Colin McKay! Winner of One of Two Poetry Awards at a Small Liberal Arts College in Alabama

2009-04-05T22:19:00.001-07:00

From the mouth of the horse : /

2009-02-10T11:35:00.000-08:00

Yooo. Sorry I haven't rapped at you in a while.

PEACE

Time is the donut of the heart.

sand and snow

2008-09-12T16:20:00.001-07:00

this poem has nothing to do with sand and snow

but with vancouver, with the birds pulled in from

the ocean, inwards and out above the folding water

presently, i am concerned with these birds, fashioning

a single letter above the steel waves and the cold sand.

there are other birds of this universe. there are peacocks

which shake their feathers like a deck of cards being

shuffled or several brooms quickly sweeping the floor of a

cave. excuse me for a moment: "put on your mittens, if

you're going outside." i apologize, but, you see, when the

blue pines freeze the town in winter like refrigerator coils,

you can catch cold. the tennis courts close, and no graceful

leaps of stretching or reaches choreograph themselves on

its key lime map. and, O, my god, am I tired, am I tired,

tired of silhouettes arriving in the fire. tired of the sand

smothering the snow for the sake of the tire.

bucky little thing

2008-07-04T16:05:00.000-07:00

cold is wet stone and fire in the glowing branches

touches the golden branches with heat and O the

eagle the eagle that balding eagle lowers his legs

like shorn bonsai trees and descends to silver to

silver may we ever find a liver for prometheus or

myself, for i've plucked away at it like a cellist like

a pelican pecks for days shuffled before one another and

o the sounds in the next room are never muffled,

but pronounced pronounced may the wildcat pounce

on a rock on a rock, leather shoed british boy on the dock.

and what a bore, what a bore says the forest explorer

these panthers betray themselves slunk languid in the

trees, and, I coming upon nothing more than the

paper globes of bees. southern priest, speaking in tongues,

can you not speak of reptile lungs? football men, moving

in lunges, can you not see your into-sin plunges? now, both,

repeat after me: is it for this that i have hunted? is it for

these crystals, these sun beaten symbols of the drum, these

murderers wanted, that i have run sharp breath cold through pink

tunnels of respiratory funnels?

The Calculus of Skin Through Seasons

2008-07-02T23:18:00.000-07:00

and, now,

that we have sharpened the dull silver of math

and laid medieval swords limp upon our laps

may we find a set of sharks, washed up beside

the dumpster, the swells of water upon which they rode

resembling limpid desert hills came alive as lazarus

and swam before dawn, until the sun beat down

on the lands as a kiln, and baked them still once more

and it is at dawn that i watch you walk the foothills

with silver rabbits abound, like metal fleas to which

the soft earth has proffered its bosom for them suck

teethed and to suck one another -

and, now,

that winter, after lingering, has left, pigeon toed and clumsy,

may the vesicant air breathe upon the hydrangeas, and may

those blistering flowers cluster blue beside the gazebo where

we have set many a night and drank until our eyes reclined

showing their whites and my yellow teeth, from which i spit

tobacco in your absence - and "nothing", though a word,

though a reference, though a call though a beckon, refers

to nothing - as any coo or moan doth. as any white hot

moon or stone does.

and, now, that i've had enough of these pills these gills

these paper mills, i will strap leather legs to mine and

walk out amongst the pebbled drive, and form a friend,

another tired man from the dust, only to speak with, to

break bread with, to sing uvulas red with - for i, too,

will give him an instrument to shoot me down with,

as a true comrade would to any suffering man in

battle, legs and arms all torn in a field - on a boat

on a boat o my darling emote - for you have been so

sterile to me since we've gone sober - no effluence

spilling from your swollen gravelly tongue as it did

dripping once above me below me - for now it

seems to have transferred elsewhere, into your liver

secreting ointment, purple and viscous, purple and

thick and pretty was your dress any night long past -

long past , long past, does nothing ever last -

does no horse pass the beast before it on the track?

do the demands of the body ever relax? ever, for a moment,

could i be unwanting?

Lesson To A Groundskeeper

2008-07-02T23:16:00.000-07:00

the gently geometry

of the tennis court

goes undisturbed

it is swept now,

and you have been released

into the thick night

with the silent machinery

and the moist moon

as boots meet feet,

sitting on the curb,

looking up, you may

recognize the stars

as but a blurred vision

of a fencing practice,

men in thousands

thrusting and parrying

retreating and jousting

a practice tournament of

nimble luminous mummies

hurling antennas -

however, if you cannot bring yourself

to this vision, perhaps

you'd be better returning to

the assembly line for a few

more pathologies

yet, for now, walk.

