off fm 359 between hempstead and monaville at dusk.

hi. sorry i’m short of breath

sorry for the dirt in my nails

see i just came up from the earth

had to dig around deep for this one

but i found it, thank god.

lord knows i can’t write this shit myself.

 

this one was

off fm 359 between hempstead and monaville at dusk.

 

i knelt on the grass head down toward a house called mecca

that i still see when i dream

that im a kid again

and didn’t stop there. no.

i pushed my hands into the land and planted

myself in the soil warm like wedding cake

up to my wrists

i felt the face of a raincloud. its skin was dry.

felt a dustdevil cry

a hurricane breathe in gasping afraid

an earthquake pounding out beats on the floor of california

and a boy called earth spinning the globe like a disney teacup ride laughing

while others waited in fault lines a mile long

he told me stories

lying like little kids lie like its his job

to fertilize the forests with the bullshit he spits

said

“those streets up there ain’t concrete mister

they are paved with years

from farm to market to death rattle

ringing on past towns

drawin county lines with regolith

 

and people dont know

down that road in corpus

lazarus was born and raised

age five dying over and over and coming back

laughin more everytime

scared the hell outta of his momma

and played freeze tag with michaelangelo

where mike made his first statues out of schoolmates

down the line he took the chisel to himself and chipped away.

he prefers to work with people.

wants a lover to shape with his hands

someone that would carve him back

and chip away his excess.

he too longs for home

and says we all hail from corpus

even if we dont.

 

and people don’t know

before helen of troy

there was helen of troy, texas

who sang the blues

hiding bluebonnets in her mouth

blowin out petals with every verse

and looked most beautiful

with dirt on her hands.

heroes vied for her love

jefferson johnson lipscomb hurt and house

not by fighting and dying but learning her music

and every battle in troy she played out back

riding a horse fast as she fucking can.

and every battle in troy           

pushed her out of that nowhere town

to university then graduate school then legend.

she invented penicillin

and goes by doctor helen of troy, texas. ph d.

thank you.

 

and people don’t know

i grew up with father time

his real name is tim

and father time’s father mance

fixes up grandfather clocks down in navasota

and when tim sleeps through his alarm

rolling back years in bed

mance put father time in time out

and starts settin all clocks back

its seven thirty now

wait

six thirty

wait

yesterday

last year

1492

in a post christian age

he prays it will help us think

counter-clock-wise again.”

 

like i said that kid earth is full of shit.

so i left but he came with.

 

and up to my neck i heard a mountain range sigh

it spoke the same language as blue whales in fact the two are cousins

and it pulled out empty pockets like hoover flags and cried

“we got no money for you, mister.

us fault lines are broke as a joke.

just leave us alone.”

and “no no no” i said “the air outside makes me cough and my head feel light.

they paved highways under the english channel

but still don’t build billboards pointing down, not yet.”

“ok,” they said, “come on in but take of them boots

this mud’s ages old

so don’t track nothing new

if you stain it with clean then you get down and muddy it up again

spotless spots of sterile don’t come out of dirt that easy.”

 

those rocky mountains seemed rough around the edges so i left

and let little earth tag along

 

down deeper there’s old bones

in the shape of music notes

where you hear america whisper

into the ground’s ear, which we call

the grand canyon.

earth says to watch what you say

it hears everything

and like all kids, he’s sensitive

he can tell the hardness of your heart by how hard you step.

so im through with shoes

from here on out its bare feet for me

‘cause the ground thinks we all have rubber souls

(I didn’t argue about it. Wasn’t sure I’d win that one.)

 

Just went further down

and cooked s’mores in the fires of the earth’s core

and swapped ghost stories with mayan gods

 

when they fell asleep

i went back up and out the same way i came in

except i was a child again

at that age when we all spoke to the earth and

dug holes in sandboxes to gossip.

i stood and that kid earth yelled up to me one last thing.

he said

 

texas is yours.

you are in her hands.

this land is the bare back of helen

stretching out.

she lets you walk across her skin

and laughs when you think you are lost

‘cause youre not.

never.

(she is all over you.)

 

a bride you call the south spanning acres

she sleeps away the day, her form impressed in bedsheetrock

and the night, a blanket she clings to.

