poetry

wednesday is hump day

2010-10-06T18:28:00.000-07:00

my tongue in my mouth creaking leather on leather,

hands on wheel the same and my eyes a dammed

reservoir and dried up, all dried up.

like i've found someplace that is not

on any of the maps and you'd think of

discovery and adventure

but instead only panic like the car won't start

or the call goes to voicemail or the news

is saying bad things again.

ignoring an oasis in the desert. calling it a mirage.

spinning a globe and putting your finger down,

and find out chance wants you in the middle

of the mariana trench. but i only want to go home.

hands on wheel and the engine won't turn over.

street life

2010-08-11T19:54:00.000-07:00

i've left the old stars behind
to go on a misadventure.
they burned out a long time ago
anyways. traveling like a sloth
via powerlines. the new stars
are closer here, there's another
every twenty yards.
i'm the part of a tree
that never shows its face.
the teeth that a smile never exposes.
a public access channel, and you'll never
see the irony. i was trying
to test my endurance. i meant to come back.
i'm just so tired.
a dream you keep waking up from.
a dislocation.
when the power goes out and i fall.
now we're even.

end transmission

2010-08-06T20:22:00.001-07:00

you were an exit i never took, an exit
i missed. your name on every road sign.
you with anchors instead of eyes,
sunken and sinking.
me chained up and down.
with the clouds burning up and the storm
gone and not enough rain to put out this fire.
my plane's being grounded, and i'm being ground up
and pressed for fuel. an engine with no pilot,
a storm with no thunder.
this call is the last i can make
before the plane takes off.
the ship is pulling up its anchor,
i'm digging up my roots.
my eyes are burning down,
the wheels are turning and the gear's
set to drive. an automatic transmission.
to be sent when i'm gone.
every sign has led up to this, every road
converged into this point like an asterisk.*
you the sky pinning me down,
trapping me like a star in a liquid suspension.
the sky black and burnt like it's been on the stove too long.
the sun humiliated, hiding its face in the planet's lap.
there's too much gravity in this situation;
the plane's going down.

*the last thing i'll ever do for you is die.

2010-08-06T20:20:00.001-07:00

i'm a collage of the milk carton missing,
a strip of tire in the middle of the lane,
a moth that can't understand that a streetlight
isn't the sun. drowning in an inch of water.
that's all it's ever gonna take.
the world rolling like your eyes.
you never want to hear about it.
i've got a broken odometer.
i've gone too far.
i don't know what that is in your mouth
but it looks menacing.
this car's light have been on for awhile.
it's almost like there's someone in there.

heat lightning

2010-07-30T00:24:00.000-07:00

between the lines of your letter there is the dark of an overpass,

there is a crowd flinching and covering its ears against a baby's cries,

and an eternal catholic guilt. i read and feel the rapture has come

and i was not chosen. i am the bottle after the wine's been drunk,

the castle after the royalty's been beheaded, a tandem bicycle

with no riders at all. this letter has been written before;

i am not the only person who has felt the world end in the mail,

but it feels like it.

when the world really ends they'll be laughing at me and dying.

red touches yellow

2010-07-28T00:06:00.000-07:00

instead of organs i have snakes

in a sheep shank, not

a stomach, a liver, a gall bladder,

although i once had intestines, now

a length of garden hose.

a harpsichord full of termites for a soul,

dry rusty music like the wind

wrestling the high grass.

they fight like it's a game;

i don't play to win, i play to kill.

disguised as a bottle in a game

at a carnival where they play fair.

someone always stands me up again.

i don't want to play anymore;

i'd rather stay down.

2010-07-28T00:03:00.000-07:00

i was just an empty frame before i met you, if you can picture that.

tornado vs hurricane

2010-07-27T23:54:00.000-07:00

i'll tear down the barn before i let my horses out;

i'll cross the median and stay there. even

sail the whole fleet into the docks.

break all four walls. throw my vcr

through the ticket window of a movie theater.

leave the shades open. i'll even leave.

if i'm going anywhere, it's too far.

2010-07-26T21:28:00.000-07:00

umbrellas on the beach flowers in the desert.

flags planted by refugees in the no-man's-land between the water's edge

and the point at which civilization ends.

nobody can afford to live here; all are deported.

here i am buried and forgotten.

it's not a game when the tide's coming in.

2010-07-26T21:25:00.000-07:00

my heart's the quarry it's full of stone.
and it's sinking to the bottom of the barrel
of a gun. my heart's a magnet and people
are not made of metal. your eyes are a prism
breaking up my heart but it's not light
it's heavy. and i'm strong,
i carry it everywhere i go.
but i'm not going to go there.

2010-07-26T21:24:00.000-07:00

i had no power before but now my candles are going out.

the blinds are drawn; isolation is my art.

like a houseplant trying to flee

through an open window,

like a tree digging escape tunnels

and filling them.

a train derailing to get off track.

all the candles have gone out here. i'll be over soon.

