poetry

Three Zero Chaps





AUGUST

Why do you suggest w/your synthetic body

Your stride across the room is oil change

Dynamic sham glittering in style

Everything written is tough guy last
Everything spoke is good-bye future hello
Everything touched is diseased break-up
Everything pushed away pulls circle
Everything tattooed fades bright colors

And the light went off in the bedroom Tuesday 3 a.m.

Your synthetic body settles in cool
Bath w/your props all around
In dynamic style spent shining money

I hear your spending and see your debt.




SKIN

"Put your hand in my hand
and look me in the eye when you're talking to me"
   Daniel Higgs

Against the wall leaning into laugh
Marching
Arching eyes
Against the skies

She tried to convince like a honking car in rush hour

Pushing against the coast
Pushing against the wall leaning into laugh

Marching
Arching eyes
Against the skies.




LOST

Lost thesis lost thesis it's all in pieces

And I didn't mean what I wrote
And this swan song lasted too long
And don't point that gun at me
And get off the crying floor
And I've got to leave
And watch us all break like everything

Lost thesis lost thesis it's all in pieces

Lola Lola Lola

Lost thesis lost thesis it is all in pieces.




NEIGHBORHOOD

"It is one thing to preach from a distance, quite another
to live and die in a war zone."
   Philip Berrigan


Down Literary hill kids in shattered glass
And house without heat greasing palms for subsidy

Roach dinner is little secret
Pounding chest to public apathy

Down Literary hill kids licking tires
A ghetto candy serving ironic restaurants valet park.




PORTRAIT

Unlike your mama
Sitting on the street
You long for babies
Teething in sleep
The drama
Hurry up lawn
Dawn is moving on long
Lazy depressed
In bedsheets
You rally fists
& mutter words.




WAIT

"And clenching your fist for the ones like us
who are oppressed by the figures of beauty
You fixed yourself you said never mind
we are ugly but have the music."
Leonard Cohen


The dance became slow to thump beat minors
She was sweat soaked shaking flimsy knee

She is inside
She is silent time
She is hugging tight
She is unable to explain shutting up mouth
She is gripping like trance.




ANKLE

Room of chapters
The noise of your hands talking
Think of us tied
To a sinking anchor
If she could kill thoughts
She would
If she could move on
She would
Like a dumb broken
Briefcase handle
Holding things together.




CLIP

Stretching yoga to Lungfish
Morning soot on the blinds
Behind time helping splash water on back naked in sandals
Prophetic tactics
The long mountain walk called back

Rolling around in the dirt
On an illegal farm
Spitting joy by the outhouse
Leap-frogging gravel palm.




THESAURUS

Each time enters
The flash of a newfound chest
Shown by a slate table
As surprised consumers react
To vote the election
Affection
Joking
Stupid super bowl
Fan club
Trailer park home.




ESCAPE

Are you citizen
Hold heart in head
In hand across oak showcase
The telephone triumphant
Your yell
Heart in hide
Heart by bed
Sit stool
Closing your eyes
Stamp hand
Stomp heart
Legitimize what you
Proselytize
In heart
Hold hand
Cash sheet music
Sing happy birthday
Happy Birthday.




JONAH

You will be big born in the bed of gene sipping on a new day
You will be another spoke turning at another try
You will be big born in the tree of branch swinging hands sky
You will be another choke of air fresh another try
You will be big born in the hole in stars glittering w/movement
You will be another poke at beginning another try.




