Stale air, claustrophobe—
a terrible fit for a coffin,
this person—
he can languish here.
A good warmth, the kind
you feel after bourbon
deep in your chest, yes,
a very good warmth—
the kind you won’t find here.
Here, is where, as gentlemen say,
“the wicked rest”
as there is, indeed,
no such rest for men like that.
I am wicked, I suppose,
wicked in my own way, so
I deserve the test.
I will languish here.
Jun 12, 2019
Jun 12, 2019 at 11:16 PM UTC
in deep tissue
I remember things
that must have happened when
I was someone else
in another life
a cause irritant
entrenched because
it flows out from me,
or my mouth, at least,
at certain times
I couldn’t say
if I knew the story
from staring at these
Kodachromes
I’d kept in storage
or if I’d really
died before
and been reborn,
to bleach the cancer
so I could sleep better.
Apr 11, 2019
Apr 11, 2019 at 1:12 PM UTC
On the Eastern seaboard,
it’s just as hard to wake from
another dream where you’re drowning
as it is on the West Coast.
Some time, perhaps mid-October,
I swallowed a handful of some
unmarked happy hollow
in a bottle with a child-safety cap
I struggled to negotiate.
I crawled out of my window
to be under the canopy
of the Midwestern sun
to feel the blissful peace of some form of oblivion;
and when I didn’t wake,
when I was devoured by grave worms,
I fed the roots that bore a beautiful dogwood
which blossomed in the springtime.
Apr 1, 2019
Apr 1, 2019 at 11:10 PM UTC