MINIMUS OPUS

1997
I was hiding behind a chair
Cutting off all my hair
My father asked me
If I was a retard
I replied honestly
I didn’t know
Childhood is
A population of no’s
In a field of

the child inside of me
has become comfortable
with the heat of the months
as they melt down
like hot wax then build one
on top of the other
into a mountain
in silence

has started to

King of the Road

naked as death
begging on the highway

I calibrate the instrument
of my breastplate to lead me
back to you

I never once saw a dog chase a bone
but I never knew a dog that

I often confuse the dead horses
for trees. I say things like termites

care about the weather, or dark stars
will always find their way to empty

rooms. Anyway, the dead horses are real,        

Carrot Flowers

We are toward somewhere in the first sentence. There is June & us or us or June because that’s what’s left of it. I walk like a walk with a walk on the table. The walk is finding

Neck Tattoo

Your neck tattoo spoke to me but I needed a
translator. Needed a nail gun, a barn wall to
respond to  your forward  advances.  After a
night together,  I woke to find  that your

real / unreal

last night i had a dream         
            that my teeth fell
out all in a row.
                       i woke with them still
                                                 

Vapor of Breath

All hail Michigan Dogman. All
slobber and standing seven feet
tall, Michigan Dogman sounds

howls like he’s missing a muffler
yet we’re never quite sure if it was
him or the

the babies are most dangerous because
            they have not learned how to control their venom
                        the way we make the same decisions over and over and over

i am your man

tall stranger man
you have sung a lot of songs 
you fall in love often
and maybe
you lose some things along the way
but everything is all right
and none of this matters

I have torn up the boy whose baseball
You are signing again.
He was beautiful,
As you are, Brooks Robinson,
As you lean your name back, a lefty’s autograph,
Your glove hand, the one that

It's their first practice in good spring weather,
not only not raining, not cold, but full of light.

good game
good game
good game

Blessed be the millwrights on the open hearth that awaited him; the nurses and elevator operators; secretaries; plumbers; electricians

The solitude. In the summer, I dine. On hot dogs. And fast balls. Go Dodgers!

I joined the crowd and bought an XL.

1. What company made the gum drops called Fancy Nancies after the famous Beantown slugger duo?  

And everyone in section ten is standing

Everyone was welcome. No one was cut 
in this league.

I practically worship, use
to fill an empty life.

Evan, in a cheap hotel room...

"Whipped" and "Kansas"

In the dark before sleep...

"Poetry," "Cleaning the House," and "Leaving Again"

"Friendship & Other Unknowable Places" and "Diagnosis at the Walk-in Clinic"