THAT ONE MORNING

It was my mother who introduced me to the

Post World. Waking me up gently but with
sharp concern, Don't want you to worry but
something happened in New York.
Growing up in Arizona turned NYC into a
distant metropolis of magical realism. May
as well have been OZ far as we knew
sweating in the desert. I sat at mattress edge
seeing the broadcast hole burning and flaks
of debris spit, watching my mother practicing
her routine patterns best she could. Must
be accidental, we assumed. In awe and
naiveté I saw the second plane enter
bottom right of screen chuckling
at the prospect of it, too, crashing. When
it did just that the fear came tumbling: that
was no rescue plane. Jumping from bed
the images and news-anchor panic dawned
something uncertain weeks into my high
school existence. My thoughts, then, could
not form into the structurally cemented
opinions I have now. Then, it was all
blank. I fixed my hair in the mirror and
just before leaving to catch the school
bus a third plane cut the Pentagon like
a cake. *


from The American Rut

ar: LORD VIEW

Nothing but turmoil down on the grid.

Squares fiddle against squares whilst universal circles don’t bother to care less.

We grind in swollen counties asking the skies for help. They listen, but on their own

terms. Gunned down in movie theatre, I feel remnants of your pain Aurora. The hurt

more foreign than anything I could imagine, but as human to human, I hurt. Horror

appears like a ghost witnessed in real time. Firearms easier than fireworks through

the right channels so sliver of solution seems straight-forward, but politicians

balk at redrafting age-old gun law. Shame not visible in TV interview, but maybe somewhere

in the lonely bathwater night. Not right, not right.

Forced to consume another front-page atrocity, pundits dissecting

attacking every morsel of info. What’s the lesson this time?   What signs are we missing?

Are we really unfolding at the mercy of deranged lunatics?    Questions

fall infinitely in space.

Scared to pace the aisles of big box retailer; scared at the flight length from Boston to LA; scared of the city streets that make up a neighborhood, an American neighborhood. WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE UNION?! Enemy always listless. A super-morphing tidal wave of inconsistencies. Trust

nobody, now. Now the construction of walls in impossible locales. Now the bending of might. Now come the tunnels lacking final spots of light which we run through in human clusters.

Eyes of Heaven watch

these re-runs and they

even have the strength to yawn. But,

we’re going bald with each new catastrophic event.

Fucked up. Lumps pump up

from our scalps each time

these question marks of

corroded steel fall onto

from The American Rut

MESA, ARIZONA

Pale stone tan neighborhoods
that seem to never end, and
when they do it's nothing but
desert waiting to snap like a
bear trap the moment your paw
touches down. Every step
more watchful as the rooftop
shadows fall away. Dried out
cacti spine, snake holes, twigs
looking like scorpions, tarantulas
looking like dead weeds and
the most beautiful mountain-work
ever crafted beaming in front. It
causes awkward walking
patterns—dipping, swaying,
hopping—Bow down &
worship the rocks of time!
They breathe openly the light
of the sun, which rests eternally
on the shoulders of everyone.
* Home forever no matter
where my rent checks are
sent.

CANDIDATES

Mitt Romney your soul has split

and slid out into five sons

dressed in white leaving

you with blank sheets of

tin for a head. Teleprompter

plugged into your

ankle.

Ron Paul, the man with interesting ideas

and iron will, but, also a large

capacity to worm into folds

of thought lost on general

public. Sweep up our foreign

encampments, respecfully,

then vanish into the cold.

Rick Santorum sleeps beside angels 10hrs

every night. No assholes in his

line of vision, only prayer and

nothing but the prayer. Face

cringing like a dog getting

beat.

Rick Perry the shaky Texan. Eyebrows like

carpet samples, and, well, thanks for

trying.

Michelle Bachmann doesn't understand

but, God bless her shiny hair

and oh so gentle reworking

of American history.

Newt Gingrich with jowls a'swinging,

pointer finger out, blames

The Media for everything

then, whirls around and

uses it to sell books. Wife #3

(Callista) w/ lazer eyes

and steel-beam neck.

Herman Cain is fish fish. Pizza champion fish

fish fish, holding hands, cupping

ass, whispering ears, fish fish,

winking across the room, fish

fish fish.

SHAKY INFRASTRUCTURE

The crash and the wave

for wood paneling and faith

ambulance sirens have replaced

in the morning dew church bells

and all is laid to waste. Pillars

of structures deemed functionally

obsolete the megaphone don't

switch on anymore but the

throats still yell from the floor

George Washington crying in

the gutter green tears like mint

julep a forty dollar dish I

can't afford any more than

what I can afford, 99c fries,

soap, a bus ticket and the

sunlight, somewhere, on the

afternoon of a lifetime

uprooted in chaos.

Slowly we unravel our

hands reaching from the

gravel to the sky that turns

to space is much too far to

travel and there are lengths

to go, despair to share and

a thought process to keep

ignited against the blare of

misinformation that stabs

(they don't care) the chords

along our necks have

amassed much wear

and tear.

MICHAEL

The black carpenter ants that crawl on the

walls, the floorboards, across bathroom tiles, over

front porch under back porch, can lift their body

mass by twenties in a cinch pinchers clenched and for

4.5 hours every few days I'm working hard, or, hardly

working, trying not to flashback to the steps I made to

avoid my current part-time post-collegiate situation. I

stare at the tiles to pass the time and walk quickly, or,

stand in one spot thinking of everything but time.

When my eyes close I see green fields before me

milking the sun and just before I jump into

hallucinatory somersaults my eyes open and there

are the tiles reflecting back oblong spheres of light.

Customers of varying degree ask for googly eyes,

double-sided tape, anniversary banners, candles, the

restroom. I point. * Two great big arms wrap around

the building connecting at the entrance with interlock'd

fingers closing us all in with a fun sugary hug.