Small Town

I wonder if they know
that this is a nice town

Coffee on the canal
the owls posting pics
from last nights lightening

Most towns bleed rust
iron being too aware of itself

We are near enough here
to where the stars get drunk
and skinny dip

A few molehills north
the fish dance with ghosts

My drink is poured into the hillside
where the cicadas speak song to Venus

but my wagon ails, and my kite is still sunk
into the most pleasant stretch of sky
that ever crept alongside a nice town

Fuck you lightbaron. This poem is so good I feel like I've been jerking off on a ouija board and putting the random letters where they fall.

My Hometown

along the streets
the shophouses
languid in the morning
sunbathed with yellow lights

a whistling boy
open up the first door
a sundry shop
tended by a sleepy man

a coffee shop
with a lovely waitress
all of twenty one
smiling at all

a boy kisses his mother
and he walks to school
while a little girl
points at a falling leaf

a single car passes
followed by awed eyes
my hometown
nestled among the gentle hills.

THis small gets boring
All you ever hear
is how people are murdered
You would rather stay out and party
then Come home and fight with your parents
This small town is full of everything
but nothing like dirt

Rumors

Word gets out so fast
Before you can come up with a lie
Big mouths speak what they speculate
Never mind to whether they're wrong or right

Time passes by this town
And people will still remember and talk
Judge a sinner for all their life
On some drunken night that was their downfall

Hollywood scandals ain't got nothing on this
Everyone's grandmother and uncle knows
In this small-minded busybody town
Where so many generations of bullshit grow

All very good!

The treasure is hidden
from the slight streets to the future dreams
of expanding and leaving. We live close to each other,
we know each others secrets, you hold my hand in January and you are gone again by Spring.
You secrete me and I you in this enclosed environment, in this tight space.
The gold, that is this place, is buried
under the cement and cobbles. Spectators could not see it, visitors could not find it.
Here on these lanes with peculiar names, here offers you everything -
the breathing, the sleeping, the roofs and the playground, the darkness and the lifting, the lighting and the wetting.
From this room, in this house, on this street, by this harbour, with this smell I have everything.
Enough is enough is enough.
You couldn't leave it, even if you wished it.
The future will repeat and we will keep the secrets we spread from small house to small house; yet somehow they stop at the border and drive home again.

swinging in the breeze

down south in my small town
everybody old enough is a murderer  
or at least an accessory to the crime
grandma said  they  wasn't even there
but they knew who was
and what they did
with the rope
and the black boy
on the tree downtown
where pretty families
relax on blue blankets
on sunny summer noons
eating the fresh fruit of today
while the putrid ghost of the past
left to rot on the branch
for three august yesterdays
swings in the breeze

i'll you meet you at the crossroads with the bumpy road home of psalm19 in my pants

to get back home i follow land of promise road  past miles of churned  
dirt or seven foot grassy stalk-soldiers with golden mohawk tassels  
depending on the month, turn left on bunch of walnuts where tennis ball
husks seasonally  bomb the ground to a squirrel gathering orgy then rot in  
black impressions of  bounty on the grey cracked ribbon of road  
 
some say such geography is destiny but it's  just a bit of window dressing  
and you know how the cliché goes not much to do in the small town but we  
did the same as city folk with whatever  rummage sale of junk we traded  
among our shelves as if the artifacts of our experience were worth preserving  
like ripe berries in the cupboards of  thought  
 
which is a long winded way of saying i spent lots of time thinking about who i  
wanted to boil my berries like the long- legged high-heeled teacher who bath-ed our  
minds speaking in sway-tuh  tongues  about the drunken carpenter, his horny wife,  
and the  apprentice who gave her the nailing daddy couldn't but i wanted too as they  
waited in the communion line at the babtist church and i hallelujahed how summer-  
dress tanned legs unveil your creation, how each leg is like a wordless scroll i raced  
upward  with  my eyes in hot exclamation to the interjection between her thighs

going somewhere is important

boring small town
then burn some shit down
upend that fifth
your daddy sips  
kiss a girl
a boy
three of each
at the same time
cut your hair
pretend it's your day
to accept jesus
but scream fuck you god
at the pulpit
bugger a cow
till you go moo
siphon some keys
and steal a car
outgun the squealers
till you crash
your fame
in broadway lights
then you'll see
they're bored too
just like you
running from
everything
to absolutely
nowhere
on treadstills over
the street where
taxis pretend
going somewhere
is important