Tiny.                                          Tiny.                                      Tiny. 

Wow the letters just got smaller and smaller and smaller as I feel them.

 It's a little round cup of string and the guard has grabbed at the door. 

A TV set, she said. 

I wish I could control this surge, this flow in me. But it's art. 

Art in my heart. Sounds like a good time. 

Art in the heart. Sounds preschool. 

Art in the heart. Sounds fundraiser. 

Art in the heart.

Feels like thudding and a fucking load. 

It is not airy, nor sprightly, not daffodil-ic, nor bright. 'Tis teeming and taut, 'tis burdensome and bleak. 

Take a load off Mary, you're going to carry that weight, and put the load, along time, back on me. 

We had just pulled over. It's right there, she had said, when we were maybe 6 buildings away from it. What are you talking about? It's on the corner, I had said. And then we were pulled over at the corner. Right across was the Starbucks. Why do all of our little iconic go-to's feel like a bug zapper or the conveyor of some automated plant. All made more intolerable because she was trying to control this, to make this happen, to uncoil it all just so. 

When did she lose trust here? When did she forget who I am? When did she feel she needed to? 

One day she will.                    One day she will.                    One day she will. 

In my early 50's now closer to 70 then to 30. Now closer to that physical manifestation and all the failed organs and failing shit that spring off of my apparatus, my functionality, all of them will engage her for real. You can bet on that. There will be that moment when she will have to usurp, 

drive,           deliver,           procure,          remind,           arrange,          align,        attempt, 

augment,        assign,         affix,          abide,      and            aggrieve. 

She knows I am not into this. She is trying to turn it into a game – give Daddy orders –   

Look, the door is there;  Look, the light is red;  Look, the line is long. 

It is not lost on me how much I love her – really? Love her? 

That word 'love' couldn't possibly waft my true chord for her if it was blown to me at the impact point of a Category 5 hurricane. That word has the meaning of the floor mat of my car when it comes to how she sits so sweet and tiny and fulsome in me rocks and sneakers and backyard monkeys. 

Not of this sphere at all. 

I look and see the long hair hanging from the backpack. Her long hair, her shed, adorns all that is hers and reminds me the meaning of her in my life when I brush my teeth – there in the sink – 

                               when I drink my coffee – there on the table –

                                            when I check my email – there on the keyboard – 

                                                      when I say goodbye – there now on my shoulder – 

                                                                 her embrace blessing me, 

                                                                           no again,

                                                           no word, no word, no word, 

only this thick silence of how could this ever not be 

and when will I really understand what I am to do with all of this. 

And that pushes me to this dark dark sense of tininess and heaviness in my heart that is supposed art. 

It's not sweet wallpaper but more the paper bag cut to cover the book. It's creasy, and scribbled and torn and maybe hastily made. 

But I guess I should be happy that it exists at all. 

I look at her all green the eyes and thick the long hair. I see that she is in lock step with my not having it. 

She gets me. 

I push my finger to the dash above the radio. I press the little button with the image of the key. 

The pawns then spring up from the four doors all around us. 

Look, I say, the doors are open.

                                     Across

the                                                                                         street

                        Tired. Lovely sweater.

In Gods' hands.

                                     Which stop earning me

the jacket.                                Greasy burned raspy raspy

             OH THE SKIRTS

             AND PANS

Concrete lines wandered shapeless babbbbbbbble

penny candy ante alley                                            cut my hair

and teeth and all the things she forgot and past the box botched

             to forget to busy it all jewishly languidly latke -ly

                                                      Star of yellow David Gates so

Grab his balls

                    skin so gray so pray so gay today and

                                             34 (what if)

they...................................are..........................................right, frightening

box busted                                   spilled

                                                                out

                                                                          over

                   pragmatism – set this up – Chaos

I will settle the nettle, phone me $

                         handed      hurtful         honcho               haha

                                   she sees the little village and makes clay circles go

                      THERE

             earth                breath                 they all gather in Spanish. Ole.

Off the Dock

The fly is my mind. Was you buzzing my heart? Cuz I dropped a child in butter. Oh the little wheel. I spoke to you with little bubbles from my mouth the fish. Each bubble a word and a box. When your eyes split, the light from the sun gave me a beautiful hedge to peak over...or hide me. And I remembered how many wings I gave you. One for her cleavage, I should have left them alone but I'm weak there. I'm sorry. Two for picking strawberries when you ought not. Oh, you pulled out my eye. Remember? You wanted to see what I was thinking and I got it all over you.

I dread, you dead, my son, my son.

I wink, you sink, bah bum, bah bum.

