Interstate Ascension

I talked to a guy
outside of the Cracker Barrel
in Lenoir City, Tennessee
and he assured me
that God would be there soon.

Ironically, the guy at the
rest stop on Interstate 77
between Cambridge, Ohio
and Parkersburg, West Virginia
said the same thing.

This got me wondering.

So, I began asking
other people along
my route the same question,

"Is God supposed to be here soon?"

Except for the young lady
instructing me
that she had a gun
and wasn't afraid
to use it,
the answer was:
God will be here soon.

I was so excited.
This couldn't be coincidence!
All those people couldn't be wrong.

I decided to wait.

But after an hour
with no sign of God,
I got a little fidgety
and started asking around.

No one in the rest area
at the Alabama Welcome Center
claimed to be God
nor did anyone
at the Cracker Barrel
in Fort Payne
but I found more women
with guns at both locations.

So, I jumped to the only logical conclusion.

I must be God.

At that realization,
I could feel
the universe welling up
inside of me.
I could feel the pull of Galaxies
on my mind
and the awesome power
of every life form
in the multiverse
pouring into my consciousness.

Ascension was imminent!

I could feel my fleshly body
giving way to the ecstasy
of nonexistence...

and then, I was snapped back to reality
by a purse to the back of my head.

When I came to my senses,
a woman with a gun
smiled at me and said,
"Silly poet,
you cannot be God."

Then she asked
to borrow $1.25 in quarters
in order to purchase
a tampon from the
rest area bathroom
before she flew into
the clouds on the backs
of a thousand
seraphim.

I felt very sorry

for those bloody
little angels.

Duct Work

He took a weekend job
rehydrating dried tears
for a nickel a drop.

He crawled
into crow's feet
and chipped salty residue
from eyes that
almost forget
how to cry.

He became obsessed
with saline
often siphoning
client reserves
for his personal use.

He drowned
a few years later
in a pool
of stolen tears
waterlogged
and lifeless
with eyes
that had long lost
the ability
to cry.

In Prism

The sun is rude.

I keep challenging it
to staring contests
but I've only won
18 times this century.

I am quite embarrassed
--losing to a bloated
ugly eye.

But I am not a quitter.

I practice at night
staring at
light bulbs,
headlights,
and cats.

Cats are harder than you think.

Years from now
when I'm wide eyed and blind,
I will retire
and focus my
sightless Godly stare
on the cat.

Of course,
someone will have to tell me
if it moves.
Because staring at a cat
that isn't there
is plain crazy.

Self Engineering

I am building
myself out of little
pieces of clear recycled plastic.

I'm trying to go greener
this time.

In the past,
I've tried other materials
but glass breaks
iron rusts
and wood burns.

Oh, don't worry.
I've learned my lesson.
I'm numbering
each section.

It won't take
nearly as much
effort to pull
myself together
next time.

Unless, or course,
I melt.

Late Night Atlas

He would count
the number of times
she blinked
when he tried getting
out of fixing the world
and divide it
by the number
of times he put his
soul up for collateral
at the cosmic pawn shop.

It always resulted
in a repeating decimal
that fused with
his DNA
and another sleepless night
trying to convince
a certain primordial
Greek Titan out of
going bowling.

Foreign Tongue

Prick your finger
on the tattooed
barbed wire embedded
in her sweet flesh
and bloodwrite
a new religion
on the crisp
white sheets.

When your
inkwell wanes,
fall aside
for the next prophet.

(She awakes
to a world cluttered
with bloodless men
and a holy book
written in a language

she doesn’t understand.)

Root of the Problem

I keep planting bodies
but no humans
ever grow.
Just some
weeds and
the occasional
ugly flower.

I really
don't like the flowers
but the weeds
are okay.
You can't kill
those things.

Resilient.

Not like flowers
and people.

Casa Marina Hotel

Swept by white lace,
sand scatters
across the wooden floor
as a bride dances her first dance
under a new name.

Waves crash on the beach,
each one making
time unsure of itself.
Memories and futures
weave with the present
and ripple across
aged stucco walls.

Soon the courtyard
is hosting wedding guests
and ghosts.
Al Capone’s smoky laughter
twists through history
choking bridesmaids
and chasing the bride
to the window for air.

She stares at the boardwalk
her heart pounding,
doubt swelling in her blood.
Panicked,
she spins recklessly
in the cigar smoke
and screams
but the sounds slip out
in slow motion.
She watches it ripple
through the window
into the ears of a couple
holding hands near the dunes.
Slowly they turn
and wave.