USED

Used to feel loose
Used to know head lights
Used to be ahead of asshole looks
Used to sing Straight to Hell
Used to body your fiddle
Used to hang smoke w/ Natasha
Used to end all the sets
Used to be sergeant songs singing
Used to wish away like lost weight
Used to understand the weight of things
Used to say I had thirty minutes of fight material
Used to be the floor of sound bites in heavy alley
Used to use an appendix-hanging dictionary
Used to think local response
Used to have a local leg up
Used to say local is your politic
Used to quit Emma at noontime
Used to caress cold knees in saved seat
Used to say Baby, you got red eye sitting crossed leg
Used to get points
Used to say you are value-free scratching cricket
Used to sucker all
Used to long a lay
Used to pick pickles in play
Used to nip the water wind
Used to commute broken car
Used to dig out black bake sales
Used to bring to the table
Used to tofu wood burning kiss
Used to be involved w/ more than this
Used to know Dayton, Ohio
Used to see your seething smile
Used to write piss hall pass
Used to think things would last
Used to pen her name
Used to see misery in phone books
Used to call you velvet
Used to look down checkout counters
Used to send everyone poems
Used to know the Euclid Tavern & a different stage setting
Used to see Ian's politics in action
Used to see Stink playing his Hammond on Lake Avenue
Used to see Billy K. across from the Phantasy
Used to look at my wife 10 years ago
Used to look at the strife that hero's blow
Used to see relatives in noun
Used to blend the corporate down
Used to make the numbers work
Used to listen intently w/ Grandpa's gaze
Used to crease the grease of my skinhead days
Used to be a radio shelf
Used to coordinate kids & games
Used to wrap in cellophane
Used to pop lock Chester Avenue
Used to E. 31st & half you in front of you
Used to squeak to W.E.B.
Used to hour glass your organ
Used to own this exact one
Used to own an owner's manual
Used to call grrls baby
Used to cut my hair
Used to computer direct intellect
Used to play tape lid garbage can
Used to feed Tramp potato skin
Used to listen to clip break clips
Used to be orientated from miles beyond you
Used to drift in the left lane
Used to claim
Used to slink in height chip Slavic mask
Used to brother a paternal hat
Used to memorize rock car wired lake
Used to look forward instead of around
Used to photo still bedroom art wall
Used to silk screen the bathroom stall
Used to curl up sleep bag bushes
Used to rack stripes low one in front
Used to remember the cliff sentence
Used to keep time to newspaper rhetoric
Used to understand jail time
Used to samba fig tree length
Used to be brother, son, & father
Used to get bothered by forceful fronts
Used to steady sleep futon
Used to shoe craft union
Used to program success imperfect score
Used to one two ring squat linger
Used to perfume movement
Used to kiss in peace
Used to triple high five children of god
Used to flip your hair
Used to see excessive amounts of vapor
Used to float spray out my ears
Used to celebrate absurd fascination
Used to clear house marathon
Used to run product consuming
Used to feed hungry mouth
Used to feel closed-door church
Used to trip intellect no action ignore
Used to ship chips of chaps to Pedro Brother Matt
Used to phone the 312 in search of Brother Bill
Used to cringe in pullover cop
Used to binge in flotsam talk
Used to keep all the doors locked




BIKINI

The story of this freak girl locking in a brain-tie dye-
She lipped joints & burns crack

I see her when I drive by the hospital
& think that should she junk crash
She'll be in good hands
She'll get docked on haus arrest when the time comes to crack-out
Her legs are old glory, still beautiful but troubling

Her lips remind me of wet lakes of smooth questions
She eyes me still- I'm her clean guy who still says hi to her

She says we are all addicted to something-
She says she has a MBA in the management of dope & men
That she can use to downsize anytime in her tight economy,

I got a problem with your style the mile laugh lines & tight squeeze
Of rope burn hands thumbing your jeans
Tangle your clothes in spin-cycle arms- wrap me in stupid thoughts
On your out-breath take back what you just said

All this laughing, all is dumb while you have murder in your mouth,
& a nicotine mind that is the squatter home of tobacco road

The girls dancing in hot skirts working up the dirt floor
Slippery and broken
Pop Radio Suicidewhispering through two speakers
Thumping thunder, and stuttering poems

Horseshoe bass knock knee woman with blown ears to see the factual Account
burning things down

Can't remember when to recognize your lit cigarette scribbling for
Somebody to change animated jive indie films
Don't write the writing roll rolling in like a lost father late on payments
Bully-moves pulling out in a sink with pee on the faucet
If some are ghost riding please beg full-grain long bright signs beacons
blinking
Remember when your shrink said file squid side your shows of latent dreams,

To stop hanging with your dance crowds against the boys leaning
Hot your balance streamline the group shot photo collage for
Time is an hourglass of tight asses

Lipstick ladies with luck spilled on the carpet
Fake it, make it, the moment is too big
This the manipulation of the streets of
Hard admission pricing revenue

Lucid these nightmares talking to the past
This one is my stupidity launching into curse

I always launched for you
I always drove too fast
I'll always be your business
I'll always do something to cause double take

Sure to catch shag toe boogie the kitchen floor
Dark the day when all he sees is fluorescent

Pick me by the poke door
I am waiting, I am waiting
Sure enough to undo timely enough to rub in

>From 50 feet away the shut lid of nothing said
The red hand cold waving the 50 foot statue smoking death
She jumped off bridges of reason because it felt better for a rainy moment
Marble memos in solid stenos sold to dollar boys with loaded pens and
Boxes of photos cross-legged stretching for the stars

Bounce ball to head to foot catch on neck spin
I see your index finger speed typing email to lovely guys
In lovely towns doing lovely things that make us all fall down

The steep integrity the short haircut
The big feet clumsy as I sit in front of the screen
After fixing the broken toilet handle the torture drip of the last month

I see the nakedness of this city & He says believe in yourself
You have been constant

Her left foot toe-touches the ground the sound of shifting arms
Scratching her nose in the sun light home

He stabs away the day with dirty mouth an apartment slave to crystal fingers

Dry back & head singing won't you stay awhile?

He sees her in the mirror soluble lips pressing together his name
Hello shithead! Bury Your Heart U.S. of A

She is waking up like big-trucked cities to paragraphs in a quick
Read with mad mic volume

She told me in tears that
I'll catch you someday!
I'll see the castle of your shadow and love you with my lips

He knows she will be cornered in foreign country
Armed & hunched w/ pens, paper, & thoughts

Loud is her distortion and I am an excuse.




