Of Ought and Can

Let's put a sensor on his brain and get some data. There'll be a bunch of graphs an' pictures of diff'rent colored lines corr'spondin' to every little thought he has. An' then let some fella say what that neon spaghetti means. An' that fella'll tell us that the sensor-brain'd man's got the ability to decide to chew the legs off a cricket or stomp a hole through a cat. An' sure enough, when we get roun' to it, the fella in the lab coat's gonna let y'all know that it's alright to slip a knife to your neighbor's throat just 'cause you can.

Final Product

Remember her; how she
Eased from the rambler's threshold,
Her arms knowing how to speak,
Like vines proclaiming "Hello."
Effortlessly. Her hands
you noticed. The creases.
Paths of a unique map.
To guide you.
Or to be perfect.

And, later, when her last
Breath spread out among the tubes,
Her body discovering how to die,
Like rock learning to swim.
Suddenly. Her hands
You noticed. The patterns.
Rhythms of a distant song.
To soothe you.
Or to be perfect.

Lying there, at the end,
Heavy with unfinished love,
No superstitious gift of eternal mystery
Outweighed her resting hands. You noticed.
In their cracks are the journeys.
In their folds are the sounds.
They will always be perfect.
[And unfinished from here.]

Work in Progress

I been tossin' around this idea for a piece 'bout my Aunt's funeral service an' how it didn't measure up. Someone described it to me recently as bein' the equivalent of pluggin' a few individual facts into a eulogy generator and clickin' a button. Maybe that ol' preacher didn't have the luxury of time. So here's where I'm at so far after one round of writin' and one round of shreddin':


Now that's a good lookin' page even if it's full of stupid ideas.

I'll Teach You a Lesson

When a whiskey sun comes up it's gonna be a longer day than most.
I'm lookin' right into him.
My breath, eaten by a bleedin' hole in the sky.
Spittin' jet fuel on a bonfire.
Like that sassy gal told me, "You look long enough and you're gonna start to like what you see."
She never was in the lesson business.