2010-07-26T21:21:00.000-07:00

there are skidmarks careening towards the median,

like deer paths through the woods at scout camp.

stories i cannot follow, was never allowed to.

driving home drunk through the rain and fog

and the water below every bridge calling me like a ghost.

there's a swamp in my head,

and i've fallen into it.

i've got an alligator mouth it's so hard to open up.

christ slept for three days

but i have to rise again every morning.

2010-07-24T01:08:00.000-07:00

tonight's a night when every light is green,

the lamp posts all hold candles to our victory,

and the wind is whistling for you - for you!

tonight, our hammers ring like church bells

and the nails in our coffins are perfectly manicured.

(my casket is always open to you)

2010-07-22T13:33:00.000-07:00

i can relate to the man in the moon, to a lost balloon rising to its end. but there's no child crying for me now. you might shed a tear, but only like a snake sheds its skin; and it'd be with less effort. i've departed your horizon now and with no amount of spinning can the earth carry me back to you. but if i looked good riding into that sunset just remember that night still falls for cowboys.

2010-07-20T02:44:00.000-07:00

i'm a vine of ivy and i remember all the concrete i've splintered, all the crumbled hearts i've crept through. there's a gun in my throat and i have gavels for fists, i remember shooting you down beating you down. staring you down i had a set of keys made to unlock our eyes. tangled like vines of ivy, like roots i don't have anymore. all torn up the damage is already done. weeding me out of your heart i'll take a piece with me i'm keeping the peace. ivy in the morning bathing in dew and i don't remember it all but most.

2010-07-20T02:41:00.000-07:00

they'll be mining the night skies for diamonds soon to satisfy the appetites of all the lovers. digging deep black holes. stroking the moon's thighs, lighting her candle. my mind orbiting the voids. it's frigid and barren in space but i've got that covered on earth. the spaces between my thoughts are deep black holes. still digging. rhinestones in my eyes not diamonds worthless but nice to look at. sad canoes sailing across the planet's wallpaper. look up when it's dark it's impossible to miss me.

like sand into glass and look how brittle i've become

2010-07-16T23:25:00.000-07:00

out in the rain grime eroding my features into a statue's erased face. i never looked that good anyways. hold me in your sights like a hostage situation and if you have a shot take it. don't leave me alone out here its cold. hold me in your arms like we're putting on a production you playing icarus and me i'll be the sun. an enlightening stroke of genius, god's camera flash. we've all been captured. can't keep my thoughts straight can't keep my eyes straight on the road. i'm not alone out here i'm just in bad company. you understand how that goes. you're a police cruiser waiting for me to slip up and i won't help fill your quota. set it to cruise control. i'm always on cruise control and me and my tires burning up into puddles of sweat. but i shine too quiet and slow. hold me in your arms like sand and in the middle of the night i'll slip away while you sleep.

2010-07-15T19:38:00.001-07:00

flies on the flypaper dense as cars in bad traffic, and it's hot like hell's a/c is broken. the world spinning on a microwave plate, or it feels like it. no vultures here. i'm cannibalizing myself. melting myself down like scrap metal. implying my basic parts have some use. collect myself off the street out of the gutters entering a recycling program 5 cents in eligible states 10 cents in michigan! i can i can i can't.

2010-07-15T19:36:00.000-07:00

streetlights my constellations, a sailor's guiding star. there's no wind in these sails, buddy. you better row.

2010-07-13T08:22:00.001-07:00

my throat an empty town where the words would echo if given voice. a rainy ghost town dissolving in water. a child: 'where do butterflies go when it rains?' but i know that one already. the undersides of leaves, the underside of my stomach; butterflies hide in the millimeters before the fuel light goes on. i set the car to cruise control, miss my exit, don't turn back. a misadventure in begging at a gas station - 'i don't normally do this...' i don't do anything normally. my ears my mouth a sewer for wasted concern. rather draining. yours or mine? the fuel light stays on. 'is there anyone you can call?' yes, ma'am, but no one i can reach. the sky is white, blank; a pair of birds brave soldiers crossing the field. it rained already, it is done now, but the clouds are not gone; regrouping. the second assault. bullets or tears? 'what could have precipitated this?' a joke! yes, it was all a joke.

2010-07-12T01:23:00.001-07:00

the highway a coloring book,

red the only color i have,

and i, never so good at keeping between the lines.

2010-07-11T15:53:00.000-07:00

i'm not tempted to swim in your private pool,

i don't like swimming in circles.

i'll lay out.

2010-07-10T20:40:00.000-07:00

it's all deciduous here, because it's

temporary, or maybe temperate.

always the fall. don't leave;

if you do, i'll leave too,

in a different direction.

(towards the pines, towards the needles)

2010-07-10T20:36:00.000-07:00

your horse was dead before it hit the starting gate.

i'm staying out late tonight, i've got nowhere

to go i'm somewhere between nowhere and home.

you stand to lose a lot, you should sit for this kind of news.

my legs are shot, take me out back

and shoot me. i'm not going anywhere.

saddle me up!

