There Will Be Blood

what is the optimum time?
the window we fly through

for rockets, it's a break in the weather
for runners, it's just as the gun sounds
and still, rockets explode
while most runners fail

ever walk through a woods, and
run out of trail?
nothing but thorns, bristle and branch

we try to detour, go around
but that's when the compass spins crazy
it's when we get lost
and our passage is waylayed

I've set my watch, checked the barometer
letting the seconds pass into days
and the days into gray whiskers

I've studied the terrain
charted a course
but storms fell trees overnight
and thorn bushes creep insidiously

my time has never come
my wilderness trail knows
neither groom nor marker, and
my whiskers have gone gray

the day grows long
and still the rain falls heavy
my tent is dry, sleeping bag warm
but i need to move on
now knowing
shelter is a trap, not a home

i cast my watch to the river
my face, to the blistering hail
whether by crazy mad dash
through black grabbing thicket
or desperate crawl over rock

i must move on
make my way without detour
smash the window i can't open
leaving my fear in the tent
where it belongs

they say
timing is everything
but still
rockets explode and runners fail

apprehension is the ghost
of past failure
death, the ghost's feast
i glance to my wind-blown walls
i step into the wilderness, knowing
for certain
there will be blood

but isn't blood
the proof of life?

life is fair

if life is fair,
george jones would be countin daisies
and tammy would be smelling em

life is fair

yeah, right
tell that to the young mom
with breast cancer
while the sixty year old perv
stalks her daughter

let's tell Bangladesh, too
and tell them
why fat americans in fat cars
bitch

and maybe the Latino mom
who just "self-deported"
herself to hell
leaving her children in the void

life is what it is
rigged
yep, the fix is in
i got mine
you get yours
and the peaceful hare
is consumed by the violent wolf

count your blessings
and share them
weep for those
that have none to offer
and bury your arrogance
with the guilt you deny

The Forgotten Boy

i've been layin block
my shirt sleeves rolled up
a camel dancing on my lips
slop! slap! creeesh!
hurry it up, boy!
bring me another

i've been with the boys, layin pipe
damn dirty shovel work
my old nasty work boots
married to ten pounds of red clay

and i've been out a loggin
fellin the great giants
all steel toed and carhartted
-look out down the line boys!
there she goes!

and all this while
through all this sweat
i've been rememberin

that little boy in a lazy swimmin hole
his bicycle leanin the five and dime
those old wooden boards with
bent nails leadin up a tree
and that little girl, he
might've kissed

now somewhere here, on
this dirty oil rig, beneath
the muscles and callous grime
somewhere in the deep
i think maybe, he
still exists
and calls to me

soliloquy

(concerned) you look tired, would you like a brandy?
(sneer) why? is that what old people drink to keep warm?
(shrug) perhaps. are you old?
(shrug) you keep saying i am
(raised eyebrows) do i? (sips)
(frowns and looks away) yes, all the time
(head cocks) do you feel old?
(eyes lower sadly) does it matter?
(leans forward studiously) i'm not sure, were you happier in your youth?
(eyes narrow) i was happily ignorant
(nods) and now you're miserably aware
(drinks) something like that
(sits back) would you like me to leave, so you can be ignorant?
(laughs) yes, and send your young sister to keep me warm
(crosses leg) then would you be young?
(closes eyes) only for a moment
(claps knees) then i'll stay
(puts face in hands) of course you will.

