may we all refuse to die at the same time

“I believe I wasn’t born yet, when a young woman put her first gun under a car seat,”
The painter explained
in front of his work
with a .38 in his back pocket

Combination of conversations you may call it:
The day all the saints clocked in late
mixed with the first serious talk
seven year old best friends have about war.

What war stories taught me I now teach you

“the world is just a constellation of walls.
Twitch a little less than everyone else.
That’s the key.”

I miss her
Or is the cage of a west bound interstate bus ride beautiful when all but three people are asleep

I’m writing poems for the rest of my life again

Taught  by the greats:
“friends make friends. You just be a good liar.”
“you would not believe the grains of blue
I found after they laid me to ground.”
“fit in, youngster.”
“fit in, trigger man.”
“watch your nickname mean something to more than five people.”

the newspaper is on fire. forget about the car.

A white giant was born without a third dimension.
It wanders under county jail slippers and people who smoke by themselves in old city parks

Gas chambers are not complicated.
Have a drink. Go to work.

“They lynched his car too. Strung it up right next to him… You see, a smart man
makes up his own set of holidays… Mind. I had a mind once. Served my immediate family well. But that’s all over now. Now I live in america… A smart man switches the dates around of his holidays too. Because enemies have a sense of humor.”

A most impressive reimagining of a painter

Up here
Where the tenth floor
Might as well be a cloud of dust
Or a version of myself that
I can point your attention to
While I count my money and curse mankind

The best way to pay me
Is in my left hand
While my right is juggling
A cigarette
A steering wheel
And a negotiation with the ruling class 

Maybe you are not a sleepy employee in a project lobby
Maybe you are blood on a fiber
Maybe you are my friend 

I have ruled the world.
Let me sleep this off.
Is that your tongue in the sky?
That’s the only weather I need. 

Lazy conversation
-the only way physics advances

my right hand jogs away from the band

this getaway is live

this instrument
is not yet invented

Coming down
With the rest of the sound
-the young woman and me about to be born

“And there. There is you. Dancing with someone’s daughter in front of the precinct”