We will headline, We are entitled

I'm going through a prepositional phase and then she was over

There, and I'm feeling like the last in
The long list of

Cons
Watching you as
You
Became a dangling modifier
Off the arm
Of some other
Pro. Now, not
To disparage musicians
But they have a way of fucking
Up a perfectly good sentence.
They'll distort and bend it
To their music til it isn't a sentence but
A lyric, contained. I'll refrain
From judgement. This con
Thought he knew how to break
You out of those bars.
I was off-key, of course.

Don't you know the rules?
"I before he," except you don't see
Relief. Believe and you shall receive
Me, speaking in apostrophe
Which, actually, is the exact opposite of possession,
Love.
It's projection! Upon or to
The audience
Not there, You
Drop the girl's 

curl of misplaced hair and you get
The girls,
The concrete made abstract made concrete
Walking on her (their) two (hundred) feet
Punctuating the blank page of snow as she goes

Dancing in ellipses down
The sidewalk
And I'm paused behind,
Or maybe ahead,

Waiting for her to catch up.

Stop!
Don't ticket my poem,
Meter maid! Just because
You're better read and better bred?
Please. I was just waiting here a minute.

But it's too late.
She's a sentence already handed down,
How dare I edit
Her memory, her birthday:
Her mittened hands,
Her intermittent laugh,
Her heartbeat iambic
(I counted on it for too much).

A shoe comes untied as we walk
And as she flies down to lace it
I pause to see the wind whip
Its fingers through her long hair,
And there's a rhythm to it,
As if she, too, had come untied.
I told her and she laughed, standing
Back up, braided and brave.

How dare I see discipline, then,
In the curled comma of her finger
folding and unfolding, inviting,
The always guessing
And hopeful suspense
Of her two eyes
Cocked sidewise;

Winking, she tells me
"I'm poison-laced, dear."
And again her eyes are open (my favorite couplet):

I kiss her before handing her the gift and smile,
"Last lines should be like shoelaces, not a stuck-on bow."

The Age of Sail

An abulia of currents
and all the clouds crying.
Pendulous tendrils of rain
in the distance, trembling
jellyfish of the sky.
Tiller towards trouble.

And what am I to do
but let my head lilt
with the wake of
each metal vessel
plowing along?

They fear no storm.

They don't feel this wind.

They don't even see me
so close to the water,
so tossed and iced and excited.


 

Contrite

"I want to cut off
The skin of my fingertips,"
Mom, dicing onions.

 

where the heart

a week ago it was the crowbars and hammers
and it was the nails that exposed their
necks when the plywood was pried up at
a friend's home in the country.
sliding the back of the hammer's head
and freeing the rusted metal, tossing it aside.
some wasps disturbed, awakened, bumbling and
so much mold from where the water got in,
grey and green and warm.

when i got there, my friend's wife was out
in the field. the sun was warm for november
and she was sitting there, a long ways off, arms
crossed on her knees. shafts of dried corn stalks
cut low to the earth and her blonde hair blowing.
more nails pulled up, more old wood for the fire.

it's a house from the 1840's.
they're a young couple i work with,
just bought it. the earthy brick walls
are worn with wind. they've known each other for ten
years. wooden support beams, bowed. they needed more
room in the house, so they're adding on. the temporary
floor of plywood they'd put in this spring had already
weakened and needed to be replaced.

and now you and i at the bar again for lunch,
first time i'd seen you in months and we're talking
about struggling with homes and with poems. i tell you
to start outside, from across the street. look at it
that way. picture the yard and the garage. there's a strong
foundation in place, so worry about the fence, the hedges.
walk inside and take me with you. show me pictures
of when you were a child. that frizzy hair. build
the house, but don't slave over the measurements. the blue-
prints for home are in those old photos and
yet they aren't.

you are brave,
building a home from memory
as your father threatens to leave the family
and as just last week i pulled up a floor
in a friend's house to find decay and insects.

you see, our lines are no longer parallel
tape measures, no more markings in pencil
and no more erasing and no more layers of
paint. the standing on levels, aligning bubbles
within the guides, feeling the whole thing
on a downward slope and not correcting
in time.

but you should have seen it in my dreams!
you were such a divine design, so many bay windows
and vaulted ceilings and structural flourishes
unmatched. i felt like the architect
was winking at me. then it became summer
and i was away holding measuring tapes
up to other women only to find the sad
dimensions and budgetary constraints.

sometimes it's about knowing what to repair
and what to tear down, when to expand
and when to contract
all that work out to a professional.

my friend and i were working for a while before i saw his wife
stand up from the field and walk back toward the house.
he looked up from the floor beside me, saw her coming and smiled.
there were wasps and sawdust and broken wood all around us.

and then i know i'm not yet ready for you, if
you'd even have me. guilt remaining and growing
like a mold, the precious things of yours i'd damaged
as you were trying to fix them. no,
i have too much to pry up, many parts to improve
before this human house is hospitable.

i want you to have a home
where you can stand on the floors
and not have to worry about what's beneath.

Morning Apostasy

Waking from a dream
where everything was so clear and desired
and near, the snapping up
in bed and the eyes settling
in the dark, shadows
of the sine qua non, how the fantasy
slips through fingers of memory
as my cat stirs in the corner and licks
at her small paws.

The wayworn feeling
after hours of not moving.
The hovering nimbus of grey thought
amassing at the periphery,
insuperable and menacing.
Sliding my feet from the sea
of sheets and stepping onto the
terra firma of floorboards
covered in clothes.

Now standing up, now naked and shivering.
Now a white, thinning skeleton animated.
Slough off remnants of the dream with
a shrug and stumble to the shower.

The burning, real water.
Her face so clear moments ago
now lost in steam.
Her voice a syrup miscible with soap.
The vitreous of her eyes mixing with shampoo.
Such beauty draining away with wires of hair and dead skin;
mutinous little pieces of myself still following her.