2010-07-10T20:35:00.002-07:00

the bridge over the highway watching the headlights rush and pass

they leave me behind i'm always

left behind

2010-07-10T20:35:00.001-07:00

waiting to fall asleep my legs are getting ahead of my head. lights out.

2010-05-08T11:14:00.000-07:00

my mind like the engine exhaust of a jet plane; as i move towards new branches of thought the old ones loosen, lose their clarity, disintegrate into thin air. until i don't know why i'm thinking that the only justifiable actions are sleeping and (only under the condition that you cannot by any means get back to sleep) drinking, but certainly there's a rationale for this idea, certainly it is grounded in some form of legitimacy. but the trail of exhaust has dissipated and so i cannot look back, cannot even make a guess as to whence this idea came, cannot ever again know. or it's like a cigarette burning down to the filter and all the ash falling away but that's only an accurate simile if i'm chainsmoking, and there's the aspect of it being detrimental to my health which may or may not be accurate; my mind hasn't killed me yet but it's like a horror movie where you run as fast as you can and the killer just keeps walking towards you, your energy drains and drains and drains or you act stupidly and trip or something, but eventually he catches up and then it's over. sometimes my brain is a horror movie but sometimes it's a romantic comedy, and i'm the gay friend even though i've always considered the gay friend to be a tragic figure. i'm one of those toys that gets recalled because china's manufacturing laws aren't as safe as ours or something, and if you try to play with me you'll die. that might be too melodramatic though. if i record my thoughts i can see how i got certain places. i'll never get back to the question of justifications, though, because i didn't record it. and if i stop, if i take a break, if i make food or go to the bathroom or sleep or go to work, then that's lost too. a whole lifetime of thought, lost. candles in the wind or something. or something, or something, or something. i spend all my time alone, usually inside. i don't know the square footage of where i live, but i feel like i'm in a zoo with poor attendance. it's too self-indulgent to call myself a tiger or a cheetah or something, but maybe a giraffe, or a monkey, or a fox or anything. don't worry i'm not making a critique on zoos. it's just that i get claustrophobic. even escaping to the balcony for a cigarette isn't quite enough. i need a porch, some sort of limbo between inside and out there. i need a place to smoke a cigarette where i can transition seamlessly in either direction. because i've got this fourth floor balcony, and whenever the claustrophobia sets in, i get the same impulse as i would on a good, ground-level porch. i could climb over that god damn railing, i really could. fling myself off or something. leave a cavalier note behind, some inside joke or inappropriately lighthearted reference to say, 'don't worry, everyone, nothing could have been done.' but i don't try it, not yet anyways, because something can be done, and if i can just wait a little longer i'll have a porch of my own. in my future i see a lot of broken leases. i don't pace, though. when i'm inside i never pace. the most movement i make is from the couch inside to the couch outside, book to cigarette, cigarette to computer, computer to cigarette, cigarette to tv. repeat for 10 hours, follow with 14 hours of sleep. sleep is the only thing that can be justified, and i don't know if this is the real reason but it's my new reason and i've decided that it counts as valid, because you can't justify living and you can't justify killing yourself but you can justify doing neither and both; death is, as far as i'm concerned, the exact same as sleep without the inevitability of the next day, and sleep is a requisite when it comes to living, so by sleeping you neither embrace life nor death, you can't be faulted for it. except by doctors, but i can't justify doctors. cigarettes and mindless entertainment sometimes get so boring that i want to drink or sleep, but don't have the ability to pull either off, so instead i do the opposite, i take caffeine. cigarettes and caffeine pills make me feel old, not because of the health problems they cause or anything but because they're such soft substances. when i was younger and more adventurous i'd walk for hours looking for a safe, out-of-the-way place to smoke weed; i've got plenty of stories of adrenaline-ridden close calls. and there's always the hospital story. i did acid during high school on a day i had an interview with the principal. when he asked me two positive things about myself, i told him that i was a: loyal (an acceptable answer) and b: responsible. it was the only other word i could think of. you shouldn't tell anyone important that you're responsible if you're on acid, because then you are telling a lie. lies are irresponsible. i was apparently pale and crazy-eyed when i left the interview; my classmates asked if i was okay, what happened, etc, and i just sat down and took deep breaths. but what an adventure! and chugging so many bottles of citrus cough syrup that even the color orange made me gag for the next six months, and then a failed road trip plan turns into a week of playing videogames and doing coke in atlanta. because everything works out in the end, no matter what. and now this, caffeine and cigarettes. barely drugs at all. because it's legal, probably, and maybe it means i'm not getting old, that it's not a real drug to me if it doesn't involve some kind of rebellion. but that doesn't explain why i don't leave the house, why all i listen to is classical, why i feel like the sun never comes out anymore even though it's summer. i might as well start watching terrible medical dramas. but i'm alone, and those are for married people. so i might as well adopt fifteen cats. except that i'm a dog person. so i'm at a loss.

i might as well jump.

2010-02-25T20:52:00.001-08:00

my power animal is a vcr.

please be kind.