 

you are married to this land and she to you and she loves you.

til death don’t you part and on and on after that.

little mary calls me boo-boo ‘cause she can’t say william.

i am 'boo-boo'.

christened by my younger sister when she was two.

you see saints speak through sisters in all that gibberish.

 

my sister says no, boo-boo, “heaven” is a hole-in-the-wall mexican diner

with burritos that make believers

tostadas that the new testament testifies to

and queso you’d swear was the blood of christ.

angels eat at rancho grande in rosenberg, texas

that, like all of rosenberg filed for chapter seven seven seven

something like seven years ago.

after hours god cooks over a hot stove called hell

mops the floor with lightning bolts

wipes the sweat from his head with a cloud

wrings it out on the ground

he sets a yellow sign outside on the flooding streets

that reads “cuidado, piso mojado.”

 

before doing janitor work for the earth he used to fix wristwatches but

nowadays times are tough

he can’t break off enough to do redeeming even part-time

so salvation takes another place in rancho grande,

on the backburner.

he sells grace online ‘cause we wouldn’t take it for free and

passes out truth like flyers

that we fold in 4’s and stick in our back pockets and forget its there.

he prints pages of scripture with sudoko on the other side

‘cause otherwise we might glance but won’t read

and every sheet says that

human beings are flyers

(that would rather walk than try on secondhand wings.)

human beings believe

(only if it doesn’t mean reading seeing and/or thinking about things.)

human beings have hours upon hours to turn back the clock

(and instead live by its hands and kill time on our time off

writing tic-tac-toe epitaphs,

little games played out on its grave.)

 

in a stairwell haven outside all that rain inside making small talk

i made a covenant with god who told me that

the sky is not falling, i promise.

 

in a stairwell haven inside outside of the flood and all that rain and making small talk

i met the lord. i introduced myself to my own maker, said

my name is billy.

and bill and william and sometimes i think i’m all three all mashed up into one

and god said “i know. me too,

i still can’t think like a trinity

its hard enough to be myself by myself to know my own self but i know you already.”

god graced me one of them flyers of his.

this one had a poem on the other side.

he told me to read it aloud and out loud

speak slow

sing like a proud father singing his child to sleep

another word another note.

here it goes.

 

i am boo-boo.

christened by my younger sister when she was two.

you see, saints speak through sisters in all that gibberish.

 

i am boo-boo a skyscraper scraping the skies for another self

‘cause i dont love this self.

ive tried and tried and

still sink into my sheets and down

i fall under the bedframe holdin my breath staying dead still

in a game of hide and seek with william and billy and bill

and pray like hell they don’t find me.

i don’t get along with them.

 

i am boo-boo boo-hooing hiding yet again under this bed.

yes, i found a good spot this time and im not coming out never ever

not in a million years

down here i made imaginary friends with my fears and family history.

both reek of booze.

 

i am boo-boo

and my soul is not for sale.

i divvied it up and each piece is for free

for whoever needs it more than me.

 

i am boo-boo.

only name I say

when i call what’s left of my soul

back home when i know

i am whole again.

one three all and none.

 

here comes the rain.

bring on the flood.

Cool. it works. heh.

Testing out the text message posting deal.

i have my share of calluses, thank you (revised).

last ones undergone some changes. redacting, adding, switch it change it rearrange it and such.

---

im goin where

people write songs

by fallin off the sides of skyscrapers

hands out and

lettin the wind whistle on

the tips of their fingers

where they hear

a hammond organ humming gospel hymns

and pedal point prayers

and Pollocks appear

on the gray street where they hit.

and i think most songs are about jesus.

 

im goin where

people watch earthquakes from the inside out

in red plush theatre seats

and previews of movies that never show

at least not here in this backwoods town

“Final Judgement 3”

coming out Nigh whenever that is,

heard it got bad reviews

“No thanks Nostradamus!”

they say sippin more soda than they should

and danglin twizzlers

spinnin like twisters

where there is sugar inside every storm.

 

im goin where

they keep the imagination in a toolbox

with hope and a tape measure and screwdriver

and every doodle they every doodled in the fifth grade.

tell phillip to tell allen they can keep their own head

theyll need em

and you have your own.

where people build buildings on a page

and the homeless draw themselves houses

with a couple crayons on a napkin

and it comes to be

and you can draw anything at all that

you can at least sorta outline

so long as you have the common sense

to color outside the lines

where the gold

in your family crest

really shines.

even castles fit on page.

