lookin' for words

Skinny Red's
lookin' for a word.
Lookin' for one that's
just right.
Her shirt is too small,
her pants are too short
and she knows I'm watching her,
still searching.

I feel like leaning
way into the evening
and saturating it with whiskey.
I'd like to lean waaaaay in
with my arms wide open,
but there's always something.
A telephone ringing,
a record skipping,
a tray of ice cubes that
aren't quite frozen yet.

Maybe nothing is happening
right now,
and that's really something...
or maybe it's just me
wanting to hurl myself
into tonight
like a cannon ball
but instead I sit here
almost alone
watching skinny Red
search for the right word
out of the six hundred sixteen thousand five hundred or so
words in the English language
while my freezer tries hard to
solidify those cubes of Hollywood tap water
to eventually melt
three at a time in a glass of single malt Scotch.

It's somethin' or it's nothin',
but my money's on somethin'.

Maybe I get dizzy
to forget about you,
Bitch.

No.

I'm not that man...
or that one
or the other,
and here's a middle finger
to you and
your pigeon hole.

By the way,
how's that new Coldplay CD?

Ode to Hank Williams

The tangy twang
of Hank's
skinny notes
cut me like
a rusty old table saw.

Spiritual Sprin Cleanin'

I reckon there's a time
for Spiritual Spring Cleanin' -
a little soul searchin' clarity,
maybe a few days in the desert
findin' out if there's a God (or many Gods)
maybe a magnetic energy vortex or
a Gypsy gonna clean my filthy aura
for a hundred and fifty dollars American.

I s'pose ya git what ya deserve -
the punishment of running
fast and forever
on an emotional treadmill in front of
a big picture window looking out
on to a busy boulevard.
A Mexican dude walks by
with a leaf blower
blasting clouds of dust, leaves and napkins
briefly skyward, then into the gutter
to be swept up each Tuesday
between 8 and 10.
And it'll cost ya fifty-five bucks
at least three times before ya learn
not to park there -
even for a snap, jiffy, tick, wink
or other indeterminable unit
of measuring time.

Anyway, it's all the same
wherever you go,
except that I think Hollywood
is just as tough as Brooklyn
or Chicago or Philly
or any of those other places,
and further out too.
And I think it'll cost me
fifty-five dollars in parking tickets
at least three times
and a hundred and fifty dollars American
before I realize that I really am
in love with her,
even if she don't love me the same.

Nights for nothin'

I've spent nothin' on nights,
and nothin' seems to happen.
Sometimes there's
a little freaky-naughty,
legs in the air
this er that,
but it still seems
a little like nothin'.

"Jack Daniels for president!"
some nights,
with talk of music and literature
Or Buddha, Christ
and Mohammad with a Jihad Pinata
bustin' open with faith filled candies -
or nothin'.

Sad nights of silver
shimmering stars
sometimes,
breathing in old and
almost forgotten love
and exhaling in steam
and smoke...
Nights spent sometimes
fucking or fighting
or talking or remembering
but mostly all for nothin'

and that's plenty
if you're a tree,
but if you're hearing this
right now,
you're probably not a tree.

I think I've heard this before

Haven’t you seen them
Galumphing down Sunset,
Fumbling their way
In and out of our lives,
Collecting like bags of trash
At Starbucks or Coffee Bean?

Haven’t you seen
Long jeweled fingers
Snubbing out cigarettes
Like failed endeavors?
Flicking away the butts
And reading the fortunes
From cookies at Hoy’s Wok?

I haven’t quite known them all,
But I’ve heard jabbering pie holes
In empty apartments,
Flapping gums
On restaurant patios,
Blathering blow-hards bloviating
Over a latte
At Starbucks or Coffee Bean.
All talking about something
Someone else was
just talking about.

Cherry Pies

The land is still the land
even while
giant corporations
build towers and cars and streets
and stomp out
hunnysuckle plants
and cherry pie peace
with dollar sign combat boots and
Jesus Saves! parachutes.
Now the land
where I stand is blood-red
and bland.

Ancient Americans
have heard my footsteps
on the desert sand.
The angry sun
has stared me down
and burned my neck
with its hurtful gaze
whose colors fade
from red to brown.
The crows have laughed
and mocked my
clumsy earth dance
and the land
beneath my feet
is telling jokes
that taste like canned beets.

More towers rise
like male insecurities
into the darkening skies
and beneath the grass
beneath the roots
and the soil and clay and sand
there is still
this land.
This America
who's people
present and past
are shouting at me
in a language
Silly and unfamiliar.
Finances and Catfish.
Boring, soaring
Red Tails and interest rates
into a horizon
peppered with
towers of money, made
to look like morning boners,
as if we are supposed to be afraid.

My feet,
in a liars soft shoes
sink into the ground.
beneath the stones
and the water
and the sound
of a lone tree falling
when no one's around.
Only to find the land
is still the land,
and all this confusion
is just acne
on the youthful face
of another bloodthirsty empire
come again
and one day
just gone.