The windows dropped out of the house today. The cement gave this tremendous shrug, a sigh really, ahhhhhh....it had had enough. It told me so as it slunk down the road to a different street. Your brother jumped from pane to pane. He's a sad boy.

Lalala my boy is sea,

Body is the wave,

That envelopes me.

Do you want ice cream? Who doesn't want an ice cream? We all crave ice cream. Scream! A cone of sweetness awaits you if you can find form or the keyhole. Yes, the keyhole. Your mother puts her knitting needle through it to entice you with a striped wool hat. She knits and disappears as the yarn spins and drops from her frame. She lost her piano...well the strings anyway. Just a hollow box now with room for bats. I worry about the pole she sits upon. The wire is exposed and she has soaked it with her water, her water she lets for you. Expelled like a geyser. She's so silly. Believes you will suddenly sit upon it, flopping and rolling on the hot blood. She gave you your veins, you know.

In a ball game we all stood in a line.

There was me and God and a dandelion.

You threw out the sponge that drank the sky.

Me you amazed and God you made cry.

He'll never forgive me for slipping in the dirt,

losing your tether, dropping her skirt.

The moment was warm inside her sweet box.

My lazy dropped ox, talks fondling rocks.

When I parted the curtain, when I dropped the J,

Your mittens were waving and wafting away.

I took my fucking hammer, I did. I fucking flailed on that bank. Those fucking rocks. Buddy, I smashed them to sand. And then I knew as the salted pebbles crept up and up, I needed a good swallowing. That and a black zippered bag like you got. I will pull those weeds. I will. If I ever get out of this earth that now harvests me. If God ever gets over his crest hideaway...I see him peering behind the peak – the pussy. He won't cut my strings. Cut 'em!!! He won't unless you ask him. Won't you ask him? For old time sake? For the little cars and sidewalks we knew...your little hand a snow cut out, a pressed leaf inside my palm, my fingers trying hard not to melt or crush you....Come out, come out wherever you are. Come out Patrick. Remember, you can't swim. Remember? I have asked every fish, every damn guppy about you. No one's seen you. I told God to sweep his big sweaty cupped paw into the that cool bay and swat you onto the shore. But he was too busy combing Jesus' hair. Showing off his son. In my face. Jesus laughed you know. He showed me my eye ball. I can't believe you gave it to him. I suppose I deserved that. I will be weed soon, maybe a bump to sit on. Then the game is up. And you my algae, mucked up boy, you will grab my fiddle and lead the parade of my mistakes past the bump that was me. And all will be right again. This mirror...this mirror, it shows me a freak. It has my eyes and the boy I once loved. But what is that all around it? I don't know the scales or the mouth. It's a sad mouth – poor creature. It too must have lost something. Here. I'll give it a little pat. And a quarter. There...there...it'll be all right.

A Fine Day

“Listen to this and hear the mystery inside: A snake-catcher went into the mountains to find a snake.”

I have no language for this. 

This English will not tongue my tale, not wag my words free. 

The farsi of my nature, the echo of tribes and stories and the deep expression of experience and the Resonant vowel and idiom are my dream catcher, my diviner, my detector – God's lash and plume. 

So no. 

English is not my choice but this is the vessel at hand and the boat must be emptied lest we all drown. Like my tongue, my eyes they are crippled and failing, falling, fluttering, flailing with this image of The unimaginable 

– Ohhh death and sand and dropped weight and the skin shed of great loss. 

I cannot ask for Allah's words. 

A God could not dwell here and create symmetry with soul and merciful hearts. 

There is no rule or psalm, there is no blessing or parable or passage, 

There is not GOD in this neither on a cross or crossing the dessert. 

We are all so alone here. 

Except there is the rush of warm bubbling blood. 

On this the tiny chin here spit up where once the milk of suckle would stain. 

Or here the length of languid leg lying loosely in a stream straining the day's soot and mud and Drudgery 

Down down down, wash it down now red droplets and smears where once soothing liquid lapped Hours before. 

Here the blood leaks cozy through her chest, replacing rhythm and pulse with a hiss if you could hear It. 

As before, it beat a passion pouring when her lover walked by:

Rising as he lowered his gaze, smiled and flicked at her with his tailored hand: 

“I will ask them for you. 

 I will see you in my mother's fine array 

That one day we will give to our child. 

Ours is glorious and full gallop and unending and free of mending. 

Do you see this too my love?

I know you see this because you see my halting heart 

And hear my breath catch and slow as we share this moment passing. 

I will ask them for you.” 

This then brought his hand in that moment mounted from her shoulder down to measure her with palm open the trace of her being, the miracle of her fashioning to elbow and then to hand, the centimeters of his love. 

