kickstand in quickstand

Me and the Sun: Separated at birth?
Mean, this one: Sea-pirated at berth.

push push push, shove shove shove, that's what our parade's made of

Too Done List:
~Spark-barking like a shit-shot pilot.
~High-crawling for no-one in rock-gotten grab-alls.
~Pull-dover, overall, with nothing but stuffing t'tell.
~Hardly had, hard-hearts over hammers, slip this up & slide it in the slammer.
~Hold a cold bell, belly-full in the well, this shirt is fersure some softer, fold-by-the-arm-do-no-harm, moth-herd shell.
~Doing whipped cream headstands on knock-knit knees.
~Sewing buttons on soda's my expired teas.
(And being extra nice to the I's so the me's won't freeze)
~Overgrowin'. A shoe-in for new brakes, making a break for the most of it.
~Stamping my feat, taking licks (that taste like bricks) and postponing it.
~Laundry.

knock it off

A toast, to cross-crackin'.
Picking up actions with crutches & lucky.
Knot-tying time, that's what I've got for me. Aches and ankles for friggin' free.
I am not messing around.
I am a goddamn heartattack.
I am so srs it's like I got a softer side.
Even though those're imposure, it's got the wild-whisper: Ow! Hell! gone kitchen-cold, milder, crisper: oh well.
Spring to todayssome are still stuck in the current.
Some shows're crippled cusses, coldcocked by composure.
Cold-cut in a frozen enclosure.
Looking like Bird Trouble in Mammal City.
Sinaminimally, it's a pity.
I'm bored as birds from sitting around in some harken lot.
I'm quitting and sparking and shot.
Get good to go and put on the Definitive Correction.
Interested in paying it back with interest.
Refuse to reflect on every affect and inflection.
Refute the reuse for effect of connection.
I've had it with the melo. I'm mad as hello and I'm not gonna fake it anymore.
I've got an eggbeater drill and a time machine. Let's go back and put some holes in the ark.
And fix the sphinx, I think.

march plenty

I been grown notions beansprout-tall and alladay-long. My garden's lookin' like a lowercase lawn.
I were thinkin'round dowels and trowelin' off and howlin' OH WELL just in case somebody gets any big ideas.

This is a paperback problem pushin' a dog by the ears and eyein' its own bold spine.
This is a foreign film living inside a book that teaches the neighborhood how to be polite while at-the-same-time makesome realize that I am massively impressive and the total Milliner's Stare.
But not before I break it off like a receipt.
Not before, I said to the bread, Immonna get hard-bored and cratey like a box.
After, I said to affront a font, I've had my supper-case.

Not before I boil a rag and wear it like a cape.
I'm a warmth superhero, vigilant and antsy, antein' up against villainous cold. I'll unglue the ague and make the frigidity all fidgety. All giddin' up in algidity's frosty face.
There's a sprig in my step and I aren't always upanattem on the same day, but you know where'll be.

This has got new-moan-ya ain't never heard before writ all over it. And it can' be helped to shake'n'break it, oh no.
Odds're it'll even out eventually, but I'm not gonna equake it.
And I am not gettin' no pleurisy on some blurry sea, see?
Deliver me from timbers, unhinge my hinders.
Lookitme, all upafloat on this proud cloud, tossin' bolts like cloth wrath and hailin' hearty down.
All lungin' like I'm hungry.
I'll lay low and let loose afore I get infirmed, you can bet your boats.
You can hammer that intayer wallet and keep it.

la, days i swam

had this, some irrational, for-all-seasons-fashionable
trash to recycle and rehash and thrash
and smash

bashful, this, until
at last I fill

the one we
called homey
rough 'n tough at-home feeling of skeletonbonekey ennui
aloft 'n soft feeling of felt phony

and hold me

why don't we
take a time so slowly
wholly holed but holy
and rock our backs and forths, staying stony
forgetting our friends and vetting our cronies
(regretting our fiends and get-back-at baloney)
and kill the chill that stills our will
and grow - ly

dakota farms

Hyphens & High-Fives
Hide Fens & Hie Dives
Dry Glens & Nigh-Drives
Fly Wrens & Shy Knives
Tie-Mend & Wry Why've
Wide Men & Bride Wives
Why'd Send & Guide Hives
Plied Bends & Tide Strives
Sighed Then & Lied I've
Cried When & Died Live

Replanted.

lucely based

We split all our hires
Filled our lungs with ire
'Cause life isn't fire, it seemed dire

Our voices went moot
As we donned our new soot
Trying not to be root, to boot

Taking our best shut
Giving what we gut
Let us wither and rut, and cut

'Cause we're outta look
So we're passing the book
And the rest we'll just shook, like a crook

rife of lyly

Our love of triangles is opening new doors for doorstops, unironically.

