lawns buzz with
suburbanites & their
crisscross plots mixed
with soiled sob stories,
the world a reality show
run by ink-mad producers
hell-bent on canned applause
& percentage points & meanwhile
next door Kenny admires a beer can
from the deck of a Cub Cadet
finally enjoying the privileged
life of a bastard with no regrets
since his wife left with some
schmo around the block
& the kid across the way
with the skater girlfriend
has no idea what awaits
ten or fifteen years down
the road but isn’t that the
province of youth & the
price we pay for hope?

crossing missouri
in three hours via
interstate 70 from
the driver’s seat
is a blurred ribbon
of steel & asphalt
slicing between
meth & reality

one month
of posting
these scribbles
& notes in
the ether &
all I have to
show for it
is a few extra
stray electrons

microwave eggs
don’t taste like
powdered eggs
which is good
I guess because
why would you
want to eat
hot powder?

summer breeze:
skin sweats beneath
mosquito hover

go with the cliché
for father’s day:
grill, tie, blood test

the corpse
is always
the life of
the party
at a funeral

hello again it’s me
that head cold you
thought had long
since said goodbye
never to make its way
back to this part
of the country again
but surprise! here I am
at the doorstep of your
nasal cavity begging for
a place to crash for a few
days—mind if I crash on
the couch & hey do you
still stock the fridge with
that great frozen pizza?

the drone
dropped
its payload
high above
the Afghan
desert, an
algorithm
calculating who
lives or dies
beneath
the all-seeing
eyes of
satellites
swapping bad
jokes in binary,
a reddit post
gone wild
disrupting
the work
of our
robot
overlords:
see what
terror sets
in motion,
a goldberg
machine of
planes &
towers &
fear & anger
& platoons
& isn’t that
the way it goes
until someone
finally says enough
& funny how
it’s never
who you expect
& of course
all this tech
was supposed
to make
our lives
so much
softer &
I’m still waiting
for the jetpack
& hovercraft
the 1950s
promised &
we are oh so
close thanks
to this never-
ending war
but now we
look for the
robots delivering
pizza, packages
from Amazon,
& bombs from
Uncle Sam &
we’re all guilty
of something
worth dying for
so look out:
the skies
are watching

it’s thursday
which of
course means
we made it
through the
first part
of another
shitty week
so only two
more days
to go until
we get to
do it again
but this time
with feeling

the screen
bleary-blurry
before breakfast
I stumble through
news of war &
rumors of war
while my cat
licks & ponders
his ass &
isn’t this
the plight
of our
existence

lemon is not
the cure for
everything
from wax
build-up to
sore throats
to sink de-
greaser but
damn if it
doesn’t make
sugar water
taste damn good

the sky this evening
was something else
a rutabaga perhaps
or an elephant
trumpeting joy
in pink swaths or
candy floss sticky
sweet & empty
yet satisfying
as all midwestern
things can be