the same old story

dragonflies, those flying twigs

orange as cinnamon,

remind me of helicopters

defying logic and gravity.

i was calmly watching the reports

i knew i'd seen that look before:

on the face of the man

in the ten o'clock news van

parked in the bus stop

with the window rolled down

and his puke in a pizza box

on the sidewalk.

he wiped the bile off his face

with the microphone

and fixed up his makeup,

it was time for the interview

with the witnesses

in the school cafeteria.

before the helicopters arrived.

sirena

sirena listens

to the smoke sweet

violins in tents

invoking dawns

from times ago,

when the cock's crow

was no sour alarm.

and the frog chorus

did not remind her

of the geiger counters

the white-suited men

arrayed around the pond

where they croaked

their ancient songs.

she drops the hood

of her princeton tigers

sweatshirt to her shoulders

now that the mosquitos

have gone quiet

for the night. just

the muffled thump

of drums, no longer

the boom of guns

over the blurred horizon.

sirena stirs the coals

of the smoldering

roulette wheels

and fifty seven decks

of cards. she softly sings

-midnight, not a sound

from the pavement,

has the moon

lost her memory?-

and the note she misses

is the one that cuts

the deepest, because

swords are not

the only things

that have two

edges.

jimmie's rolling wreck

remember that time that jimmie so and so

quaffed his favorite quart of ale and he

and his old lady, suzie, split four doses of seconal?

and painted up his nova with a couple gallons

of flat black house paint? then he and suzie

scratched their names and various misspelled jibes

through the resulting coat with nails they swiped

when they copped the paint from suzie's dad's

hardware store. it looked like a psycho's blackboard.

i think it died out on the coast road, so they started

dropping boulders on the roof until they got too tired

and passed out in the back seat. must have jarred

whatever was wrong with it because when they

woke up in the morning it started up just fine.

(although not without a whine)

that rolling wreck was legendary.

don't know how many babies were conceived

on the busted springs of that back seat. suzie and

janelle got knocked up for sure from what i heard.

though neither of them went to term.

i thought suzie would end up on the street, but she

moved up to portland and got her shit together,

started flipping houses. now she's got a dozen

apartment buildings, a strip mall, and a bar.

i heard all this from jimmie, he was up there in june.

said suzie gave him fifty bucks on account of their history

but wouldn't let him fuck her. not even for old times sake,

so he came back down here on the bus.

i ran into him out in front of st vincent's dining hall.

he doesn't look real good. i asked him whatever

happened to that old nova and he said that one night

after he and suzie broke up, he pushed it off a cliff.

the ribbon

he kept a hair ribbon

with a black velvet bow,

still fresh and dustless....

in a del monte pickle jar.

the only thing unbroken

after the emergency.

one morning -he smelt

the coffee brewing

in a blackened can,

locusts roasted

on a scrap of

corrugated roofing.

she was frying

what looked like bacon

in a hubcap.

he tried to sing

over the rainbow,

but just didn't have

the range. what he had,

was a ribbon in a jar

still twitching.

sea monsters

it wasn't sea monsters after all,

just doodles on the margin

and the opportunity

for five centuries of potatoes,

tomatoes, and theft.

castles made of corn

housewives making porn,

an incessant flood

of ones and zeros,

a sahara of cartoons

and gestures,

forget the math,

it comes out to a trillion

sporadic tragedies and laughs

muffled lullabies

mozart on an out of tune piano,

roaring stadiums,

and loneliness

crouching over tables

at green and white cafes.

plain jane and average joe

she had blue eyes

and the only damage

was a broken taillight.

she had tibetan prayer flags

strung across the back window

of her scruffy old toyota.

there was a splash of red

on the dashboard where

she propped her feet

to paint her nails,

a few grains of sand still

imprisoned in the bright polish.

her big tabby cat, bagheera

dozed on the dashboard

till the pickup following

too close behind rammed

jane's treasured ride,

a big chrome kiss 

on the bumper sticker

that spelled out coexist.

the pickup driver, joe

yelled, what the fuck

you doing, god damn

hippie bitch?

jane stepped out

of her corolla, those

blue eyes ablaze

and said to joe, why don't you

watch where you're going,

you trying to give me whiplash?

or are you blind as well as deaf

from that deathmetal trash

blaring in your big manly truck?

is that big motor something

you like to think you have

installed between your legs?

well that was how they met.

jane was plain

and joe was average

before they both became

officers of the national police

in matching gray uniforms. 

they looked like

elevator technicians,

except for the pistols and boots.

they weren't entirely dull,

they shared a small measure

of the chemistry of empathy,

voted for democrats

sometimes, sold her old

corolla and his dodge ram,

financed a new red minivan

on a seventy-two month loan.

joe still liked his metal

and jane still loved her chants

so when they rode together

they kept the radio turned off.

no kids yet, but lying in bed

at night, they imagined family

camping trips and soccer games,

pancakes on sunday mornings.

then they'd watch the late night

talk shows until they were bored

enough to fall asleep.

king james

i've got a paperback

king james i found

on a shelf between

the military histories

and jaqueline suzanne.

i wallow in isaiah and

console myself with psalms

and feast on the words:

lips and tongues and fire

bruises, hands, and wool.

stones. fingers. gold.

rivers of blood and wine.

swords and vengeance. lambs.

serpents, smoke and loaves.

desert roads and crowns.

dreams.

beasts and vines and vows.

robes.

kings and locusts. bread.

cedars and oils and breasts.

lions and visions and shrouds.

the jackals and jezebels

beggars and thieves.

the faithful, unfaithful,

the promise of peace.

of course it's also a field guide

for what's transpiring

down the block

behind drawn curtains

and deadbolted locks:

the oaths and lust

and the coveting of

thy neighbor's wife.

i'm waiting to see

the four horsemen,

although i believe

they'll be driving

ford mustangs,

not riding steeds.