monuments to light and sound
that glimmer off a thorny crown
and show us what
everything at
once I was, there was, we were, they had
thoughts and dreams that lit up
leaves of dappled light and what we thought they'd find
under our pillows after losing our teeth
the night creeps
the night creaks
but i'm asleep
Jun 19, 2020
Jun 19, 2020 at 3:47 PM UTC
droplets raked the dirt
pouring
pounding the sleep from our eyes
the kind that Netflix and Hollywood send to sets
where the ground is scorched
where we mourn the hads and thens
the eds and the whens
and we dance in the puddles
and the creeks
and wish for sunnier days
May 16, 2020
May 16, 2020 at 12:52 PM UTC
This is your nightmare
In the undocked sandbox of the suburbs
Something inside and out all at once
Part and impartial to the ways and words of your mother
The other you try but can’t seem to forget as you drive there
Because you can’t walk anymore
You barely talk anymore
But you stalk and watch like a monkey who does but doesn’t see
Who they’re being
That they’re dreaming
Jul 12, 2018
Jul 12, 2018 at 11:57 PM UTC
head shoved in the bath
open eyes to see the porcelain
in stunning watercolour
counting
one mississippi
two Mississippi
to see the moments passing
against supposedly blurred off-white tub bottom
uncracked egg-shell backdrop of clock faces
tick mississippi tock mississippi
blinking short and long seconds
from twelve to twelve
Jan 2, 2015
Jan 2, 2015 at 1:22 AM UTC
I'm glad to be taller
than you
to see your flowing dance
and twisting legs from high
your movements in the matrix between
dance floor and chandelier like blood
from a gashed foot
I stand looking down upon
the dripping dance
pant legs rippling against pebble shoes thrown
as far as they can
to see who's strongest
from down there
you won't see my balding head
the way my eyes wander and wish for bed
in your puddle reflection
in you
Dec 4, 2014
Dec 4, 2014 at 12:33 AM UTC
you just died there
on the pine wood floor
standing
between the doorway beams of light and golden paint
engraved with oak leaves and a lighted caption
that read something once
your name maybe
or your Dad's
did you wear a dress or a collared shirt
did a tie make a pendulum swing from thigh to thigh
caught in the gust of a rhythmic left right walk
or did you talk
and talk about the mundane
the nothing
fingers through belt loops
not knowing what to do with your hands
flipped mountain peaks
Kilimanjaro's a spinning top drilling
quaking with depth
digging the mass grave
between the golden rectangle
where you stood
stand
where you left me
Nov 19, 2014
Nov 19, 2014 at 3:05 AM UTC
it's burning down
all of it
isn't it
no no no you can't read the fire
or curse it out
blowing out the world's candles
that lit the hidden
showed what sat in front of squeezed-tight lips and eyes
idiots all of them never learning that the end is never
will this all end in clever back and forths empty
or will we move God ****** from that master past
tearing us afar
pearl-filled hearts begging for for forgiveness
in the lacey sweetness of Valentine cards
weeping for their skin
collecting tears in water-bottles
plastic spittoons holding forever
held back words that rot teeth and livers
a cold shiver in the leaving of the light
Nov 18, 2014
Nov 18, 2014 at 12:51 AM UTC
I remember asking
Can I go to the restroom?
a lot
and getting the same ******* response
I don't know; Can you? as I leave the room
answering myself
with two working legs and a full bladder
returning to a scolding
and everyone watching something
How Ships Sink
I think of some poems of empty people and slouching
and I don't think that I think that
I read it and remembered having read it
somehow
some slip
or conjuring of a movie clip of ships sunk
no
sorry
Why
Oct 13, 2014
Oct 13, 2014 at 4:23 AM UTC
I try to lift weights
I guess I don't
pulling not-so-heavy
badly-shaped maybe-steel
from clay ground to beating chest
back and forth
atop a New York skyscraper
Oct 9, 2014
Oct 9, 2014 at 1:36 AM UTC
pretty boy
she'd recite in building echo
to Paul the parakeet
his feathers slicked like Elvis' helmet hair rustling
in her beating loop
Fall's plucked leaves
his caged mirror spins on strings
in the wind's singing
a pocket watch tick-tocking
from pecked emerald plastic
to the inverted bird
hollow
Oct 6, 2014
Oct 6, 2014 at 1:47 AM UTC