Who made this? 

Who could ever design such magnificence? 

“Oh please let it be for me.”

Here the blood lets now. 

But what of he that spent these moments of dreams that first were thoughts making to solid state. What would we find when we slit him open nose to nuts?

For surely we will. As sure as wind and tears. 

Pare him back, splay, flay and make him for our hateful and slumbered eyes. 

This has made us all dull and sleepy. Our business will thud forth. 

We expect to open the blackness in the ebon warrior – the hell of hells. 

We see maggots with glistening bodies. Strong and hard and new and helmeted, laughing busy bodies. 

They slide around in him his reason. Jumbling willy-nilly at arteries, near misses, careening reason rolling about treacherously from one mite onto the other. 

A chaos of bugs and anger flying about with shards of this boy's sanity. 

Each toll he took in his time knocked a fence post loose and tenuous. 

Gotta get there before the whole thing falls apart. It's a shit storm waiting to happen. 

But ahhh. Too late. 

His father's bluster and curse, his mother's drink, his young bride's fear and flirt and fall, his young son's fix on the little 4 by 4 screen with the murky murky men jumping and shooting and kicking and doing Daddy's work. That's Daddy, Momma. Look. That's Daddy! 

And his fence and barrier come looser with each uncoupling. 

And a friend and fellow mate marine might make a moment of mirth with the mask of melancholy mounted on this man's mug and not put it in any order for him but the order of 

another round.

Another round of shots or shelling or service or of beating and bating the captured doll. 

Will they let us play with this one? 

Won't you let us have this one to piss on, to wipe our shit upon, 

To spray our come on 

To twitter and facebook and jpegs and skype? 

Let us have this and that will stay you a further fall-out. 

But no matter. For that would not do in the end. 

Oh No. 

He shined his shoes and metal and ambled out with a whistle and a whiff. 

Ahhh the morning. More opulent today. 

And even with that word –opulent – a word I have no ken for, whatsoever. It is not mine, that word. 

It is given to me as a gift. I have received new language today. This is a rare day. A fine day. 

Look at my fatigues. 

They are fine silk robes and I am going down to cleanse as my elders did. 

I think this day is called Echad. For it is my first day. 

Oh I will purge today. 

And this day is telling me that I can. And that is just the exhale. 

What will I take in? 

This path is so clear. It is starlit. It is romantic. 

I am romance. I am love. I am the essence of the heat in me. 

I am. 

And I am off to pay my respects to them that's got me a little sad and confused lately. 

But no matter. It will be good for us all.

Watched my friend pass away nicely. His daughter offered him forgiveness in her eulogy. Another man told stories about him that actually seemed more about himself. Why couldn’t I go up there and give my version? I thought yesterday that I had blabbed my friend’s death to anyone who asked me the bland ‘how’s it going’. I’d launch but no one took the bait. No one asked me who he was, what he was, or how I knew him. I guess if they had, I would have framed it much like this guy. 
I met his son at the party after. He had not known his father well. Indeed I got more off the father than he did. His father had left this man and his sister when they were very young and journeyed across the country to jump start a third or a fourth veneer. I knew he was a son though he didn’t introduce himself as such. We were there in each others company and I could feel how determined he was to get what he could from his father’s world before the hole sealed itself up. 

‘How do you know Will?’

I asked…certainly a common question at this gathering…common for most of us. I knew it was a shock for him. He assumed I knew. 

We had been standing there by the food table now picked clean. The still present smell of the jambalaya I made was a lit candle to the passing of this man from New Orleans. Two wooden chairs had barricaded our bodies from standing a little closer and the effect was like old presentational theater, two bodies slightly turned out in the appearance of behavior. Both of us tall and good-looking…actually he was beautiful. Black father, white mother…God’s last laugh…interracial is probably the only thing that will preserve the species. The garden always pushes up the most beautiful flower to our delight and care taking. In a way we were similar in our bodies and our energies…except that he was a little rawer version of me. I had 10 years of refinement on him. Light skinned, open-faced, beautiful eyes…living eyes…both of us standing with a sort of what-the-fuck posture…me a little stiffer…still had my suit coat on. He was well on his way to casual-ling up his look…sleeves pushed up…tie pulled down. He was going to get fucked up. He was going to say some things to someone tonight. He was going to find some siblings hair to tear his eyes into. Why did I pull rank on him? 

‘How do you know Will?’ 

I had all ready professed to know Will well, and that’s why he was standing with me. I had shared some outings we had had. I had offered up some references on his life. 

