Good Penmanship is a Sign of a Soiled Mind: Don't Spit on the Welcome Mat

She looked into my eyes and told me she saw a fearsome yet melancholy blob that ached for a cookie and a caress. I told her she dripped hot sauce on her breasts.

"Cassie, which pony do you want to ride?" "The coral stallion with the cracked blue eye!" "Give Daddy the light saber, and I'll make the pony fly!" "Higher than the sky, Daddy?" "As high as you can fly!" four years ago, a wish to a fountain was made for a daughter, but he threw in a dime because he knew some day he'd need the quarter.

dancing a waltz tame and corruptible outpouring of feeling before the continuation of dreaming improvisationally

For Halloween 1982, I was Lumberjack E.T. I had a plastic mask, Dad’s purple and black flannel shirt, Grandpa’s red suspenders and construction boots. Mom’s contribution was the rejection of my request to carry a dulled axe. After devoting my kindergarten years to the daily consumption of paste, she would no longer tolerate, nor would her weak, weak heart endure, any more soberly admonitory and perfectly creased notes of concern from my teachers. Grandma suggested I carry a whisk. I went to school with the E.T. mask, the shirt, the suspenders, the boots, and the whisk, prepared to change into my costume after lunch for the Halloween Parade. I couldn’t stop thinking about the whisk, how inappropriate it seemed. Then this thought would be scolded by the Other Powerful, More Powerful Thought: Mom’s Weak, Weak Heart. Shame, shame, shame on me. After lunch, I changed into my costume and discovered the eyeholes on the mask were too small. I used the classroo...

this poem will never be finished her grace, gentle to calm an outstretched and anxious palm, quiets all storm of memory, her own tide awash a melody of opaque recognition that, by definition, is a hazy spell no slumber can break, no number of make-believe apparitions, to wrap her heart in such toughness as to clear the lane of her progress from debris, her grace unto me is the pinpoint of light that steadies and readies my own night as it descends and unbends, her grace, gentle and calm.

dawn comes with a stomach ache. I clear the calendar with my sleeve. I step in cat pee. winter rime? You're jogging early. They'll ground the balloons but not Stan and Ollie. That's the only meat I get on this holiday. I eat beef, I eat saints, I eat seers, I eat further. My plate was never full; I need tomatoes, so I ate nothing but homicidal side-eye from Mom. "Whatever it is, I'm against it." When you turn seven, you need to be exposed to Groucho Marx. That's my best Thanksgiving memory: one sleepless night and one PBS marathon of Marx Brothers movies. My father stayed up late to watch and record Jimmy Cagney movies, one of which was accidentally taped over to record Wrestlemania IV. Men on a mission find men on a mission. The courthouse where I work has several occupancies. The offices hold volumes of state appellate reports and mouse and insect glue traps; The deadlier are the legal tomes. When Santa turns his sleigh in...

I. I sold the glock and bought a crib. The glock 48 was perfect! So's my daughter...so far. II. Who ordered the Creole interpreter? Marshal, ask the clerk and steal  some kisses from his bowl.  We won't need the Creole for tomorrow, but the bowl's nearly empty. Court's not really in session without a full bowl of Hershey's Kisses. I know my rights. Mr. State Attorney? Affirmative . III. Mr. State Attorney, all my cases are ready. Isn't that marvelous? (Dad noises) IV. Defendant's name is Oval, but the guy's shaped like a pear. And he works for Amazon. Another one from Amazon! Why do all the meth-heads and parole violators work for Amazon? Amazon's cleaning up the neighborhood . V. I've dreamed it. So it was. It was a fingersnap, hit the music and go. I was boozin' on Mars. Bring the liquor, bring the gravity, make it happen. Chase a Monster with a shot of Crystal Palace, no more worries. ...