Agape Theon

Yet she, singing upon her road,
Half lion, half child, is at peace.
- W.B. Yeats


(4 a.m. &)
on the porch crying drizzles orange
the streetlight & puddles, potholes
down the sidewalk. ((chilly, too.) Autumn
whistlingwalking the alleys hands in
His pockets.)
you were crying on the porch)
& shaking with what earlier
happened cold
with the red. the seeping out of your
face fire smolders. shoulders shaking
you (were crying) on the porch &
i [held youasyou]
shook )the changing
leaves seducing the night
shuffled upturned bellies.(

crying ragdoll! ragdoll you thought
him dead rag-doll you
checked his (ragdoll) pulse
as the blurry men pawed.breathed.t
ouched you. I standing. You did
not know
him. I stood(notunder-
standing)
the smearing mensmearing
kicked ragdol drag
gedragdoll him stranger
You pushed
them off &
i feet behind reached
to pull .You. away.
paws & sweat hands
You fumingrunning
out, me behind
running,
the watery men call
ing to you;
ragdoll, rag-doll, rag doll.

the storm
home,
(4 a.m. &)You
were sobbing(in the black
of my shirt)so close breathing:
I thought he was fucking dead
i thought he was )fucking( dead
i thought they were
killing him.
no one was helping
no one..

and i holding so warmcold
you, [your love is the love of trees]
who now in-
discriminately
cast away
manymany hands to feed
the coolingchilling ground &
beautifulbeautifully color
in reds,browns,yellows
the world &
your body i
hold shaking
chilled,
momentarily barren
to return beautifulbeautifully
(halcyon)colorful color
fully soon.

wish i were that i
(unstrongunwarm)
could hasten the spring &
)arroyo unfilling tears(
see your colors again brighten,
i(unwelcome unready,
unbeautiful)in passing most
fragilestrong!
You.

morning
finds me far
away and (wanting
to be most like
most nearer
fragilestrong.)
You unwanting me
hiding, in awe(again)
of You i'd forgotten
& reawoken as a tree
buds too soon
& then frosts.

oh heavens(oh sept
burning behind
clouds)
i am sorrysorry
to have
thought me strong
unwinding tiet, knots
of her. oh lotus let
me be born something
lastingunlimping, let
me(oneday)be planted
(a sycamore)near
beautifulbeauti
fully her [whose
roots] needswants
none.

 

Marcescence

It's the time of year when all you have to do is look at a tree
To catch it blushing and
We're walking toward the movie theater
And she scolds me for
The beer so early, scolds me for
Speaking too loud, scolds me for
Swearing in front of families, scolds me for
The joke about the child and the shotgun and
Bang,

My heart is in my shoes plodding on
And not in my hand holding hers.
I want to explain how I once danced with a girl
Screaming down a busy sidewalk,
Bumping into passers-by and each other
And the laughing, how reckless
And immature. How senseless
And childish and how
I still want to be,

Holding a hand
Unfeeling,
One finger raised to her lips
And the cool air passing through them
To silence me, to still me.
Such pretty eyes reprimanding
And looking away,
Looking back

And her looking with barometers
Of expectation, eyes peeling layers
And my quiet prayers for rain. Oh, rain,
How dry the summer had been, only drizzles
And no wind. no damage and no insurance,
No danger. none of that
Violent spring weather.
The looking back
To see a girl
And the girl besides.

And then the movie's finished and we're back in the car
And the small talking becomes looking out the window
With the radio on and the moving so fast
And the cool, cool air rushing
Through my hair, my shirt.
The streetlights were the streetlights of

A late night in the early summer and we didn't know where to go
So she picked me up in her car and we drove aimlessly around the
Neighborhood, kissing at every stop sign and going
In circles, going nowhere,
Her hand in my hair,
Going in circles,
Her hand under my shirt,
Going nowhere.

And how badly I want us to run,
How badly I want us to fall and injure
And how badly I want us to
Be unleashed and loud and dangerous
As escaped elephants. To be to blame,
Completely without shame and crashing
Into everything around us without the fear
Of breaking off, the fear of eyes breaking
Away and melting in the snow yet to fall.
The cool air moving in circles yet somehow
Going everywhere.

waking up to a cento and scrambled eggs

  and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth
and the clock that will not make me know
how to leave you

    it is difficult to think
of you without me
in the sentence
the one warm beautiful thing in the world
breathing upon my right rib
like a tree
breathing through its spectacles
fatigue shifting like dunes
while the coins lie in wet yellow sand
the waves which have kept me
from reaching you
your hand pressing all that
riotous black sleep into
the quiet form of daylight.

the eyes roll asleep as if turned by the wind
and the lids flutter open slightly like a wing.
the wind blows towards us particularly. here
are your bones crossed
on my breast like a rusty flintlock.
you smile
and pull the trigger.

oh god it's wonderful
to get out of bed
naked as a table cloth.

you had to walk through the great gate of kiev
to get to the living room.
it was autumn
by the time i got around the corner.

melancholy breakfast.
just plain scrambled eggs.
muss es sein? es muss nicht sein

mud clambers up the trellis of my nerves.

      but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky.
somewhere beyond this roof
a jet is making a sketch of the sky
i shall see my daydreams walking
down the muggy street beginning to sun.
the buses glow like clouds.
i don't glow at all
so subtly dragged away
by the silver flying machine.

you have left me to the sewers of
our most elegant
lascivious bile
where the filth is
pumped in and slanders and pollutes and determines.
a tongue given wholly to luxurious usages
while music scratches its scrofulous stomach
and the tattered cordage of my will.
my most tender feelings writhe and bear the fruit of screaming
wouldn't you like the eggs a little different today?

  ("it's a summer day
  and i want to be wanted
  more than anything else in the world.")

the toaster's electrical ear waits
without breath or distant rejoinder
as indifferent as an encyclopedia.

     the silent egg thinks.

run your finger along your no-moss mind
that's not a run in your stocking
it's a hand on your leg.
i beg you
                do not go.

(you don't want me to go
where you go
        what are you doing now
        where did you eat your
        lunch and were there
        lots of anchovies
so i go where
you don't want me to.)

and i am sweating a lot by now;
if it won't happen to me what shall i do?

i think of it on grey mornings with death in my mouth
flailing about like vipers in a pail, writhing and hissing without panic
as i historically belong to the enormous bliss
of american death.
i want to be at least as alive
as the vulgar.
i have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
with a very real humor you'd be proud of.
i accept
so much
it's like
       vomiting.

you will marry the first person who tells you your eyes are like scrambled eggs.
and if somebody does
  it’ll be sheer gravy
a final chapter
no one reads because the plot is over.

my poem is finished and i haven’t mentioned
frank o'hara.

