"Focus on a Glass Green Tea Bottle," a poem

No voices

In the clearing comes

no genius forward

for that glimmering Pullitzer

and here we slouch,

discuss the subjects of lies and smooth rhetoric

they call it politics,

and oh the joy it gives!

With this cold bottle

atop the desk

Wishing to toast

to something so dreadful

and then to this drink

I give a beautiful,

a beautiful thought

and then no more.

"Messy Girls," a poem

Cinderella is a raving

mad bitch.

She missed her stop at Fillmore

but that’s not the troubles weighing her down.

Of all the people,

of the chicks 9 to 5 like her

no chances of dreams

Shitting  the dress, spill the shooters

hairspray and mascara that run

things she swears over her dead body

could ever happen

ever after

Yeah she’s over it,

shouting to the rooftops

from bathroom mirrors

with pop songs on repeat

to affirm exalting madness

and over how skeptical she is

of every name tag

reading “Prince Charming.”

She’s just over it

the girl with the heart of gold

looking out to the foam slithering into Ocean Beach,

Cinderella thinks she’s caving in

With her favorite song in mind,

she’ll jump with fulfillment onto the back of the motorcycle

with Matt Helders.

Maybe she’ll kick the glass slipper and

don cream combat boots,

blowing that sinister kiss to the Prince.

"Eden for Peter Pan," a poem

My grand journey would begin with a swan dive. And over that edge, I would fly on. Such a journey it’d be, if we could fly, and I know where my spread arms will steer me. The rooftops from below I can see a world that shouldn’t be there. I may not have wings.

But I have a view from the 32^nd floor.

At my feet flowers look blurred, blue velvet and metallic mist dripping onto matte red that sways with the air around. Pollen like pixie dust lifts off. It tickles the nose of the man seated on bench like stiff kajal.

Flowers grow like children atop a roof. The lost boys of a youth we have moved years beyond.  In this afternoon light they sleep with eyes open, and the approaching evening marks their dance with closed faces under unstrung lights in the ceiling beyond the fog.

Anyone is a lost child here. There’s nothing wrong with falling over the edge, surrounded in splendor.

"Sweeny", a poem

He cocks his head

at the still burning butt of his last cigarette

falling to the wet pavement.

A nap in the Panhandle

Is the ragged Napoleon’s

Privilege to dream,

a defense against the fog’s whispers

whirring through the mesh green above

it’s what the double-decker slowing to a crawl

gives as consolation to the Ohios,

Brit-Columbians, Med-terraneans

on this dragging detour through Fell.

"Calorie Counter," a poem

Just water, she says and sits at the bar seating

when outside of the Mel’s across from the row where she makes herself satisfied

the rain washes out the October windows

of their amber leaves that swirl around black cats and ivory ghosts

these silk paints that melt away

at no cost.