2010-02-25T20:51:00.005-08:00

i'm tired of flinching at door hinges,

of counting heads, of dreading the start of a car.

i can't lock every door

from both sides, or keep anyone's

feet from moving in the opposite direction.

still, i don't want to be a mine shaft

or a puppy or a single cent.

but i am a puppy;

and i will not let go

of your pant leg when you get up to leave.

old montgomery highway

2010-02-25T20:51:00.003-08:00

i'm a two-dollar bill or

an american president between the years of 1877 and 1900.

i'm an 8-track, a vhs tape;

i'm a cheap technological metaphor.

you shouldn't feel how i feel, you should

retain your equilibrium,

you should find a field at the side of a road,

where the cars remain in sight

so you can still mock what you ran from.

and then when a car explodes on your field,

turns a third of it gray with ash,

you're allowed to mourn because you didn't realize then

what i, already living in hindsight, did:

it grew back greener.

and that's not a cheap technological metaphor, that

really happened.

2010-02-25T20:51:00.001-08:00

i have an artichoke heart and an onion brain;

same thing layer after layer.

children don't like the taste of me,

and i don't blame them.

i'm in a vegetative state:

i don't have much in the way of roots,

and i've been demonstrating consistently low personal growth.

but i've been told consistency is everything.

2010-02-25T20:50:00.005-08:00

you smell like cherry blossoms

and denatured alcohol.

but even that's intoxicating to me.

i've got no sense of self-preservation,

so your offer of formaldehyde was particularly romantic.

2010-02-25T20:50:00.003-08:00

chlorine in the air or something

deadly or maybe

nothing at all

but the natural shortness of breath

that rides shotgun with fear

and i wish there weren't quite so many feathers

inside me or quite so much air around; i feel so claustrophobic and

i think it's unlikely to be chlorine but maybe

some internal element: feathers, lead paint

that once coated a toy i may have gnawed on as a child, broken glass,

the gold flakes in some high-end liquor i drank years back,

too much swallowed chewing gum, or maybe

nothing at all.

i wasn't going to say so,

but i don't feel too well.

2010-02-25T20:50:00.001-08:00

beneath my window, a miserable tableau:

the orange cast of sodium light on melting snow,

frozen once but not in time,

intersecting black streets like a river of shame,

frozen only in time. and behind my window, worse:

me, a blank space surrounded by blank space,

quiet as a still-life.

but the window's pretty nice.

english class was like jumper cables

2009-02-17T23:11:00.000-08:00

my mind moves reluctantly, like a boot
entrenched in mud.
sluggishly,
and slathered in ennui,
it stirs, blinks itself into focus, and almost
settles back down. but it doesn't,
and instead it creaks,
emits a sad rusty screech, and resumes operation
at its lowest functional capacity.
some of its edges, when touched,
crumble. some of its gears,
when summoned, remain locked.
pieces of it fall away in unbroken chunks,
but the heart of it is restored
and repairs are under way
and it exported this,
which may or may not be better
than nothing at all.

1 line break!! one!!!

2008-07-19T13:05:00.001-07:00

there were still clouds flinging crumpled drops of rain at the earth (failed blueprints sketched out in molecular structures, flooding an unimportant wastebasket) when virginally pink light began filtering through the trees out the window, coffee for the eyes. the light aged and faded, gathering heat as my bed gathered dust; i had left it unmade so it could pretend i hadn’t left it. sleeping is cheating. the house is heavy and slow like a steamroller, empty like the hollowness between walls. the light gets hotter, and evaporation kicks in like a safeguard. passing time in the hollow places is an art i have perfected; i treat the sequence of my motions as a flower arrangement and i keep my thoughts minimalist. the humidity star(ts up. not such failures, after all. the sun picked them up, smoothed them out, made the necessary changes. presented them to the clouds, who accepted them gratefully and swelled with pride. bound inevitably to
fuck it up again.) a pair of seagulls swam past my window; i don’t know what they were doing so far from the ocean but my eyes are too tired to figure it out.

there ain't no god here, as far as i can see; your god of hope and light never did nothin' straight by me.

2008-05-11T11:39:00.000-07:00

keep building your ladder out of here. i'll bring you more lumber. mine crumbled into the muck after i nailed the seventh rung. there's no air between us and the sky; you should practice holding your breath before you start building up much higher. i used to practice in the mud. there are rainbows down here, too; if the sun ever comes out, watch the oil collecting its light and splintering it into greasy colors. don't try to pick them up. i tried once, and the oil clung to my hand like the tears of abandoned children. and it wouldn't wash off in the rain. it won't ever stop raining.

icarus and the undertaker

2008-04-22T14:38:00.000-07:00

I. i'll throw my fists into the sky and bruise the clouds, split their ranks with thunder and catch the water they abandon to gravity. i'll break the sky with plotless ambition. i'm going to drive for hundreds of miles through the rain because i have to make some kind of progress. i'll tear apart the crease between mountain and sky with my bare hands and the birds can't stop me. i'll learn to fly to the edge of gravity so my fall will have real impact. i've actually been falling for some time now, but never from anyplace with a view.