(poet's preface: I wanted to entitle this one, 'Cagesack',  but I opted for the soundbite, clear-as-mud 'Dark Decisions' because I figured it would be preferred by Nicholas and John. Other potential titles: 'Rick Astley and the Overnight Recovery' and 'Robert Shaw and His Resting Shark Face'.) CUSACK: you're going on a journey with a heat-seeking panther riding a Yamaha-1 bending time cross-country at 180 miles per hour.  The panther is denigrated as a one-sided perfectionist, but I don't  need to tell you the not-so-feel-goods are so terrifically wrong.  CAGE: I believe the one-sided perfectionist in search  of employment needs tutelage because he is a dope.  True greatness is terrifying; the constant is the ant.  CUSACK: And the ants are signing the checks, you fabulists. Last night, God turned the garden hose on the Olympians, soaking togas and diluting drinks, but he couldn't extinguish the action at...

the chapters are prolonged the proofreading adumbrated I often cleaned the birthday cake knife I did my best (but you needed x-ray glasses to notice) Madame Curie,   play your defensible metaphors be immodest be Picasso be the other Frozen movie, trapped on a ski lift above the undying Sonny Liston is not getting up Sonny Liston is staying down the speakerphone has increased both the divorce rate and the amputation rate anyone who touches a decent girl buys the farm. the melody modulates the mob we all fail at geometry (ego, try me). why does the Angel of Death wear so much make-up just to watch a Packers game? you don’t expect Willem Dafoe. you never expect Willem Dafoe, and I don’t accept Willem Dafoe as a guest of Kelly& Ryan, more like the sly diabetic mastermind taking hostage the show, the slyer producer in the wings thinking: spin-off. hey…yellow aurora… how are you, really ?

The two best things that ever could have happened are us…and us again.

As the dean handed the Bachelor’s Degree to me, Matt and Amy’s wedding invitation in my pocket began to warm, and I scratched my thigh awkwardly as I returned to my seat, cold perspiration falling down my nose onto my Mr. Potato Head tie, and I thought: “I could sure use those weekend passes to the Martian colonies right about now, Mr. Bradbury; overnight mail, if you please.” (I also remembered I needed to buy a present – how much money can I earn in the two days between graduation and Matt and Amy’s wedding?— I should’ve listened to my maternal grandmother when she was trying to teach me to crochet; I could’ve made shimmery periwinkle fallout suits) On the day of the wedding, I couldn’t remember the location of my shoe polish (I was in Pennsylvania , and the polish was in New Jersey ). The scuffs on the fronts of the shoes likely occurred when I tripped up the concrete steps of the reception hall at Aunt Mary Pat’s wedding in Mamaroneck...

Don't gravitate; levitate. Scare the physicists.

in the sandbox, what were dreams? Mike Mulligan & his Steam Shovel. The Silver Star of Deadwood City . The Meddling Kid who Unwrapped the Mummy. today the monkey bars, tomorrow the world. big talk from little people. couldn’t reach the steering wheel without the Yellow Pages. couldn’t pay for Chicken McNuggets without Grandpa’s pocket wages. a little further down the lane, the marks on the wall continue their slow advance towards the ceiling. with an aura of invincibility (in overdrive), we plot and nauseate and agitate once-calm waters. Johnny Rebel holding four aces, betting our clams on the dolphin races. sometimes dreams could overwhelm, smash you. leering. hurtful. dreams born and died as we slipped on the banana peels that recent generations have callously dropped on the floor. sources of potassium settling the score. a time of great vanquishing. torment. exorcism. Glass Joe is down. dreams put on crutches. hobbling. crippled...

no, I cannot answer your questions of “how are you?”, not at this time. I am busy learning How to Die in Oregon , How to Be a Smart Consumer in New Jersey , How to Throw Away the Bad Apples and keep the porch rockers a-creaking in the crossmaze of ocular incrimination and thoughtful fly-swatting all before “American Idol” begins. I am a crusty yak, and I must scritch, screech, snort, bang-bang-bang, Billy, make ‘em dance. this lesson is sponsored by Jarmusch & Young, practitioners of epigram as confessed: the growl of the ill-fondled scripture is more vociferous from the storyteller’s end of the Winchester . composed by chambers of reticence, palms scorched by agonized horizon, this icicle of man aligns his zeroes and his misdemeanors, stacked like hair salon Redbooks that insinuate tones of Diet Rite acid rock, the onomatopoeia of in-a-gadda-da-vida, and Ursa Major’s celestial Valhalla , oh, and if you are being summoned by a plank that nee...

