crave #1

the $2 answer
to the $64,000 question “why do we crave?”
is… gimme a minute

an expert-texpert chicken-fried
dirty mind wheels r turning
authority says
“please avert your eyes”

believe me
you don’t wanna see
how they make the snausages
that dogs crave
or
the wafers ya eat in church

dogs know how to crave
with such sweet shame
if ya don’t like dogs
i prolly won’t like you
god loves his palindrome

16 year old boys can crave, too
or slutty women
who were cheerleaders back
in high school
they can crave

quiet librarians
crave
the presidents
crave

queen of England craves
diamonds

some of them damn catholic priests
done been cravin’ & misbehavin’
ruined childhoods
suicides
flock the whole damn church
lord, please send Jesus back
for a second
helping
lord, please strike them priests
that done molested them kids
down
with lightning
and put it on the news

we crave
revenge
for sins

KH

turning #3

You look up and see
the splintering shards and
realize that less than a minute has gone by
and you’ve had all these thoughts
and you understand that trying
to quantify amounts of time is a boggling thing.
It makes your mind squishy.

We’ve watched sparks and sizzles
and shooting stars
trickling down
into our fish eyes
flashing and photosynthesizing,
creating our DNA,
warming our blood since pre-history,
before native American paleo-Indians
made arrow heads
chipping stone
four billion years earth formed
right before
Cartesian logic

We’ve had this starlight
converting itself
into heated action since, well, forever.
The oldest thought is nonthought…
remorseless…

even moderns kill
their four-legged friends
and cook them on the fire
without malice or mercy,
hunger without anger…
the oldest profession
has been this
slowly working our way up
to the top of food chain.

We’ve risen, we’ve transcended
crawling on our bellies
in the mud
laying in our own merde
but what the shit! we sometimes
still like the mud
what the fug; we still like getting
down in the dirt.
let me wallow

we’ll go shopping later
KH

post ambition blues

Long after the hot part of the fire
After big bad flames bright yellow
After slowburn dwindled to lukewarm
When things have cooled way, way down
temperature is not afterburn
but aftercool
literate fool delusion

got the post-ambition blues babe

Post-postmodern- post-hip
cool on it’s way to cold
between love signals and bird-flip
Between silver and gold
sincere apathy
honesty from exhaustion
hyperbolic whimper .com dope
Not the capital T but small t gimme gimme
so tired
like whitealbumjohn——-

got the post-ambition blues babe
post-conviction

don’t have the energy to care that much
don’t think about trying to climb the pile
lost direction
like selfportraitbob—————-

Apathy to the rescue post ambition cool
to the rescue brandishing Apathy as tool

got the post-ambition blues babe
post-conviction

non-straight is as crooked does
tap dance all day get all touchy-feely
like doorperceptionjim—————

Anointed one drives in circles
been around the block
lotsa times
half brained cowboy mouth
how fast is half assed
a monkey’s past

self-appointed critic
wants it all but won’t
WANT it.
some have it
but nobody keeps it

got the post ambition blues babe - post ambition

KH

broken promise land

comes a roarin’ wind - hear the rattling roofs of tin -
blown away again
another shotgun shack - all the walls are paper thin -
blown away again

comes a drivin’ rain - the rivers overflow again -
yeah, they flood again
and your boat is gone - swept away like little children’s sin - swept away again

here come the planes - the sky is falling once again -
tearing buildings down
then the tremors start- and they shake the earth apart -
tearing up the ground

and along comes a mission- to lend a helping hand
actin’ like a band of heaven’s angels
hands on the bible- they pray it all away
at the end of the day you’re left with nothing

and the promised land - is never really given
but it’s still alive- inside your dreams
and the faithfull still believe - they are forgiven
but nothing’s really what it seems
in broken promise land….
broken promise land

KH

turning #2

Turning, her light peeks through
her lenscrafters
stabs like bright knives
cutting into my pupils,
vibrating, rumbling rods & cones
then all the way back,
behind the eyeball

daggering into the recesses,
into the grey brain matter
into the deepest part,
the hidden heart-mind,
the most nakedly hungry
part
of the thought processing
organ
in conjunction with
synced with
little Elvis

down into the quick and dangerous
lizard brain,
darting tongue with mouth closed
not smiling wide

baring teeth came later
a precedent set as far back
as Neanderthal Man
still practiced by refined
silver spoon-fed British royals
using the correct forks
to stab flesh
and swallow it

