the frontrunner (photo collage with inkpen on watercolor paper)

my friend's funeral

all the bees are

flying due north

out of your body into

the yellow black smoke

into the sun burning the world

oily and alive

full of hot dry gold

as hard as eskimo

a child's smile

the world's darkest skin

you were left in the forest

alone inside the blanket

an ink bath beside

a black gorilla

and then you were

falling from the earth

into  the world of vinyl

the philadelphia experience

seven feet below you

the brown building

your left uppercut

opened up on the table

where the blood was

beside the wolf head

i need a miracle

8 weeks of a slow 

steady blunt hammer

coming down from

god to take you home

the coffin door opens

the tv's grey hum

the teeth of victory

scattered at the feet

of the couch by the bong

the maybeline manora

feet barely touching

the ground above

the field where the crowd

watches wide eyed

kevin costner's hair

the sky opening up

it's arms and picking you

off the earth jumping into 

heaven to lick its face

the hanger (inkpen and watercolor on watercolor block)

the gift horse

it arrived under the curtain

aside the crouton table

inside the old cottage

that i had forgotten about

and you couldn't find your

hands with a knife

on top of the building

there was blood everywhere

a wild leopard print 

covered most of iowa

universities snatching

kids from school buses

i was knitting a sweater

of soft horse hair

alone in the black barn

stroking back the flies

into the mouth of

old saint nick asleep

at the kitchen table

a thin trail of urine

running out 

from under him

inside his icy BBQ

dream house

the racer (ink pen and watercolor on painted particle board)

shelter

let's make kiss lips

and snuggle bunnies

up in margaret's room

you read my diary 

it'll be on fire out on the street. 

the girl with the nose job knows

that that isn't your under taking

It's your under wear and not your

only heart breaking

is that a sentry gown you're

wearing above the lake

hands wrapped around the moist pole

we must make our way back to the bank

says peter, before it is too late

isiah wears a dress towel on the porch

now dragons approach

A horrible roar coming out of the steam

clearly we will be lost out here

like we were before

inside the dorm room 

where they are building a fire

beautiful and young

their lives almost over

and the dvd's have yet to be returned

boom boom go the speakers

in the trunk of this poem

as it passes down the street again

the carrier (ink pen and watercolor on watercolor board)

the fairy tale

back when i was young

i would go into the forest

with the shiny silver ax

my father had given me

and cut down the great oaks

the peach and hackberry trees

golden sequoias and douglas fir

if i was out west. leaving only 

the broken bones of the

woods in my wake

at night i would hear the cicada 

blindly calling out in its lilting 

soprano or surprise an imperial 

moth or a black elm leaf beetle

sometimes i would see the 

most beautiful birds in the world

flying through the dark yellow clouds

darters and goatsuckers or even

the occasional flamingo

once i came across a 

small animal hiding in 

the dirt crying for it's

dead mother. i hurried past 

it off into the dark 

in the dark late at night

the setting moon's teeth

would reflect off the

brilliant green jewels

of my vestments