particles of you

i thought about our kids
at 6 this morning. i was nestled
in yr neck, breathing yr sweetness.
i'd just knocked over 
yr glass of bedside water
reaching to turn the loud alarm off.
you jumped & sopped up
in dawn darkness, slid back
under our covers.
both almost 
10 & 14. & i thought of rachel
& the baby any day.
i opened my eyes
in a bob-dylan-eyes way, sleepy,
& naturally far-sighted; many times
you look 19.
rachel's age.
& i become 20 again,
hell, 12.


3rd poem for my first grandchild



my daughter is pregnant with a baby 
boy rolling & rocking in perfect womb
who almost has the name dante,
but probably not. rachel's baby-shower
is today -- her mother set it up.
i don't like her mother, yr grandmother,
my wife of nearly 20 tumultuous years,
that's a whole slew of other poems.
may you love her well.
my true sweetheart is asleep here,
dawn on saturday in erie -- grumble
of a truck in the apartment parkinglot,
but ann is deep & warm in dream. we
save each other with love
as if life graces us, finally,
20-some years later. you will love ann too.
we touched as teens then fell flailing
into the black pit of our
decades separation, lost in
a wide chasm of loveless hell,
& touching again now in our 40's.
oh 35 week old wombed infant grand-
child sucking yr microscopic thumb
in sonar photo,
know me.
amerika is a grand land
best lived wombed
or underground & peaceful.
strive for peacefulness & love.
smile. look at MY dreamy smile
minus the bad teeth
of a middle-aged
factory poet.
at times you'll weep,
it's ok, emotional
ecstacy is electric
birth, white
light tunnel,
unmuffled coo falsetto voices --
wet eyes
blink
& blink



april 10



the crow is a black gland
groaning in a tree, pulsation
squawking like labia lips at
cockless blue sky of morning.

give me me. ululate
honesty & blindness
in rapid rem eyes,
freedom & mental imprisonment.

surreality of kosovo
eyes of children,
my eyes. what if
poems unbuckle my pants

to sweetly suckle
milky marrow from
meaty bone, is
that sex? is sky

blue skin? the crow
is loud unmerciful
cancer
gutting my mind.

all the dead 
in the balkans
rise thru 
throats of crows today.



what i did last night



it's a skeleton crew.

delbert's been out for a broken knee.
henry's out for a broken ankle.

fisher was fired.
rick bid on a first shift job.

steve went insane, quit.
jay got his degree

in nursing & is working
at saint vincent's hospital.

john bumped to first.
other guys have been switched

to second. so it isn't unusual
for the boss

to assign me as a flat-sheet helper.
contract says completely permissible.

sometimes it's better than running
the presses. sometimes not.

it can be a terribly itchy job,
fiberglass dust swirling everywhere.

certain resins increase the
itchiness. listen

i lifted (with jeff) 26 4'x8' 3/8ths inch
sheets weighing 150 lbs each, lifted them

out of the 400-ton erie foundry onto a
skid, flipping them to deflash the excess

around the edges. it is primitive work.
1950's-style. & i'm surprised the office

people have it together enough
we even get our paychecks

each week. i expected a sore lower back
today,

but i am 
popeye superman!



sitting here with the internet



china & a few neutron bombs
or secret iraq biological weaponry
slews of terrorists striking countless ways

& everybody beyond the outskirts
of erie pennsylvania
was killed - around noon today.

i have 2 fans blowing fresh
pre-apocalypse
air around this clean apartment.

& i'm chewing at 
cashews from a can,
sipping cold lemon-lime soda.

2 more hours before ann
is off work. "everybody in
amerika outside of erie

is dead,"
i'll inform
her, & she'll

shake away a 
little smile
for just a little while.

i'll miss the
world & all yr
poems, 

not that
anybody
is listening.

devastation.
massive loss.
& the sun shines like summer here.



like hugh (connie) fox



i have breasts
ghost-dancing in michigan
& mexico & sometimes
isadora shakes her finger
at me, her giggling finger,
as i swoosh thru a party
surpising students
& faculty alike, blue
chiffon.
red lipstick.
what do i know about octavio
paz? nada mucho
nor this urge
for female movement.
i am gross,
a man outside a college.
i am no poet,
a writer without theatrical
histrionics.



imperfect perfect people



they need our balance, our
lucklessness that stocks
their winning; without
our broken families
& personal tragedies,
without brash awareness
crashing against soft
church ethics like a
crow thru stained-glass
at noon, like a sign of 
doom on the best day in 
human history, without
these microphone-feedback
poems, how cld
they drive a lexus
& make money on a 
cell phone
& have straight-a kids
well-mannered straigh-a kids
& food in a freezer.
there are people who believe
they have it together
& they have it together,
life is tight.
everything
happens as they
expect it will,
with bonuses.



mass suicide of underground amerikan
poets



a weekend is agreed
upon, & midnight.

internet-connected,
e-mails flying.

postings to the
boards: phone-calls

prohibited. one
half gallon

of vodka
or drug overdose,

anything readily
ingestible & deadly

& a good belt,
a rope,

whatever might
choke off air.

life is screwy & 
doom-like, slaughter

& mutilation. morality
is stupid & silly with

blood pouring from wrists
& ears of wispy children,

& worse,
death is simple biological

termination.
we don't require gods

or an after-life
or answers. experience

over.
completely separated.

however the method
we strive for outcome,

gone from
life on earth,

gone from
kerouac's lumberjack shirts

gone from bukowski
puking in a green plastic bucket

gone from war-planes
over serbia

gone from smart-bombs
cold-cocking iraq

it's a booming 
economy

& we're 
all broke. even the justice

department
ignores us,

altho the irs
has bugged our lines

of communication.
hell, all we are 

are hedonists,
living for pleasures

like food
drink & drug

love
& fame, or pasts

are wrecked
& self-mockery

lights our faces.
nobody has written

a poem
a novel

out-lasting
a little time.

we are
hobbyists

& failed 
journalism majors

touched with
social schizophrenia

touched with
emotional retardation.

all hope is 
illusionary

pipe 
dreams.

march 20th,
1999 -- not

even 
THE WASHINGTON POST

notices
our blood.