The Warning

there's a change coming
a big change
in my life

somethins gonna break
i'm tellin ya

the hawk,
sweet brother hawk
gave his life
just to warn me

Emergence

she seemed such a push over
and too often, she was
she was pushed over here
pushed over there
pushed aside
pushed into subjection

she never wore it well
and perhaps, it was this
unnoticed
that was her true brilliance
i should have noticed
behind the beauty of her eyes

this child of a woman
wasted in the chase
a back drop to brutality

she kept her victories small
her treasure hidden
as orphans often do in self defense
and in so doing
she rose the ranks
and buried the orphan
nearly forgetting

but it was the orphan,
after all,
who knew how to fight
and had known the farce
of respectability
and protocol

i saw this in her, loved her for it
and waited
for the butterfly to emerge
and the wildflowers
to sing her praise

have you ever seen a butterfly emerge?
me neither
but one day she grew wings
from a damn fine set of balls
and finally, now and forever
the wildflowers sing her praise
as so do i, and all the orphans
yet cocooned in cower and fright

i hope one day,
to know her fragrance as she lights on by
and against my face, upon my chest,
i hope to know her soft wings
that taught me of her brilliance
but first, I must grow the balls
that spawn the wings

Clyde Columbus

I know you've heard of Christopher Columbus, but have you ever heard of his second cousin, Clyde, the lesser Columbus? It was his idea, ya know.
Clyde (his friends called him CC) was older than Chris and a real dreamer.
He would smoke opium with the Asian girls down at the red dragon massage parlor and get visions, crazy ones.
Not ones as crazy or ambitious as a new trade route to the East indies, CC couldn't give a rat's ass how his shit arrived or from where. But he would get these crazy dreams about a new world where cows were black, furry and enormous. And men were sitting in tents smoking stuff while the women did all the work.
"Wow, Hookie! Did you see that?" he would say to the naked girl playing with his balls while he
peered into his exhaled smoke. Her name was really Hukio but Clyde was never good with Asian
names and again, didn't give a rat's ass. Hookie would look up, smile and nod playfully not having a clue what he said, but anytime he said anything she just squeezed his balls tighter and this seemed to make him happy. All in all it was a fine relationship.
The more he smoked, the more he saw. A land of white sand beaches, lush meadows, grand mountains.
But he never knew where this new world was until one day, Hookie's friend Tamiko gave him some magic mushrooms before sitting her pretty little flat tush upon his face. It was then, finally and all at once that CC unlocked the mystery. As Teeko's (as he called her) juices flowed over his course beard, onto his tongue, and mingled with the mushroom sauce, Clyde s eyes flew open wide and there in her dark bush, he could see the map.
"Teeko! For Christ's sake, could you sit still?" CC mumbled into her clit. "I'm trying to read."
The frantic girl smiled, nodded and began to grind even faster, figuring, what else could he be asking for.
No matter, Clyde had seen it. The new world was directly West, straight across the ocean.
For the first-and only time in Clyde's life, he felt the tingle of ambition. It sprouted almost immediately into determination and as his mind began to fire up the rusty gears, his cock fell limp. No matter, he had seen the new world, and it was filled with half naked dark haired babes who could bring it back to life and they were just waiting for a king to discover them.
The first thing CC had to do was gain respectability so he could gain a following and sponsorship.
This wouldn't be easy as he had already established quite a reputation far short of respectability, and though he knew he needed a wife everyone admired, he settled for the scrawny snaggle toothed wench
with the crooked nose who worked down at Juan's diner. It wouldn't be perfect but it would be fast and easy as even Juan grimaced in anguish when he looked at her.
Next, he subscribed to National Geographic, which was quite thin back then, and studied how these loony bastards thought and spoke.
He then invented the New World Foundation and got every bum, thief and prostitute he knew to join, knowing quantity was as good as quality in a pinch. Clyde not only had connections in high places through his drug and prostitution rings, but he also was quite a con artist. He once misplaced an entire ship of Asian whores, then convinced the shipper to compensate him for a non-delivery.
He began to dress well, if not quirky, and to speak as though he knew what he was saying.
It all only took four years and there he was at the harbor saying goodbye to all the lords and Noblemen who had given him their money and seemed quite happy to see it sail off to God knows where.
He kissed his wife, Trudy, on the forehead as he couldn't stand to kiss her face and released the sails to the wind.
