Tuesday, March 29, 2011

    The second hand swings low, gliding past the number six, I watch as it begins to climb upward past the seven. Silence buzzes loudly in my ears and the pressure in my chest tightens, squeezing me like a locked seatbelt; it's not painful, just uncomfortable, claustrophobic.
    I unzip my jacket and loosen my pants hoping it will help me relax, but it doesn't. The room feels stuffy, I'd open a window but there are none. I'd kill for a breeze right now, or for somebody to tell me I'll be fine, that I'm going to make it.
    The second hand passes the twelve and the minute hand ticks forward, I don't see the movement, I'm too far away, but I know that it moved.
     The second hand briefly disappears in the glare of the florescent lights reflecting off the clock's plastic lens. In this moment when the second hand has vanished, time stops, even the humming silence seems to fade to a trickle. Then, I cant help but wonder, if I were offered a road map of my life, would I take it? Would I study the roads and paths and rest stops and points of interest? Or would I kindly refuse and savor the view and happy surprises along the way?
    The second hand and the silence return and a delicate breeze curls through the windowless room.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Remember When I Saw Something Funny?

A bubble in a tipping bottle,
bulging my esophagus,
bursting off the tip
of my tongue.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Countdown

Ten- Heat waves blur scarecrow trees on the horizon.
Nine- The ordinary sky turns a muddled gray.
Eight- Sharp shadows cut mountainsides.
Seven- Fire burns on dirty windows.
Six- Stars blink like old candles.
Five- A white sun plummets.
Four- Night orb rockets up.
Three- Dark an envelope.
Two- Moon a stamp.
One- All is still.
An owl cries in the bitter black.

Monday, February 28, 2011

The West Is Dead

Everything I write is inspired by things in my everyday life. This poem was inspired by a friend of mine, Will, who started a clothing company called The West Is Dead. The cloths and cause are awesome. Check out this website, www.thewestisdead.com



The West Is Dead

O desert grass, how do you thrive?
Why do the clouds yield so much drink in these badlands?
There is no dust, no tumbleweeds, only prairie and skulls.
This is where the buffalo roamed.
Under a cosmic sky, they were the lifeblood,
The heartbeat.
There is no colossal body to tame
this eternal grassland.
They were wild.
Energy embodied.
Life.
It was genocide that fertilized this desolate earth.
Shriveled seeds swallow bison blood.
Not even shadows remain.
Without them
The west is dead.








Monday, February 14, 2011

Stale Love

Writing a sonnet is hard. This is my first attempt and maybe my last. It's valentines day, I'll let you decide whether or not this sonnet is about the kind of love we celebrate on every feb 14. Its up to your own interpretation. Ha.




Stale Love

Thrust upward steel gray cliffs dusted with snow.
Sprawl wide like some primordial jawbone.
Hills roll and buck, and newspaper trees grow.
Beasts cry, a wolf emits its mournful moan.

Stars blink like countless eyes, moon frowns beside.
A lonely wind roams through a wilderness,
Skeletal and baron, mist forming spectral guides,
carefully ushering people, joyful yet oblivious.

A porcelain ribcage rots, flesh hanging like
Old leather, forgotten and thrown away.
 Each violent word is a splintered spike.
Hanging by a stale rope, watching it fray.  

Your companionship is a gray wasteland,
Eerie, cruel, ever depressing, and bland. 







Monday, February 7, 2011

A Simple Savior

For me the spikes were pounded.
Through flesh and muscle
splintering bone.
For me a God falls on his face
to shed his sacred blood.
For me he died stretched on a tree
his arms spread wide
inviting me.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Fallen King

Crowds of people pass my perch.
Eyes blind to my poor condition.
Hurrying to the office, restaurants and church.
Shoes scrape and heels clap, transporting owners on unknown missions.

Nobody speaks to me. I’m a disease. A beast.
A businessman passes too close; I sniff at his closed fist.
He swings, denying me of a necessary feast.
My tail tucks and I run off my perch. I wont be missed.

Night splotches the sky like spilled ink.
In an alley I lay, eyes folding closed.
I’m back. Where I am king. They love me without a blink.
Eager hands approach my nose

Dripping food and life and care.
They have a name for me, a yard, a bed.
I am a king with hair brushed and fair.
But they left me. To them I’m dead.

I crawl from my bed of cardboard and trash.
Alone. I shake my matted coat with a lurch.
I am a fallen king, a beast, covered in ash.
Crowds of people pass my perch
Eyes blind. 


Saturday, January 22, 2011





Newspaper trees splashed with autumn yellow. Give way to cathedral cliffs, steel gray. Above. Mountains. A primordial canine jaw bone.





:0

RED

I had no idea
that it would end
the way it did.

But you were already
implanted. a brother.
Dressed in wool.