Kimono dragon
cold, slithering
snake mind
crawls across the floor
legless, armless
but not bloodless

egg-laying dinosaur cousin
60 million years ago
mutha fugga
only wants what it wants
when it wants it
no matter what the cost…

we fall below the visible spectrum,
down below empathy
where there is no feeling,
no desire
where there is only
‘ache’
swimming
in the brain’s boneless mushy marrow.
We’re not that good, are we?

KH

turning #1

Turning, the light from Alissa’s eyes
plays tricks…
It sends stray shards
ricocheting
like bright bullets
into the glass of a picture frame
then the light flies across the room
and crashes into the plexi-glass
window
not breaking free
it glances back into the mirror-pane
and has a bright idea

Please hold the lamp steady, Alissa
let me bask in this light
for a while
In time I’ll shine
like a new idea

I’ll bring some sun to the table
I’ll light a candle and
think things through
I’ll let you know
in a clear, cohesive fashion
just what I think

It would be hard
to tell you ‘how’ I think
it’s all in me head
the phrase “hold that thought”
sounds funny, doesn’t it?

I wish I could use my hands
to hold a thought, fleeting
but all I can do is use my hands
to write ‘em down

KH

5 tomato haikus……

Early Girls fried green
red Big Boys wait for the knife
June, July, August

the red devil’s fruit
came to bible belt gardens
kinda grew on ‘em

color has odor
just touch a tomato plant
you will smell fresh green

fruit or vegetable
is to be or not to be
ketchup or catsup

pre-enripenment
tomatoes are tomatoes
post, they are sauce

KH

route 48

“Did you see what I just saw?”
I dreaded the answer
“Amy?……. Am I going to hit it?”
split-second pre-collision
moment of silence

sign says…
NY Rte 48 - Ithaca - 28 miles -
watch for deer - next 18 miles…
fog lights are so-so,
bright beams are overkill,
a white-deer leaps
head on into a Continental
blanco furro
roso bloodo

“Wow… that was close…
we gotta stop and see if anybody’s hurt”

doe death crash
impala’s cousin impaled
by the crucifix hood ornament
on a beat-black Lincoln
religion on wheels
luxurious pimp-mobile
spirit-dressed
in full regalia
w/ Santeria statues

dashboard bobble-heads
still bouncing
from seconds ago impact
broken lava lamp? in the back window

driver’s door finger-painted
with radioactive red-corpuscle latex

secret codes in plain sight
emblazoned in a semi-circle,
curved around the wheel well
fender-skirt
from ecclesiastes; “a time for war,
a time for peace”

from the ten commandments
“thou shalt not kill”
no apparent contradiction

bumper stickers say “napalm is the answer” -
“nuke ‘em back to the stone age” -
“abortion is murder”
doesn’t the bizarro bible
say “Abraham, kill your son”

and you say buddhist’s is weird?

name; unknown - cause of death;
vehicular homicide
identifying marks on body;
tattoo on victim’s chest that says “JEAN”
inside a red heart pierced by an arrow
victim’s leather vest says;
“hoggs rule”

the bond market

It wasn’t her
and it wasn’t me,
it was an errant algorithm
beast with two backs

young bodies
beautiful
bumping uglies
on the ‘shag’ carpet…

engagement ring energy drink
puts love portfolio in the black…
legally sanctioned/obliged romance
need to propagate

All this going forth and multiplying,
all this compound interest cis-boom-bah,
all this fuss about a rally
over overt genitalia
a pumped presentation graph
bull market bull

engendered species masquerade
displaying beautiful plumage
color of lust
made to look bigger
impress the client
predator

chicken broth
underperforming returns
in the sacred bond market
love annuity
matures at death

“sitting on the
blanket
one piece of
too tall
grass in her hand

eyes cast
downward

hair
swept by wind

not a single
strand
out out of place..” KH