mom says we should buy an axe.
she shapes her gum into a moon,
craters and canines and molars,
like a fake suicide on national tv,
the passing of the torch,
the running of the bulls,
the macy’s day parade.
ashtrays don’t lie, but ashes do,
they’ve got their canines and molars
and tongues tuned to calamity,
slick as sunsets as they chop away.
and this fortnight is something you can read,
go ahead, turn the pages,
one to fourteen and you’re caught unaware,
what the **** were you doing,
counting casualties, coming closer to the yellow sky,
it’s petroleum sliding down your throat now.
the human body is 70% ********
and you may meet your quota but you’ll never meet your end,
racing through the stucco in the room your girlfriend rents,
the ridiculous ambivalence seeping through your pores,
staining the sheets you haven’t washed since february,
turning off the tv you were never watching anyway,
letting bulls run and torches light
like that little corner of your eye that twitches when you touch,
like that interrogation manual you can’t read anymore,
the door shuts in your face and your books crush your bones.
and you and mom buy the axe and leave it by the fridge with the broom,
and the more you scratch the rustier the blood.
Sep 29, 2011
Sep 29, 2011 at 8:42 AM UTC
he wasn't born a begging man
he'd take you out in his trans-am
and parallel park next to your favorite art museum
he'd give you every alibi
he'd look manet right in the eye
and exemplify all that you didn't know
and the only songs he'd listen to
were all by dead blind blues musicians
and to you all of them sounded just the same
but when you told him wait a minute he just rolled his eyes and sighed
and so the thieving beggar man condemned himself to die
Sep 19, 2011
Sep 19, 2011 at 10:07 AM UTC
did you know that i once saw you
looking down from your window
toward the avenue pierre
and the wind rustled the oak trees while you wrote
and the tourists took their photos
looking out through their lenses
at the things that were not there
and the wind blew threw the tower all the while
and i watched you trace the letters
all the upstarts and go-getters
they can't make it any better
if you're trying to forget her
so forget it, take the high road
and you watch your daytime talk shows
and all the while the river seine flows
and you'll never ever ever ever know
that all those times i saw you
i couldn't see right through you
no matter how i strained my eyes
and the wind took all the colors with the night
Sep 19, 2011
Sep 19, 2011 at 10:05 AM UTC
it is dark inside the moon.
the moon tastes like candlewax
and cold sweat.
you cannot be beautiful on the moon -
the earth will not allow it.
that is why,
if i should ever slip into a spacesuit
and you should ever kiss my helmet goodbye,
i will not think of you.
i will think of the earth
and break out in a cold sweat.
Jul 5, 2011
Jul 5, 2011 at 6:05 AM UTC
I loved you as one loves the first sniff of a *** of instant coffee,
and I loved you as one loves a slight breeze on a slight day.
I loved you as a tree loves its leaves,
and thus I held the winter in disdain.
I loved you as one loves the artful blurs of city lights
succumbing to each other in the September rain.
I loved every slip of my tongue against my teeth
as I set your name out in the world on display.
I loved you like the last unread book on the shelf,
and I loved you like verbosity could not conceivably convey.
And though I loved not like a song, nor like a ballad or an ode,
I loved you with intensity that one could never feign.
Jun 29, 2011
Jun 29, 2011 at 6:07 AM UTC
I’ve got fifteen years tied in knots
of green and brown and I have
decided that it is time for a change
of scenery. So I climb onto the roof
and pretend I am a chimney, spewing
smoke of blue and grey and lung cancer and
voggy Hilo mornings. A helicopter
circles overhead at an altitude of 805 feet, its
searchlight catching the neighborhood
lying spread-eagled on the living room
floor, brutally desecrated and left
bare-bones to die. I am a catalyst,
an instigator, a cynic with a palm tree.
Today I read an atlas and find
naught but “A Hui Hou” scrawled across
the pages in black pen. I burn the
book, the bridge, and the old tires in
the backyard.
On Saturday it rained and the floodwaters
took my bicycle.
Sometimes I sit by the roadside reading
Bukowski with hibiscus in my hair and
Indiana in my eyes. Hunting dogs
clash with rescue dogs at the house
with the stop sign. The moon falls
from the sky and engulfs the mynah
birds and the plague. The floodwaters
recede and leave a jigsaw puzzle
on the slopes of Mauna Kea. “I am not
afraid,” I say, “for I am only gravel.”