When I finally realized
what you were doing
my eyes burned the color
of used dental floss

You apologized and begged
while I nodded and shook.
You left with a smile.

I watched you go and
as you turned
all I saw was a silhouette
of Judas's kiss

Monday, January 17, 2011

the taste of salt


Salt and sinew
Sand and skin

Formerly saviors
Crumble to dust

Petrified bones
Fragments of feathers

Flocks expire
Forgotten, never found

Crystallized phonebooks
Souls of shoes

Ebbing foam
And spiral jetties    

Thursday, January 13, 2011

White Blood

A crown of thorns
an ancient tree
five spikes
drops of blood
No
buckets of blood
squeezing from microscopic holes
Tears
buckets of tears
incomprehensible pain
Godlike suffering
the cry of the forsaken
a plea for forgiveness
but a selfless plea
angry faces scrunch
disgusted
warm spit mingles with pure blood
White blood

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

It was a friend that talked me into building the AR 15. I don't know why I actually did it, besides the fact that they look hard core and I guess every guy secretly, or not so secretly, wants their own machine gun. The process of building the AR 15 was fairly easy and cheap. Spaced out over a few months I purchased one piece at a time and in what seemed like no time at all I was sitting with my friend in his living room, his two year old bouncing off the walls and his wife rolling her eyes at our hushed voices and excited chatter as we delicately assembled our guns. Like I said, building the AR 15 was my friends idea, so technically he saved my life.
Head down, I raised one hand against the sharp wind and fat flakes of snow that had just begun to fall; the AR 15 swaddled in a borrowed blanket. Brushing the snow from the windows of the Rodeo I gently placed my bundle in the back seat. The suspension squeaked as I sat in the drivers seat and turned the key. As the engine flared to life the radio began to murmur quietly and lukewarm air drifted through the vents feeling frigid on my face and bare hands. The amount of snow that had fallen since I'd arrived at my friends was alarming. The parked cars looked like igloos built on the bank of a frozen river.
As the car began to heat up I began to notice something peculiar. Lights were on in almost every home that I passed, which in itself isn't strange, but there seemed to be a lot of activity within each house; people running here and there, a man screaming at a woman, two dogs barking ferociously at a young boy who seemed unconcerned by their flashing teeth. Suddenly a car swerved from behind me and took off up the road going way too fast for the road conditions, which were just white. The car didn't have its lights on despite the late hour; it disappeared quickly from view.
As I approached the much busier street ahead of me I was immediately aware of flashing red and blue lights reflecting off of the still falling snow. Cautiously, I pulled onto the street and slowly drove past what appeared to be a car accident involving only one car. Two police cars pinned the car against the curb. I peered through the windshield, whippers flipping side to side, and saw that there was no one in sight, no policemen, no scared civilian. I figured the incident must have turned into a chase on foot and drove on.
I don't live far from my friend, but it was apparent that not many people were handling their vehicles in the snow as well as I was, there were quite a few cars that had driven off the road and it seemed as though the drivers were satisfied to wait out the storm in the warmth of their cars because not a one of them was out trying to get their cars unstuck. Thank heaven for four wheel drive. I pulled onto my street and parked the car at the curb. Before going inside I made certain to lift the windshield wipers to prevent them from being buried in the night. My feet crunched slightly in the fresh snow and shivered as I hauled my weapon to the front door, I couldn't blame those people for staying in their cars, it was bitter cold.
Twenty minutes later I was on the couch wearing only a pair of boxers and slippers, sipping a cup of hot cocoa and gazing fondly at the AR 15 on my coffee table, the furnace pumping warm air from the vent beside me.  The TV was on, but I wasn't watching, I was thinking about cleaning the gun, just a once over before bed. That was when the lights went out, the TV screen went black and all was silent.
I just sat for a moment. Listening. I heard nothing. Snow seemed to do that, muffling the noise of car tires and shutting doors. I felt my way to the closet and fumbled for a blanket and flash light. Then I heard the first scream. It was a woman's scream, one that tears the throat and curdles blood. The most terrifying thing about the scream was how it cut off midstream, before the screamer could finish, leaving a quiet tension vibrating in the air, hanging just above my head. A chill ripped up my spine, prickling the hair on my neck; I breathed out, realizing that I'd been holding my breath.
I was standing stock still, my hand still stretched into the closet for the flashlight, I was waiting, waiting for some sign that the scream had been that of a girl attending a party at a neighbor's house or just a typical teenage girl scream; those were common enough. Like shattering glass a sign came, only it wasn't the sign I'd been hoping for. Another scream rent the still night beyond my windows and doors followed by a snarling yell; the snarl sounded like nothing I'd heard before. It sounded human, only, not.