walk upon the concrete

compressing a stray tennis ball

walk to any trailer park witch doctor

and give yourself that medicine

and walk back home upon that

now forgiving, soft cement

and go to bed

until tomorrow

go to bed,

fold yourself in those unwashed,

childhood sheets

beneath that useless, useless

event taking place in the elevated galaxy

and everywhere below it

leap, my thin, thin rail thin snow leopard

2008-06-14T12:12:00.000-07:00

snow leopard, you

were in the powder

jumping

and

cannot understand

how it all

wanders away

just like that

when i look upon you

jumping in the powder

go to bed

into those

sheets

and, when you wake

to find me absent

and the sky on fire

fall to your knees

at the window

and

vanish

into the ether

for i will be fishing

in a new pond, now

yet it an extraordinary one

and

its believing

that one day

you may

rise from the water

smiling

like a snow leopard

approaching

through the dry

snow

that keeps

me returning

to sit at the shore

casting my line

the pale shore

the dark water

Sunday Night

2008-06-01T20:15:00.001-07:00

As soon as I tire of the television,

of its multiplication and division,

of its reproductive glands and antennae,

calibrated to a communion with all that

is banal and starless and without the

pretty anger of aggressive ghosts-

I will set off aflame, asunder from the sofa

my spirit ablaze with spirits spilling through

me like burning nebulae, forward

swimming infernos.

bringing with me

nothing of importance -

only memories of the

positions of a morbid dance -

O, to saunter through

the wet grass which releases from the earth in

clumps into the cow's face like chemotherapy

hair, only to soak up the unwavering nuclear mist of radiation,

and to once more engage with something potent

and vicious, enough of this soft and formless

tranquilized energy I've grown so accustomed

to. I see myself now, staring into the green

glowing eyes of something exhumed and standing

in the graveyard. something having merged

with its disease, satan and god all twisted

together like braiding the boundless hair

of fire and lightning.

water sinking into sand - a wreath of sumac

twisting with stinging nettles.

O, to rub my back upon this, allowing the blisters -

to become a set of clustering lens from

which to understand the visions of

discomfort - a garden of spider eyes

growing from the muscles of my back

to expel this general anesthetic,

fallen to my knees before the train station -

letting the rabbits gather around me,

quitting their fucking and fur grooming

if only for a moment -

to eliminate from me all these drowsy

blood cells.

only if i tire of the television

Census Figures!

2008-05-31T19:57:00.000-07:00

Hello!

If you read this blog, leave an "X" in the comments of this post. You can do it under a fake name even. PLEASE. PLEASE. I'm FREAKING OUT.

Super Sonnet Saturday!

2008-05-31T12:02:00.000-07:00

O, you, my hummingbird in a laser beam
beneath my cloak, hung beside the stream
like a ghost ship suspended, above my bed
with yarn lights and spider bites, you hath said

“boy, paint sharp lines of star diagrams.
ride dust waves into town, and tie three lambs
to the back leg of your rust colored horse,
and tow those little bundles to me, of course,

for I have caught fish, strung up on the porch
and stood in the glow of a young man’s torch.
riding through on a mule, from university,
in the languid night hours, I betrayed thee

and will not preen this fan of feathers
or untie my hair for you from its tethers”

Long Before You Were an Artwork

2008-05-24T22:42:00.000-07:00

As the blade of moon reveals itself

In the manner of a graceful whore

Gazelles come to feed on a few flowers

Stems like smooth spines

Petals as several tongues

The lions and antelope

Standing upon their hind legs

Walk towards the disco

For an evening of cocaine

and soft peaches, boiled

and skinned as an Indian.

With glitter spilling out across

the dance hall like a concentrated

bundle of stars cut from their net.

I vomited in the cinema the other day,

distracted for the rest of the film.

Thinking of starting a band,

and yelling over drums stretched

from the skin of the artist himself.

The ants were using one another

as ladders, bundling vertically

to the clump of bananas

hung over there in the brush,

slung indolent like a soft brain exposed.

So, go nimble my darling, my dear,

my vitals, my lake, my fear.

For you are hungry,

and only the needles of the porcupine,

standing like magnetic fragments,

will sever the balloon, the bladder.

I've tried everything else.

And the sun slips into view once more,

like the head of infant crowning.

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

2008-05-08T01:05:00.001-07:00

O, in a series

of wild horses

galloping

'cross the puddles

of ireland,

a specter hung

in a hammock of

wind

slung between

those muscular

beasts

and the rain

was suspended

for a moment

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : before beginning to fall again

its sheets pulled

into angles

by the breathing of the wind : : : : : : : : : : : :

Double post!

2008-05-07T20:33:00.000-07:00

encourage me, cowgirl.

i've hardly a smoldering coal

left for you.

but don't you know

i've all the fatigue and

sandman dust

you could use?

bricks and chairs and grey nails

to hang new curtains

in the drawing room

some winter afternoon.

or to go from pillow to pillow

trading coins for teeth

but never really to be sleeping

only sending frustrated

blades through the bed

feathers all suspended above you

and never to be gripping

summer sent golden rods,

but handfuls of dark-

and a wooden figure,

formed from the dry

sheets of fallen bark

Wednesday:

2008-05-07T19:34:00.000-07:00

the marks of your boot-heels

in the sand,

leopard footprints

in the wet fog of rainforest,

lead west

towards a few guns

and a sun, hanging heavy

like a bandaged hand

and switching positions

with constellations

and the wrinkling moon

like a changing of the guard

O, its gotten heavy, hasn't it?

but heavy and delicate

like a glass elephant

or a television

moved down the

from one apartment

to the next.