II. i'll toss my face into the dirt and bruise my pride. i tried to dig to the center of the world but it didn't exist for me. i'll lie in my hole forever and the worms can't stop me. it's filling with rain and that's alright because i can't sink any deeper than where i am.

2008-02-24T15:03:00.000-08:00

stars were huddled in the corner of the attic window
like dead sacs of spider eggs. i guarded them
while my teeth chattered until my jaw splintered
into tiny beads. with them i made a necklace
out of string i spun from clouds.
the sky was eroding them and they were nearly too high
to pull down. some of them caught and tore
on the latticework of trees; they held there
like spiderwebs. along the coast
i was followed by a lion; the ocean spat in my face
and the waves grabbed at my arms.
i fell in. i was carried past the horizon
to a cliff face; it was too smooth
for me to gain any footholds.
the lion followed into the sea and hunted buffalo underwater.
i joined it and hung my necklace in its mane.
a day later we broke through the glass surface of the water,
thoroughly drowned.

she's just a flask trapped inside a fall

2008-02-12T16:13:00.001-08:00

from a rooftop, a pair of seagulls split into flight;
one of them swallowed the sun and fell to its death.
i picked up its pieces and rearranged them,
completing the picture.

the sky was a sheet of tin foil
wrapped around god's leftovers;
the second bird tore it open
and the stars fell out like maggots.

i tossed the corpse into the air,
and it buried its claws in the wind.
after reuniting against of surge of descending maggots,
their wings crumpled to the ground like leaves but they kept flying.

i brushed the maggots out of my hair.

like just gettin outta there is gonna get me outta this

2008-02-10T13:51:00.000-08:00

our fingers dipped into the surface of the water
like tree branches skimming a stretch of sky.
the ground was pulsating under our feet
but the river was still and we entered it.

and i thought we wouldn't leave.
we could harvest the spears of sunlight
piercing the depths - with them,
we'd catch fish and occasionally
dolphins, with which we would sustain ourselves.
i saw the flesh between our fingers stretch into webbing,
and our toes flattened; our necks opened into gills.
after the first week we didn't want to go back,
and we developed a fear of the horizon under which we hid.

i had been mistaken.
we didn't intend to leave, but after a few minutes underwater
our mouths opened; we breathed in.
and the river wouldn't let us stay like that.
it spit us out on the opposite bank.

my heart's the long stairs

2008-02-07T22:14:00.000-08:00

i filled balloons with all my prayers and gave them a send-off,
but my hopes are never high enough and they settled
on the ground. i took an iron to my thoughts
but even that didn't straighten them out.
my muscles wound into curlicues and
my eyes turned into funnels. it started to rain.
when noah's ark was sinking,
i helped seal the holes in the boat with scotch tape.
still it was too heavy to float.
i threw my balloons overboard and we were off;
they fell to the sea floor and burst.

remember the winter gets cold in ways you always forget

2008-02-07T18:15:00.000-08:00

i'd painted too many coats
over the rust, and the frame collapsed; my frame
finally just gave out, nearly exploded
in a cough of green flakes and grating metal.

i had been keeping halos in the glove compartment for some time,
but i saved them for holidays. the rest of the year
i forgot about them.
my mother had similarly treated her fine china
and her children. in both cases the unused entities
had grown so accustomed to the lack of handling
that they crumbled when touched.
for a few months we hired a maid to sweep away the fragments,
but when we couldn't afford her anymore,
the pieces collected under furniture and rugs.

i lost my drive long before i broke down.
as bits of paint and rust,
i got farther on the wind than i could have ever made it
on my own. i should have fallen apart sooner.

to kill a fucking mockingbird

2008-02-07T18:06:00.000-08:00

i could never bring myself to light any candles.
i would have brought fire down from the stars
if i weren't so intimidated by the length of the wicks.
instead i left them in the shell of a tree for some children,
the passing of a torch disguised as a gift.

2008-02-05T20:18:00.000-08:00

i lit my curtains on fire
so my eyes could intersect the windowpanes with the efficiency of bullets.
i painted my bedroom walls with the ash.
the following morning i was assaulted
by the light that no longer collected in the curtains; i fought back
by hiding the smoke from every match i've ever lit
in the shingles of my roof. the fog reflected the light away.
it filtered through the leaves of the pines in my backyard,
and i collected it all in a basket
half-full with flowers.
i spilled the light into a lantern and kept it there
till it was all used up.
after clearing the air of smoke i wove a net out of the flowers
and gathered more light in its folds but the flowers dried up
and dropped all the light into the floorboards where it pooled in sporadic puddles
until it warped the wood panels
and disappointed me terribly.

la persistencia de memoria

2008-02-05T19:23:00.000-08:00

i was taping reminders to the oxygen
when i was confronted by a succession of images;
the blinking red light of a video camera,
the needle of a phonograph, an open eye,
an open tongue, an open ear.
i illustrated them with a pencil on a napkin,
outlining them in the voids surrounding rips and stains.
i pinned them to the humidity in the air,
but the paper dissolved in the moisture, and i
dissolved into grief, into the voids
where i've forgotten something but don't know what.
i scratched reminders into my hands with a pen,
and the words bled through into my arteries;
i accepted the threat of ink poisoning
so that the threat of forgetting was past.
and still when lightning struck my radio,
i didn't replace it for the same reason that
i burned all my cassettes; because i didn't care to remember back that far.

