It was the sixties and acoustic
elves frolickt in the local
wood, pairs of pine needles up
and marching behind one's
heels, sweet bongo boys
Tiger Beat for lanky beauties
antique dresses, clover crowns
braless among bluebells, lots
of eye makeup, boones farm
apple ringing in the ears like
the first time I heard an ankle
bracelet tinkle up close...

 










2

Moonshine chocolate kisses.
Some just didn't see it coming
dancing fairy circles by the light of 
UFO's, Barney Fife abducted
by greys, one bullet in his pocket.
Does he line them up or are you
just happy to see me?
Lost. The Island of Dr. Moreau.
Goldwaters' children waiting in
the wings. Let them in. Go on.
Go now.

 










3

Funny how the day goes
kerflooey as soon as I clap
hands, my hat floats to the ceiling.
The clocks stop and start,
republicans get elected;
tax cuts and degradation all
around, thanks–we'll have 
a double, and in the Pavilion
of Helios the gods diddle giggles
for miles. Beastie feasties.

 










4

Are we not men? Well, actually
no. Sword swallowers maybe.
Opie, definitely. Gargling the ganges
while rome burns, we lost I.
Bongos playing. I lost my wah-wah.
Blinked falsetto tears full of marshes.
The death of hippie. Never stand
upright in a moving canoe kemosabe.
Each to one's own Goldwater...
 
 










5

"When I lost you we both lost."
Lost lost both I and we when.
Both I and lost when you we.
Lost both you when we lost and I.
You lost I when both and we.
We lost I and you when both.
When lost I we and you both.
You and I both lost when lost.
I lost when you both lost we and.
When I lost we lost you both.
Lost both lost we you and I.
Both lost and you lost we I.
Lost you we lost and when I
lost you I lost.
 
 










6

Slouching toward New Hampshire
Fred Gwynne versus Goober.
How different for some to embrace
the obvious. So welcome back baby
to the po' side of town. Ambition
wrapped in chicken wire.
I lost we.
Where is my clover crown?

 










7

Sung fit best thought. A hoedown
in the café car. Make mine a double
she said. Welcome back baby;
the morning dew looks good on you.
Falling mirror unreadable. Snow
code lost. Falsetto bongos, how
obvious a Johnny Rivers reference
marketing dollars lingering
golden light.

 










8

I was four when I first heard
voices. Tom and Katie, Brad
and Angelina. I feel dreamy and
floaty in my Calvin Klein Collection
gown. Always winning over a tough
crowd. I we and you both.
You send the letter back unopened.
Always strip the retail down to mystical
angles, the enlightenment market.
Rapture.

 










9

Deal or no deal. 
A house of dipping.
I wanted to tell you
a little bit about myself.
I was born in a moving car.
I remember nothing else until 
I was six, when I killed an animal.
No that was my cousin Herbert.
He killed a squirrel with his pellet gun.
More moons orbit Saturn.

 
 










10

We were movie star pooches
in love with multiple fire hydrants.
Facts were stupid things.
Some just didn't see it coming.
Playing by the old rules, as in
the old Europe. Political tropes
as stand up comedy. Hip hop
polka party. Lost both I and we.
Sorry Charlie.

 










11

In Panama we watch the sunrise
over the Atlantic and we see
the sunset over the Pacific 
every evening. Our dictators are 
forced to listen to Austrian
death metal. The women folk
put their feet in our laps while
a warm Caribbean wind removes
all memory of our apostacy,
whatever it was.
 

 










12

Eiffel tower meets Buffy.
Earl Grey day in the congo.
We are naturally aromatic
and naturally closed areas questing
for the great outside. Making
deals with the class clown.
Buffy, certified yoga instructor,
drives the stake through the heart
of the rumba. You lost we.

 
 










13

Wherever this train is going
is not where you want to be
in a powder blue dress, spike
heels and a john deere cap.
Let’s just sit in the station until
the appointed time has passed,
then we can cross to the other 
track and go home. Thank you
for your patience.

 










14

Please don't lean on the door,
it is drenched with tears.
Your ankle bracelet rings
aromatic. The phasing out
of direct thought. Preemptive
fluff of cronyism we take to
get where we are.

 










15

Numbers scratched off to see 
other numbers. I want you so bad
and what can I say with less irony,
less pose, poseurs, posse, less lessness
not afraid to love where I'd like to be?
Where is that I ask you, lost
in lacking? Are you awake
or am I dreaming? 