to another haunted apartment

in North Dakota

where ghosts

move like moonlight

on the steel of a knife

come over some evening

and play hungover piano lines

for me, my dear,

with heavy hands

and a slow bounce of the foot

on the brass pedals

and let it all vibrate, goddamn

from the white tail of your spine

to your fingers

like soft bullets

falling from new bruises

on the hot sides

of a sun beaten lion

Old sketch, New Poem

2008-05-05T19:40:00.000-07:00

O, I'm serious about

the delicate nature of things

like glass tusks snuck snug

through pierced ears

hanging heavy so that the lobes

are a weighted a bit while you

walk or push your hair

behind your ears

sitting indian style

on the carpet

O, my God,

I wish you wore heavy earrings

like clumps of fruit

dripping drugs

so there might be

the slightest warning

that speaking to you

will be like lifting a rock

revealing all manner

of scattering insects

as you sing the

distinct songs of hormones

sung in the tongue of whore moans

slung in the slips of skin sewn

with guns on the arms of long bones

goodnight.

teenage symphony

2008-04-07T12:29:00.000-07:00

in the morning
when the sun pulls shadows
to the roof of my bedroom
I drink coffee

in the evening
which never comes quick enough
as the moon sucks shadows
back into its swollen glands
I drink beer

the irony is that
too much of either
result in a headache
at some point in the morning

and these tensions
which knot themselves up and swell
in the architecture connecting
my brain to my spine
and pulse like a thermal bullfrog
seem like such a staple of adulthood

and adulthood is useless
when everything seems teenage

if you don’t believe me
set down your glasses tonight
and walk out into the driveway
the atmosphere is wallpapered
with photonegatives of bad skin
white head stars

it’s things like this
that keep me tossing
plastic cups into orbit
on the way to the sink

and finding out how many
pretzels the dog will eat
before refusing them

and in case you’re curious
seventy four
the same number
of bites the pale barking
universe usually has of us
before tiring and tossing us off

working out

2008-04-07T12:27:00.000-07:00

before the treadmill
I am lifting weights
in the silent garage
this afternoon
only with
the meeting
and separating of metals
and the interrupted dark

I had a dream last night
of you standing in the tundra
with the dogs
your lungs exposed and filled with milk
vibrating like two engines

my brother was pressing bullets
into the snug slots of your spine

you were spitting the cold cylinders
from where your skeleton
comes through your gums
like a few white wolves
appearing at the mouth
of a cave

when I was younger
I wore metal snakes
around my waist
and two ears on each side
of my face
and no dreams as these danced between them

off the pool

2008-04-07T12:26:00.000-07:00

i have brought my dog
to a neighbor's pool
at night, when the light
moves on the water,
as a shimmering
set of swords drawn quick
from their sheaths,
producing that sound
that lisp of metals
you know which sound
im talking about, don't you?
that single whisper of ears
falling from
the faces of men
on bent, wounded horses,
that song
of millions of years
moving beneath
the water like a dragon
like an accordion
like a deck of cards
and here, here
is the connection, if you
are getting impatient:
as i rake my hands
across his warm
breathing body,
through his fur
and come
across scalped
grapes and growths
i come across his cancer
and in battle tomorrow i will
think of him, and hope
the mannequins i stood
in the dark house
before his cage
are frozen fending off loneliness
and mortality.

Ten Cantos

2008-02-18T19:22:00.000-08:00

wave, O, harlequins

to the whores you precede

waiting and drinking

at the tables

before the cafe

II.

they are smoking

the carcass of a bull

who pitied the matador

and allowed him

to sink that blade

through a soft

segment of rib cage

III.

wave, gentlemen

to the women

you watch walking

while drinking coffee

and talking of business

IV.

O, pet this pack of dogs

separating at dusk

like homing missiles

and a few owners

eating dinner before the

television talking

of the work day

tell a vision

or sing a song to the whore

that will collapse

the movement of her hips

for a moment

she is rocking the goddamned house

all over the place

while i'm trying to sketch

a nude portrait of her

with mother's ashes

VI.

O, if the threads

beneath your

anthill breasts

are wearing thin

then hate not

disappointment

and depression

for they are the

only things that

can be relied upon

VII.

O, lonely muse of mine

dance at the sensing of

rattlesnakes in the cornfield

as a frantic marionette would

for you were thin

a skin skeleton

you helped me bring the horses in

each night

before we would sit and drink

at the dinner table

before we stood in the hot grass that day

looking at one another

before we parted

VIII.

sell me a beast

and i'll keep him

in the shed

so i can walk out there

in summer

to watch him

restrained and breathing

in the heat

IX.

O, woman lost

i swear to remember you

as always drunk

in the hotel room

finding your faith again

looking for the remote

forget not that the spine runs down the front, as well

2008-02-17T16:00:00.000-08:00

the frantic gangly gait

of the giraffe

or the candle-wax-backed slave

at the sensing of

fleeing rattlesnakes

in a cornfield

before a storm

crows cry cover the corn before the storm

2008-02-16T00:53:00.001-08:00

I will remove my armor

II.

I will remove my armor

and set it beside the pond

beneath the swollen moon

radiant pumice,

scrape the embryos

from the aluminum

of my bend sinister

III.

beneath

a sky black and screaming

with birds

a sleeping cowboy

IV.

tired old man

your spurs cut

your brown horse

tired old man

cut my throat

and polish your

chalky boots

with my warm blood

my queen,

i come to you

when i have been

drinking

for days

for day

i have been drinking

and i have not come

VI.

