached in experience,
covered with creamy sauce and served up hot.

I dig into you with my eyes and ears and mouth,
savoring every bite of you, nursing chunks of you
sliding down my throat, juices dripping off my chin.

Nutrition never tasted so good.

It takes all day to recover from you
and then I hunger for more,
stumbling around in an undernourished daze.

I starve myself, refusing other food,
fasting from pleasure, denying carnal desires
‘til I can feast on you again.

You’re more than a mouthful, that’s for sure.

Tasting your lips on mine, hips flipping me over,
over and over, easy and hard, simmering, flayed,
flambéd and sautéed,

I realize I’ve become the main course,
that you’ve turned the tables once again
and made me eat my words, with relish.

When are you going to learn
that learning stops when you grow old

that you can’t keep taking it in like that
and turning it into you?

How long before you realize
that life is life and that is that

that you can’t make any of it better
by being better yourself?

What’s it going to take to convince you
that it’s useless to keep trying

that nobody can better themselves
through hard work and sacrifice?

Go ahead and fool yourself
study your books and hum your mantras

iron out the bad and fluff up the good
in your deluded push to perfection.

The Princess’s Poem

Here she is in the woods again

(surrounded by giants)

trying to get to grandmother’s heart

where stepmother can’t see her cry.

She longs for some help

from a wizard she knows

but he’s home in his garden

with problems of his own.

So plunging her arm

down her throat

like a hunter

she hauls out a shimmering fish

with razorlike teeth

& ears that can hear her

& grandmother’s

beautiful eyes.

1992 0804

Timeless haiku

I would bide my time
but I’m running out of it.
See? There goes some more.

Dancing on Common Grounds
(A Haiku Waffle Stack)

-  -  -

Last night we all danced,
did the tribal rock ’n’ roll,
bouncing past the past.

Couldn’t have done it
without the boys in the band
blasting us with love.

Musical murder:
music so loud it killed us,
brought us back to life.

Last night we all danced,
found a way back to ourselves
like we’d never left.

Here’s Bucky 'n' Bill's
harmonized poetry: To
be or not to be

local universe
information gatherers
and problem solvers,

synergistically
to love comprehensibly?
That is the question.

ESL Primal Haiku 

My second language
is English. My first one is

Yeowhaheyaaiiieee!

Apocalypse Now in three parts

La Tierra de los Libres:
niños llorando en las puertas.
El hogar del Valiente.

En Dios confiaron.
Orando por un hogar feliz.
Cuando la gente buena vive.

¿Debemos dejar entrar?
Si usted tiene que pedir, no se puede.
Apocalipsis ahora.

Apocalipsis ahora en tres partes

The Land of the Free:
children crying at the gates.
The Home of the Brave.

In God they trusted.
Praying for a happy home.
Where good people live.

Should we let them in?
If you have to ask, you can’t.
Apocalypse now.

Drunken haiku trio

Straight up reminder:
cobblestones & alcohol
pour pain on the rocks.

When your head hits it
the street feels like a pillow
fluffed by Bernini.

Existential fall,
a pivot point that dazzles
the drinker, and grins.

When you are writing
and you run into a wall
say hello to you.

Be original.
Hack away at hackiness.
(Everybody does.)

Food industry trick:
stale bread fools you when it's warm.
Guess what. So can I.

Meeting haiku

Stuck in a meeting
we all gaze out the window
wishing we were there.

Intro Haiku

If you need a poem
all you have to do is ask
Short Order Poet.