 

im goin where

people aren’t people but

guitar strings tuned by God.

nickel-wound

pulled taut

they know that

soon as they think they may snap

they resonate.

there is sound.

they sing under stress.

 

im goin where

every church is a barn

you vaguely know from your childhood

and coming back

is a sacrament.

it was your granpa’s.

said it’s red with his own blood and sweat.

“us old timers dont build with our head, we use our hands”.

got calluses on his fingers on rusty strings

on a bent guitar in the feed room

feeding us an old sermon.

there’s only one he knows.

singing about jesus in his heart.

and in the silo

all his kids and kids’ kids play

leaping down into the hay

and tossing up the straw

and they call that “baptism”

as long as you laugh loud enough.

 

im goin where

people catch fire but don’t burn up.

they catch fire and hold it

and sometimes toss it around

and call each other flamethrowers.

where St. Augustine goes knocking

door to door

with an old baseball mit

asking anyone, anyone at all for a game of catch

when he thinks his heart’s all burnt out.

he still smokes cant kick the habit

but not in the way you think,

tends a flame inside his ribs

and blows out the fumes in the shape of a cross.

if youre not up for catch

or forgot your mit or matches

or youd rather not play with fire,

pour poor Augustine some coffee.

he says one cup will do.

it’s freezing outside

he just wants to feel warm.

 

im goin where

blind lemon jefferson aint so blind.

he learned to see by strumming with his thumb

and uses his guitar pick like a third eye.

he too sings about jesus

and goes by deacon bates.

 

im goin where

a barbed-wire fence is not a fence

its the tail of a great dragon

that towers over us all

filling her lungs with air

ready to sigh out

and the people run for their lives

and Augustine stands and waits

arms out eyes open ready

he just wants to feel warm.

 

im going where

they steal the steering wheels from cars

and take them

everywhere so they feel

like theyre going somewhere always

like theyre moving

even when theyre not.

in fact theyre happy standin

in place

most hours of the day.

and in the night they dance.

 

im going where doctors prescribe two hours

of shutting your eyes as hard as you fucking can

twice a day,

so you at last see that darkness for what it is -

a canvas

and every sob is a scene

and we all cry paint.

where a boy born blind sing whole chords at a time

holdin’ C add 9 for days that rhymes

with all that orange in the sky

where God peels the sun with a knife he calls Son

squeezes out love for you to drink the Dawn.

drink up.

you’ll need vitamins W E A R E A L L L O V E and D to make it through act five-hundred.

all the stage is a world

we built our own sunset and sewed our costumes called skin

we stand on solar flares stage left

this show’s Sol’d out and after tonight we’ll be stars

dark falls like a curtain and the boy walks home singing

still holding his notes and stretching them out for Miles

Round Midnight he rolls his music out like

tape measure to find how far he can scream

when he screams out the dark we call night up into the sky

and he laughs,

he knows this ribbon won’t reach, not even to the Moon

where craters resonate with old radio waves of old radio shows

that he hears in bed

his favorite, The Adventures of Superman,

tonight’s episode, “Lois Lane Goes Missing”

and listens like a Superman

he shoots laser beams from his eyes that people mistake for shooting stars

and calls that seeing

and says we should get our own eyes checked,

his work fine.

 

where people steal the dustcovers off turntables

and keep them on their heads and on their hearts

and when they lift them up

they are children again.

where people play old records

inside their chests and hear

heartbeat melodies over

decibels of dissonance of discharging rifles and dishwashers,

and glasses shattering in the heat inside

and people carry the shards in their skin

and love them.

in fact they show them like badges of honor

and keep dust on their ribs and its ok.

We all keep decks inside our chests

it's just that some of us forgot it's there but it is.

Some us forgot love isn't a diamond stone you hold so let go,

it's a sound you hear so listen.

Some of us forgot our hearts aren't set in place, they spin sometimes

if you play the right songs.

Let the vinyl scratch awhile and I will too, I swear.

I too hear my heart ticking like the little hand of a watch sometimes

and I can't believe this thing still works

but it does.

 

come mornin im good as gone.

im goin home.