Scope

What were they?
Some tree detritus,
like cornflakes in
the bowl of the gutter
but softly under my foot,
gentler than leaves,
a small golden shushing.

I am heavy-footed,
a stomper really, jolting
up the street. My eyes
jiggle as I walk, I say
when he asks why I
never see the world passing,
just a clutter of tree
litter, a graffito painted
in letters too thick to read.

Crotchets

My knee is going now, that little creak
I think I heard when hauling my ass up
those last few flights, but if you give in
and limp a little, the other knee thinks
oppression, decides a little retribution
is in order, an echoing squeak
and your ankle appreciates the tip
and wobbles a bit on that last step
and your elbow gives a very happy pop
as you put down your bag and your neck,
no, let’s not speak about your neck,
Ms N Tropy, you bitch.

On Firefox’s Most Visited Button

I’ll admit I’ve been afraid to click. There are times
when you want a little illusion about yourself, the way

your eyes stray always back to the same sites, not
from anything more than the hope of seeing a train

plow through someone’s life. You click. You click.
The clock ticks forward and you click again and at five

you startle from that reverie and rush home to learn
what scandal you might have missed while the train

plowed through someone’s front yard. You never learn
that there is nothing new, no one weird trick, you click

and the clock runs and you are forty five
and you shrug and think you didn’t need youth anyway

not the way you feel when you are wasting time.

LTC

I push page after page, always the same
              who is that who is it i don’t want it i don’t
words, but aren’t they the same
              james james where is he now
people, fundamentally, anyway? We can keep them
              they stole it it’s too purple
happy. That’s all that matters. Oh and quiet,
              but i love him i want him to fuck me
that matters, because a loud resident makes
              ow she pinched me when james james
everyone unhappy! Why, I would live here
              who are you i wear blue when i was a girl
myself of course! No my mother isn’t here. Perhaps
              and i liked to show my legs to the boys
grandma needs a bit of help falling asleep, just like at home
              am i dead in the store there is a boy named
she might drink some hot milk, but we
              but i don’t like it it smells like shit it smells like
don’t want burns, oh no, and she doesn’t swallow
              shit you tried to make james who is that who
quite as well as she used to, oh no, but we
              is it i don’t want it don’t bite me it’s broken
get by. She does okay with pills when they
             i won’t i won’t i won’t james don’t cry don’t
are all mashed up in applesauce. Just like home!
              cry don’t cry it’s too late now

Wheels

He stopped in the center of the street
without a battery. Bionic man,
needer of towtrucks for a street’s broad span.

MCS

Arising out of that sleep, out of that something more than sleep,
I cannot know if that is how it feels, like after a too long Friday night
and Saturday goes slipping by and you awake so moth dry in the mouth
and achy in your shoulders but laughing at the time you won’t have to kill

is that how you would feel, shrugging, stabbed awake by someone,
nurses maybe, jostling you and your bleeding brain, are you, are you,
and a little penlight pushes you to madness, creates the dark,
and the machine beeps let you recognize the silence in your head

where there is finally no song playing endless loop yeah, yeah, yeah,
finally you don’t catch anything syncopated in your lungs, are you, are you,
and you blink too much and your eyelids catch like spurs on your sclera
blood pressure, pulse, and the fingers are always cold. I am, I am, am I.

Poe, or ode on a virtual keynotes

Faces eye. That was supposed to be dances with,
But here we see findings of something
New and fainting. I Ann Sutton, our target,
Or rather I’m surprised (it still suggests
Dissed, dosed, doused, fused, fussed)
Atomic our sting our assuming or aiming
At faces eye at bull eye something
Samsung will never let me hit.

Break

Pitch them heave them (hard no harder)
tile wins lenses shatter left without
that shiny tiny crutch of technology helps
walk think see something beyond blobs
whirling angry color coming (close no closer)
my mother (short no shorter) oh claim (ralphie!)
a rogue icicle punched through the wall
into both lenses claim (angry bird!) one came
and split and (fuck am I the pig?) feather
bombs everywhere cavemen would
haul me to some glacier (yeah metaphor
you are my bitch) okay who made with
the hillside stuff (hail Caesar) if she (hi mommy)
draped herself all togaed (oh Miss Linley
I know it’s stola my mother is not
my father) I would see (casper!) only the pale
blob of something (holy fuck) I should avoid
(spider! snake!) and cringe and crunch
(oh captain my capitulation).

Fool Me Once

The neighbor’s garage door sounded like thunder.
I still expected roofs to leak and cursed–
the sky, the door, the brain–all interspersed

Fool Me Twice

The cats still have a fountain in the kitchen
despite my tendency to think the sound
means something’s in the plumbing–not quite drowned.

Vagabond

I picture him tipping the stick back,
finding that spot where the bag
hangs easy across his furry shoulder
(do cats have shoulders?) though I have
not yet decided (my dream flits back
and forth) if he’ll hold it with a front paw
or his teeth (I’m always inclined to keep
his teeth busy) or arrange some clever
contraption that will leave him free
to walk and bite (that’s why I keep the teeth
busy) and yowl (and the mouth) that he
is misunderstood that the food in his dish
does not involve turkey despite his love
of turkey and his dislike of fish (ask how much
fish is in there) and his love of gravy
and his dislike of the kibble and the dry
and the hobo bag is filled with cans
of food (though he lacks thumbs) I should
dream it more like a whole fish (but he
doesn’t like fish) or a ham the size
of a much bigger cat than he is
(until he eats the ham).