Clyde's flagship was the Queen Hookie, and three sister ships tagged along, the Pinto Bean, the Santa Bertha and the Moroccan Lady.
Having not a clue just how far it was across the sea, Clyde stocked enough food to feed his band of miscreants for six months. He could have gone longer but he stocked the Pinto Bean and Bertha with mostly whiskey and rum.
It may have helped if he actually had seamen for a crew instead of the criminals of every variety he convinced the local judge to release to his care. And it may have helped if he had a plan beyond a map he had seen emblazoned on Teeko's cunt while he was in a psychedelic state, but sail on they did.
It's hard to say where all they went those first three months as only one man knew how to read a sextant and he never saw a sober moment once land was out of sight.
But they hit storms somewhere where it was warm, floated in circles for weeks in a place without wind,
had a three week party on some rock Clyde dubbed The island of CC, faced a dozen drunken mutinies,
and all fell ill as they had no doctor and all the wrong food.
But none of this mattered, at least for awhile.
Clyde had seen a vision, which grew roots and sprouted like kudzu over the men who knew that , for them, it was either paradise or back to the hoosegow.
It's amazing what a man can do with a vision, hope, and two ships stuffed full of liquor.
But after the four month mark, when the battered ships lumbered along perilously low on food and nearly out of rum, Clyde felt his first tinge of doubt, which was a seed for fear and it sprouted and spread like Sargasso over his deep inebriation..
Though he still had the support of most of the crew who faced long sentences back in a Spanish dungeon if they failed, for Clyde, it was too late. Fear has a way; it slumbers, growing strength while hope is yet high, then when doubt starts asking questions that hope can't answer, fear pounces like a cat on a three-legged mouse.
Clyde made a strong bloody mary one morning with the last of the vodka and paced before the desk where a chart would be if there had been charts back then. Then he staggered to the mast and climbed as high as he could before pointing the spy glass West.
Nothing.
And in fact, other than the Isle of CC, they hadn't seen land in four months and they had about a month's worth of food left and enough whiskey for one good party.
Clyde looked down at the ship and the mongrels rolling bones, he then looked at the smaller sister ships that wagged like a retarded dog's tail and all the fleas hanging on. He thought now of failure also, and of the yarns he would have to spin upon their return to the people he had convinced to bet on him.
But you see, none of these thoughts mattered squat, the decision had been made when the first question doubt asked could not be answered by hope. That's how it works.
Clyde called the ships together, and now had to con a men whom he had conned into success, back into failure. And with that, The Queen Hookie and her footmen turned around.
What isn't well known is that they had stopped just sixty miles short of what is now the Carolina Coast.
Just one more day, maybe two if the wind was lazy, and they would have known success.
On the way back, they got lost not having a clue about Ben Franklin's gulf current that flowed North undercover.
The Pinto Bean was swallowed in a fog off St. John's. The Bertha was lost in a gale two weeks later taking all hands to the bottom, and the Moroccan lady sailed off on purpose having the last of the rum and enough of Clyde's psychedelic vision. Most likely they landed somewhere in Ireland and blended in.
The Hookie somehow managed to right itself now that the navigator had gone sober by necessity and floundered back to Spain eight months after leaving with a crew of five emaciated skeletons that longed for a warm safe dungeon.
Seeming that Clyde had suffered enough, his investors shrugged like it was just a bad night for poker, and moved on with their frivolous lives.
Clyde went back into the quiet life of opium dealer and pimp, divorced his hideous wife and the story of his journey was mostly forgotten except for the time his cousin Chris came by to see him and
CC relayed the whole bizarre fiasco to him during a drunken orgy.
But Chris, being a Columbus, actually believed in his tale of the vision. But he also knew that no one would invest in such a crazy scheme again, so, being a Columbus, he conned new investors into a more lucrative adventure. A new trade route to to the East indies.
Being a true Columbus, there were the usual fuck-ups and he turned around once before finally meandering his way to something he had no idea what to do with.
That's how life works, that's how worlds are discovered and history rewritten.
Who knows how Clyde would've made out with the people his idiot cousin called Indians.
Who knows how what is now America would've turned out.
We'll forever be sixty miles short of finding out.