Tennessee Titanium

"Suffering Jukebox" is the song
I tore a page from the 1964 Dyersburg phonebook
and scribbled the grocery list on it

Things have really gone downhill in this place
Before there were streets and trash on the curb
and now it's a toy strewn lawn
and the trash is inside

When people put the trash outside
we all win

When you ride with style
you don't ride with Kim Jong Il

When you wear Mickey Mouse ears
time still goes

"What is a ray?"

I’ve been sad since I was little, I’ve been bad since I was little, I’ve been not there forever, I’ve been outcast in weather, I’ve been found in the ditch, I have a daddy who is rich, but money doesn’t matter when you want to kill yourself. I had flowers o’er me, way up high in the tree and a thousand fuzzy seeds replaced my hair like disease, when the bell tower had gonged it’s very last ba-gong-gong-gong, I will wake up in the sunlight I will sit up, I will ramble on the hilltops of the Basin on the creekbeds that are crusted by a thousand bad pollutants and a dust so soft and fine; in the orchard there’s a fragrance that is lovely and so splendid, all my cares will wash away and the earth will softly tremble underneath my booted feet, underneath your floral dress, the fissures will gape open and the bad smells will come forth; everybody will be fainting like a druid ceremony when they became so ecstatic that the high priest had no more to say but when he fell over he was entranced by the moss on the edge of some shape that they thought would bring them luck, or misfortune on the bad guy because there’s always a bad guy and the world is white from space, and the men are white in space; I wonder if there’s a man or a carcass, rather, that has been shooting like a ray on a math board in a classroom in the outer edges of space, or if he fell into an orbit and was devoured by some planet, burned up in the atmosphere, or was he just merely jolly, with the angels of the medium of whatever sphere he’s called his end.

a Tacit, a Turn

On bended knee on the rocky Cumberland shore

I wept into the big body

I wept and howled like a wolf

And smote my breast

my knapsack barred me

from the wombish dew,

perfected by the Trappist Monks

somewhere cold

the fields, tended

What about God?

Have you tried everything?

No party should take away

from your seeking.

I've got my freedom.

O'er the Reeever and Thru Theee Wooods

upon a pitch black mound
a populist's son sits
twiddling his fingers,
licking his lips

orange moss creeps up
the laces bound tight
in more than one instance
on many a flat night

a tie bound loose
across the great bisection
of God's own image
of the Lord's loose perfection

a round town gal
a cream drunk dude
a smooth lace dream
a figure, a nude

a poem in the Japanese maple
that always looked like purple weed
a flouted banner
"I'm just trying to help you be a team player."
"That's all."

SOMETHING IN THE WAY, DOG

Orderly,
perpendic,
turbo fan in the cubicle
the only wildlife, a parrot mug
and ooo drip drip drop drop
new age music creepin through the partitions
chimes in the forest like
yeah right
iron age
iron stage
look at the clothes that my iron
made
flat

Olympus

Olympus, give way
to the rush-hour race-car drivers
and the pencil thin beards
adorned with great care

Somewhere a child is making a smiley face
out of mice turds
And somewhere a boss is making a mountain
out of another

And once in a while I'd like to bike home
and not have a bigot
bump dormantly,
or seethe in cloth seats
against a tapestry of young children

He Got Air Christian Slaters On

1. He couldn't have a job dressed like that

2. Window shopping with your mom

3. The pretty girl wore a magnolia bloom like an extraterrestrial shield

4. Someone cleaning their Lexus spokes was murdered Tuesday

5. You'll pop an eye out with those rockhard nipples, baby

6. Free beer tomorrow? What kind of asshole puts that on their body?

7. The mail-ladies' shape-ups: grime, canines, and guile

8. The baggy dress shirt

9. A Southwest ticket away from your sweetheart

10. Your mall, your life

11. Gay people in denial

12. Artisan worries

13. Pulpits with Peter

How Quiet Are The Streets

When dusk draws nigh
and the glitter of aggregate
paves the way for the outstretched mind

photographs of old
twirl to the forefront:
hats of spurned wool
and mustaches cocked rightly

women proud
of first ballots

men quiet in desperation
schoolchildren singing gaily,
a whippoorwill's star crossed notes

and the horses restless under heavy load
the pipes a-blazing
and fatback a-sizzling

rumors of past fortunes
nuzzle the mind with dreams of taking it easy
hearth-talk and wrought-iron
are the fodder for which
societal this 'n thats
flux and churn

old dentures, now home to crappies
A needle, the infernal prodder
of chicks, under hay beds

My heart seeks heritage
my home lacks homeyness
but the zeitgeist of old
still wrings my soul

Lifeway

Had two lives
Reborn into Limited Too jumper
We had pendants from our grandpas
scattered across the wood panels of our den

a murderer and a mouse,
both two-timers
from Kingston
wiggled through Miami International
and
found the Zef daughter of an HR Block accountant
rigging a tourniquet
for a small bird
with neon green shoelaces

JTB

O'er the swamps
three paths they wind
An alien pulse beats

Total, divine.
A particle beam dream
Real deal palpability

And from the depths of some crag
they rise
and doom hits warp speed

When my heart is beyond repair,
I want to mellow out with you
on a diamond way
on a heavy day

So let's go down to the beach,
are you eleven?
Are you proud of that?

Jacuzzi Boys

How many bros does it take
to build a great wall of China
out of bar tabs?

Diarrhea Planet

Diarrhea Planet
I'm in it
I am it

And if you shit enough
you'll get it

they're in orbit with a twin
She drowned in a puddle of mudd
Never to be seen again
And if it came down to a touchdown
or a Grand Slam
It'd be the pagan special for me
with a side of turds

and the turds are in me
and the turds are in you

Cy Barkley

His dick hard
His bitch hard

Got all the punk bitches mad
because he annies up the punk
And he has a life force twice the size
of your neighborhood pool
And his God is in your mom's pool
And his God is in your dad's pool
And he has me dreaming of a silver platter
with fruit roll-ups and a
sweltering helping of David Steine

Killer Spin

hand flat
ball poised
joy, rehearsed

Sergeant Fletcher
found thirteen in a shanty,
forced three into conjunction
with himself

And the XBox
blinked Red
and his eyes,
red

how many hallelujahs?
the higher the flag
the inverse of company

Once I went to KMart
With momma
She found deals
in a handicap spot
And I thought of Titanic
When that girl and that guy
swept palms across
frosty windows
And my Stretch Armstrong
peered wirelessly
into my seatbelt buckle
tossed aside like daddy

unbuckled we fled
through the thistle farm
house off Clifton
and Polk rolled over as we
sang Amazing Grace
with the Capitol looming

a wintry punk
filing away discographies
away! O Dada Sled
Away! young stud
go toward the farthest corner
of the stretch
Sartre had many a cigarette
Freud had many a cigar

Donks ride by with women waving
Driven toward the Taco Bell smother
a drunkard, tilling a fertile mind

We'll recline with opiates
Dart through the Civics
with stimulants
SMILE WITH SUCKERS