edited version + alternate

2008-01-21T16:43:00.000-08:00

at night we would hide with our flashlights
under a blanket of asphalt, and with a blunt penknife,

we'd scratch out our names beneath the avenues,
hoping they'd be recognized, hoping
we'd be there to see it. on good, clear days,
we'd sling hammocks from streetlight
to streetlight, and try to unwind.
we learned all the words of each song
that briefly greeted us from the windows of passing cars.
we were most comfortable in the back alleys
but aspired to the interstates and freeways.
our fingers would never touch a map,
and our eyes avoided road signs;
we had never set a destination, and never would,
but we hoped it'd be good when we got there.

2007-12-27T06:14:00.000-08:00

no linebreaks; i'm so bored

2007-12-19T04:37:00.000-08:00

the fog descends like shooting stars to isolate me from the end of the world. i tore out my eyes and tossed them as far as i could through the mist but the only thing i could see was dirt. water molecules were clinging to the air and i wished i could be that important to someone. the distant sun cast rainbows through the air; i couldn't catch sight of them as my eyes were focused on the earth. it kept spinning and i got dizzy. the air is too afraid of commitment so when the fog cleared it was because all the water had fallen to the ground. at first the earth offers stability but then it sucks you up. all the water droplets figured that out pretty soon. the air was clear but i didn't know where i'd put my eyes so i gave up, which i should have done in the first place but it took some isolation for me to develop that sort of wisdom.

revisions

2007-12-16T13:57:00.000-08:00

an expedition to rediscover cycles OR how seashells are born

I. roses condensed on the head of a pin
and i tried to stuff my ears full of orchids,
but they dried up and died so quickly.
i can’t press them between the pages of books
or embalm them like dead kings. they are trapped
in a basket of evanescence, scattered easily
by wind, like wind, past any rapidly blooming fingers
that try to catch them but don’t.
my liver swelled up and split
when the seeds were discovered to be sterile;
no new blossoms of baby’s breath to brush against cheeks,
no frigid blue forget-me-nots to reassure.

II. i plucked roses out of stoplights
and crammed them into my pockets,
hoping they would prevent everyone from going
and leaving me. but my green eyes
gave them permission.
i tried to follow,
but the light turned yellow
and trapped me at the intersection.

III. we sailed across an ocean in a canoe,
throwing flower petals at the sharks
that haunted our wake like the ghosts
we were. each crest was a fight
for our lives
and each trough a celebration.
and every storm we battled was on a calm sea.

IV. i filled a dish with sugar and water
and set it out for the butterflies.
of course it attracted moths.
i couldn’t distract the butterflies from their flowers,
and maybe i didn’t want to.

V. everyone brought orchids to the wake
in their hands, and orchids spilled
from everyone’s mouths.
they never realized i was in the middle of an ocean,
still sailing, and they never realized
that their flowers were worthless, but eventually
i did.

VI. our canoe capsized
and i sank to the ocean floor.
i discovered that coral doesn’t betray
or hate or rot or drive off.
there were fish down there and we talked at length,
and their eyes were always wide and attentive.

VII. at the wake there were tears
and plastic forget-me-nots and condolence cards.
but tears are made of water
and salt, not sugar,
so i never came back.

VIII. i held garden parties underwater,
with moths and bright lonely anglerfish.
with every flap of their wings,
the moths left a trail of shimmering dust
until they had all fully disintegrated
into surreality.
the anglerfish and i
shed no tears, as the ocean was saline enough.
but where the dust had settled,
we planted coral in memoriam.
the anglerfish flickered on and off
like streetlights.

IX. i swam to the surface
and found that the canoe had been righted.
we resumed our expedition, now accompanied
by seagulls. they showed us land, like noah’s dove,
and flew off once we reached safe harbor.
and from our ark they stole the desiccated husks
of flowers, but we would have offered
if they’d chosen to ask.

X. the wake carried on
until it mutated into a funeral,
and they buried me under their orchids.

XI. we left our canoe behind
and entered the land of the lotus eaters.
they gave us apathy and flowers
and our dreams were softer.
but the spirit of odysseus drove us onward,
to a lonely restless life of wandering,
to the fulfillment of soft dreams.

XII. crushed under the weight of soil
and well-meaning orchids,
i discovered a use for tears.
wrapped up in salt, i never decayed
and my memory was preserved,
although i was forgotten.

XIII. we tore out my eye
and buried it under the beach.
it was the first fertile seed we ever found
and it blossomed into an epiphany.
i sent you back across the ocean
to leave it at my grave
while i stood on the beach
and disintegrated into shimmering dust.

