the other side

aquarium desires
bubble up
behind these window eyes.
nature is such a tease.

i found one of your dreams in the public garden

if you happen to hear yourself
in any of these poems or
not really poems,
it’s because you provided the bricks,
mortar too.
i just spaced it all out
with that tool
whose name I can’t remember;
the rectangular spatchula thingamajig

whoops! I almost forgot the poem about
your dream discovered in the lost and found garden…..

we don’t even have to decide.
we blow seeds with every breath
and top soil words are planted
in dawn’s dead mice odor,
bus cabins,
grocery check out lines
and the tumble cycle of words
makes bouquet.
we transplanters of ensemble.

telling time in a small town

st. pascal’s old age home is elemental with its
hairdresser, board games, books, cafeteria, transport commune,
and toilet views of barns beside
a silver church steeple.

there are no skyscrapers,
no riding shotgun sky.
the backseat is just fine.

i`m flipping pages of a book
borrowed from the prayer room.
it’s called ”prehistoric treasures”
i get ooomphed by its cave paintings of bison and deer
by its captions saying
”souls of killed animals are
invited to reincarnate.”.

i wander the railroad tracks
and then make a horse shoe return
to where heat is a cramped circle of legs resting
and the talk is 3-alarm fires and
the vandalized cemetery.

a second round of spice pie is served.

it’s only a cup of coffee

the train station scoreboard
hangs down
not in winners and losers,
but in destinations of
desert sky compass
waiting for all aboard again.
even the mcdonald’s tables play along
extending like tongues into the
wide-open terminal where
strange eyes crash and
maybe i’m not in a hurry.

they stuffed cigarettes in my pack

the statue with no name
is three legs,
four interlocked arms,
two stand alone arms.

it reminds me that their words
were never designed to boast,
just seduce us
deeper into ourselves
so we too might know the sound of
different instruments
and play fusion one day.

supermarket silence

she scans grams and expiration
with one eye as taxi driver
the other a farmer;
a creation story in reverse.

the swing of milk carton
from fridge to shopping kart
is the lost majesty of an elephant trunk
bypassing tree rings of ego
to earth as an orphan,
this psychic warfare in aisle 8
is a necessary drone.

chaos in the breakfast window

the shag carpet shows a path
of envy disguised as bandit.
she flings plates of corned beef hash.
the regulars barely notice.

i slip a napkin poem under the sugar tower
and dream of a next time coffee
around half moon diner.