 

i stepped on the antecedent's toes, didn't i?

you, my dear, have grown
ever-so-careless with your
pronouns. i've misread you
before on their account,
those faceless parts of
speech to whom we loan
our hand-painted masks.
nameless loves, named
nouns, the proper
people unashamed,
reaching out and verbing
one another across vast
prepositions.

really, i'm as guilty as
anyone. it is so easy
to address our envelopes
to: you and expect the
message to be delivered.
to: him, to: her, to: abstraction;
all equally cause the great literary
mail carrier to shrug and tap
his foot. yet, strangely, our
little notes always arrive,
timely and unopened.

and, to be honest,
i know why we do it.
when you spoke of him
and him and him, i
was able to slip myself
into your life, uninvited
party guest standing
in the corner of your
poems, waving, awkward,
tugging at the strings
of my mask, being him,
if only for a little while.
if only to stand in a room
with you, her, we, us.

identity, how silly. how
easily it comes to us,
the pretending on the
page. and then how
naked we feel after
taking off the borrowed
mask, feeling our i's
like new things,
excited to be our own.
then the looking around
for us.
then the cold, fast
remembering
in only seeing
you and him.

 

tandem running

she explained why some ants have wings
and others don't,
involved something about how
the ground is the bottom of the sky
and the coupling in-flight
and the males dying either too soon
or not soon enough
and oh, oh, honey,
won't it be fine?
a come-hither look,
her cogs
slipping of teeth,
turning in bed,
and all of us are such
vainglorious, precocious
children! mean-minded bastards
with tongues in each others'
mouths and the highways
that connect our hives
have lately been lined
with orange barrels
and flashing signs
that insist we, all of us moving,
slow everything down.
there's a measurable amount of destruction
that goes into a building, a road, a child
walks into a bar and is offered round
after round and the adults regurgitate
everything into him, mold the wrinkles
he will later see in the mirror.
rub her head against mine
until i can smell everything she is
and has been, so i can follow her home,
so if she is lost i can find her,
her pheromones lighting up the sky
like a ridge of fire advancing through a forest.
so much working, so much cutting of leaves
and trucking home with strangers and then
it's all legs and legs and feeling
like your skin and your bones
are the same, like your organs
are floating, entangling themselves.

she says that's how they do it, ants,
that's how they lose
themselves in the largeness
of the colony. how they all
live and eat and mate
without prisons or art galleries or names.
but if you think about it, she says,
we're all pretty strong for our size,
our tiny hearts lifting mighty things
without second-guessing,
living towards
the chance to grow something
you weren't born with,
the chance to fly away from everything
you've known.

 

We Are Sparrows And Our Children Are Sparrows

and the blackest
crow has come
to our nest.

The way we swoop
and dart so desperately
at the enormous,
unfeeling wings
of an adversary
whose eyes are black
whose feathers are black
whose talons are black-
red.

A terrible, high-pitched screaming
that no amount of swooping or darting will ease.
The undulating lines of us
pursuing a black tear
as it rips unstoppably
across a cloudless, blue sky.

So much frantic screeching and flying,
so much wild flailing and falling
and throwing ourselves against
something too impossibly large,
and then the stopping,

the final banking,
the turning home;

An unfamiliar, quiet place
of broken twigs and
cold feathers.

 

control

frenetic
  fingers,
knots of nerves,
some   inner
 neural intersection
where the    streetlights
flash and   flicker
and the electric  cars
quietly   collide.
you touch me   and
   i flinch, an electricity
in your hands
arrhythmic,   circuits
of fingers.  water,
  lips, wired all wrong.
this failing apparatus  of
 muscle and sinew
gone awry,   hands,
 foreign hands,
recalcitrant   hands,
fingers shaking,
arms shaking,
   a tic, a tic,
a twitch in my neck.
your lips pull away, eyes open,
          steady hands hold my face
it's just me.

  these hands, my hands
not my hands,
 i can't keep them still.
tremors from somewhere   dark,
reverberating   with a tension
   that nibbles at the  cords
 in the walls,     feckless
fingers, futile   feeling
         it's not you.

nervous tic
tic tic   in the neck,  a twitch,
 hands counting down.
the accumulated detritus
of nerve against   bone,
sizzling,     snapping.

my hands,
how long until these are
not my hands?

tic tic
  tic.

Dusk, On A Porch In West Virginia

The day had been picking up steam
and setting it on the crooked shelf
of sky
as gently sliding clouds.
Now, at light's end,
the moon has nestled itself
in the small
of the mountaintop's back.
Mist rises from the trees
and it is clear that both mountains
are sighing, forest-blanketed
lover lying
next to lover.

Inside the house,
the sound of women talking,
laughing, their voices too thick with twang
to escape through the screen of the door.
The chains of the porch swing
creak with each forward
backward, forward
backward push.
A rusted tractor with flat
tires sits in the field
across from the house
and tall weeds thread themselves
through its cracked innards.
They bow and bend slightly.

Far away,
something is breaking.

The dogs run up and down the holler
in the last moments of twilight,
tails at nervous attention.
They trot back to the porch
after realizing they've been barking
at their own voices
as they bound back
down the valley walls.

 

independence day

explosions
in the night sky,
followed by a thud
that shakes the ground,
hammers in your chest.
think about your last kiss.

husks
of brown smoke
slide into the black background
illuminated by the
green, yellow, red,
violet and blue of the latest
screaming, spiraling, crackling
chemical reaction
to dance across your eyes.

a finale,
an assault of sound,
sight and smell
from above. then,
no more light.
just the knowledge of that
terrible smoke, vaguely visible,
tentacles of dirt
slowly twisting into a cloud.
people around you
sigh
in lawn chairs,
on blankets.

suddenly,
in your memory,
all the bright colors
become indistinguishable,
all the excitement you'd bottled
rocketing up, up, up
like a roman candle,

hiss bang and gone.

 

Salinger & The New Age Dipsomaniacs

Diary: Any body that reads this without permission
will drop dead in 24 hours
or get sick.

She had tied Polaroids of herself
to a mobile hanging from the ceiling.
Funny girl. Blurry clouds! He doesn't
care if it thunders every night because
not everybody's made out of iron.
He looks at her fingers.
She's been biting around the nails
since she was a kid.
They're bloody, their tips misshapen,
but strong. They are a damaged part of her,
a painter. He looks around the room at everything
they've created, hanging from the walls, not
a carpenter in sight. Cleverness! His wooden leg.
From one limping artist to another,
be courteous and kind. He kisses
the broken skin on each finger.

A genuine war is needed,
to fight, to stitch a real conflict into the plot.
Enemies! He's been long-impaled on
bayonets of memory, soldiers
coming up and over the trench walls with
faces he has tried to forget.

Soupy Peggy and her love
of how the boy stood at the chalkboard.
Surrounded by her paints and oils,
he still is not really using his own poetry
for the occasion. She straddled him on the couch,
pulled at his hair as they kissed. He's shaking.
He refuses to write under the pressure
of dead-weight beauty, The Brain,
The Brain, pounding on the window of a
restaurant on a dark street. Running from one
and into another. He had things
on his mind, needed pruning shears
to remove them.

