running around the graveyard

fall, leaves. rip down
your wrinkled remains. the sun's high
in the autumn sky, but everyone's
on to winter.

listen--city buses, church pews
barber chairs--the incessant chatter
of the unrelenting chill.
this isn't small talk.

no one consults the calendar,
the thermometer--the vital signs
of your future that reason weeks
more orange & yellow.

people hear your crunch as they walk
like a death rattle. an echo
of their fear, of the looming
dark days and icy streets.

they know better

but willingly excuse themselves
with complaints that "it just goes so fast."

fall, leaves. stop clinging
to temperate times. cut loose
your full veins, cover these cracked stones
like a life less decoration.

it's the same circle every year.

universe, you've done it again.

in my unexpected day off, i was going through some things and found this. i'm not sure what the source is, but it obviously it spoke to me at the time and certainly does today.

"a knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. in this sense, and only this sense, i am a deeply religious man... i am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the reason that manifests itself in nature."

plucked feathers

a man stands in his store front--stares
thru a window separating him
from the world.   wears an apron
separating him from a mess.

the sign frames
this glass-box scene.   claims
"pollos vivos" which means
"live chickens" which, of course, really means
dead chickens.   the way hello
can really mean
good bye.

waking up

early morning
in the alley. tentative sparrows
bounce towards the expanding water pool--a mushroom cloud
of skunked beer, spit, and piss.

so much beauty in dirt.

all i want for christmas:
Pictorial Webster's: Inspiration to Completion from John Carrera on Vimeo.

but i will ask for this version.

on my way home from work i make up stories about people.

the man, who believed himself to have the gift of x-ray hearing, sat on his front stoop and twiddled his arthritic knuckles, irritated with the disbelievers. a girl walked by. he closed his eyes to appreciate the swish swish plink of her full bladder. at the intersection she pulled a metal bottle from her bag and downed the last gulps of water.

working from home--kind of like a richard scarry book

the cats are at the kitchen table. i work at the computer and they watch out the window, keeping tabs on the kids come and go to school; the pigeons sweeping the streets for city crumbs; the cars compete with the bikes; the leaves resting--happy to not be terrorized by wind and rain for a time.