greetings from Arizona

Hey, I'm reading my new poetry series 'the killers' from the wide world of Arizona. It's going to be a wild west kind of month, pardners. Oh, and what's this: this video is only part 1? Hmmm...dada!



text:
the killers: loam


he turns around and is shot in the gut
and
Mr. Ring takes the man’s wallet.
the cards are emptied into the gutter
and
Mr. Ring begins to laugh.
he places the heat of the pistol near his own temple
and
chants three times,

“I’m a good man.
I’m a good man.
I’m a good man.”

Sister Marguerite laughs too and she folds the blinds
closed.
the man bleeds to death scratching his nails
upon the sidewalk.

slightly above, a neon sign that promises
‘adventure in the new’
blinks out

and regains its foothold in argon and lead red.

Mr. Ring waits and gazes at the stripped mine of gold
taxis blustering by.
the night is his distant cousin and he knows
coffee and
jumpers. he walks away singing.



the killers: race


Lester cuts the noses off his victims and he puts
them in glass jars
and waits in his cellar for his wife to leave
until he brings them all out and
rolls them on the concrete.

Joe eats popcorn and has a knife.

Liam is an ugly beast; he is not evil but he has
too many warts. he cuts little
kids on the elbow and giggles.

Julianne doesn’t remember drinking and running
over the Stewards’ only son,
but she did.

Dexie is intoxicated when it happens, and hip
shove the blip,
he gets it up just thinking about piano wire.

Mary watches from a window and drinks up
a brick or two just to stop herself
from heaving irons.

I am even now waiting near an open balcony doorway
and it is hot out
and I am so tired.



the killers: hopscotch


Mr. Ring eats the pie slice on the corner in the summer heat
with his jaundiced overalls kept clean and
pert.
the gaggle of school babes traipses by and he just
shivs a few.
screams and they run and Mr. Ring runs too,
leaving his pie.

he hasn’t felt himself, the city is screaming, and
the summer doesn’t want to end.
Mr. Ring

tries to sing to himself about the low glut of alleys
that convince others of mirror or
rainbow.

a bum even now is hacking his lungs out
behind a dumpster.
Mr. Ring sticks him too.



the killers: wheels


in the factory,
near
the black door, under the rail,
a knife,

grab a thing,
take and do unto, a fair
face,
a festival, a Friday,
a bunch of lost kids drinking in the night,
oh,

an empty car port, an apartment
window, an
old record player, a
jump,
some justice, a stab, the man
with one eye,

a black evening, the glory of night
unending, another jump,

some expenditure, a rolling laugh,
a never,
and a never.



the killers: loop


Mr. Ring is alone in an apartment waking up to a blue
coffee mug that
he must smash if he is going to smile.

the open window tells him,
“Oh you’re good.
Oh you’re good.
Oh you’re good.”

he tosses the cup away and a cat
hisses.

Mr. Rind glances at himself in the mirror
and places his index fingers to trace
under the sockets of his eyes.

have a nice day, get a new love, go into
the library, and yeah, give
it a try.

he doesn’t have time, opens his doorway,
tosses some knives on the hallways floor,

then slams his door shut.



the killers: grin eater


never again at work do we occupy a small
cubicle where Walter
took off his head

last week.

I want to go home even now, sipping
coffee, staining my shirt,
doing dry cleaning,
sleeping in, and caring about my daughter.

Walter told me that his festival
is a bright one,
that it lasts forever, and that
there is no music.

I can cry to think of it;
I god
damn
love music, everyday, shit,
everyday.

never again, though, I guess,
poor Walt,

a man in the leper column, crowing down
from the empty parking garage,

chirping, face swollen hot and red,
begging not to tip or or.
caution, old boy,
caution.



the killers: last laugh


Mr. Ring will have the last laugh in the car
near the glade
spying on the tiny old man with his
dog walking
about rapid in the rotund fashion of parks and ardor.
the radio hisses static that is comforting.
Mr. Ring pops out of the car and charges mad
the changelings out in the brush.
first a mother, then a tiny man, then
some joggers, another mother, some
guitarists, and a bunch of otherwise
business men.

Mr. Ring chokes and giggles, shoving
his fingers in the mush,
and finally
he jumps into a pond and refuses to hold his breath.

his car license plate does not chuckle;
it spins and read
XXV-1248.

Mr. Ring dies and lets his wallet emerge to the surface
of his drowning pool.
pictures there, sure,
and some other elements, empty plastic
promises, rough cards,
and a quote from some author.

“Lay in the meadow, you kind sons,
have a laugh,
take off your heads, get the go
in the going go.”



the killers: luna


wanting to feel dangerous does
not compose
you into a black shirt,
and to wear

your fragrance of stomach
rot,

oh me,

let us go to the candy store, get some ice cream,
rub it on the sidewalk,

and gut the next pig that comes across
us.

they all deserve it,