Dave Short

You perverts deem her a virgin vision of

stroking. I see not the value

of the pen-stroke, the prick-stroke.

Tongue wagging, drool-sprayed hands

grope for her, but she resists.

The beauty there is lost

in the grunts and pants

about the ankles of chest-thumpers

grasping in vain for a feel on the page.

Tender flesh, the picture, cannot be felt

or change through the screen of paper.

But lasciviously you persist: a reproduction

borne of hedonism, not love.

My — what a beauty she was.

Form — flawless. Heart — golden. Prose — beautiful.

Still. But now she reposes on a

wrinkled page, yellowed with age and sweat and your strain,

(your stain), genesis of spilled seed.

You holf her aloft only to size her up,

a self-serving firehose of recycled sputum

directed at her. Sticky soak-rags pale

next to the pale skin provoking the stroke, the coax.

The rag rests in the trashcan,

the other secreted away for another go-round,

chaste against the deepest probles of your thrusting

pen. Is it repoduction? Yes and no.

Facsimile, a child scribbling, masturbation,

you bastard, you pseudofucker,

you scholar.

A pattern of explosions, like Zeus doing his laundry,
and a festive drop of a thick-again, thin-again hat:
these, and a million more. When shutters pull
apart to reveal a pearly white something, or
when a mop of fine silk is contained,
I am content.

Stars explode across the sky,
until they are outmaneuvered by the sun,
casting back the cold emptiness from whence it came.
Shadows crawl to life, and a din of dark-damped sounds
emerges from nowhere.
The earth pirouettes in an intricate
number with her partners, choreographed by a madman
with an eye for numbers but not logic.
Somewhere across the globe all manner of
creatures peer at one another before rushing to
(and through) their days, until they retire.
Shadows cry out as their souls stretch to infinity,
and crickets chirp a symphony of questions.

All that remains of our scurrying brothers
is a series of headlamps, foolishly mimicking
their parents – the stars.

Foolish. It’s all so foolish when you
and I are here, and the rest
equates to a crossword best left
unfinished.

Squirrel

Peril surrounds him, yet he

soldiers on snuffling for nuts,

the grass the cattails

about him. He pushes past

brown fallen crinkly leaves,

casting them aside without a second thought.

He finds a treasure more valuable than

entire caches of gold

and stuffs it in his mouth.

A challenger the size of a twelve-story building

lumbers too close. He throws his

tail into the air, making a question mark of it.

Then, as the leviathan clomps closer

our tiny friend arcs his body with

his leaps, darts up a tree, peers

from a branch — eyes so wide for being so small –

and chitters

a challenge.

His foolish opponent

sees his peril and walks on.

he chitters again, satisfied he’s vanquished his foe,

then munches on a nut.

Broadway & Pattee

Black pavement pushes

back the neon blues

and oranges of words I

won’t read. Streetlights

stand above all, haloed in their

silent foggy vigil.

The rain danced in my

nose, soft sounds of

drizzling and sloshing

cool my ears.

The bite of my coffee

recalls a pull on my

tongue, the taste of

your lips. My fingertips

press inward,

water warming, the fuzz

inside my pockets alive.

Haiku

Holy dark of morn

awaiting the sun’s first glimpse.

The world swings open.

Elegy For Summer
A fragment

The last tired vestige of summer lingers

In the dwindling fires of the sun.

Naked trees stretch out their bony fingers

To our star, as if begging, “Please, give some.”

But he is now a miser, giving none.

The last leaves begin to quake, start to shake,

In a spiraling plunge they come undone.

As they melt into the ground one cannot mistake

The head of winter, the constant seasonal ache.

The world above my eyes begins to fade

Into an endless expanse of dire gray,

A cold, barren world of empty sights made

Of the ghosts of all that has passed away.

With the withering sky soon wanes the day.

The world becomes a silent film, of black

And white, a monchromatic boquet.

The world in vision is defined by a lack,

The year unwinding, made up in the end of slack.

Bob Dylan Biography

Bob Dylan biography. Between

pages 23 & 24:

a receipt.

Due back May 3, 2001.

on the back, a ballpoint

scrawl: “Don’t forget—”

the slip is ripped, what was not

to be forgot

is.

Justin leads some other children — faceless now and

nameless with time — in a game of

tag. “One, two three… not it!”

“Not it!”

“Not it!”