Young Master Jeff

When he had nothing better to do, he'd peek into the frig.
What was he looking for? The ice box was as he left it.
It still cooled, it was still well stocked.

There's something about opening a frig out of habit
that's like turning on the TV when the place is awfully quiet.
Maybe the residual memory from stone age years,
when a guy had to be on the lookout for his next meal

Young Master Jeff, if you haven't guessed it -
his full name was Jeffrey Dahmer

Lady on The Rock

The horizon frowns,
and the rain sets down upon the sea in sheets
Abigail's homeward bound on stepping beach,
she whose bedroom window is off a pinnacle
she who lives on the edge of genesis.

Like surf, like waves
there's an affinity in repetition
betwixt quiet intensity and disquieting stillness
Abigail's eyes are those of the beacon she mans,
she of the darkest hours and reddish day breaks,
she who has sea shell hearing,
she of the oiled hands, she on the rock of acute austerity,
she like a hermit crab, jealous of her private doings
she of no man nor need of one. Neptune be blessed,
for she is married to a lighthouse.

15 Seconds of News in Verbs (draft)

Move, knock, crash pass
return look says attacked

Show Time

They are lean and vicious, big and little homo sapiens,
pit bulls of mushroom ears from blows received
They're fists and kicks bruise and bloody
can splinter ribs, separate ligaments
divide brains from cranium casings
like eggs and yolks fall apart

These are men caged to fight
Judges are paid to award laurels
Referees are paid to keep it clean
Crowds cheer and boo and egg them on
I view the gladiators from my living room
where I try to figure out from first impressions
who will be the winners, who will be the creamed ones

Do I feel guilty that I am entertained by this barbarity?
Only guilty that I do not feel as guilty as I should.
What the heck, I'm but a tourist just passing through

Prologue

He had been dying for nearly half an hour
It wasn't as easy as he supposed
In fact, he had been dieing for the past 6 months

A calm came upon him in the death throes,
a calm like the calm after sex.
All the introspection was finally paying off.

In his mind, he walked across the room
to a door unnoticed in the 30 years he lived there
He opened the door to a room smaller than a closet,
except that now he found himself in a toy house
He was almost unconscious. As he opened yet another door,
a gust rushed in.

Great Leap Forward

A moth flutters against on my window
seeks entrance to my light bulb,
David Letterman, late night television

Next morning, a bird fancies the living room a garden,
is rendered unconscious. What dreams may come
transit victims

Same night, a seismic movement torments the house
I worry if it might be the dead released from my basement

Inner quiet ought not compromised by circumstances.
The great leap forward to approximating perfection

Stone Mountain Rain

The rain here has a frame of its own
which loves the bare face granite mountain
as much as its stone loves to be bathed by the pelt,
scarring, eroding, rendering gravel at the footing,
and a little further down, the gravel also gets its rocks off,
changing into sand. Such rain (I swear) exists, persists and lives.