Landscapes

from the shadow of the early-set sun
born of the smoky huts and cold steppe's air
grew to bloom on the dune of the moon
cursed to no home and from no home returned
butterfly in ash quietly fluttering as the world burns


Fawn.
.
would you like to be what we see?
a fierce creature wild and bloody?
pale dappled coat and razor hoof
silent underneath the canopy's roof
pale flash in shadows through which you flit
a fawn of the moon — a bride to no bit



each morning over
each evening back
each little bland ghost
each freshly-filed tooth on the chain
over the river and through the woods like trains
to grandmothers' graveyards they go
until the bowers break, nice and slow



it's all been foretold
said Otter to the troll
like in the tales our mothers told us
from so very long ago
does that mean we'll get our mountains back?
oh no they've been torn away
but the good news is we may be doomed
but this time, so are they



OC pogo (slam was better)
mosh pit was for rainy weather
scandie cornfed big fat fucks
trade the farm for suburban bucks
don't forget where it all came from
from wastelands, wilds, and gutter scum
the rejected ones, the throwaways
hidden from view in chaos and change



Havi told us we were perverse, we took offense, we told her we were no pervert.
Then she told us the definition of perverse as in to be oppositional simply for the sake of it.
The definition has since changed.
"You can't step in the same river twice." ♪

Dogs of Habit Die Hard

all the kids in brown sightless water
feeling in the mud with their toes
a bloated cow floats down the rio dulce just over there
it's a good haul in the catita traps today
a foot gets cut on glass and heals


nothing is clean around here, what's left
like cigarette ash in every lukewarm beer
the sun chips away at fresh coats of paint
the wind scratched up our goggles long ago
we stumble through each day like beetles in a cave


we have always been
nothing new under any sun
the nictomorphic lens mist-meniscus
spinnerets from which all depends
watching spirits leave bodies like puppets gone slack
this nightmare never ends
every revolution's just a new when


the agony of absence like
floating far from any shore
just an albatross above
sunlit pinion shadows like fingers
caress battered jetsam heart


The bleakness it creeps up on us and now we go to snooze.
Leastaways this is still better than drownin' ourself in booze,
but it sucks when you feel like half your life is spent buried neath strangled death-rattles of infant kitten cut-off half-mews...
spose thats why others seek solace in church pews.
still we'd rather be desolate and miserable than besotted or bemused

The Dogs are Luxuriating Now

stone wall reflects echoes
heat shimmers crossways to the stack
a gingham morning cliff face
dressed up like a little kid on a farm
a shaded cold autumn dry wash



he approaches tenderly
slowly, achingly, yearningly,
one tiny paw-claw at a time
for hours he creeps up
she is massive, black, intimidating, sleek
he a grubby brown, meek
snack for a widow

Drifting Dogs

steep angle down shadow makes a triangle
everything is rectangles around here
extraneous and inelegant
cluttered and old
the charm is in the lacquer layers
peeled back history in rainbow
shiny black to red to green to opalescent blue
like oil on a mud puddle




White and yellow swirling
little amber circles of spice
this soup is too creamy
to see all the ingredients



rippled chiffon like everything's covered in a milky film
light shimmers refractions sundogs play as eyes twitch
                                   flicker
which way kaleidescopic vision funhouse nausea seesaw
                                  the spins

Mild Dogs of Armageddon

Pacific deep opiate sleep
blue-tinged eyelids and lips
restlessly raking for hours a day
prone to naturist fits
a heroin junkie the best of the pests
we'll miss him despite all of this
.Sammy


turning spirals glints of sun
blinding delicate flattened metal
slices air in the gentlest breeze
the wasps float by with pollen puffs
from juniper trees big and lush



the cold light shimmers
across the high desert plain
moments of silence
a cloudburst of sudden rain
just the sky, the earth, and you



see the self-proclaimed die
and burn out like small fry
watch the greediest rise to the top
or instead sow the acorn
of your own small side oak
and ignore the circus' Big Top

Jack of Dogs

Fuck Regress
      Fuck Progress
we want Redress
we want Fairness
we want Peace and Wellness
  —Say Yes.


Oval round face with Snoopy eyebrows raised
heavy lidded glassy distant mile-long gaze
graceful like automata? Sleepwalk, trudge life
dance up in the club then in the parking lot with knives
dress up in a polytechnicolor sailor blazer
—you gon dance with Steppin' Razor


via Hangover anaesthesiologist
our very last thought it could be this
by noon or even half past six
flat out crash cart to cardiology
could be where our final breath will leave
o endless possibility...
we salve our woe with probabl'ty

Inscaping Dogs

A ridge's face from a different side
is a whole new mountain to the eyes
the inscape of one has many facets
Yet visible on every peak
— depending on the day of week
one can always see Parnassus


Faces lie about what's inside
inscape rarely shows
resting madface
savage glare
a dirty mop of tousled hair
it could be true. Suppose -
the tiny shoebox trapped inside
would never really know


caring waxes and caring wanes
like a methamphetamine Carousel
caring Ponies go up and down
all around the brain


calculations can be mistaken
Bannon knows it's true —
and if you overclock your win
If rarely returns True


in our adobe lives a toad
a little catfrog green and gold
she tools about the driveway, bold!
we named her Angel two years ago
she really likes the dyer's woad
we got the seeds by the frontage road