What Uncle Billy Said

To understand anything actually true,
my uncle said, manhattan to his lips.
you have to look at this world crooked.
Car crash and the windshield's broke.

Drowning in big surf. Blind in fog or
rain on the road beyond wiper capactiy.
When tears take over from a sad movie.
As if everything's here to get in the way.

When you see something, but hardly,
so you're sure it's not the whole thing,
and all words fail to describe it,
that's the truth. You see it crooked,

tell it crooked, hear it crooked.
When it's straight and clear and simple
and easy to grasp as a hammer or rock,
that's the lies that have built up over eons,

or a new liar reaching for your wallet,
maybe, or just a guy trying to get attention.
"Uncle Billy, where'd you learn all that?"
"On a jungle floor, blood in my eyes.

"Not my blood."

OM

I was a breath of air,
and then, and then, and then.

T. James Rowe

Story is when the doctor slapped me, I slapped him back. Name? T. James Rowe, and all the women I ever met can tell you what the T stands for. Cried loud at police cars. Tantrums in every bank. Crapped in any church. Never played Army with the others. No Cowboys and Indians. I was Tarzan, and I liked Africa. Animal kingdon ruled by iions, elephants. Natives just raising their families. Until European gangsters. Vine to vine, rope to rope, I flew. Naked. Screamed from my kidneys. Hiked atop backyard fences forever. Parents in red shock—baboon ass. But I knew I could wait them out. Everyone tucks Tarzan in. Sent me to a kids' asylum. Only place comfortable me. Those kids taught me to me. Cool-eyed gangster on release. Eyes tooled for casing the joint. 12. Patience would be a problem. Walked longside schoolyard fence, burned my skin, they tell you what to do in hell. But work. Could save. Me. Paper boy. Lawnmower. Sprinkler ditches. Pool guy. Pool contractor. Son of a bitch. Anyways, the T is for Truth.

The President Is Deranged—165,000 Dead So Far

66, and nothing to do.

Not since I was 12

and could hunt treasure,

buried, but not without clues 

hourly on KRLA that summer.

Or read and re-read the Magic catalog

I got to order anything I wanted by mail.

Hope...hope...hope...

nothing.

Song After Song After Song

Music roams off,
comes back again.

Music roams off,
comes back again.

She whispered that she can't talk now but she wanted to talk to me some more. She's with this guy who thinks he's all that, but he's not, and she's got to make a life change, but not tonight. Gives me her phone number, and tells me to never call her past 5 o'clock.

Music roams off,
etc.

Another verse, monotony and hypnosis.

I think she thinks I'm one of a kind because of what I said about green deer and dolphins and how all politics is enchantment, and really everything else, and she has a face for European museum walls and a body for jungle wear.

Music, etceteras to the bridge, which is the surprise, which alone is enough to feel chains loosening from around our shoulders on Houdini nights.

And the bridge goes something like this: I waited days, then called her at 9 o'clock, and she said she told me not to call before 5 o'clock, and I said I don't give a shit, to be honest, and she said she can't talk right now, and I asked if she was married, and she said no, but she thinks she's about to get engaged any day now, you son of a bitch, I told you not to call now, and she hung up.

Blah, blah, blah, etc. etc.

No, that's not right. We need known melodies and beats as a safe place to live.

I called right back and said I'm only going to do this one time. Write down my number. Next phone call is up to you. 555-5309.

I knew she'd call me. You knew.

Music roams off,
comes back again.

Music roams off,
comes back again.

It turns out I was the guy who made her realize she needed to marry that guy because I wasn't really going anywhere. And I got back the ocean and the moon and the stars, and movie images of mustangs and Indians, and cars I wanted to own one day, and speeches I'd make, and shock waves I'd send. It's like I waved goodbye to a beautiful woman, happy, on the back of a ferry heading to Sing Sing. Lovely kisses, and cold toast goodbyes!

I'm OK in such an unregulated world
because of dreams, and plans, and a glass of wine or two.

I'm OK in such an unregulated world
because of dreams, and plans, and a glass of wine or two.

Alive

What do you reckon
keeps a merchant ship alive,
the sailors all gone to shore?
Rats? The unlucky in the brig?
Seagulls? Old seafaring fables?
The few left to stand watch?
Rhymthic lapping of seawater?
Wind clawing away at the flags?
The ship's own love of lighthouses?
Or just all that potential, Honolulu
to Siam, San Diego to Taiwan?
How we could leave this life so
quickly if it allowed us onboard,
where we'd sneak off, down below,
down into the dark, as stowaways.
The vast all of somewhere else?
How it's sure to sail in our daydream or
sleep, and we may ask what it means,
but we'll never know, don't really care.
So much is there and not there,
the thing here at dock,
the thing gone to sea, and
when we describe it to friends,
we leave most everything out,
our failure with things that float.

Alien

Energy and air surround it in water,

as it ripples through this world,

daylight and darkness all the same,
as if death could be transparent.

Points its ray gun anywhere it wants.

Waits on words like new mornings,

sure to drive the Earthlings wild.

"Please, can you love a broken man

where the moon once jumped around 

this dreamy kid's head. Got branchwater

and bourbon in the back of a limo

to let bright country kiss the city dark,

and that's all mine, from the holler

to the Italian couch in payment

demanded for a gambling debt.

My balcony, admiral on deck, 

on the mobile, to order that building

to spell out your name in all its glass,

so I could say 'choice' and mean it,

like we do back on my old planet."

Bullets, ha! It laughed as it loaded

this fresh batch of talk into the chamber.