it doesn’t hurt anymore / the old mad man on the wharf
wearing too / tight too dirty bike shorts screams
calls me an asshole
screaming back and he shrinks / us both brain-cooked from heat and chasing sleep
Category Archives: everyday words
Dead sparrow / All Saint’s Day
sitting at the downtown coffee shop
before walking to the river to work
there is a dead sparrow on the other side of giant glass window / facing West Main Street
beak down on the sidewalk
out the side of my left eye it sometimes
hops up to skitter away / but / nothing doing
the sparrow lies there as a well-fed business man in an eggplant-colored shirt
walking gingerly in shiny black shoes scoots by / wrinkling his face in disgust
it would not be a stretch to say I look well-fed but the insistence of the left eye / the
hip / shoulder / knee pain reminds me
some passersby would step out / scoot by
my corpse too.
It’s a puzzle a pastiche a marathon
Wish upon the first star
sometime around moonrise.
This autumn is more than one.
It’s time to replace our turn signals.
There is a map to an ancient river
inked on the fallen leaves.
But there is no worthy puzzle master.
Pump out and pry:
this is how we track the sunrise
making our way through
this abandoned train tunnel
hoping to wish upon the morning star.
River City Mick 