He assumed I was doing my job and filling him up with the father he barely knew; the father who left him to grow up alone; the father whose very essence was so alive in this son. But I chose to ruin it for him. I was making him work for the claim he so readily wanted to slide into and that Will would have wanted so much for him to have. Save himself the guilt for abandoning this Adonis-like man. In spite of you, old friend, in spite of you. And I know because my dad left me too and I never made him pay. And he won’t make you pay either. He’s a good boy. His eyes looked hurt. I wounded him a bit. 

‘Will was my dad.’ 

 I brought out all my first aid now. 

Now Will wanted me to love him. And I already did. 

‘I knew you had to be. You’re more like him than anybody in this room. He really missed out with you. And believe me, he knows he fucked up.’

Luis is outside working on my daughter's furniture. I should be doing this. I should. Lots of shoulds in my life. I should clean up after myself. I should exercise. And then of course there are shouldn'ts. Shouldn't have drunk so much last night. Shouldn't have gone off on the dude at the bar who asked me what I thought was more important: money or family? Leave me the fuck alone. This is my fucking restaurant. It isn't. I work here. And I don't need someone listening in on my fucking conversations.
Of course I believe God meets me in front of my house on the walkway every single day. Or many days anyway. So why wouldn't I have put God in that man's stool last night. Double meaning there with stool: in that man's shit. And yes God would have to be in our shit if we are truly accepting deities in our lives. And I'm not worried about God. Not worried. Not terrified. Not in a trance walking some narrow path of if-I-do-I-am-blessed-if-I-don't-I-am-fucked. I am aware of God because God makes me aware with his natural intrusions. Some beautiful – my children – I mean they are BORN right? Some wet sticky shit shoots out of my dick and lands well in the mitt of my wife and 9 or so months later it goes from gelatinous into structure. Explain that without some sort of God presence. Eventually it has to go to that seemingly bizarre place or religiosity.
And so I put God in the bar last night. I missed him actually though I still am feeling the results of many glasses of red wine. Oh and the praise from Josh. Praise and hugs. Praise and hugs. Reassuring me or him? Checking in to see if he made the right decision to be my disciple. The world threw us together. We were not assigned roles, well yes, we were. We were. I was his boss. And I am a collector of souls which makes me a sort of meddlesome boss. And that is good for Josh. And it sucks too. He can never have it regular with me. And that means he is always aware. My father has Alzheimer's and even in this dementia he zeros in on what I find so fucking annoying and hateful about him. Like that illness, as terrible as it is, couldn't at least given him a new lease on love and the expression of it. Instead it is really a deeper manifestation of his lousy world view and how he practiced it on me and my sister. And I doubt we will ever recover. And I know he can't control it with or without his new found insanity. And that's the experience of someone who has bought your shit. Who dances the jig to your noise. That person is constantly pushing for the melody. Maybe even starting the song. Why wait for the bandleader right? What the fuck is Benny waiting for? Bang the drums Gene...bang the fucking drums and sing, sing sing!!
Well I am writing to someone and there is an obvious nod to keeping you who are tracking this a long for the ride. And also history doesn't mean much when the collective has moved on. Big band references, 30's and 40's America, dead Presidents, things we used to eat, these things cannot be a launching point or really any sure kind of reference anymore. People have moved on.
So God is sitting in the bar. And I am dealing with my own genius that the wine in my glass has told me of. And he asks me money or family. Well I am no fool even when I am one – I say family of course. And it is. But I would have loved to have grown about 15 or 16 feet tall in my chair. And my head is suddenly 8 feet of it. And my mouth opens up to about 5 or 6 feet. And that dangling thing back there in my throat, that thing is a fucking wrecking ball. It swings out when I shake my head and it catches the little fuck and smashes his existence into a gray powder. Like the killing of a moth. The ones in my pantry. When I kill them they leave a gray powder like a pencil smear. And why that instead of seeing the man's guts explode from my sonar bomb? Why? Because I hate blood. I don't need it all over the fucking bar. Because I will have to clean it up and I won't want to. So I will let it sit there. And all of my friends around me who thought: wow, it's cool to see him so fucking big – 16 feet? And Oh my God did that uvula or whatever it's called just swing out of his big and I mean big mouth and wipe that guy out? And then they would look at the mess. They would contemplate this man's life. They would look at me with a mix of fear and what-the-fuck. So I would all of a sudden be responsible for their contemplation of life and my place in it. And who needs that. Right?
Luis needs me to move my car. It is in his way.

This is a test for the next 60 seconds you will be unable to control your set this is only a test this is a message from the emergency broadcast network had this been a real emergency you would probably have heard about it as a text or a facebook posting or something new and random like that this is only a test.