Drinking, sober, drinking.
I'll come over Christmas Eve. I'll trim the tree for ya.
Plead with steel blue eyes, say nothing.

Without his glasses,
he couldn't see what was coming. She's seen quite
a few bananafish in her day. He is not well-
versed. That terrible fever, it's nearly all poetry. Do you know
what that means? Poor Uncle Wiggily,
she said over and over again.

A worn paperback copy of Franny & Zooey sat in two
pieces on her coffee table. He tried to put it back together,
but the pages were old and bent, the spine dissolved.

Later, as he lay on the pillow,
inches from her face, he wanted that suave serum,
the one mixed from William Powell’s
old cigarette case and Fred Astaire’s
old top hat. Something that would allow him
to capture the high, rosy cheekbones,
the large eyes that, upon seeing him,
bent small lips into a smile
before heavy eyelids slowly slid shut,
her nose touching his.
He heard about a ski resort that had opened
on her shoulder. With the slightest of hesitations,
his index and middle fingers
were the first on the slopes,
a touch and yet
not a touch.
Slalom between small hairs,
then a slow lift back to the summit.

I don’t really have a good reason for taking myself out of the third person,
but let's assume I wrote some of this and borrowed the rest for my own
selfish purposes. The next bits are sadder, I think.

He had been repeating a girl's name ceaselessly
under his breath for so long
that it echoed closely behind every heartbeat,
swam through his veins, and
when she was gone, his blood thinned,
slowed. To restore the proper
heart-cadence, he had to find another name.
Frightful, new medicine.
Either the Pilgrim has been repeating the wrong
name or his God does
not exist.

She can't spit, she can't even sit still,
her fingers entangled with his, a threnody
of laced, white skin. Empty ritual,
a hollow chamber he tried to fill
with music or rainwater. He knows
something is wrong, but does not
know where.

This play, if she asked,
Nicht fertig
yet.

When he got home he wasn't sure who he missed more,
her or
her.
He was supposed to leave something beautiful
after he got off the page and everything,
but it only came out as something stolen, Ray Ford,
ending on something about how he felt around her, ending how
he wanted it to begin:

Not a wasteland, but a great inverted forest
with all the foliage underground.

 

22

Oh, Miller High Life,
The Champagne of Beers, breakfast
for the birthday boy.

 

kommós

failing the rain, the wind
will cancel the parade.
a church service of eyes,
a collection plate that
changes hand after hand
and still holds no money.
put away the toy cars,
your father will step on them
in the dark. a suitcase of folded
clothes. a strapless dress
on a pretty girl who sings
like an angel. untie his
shoes, the school teacher
is knots. tie
this tie around my neck,
dear, hang me upside-down
in the cellar.
a stuffed rabbit named
'security.' at the party,
alcohol, music, a child's
doll with fireworks in its
chest. the gate is open,
do not come in, for god's
sake, come in. her window
is sobbing, really crying now
with all that sunlight. sleep
in the loft, away from me,
in the heat, wake up sweating,
go downstairs and wrap
your shirt around your head.
i will make coffee, you will
drink coffee, you will not
leave until i shove you.
a brick borrowed from the
library. spend a few hours
every day watching how
the sky is born, how stars
learn to hide. a conversation
with her is like walking through
a minefield in snowshoes. disarm
my hands, let them fly wherever
they please. a secret mission
to save language from
computers, garbled inboxes,
static. tell
him everything there is to know
about your family and where you
have been. he's been in dire
straight jacket situations.
a television or blind man's
radio. it is possible to be
older than your father.
a bracelet embraces
more than skin. look now,
the sun is rising, today
is gone, replaced by
today. a room painted
in circus-stripes, red,
white, yellow and blue.
there was a small boy that
thought he could put anything
to words, he swore he could,
until a girl looked at him just-so,
just so. a blank fired from a gun
will never miss. always apologize
for being close to someone after
the fact, when you are far away.
a deer darts across the highway,
hold its eyes in your eyes,
slowing down will not save it.
take a hammer to her
finer points, take a hammer
to bed. a leather wallet, empty to
the brim, shames the cow
for which it was killed. write
something for her so she
may write something back,
give pause when she never
does. a game of chess with
only pawns, all black. where
there is thunder there is fire.
i mean, if it sounds like a duck. never kiss
him on the lips, he needs
those to talk, needs them
to be in pristine smiling condition
before the marathon, the real-life
application of decals. plastic,
she says she can sing, says
she can dance, says she
can sew, says she can write.
here, hold this knife, it is dull,
now keep rubbing it against
my neck, yes, like that, that
is the spot. a word for distances
measured in numbers of poems
not-written. the grass, it is so
blue there, green here. pick
up branches to build her a
fire, you fool. those are your
hands, suddenly. offer him
something so he can accept it,
take away something so he
can miss it. a parked car
looks exactly like a car
in motion, but moving
makes things prettier.
if you die, i want to know,
i want to be the first to know.
i am afraid of keeping you
too long in one place where
you never really were.
have some pie, i made it myself.
swordfish tastes like chicken.
buy your baby sister a mailbox
so your father can write her
letters, dadaist, so she can learn
the excitement of receiving words
on paper. can you taste that?
that's beautiful. that's music.
please officer, let me break
this law, forgive me in advance.
a slow ringing sound. a vibration.
a wave. tell him what he can and
can not do, tell him that you do
not feel the same way, tell him
that he never stood a chance,
he may not be listening. too busy
writing, wanting, unhearing. she is
drinking a bloody mary, complaining
about canker sores. a painting
with too much red, not enough
yellow. in some parts of the country
there are wolves, in others,
republicans. fall asleep near him,
do not fall asleep with him. he
has nothing to offer her. he has
tried very hard to make
himself into something she
would find beautiful. she
is not looking for anything,
beautiful or otherwise.
a blue flower that tried to be
yellow. a bee gets one chance
to sting before it dies. sunset,
like a god throwing small, white
seeds all over the purple soil.
invisible colors are still colors.
he can't get rid of her, destroys
parts of himself to keep her
from spreading. a parrot that
never gets the chance to hear
you speak loses a lot of its charm,
squawks like any other bird.
a cloud that looks like everything
except a cloud is never anything
except a cloud. don't change
the seasons, i was watching that.
it's not you, it's me, it's her, it's him,
it's a pronoun, i swear. feel inadequate
at your own risk. challenge accepted.
a postcard from a far-off place
can be printed anywhere. he falls
asleep in a tree, dreams about her,
wakes with the strange fear
that she has never once thought
about him. the leaves of the tree
coo him back to sleep, brush
away the light rain. hello, my name is
stay back. a surgeon can become
a puppeteer if he has a thorough
knowledge of which nerve connects
to which muscle, what synapses
control the tear ducts, the small
barrels inside your lungs where
laughter is stored. a magician
that can turn a rabbit into a dove
needs a lesson in symbolism
and love.
you may have some idea
how much this hurts. an
organ with no other use
than to rupture is proof
that god has a sense of
humor. he would have
done incredibly stupid things in
her name, to be with her, to be
in the den of a lion. she said
something about confidence,
about her many faces, about
being afraid. she was speaking
a foreign language. he wanted
to learn to speak. he sounded
like an inspirational calendar,
dated and full of stock
photography. he wanted
to make her happy, above
all else. a song without a bridge
must be forded. a paperclip
dreams of being straightened,
fears its length. he wants
to write with her, is afraid
of what writing will become
without her urgency, is afraid
of what eyes to look for in a
crowd of un-her eyes. a
watch has hands but the
metaphor ends there. time
spent at an amusement park
is half spent riding the rides
and half spent waiting in lines.
love is an ugly word, a terrible gun
that should be kept in a shoe box
in the top shelf of a closet, out of
the reach of children. a boxing glove
softens the blow. he has said all
of this before. she has heard all
of this before. a monk immolates
himself to be closer to the stars.
he was looking right at her
and not at anything else.
in the zoo, a polar bear looks
at his large paws, then up at the sun,
and knows something is wrong.
she is, somehow, the rain
and the rainbow, just add
light. he will not let her see
him in this state, will not let
her know how friendly the iceberg
became with the hull of the ship.
a girl plays tennis with the wall,
wins. a curtain closes on the last act
and the orchestra is out of tune,
all the sheet music suddenly shuffled,
flying away as if blown by a storm.
he wanted something not his.
she could not help him.
dead loves are buried above ground
so that the water,
when it floods,
does not pull them from the grave.

