If Pepe Le Pew ever caught the offended who was
unfortunate enough to have a run-in with a paint roller,
the room would be in shambles.
The display case of croissants spilt across the floor,
the thin, black wired chairs overturned.
Those chairs always made me want to be
thirty-five waking up to stretch and scratch
pouring O.J., reading the papers,
the Eiffel Tower framed in the window
above the balcony,
the Eiffel Tower framed in oak
above the toilet.
The Parisian air would drift in and inspire me
to paint, to make love and I’d be fat and hairy,
but sure of my irresistibility.
Even at age 8, watching Saturday morning cartoons in Indiana,
I wanted to sit in a chair like that.

There was something about the tree line.
That floral crust was the edge of cognition.
From the highway I could see a sodden ravine.
The richness of soil was evident,
in the density of vegetation that grew sparser outward.
The ground water collected,
where the burgeoning hues were of the richest green.

Vegas is wasted,
still a newborn,
clay-baked and basted
in red and dust.
People dissappear
here alone or together
doesn’t make a damn
bit of difference.
When the sun rises
the newts scurry
wash the cars
run the errands
before they are baked
baked baked baked
into the hard earth.