Really, the story’s very simple, a blood sample from an epic: Rodman was the pointman. He dropped the axe into the leaves and woke the wildcat: “is this where the white women are at?” Monday morning’s when I refine my keyboard strokes. the vein in my brain goes beep beep beep beep beep beep KAPOW! smithereens of Mozart, please take a bow, for this cockfight’s colder than the chamber of commerce; Paul Newman is cooler than the hot flowing java in that volcano movie. The Pink Wedge in Trivial Pursuit tapped out too quickly; send me the bill. Where are genies hanging out nowadays? in VCRs and answering machines? in the revenant retail rummage of Korvettes and Bamberger’s? it’s not happening, it’s not coincidental, it’s not in the textbooks under “Parliamentary Incidental”. it’s your first real, true, hard look at the bait on the hook. Man, dig that death wiggle, that death dance in the spotlight, in the streetlamp, live feed of war, rocket point of view. ...

fasten your seatbelts, aqua-kids, and prepare for unbridled power and my machete to create an unforgettable quinceañera. step 1: Russian Super Tuberculosis. step 2: licking things to claim them as your own. step 3: profit. take a knee. the chimpanzees have evolved their own rain forest rendition of the Quesadilla Explosion salad from Chili’s. I am tempted to believe that, in the future, we will pay for goods and services with tasteful sideboob. Gentle query as you await your croissant doughnut manifesto: how many have worked so arduously towards the refurbishment of the Cleveland Indians only to have the war paint seven-second-delayed by Child Protective Services? read all about it: David Blaine’s most difficult stunt as-of-late was his escape from eight ounces of sweet Mexican black tar heroin. what can he do about the flying sex snakes in my Happy Meal? next time on Dr. Phil: how to talk to your child about the Hamburglar. Miley Cyrus strugg...

headless animal crackers resemble letters of the Hebrew alphabet. A decapitated zebra is a chet, and a lion without a mane is a dethroned tav. look closely, fraidy-cat, it gets worse: the Great Old Ones subsist in the menagerie, dormant hibernation in a sandwich bag, and your nescient extrication into the mid-day is a call for the darkening of skies, the aperture’s purgation, the roll call of the uncuddly nasties and the cord yank of the death-choke machine crank ‘er up. it’s not a good day to run out of cold cuts. I should’ve put the deli on speed dial. I’d better make the egg cream last.

It took me 25 minutes to get to work today, Mom. Why? Ramadan. Oh…sorry. Ramadan isn’t the problem. It’s the route. I got to Fuji at 8:35 and walked in here at 9:02. That first cop was ridiculous. One at a time. Who ever heard of such a thing? Here’s your eyeliner. Well, thank God. Or Allah or Jehovah or whatever. Now my scrambled eggs are cold.

On May 19, 1780, a Canadian conflagration brought a dark day over New England . The moon was red, and the cinders collided with the clouds to cloak the shoreline from Portland to Rockland . Although an empyrean upheaval was the prognosis for the nimbus that challenged negation (a run in your stockings? Yeah, that really doesn’t matter…), the inevitable clarity of blue-skied happiness pacified the congregation. Inevitability (noun): a convulsive John Belushi adorned in a Hartford Whalers jersey releasing an eructation (he’d probably headlock me until I change that word to belch) from the bouncer’s square at the entrance of CBGB in 1979 that reverberates backwards through the temporal helix 200 years to eradicate the pseudo-religious calamity. His is the raised fist response of the righteous and the raucous, from black sky to Black Flag. On May 19, 2015, the ghosts of Belushi and his Whalers are with me in my recumbence as Rod Serling shakes and stirs his la...

save anybody. reach out your hand and see what connects. the water’s bound to become more turbulent. the planet will thank you later. draw chalk outlines around the living. they pass by you in force fields. think about the marketing. one out of five finds a halo in a dumpster. when you’re due for an upgrade, honk the horn. whistle for Lassie. cheer for the joy of indie cinema and the baggies of dried fruit. your intuition is a thoroughbred. if you find a lightswitch in an Aztec pyramid, set the bait. perhaps the Energizer Bunny wore rose-colored glasses, perhaps it’s not that big of a deal. perhaps the love pangs are an aria of regret. don’t be a dumbass. throw a ball into the cup and make him drink. I’ll call for your chariot.