 

Seeing Madame Gherardi

 

Stripped of its leaves by the winter it was certainly anything but dazzling until the crystallization of the salt covered its black twigs with such a multitude of shining diamonds that only here and there can one still see the twigs as they really are.
-Stendhal

Hornbeam, water, salt,
and time. A pockmarked, brown hand.
Two eyes, flawed prisms.

 

emptied sails

the calm after
   the storm
makes you want to jump
   over-
 bored.


  

brine

red light ticking
needle over
the e
passed the last
you
station a
long time ago
& honey
it's dark
i can't see
the hand in front
of my face where
did this fog come
from
confidence! like
vitamins! right?
if i swallowed five
handfuls what would
it matter it might
send me into the
arms of x girl(don't
like her never did)
but that's not you
you know? what i'm saying
has more to do with
a metabolism that hungered
for you that was fueled by
you & had a firewood-like
quality that burned
in my poems i shoveled
you into a furnace &
out popped another verse
but something about
that night in your room
i saw you lying in your
bed with a stuffed(how
strange)rabbit and i sat
at your feet feeling
enormous feeling
like any move i
made would have
broken something
in your small room
i was out of
place and wanting very much
not to be
in that moment of terrible
size i wrote something
down
you never looked at me!
the way i knew you looked
at him(insidious pronoun,
selfish me?)you named
a stuffed dog after me
& i cringed when you
held it because i do
not generally like
being jealous of
toys.
21-in-
love finds
conspiracies
in every
word your
turning-around-
to-me look
was my favorite
structure was thrown
out the window weeks
ago i'm just the last
one at the bar closing
time
breaking change
breaking bottles
breaking lines
where
ver i
dam
n wel
l plea
se
relentless is a word i liked
but i never really was relent
less was i if i was would
things be different no
i know
that this
is really
my life
and i
have
erred
i hated your sunglasses they
took up half your face &(tin
ted & sinister)robbed me of
my favorite view
how snarky
how trite
say what you mean &
get off the page
is a law i try to follow
but so help me
everything i've
said i've meant
i don't think
i've lied
to you
before
have i?
letting go hurts(can
dor!)pushing away
the one thing(you)
you want and well
aware that a poem
will be written
twenty-nine years
from now by
a washed
up old
hack
wishing
his orchestra had been in tune
for you
is a legitimate fear
but i have to get moving
kid
this town is too small
for this giant
fool i know
there is
some classy
dame
out there
that needs some poems
written to her
your plate is over-
full
didn't suit your
palette
or otherwise
you had already eaten
it is
time
to go
how
many
times
do i have to say good-
bye before i up &
leave
just look at you
that glow
of light
in dark
clouds all that
water &
not a drop
to drink.

 

icarus

fell,
not out of pride,
but after being so close
to the sun, its heat,
its beauty,
realized
how far away
he still
was.
he plucked
his own feathers,
clawed at the wax,
and dropped silently
into
the cold,
cold sea.


 

Shear Stress

I want scissors
to cut away this bar,
the world, to trim
these ragged edges
from us, sitting
across from
each other,
talking, two
sharp blades
that, upon meeting,
divide.


 

near-dyslexic mutt's hymnal to the purebred with aching joints

I

the neighborhood dogs
are gossiping to each other
about us
as we pass.
true,
yr not really here,
but
i have chiseled something like you
out of ivory
& it is here,
animated by the alcohol.
'pygmalion had shaky hands'
i hear one whisper-
bark. a shivaree of
paws against chain
link
fences,
a choir.


II

'yr an oak of copious sparrows!
be still!'
is a possible interpretation
of what real-you
said to me
one night.
i ask statue-you
what she thinks
& she isn't sure.
i don't trust her
i built her
all wrong.
(she sounds too much
like me &
not enough like you)
i am
idolist. blasphemer. parrot.
i hold on to
everything you've ever said
& now
that is all
i want to hear
so i repeat it to myself
give me a cracker
dear
i will shut
up.


III

the plebs might
wonder
why i am walking
around with statue-you
& not real-you.
you’ll laugh! because you know
(let us not be rude) it is
because i tip-
toed where i should have
stomped i whimpered when
i should have roared
i wrappd long fingrs
around an intense smell
and let go
when i should have kissed,
but, well,
they get the picture.


IV

o what they should be asking
is where i am headed!
if it is away from you,
then the coward is irredeemable
& deserves
his sad idol & the dogs
have every right to pass
judgment.