I play the eight-bar blues on Fortieth
and sing songs of drugs and missed
connections. I am hit by a truck and
a little gold car, but I proclaim myself
immortal as I am flattened to the pavement.
I am the Ki’i Pohaku beatnik, and
I write of nature and nurture and
the never-ending rain.
Someone has painted my walls blue
and my hands grey. So I pack my suitcase
and run down the highway for
seven thousand miles and all I see
are mistakenly-numbered houses and
blank maps and dead neighbors
from families I used to know.
There are torrents of rain now,
forming puddles in the forest.
I know the reason. It is twelve
in the morning.
The neighborhood grows obscure.
We are demolished.
May 5, 2011
May 5, 2011 at 1:13 AM UTC
This is just a mirror and this is just a desk and this
is just a car crash and this is just a bicycle just as
this is just an exit like Greco-Roman architecture
where you may see someone approaching like a
UFO or a synagogue or a suicide bomber ATTACK
shh don’t fight don’t close your notebook look
the leaves are falling said the blind man while
the columns collapsed and the bluesman strummed
on the sidewalk see we are all dying here we
just know when to lose to let go to buy to sell
to realize that the mountain we made means
that we may never breathe again
May 5, 2011
May 5, 2011 at 1:11 AM UTC
I write an evening by the
waterfront with candlelight
Freemasons paving the
boardwalk. In the
morning the newspaper
prints my biography and
I laugh cacophonously.
I stand in my treehouse
and scream a note of
finality. I learn how to
synchronize and mispronounce
waning and soon I
realize.
I have left my voicebox
in my other pants.
Ulysses sang the blues today
but the sirens had more soul.
"So wrap your head in a scarf,"
I say! "Paint your house grey
and your churches red."
Jesus sang the blues today
but the sinners had more heart.
Dare ye burn a cross or
run afoul or sob for the mountain?
Then name yourself an apostle
and head for the hills of your
heaven above.
I sang the blues today
but the liars-
The plane lands with a thunk.
I roll my window shade up.
Sand turns to grain and
rainbows to tornadoes.
I have arrived.
I go to the gun shop and empty
the cash register before it is
too late. My uncle calls from
prison to wish me a happy
Boxing Day. I rent an apartment,
a car, a television, a diploma.
My thoughts are scattered and
my words ring through my head,
but these blues shan't get to
me any longer.
The truth, I decide, is overrated.
I study metaphysics, pataphysics,
and I am going to be sick. Our
hero reads Hopkins and takes
another shot.
Today I stay in bed
and count the cracks
in the ceiling.
May 5, 2011
May 5, 2011 at 1:09 AM UTC
And then there was orange, glinting in a pile
from the ground outside my second story window.
I sit and count the scattered papers on my
bedroom floor, thinking, "Maybe someday the
past and present will meet," though I know full-well
that they already have.
Now it is twofold, it is insult to injury, it is
twenty seven eleven.
We are lies, aren't we? We are thankful for
the unknown. My father sips scotch and devours the
truth. I catch my connecting flight and travel back
in time. The man in the blue coat is replaced by
the man in the black hat, the man with the feather
hat, and the man with naught but war paint.
It is like the movies, I decide. I settle on a log bench
and read the classifieds in the newspaper.
Mother and father tell me to count my blessings
as if they are sheep. I tell them that their analogy
is flawed. Morning comes and I tie a string around
my ring finger, proclaiming, "I am here to collect
thanks! Bring out your wish lists and your tattered
diaries!" I am a liar; I am thankful for nothing but
sickness and ink. I write "twenty seven eleven"
three hundred times and vow to make a difference.
I fill my car and my fridge and roller blade up
the mountain, chanting, "Noa! Noa! 'Oia'i'o! A'ole
mahalo nui!" My cries go unheard and I sulk
back down, a landslide for the ages.
I begin to write poetry that oozes pretension and
reflects obsession. I try to pronounce the disease
and instead find myself bound to a table crushed by
feast and fear. I have written "twenty seven eleven"
on my forehead and am forced to listen to the "Lord"s
and "grateful"s and "God"s and I have had enough.
I break free and head for reason.
May 5, 2011
May 5, 2011 at 1:06 AM UTC