Email Marketing

Accelerate me, automate me

make my process into a linear money-making machine

Send out emails and bring in cash

wouldn't it be great 

if business worked like that

Street Dreams

I'm gonna focus on the right side of the sunlight

Ripped up the sky and came down in a beam

Hit the ground running chasing the night

Sideways dance toward the street dreams

Smartphones el train rhythm of the rails

Please me beg for change on the cement

I fell to my knees wishing on the holy grail

To pick up the penny on the ground I got bent

Made off with the car wheel turn turn

Demons in the blood of her her

Man strong cigarette tip burn burn

smoke made fog in the mirror mirror (mer mer)

The tempest that old school magic

Save the Spades and the Queen

It's just me, it's just a habit

talking facts on street dreams

talking facts on street dreams

That cafe closed down it's empty now

No more coffee and cream

Got me tied up to the chair

mesmerized 

All my care laid bare

Hypnotized

All these lines I memorized

I plaguerized

White Matter

Rogers Park is covered in snow, the roads are clear

but her lawns and gardens are full of this white matter.

The ice is partially melted but the slush is collecting

right where you need to step to cross the road.

I used to walk to Indian Boundary Park

thinking of the days of old

how the Fox River and another point made a triangle on a map

and this imaginary line was where

fate was recalled

I used to walk to Albion Beach and let the waves hit my face

the wind slapped me like I was its bitch

and the lifeguards would yell to not go there

I would walk instead in a little circle

imagining myself a philosopher in Rome

under the canopy of this stone-henge-like architecture

someone built

with a gravel walking path

I then would go to the beach

and try to look content

as I sat in the hot sun with a book

Then I went swimming

in the giant waves

that picked me up

and carried me.

Watching Too Much YouTube

I slayed my finger, cut it off, just like Johnny and Amber Heard

wrote it out in blood for all to see 

the wrongs we'd done

as the crowds watched

For the hippies in Australia I had no poison left

I'd just as soon rip off my arm as give you my house

I'd reach for you but you're not there

a dream of what used to be 

lights dim,

Curtain.

Superstition

I recalled today that my purpose here is to try different styles. So here goes...

The mirror has stripped me

of my superstition

which was rooted in my brain

and cloaked me in its protection

Every move I made used to be

lined up with distant stars

and now here I am unmasked 

from that Geometry

Now I just bleed--

like everyone else. 

Something to Live For

Social media is an odd public diary

full of our successes and whims

our late night takeout 

and early morning musings

Like a hamster in a wheel I spun for years

not asking myself why

Now I dream in peace

with a plain white coffee cup

my morning news

taken with silence

still drawing your face on my hand

with Sharpie

still running my hand across the water

still believing somewhere that 

pain is real

and love is something

to live for

Different Stories

The story of North and South America

told on the knee of a woman

at a sugar plantation

is different then the story

told in the homes where they use the sugar

for cookies

The story told in the jungles of Brazil

and the deserts of New Mexico

on the reservation

is a different story

than the one told in the shiny halls

of an Ivy League School

It's different than the story at the socialist meeting

down on 9th avenue behind the bar

It's different than the factory workers

talking over coffee on lunch

It's different than

the mob boss

and the white collar stock exchange

it's different than that.

Bastions

Sugar coated numb bunnies

Running rough on rum and tumbleweed fires

Grace cloud freedom

Political mud bath dip stick

checking oil on the Middle East Texas tanker

Foam Mint water

Gratitude longitude rude dude cowboy

Indian smothering ashes of 

Hum Drum America

African lady patterns bright loud

accordion screeching car tires

New Orleans nightfall

That Part

I will never understand that part of myself

the bones in my hand that strummed the guitar of nonsense

the sound waves hitting my ears and rumbling 

to my toes

The Release of Control

I danced a menace in a Tokyo brothel

a seance meant to induce sleep

the rural men of the country held rulers to my legs

makeshift submarines to plunge into the total darkness

Menthol cigarettes and ruby drops of blood

on the cold tile floor of the art museum

it turns out the statue

was just a prop

and all that dances around here is flies

exquisite corpse? hardly

the Dia de las Muertos in Pilsen brings forth

every forgotten memory

stuck to the sides of my mind like salt in a cave

I crave every footstep

in the hallway in the stairs

in the bank vault

in the pressure

and the release

of control

Osage Orange

My Dad gave me an osage orange

this is so refreshing to write about

because it really happened

I gave him a rug for the bathroom floor which my mom gave to me and I gave to him

sometimes I feel like we are all Indians and Pilgrims

making trades around Thanksgiving

My Dad has a maroon pickup truck

and he has cut down trees

My Mom has a lot of artificial plants, which we have a plastic tub to put them in.

Life is grand.