V

but if the coward is headed
toward yr house, to present
the statue as a gift, to fight
for the ground
he ceded, then
the audience may even cheer for
him! but i am running
out of time and i may or may
not have decided
if i want to be
selfish &.or if i should
do the 'nawble' thing: walk
off into the night with statue-you
& let the dogs have
their laugh.
o, o, dogs are knowing;
they can talk to clouds
& will tell you
if a storm is
coming i asked
one once. the bitch
said 'woof'
all warm tongue'd
& i winked
in comprehension.


VI

the solipsist is tired,
converted.
you exist!
his old philosophies
must die.
the denier
becomes the denied. he
listens to
the real
mystagogues, the dogs,
wet, black
noses &
swinging tails, censers
chanting
panting
rolling on their backs
in love,
for love
chests raised to the sky
clouds and
clouds of
smiles, tongues out.


VII

doubt, stultifying doubt,
fall out of
my shoes!
i have some amount of
running to do.
ivory statues can't walk
what am i doing here?
i have some amount of
running to do.


VIII

about
face,
yr
face,
don't
let me
leave
tail-
tucked.
raise yr
hackels
at the
statue
in yr
yard.
i've
been
playing
dead
all
my
life.


IX

intruder!
   intruder!
the temples are burning.
craft a new pantheon
with me
or sacrifice this dog
to yr old god.
may my blood
bring rain,
may my blood
be rivers
collecting storm
water. i am flood,
i am guile.
the temples are burning.
sacrifice this dog
for yr old god.
i am no heirophant,
but i hear that yours
is a distant lord,
stopped answering
prayers. our gods
will. sacrifice this
dog for yr old god
or let me run
with you. hurry,
the temples are burning.
cut my throat,
sacrifice
this dog.
run with me
out through
the smoke,
the ash of tipped
censers on yr paws.
sacrifice this dog
for yr old god.
may my blood be rivers.


X

hallelujah, rain
rain, hallelujah


 

red light

at the party
i was drinking on the porch roof
heard you coming
ducked stumbled back inside
through the window into
a room illuminated by
a single red bulb you said
i'm leaving

but i didn't
want to see you go
i was thinking of jupiter
of red lights of stopping
there was too much symbolism
in my life and
the only natural thing to do
was to hold you
you who'd brought the storm
with you

again i was hanging on
to a force of nature with
both arms but i am weak
and something your friend
had told me about you
having found your other half
years ago
made me sure of what
i had to do i had to let
the rain find its way back
to the river

by this time i had already
shut down every part
of my brain except what
i needed to move my arms
with you in them nothing
i said was what i wanted
to hear myself say but
that is the sad mechanics
of a goodbye

it was all
of five hours i mean five
minutes of us drenched in
red with people milling
around oblivious to
the thunder in the room
of my face buried in your
hair smelling and forcing
the memory to soak and last
i will know that smell anywhere

i looked down into your eyes
and they were large white
stones floating in red water
this is the end this is the end
one strong gust rips you away
and this is the end

i go back out onto the roof
to watch you walk
down the street
the last drops of the flood
waters drying
flying up into the night air.

 

your bracelets jingle with the sound of thunder

look what you have done to me
i have become verbose, obese
with these words i have let myself
go, a new diet of empty calorie,
emotional words. this bloated
poet is standing in a well-lit
room with you and your lover
i was sent by assassins i was
supposed to be covert i was
supposed to sabotage but i
am standing in plain sight
the mission is over i gave
myself up too soon. i just
watch, a door-to-door
salesman with a foot caught
in the frame trying to pitch
my brilliant cleaning product
it is a bargain i swear you
can trust me i can see into
your home you offered it
generously but i am also
a real estate agent and i
am an excellent surmiser
of spaces yours is indeed
enormous but i am a tall
man that likes to stretch
and i'm afraid there is
already someone else
living in there with you.
someone grab the hook
this man is taking a brodie,
he's playing to the haircuts,
he'll just be three-sheeting
after the show you shouldn't
have let him into the country
the poet-protester is going
to hold signs outside your
factories he will not work
you have a hill to yourself
in italy you said your old-
movie impressions were
impeccable you did not
give me enough memories
i feel cheated but i didn't
like where the film was
headed anyway. touch my
face do not touch my face
i kissed you on the forehead
when i was drunk i should
not have done that did you
even feel it? i was blunt as
a hammer that night i was
a danger to myself i was
swung violently in circles
by you i wanted to smooth
your hair with my hands
i wanted to run my fingers
through it like water i wanted
to be clean and sober and
the music was throwing itself
against the basement ceiling
i swore it splintered the floor
boards. you were brachiating
from arm to arm in the crowd
i couldn't keep up i couldn't
see that high into the canopy
i was picking insects out of
bark on the forest floor, filthy.
love yourself always and do
not invite strangers into your
home. if the warm air of confusion
collides with a cold front of guilt
do not let the storm funnel out
of your control i know you this
well i am familiar with the
complexities of your meteorology
i have seen it within you, storm
child, i have seen what you leave
in your wake and it is not all
destruction you brought me
rain. it is spring and something
was growing for a time. you
did that.

jupiter's heart is visible,
you can almost see it with
the naked eye. it beats with
light; a pulse millions of miles
away from me, beautiful and
in the company of many moons.

  

confessional

one more time, looking
straight at you,
kid, i've a mind to talk with
reckless abandon!

watch me swing onto the deck of your ship
with the dagger of poetry in my teeth! i jab
it at you with all the menace of a child
threatening a parent with a dinner knife.
you gently put me in the corner and i am
now the smallest pirate in the crew, one that
cannot swim. yarr! a protest from the brig;
i thought my words were so much sharper.

i am no stranger to humility no i have visited that island before
i have t-shirts and other merchandise from the gift store in
fact i know the shop clerk by name his name is hubert and
he doesn't look at me as i pay for my shameful items. hell
i've even applied for citizenship and before i even filled out
the forms they were all sighing and inviting me to sit closer
to their reassuring campfires. i told them i couldn't stay.
"i have business on the mainland," i said, and a small scrap
of confidence fell out of my pocket. i tried to hide it, but
it was bright, glowing, gold in the sand. they shielded their
eyes. i knew i wasn't welcome there any longer. this has

turned into a bad joke. i want to attempt
statuary. the next time i see you on the street i think i will freeze.
you might laugh or you might be confused
but understand that i am statuary and it will be a form of discipline
for me to keep my eyes away from you
for me to willfully pretend you are a ghost among the other ghosts
because there is a great discipline to this
it would be like forcing a moon to unlearn its gravity, i doubt it can
work, this un-physics, this un-attraction.

