Repeat the words over and over in the mind until they are engrained into the place in the brain
where thoughts are made then see the power in the letters as the tongue wraps around the hills
and valleys and pinnacles and crevasses in their linkages and then spits them onto the floor to
be trampled on by the hobnailed boots of television.

The girl at the bar called my name a minute ago in the distant eternities of past lives and
imagined beckoning beseeching bemoaning fantasy of who i might have been yesterday and it
was all in my mind as i crunched a pretzel and thought of masturbation as an alternative lifestyle.

Baseball used to be a metaphor and cadillacs were chariots of the gods of corporate boot-licking
and life was a cereal box game played with pennies and old discarded buttons that collected lint
in the bottom of a smelly dresser drawer while we were blinded by a glowing box in the corner.

What happened to the prophets the poets the princes the past present future kings and queens of
glitter and glamour and all that is superficial when life is a gameshow syndicated rerun and
everyone on the planet lives where it's sunny and warm in the same room where Burt Reynolds
is god?

It's a wonder we haven't all been killed yet.

Someday the revolution will come riding on waves of weather patterns and hot water from the
sky when the people have finally been force fed long enough and the poison burns in the throats
of the weakened population of nowhere and the towers fall on the builders of rape and pillage
incorporated.

Maybe we should all fall to our knees and pray to a god that died long ago or believe in a gas
cloud that looks like the face of John Coltrane floating in some vase expanse of vacuum packed
empitiness for a forgiveness for grace in the face of timidity and passionate groping under tables
of charity and lonliness.

Or maybe we should dance.

The killer awoke before dawn and went back to sleep to dream of different ways to prepare
cupcakes as millions of other ants crawled out of bed to prepare for a day of solitude within the
teeming masses to push numbers around a place that doesn't exist without electricity just so that
we could watch life as we wish it was on the flashing screen that is called foreplay.

Danger millennium ahead or behind or not it doesn't matter because insanity is a character trait
we relish and we will use any excuse to party to excess to drown out the myriad voice whispering
loud enough to make even the stone face of the chromed poet crack in shame and it's still fuckin'
for the yankee dollar in one way or another.

Repeat the words "over and over" until they don't mean anything any more and become noises
without depth and all is silly and they make you laugh until you can't remember what it was you
were laughing about and there you will find it.

Heart beat blood pounding
Through the temple 
Behind the eyes
Vision of cumulus glowing
From within electric rhythm
Of thunder and stereo sound.
The hair stands on end
Every pore alive with static
Movement.  Forbidden taste
Of sky and fire unquenchable
Thirst. Blood. Life river
Flow from stone like music
Dancing in colored awareness
Running with flaming wind
Drinking light 
Breathing light
Course through labyrinth
Of imagined mind elusive
Desire.  Poem flies from mind
Like scat from Ella wail
From Trane Duke precision
Hot like blue lick
Steel street Stratocaster
Cut through the night
Southern comfort and smoke
Dark as the devil bright
Halogen high beam on
The highway at 2 a.m.
One hundred twenty
Blind curve suicide snake
Charmer night rider.  Feel
the bass, man, thumping
The brain with a ball-peen
Hammer spike to the vein
Heaven hell neverland
Rollercoaster out of control
Out of sight out of mind
Wrapping around a tree
In front of god and all
Of the saints drunk on
Sacramental wine with the
Body of Christ 
Wrapped in stiff sheets
Of religion and politics
That obscure the truth
in the trunk of my car.
R*E*S*P*E*C*T-
Find out what
It means to me-
Just ask me-
And I'll tell you.

I read your thoughts
Impure as the color
Of smog obscured
Sunset, thick as
Oil naked dawn.
You dance barefoot
Down my spine
In serpent rhythm
To dip your toes
In my river
Scented with pain.
Danger waits
Behind casual glances
From averted eyes
Across the room
And secrets shared
And stolen
Like a kiss in the dark.
Run with me
Through cumulus
Paradise and 
Ecstatic torment
To lie exhausted
In dreams
Of bated breath
And animal essence.

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all poems (c) 1997 Kevin Crone