"there is something in your sighs

which tells me this will no longer work"

"i never thought you low enough

to criticize my weight"

VII.

jesus christ slept

as i left the hospital

dragging my IV line

the carriage met me

moving in the fallen fog

VIII.

the mayor may or may not knot

his rabbit ears

of corn

his horns were there

when he returned from sea

two white vegetables

IX.

beneath high noon

beneath heat and gravity

which swim downward

onward and persistent

like magma archangels

i am working

in the fields again

swinging my scythe

beneath night

which circles the earth

as a lovely dark screen

like octopus ink

orbiting a blow fish

i am standing

in the trembling night

with the upright and silent cattle

and i am breathing again

2008-02-09T18:03:00.000-08:00

sonnet

2008-01-23T16:06:00.001-08:00

darling, with your scoliosis and bangs
and your swinging scythe and kneecap cuts
show me your sore legs, and show me your fangs
asleep in your hut, asleep in your hut

oh, to wet and peel your paper hands
and draw figures upon your pale back
to wash them away with snow and sands
and serve as your tired, elderly yak

lady tiger, let your tongue spill out long
spinning boundless and red from your saber teeth
let it sing to me, tired whale songs
and undulate and recoil from me

for i am some minnow swimming downstream
as you boil this creek, breath in its steam

scoliolitic trees

2008-01-11T13:36:00.000-08:00

cremate me
using the candles
set upon
the kings dinner table

was written upon
the rubber
of a seal's skin

was written in white
like the pale geometry
of an astronauts
lightfooted meanderings

drawn out for you
with rulers
and erasure marks

etched in the rhythm of

a song of our progenitors
who beguiled us
into their campaign
with science

and a certain chemistry
of yours

and soon a certain can of spray paint
of hers

it seems to breath hoarse
like tiny proliferations of sand and wind

standing in the trembling dark
with the upright
and silent cattle
in the early
tense morning

haiku

2008-01-07T21:28:00.000-08:00

the matador
withdraws his blade

a nimbus
of red petals
descends

your face seems hardly that which i pined for in the mirror

2007-12-20T23:37:00.000-08:00

those clicks
keeping you awake
are just

blind kids
in the forest
playing video games
using eco-location

chirping for digital

im still chirping insomniac bird songs
for you, my indian woman

my inhalant
my solvent
my vertigo

i might not
have drank enough
tonight, though

so, your broken refrigerator
and night vision goggles
are keeping you entertained
for a few days
while were seperated?

all that phosphorescent blood paint
and visions
whispering neon to you

as i will
and used to

spitting rhymes!

2007-12-20T22:15:00.000-08:00

all the disposable skin
at the nursing home
are oiling up their chairs

their children
at the creek
count flowers
in some native girl's hair

before them,
nude,
sepic,
confident,
as untiring and boundless
as urinary incontinence

and there is
one
two
three
four
silver calves
crowded by the door

so, its christmas, goddamn
unfurling like pubertal discomfit
upon man

iroquois girl
are you the one destroying me?
are you who dissolves me so gracefully?

im sure of it
but as a creature
driven by vanity and pride
and sodium vapor lights
i could not possibly admit

dog tales of 1846

2007-12-03T14:40:00.000-08:00

*A poem by Colin McKay (C) and Andrew Wegmann (A)
Check out Andrew's maundering:
mysonthefish.blogspot.com

C:
i gained
quite a bit of weight
during my time
in a wheelchair

spinning through the mall
via fixed rotations
like the eel black ribbons
of VHS tapes

A:
I am asleep.
In my dreams the cronies come,
To machete my body.
To the dogs they run,
With Corporals and Sergeants.
Allow me to dither,
Upon unwanted requests,
For the souls of my forefathers
Aligned perfectly, so perfectly.

C:
perfectly perfect
a bird in space

you are a glittering christmas sweatshirt
with used teabag eyes
stringing your sentences on and on
like some mendicant veteran
mirrors in his pockets

if youre willing to get up early
i'll take you fishing some weekend
at dawn
and show you those
scintillating metal creatures
moving beneath the latex surface
like the sparkle of fiberglass in my chewing tobacco

because there is no god
when you are hungover
and you know this

let some coincidence
prove otherwise
when you are drinking again

sunday

2007-11-25T19:32:00.000-08:00

suspend the poison tongue

of military talk

and

pin it upon the cross

of its compliment

passing the

mustard powder

to the king

who's crown

is forming a bruise line

around his skull

like an equator

of human aluminum

friday

2007-11-23T14:56:00.000-08:00

i'm going to make
the strongest pot of coffee ever

i'll make an inital pot

then use the coffee from that
as a substitution for the water
in the next batch

i'll repeat this process
thirty three times

then ill drink it
sitting in a red wagon
moving towards a cliff

thursday

2007-11-08T10:52:00.001-08:00

when i unravel this gauze
across the
pale wafers
of day

across the portions
of light

i am testing
the calibration
of the world

not the universe

so, you will most likely
find me
sitting
in the manner of indians
in the front yard