but i have to try! lately i have found more and more of myself
circling you and the pull of it is terrifying. you have an incredible
density i had no idea that something of your size had so many small
hands, hands of gravity, hands with sharp nails that dig into everything
that strays too close that draw blood that sting that claw that have a real
venom. the danger of you! the black, broken masts of ships that stick out of
your swirling waters. the adventure in navigating through a storm that destroys,
a red spot on jupiter that looks harmless in photographs but my god if it was even
possible to get close the people would know real fury would know real wrath the kind
that has boiled through generations. i'm talking about a storm that lasts hundreds of years.

i have a place and it is not with you.
i see you and him as an indigenous
tribe that may or may not practice
cannibalism. i want to learn more
about your ways but i do not want
to taint the isolation, the separate-
ness, and i do not want to be eaten.
it is less a matter of fear than
you might think. it is not a fear
for myself, it is a fear for you.
the jungle explorer can watch
from the trees without disturbing
your alien, beautiful rituals.
you may be the last of your kind.

my favorite poets traveled and wrote about venice
and paris and more obscure cities. i have been to
disney world, at my farthest. i am not well read i
am not well traveled and i have a very low opinion
of myself in general. koch slept with more women
than i have met. most of the others were gay. i am
none of these great people and i have no mind to be.
the real world is waiting for me outside in a long,
black car. i don't know where it is going to take me
but i know there is someone else in the back seat.
i can't see her yet, just her legs as the door opened.
i thought i caught a glimpse of her bright red toe nails
flashing in the sun. but i was just stepping out of the
hotel and the light was in my eyes, blinding,
i'm sure

i was mistaken now. i do not want
this poem to involve a duality but
i'm afraid it has to. clearly i am mad
about you and there must be a way
no no no you are happy, you are
perfect where you are and i'll be
gone soon enough. look for me
in a bullet-riddled car
i intend to find a dangerous
woman to die with in violence,
it will take a large posse
to track us down it will end
in gunfire be sure to look for
it in the papers. we would be
a headline waiting to be
written we would be bold
and we would be above
the fold, the law, the others.

yours is a beauty of many arms with many hands wielding many weapons,
a vengeful deity wreathed in flame. this might be an exaggeration, but it
is better to not test the gods. they have a way of knowing things, parents
watching children taking knives from the drawer, concerned but smiling.

this is where we part ways, partner.
i'm not going to apologize this time.
i've had fun. i am going to miss you
incredibly, achingly, but at least you
know now. if you pass a statue on
the street please keep walking and
do not inspect its construction, there
are flaws and cracks all over. the city
has been meaning to remove it for
almost four years now.


 

inspired by the unattractive english faculty of miami university

this is where it gets complicated right here
at the point when the poems start to be
written for one instead of all when the
clunky, unwieldy universality is thrown
out the window in order to make more
room for the us pronouns and the inside
jokes and the oh god my life is a slow
culmination of mistakes leading up to
this grand prize mistake where i throw
myself into the water (you know i can't
swim) to prove a point. i want to be
that hamster on the couch, too. i
am a weak man and a jealous man who
commits profound errs of judgement
sometimes in front of children but
please don't take this the wrong way.
i am naive and prone to drink. cowards
write poems like this because the brave
know how to speak plainly and know
how to look at you square in the
eyes and know just the right
compliments because god knows
you deserve them. i mean that
dress that smile don't
get me started now i'm
not writing that kind of poem
i'm trying to talk about
jealousy and self-hate
and courage. this is as close
as i'll stray to that fire. i see
a warm face in the dark but
guess what i ran from it
because people like me
don't deserve fire and
people like me don't
deserve pretty faces.
hold on. i'm taking this
entirely too far and i'm
bordering on obscene
melodrama. let me back up.
i want to speak frankly
and i want to be heard
but jesus christ i am
terrifying, i'm like koch
talking to patrizia about
waiting and leaping
out of a bush to see
if he can find love in
a girl's wide eyes. is
there no subtle way
to handle this i think
not. i'm laughing i mean
have you even been counting
the images i mean this
is barely one of my poems
and i feel bad for
everyone else reading
because there are
things being said
that have no bearing
for them whatsoever.
huddle around, everyone
and watch how i fall.
it hurts less in public.
hold your applause
because the silent
film stars taught
me everything i
know i owe them.
back to us which isn't
us because it's mostly
me projecting but
hear me out i'm
almost off your yard.
you are colors i
can't see and this
drives me up walls.
do this for me now
and pretend just
once that i'm
a tiny, furry thing
on that couch you
wrote about. picture
those eyes again. do
this for me please
because that is
now how i feel.
oh god things
are starting
to close in
and it must
be the end.
i've spilled
my cards all
over the table
and i was
bluffing the
whole time.
but you
knew that.
i have so
many tells.
i hate these
kinds of
poems.
what have
i even said?
i miss you
already.

 

the natives warned me of the sounds in the dark

"you are a self-loathing
pipe bomb filled with tacks
and nails and sharp ideas."

and that's when i throw off the sheets,
all fire and brimstone and sweat.

"you are in my dream and you
could be a little nicer because
it is, after all, my dream and i
am fully aware of it being a
dream."

she shakes her head
the same way i imagine
a lioness would.

"you will never have this."
she throws her arms wide
to illustrate the absurdity
of my room decorated
in old oil paintings,
diamond chandeliers,
suits of cold armor,
and tiny stables
of pigmy horses.

"i see your point" i cry,
sit down on the sympathetic,
outstretched trunk of a
domesticated elephant whom
i would love to call 'charles.'

she sighs, slides to the foot of the bed
a few feet across from me, wearing
nothing. her black hair falls down
in front of her face and i am in a jungle
of snakes and vines and gorgeous, glowing
eyes of predators.

"you won't even let yourself dream of success"
is the last thing i hear in the dark,
and even if she's wagging her finger it's
really just me wagging my finger at myself
and, christ, wouldn't it be nice if she
was actually here. i'd settle for just
her disembodied finger, swaying back
and forth in the cavern of my room
like the tail of my elephant,
charles.

 

antennae

the neighborhood dogs
are gossiping to each other
about me. i radiate an unease,
hiccup as i almost spit up
more memories, stumbling
through empty streets with
arms full of pictures of us.
the stars are bleary-eyed
insects rubbing against
themselves, for love.
sirens erupt and then
simmer into the soupy
night. these full arms!
these things i kept of us!
they are falling out, these
pictures, they are flying
with iridescent wings, to sit
in the trees with the cicadas.
you aren't here, no, you aren't
here. oh god, where have we
gone? what happens to crickets
with broken legs?