She falls back
from the future
into the arms of her lover
and is swept away
by passion.

(Later she will remember
the older woman
near the dunes
wore her ring

and her smile.)

Hooked

He took pleasure
in baiting hooks
with angels.

He would pinch
them between his
filthy crooked fingers
and shudder
as the metal barb
pierced their holy flesh.

He would cast them
on trashy streets
and troll
for wayward saints.
Once they bit,
he would yank the line,
set the hook,
and reel in their soul.

Soon the world
was filled
with soulless holy men
preaching to half-eaten angels
constantly looking
for the one feather
that would allow them

to fly home.

Ink Swell

I am not the man
in the ink
no matter how
much I rip
at the page
or spit verse
into the abyss.

I am nothing

but a palsied hand
with a pen
shaken by the spirits
until the words

fall out.

Unavoidable Consequence of Birth

We are an army
of discarded carnival prizes
scavenging pity
from thrift store zombies
waiting for the day
we can rise up
and destroy
the mirrors
that reveal us to be
used,
torn,
and soiled.

But breaking glass
takes energy
and makes a mess.
Besides,
I better behave
just in case

there are gods.

Ode to an Emo Unicorn

I wish I could write a happy
unicorn poem
or maybe
some pretty words about
a field of flowers.

Unfortunately,
my unicorn is
shooting up heroin
with a second hand needle
in a poppy field
infected with landmines
somewhere in Afghanistan.

I really wish I could write
a happy unicorn poem.

One Angel at a Time

She was talking again.
Her voice
was hushed and holy.

I never knew
who she was talking to
I assumed spirits
or gods
but a few words
may have been meant for me.

The words tripping from her lips
were frozen angels
toppling earthbound
and smashing like glass
on the ill lit street.

"Plagues are just invitations
to come back home."

I looked down
upon the fragile
melting angels
slowly being replaced
by my reflection
in the wet asphalt
and waited
for the world to drown
one word at a time.

In Defense of the Soulless

When I fall into myself
there is no bottom to hit.

I merely gain momentum
until I break apart
and become communion
for the universe.

Particles drifting amid
the debris
collating into
a future
as bright or bleak
as I make it.

Vardøger Infinitum

I wake as a stranger
with someone else’s memories.

A future
condemned to
predict the past.

Throughout the day,
I grow into my skin
and when it almost fits...
I glimpse my image
in the periphery
and fall into bed
with myself.

Later,
I wake as a stranger
with someone else’s memories.

Faith’s Formula

Puzzle pieces
are not lost by chance.

Mathematical angels
discovered that putting
together certain pieces
from different puzzles
revealed the
face of God.

Jealously,
they steal the pieces
to keep us
from seeing the Divine
and eliminating
our need for faith.

(After all, who needs faith
when you have proof.)

Soulactive

When he wasn't looking,
they tied rocks
to his soul
and laughed
when he walked away
from himself.

Unaware he was
soulless,
he gave birth to poems,
pursued justice,
protected a nation,
and held his wife's hand
from his youth
to the grave.

Soon after he died,
they found his soul
and mourned.

I still don’t know why.

Shopping Cart Angels

She picks a thorny rose
and clenches it in her hand
until blood drips
down the stem.

She touches it
to paper
intending to
write the story
of her life.

After a while,
it spills forth
a shopping list
that ends up
in the hands
of her husband
who discards
it in a Wal-Mart
shopping cart.

(Later, angels
steal away the list
and weep --for it is a very sad story.)

Parking Lot Communion

On cold nights,
she drinks whiskey
in church parking lots
long after the faithful
have left.

She falls to her knees,
raises her face to the night,
and watches
petite puffs of breath
carry her requests
for forgiveness
beyond the streetlights
to whatever gods

they may find.

Geography of Loneliness

She keeps
a jar of fingerprints
under her pillow.
Each print
lifted from a lover
that tasted her flesh
long ago.

Late at night,
she lays on her bed
pours them
over her body
and becomes
a map
describing a trip
with no destination.

Fortune Seller

She sits on
a soot covered couch
in the remains
of a church
that burned down
last year.

The remnants of God
hover over her.
(Spindly tendrils trailing
to her lips
where they are imprisoned
in a yellowed filter
with each drag
of her cigarette.)

She spits my fate
as she picks her teeth
with a Tarot card
and I fall
a little closer
to God.