Rite

A new teenage mustache, almost apologetic,
two smudges of blond and a bald spot under his nose.

He rummages for a razor. Shaving cream congeals around the drain.
A stroke. A cool, clean lip. Ink-through-a-tissue blood, clotting.

A quick glance into the soap-scummed mirror, he smiles,
embarrassed and terrified.

He smashes a tissue to the space between his lip and his nose,
dots of blood filling in the ungainly space between boyhood and not.

His hands, trembling, are too big now, his head, feet, voice. Baby-faced
and crooning like a foghorn, deep but treble-cleffed.

He races on, suddenly impatient, whisks the shaving cream from his face
like milk and plays with the little kids;
shrinks away, too, though,
staring

three feet in front of him, where all
present uncomfort seems to cast out past pain. He touches
the spiky hairs,

checking a bruise. It hurts. To be a man,
he thinks, he'll use his big brother's Schick. He needs him to notice

his roughening, these strands itching downward
constantly, like fingernails.

Road Songs and American Sonnets--the South

Green country

waving hills of green gnarled oaks
rolling under waves of grey clouds
into the dusky horizon
turning blue
pressed close by these thundering skies
those tornadoes
the warm hood
and leafy embrace
of grandmothers and oaks.

Oklahoma

Little lips of Indian paintbrush

     Kissed in the wind,
bright red eyes
     washed in waves of green.

Bare flanks of gulleys
     hillsides rash and red
under peeling green.

Blood red, water
     collects in the cattle pond,
ominous eye in the field’s green face.

the churned up underbelly of earth,
     the deep rust of the plowed field in little clots
sitting upright in the sun
surrounded, encircled by the welcoming, waving green.

Arbuckle

(Can you imagine this land before it was etherized,
Dissected?)

The neon Exxon sign floats above the deserted station
swallowed in these rocky hills
ancient spines of continents,
islands rising above Jurassic seas, now
      bones breathing in the wind
expelling the marrow of centuries
to settle into dust
          and grass
          and trees.

(What life can we etch out on these eternal shores?)

Texas/Rooms

abandoned gravel drives,

trucks parked to rust under oaks
     beside the tire swing.
trailer covered by vines
     a swing porch
     a breeze in the pines.
the cottage the yard the fence,
     swallowed in the dry heaving of time.

the car dealership holds up empty concrete hands to the sky
     under the auspice of haggard palms.
dusty red brick main street
bright with American flags
to hide its decrepitude.

dashing trucks flash, freshly
washed down the highway past
     the Baptist church, abandoned barn, white stone graves
sinking into the rooted red dust.

houses fall into disrepair,
     lives, sandals, shorts all wear out,
pour into rust
in rooms beneath the trees.
and clean new rooms rise

forever under oaken arms.

Shoreline

All along these extravagant American shores
washed by the wind and tides and depths of ages
danced upon by the moonlight, the starlight, the stars,

towers sulk soulless
dull halos against the night
     repelling the furrows of black
     to hide along the horizon.
cars plunge headlong into the night in frantic drunken exclamations past neon bars lighting the hallowed rooms of our lives.

They say the sea speaks in waves
     but no one was listening;
the stars scream eyes
     but we are all blind.

The darkness deepens
as endless waves and words
lap silently
against these luxurious shores.

SC

I bought it all with my eyes
everything the billboards were selling.
and when my throat screamed, scathed with lust,
It was only the dying, headlong necessity
buried deep in the belly
finally pouring out over this wide, wanton land.