 

divinity

lately i have been failing at the simplest of tasks,
watering my houseplants. they don't require much
of my time, just a few moments to fill a cup of water.
they hang their heads like solemn, green children,
looking out the window, fearing and embracing
a sun that feeds and withers them. oh, i am careless
with these small lives. oh, i am a large, important
creature that cares for itself and keeps company
with sickly things. to withhold water, light, love
from the few things i can control. i could save them
now, but i will wait. when their heads are wrinkled
and lose their color, when their necks fall down,
down into their filthy bed, then i will find the time
to bring them water, to pull them from the brink
of death. over the course of a day, i will watch
them recover, watch them raise their heads to me.

 

if we were velcro

i'd definitely
be the hooky strap and you
the soft, loopy side.

 

trogloxene

in a booth at the back of the bar,
a hand wrapped around the neck
of the seventh or eighth or ninth,
and all the problems in the world
are smiling, smoking and laughing
with each other outside the heavy,
heavy door, all glancing at their
watches, boots tapping rhythmically
as the rain.

 

Duel

I opened the blinds just in time to watch the evening sunlight
drag himself in through the window, breathing heavily and
clutching at his chest. He crawled in, bleeding orange and red
all over the floor, the books, the sheets, and collapsed against
the wall. He looked at me with dull eyes, then back to the window.
He was sliding further and further into a slouch, his head resting
on his shoulder. "I ain't got much time," he said as he fumbled to
grab a six-shooter from his holster. I offered to help, asked if he
would like some water. "No, kid," he grumbled, "I have to do this
myself." I stood there quietly with him for a few minutes, in awe
of the ragged leather duster, the bullet-riddled ten gallon hat.
He kept his eyes set on the horizon outside the window. "You
don't reckon' she'll ever leave me be, do you, son?" He said, eyes
still rooted in the distance. I didn't answer, couldn't answer. I just
watched as his eyes widened. His grip slackened on his pistol. Then
his parched lips curled into a devilish grin. A buckshot of stars
exploded through the window and the old gunslinger slumped over.
Thin lines of crimson light dripped down the wall, the bed, the floor,
and finally trickled in slow drops over the white windowpane.

 

halves

she asked him if
the new half of
the worm knew
it had been cut.
if, in a week, it
would be able to
recognize its old
self or, worse,
might forget and
fall in love with
itself or even
worser if it
was just dark
and the new
worm did not
immediately
catch on that
its partner was
its old self but
discovered soon
after and the
worried, weird look
she gave him right
then made him want
to cut up worms
with her every day.

 

trompe-l'œil

over the course of fifteen minutes
i manage to position myself in the chair

in such a way that places the lamp
directly behind her, creating a silhouette,

a geometry that draws me away from
the conversation that the five of us drunks

are fumbling with. now it is me and her
dark shape or rather me watching her

dark shape, watching her perfect profile,
her lips moving like a magician's hands

pulling in the evening's raw ether
and doing impossible things to it within her,

seeing it emerge as something beautiful
and new, the room sizzling with the heat

of its creation, as lightning pushes the air apart
with thin hands only to have the chasm close

in on itself violently, thunder announcing
the blasphemy in creating such a void

with careless haste. her lips are quilting
intricate patterns and colors of thought,

a patchwork i will hang in that small room
of my mind where i retreat during storms.

 

incontrovertible

begged the car salesman,
but he insisted that the
top could not go down.

 

This Ideal Romance

Will play out very similarly to a

zombie movie, with us starring
as the last two surviving humans
sticking to our guns, always
on the run, bashing in the decaying
brains of the walking dead. The whole
thing will be funded with a few 

credit cards and the special effects 

will suffer for it, but that's half 

the charm. The critics will 

pan it and we won't care.
We'll be too busy racing through
the abandoned streets of some
nameless suburb, warm hand
in warm hand, shotguns slung over
our shoulders, eyes scouring the
overgrown hedges for movement.

We will rarely rest, and the food
will be stale, awful. But we will be strong
with the knowledge that we are the
most brilliant, the most beautiful,
the most alive.

Be comforted in knowing that,
should you succumb to the disease,
should the life start to slip from clenched
fists, that I will grab your neck with filthy
fingers and kiss you passionately before
aligning our heads in such a way that
a single pull of the trigger will bring the film
to a close.

The director will cut the filming right then and leap
from his chair to scream at us. He wanted one of us
to walk off alone, to carry on the fight for the sequels.

We will demand a rewrite. What could he know
of our embattled existence?

No, we will die
together, sharing the last living breath between us.

i was briefly a giant

a warm day in march and the sun
is rubbing my shoulders and the
dead trees are reaching up to grab
my hands as i pass and i am not
even bothering to look at where i
am going i mean i could step on a
schoolbus right now and the screams
of children would be the tiny wiggling
of ants' antennas i am strong and my
shadow stretches clear into the next
county i will swat the birds out of the
sky and push the hills around i am
a glacier all smiles and nothing i mean
nothing will ever stop me
nothing can ever stop me

penalty

if dating were like soccer
i would have been thrown
out of the game long ago
for dangerous play or for
touching with my hands or
for showing up to the game
with skis on my feet.

 

River

The wind snakes across the dark water,
small fingers rippling the surface
before darting up the muddy banks
where we stand.

With a grin, the cold wind
maneuvers clumsily
through our hair
as it races to whisper
our secrets to the pine trees.

Her Art

She dives into it as if a river,
staying submerged until her
lungs are burning for the real
and is forced to the surface,
breathing in the stale world
in large, quivering gasps.

The tears in her eyes are all
but invisible to the mud-smeared
boys watching from the shore,
poking each other with sticks
and pissing in the bushes.

pac man

       i run,
    am haunted
    by you, your
   ghosts.
   stay
   back; please
    don't touch
        me.

 

alight

the streetlamp cranes its neck to
silently watch each snowflake settle.

a girl walks over to it and removes
a mitten to touch the chill metal.

the lamp trembles, spilling yellow light
across the empty street.

the night fills with the warm hum
of electricity, a steady heartbeat.

 

Wake

A smudge of fog hovering above quiet houses at dusk,
ghost words smeared on a chalkboard,
empty business suits still with mothballs,
dust on a blind television,
cracked streets of a dying steel town,
the color of thirty years of poorly cooked meat.

Eyes that have had their blue worn away;
two losing lottery tickets.

 

shock and awe

there are insidious forces at work
in the crisper drawer
of my refrigerator.

 

dreams

the boy saw the shiny bicycle
and saved all his change
for the chance to buy

a pair of bolt cutters.