Ink & Washes 

 

Ink and Wash

 

 

Our Youth Was Messy

We steal battered cars, abandon them by the river. We flirt with girls, flighty as leaves, hypnotize them with our moist grins, our too tight zippers, our hidden weapons of erotic destruction. Like a form of black magic, we nuke the night until it becomes day.

the river's dirty curl

digging up the buried bones

of old bluesmen

 

ku 

water heater breaks

our bodies humming

abandoned building

we become each other's prisoner

our ghost-quiet footsteps

in thick of night

crushing a cricket

endless repetition

conjoined twins repeat

each other's silence

my African journal--

i wake in pounding pulse of night

antelopes in my chest

seance

she speaks to me

from little heaps

of inert matter

the old nun's wager--

burn the candle

or dread the dawn

a luminous cloud

shifting around me, therefore

i am dense

Mo' Stuff 

 

 

    mo more ku

penniless sailor

drinking brine

sinking in sand

red mounds of eyes

she pushes him

to go back to his wife

single mother

she only eats

what her son can't finish

alarm clocks & morning robins

the lost children in last night's dream

never return

opaque

opposite of every mistake

we make in the night

late night thunderstorm

her see-through nightgown

whitens

stirring coffee

she stares out the window

nobody ever flies

looking for night thieves--

shadows in the ears

cars prowling empty lots

mother smokes & lectures

in my Led Zeppelin shirt

i don't believe in college degrees

 

More Ku

spitting out wishbones

i tread lightly

in bed her skin is a map

all roads leading back

to me

a fine madness

the astronomer finds a new star

in my wife's eyes

summer's open wounds

rivers become mirrors

 

 

some old ku

Christmas truce

we serve muffins & bandages

to the enemy

the congested sun coughs up fog

beautiful savant

she undresses in the rain

arctic flower

she pulls the plug

on her life support