Sky Diving

Higher up           and higher up                     and higher up. I keep a knife in my belt, that           if I might fall      from this height           I can      stab fate in the back                     on my way down.

Ninety Percent of My Body is Water

I do not expect revelation.     I do not expect dawn to make much sense.I look off at a temple and wonder—     what religion; and,          who is praying at this hour.East, a fire burns, the smoke visible;     all that remains of an abandoned warehouse,          leaving behind a hole in the old city center.The fire trucks sit cold in their silos,     their hoses … Continue reading Ninety Percent of My Body is Water

The Beer Champion

There was a hop-hearted man,lived over the hills, rode a soberhorse, hung on by luck and dustystirrup—lived a life of drinkingevery kind of beer.  Took shipsacross time-zones; received in mailfrom eager strangers; lickedfrozen cubes in the Yukon; toastedMayans in undiscovered pyramids;slurped out of naked Germannavels; mixed beer with politics in G8 capitals.  Only death did … Continue reading The Beer Champion

Part of Me Has Gone Rotten

Right now I’m trying to find out which part.
Somewhere lies a cankered sore,
as on the foot of a bum,
who’s been walking for days with no respite;
offered no help from my brain, my heart, my knees, or my eyes.
My stomach’s a landfill,
through which he rummages parts of last night’s meal,
worn down to bone by the thick, rich stink of unrequited bile.
Upon his surfeited burp, my white cells collapse inward with paranoia,
my lymph nodes hum ever so slightly.
I’m flesh-sick.
My eyes are last night’s cloud-covered moon;
memory beset by dusty moths hungry for old clothes;
heart bubbling up through my neck like a fountain of molten coins;
knees speak only to the weather, ignoring both nerve and vein.
Part of me has gone rotten.
I’m trying to carve out what’s dead without spilling the rest.