About 3

Checker cabs,

red and white panel

van, Sam Flax,

Buicks and

Fords and

VWs and trucks

race north,

race south.

"He can lie

his fucking ass off,

I don't care."

Hands in

jacket pockets,

waiting for light.

Pisces

They worried about

her. She would say, 

"What town isn't?"

They worried.

For the ones who need,

for the ones who need four

walls,

she worried.

She's bound,

some said, wound 

up, hooked

on high speed races

and downcast faces

and

mislaid places,

attitudinal traces.

Her vision would

soar

no higher than

money, yearly

doses of it would 

soar.

"I met a young

executive who served

as the stereotype

of the long lost scatological 

banana overripe,

metaphysical."

Susanne

In this big mean land,

in this world of icy stares, 

you opened a door,

then disappeared:

a reflection, suddenly

angled.

Susanne.

Susanne.

Such a lovely sound: Susanne.

Blood at a crawl,

eyes fill and roll and

in that whipping late-winter wind,

in that raw raging rain,

you stooped, mid-sentence,

to raise a sidewalk

worm, tossing to soft 

grass.

Susanne.

Susanne.

Such a lovely sound: Susanne.

Seemingly

After closing,

she walked.

The hotel, several

long blocks away.

Shaking her head.

Seemingly

unaware of crazed

panes.

Seemingly

unaware of broken

bottles.

Glint under

lamp. Crunch

under step.

Shaking her head.

"Of course."

Black ice.

"You were both wrong."

Number 9

Here's my illustration for the latest Sensitive Skin cover, a magazine edited by Bernard Meisler, devoted to art, literature and music. The issue includes Fred Frith, Samuel Delaney, John Lurie, Marty Thau, Larissa Shmailo, Susan Scutti, Doug Rice and many more.

Details at their site, order from Amazon.

You can do worse in this world, pussy cat!

Dark December

There's a house

on the fractured

horizon.

A light is on

in the night,

one light.

Much is perfect,

even the chair,

I told them.

I will prove it,

when we get there,

I told them.

(All memories are manufactured.)

They needed to know.

Louring clouds: slate, snow,

char, crow,

gray mustard, dark

December.

Escape the brazen

bronze bazar. Enter

reedy hut, lower

the drape.

Ghastly Giant

Cast in perpetual night,

nervous insects venerate

dime-size leathery hate.

Rake rust: bit of bone found,

sound 

amongst hoary dust.

Come to accurate

conclusion
and move along.