dried out
taken
exchanged 
 the zoo monster
 heads
 walking in time
 the painted saying
these words you said
  now the wall is gone
 you saw a psychedelic mushroom crystal sky
on a bridge by the arroyo road
who goes to horse camp now
   and learn to ride a horse backwards
 Pilsen nearly fell off the back of the horse
by the river
where they serve raicilla
and the water is cold
they live in shacks
but they dress nicely

  

pick a word she said
 not sex
   encyclical
I said
 who are you the pope
  no just a dope
   she lit a cigarette
   pick another one
she said
tents
 its where stoners sleep
in tents? she said
INTENSE man!
 she said she had to go
 note to self
dont tell stoner jokes

fat and out of shape
 sitting on a bed covered with books
cigarettes
cameras
 my phone
 a key chain with a plastic hand
"pull my finger"
 it's hot and sunny out
SO NOT
San Francisco
  f'ing bullshit
hot weather gives me a headache
I moved here to get away from the dry heat
oh poor me
poor poor me
can't even smoke now
the clean air police
don't like you
 I'm an asshole
I know

ipso facto delivery
like a pine needle in the fire
   a thousand million billion trillion pine needles
in the fire
  but you can't smoke here
fucking neighbors
haha
   

Cinder Cone, Lassen Natl. Park 

the farcical avoidance measures
 bequeathed at the throne
stowed
laid waste
 chastened
 inexcusable
theses traverses
you slipped on stone and awoke
in ice
thirteen years and
the ice hasn't melted
   beware you said
but no one did
so you
 yes you
created a thought
 impregnable
lock it in they said
 down in your belly 
  never tell a soul
   and it ate you from inside
like a big sugary donut
covered with pink frosting
  or maybe just chocolate
yum
  poetry makes me hungry

Jimmy Jango
  or John Crow Batty
 that's a vulture's butt
in the state of Jalisco they have "Mezcal Moonshine" called Raicilla

As my friends get older
they learn to hate me
"he's a prick, what a jerk, fuck you, asshole"
and I smile
so I guess they're right.

the bantamweight blutonix
smearing grease down the front
of nazi symbology
you chase the chicken
and u get e coli
   theres a room beside the forest
its frozen
 and you have no windows
you are a cypher
it's code you stare at the dots
there must be meaning
but you need a break from all that
too bad its your life
keep moving everything here to see

an apocryphal
sweltering
as a culture
 the movement
 was a shadow
 spectacle and racial divide were
focus grouped
 their colors were chosen
  "never wear blue"
time to go bye bye
  don the judicial robes
the footwear path strewn
with Nikes and K-Swiss 
 the costume of insanity

we dance the night sweats




  

the suffocating allure
of the invisible;
we start and stop
we sweat
we drink
smoke fills the room
music is playing loudly
three girls come out of bathroom

Brooke dahlia effigy
 sworn on the blackboard
garish socks
  and cement gum sticking to shoes
bracing for mid town sweat and grit
the cars parked in a row
  she walks the dog in a stroller
 poor things hips are bad
said the doc
 the camera's on the tripod
8x10 view of a night sky
 with the Chrysler Building
she waits at home
 the boy's drinking Coca-Cola
he paints it
FIN

Palladium prints 1992? Dawn & Naomi

She had a half of a cigarette
 but "Do you have an American Spirit?"
 I told her the
 "It's my last one."
 even though it was the truth
   she lit her half cigarette
 took two drags
 and then put it out
"gotta save it"
then she went back in to Spec's

the point of no return
 even if you're a Roman Emperor
shopping at The Emporium

there was no sun
just fog in san francisco on August 1st
 at least in my neighborhood

the betterment of sobriety began in a Mexican bar
  with two limes
 

 D.C. 2006

the american werewolf
  was insistent
upon the time
trains are not important
music is playing
 there was a backdraft and his hands were
sticky from eating a chocolate covered mint
  it was not in Slovenia
 the via ferrata the
iron way
he teetered occasionally
on the brink of disaster
 but there was no silver to worry him
only the ticking of the clock