winnin' roam

1. It's my fault that cowboys have 100 words for "hair."
2. I once saw a rocketship eat its own leg, and I put it down on a painting.
3. I sold the painting for a house.
4. Remember the time when I was the only one who could ride the Silver Lucy at Marine Surprise? Well, I faked it.
5. When I was ten-years-old I stole some of the feelings from the impulse-buy rack at the general store.
6. I never told you about the time I gave the cricket its stripes.
7. I did tell you about the time I took them away.
8. Sometimes I make soup for the lawn.
9. My favorite number is even. Sort of.
10. I can read upside-down.
11. Once, when I was feeling especially proud, I picked up a seagull.
12. All of my calendars have an extra day.
13. I'm desperately afraid that spiders are smart enough to figure out exactly how defenseless I am when asleep.
14. I've never actually seen a dog.
15. One of them is "scalp mustache."
16. I take a bath twice a day. Sometimes I bring my gravel collection with me.
17. I am going to lie to my children if they ever ask me where gold comes from.
18. Sometimes I put toothpaste and nails together and just enjoy them, you know?
19. Whenever I'm below sea level I get depressed.
20. Also, "upper eyebrows."
21. I will never tell anyone about this.
22. I have shoes made of brick and rope. They're not much for warmth but they will never wear out.
23. I've been struck by lightning no times.
24. I think echolalia is sexy.
25. "Noggin frosting."

strong of the immomal man

Levers are my favorite things to pull.
I like the old switcheroo.
And Kangaroo Boxing Day.
Breaching the hull-a-days.
Preaching the null.
The cloaking of daggers, duggery of a skull.
Skillfully filling each shoe.
Bidding on more than I'm sure I could chew.
(We bit through our tea-trays 'til our bellies were full)
(And sillied our vestments by the dark windowsull)
We bullied the dull.
And laughed like a gull.
Then grew gills and lived in the blue.

lucks and chúxī

Once was back when i held a lottery about anything and we made our own dollars
So i brokered the dawn on the good ship soup & wine
While you told me about how old you were when you first learned telephone
& how to sooth scissors to make curled-up bandages

Once was back when giraffes ran fast to lyin'
& no-one spoke above a microwave whisper
While we took all the signs, and they hoofed and heaved for us to quit
So we bit our wicks and dicked around a bit

Once was back when the floor was made of lava
So we soup-stirred the carpet on sofacanoes
& hammered our hands into paddles when the oars snapped
While we tossed cushions for step-stones

Once was back when we knew two punches less than how much was on our heads
So i wrapped you around your own arms and disaffected
& we both enjoyed surgery
While the power went out just in time

Once was back when we caught that marlin, darlin'
& it told us how to get back to the shack on the shore
So we listen to the wind instead
While the waves gave us better advice that we took away

Once was back when the birds bit just right
& since you cinched that muddy inch too loose
While i juiced up the noose, our chests got tighter
So we learned to fight fire with mire

shop classy

This is thatch urge
This is the steep hill
O panther doors
Antsy owl, the pea-pill

(excerpt from) the immomal man conversations (pt. VII)

And then some, again and again.
Or gainful, or handsome.
Vitally so.
Calliope soup. Make up your mind.
A: I'll cope. B: I'll shut.
What?
Firmly and with haste. Filling the gaps with paste.
For the taste.
Ways, not won-ton.
What have you don (sic) to this weakflower feudal?
Steeped it in clines.
The whole kit and canoodle.
To include.
Any mood.
Food'll.

daring farmers

Have you heard what they're saying 'bout handing it over
The deed to the town that we built
King Mayor shook hands with a cannonball dozer
He held a straight face in a jar of composure
And dozens of smiles on stilts

City Hall plays it off like a boon to the public
Or a sweet gravicembalo tune
It harps a chord but we're still not so sure of it
In our sinking tub sits some sinister couplet
If we get around to it, maybe we'll snub it
But not 'til the late afternoon

See, there're fields that need drinking and whiskey to plow
Through the windows, the cleaners can't see
'Cause their kittens need mending while spectacles meow
An optometrist spans the marquees
Opera singers wrap broken-up knees
While the surgeon is felling the trees
Lumberjacks strain their backs washing windows for free
Only stopping for sopping their brows

Look closer, blackgrocers discount custom errs
While the greensmith is shooing hoarse throats
The barber, a raiser of pneumatic chairs
And dullest of shaviors, leaves his patrons scared
He's tearing back towels and paring down hairs
Since your loss is his ware, he sells your own scalp bare
For a quartet of quarters and notes

Our astronomers work on a cure for the gout
While the doctor admires the sun
Sal Fisher mixed his dough with light sauerkraut
Sheriff Baker spouted a sweet seed of doubt
While honest Judge Gard'ner toss'd rolls 'long her route
And the paperboy wrestled a trout
All the roughs in the gangs are so pure and devout
While the parish gets garish and starts up a bout
And for rhymes of our reasons no-one figured out
The things we did never got done