fingering the growth
and the cushion of dirt
upon which i rest my weight

and, you
damp haired
and red faced
from cycling

will laugh at my ridiculous experiments
and, then i too
will see the humor in it all

wednesday

2007-11-07T09:49:00.000-08:00

I.
there are bison
carved into stones
out there
who hum
to one another in the dark

II.
what im trying
to tell you
is that greater things
have been done with rocks

things greater than
my frantic pacing
about the gravel parking lot
too embarassed to approach
except in theory

while you sit
drinking coffee
and reading
and talking politely with strangers

"and i could not speak
i was neither living nor dead"

i will then walk back
to my room
to tangle myself
in the yarn of rue
and inevitably
somersault into
the next futile plan

cantos

2007-10-30T11:06:00.000-07:00

I.
i am a physics professor
rubbing a blue balloon
against my head

but my memory
is fuzzy
concerning the whole event

there are only discrete chunks

II.
she is
then alone in
the drawing room

with the china
and scintillating glass cabinets

as i take breaks
from writing my lesson plan

to consider how i will approach this

"i have to be honest with you.
i am about to tell you a lie."

III.
as the moss
begins to move
indiscernably
towards the inside of the house

a deer will exit the woods
stepping lightly
from brown
to green

and the dogs will remain calm

and when i return from angling
at the creek

i, too, will sit
with iron orbs
hovering before me
and let him look upon us
as a still and silent ideal
of family

IV.
the parhelia
will then turn toward me
and i will begin walking away

2007-10-24T09:41:00.000-07:00

to be standing
with cigar fingers
counting cuts
on my ankles

punching pores
into
the hotel wallpaper

puncturing
paper
plants

with
a complimentary needle

is you

"hugh?"
no, you
with a y

to be lying
on the city street
fingering
the back breaking grooves

is a new infancy

first words read:
LISA

or maybe it was "L is a ----"
and the derision worn away

poor L

p
o
o
r L

for you, I will tattoo this hotel wall

10/16/2007

2007-10-17T08:44:00.000-07:00

for precision's sake
ill bring my shaving blade

each early morn
ill rise in the dark before dawn

lift it to my face
with the muscles in my arms
that i use to lift concrete blocks
at the site

you'll wake up then, too
nakedness spilling pink
like a flood of industrial hand soap
across the hotel room

if you are liquid
then, the small of your back is the meniscus

if you are coffee grounds
and boiling water
spitting and steaming
like a boxer
fighting in an outdoor arena
during winter

then i am sinking
into the descending hallucination
the blow allows

sonnet

2007-10-16T09:19:00.000-07:00

oh, darling to your pallid skin it clings
to flesh and flesh alone in august’s heat
amongst your gardening movements you sing
your white, thin summer dress misses not a beat

and from the brambles, glass eye raised to mine
i kneel upon leaves and fallen boughs
and sing to myself some paean lines
which arc crescendo, then decrescendo

like this, i have watched for sarcous eclipse
to fill your evening bedroom window panes
like any patient man with wont of glimpse
with rods and cones from the dark of your lane

some night soon, i will descend upon you
like some blood red bird, offering its hue

sunday

2007-10-09T19:10:00.000-07:00

10/04/2007

2007-10-04T13:42:00.000-07:00

here goes nothing:

red china wear

chalk skeleton

delicate and ornate, bare

like a red bird

pecking at your window

the ghost of mother absurd

short story today

2007-10-01T10:04:00.000-07:00

the car skated with ease down the soft slope of the road. it sloped as to acclimate the traveller to its curves, never surprising, never unsettling: a smooth descent.
she was driving, cigarettes, with the ash blown from the hyperventilating windows like funereal confetti of some grave celebration.
the embers have floated before, she is sure, of it. as i am, too. we have driven at night, and watched those small orange specks in meandering orbit, sent up like the arbitrary firecrackers of some inoculation. we got to talking, when the radio faded out. sure, did, yes we did. she spoke of general topics. this conversation could have been with anyone. this went on for some time, my attention naturally flagging, and shifting towards my right side: fields of oatmeal colored tinsel, with great creatures standing:symbols of prominence.
her eyes were bad, so i was the first to see the shape. it was a brown one. and as we moved closer, the amorphous image gave way to form and life: as if in those movements towards it the entire period of conception, gestation, and birth had set in motion and completed. a great, sad looking bull looked upon us with the eyes of dead relatives and friends forgotten. there was no passing it, fences on either side, and creature standing at the gate.
i got out of the car, with my hands outstretched as to offer peace to him:
he spoke: put your hands down, its okay
-my woman and i need to pass, dear friend: a few steps is all we ask of you

he spoke: tell me your name sir, and i will be on my way

- i will not

and at this they froze and remained in that grotesque position of obstinance, as night spilled across the pastoral scene like mercury-transforming the earth as they remained in stasis, like two puppets set down in the dark of the dressing room in an empty theatre: with frozen expressions.

my twenty second birthday...

2007-10-01T09:56:00.000-07:00

and the most exciting thing i've ever done
is go for a jog

my father cut my hair
most years
before i left home

before i found a woman and lost her

and now
its time
for me
to go
back
and
have
pa
pare
these
thinning
brown branches
down
to reveal
my face
as young
again

feel good sunday!!!!!

