the prosecutor

we took polygraphs
we didn't lie
we just proved inconclusive
we told the truth
to men in suits
who wore the same stone cold faces
we were comparable
in our results
the lines filled up the pages
like w's joined at the hips
we caused investigative headaches

you aren't so guilty anymore
you're just a bunch of innocents
rounded up before the daily's deadline
checked off on the prosecutor's list
just in time for the morning's election speeches
he won by landslide

we were good cop'd
we didn't flinch
the bad cops marched their way in
we were photographed
fingerprinted
told of the right we had not to say shit
we kept our heads
we played it cool
we asked could we get some some cigarettes?
we drank their sludge
from polystyrene cups
and promised to appear in the new year

you aren't so guilty anymore
you're just a bunch of innocents
rounded up before the daily's deadline
checked off on the prosecutor's list
just in time for the morning's election speeches
he won by landslide

everybody loves a man
who's tough on crime
all the time

they want to our bodies hanged
in the city's square
for the crowd to share

only i never did no crime
but i hang tonight

(cue the harmonica)

qu ni sheng er kuai le

you are asleep
soundly i presume
under the sheets
waiting for me
and i'd have liked
to come earlier
but i needed
my incognito
back door entry
to go unheard
how else could i sneak in a charlie brown christmas tree?
without a stir
i hope you like your gifts
i hope you can excuse my wrapping
i hope their bellies tantalize
your 7/4 shoreline
we share our every fantasy
and we put them into practice
we share the forces we create
we succumb
lights camera action

wakey wakey

i sleep beside a go-getter
which means i often wake up alone
but sometimes when i wake
in the middle of the night
she's still there beside me
i'd liken it to listening
to a really great song
one that you never want to end
and when the chorus peaks
and you're expecting the outro
you realize
the second verse has only just begun

hands

if you took someone else's
masterpiece fiction novel
and you were able to erase it
from everybody's memory
and you copied it word for word
on your remington typewriter
and you typed your own name
on the new first draft manuscript
and you submitted it
to one of the big publishing houses
and they ate it up because how could they not?
and they signed you to a wonderful book deal
and they assigned you to a wonderful editor
and this wonderful editor knew
that this was your very first novel
and being that this was your very first submission
and that he or she has been editing novels
for twenty years & change
and therefore knows a thing or two more
about what works and what doesn't
and that he or she must hack it into a thousand pieces
to compensate for your lack of experience
it makes you wonder just how differently that book would read
it makes you wonder how many writers may have gotten it right
the first time around?

06.30.56

you sailed through the horizon
putting 1880 miles between us
soon to descend upon a sprawling canyon
carved out by the colorado river's erosion
i'll follow the path of an ancient boom excavator
underground into the subway tunnel
carved out and braced for stabilization
in six days and nine hours or so
we'll come up for air
together again on the surface
this time for a happy ending collision

transoceanic

all these little reminders. laying everywhere.
pieces of you. all over. stretched. a cutting room floor.
a cochophonous ringing. memories filed. recycled. hellbent.
constructed butterflies ricochet inside my battered abdomen.
your mouth. it plays the radio. your thighs on every station.

i am your pamphleteer

we are left
when we are leaving
we are weaker than
a sinking feeling