Still, this was our home and was soon to be bought
A hefty sum someone would pay
For shingles and cellars, exemptied-out plots
If only we'd close our hotels and tell-nots
And the hunters give up their fair game and last shots
The cooks and gamblers and what's in their pots
(Though unkempt record-keeps kept the things they forgot)
We just have to unravel our rotted-knot spot
But I think that I'd rather we stay

din or party

everyone pardoned their pudding and cup and let it off with a small fine
everyone waited for the snail to sup, then ate him with mustard and wine
everyone had a balloon to float up and anchor with licorice twine
everyone toasted to Butterscotch Krupp, but made him camp out with the swine

la damn air sang

Onward i crawled, along the shore, caked in muss and salt. / And I'd wreck. "Land!" she calls. No, a wet-hot mirage, sour sand.

Lo! Hear how hollow harps blow hard, hide from hanging forever in lower winds. / Whine high, level, heal now a wild, misshapen world. Harbor horror, grow fond of.

"Eat ardor! Need this!" yells the bush-bare herd. / Harder to breathe, hardened by shell tissue.

A mud-dry lung under fierce tar. / Merciful green, a ruddy tundra.

Alive, ground-drunk on root-beer. / Or bone-naked. Or gut-run. Or devil.

and now you do

I've been telling lies about you.
I've been telling how you always knew how I could never tell what things were true.
I never could.
But you never knew.

soda bra, booze zoo, barbados

i unwound with the wind and it grinned and so did i
so i lay under the sly
and my eyes they closed and my breaths they slowed
and i thought that i could finally rest
but the air grew lean and mean
at most fear
chalky mothballs fell down from space to sew me a cold quilt
quickly falling degrees sickly stalling i'd freeze if i didn't get up and get home
but the bitter breeze begged i bide by its bed
it asked i not leave it alone
so i wrapped my arms around the wind and closed my eyes
and a snore was bore in my shaky chest when
just
then
the sun snuck in on a puddle and whispered a pin-drop plan
i cupped my hands about and it began to roll and rotate and revolve around the white earth
the wind and snow below bellowed chagrined oh no don't go
but i went
and
wintersplintersprinterdriftliftswift i stormed away

we melted all the frost
the sun and i
and our puddle grew into an ocean
and so the sun found sky and i found boat because neither of us could swim
and it felt good to be a-float
but the crew was screwy
they amassed and assailed
they decked me
i was bound nowhere good with thick rope and grim expressions
and heaved with haste into an urgent sea
i cried out until my lungs were shipwrecked airballoons and the seasalt mined my eyes to the veins
i was about to lose my change
just
when
i felt a poke poke poke from the sea sea sea and the fish started talking to me
the eels taught me how to swim like a snake and the whales taught me how to hold my breath and breathe through my brain and the seaweed came forward for me to feed
the waves showed me how to break fast on which sand
and
splashdashcrashbreakrakewake i waved goodbye

i wokeupon the desert parched and piping
the sun-bleached sandbox shook my hand and looked me as straight in the eye as it could and neither of us could stop shaking
an informal heating i just couldn't glare myself away from
i swelter and melter i gasp and i choke but the grasp can't be broke
and there's no sign of shelter
it welcomed me to itself and it showed me around pointing out grains one-by-one
and displaying how the heat made the sand look like ponds and rivers
even though there wasn't water forever
it went on about how far it went on for
and my skin began to wrinkle and crinkle
and my eyes went dry but i felt
a
gust
of
wind
on my skin
then it hurry-came and the dust and the heat got all turned-out-oh
and as the madland brushed off to fetch its distorted dunes
the wind and i went
and
blewgrewflewastrayawayhooray i deserted

couldn't careless

The house is cold tango whenever we lift the subject
So put a knife through the window and a hand on your mouth
And your hat in your hand
The clouds come close to killing after sun'sdown
With their hands in their hair
Both the willy-nilly and the willing avoid the rain's pound
Keep it a secret from the stairs and the attic
Or what have it
Some small sum of sound
The mice cry boldsong and tip-tap tall canes
And profane tails belie full bellies
The kitchen-in-a-basket halts a hand-off to your bend
Where a lovin' oven trying patience pends
So put a bookcase in your jacket and stuff it
Put up your mitts and tough it out, scout
Keep your buttons from drowning
Set your facers to frowning
And hold your own hand this time 'round

handshoes & horsegrenades

• Hows of warship, yesterday,
• The sun was shrunk and also shrining.
• Bananafish spoke, "Tell us, pray,
• "Give us a sliver'd silver twining.
• "Far be we to disappoint
• "We're sure as shores that queensland hemp'll.
• "By the shorn did we anoint
• "A bulletpoint through the right temple."