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.