When local art arrives in the mail.

Hello readers (both of you).  I got the new Miser in the mail today.  The editors have been kind enough once again to include a story I have written.  The story features a tape deck given to me by Scott Demos, a show at the Phantasy Theater, and the harsh reality of diminishing skateboarding skills.  The rest of the book is packed with cool, thought provoking art as well as other literary efforts including a piece by Tom Kryss (a personal favorite).  I can't say enough about it.  Check them out on Facebook, subscribe to the magazine through PayPal, support local art.

In Your Honor

I went to the bar

expecting your arrival.

We placed our bets,

watched the clock,

and you didn't show.

We had a few beers

anyway.  I saw some

people I sort of knew,

created small conversations

out of memory, history,

and nonsense,

just like you and I

would have done.

The moment when conversation crosses the fine line between weather and injustice.

It'll be mostly sunny, humid and 95

the next few days, I told him, like Florida

without the legalized lynching.

Forward

I push the mower ever forward

on parallel lines.  There is 

a sense of order in this task

that is lacking at times elsewhere.

Forward as the breeze carries

with it songs of goldfinches and

freight trains, the smells

of honeysuckle and angry dog.

There's a bumper crop of tomatoes

this year, and a low spot

still flooded in mid-July.  I push

forward thinking of these things,

or in better moments thinking

nothing at all, only a subconscious

recognition of parallel lines,

the smell of fresh cut grass,

a natural order, ever forward.

Baseball Secrets

On the radio

there is a terrible,

suspenseful pause
 

between game sounds
and the announcer's call, like

thud of glove or crack of bat
 

so it becomes

interminable, a forever,
as if there is a secret

lost somewhere

between strikes 2 and 3
before it hits my antennae.
 

Looking ahead to the 4th of July going south on Middle.

Looking out

     over a southside

   under gloom clouds.

A northwind blows stars

         and stripes

           on every patriotic

lamppost.

It is June.

The sun is lost, but

threatening

like that foulmouthed

   kid I know

      hanging out at the corner

of 10th and Middle.

Great Awakening

Nearly every morning,

say 5:30 or 6,

the littlest cat

visits our bedroom door,

lays down and reaches beneath.

The door moves with him

back and forth 

and back and forth

creating the illusion

of someone knocking

with great urgency.

I get up,

reach blind for glasses

and walk barefoot

to answer the door.

No one, of course,

is there

but this cat on his back

looks up, makes a sound

like a question,

as if he is surprised

to have awakened someone,

as if his only intention

had been to beat hell

on a bedroom door

at 5:30 in the morning

but certainly

not to disturb anyone.

He is a picture of innocence,

as much as any of us is innocent.

He rubs against my leg.

We walk to make the coffee.

It is time to go.