Burning Word

smoke pourin' out of his mouth
a fuckin' chimney puff of smoke comin' out of his mouth
he's holdin' the handle of a brush just like a baby
just like a baby yellow bird just like his handle
just like the baby yellow bird outside my window
his hand is wrapped around the bird and he is naked
he is dancing round the bird and he is smiling
he is moving around the bird and he is slapping the body of the bird onto the wall of the basement
the basement wall is covered now with slimy yellow bird
and he's still smokin' like a train that passes by and doesn't notice
he is beating up the bird and he is smiling like the sun

There's something about morning
in the rough-hands world
of western PA,
the worn flannel shirts,
faded collar blue denim,
rusted fender four by fours,
crackle-paint frame houses,
steel diners,
and the furious pounding
of an Aerosmith tune,
blasting from a car radio
at furnace fire August 10 a.m.
outside shiny silver donut shop
in the shadow of Pittsburgh,
somewhere between the rivers,
where summer lush mountains
melt into the blackness of oil,
glowing open hearth crimson and
bright spitting neon yellow
sloshing massive black ladles,
thick melted ore flooded furnace
forging fresh slag

the night before martin luther king
was gunned down in memphis
he came screaming
out of a dream.

the instant outside roanoke
that his plane smacked a mountain
was the first time since holtzwihr
that audie murphy wasn't afraid.

audie and martin met in heaven and
walked Paradise apart
from listening angels,
the ears of God.

what they whispered
to each other
was not put down
into the book of ages...

they swapped medals,
and their laughter echoed
through heaven and earth,
to hell and back.

You in this sepia-toned photograph,
with your arms wide open in greeting,
with your hands held up in surrender.

Edge of highway, corner of house,
hint of something better. A body of water,
maybe, or the back of someone else's
head.

A gun pulled from inside the
killer's heart, and he says Mr. Lennon,
then smiles, then pulls the trigger.

No.

I've gotten ahead of myself here.

I'm ten years old and in a boat with
my father and two of his friends, and the
engine has died. The tide is going out,
and the only sound is the pull of the
ocean.

The only heat is the

it happens this way sometimes,
where the children die from the poison that
seeps up from underground

you vote for one person or the other,
and the children die, and it's not war but
business, and both words are actually just
different ways of saying profit

listen

new computers will be given to
the schools as gifts

the sharpened teeth of priests will snap
the bones of young boys in two

what you need to believe in are
rabid dogs
speaking w/ the voices of humans

what we do is use the word political
to describe what we don't want to
talk about and then, of course,

10,...9,...wait.
...a designated paranormal landing.

sulking to a greater distant hips up to her chin she's in she's not the same she's not in the same person lost all perspective simmering over an unfoiling iodine draining coffin.

soldiers out back in sheep's clothing asking for a second politely ignorant attaching.

I just plain paper thin slow down word.

first which does it really matter not one more minute scatters an obvious I'll skip, the aching for your mother read well.

where was I was dreaming cloaked tenuous hovering wait I'm getting something in there it is again no not yet there it's coming in oh it has unsoundless mind awake now or think.

I was with my momma when I saw her. She had dark hair and pretty brown eyes, the shade of brown I wished Crayola would make --the kind of brown that was more like me. I didn't get to stare at them for that long, because she closed her eyes. She looked like the women in the Broadway posters that were pasted on either side of her.
She had been standing in the station for a while, because she was there when we got there. She kept looking and waiting and looking and waiting. Finally, her body gave out on her and she slumped against the wall. She looked tired, but not like my momma's type of tired; the girl still looked hopeful. She did this funny thing with her fingers. She would place one finger on her lips and pull her finger all the way down her face. I figured she was probably measuring the lower half of her face with each of her fingers.