Retire at the Hedge

a cardboard house with “yeah”
on the side in paint
where I can call everyone I know
they see me waving down there
once you know my face
my head always looks bigger
no matter how far away you are your head looks the same size
in a mirror so at a certain point the reflections you see are just pupils
the unlit swimming pool behind your congenital lenses
beside a fat colony
with “i know” on the side
where everyone calls me
slim and counts on me
to fix their boilers
running hot
until I forget to come one day
next day the entire furnace is orange
seems to have melted into a depression
like a disney toon
filled with bopping mutts
howling into anything shaped like a victrola
eating anything that lets them
cause I’m like mickey mouse

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Many Frequencies Equal Intensities

that whirling glass carnival
that plays beyond the curve
that comes out at wrong angles
that lets you hear it before it goes back

sounds like the rats are clean now
sounds like the clown has character but he’s not colored in
sounds like a filament without a switch

that plays an ice cream tune
that lets him come in your door
that cues his white hat and paper suit
that makes his hard on seem okay

sounds like I’ve got a problem with my teeth
sounds like the traffic from the far end
sounds like a plastic fretboard in st croix
sounds like singing fish are on my hooks

that brain pace land
that glaucoma flaw when you get punched
that turns away from you

sounds like he never looks up
sounds like he never stops smoking
sounds like he didn’t get to break the law

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Self Contained Regenerative Fishbowl

picked the seeds until the burnt one looked good and ate them all
in reverse alphabetical order heretic straw bird with soot feathers
can’t see it through the window little vampire breath up at night
made a nest out of lost sweaters waiting to freeze
that’s where we got the first idea for ornaments from the gulls
who drew their own thing on their body and made up language
by crashing into the heads of sea apes copulating upside down
that’s how we got honey for the first time when blood was thick
mosquito trap so the gulls grew guts and straws and ate away
our brains that’s why we’ve got extra brains now and can’t sleep
until we’ve been tranquilized by hormones from a rooster
a revenge story against a very clever philanderer
who took our child wife without a word to the priest
went down the river in a raft with a wood stove
which settled down once she made too much dinner

he fell asleep and got his gut cut open before she came home
to us wearing work gloves and a fake grey wig and three foot
sticks in each hand they can’t train you to play like that
you have to live it and she spoke like the rafters rose up and died
got all bent into pretzels from a motherland
got picked apart again by the gulls because they own us
trembling between g and g sharp and that’s okay
because we’ve got the coins to make it nice and clean
while they’re waiting on the other side of the glass

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Hey Friend Long As I

hummingbird with real short hair
make my oval dignity covered
into bright ditty and the end of it
dancing cakewalks down the block
with a box of milk and a beard
make my arms into tendons
that fly up in the air I miss you
like I miss a bed that’s too tall

hummingbird with real short hair
cutting all the letters so the neon
reads ear and keeps moving
away with a bounce where you
going I want to know more
and bounce sentimentality
off a cynic confessing to the bum
a fast truth and gone away

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canvas paint

you’ve been out staying for ten minutes and out staying
for ten minute and out staying for ten minutes out the door
with a red paint can of blush with a red paint can of blush
with a red paint can of blush with a red paint can of blush
if mighty red paint can cover it up
if it can over it up like a red paint can
i believe i’ll run a mop over this floor
see what color water i get and make a water color for charity
and send it away in brown paper and laminate for my patron
and plug in my pedals that make hems out of my electric muses
see what i believe over the puddles
see what i believe when the puddles are brown
over the puddles the wet rippled puddles
see what i believe when the puddles are brown
over the puddles lean muscling along
had me by the hair the whole time and didn’t stop smiling
put the city into two dimensions and your sorry
didn’t turn into what you expect

ten seconds.