2007-09-30T14:51:00.000-07:00

one evening
sitting beneath a tree
positively after your usual bed time
its musculuar branches obscuring the moon

that shorn sphere was then a broken white plate
on navy carpet
unlike, the plate, however, it could keep doing its job

i wonder how many applicants there were for the position

and if they, upon rejection, receded into space
with the speed of one thousand impotent
men's luridly painted automobiles

embarassed stars

im sinking into the cotton out in the field
with the workers suffering from sun stroke
on a sunday afternoon, when the sun is stroking
my exposed parts with a remarkable conscious grace and caution
and, oh, how enjoyable it is
and, oh, how relaxing it all is

and, oh, how preoccupied
you can get turning all these
smooth stones over in your soft hand

that you will not even notice him then
your favorite worker
is covered in bats
staring in your direction

truth serum

2007-09-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

after work
i pull into the driveway
to contemplate that typical misery
of southern evenings

just to sit still
like a sleeping horse
vacuous
in my vibrating car

a jesuit
cycles past behind me
on a child's green bike
or a saddled grasshopper

in the rearview mirror
he was a fish
darting through the evening ocean
before the eyes of another man
wearing patent concrete shoes

inside
you, in your undulating plaid house dress,
that youre always wearing,
are tapping your shoe
on the hardwood floor

sending sharp, repetitious wood claps
from the front of our happy home
to the back yard

swimming across the house
and filtering through the screen door

to join the symphony
of bullfrogs
and cicadas
that wander screaming
through the growth
like survivors in a plane crash
landing in the jungle

i examined that metal screen one morning
while the coffee machine was mumbling
and spitting in the next room

i found the residual particles
of your song of impatience
that were too thick to pass through pores

the notes of which,
upon examine nation
spelled my initials

my acronym too thick to pass through
and dance in the feral yard
like sinners at the gate

but, nevertheless,
im not paying to cool the outside

so next time
all of those raps
will collide with the door
like windshield insects
and spell your maiden name

self portrait of another man

2007-09-28T10:21:00.000-07:00

i am a family
going out for dinner
at a fast food restaraunt

passing napkins
and thimbles of ketchup
to one another

i am a violent man

i have a small brown dog
who looks at me with disappointment
everytime i get up early
to look through your purse

while, you, my sweet mannequin
remain supine in plastic dreams

i am a little kid
squirming in his chair
at dinner

squirming
squirming
squirming

like some devil
waking in a coffin

red mechanical elephants

2007-09-27T20:52:00.000-07:00

I.
red mechanical elephants
were walking
with the trains
on thursday
at 4:30
seemed to be a lonely group

II.
three middle age men
stood together
at the train-tracks
on monday

and at midnight
slept in the railyard
until thursday
at 4:00

when they returned
to their original position
at those horizontal ladders

II.

in the afternoon rain
dust will turn to oatmeal

the men sang
and line danced
like some native american ritual
as the train pulled away

and in the afternoon rain
dust turned to oatmeal
and asked him for the time

as their three orthopedic shoes
swung together
like sledgehammers
hung at the hip

and i remember them stopping

i was combing my hair
fashioning a handsome mason dixon line
upon my scalp
which is pale

and i remember them stopping

as the elephants' trot
turned to loping

grandpa series (2)

2007-09-27T05:45:00.000-07:00

grandpa,
going
out
to recieve the paper
found
a fallen bird
in the yard

it most resembled
an old
leather
shoe

green blades
each with a
single
sphere of morning
bowing over
it

in my pessimism,
they were
middle aged
rubber necks
each adorned in
a single diamond

in my better moments,
weeping
men
or
offerings or
monoliths

and lifting his head
heavenward

"lord, i will not die in your prison"

great wings
then burst
from
the flesh folds
beneath
his shoulder blades

grandpa series (1)

2007-09-24T17:01:00.000-07:00

from his bedroom
grandpa with raised rifle
fires

a collection of black birds
like splashes of ink
on the azure

scatter
and disperse
like endorphins

cantos for medusa

2007-09-23T15:13:00.000-07:00

I.
medusa, my darling
when we met
as children
i begged you to fandango
across pools of ether with me

to drag your ivy across my limbs

to move through the quiet dark of evening together

in the stead of such romance
you spit magma
from graveyard teeth

and i stood ashamed before you

II.
dear darling medusa
you revealed a chink in your armor
by laughing
one day
in the park

i removed my drugstore vampire teeth
and told you a joke
about a baseball player
nicknamed "sweet chariot"
who always swung too high at the pitch

things were good then
as teenagers

III.
oh, sweetheart medusa
habitually late for dinner parties
frozen before the mirror
you're too hard on yourself, dearest

disregard the optometrist's fictions

even dracula must see a dentist

IV.
precious medusa,
what god crocheted you together, woman
for what god crocheted you together

those bones that explore internal
negotiating the soft bags and loose corners of your skin

those bones to which muscle clings
like some hirsute, parasitic creature
fallen from the knuckles and thick of a tree

a tree
near a tiny pool of ether
where we fandango
somnambulating

songs for a prison guard ONE

2007-09-23T12:26:00.001-07:00

i didnt notice
her missing finger
until our second exchange
when she handed me
a few coins
and a dollar

