Elegy Sees Red And Says Red

When fixed at its course
this ironhead missive
might slant
a dugout through one-reader-skull

bullets like ringed thought
poem shot of dancing ideation
of burrowing and exploding
of mindbreak blood blowing
bullets of barber pole alliteration
like chance through fingers
hands over faces

stand a stonethrow away
from this unsanctioned retelling when reading
the hot write is rising near it
danger, dear poets, is followed here

Hunting

You cannot recognize yourself
In the eerie coming of my heart

whose beat has mimed your beat Hungry, twice for nighttime
starkly, slick or liquid by rote.
all salt and sinew seek to keep

mad creatures from clocking at my throat's slim thumping.
Like a cannon, cold and still,
might nonetheless hurl raw

a sack of metal cured in heat.

You may, lost for choice, take a chance and thin hot

fingers for the feast.

Notepad Poem #1

My belly bears a jaguar
scar. Ripped fast
by an unknown hand, an enemy rock,
or other, purpled intruders.

I know I deserve them. Hard times are here in America's
middle west. Beset on pearled banks by spear carriers
and minor lords. Our smoked out greybrick buildings,
once held the thirsty world's wine,
are now slummer cruised and filthy.
Bucked like my poison stomach down.
A land of great water grown cold
slurping, frosty, dancing to a graduation tune stoned.
Tough sleep, dented bedposts.

I saw a country in my viscera
while it was pecked at and I was falling,
beaten like a badguy who'd done wrong.