2007-12-16T06:40:00.001-08:00

an expedition to rediscover cycles OR how seashells are born

2007-12-03T00:31:00.000-08:00

I. roses condensed on the head of a pin
and i tried to stuff my ears full of orchids,
but they dried up and died so quickly.
i can't press them between the pages of books
or embalm them like dead kings. they are trapped
in a basket of evanescence, scattered easily
by wind, like wind, past any rapidly blooming fingers
that try to catch them but don't.
my liver swelled up and split
when the seeds were discovered to be sterile;
no new blossoms of baby's breath to brush against cheeks,
no frigid blue forget-me-nots to reassure.

II. we sailed across an ocean in a canoe,
throwing flowers petals at the sharks
that haunted our wake like the ghosts we were.
each crest was a fight for our lives, and each trough
a celebration. and every storm we battled
was on a calm sea.

III. i plucked roses out of stoplights
and stuffed them into my pockets,
hoping they would prevent everyone from going
and leaving me. but my green eyes
gave them permission.
i tried to follow,
but the light turned yellow
and trapped me at the intersection.

IV. i filled a dish with sugar and water
and set it out for the butterflies.
of course it attracted moths.

V. everyone brought orchids in their hands
to the wake, and orchids spilled
from everyone's mouths.
they didn't realize i was in the middle of an ocean,
still sailing. and they never realized that their flowers
were worthless, but eventually
i did.

VI. our canoe capsized
and i sank to the ocean floor.
i discovered that coral doesn't betray
or hate or rot or drive away.
there were fish down there and we talked at length,
and their eyes were always wide and attentive.

VII. at the wake there were tears
and plastic forget-me-nots and condolence cards.
but tears are made of water
and salt, not sugar,
so i never came back.

VIII. i held garden parties underwater,
with moths and bright lonely anglerfish.
with every flap of their wings,
the moths left a trail of shimmering dust
until they had all fully disintegrated
into surreality. the anglerfish and i
shed no tears, as the ocean was saline enough.
but where the dust had settled,
we planted coral in memoriam.
the anglerfish flickered on and off
like streetlights.

IX. i swam to the surface
and found that the canoe had been righted.
we resumed our expedition, now accompanied
by seagulls. they showed us land, like noah's dove,
and flew off once we reached safe harbor.

X. the wake carried on
until it mutated into a funeral,
and they buried me with orchids.

XI. we left our canoe behind
and entered the land of the lotus eaters.
they gave us apathy and flowers
and our dreams were softer.
but the spirit of odysseus drove us onward,
to a lonely restless life of wandering,
to the fulfillment of soft dreams.

XII. crushed under the weight of soil
and well-meaning orchids,
i discovered a use for tears.
wrapped up in salt, i never decayed
and my memory was preserved.
but i was forgotten.

XIII. we plucked out my eye
and buried it under the beach.
it was the first fertile seed we ever found
and it blossomed into an epiphany.
i sent you back across the ocean
to leave it at my grave
while i stood on the beach
and disintegrated into shimmering dust.

o

2007-11-22T08:49:00.000-08:00

night recedes like an end and then
crashes. beneath its waves a lightbulb
blinks, flickers out. gravity pulls the ocean
back, pushes it to collapse
over my head. i'm a satellite
orbiting a flickering moon, a lightbulb
buried beneath the waves, a planet's lapdog.
i'm an astronomer with a cracked telescope,
and the universe is fragmented
and the apocalypse is coming.
and the moon i orbit is revolving
around a planet whose only focus is its core;
it is always rotating
into itself. the waves recede
and crash like a beginning.
the stars are infinitely fragmented.
i crumbled them all into the sea and slept
when the sun came up. the satellite signal
went dead, a mechanical laika. and beneath the waves,
the pressure of the water broke a flickering lightbulb.

SONG AGAINST SEX

2007-11-17T11:02:00.001-08:00

and the first one tore a picture of a dead and hanging man
who was kissing foreign fishes that flew right out from his hands
and when i put my arms around him, felt the blushing blood run through my cheeks,
and an eeriness surrounded when his tongue began to speak.
and he said, "boy you are so pretty,
enough to wrap tight in rice-paper string."
and when i finally kissed him, the whole world began to ring,
much like a bell that's tipping over with two cracks along both sides,
and i knew the world was over, so i took a look outside
and watched the fires that were reaching
up to the weather vanes and the tops of trees
and the waiting scene and the sunday dream,
they're all waiting here for me!!!

deli markets with their flower stands,
their pretty girls and their burning men,
hanging out on the hooks in the window display
and i took out my tongue twice-removed from my face.
across a bridge and across the mountains,
threw a nickel in the fountain
to save my soul from all these troubled times
and all the drugs that i don't have the guts to take to soothe my mind.
i'm always sober, always aching, always headed towards
mass suicide, occult figurines,
and wasted gas station attendants, attending to their jobs,
and a nice drive in the country
finds a nice cliff to drop off.
oh, when this life just gets so grating,
all the grittiness of life,
but don't take those pills your boyfriend gave you,
you're too wonderful to die!!!