 










16

Centrifugal heart and head
lines to the pedal. I fell asleep
in the library again. Paper
mites have to eat, too. Bitter
tears of longevity come to rest
and rest is only a measure
but measure depends on one's
instrument which is miraculous
and cannot be cured.

 










17

Wait until the headache passes.
The big book of gardening secrets.
Take one and pass it on.
We don’t need to stay and watch the credits.
Suffer the little phonemes...

 
 










18

All real estate wobbles indefinitely.
Shake the sand out of your panties
and throw your thigh over my shoulder.
The clock stopped and I feel dreamy.
aromatic. Lanky beauties play
wah wah pedals in my tincture.
It aint archaic if it's arcady.

 










19

Buick at the bottom of the well.
Adults lie to their offspring.
Saucers stir in the cabinet
of endless isolation. Little white
lies and romance, battered images
of perfection and failure creating
new numbers by counting them.
The study of bread heels, how 
the crust in the pan wouldn't come
out by hand.

 
 










20

Thread the needle every morning.
A way of constructing a new self
which is aligned somewhat with that
of the day before. One wants to
recognize the mirror image every day
even when it is not continuous
with the other. Make it so says 
Capt. Pickard as the enterprise
slips into warp drive.

 
 










21

Pansies and cigarette butts
litter the canvas, first thought
blasts thought, or how did we get here.
I remember three days ride in freezing
air-conditioned skylark, but after the ditch
in Memphis it all seems to blur. Please 
remove your jewelry, there's just too
much rattling from here on out.

 
 










22

Facts were stupid, our dictators
for the great outside – the appointed
time we take to get where we are.
where is that, I ask? Measure
depends on little white lies of
the day before. How did we get here
in celestial condensation to the skin.
I thought hard at eye level.
 
 










23

Worm moon seeming animal kingdom
aboard the luminous cupboard
of forgetting. Monstrous shudder
inclination absolved phantom vaults
like veils of animal flesh contortions
in celestial condensation, swoon
divan reek of decay, carnations 
vulgar momentum.

 
 










24

Alien capability no thoughts affected
expectations of any  ruling somehow
detachment embodies long discussions
and advantage calculated momentarily.
Feathers like fireflies to the skin much
like memory lays them flat before
it consumes their grace.

 










25

Welcome back baby. Moonlight
blue trim unbuttons a cleft
beneath burnt electronics. Here the
sirens rise like sirens. We lost I.
Colorless string pattern. We
pander. We rhyme against worms.
Our fear never throat rasp,
a clasp believable as wreckage.
Palm pilot scrubbed slack. 

 










26

Only a dark shape glanced in an alcove
used to the dark but stumbling, sit
down I thought hard behind me
muffled soft voice when eyes open
to a point of color as in access
limits excess. Ink stains my fingers
like depth charges on dry land.

 











27

Ghost riders in the sky.
Stand up and wave in the pounding
rain. We pack our belongings
in the back of the truck. Books
and lampshades for sale; CDs, 
pots and pans, hell throw in some barely
functioning kitchen appliances. The levee 
broke and there's a line of black furry fungi
at eye level. So much water
everywhere. Now what.

 










28

When I say lucid I mean digested
morsel against pillows into the wide
wrinkled stash. Adapting finance
to Islam. Browsing truth against
intention, stitch always falling
through quacks and history, lower
-ed a doobie as in do be a do bee.
Lost when you we.

 
 










29

Some nature what light enjoys
shortens weather under the real.
Over there. Over here now, waving
reams of mirror; sheets of speech
flex, but kissing too. Shards tonal
that lower remains the way we paint:
forks at the ready. Flouridated lips
decant of hair and wind.

 










30

It was the sixties and some
just didn't see it coming.
My hat floats to the ceiling
while Rome burns. Bongos lost
I and you when both wrapped
in chicken wire like Johnny Rivers.
Down to mystical, a lunar orbit.
 
 










31

It’s awkward when the face 
that goes with the voice makes
you a paper bin hot shot.
I thought the dog was telling me 
to kill my bible browser!
The pleasure is precisely in 
the throwing, the thrownness.
Now we send messages to 
the past, which depends on little 
white lies of the day 
before, or bandwidth 
at voice transmission,
radio silence from now on.


THROWING VOICE









-------------------------------
GETTING THE OUTSIDE IN