Where there’s a dire need for smoke, there’s fire.

When there’s a wish for death, a dream comes true.

What dreams may come, perchance sleepers expire,

to sleep, to burn, to bleed, at least I knew.

I don’t wish on my lucky stars to fly

to magic kingdoms, glades of nevermore.

I save my shooters for the rendered sky,

the salted earth, the stumble to the door.

I live here in this ditch, and God does, too.

At least, She visits, every time it rains.

We share a drink. She asks, but nothing’s new.

The same old Earth; the same old growing pains.

She comes because I’m lonesome, for a spell.

She’s lonesome, too, but I can never tell.

I trace a drunkard’s path through time and space
that starts, and stops, and casts light into loops.
Accelerating on the planet’s face,
I take a step, and miss. I’m weightless—whoops!
There goes my mirror image of the world,
a mere mirage, a snowflake in the sun
that glinted as it rode the wind, and whirled,
touched Earth, and then decided it was done.
I do not know if this is what you want,
this carousel, these zoetropic slits.
I think that God would save us, but She can’t.
“He” is a “She.” They tell me either fits.
Which one is “They”? Why do you care to know?
“They” are to us as solar wind to snow.

They graffitied it

with two quiet ellipses

looking after me.

Who could it be? Who’ll read me like a book?
Who’ll miss me when the printed date expires?
Who’ll sniff the animal they planned to cook,
inspect the teeth, and grab a pair of pliers?
I miss a girl aware that we are not
more god than ape, resplendent, fierce baboons.
I need a woman not bugged by the thought
of snuggling close our oversized cocoons.
I do not need a vision born of fire
to strike a match and set it to my fuse
nor need I go a-traipsin’ on a wire
above the clouds, when I can sing the blues
all by myself, and every verse is free,
and all amount to one. Who could it be?

The new old normal ambles down the aisle
while we who shouted down its second stride,
some of us turn to beds to wake, to smile,
but dreams are coming, death and tax aside.
From where I hid, beneath, a trumpet raised,
our bodies, to be perfect, after All,
depending on selective doctrine praised,
now deck the trees, with merry ethanol.
Believe me: I won’t feel the killing blow,
won’t know it hung above us by a thread.
What lies above, what waits for us below,
exists in memories not of the dead.
My tenure, breathing shortly, til the end,
might not be real, but this is not pretend.

A sweet lemon drop
can make my raw tongue retract.
I don’t taste acid.

For all the pencil probes I put to “Her,”
I’m neither satisfied she is nor not.
Is there a crack? What can we now infer?
They will not go away, whether they ought.
I charge at “God” as if a contact sport.
He’s twice my size, possessing all the balls.
I hail the Virgin Mary and abort.
I hit the wall, imagining it falls.
This pastime for the one who would but can’t
is not quite faint of heart, nor fully beat.
The “God” I know won’t care if I levant.
“What does that mean?” The sound of it is sweet.
I could decamp, abscond; “He” would not know.
I think that I would miss them, should I go.

A lie can travel at the speed of light
while truth obeys the limits of the road.
Hand over fist, returning bit for bite,
the cheater prophets game our overload.
“You won’t believe this old and simple trick…”
“So, here’s the thing they don’t want you to know…”
Behind the Bush, they’ll “Photoshop” the Dick.
You think the globe is warming? Here’s some snow.
Nine tenths of what we “know” is without proof,
and I just pulled that number from a hat,
but I think Socrates would hit the roof
if he knew we believed it’s less than that.
We trust our basic rightness by design.
This is not proof, but God says that’s just fine.

In interest of the ruddy heifer’s lot
that chews its cud unyoked on yonder hill,
one does not raise her sister for the pot,
to stew, as if the bovine form you kill
if you eat not this one, nor offer that
to some exalted creature in the sky.
Stock of her breed is not her pound of fat!
Should pallor care if pallor waves goodbye
when all its kind’s the rainbow, and “its own”
is either one soul’s interest, or us all?
Before my species, you, I will disown
your arbitrary pigments of cabal.
My sphere is mine alone, or planet Earth.
One’s not “your kind”; the other gave all birth.

If words can reach and carry to the stars,
reverberating, soundless, through the void,
then hurry to our children’s ears on Mars:
“Don’t make mistakes your parents could avoid!”
Young voyager, I love you. I am not
a bigger person, for my little words.
Intend your consequence. For naught, or ought
you set a roadblock ‘tween the cliff and herds?
Perhaps a conscious mind is not enough,
when all the worlds converge upon their ends,
whatever means, whatever your rebuff,
whatever’s too damned easy for your friends!
Go crazy, but then pass a fucking law!
You know the climate’s changing. “God” says, “Naw.”