someone had marked three zeros
after each "1" on the blll
if i could meet them
i'd tell them it was funny

maybe i already have

"there's a correctional institute
off that exit,"

is said inside the car
skating down the freeway
like an aluminum can
holding two candles
moving downstream

and he's having his lunch break
in the tower
feeling paternal
watching the sequences
and steps
of their sportive, concrete dance
to dribbled metronome

shifts in his seat

wearing that belt
has been worth
twenty years of chafing

but secretly
the justification is the satisfaction of taking it off
before getting into his car at dark

of seeing how long he can withstand
the irritation along that dehydrated stripe
and knowing the results
moving down the highway
past teenagers
who stumble along
in flesh toned MIlwaukee braces

moving down the highway
like a corpse
in river tide
towards home

inbred bull

2007-09-21T18:23:00.001-07:00

I.
at the sale
the family bought an inbred bull
if that tells you anything
about how the farm is doing

they brought it home
in a tin can
connected to pa's truck
the bull memorized his license plate along the way

II.
i sit at my desk most days
listening to richard marx
watching that derivative bull

watching its grotesque musculature
swimming beneath
brown
and black
like a collection of children
kidnapped
and shuffling about a duffle bag

not caring to mingle with the colts
or bloated heifers

III.
the morning inchoate
is the part of the day i prefer

so i was awake to witness it

the existentialists
were sitting in rows
in the corn field
perpendicular to the crop lines

smoking cigarettes
beneath the dawn fog

when he came galloping along
with clumsy strength (the worst kind)

and crashed through the line
like bowling pins

bowling pins
black sweatered
reading glassed

it felt like some kind of victory to me
but id be ashamed to admit it in the presence
of anyone
but myself

riding partners

2007-09-14T18:29:00.000-07:00

we, us two partners, will ride out
of the stables
in the morn

will cross the pre-dawn dew
on cold wet hooves

tearing whatever fences we come across
with one swift crash
breaking those brown skeletons
with tough hide
and momentum

"cowgirl bowling"

and when i squint hard
cos the artic wind
your muscular grey horse
looks like a mechanical baby elephant
galloping along
when you speed up flirtatiously
putting thirty feet of green hair
between us

we built a fire
in the woods at dark
amidst teenager's abandoned pornographic magazines
what sordid leaves we've sat upon

orange glow paints the windows of the distant cabin
not from the warmth of the fire
but from the bowl of clementines
on the oak coffee table
but we'll ride on without ever meeting the inhabitant

and talk about coffee in the cold mornings of the trip
like it was some divine elixir
maybe it is

"we could have fed our horse a cup or two
watch them things sprint untiring"

my partner, my dear
you thought that might be animal cruelty
but a good talk, even though

you were working on a poem then
"bumblebees and trees"

the teenage years of non-human animals
are just as awkward and embarassing for them

the umbilical phone cord
stretched along with us

The Medicine Horses

2007-09-11T08:52:00.000-07:00

Hey noone! If you are interested in buying my new album, "Milk", by my band the Medicine Horses, wherein all instruments are played by the now only fan, me, write in the comments and I'll contact you.

"cutting school to go drinking at the dam. skin mags in the brambles, for the first part of my life i thought women had orange skin."

CDm

monday 10:51

2007-09-11T08:51:00.000-07:00

a swollen, grey tick
stepping off a leaf
upon
onto
red and black flannel
a farmer's shoulder
a forest fire

there is a plastic bag on the desk beside me
it was brought into this earth
like a robot's birth
yielding only placenta

theres a bumble bee inside of me
i feel him moving around and mutating
somersaulting transformations

the gymnast is aging throughout her routine

mosquitoes turn into vampires
like tadpoles into frogs

and i still sit and contemplate
if there is a fundamentally different
conscious experience
between the tadpole
and the frog
or this plastic bag
and the author of all this

monday 11:05

2007-09-10T20:43:00.000-07:00

trojan horse capsules
galloping
pon molecular hooves
"dont move, i think he's outside
standing drunk on the lawn"

then there will be
the musk of the dog
who came back from the creek
from curious nasal adventure
because he missed his master

come back from the creek, my brother
ill be waiting on the front porch
breathing aerosol
that sends a thousand sheeps into the heavens
when i aim it heavenward

and up the seretonin river
just half a road up the mile
through skeletal brown
and business branches

there will be a man:
an octogenarian cannibal
who will speak to you philosophically
defending his position
if he could
but his voice would pierce
the universe's transparent membranes
and the world would skip

like the portable cd player
connected umbilical to the cigarette lighter

but it wont matter, really
because when you return
she'll be standing there
blushing
in diaphanous dress

and it will all implode
the universe screaming

at least to you, it will seem such

Sun 6:26 am

2007-09-09T16:26:00.001-07:00

when my fingers begin to grow
like feral stalks of bamboo
i attempt
to calculate
and average
the facial expressions
of every person in line at the DMV

there is a second moon of this planet
i've seen beneath the earth
i've seen it beneath the earth
when i was an old man
clumsily walking the beach with a metal detector
a robot dog eagerly sniffing the sand

in the subway tunnels
i've met the bureacrats of yesterday
settling in for the night
with the paper