I lunged for the coffee table and pulled the AR into my grip and stubbled down the stairs. It was pitch black in the basement, but luckily what I sought was close at hand; ammo. Only a few days ago I'd bought hundreds of rounds at the gun show. Conveniently, they were stashed in a backpack. I pulled a fully loaded banana clip from the bag and zipped it shut then slang the bag over my shoulder. I rammed the clip in and cocked the gun, fear sank from me like melting wax. I was prepared. I was unstoppable.
There was a crash and a thump from upstairs, my breath caught as I strained my ears for any sound. Another sickening snarl drifted down the stairs and in that instant I was sure my heart would stop beating from fear. Pure, prickling, terror filled my every cell. Something was in my house.
Almost instinctually I leveled my weapon. Heavy footsteps thumped above me accompanied by what had to be sniffing, something was trying to follow my sent. Adrenaline surged through my veins mingling with the terror to give me just enough nerve to inch my way up the stairs, one step at a time. On the landing I stopped and exhaled slowly and quietly in an attempt to steal myself for what I was about to do. Centimeter by centimeter I leaned forward until only half of one eye was peaking around the door frame. I caught myself from gasping in fright as I saw it, or saw him. There in the cold light seeping from the broken window stood the hunched figure of a man. He was standing next to the closet, only he was not rummaging through its contents like I'd hope he would be. He was facing me. I couldn't see his eyes but I knew he was looking at me. He wore a dress pants and a collard shirt that was torn and drenched in glistening liquid. He tilted his head back just slightly and sniffed the air. Suddenly the man bolted forward with inhuman speed, snarling with rage. I pulled the trigger long enough to unload six earsplitting rounds and the man dropped quickly. He was dead. He had to be. The body was still, lifeless. At that moment I realized a throaty yell was still streaming through my mouth. I shut my teeth with a snap and lowered my gun.
Someone had to have heard that. If not the yelling and snarling, I was sure the entire neighborhood had heard the gunfire. Giving the body a wide birth I walked to the window and the sight that met my eyes nearly pulled another yell from my throat. Bodies in the street. A house on fire. A car folded around a tree with the driver hanging limply from the door. A snarling woman chasing a screaming child. I looked to the left, two people, a man and what looked like a teenage girl were sniffing at my front door. I shrank back into the darkness and listened as they began pounding against the dead-bolted door, throwing their bodies into it with sickening, bone-breaking force.  In my hast to get away from the door I stumbled over the dead man's body and cried out. The thumps at the door increased.
I ran down the hall and into the bathroom locking the door behind me. I fumbled with the lock on the window and tore the blinds from the seal. Standing on the toilet I contemplated the best way to climb from the window into the backyard. Suddenly the front door burst open followed by those disgusting snarls. I tossed the ammo bag through the window and dove after it.
In any normal circumstance a bellyflop into snow in only my underwear would have been met with yells and cursing, but this was no ordinary circumstance. I sprang to bare feet, both slippers had lost themselves during the flight to the bathroom, and leveled the AR 15.  Snow bit at my toes and fat flakes melted on contact with my back and shoulders. The air had been cold earlier and then I had been dressed for it, the cold now was almost paralyzing. I scanned the wintery yard. The man and girl were working on the bathroom door. It wouldn't hold as long as the last. A flash of movement caught my eye near the end of my property, I'd built the tall wooden fence only a few months ago, there was a figure scrambling over it. The figure landed spryly on its feet and sniffed the air. I tensed as it moved from the shadows into the whitish light. My neighbor who was in his mid-eighties snarled at the sight of me and began to sprint toward me, his stringy white hair flapping behind him. I hit him square in the forehead with a single round and he slid on his face to my feet. The bathroom door continued to thud behind me. Screams and snarls filled the air accompanied by sirens and horns. I had on only a pair of boxers and the snow showed no sign of letting up. I adjusted the backpack on my shoulders and raised the AR 15. It was going to be a long night.      

Thursday, January 6, 2011

What is a dove wrangler?

What is a Dove Wrangler? A question many people would ask me if they knew that I was the Dovewrangler, but nobody does know, thankfully. A dovewrangler is exactly what it purports to be, an individual who wrangles (lassos) doves or other small fowl. I'm almost positive that I created the profession. I've never actually been paid for bagging birds and in fact I've never actually caught a bird in a lasso, but its a really intriguing idea.  Magicians, wedding planners and all people who cant afford cell phones would be lining up to rent a few creatures from my flock. After all how else could you text a friend without a cell phone? By messenger pigeon of course. Yes, i would be rolling in the dough and swimming in gold coins like Scrooge McDuck. Which brings up another idea, ducks! Sure ducks are good to eat, I personally think the meat is a little too greasy, but what else does the duck have to offer? Is there good money in ducks? Think about that. Don't get me started on quails, I've had my eye out for an efficient covey for years.
These are the ramblings of a dovewrangler, join me on my blogging quest as I seek to discover the millions of tiny wonders the world and everyday life has to offer.