PILLOW

See the limit of everyday talk w/ your hole punch tongue
Wrapped around your ambition
Lift your pint problem
& toast your escape
For no one will care
It is in the air
This acceptance
Read by your dim lit lamp
Smoke streams to books never read
Remember never
Stepping twice in the river's same spot.




DC

Lost in highway hills
Low idle foot
A fresh food advocate
Screaming sound from a platform stand
At Fort Reno near
Walking halls
Of Wilson High
Stand for something
By simply standing.




UNIVERSE

The burning mouth
The burning village
The retreat
The innocents killed
The villains killed
The bullets
The bombs
The sprayed victims
The lies of numbers killed
The years to reconstruct.




KRAKOW

Crushed
White pale coffin
In hand a flower
Among photos
In suits gathered
Missing.




ABOVE

When next to you choking the steam of your neck
Feel the knife in your eyes and bad time this event
Spread out my resume in front of you and know the details

I won't be in your woods or hall of fame
I will hesitate at my hesitation
I will continue to shake out my dreams.




MISSIONARY

Satisfied w/ the holy life
On pragmatic knees
Begging forgiveness
She knew America
Wanting to touch his response
She knew that he could take her.




PORCH

This surrounding
Been here before
Been here before
This surrounding
This music
These books
These photos
This bathroom
These trees
This basement
These plants
These people
This answering machine
Been here before
This surrounding
These hands together
This conversation
This traffic
These walls I've painted
These halls
Been here before
Been here before
This food
This surrounding
This car
This reverse
This conversation
This dead end
This boogie
Been here before
This surrounding
This surrounding
This life
Been here before
These hands together
These books
This bathroom
This surrounding.




ATTENDANCE

You are digital
Moving quick through the months
Preparing the water on
The boulevard
Signing in the book presence
The nickname
Weighing rocks on a driveway
Crying questions
The theater desire
Sitting high above center attendance.




GET

It all looks the same
It all sounds the same
Even saying fuck you sounds the same
Tired of the slow toe and your high brow
Your sell-out is relative
Your whore moments around this town
Inserting one time w/ a another
It doesn't matter it's all the same

It all looks the same
Charging this laundry list of your dumb
Fleeting mind
And I don't wish you well at all
Your front and fake method
Stir-fried
Thighs fucking away
I'll tell you something
Get out of here
Fast & drop your assumptions
Of what we're about.




GUN

How many times masking inappropriate
The long tight silence
Of record-skipping statements
Talking about the
Dumbness of popular culture
A night to walk visions
To sleep dreams apathy
There is apathy in your body
How many times masking inappropriate
By the lake thinking of clothes
Drowning in a washer w/ numbers w/ receipts




SNAKE

Saw your hair across the window w/ precision
I took care to stare
Everybody knows long attraction
Each time talk pressures into ears
In years I will forget much of this
I will forget seeing all last week
On the avenue by the bus stop
Penetrating pavement each step a
New balance
I saw my face in a door on a passing
Car passing the dirt street sweeping away
The day as a passenger sat squarely w/defrost
On full blast
His face wrinkled leaning back scratching
Head and loosing hair thinking about how to say
Goodbye
It is trick or treat weekend & the Times
Has lied about the Kosovo death count
John has written about the steamroller
About the small standing up
Like Berrigan speaking truth to power




LOBOS

She is all equation
A trained observer w/o pretense
She desires smoothness
She is definitive reference w/bedroom skin
Her winnings splashed
On the blanket humming
Jaco's
Three Views of a Secret
Interlocked the scales of your body
Randomly assigned these proportions
I see the sweet sway backspin
The responsive body w/ cursive poems
Rolling off your tongue
Assigning value
A pacifist who paints
Gently keeping it together




ELEGANT
For the Big Slur

Baby you spin records
Jorma Kaukoken, The Make-Up, Chet Baker,
Wishes of Halloween
You are spaced
In between the bed and the coffee table
Your guitar all beat up
You strum Bowie's Young Americans
I cracked on you about Robert Smith
Said he needed to punk it up a bit
You laughed and said,
Chomsky needs to punk it up a bit
We talked about the Fordham kids & the Bronx
About peeps not getting it while going to school
On a lock down of the mind
How we all sort of work for the man
How what we really want to do is write & play music
You said you'd probably move to the West Coast
I said you could kick it out here
Cleveland; where bands loose money when they play out
Or they trade & barter DIY
You talk about Big Daddy Farrell
A big poet in Avon
Shooting poems like hot mail
Slurring his words
As he molds plastic in some factory
In his elegant button up spinning records late night




MINISTER

Preaching
>From the pulpit of Rock
Cocked back lunging w/ microphone
In hand the Minister of Autoshape
Shaping minds left & right
Raising a church and taking
Money
Preaching from the pulpit
The soundman lunging over soundboard
Too much treble
Too much noise
The kids preaching to the pulpit
Shaping minds left& right
A Minister w/ money
Shaping blind minds








This chaps was written in Cleveland, Ohio
between September-December 1999
Second Edition January 2000

Thanks:Lisa & Billy K.