after the red milk wars
a generation of lost cowboys were found
in a bomb shelter outside tulsa
behind the blood bank
where plasma spins
and exposes itself
like some erotic dancer

oh injuns
guard your kin
put them on white horses

and send them forth
to trample through pre-dawn black
resembling, in their speed
a thin, moving creek of milk
across the static undulation
of rolling green

if you are reading this at your desk
let us not forget
that some day
long past
not a single part of this bureau existed

and while charles
is standing above the concrete plexus
tearing pages from a novel

and watching them fall
like dying moths

i am writing in red pen
all over the bathroom stall
a short illustrated history
of man
its really funny
and so are you, my darling
in a different way
ive seen you swallowing ice cubes
like diamond pharmaceuticals

they travel in your stomach
and die off
a series of tiny miscarriages

as form rises spirit wanes

2007-09-04T19:32:00.000-07:00

oh gentle darling in summer gardens:
it clings to thee flesh and flesh alone
diaphanous cloth draped upon like garlands
hangs perfect from your skin and bones

oh gentle darling in your august garden:
in fields i pushed you down
and to the ground we fell
a descending series of waves

let me take you again
amongst all this brush and greenery

create we will
struggling shadows
flesh and flesh alone
in your august garden

2007-09-04T14:44:00.000-07:00

2007-08-27T09:45:00.000-07:00

in the tradition of man
through snow we walked
and through it we wept

however, the woods were kind then
and from the trees we would strip flames
and bring them to life from the ground

side by side
in the tradition of men
we slept

we slept through their approach
and through their attack

on horses they rode
splashing paint with spinning arms
and allowing for another mans place
to be made in history

2007-08-26T16:44:00.000-07:00

the ink of battles
the electric blue glow of molecules
in oscillatory motion
spinning through your arms
like locust stars

his thorax, plastic face
pubic clown hair

drag your ivy across my limbs, dear
moving through the evening dark together
passing sweet, humming moving wells

skeleton mask
and graveyard teeth
spitting magma

oh, medusa
let your hair down and join us for dinner
bones and dry ice
marinated in octopus ink

oh, medusa
habitually late for parties
an earring pressed against a single lobe
frozen before the mirror

youre too hard on yourself, my dear

monday 11:18

2007-08-23T20:20:00.000-07:00

a swollen, grey tick
stepping off a leaf
onto red and black flannel
a farmer's shoulder
a forest fire

there is a plastic bag on the desk beside me
it was brought into this earth
like a robot's birth
yielding only placenta

theres a bumble bee inside of me
i feel him moving around and mutating
somersaulting transformations

the gymnast is aging throughout her routine

mosquitoes turn into vampires
like tadpoles into frogs

and i still sit and contemplate
if there is a fundamentally different
conscious experience
between the tadpole
and the frog
or this plastic bag
and the author of all this

new poem:

2007-08-21T18:40:00.000-07:00

perched like a gargoyle
in his city apartment
smoking cigarettes
a lugubrious god has grown tired of all his obsequious friends
"the kicker is: i created all of them out of loneliness."

it does get lonely
out their in the dark
above the universes
like floating in an elevated ocean

and thomas dreamt one evening
of beginning his own candy cane ranch
where vaseline ran from the perimeter trees
like petroleum sap
"all this philosophy is so dry.
my poor, dessicated soul."

at the nursing home one evening
i saw his cowboy boots
peeking out beneath the bed
like a brown leather child
hiding behind mothers legs

he told me:
i am a toothless vampire
a frustrated cowboy
burning trash
in the front yard
after work

i used to run at night
in my youth

ive twisted my ankles
sprinting down the train tracks
on the outskirts of the city

he told me:
when the stars begin to breathe white flames
at each dark
i have squinted hard enough,
to see the luminescence
of planets
hovering outside the diaphanous, latex boundary of the universe
like a flashlight
red on the outside of your cheek

and when this happens,
a thousand single lungs
implode like sinking ships
preparing splinters
for sub-aqueous archeologists

and another:

2007-08-20T17:41:00.001-07:00

when the trampoulines
in your backyard
begin to whisper to one another at night

they complain

bruised and sagging elasticity
like the plastic grocery bags
beneath grandma's small brown eyes

see, your children's feet
are swollen and pink
seemingly innocuous

but, physics, my dear
oh physics, adds weight to their descent
slowly tearing tarpouline flesh

a single thread extending with each bouyant landing

and while you, maam
drink brown soda pop
watching your husband fixing fences
in his leather boots
and blue jeans

the children take small flights
propelling into the warm air
that rises from the pastures
like some phantom
ascending from a freshly occupied grave

2007-08-19T15:31:00.000-07:00

This blog will serve as an online portfolio and sketchbook for my paintings and drawings. This will allow the two or three humans interested in my art to explore some visual manifestations of my imagination. Some offhand poetry of mine will also be published herein.

a short poem:

a carbon figure
pirouetting
before a light a spray of sparks
static and tingling
like electric tentacles
glittering spinal chords

if you happen to be holding
a cardboard dandelion
set it down
on the desk

and listen closely
to the sound of
octopi turning to stone

and dropping like cannonballs
through the dark
in their heavy descent

-C.d. McKay