:: Stable ::

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

motherfuckers can go from cradle to grave without leaving the block

 

again the street startles crossing me crossing over

 

must have GPS’d coordinates for

killing field or rookery

 

struck as we are on the wrong side at the wrong hour

 

but people don’t wake up every day thinking of somewhere else

mythic surrogate sickly drop into lake water

where you look like a stump

can’t see the floor roiling leadshot

cotter pins

backhoe rotor

petrified husk towers

earth mover teeth and blade

auger at the depth

mistaken mother of pearl

 

no that is the imposition of

another’s jarred ancestral complacence

swimming the barbed wire of farm genetics or hustler

what the intellect maw flashed through the still moving pickup

all the while the street still peddling awe

 

no mistaking bent rims between yards

it’s the ground that grounds

 

dovecoteholdover

awning shot through

ledges bunched and overborne

widow’s walk seagulled and asea

 

took time to reconnoiter

swaddling nest anatomy

 

and account

basketball net

pill bottle cotton

weed eater innards

crapped up dollar bill

 

trash     the street capital

 

was it peregrine or pigeon

 

or good vultures in the city of ravens

 

if sidestepping the raptors

glint of exuberance in the gutter

could have triangulated if not for lack of a single point

splintered grid of phantom town square

some have more compass than others

when all you asked for was

leave me my broken body love

 

 

:: Fair ::

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Allrighty

Amos

Antelope

Archer

Banner

Blackie

Black Oak

Blackberry

Blueboy

Booger

Butternut

Carboy

CB

Chili

Chula

Cletus

Confucius

Cotton

Cowboy Troy

Cub

Daddy

Dude

Dundee

Dutch

Fatback

Frisoles

Frosty

George Jr.

Hammer

Hanover

Harpo

Headlight

Joey

Juniper

Kirby

Lemmon

Little Buck

Little Mort

Maxwell

Mr. P

Noser

Oldtime

Poncho

Pootie

Pops

Poquito

Preacher

Prince

Punch

Rastus

Rusty

Salt

Samson

Savannah

Shadow

Sheldon

Shindig

Snicker

Soldier

Stormy

Stryder

T-Bone

Toby J

Tricky

Tubs

Tuxedo

Waddles

Yonker

Zeus

this dog on dog aggression will not stand

cute name but sick puppy in the ring or

roll call of tautologies for

runner or wagerer

president or constituent

goat or satyr

 in the dog capital

 

grocery bags to scoop the carcass

someone had slopped with lime

 

chop shop

swap meet

 

when all the bait is gone and dogs fall out of favor

bring out your cocks

calves

toros

wild ponies

 

all the while birds buttoned up in her dress

pair of eggs

couplet

 

:: Guarded ::

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

at closing she walked from Mt Vernon to Bolton Hill barefoot

the stripper shoes laced hangdog on her neck

pageant sash welled up in suspended blackout

 

tranced and pixelated body memory for terrain

the lost whatfor as animals

 

round the time the brewery rehabbed for job creation

 

and cigarettes still a happy surprise

forever stamp of addictions

glory of opening a book

gilded relief pressed paper

with porcelain sugar doll

 

for the stolen chapter of benders

sidewinders jags and katzenjammers

yes your lumps paid out in sugar

doll

 

question was when the creators of job creation contract creative block

 

summon the loner tiger kitten

in the outdoor shower

that was a shower in a house

but for the house around it

long folded and dismantled

regenerated into groundswell

compost heap of stray and feral

regrets at the candor of hugging neighbors

lately bereaved and tending

vinyl wreaths and swags kicked up in the squall

and now assimilated into

panorama of a passion story

rehab on the scrim

 

everybody has an Uncle Bill back there somewhere and

the connection turns out roughly the same

 

though kind to kids and animals

 

if a partitioned construction site has no peephole

 

well     there’s the ax and hammer

 

somebody had to do the job

 

curiosity retainer

 

 

:: Critical ::

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

zero sum game of the pumproom

 

sad milling of bad insurance

cattle call

corralling

 

a boy with unsettling grace

getting to the bottom of snowballs

urge to drink antifreeze

viscous array of days unsorted

sorting out in the mechanical mind of the latchkey

 

children keepers of someone else’s rules

 

as they say the child needs a sorting out

or drunk or klepto or the rat on the fringe

of witness protection

 

take precosity over languor anyday

exchange mean for reckless

 

what won’t be reckoned is the adjuster’s code

for the cause of the fire when a house

turns incinerator

turns on itself

for the turning of

an occupant scored a new high

played brokenwing in the yard

last seen in fire chief’s helmet and cloak

until prodigal

 

what comes next of course is the getting back

to normal a son on work-release punches out at Wockenfuss candy factory

calculates to bandsaw his arm or take

a cherry picker fall

so his mother will reclaim him

 

what’s hard to believe is always overheard

 

night terror telephone from the halfway house v.

milky foam OD in the driveway

still life with hooker

 

two different passengers

two different situations

assistance is required

 

the preacher not

meaning to be preachy said

people who don’t believe in anything don’t have children

 

 

:: Serious ::

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

less bland affect would be ideal

in the cocktail revolution

 

cart in the telephone bench

leisure quota

get someone somehow on the horn

 

the piercing wars started and children

devoid of fear of wounding

 

may have wanted to tuck in with another body

drift through midlife with sex and television

but the parade busts you

you moved to the hamstrung neighborhood to avoid

santa atop a firetruck but

 

long ago traded off sleep for memory

 

 

 

:: Grave ::

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

one thing about junkies

they are committed to the most

desperate of situations

 

what most would find exhausting

 

ferrying kittens from one end of the house to another

on the conjecture there must be a better place

but the mother totes each one back to wean in soot and scavenging

all the while a good deed blistering in the blindsight

three out of five may live

 

anything short of lazy

but at some point the junky in you too has to stop moving

bodies at rest as numbers stored in a mobile phone

keep ringing back to the past

 

this is a call you will want to take

 

if crackgirl should wander into the yard

during the open air fighting

blind poodle in a brownfield

Lonnie says point her home

wind her up

 

so says the taxonomist of broken things

 

wind her up

ride the rail

ring the attendant

raise your hand now or forever

 

-Heather Fuller, 2008