and the last one tore a picture from the pornographic page,
and all the pleasure points attacking, all the looks of love
were staged, and it's a lie that you've been given,
that just hurts you every day. so why should i lay here naked
when it's just too far away
from anything we could call loving, any life
worth living for? so i'll sleep out in the gutter,
you can sleep here on the floor.
and when i wake up in the morning i won't forget to lock the door,
cause with a match that's mean and some gasoline
you won't see me anymore~!!!

it's so embarrassing to need someone like i do you

2007-11-17T06:50:00.001-08:00

out of a crowd of people as thick
as the sun's breath, out of the elevator shafts
that cities hide in, out of hearts
that are not empty but whose contents are instead
transparent,
nothing spilled over the edges.
and the crowd of people calls itself
a crowd of persons because it won't ask
for what it needs and, in not receiving what it won't
ask for, it calls itself cruel.
just ask,
and i will give us all everything.
and the elevator shafts don't collapse
into hell, only into places where there's no
air conditioning, where the lights speak like flames.
the cities aren't burning; they are screaming
with the illusion of burning, and when they have screamed
enough to forget that the world outside is pulsing,
they will sleep.
and each heart
reflects in upon itself, sees its own invisibility,
and believes it sees into the hearts of all.
and it hypothesizes that the hearts of all
are empty, but it only sees. it never reaches in
to realize that its own heart is full, never directs its sight
outwards to find that the hearts of all are ready
to spill over.

and a single drop out of the sky,
the sun's inhalation that cools the elevator shafts,
it falls into a heart and everything
spills over and sleeps and smiles,
and then asks,
and i give us all everything
at last.

2007-11-07T12:38:00.000-08:00

there's no snow laying out its hard breath
against the ground, but the bones of statues
are shivering in their sheathes. the statues ache
like stones, constantly sinking
into the earth. their empathy
is knotted around gravity, and they groan in orbit.
but the earth is always pushing back,
and constant rejection blunts their features.

they had hoped that carving themselves
from granite would grant them protection.
but their hard limbs are brittle,
and each year cripples them a little more.
until the day comes that they are piles
of dust in the dry grass,
their bones keep on shivering feverishly.

happy birthday to me (nov. 7)

2007-11-07T10:33:00.000-08:00

my mouth is a sobbing violin with a story to tell.
a whirlpool starts up in my calves and the strings
in my throat draw tight as my muscles stretch
and snap. the corners of my mouth
split and my teeth rot out to make more room
for words. my pregnant tongue gives birth
to a thousand starving children.

my audience collects around a campfire
lit in a forest of lost trees. there are scavengers
masquerading as rusting leaves, barely
clinging to their branches.
my eyes catch the glint of the vultures' beaks,
the feathers of the seagulls' wings.
a whirlpool starts up in my lungs,
emptying my chest cavity.
when my tongue is sucked in,
that's when the scavengers will alight from their perches,
and start to consume what's left.

you said that you did but you didn't understand

2007-10-28T11:38:00.000-07:00

the earth is turning faster than i can stand
and i can't feel it. your pupils are voids
from which seagulls fly. into a land of snow
i fell and i've always been a flake
but never unique. i'm using up my body heat
to get all of you to thaw. by the time you melt,
i'll freeze. to death,
a seagull is human. don't close your eyes.
my head is spinning faster than i can stand
and i can't feel it.

iceclouds

2007-10-20T15:34:00.000-07:00

with a hammer made of sunlight and fishhooks
i shattered every cloud. they drifted apart like ice.
with a fishing line made of icepicks and acid grins
i caught the white whale. i kept it in an aquarium
in my room. i fattened it on cubes of clouds
and fed it to my neighbors on their july 4th barbequeue.
they were too busy setting off fireworks
to take note of my sacrifice. i fattened myself
on splinters of clouds and waited for thanksgiving.

du og meg

2007-10-19T16:13:00.000-07:00

I. i learned to smuggle contraband
in my lungs. i learned not to give a fuck.
your teeth are eyes. your body is empty.

II. i don't want your hands near me
until you clean out the monsters
from under your fingernails. i don't want you
to come near me until you clean out the monster
that's hollowing out your throat.
your mouth catches and magnifies the echoes of its growls
into words i don't want to hear.

III. don't show me what's in your pockets.
don't show me your blind teeth. your claws
in my skin and your monsters in my blood.
cut the mirrors out of your eyes
and the monster out of your neck.
i learned not to give a fuck
but i've just forgotten. baptize yourself
in the middle of the pacific.
find a thousand god damn priests
to bless it into holy water.

IV. your body is full: you're gonna sink.
(i learned not to give a fuck.
that doesn't mean i won't care
if you drown. i'll find you a life-jacket.)

but we don't

2007-10-19T16:06:00.000-07:00

the sun kept melting,
omniscient, against the end of the world
until the edge soaked it up
and began the process of digesting it.
a young woman with a dog stops
and writes down directions on a napkin
for us. the car falls off a bridge;
the water soaks it up
and begins the process of dissolving us.
the sun gets spit out on the other side
every time.

2007-10-19T15:52:00.000-07:00