For the pale dudes who confront the wind
and try to push it back into its bottle,
and for tall girls with their datebooks
who can organize their dressers
but feel acid scorch their throats whenever
someone says the not-so-magic words
because disorder haunts them still--
For all the paralegal types
who had to rearrange their futures
for the kids,
and for the dryer locked in layaway--
I will keep the fire going.
May 1, 2015
May 1, 2015 at 12:05 AM UTC
Remember, when you find yourself rejoicing for the rainbow,
that the earthworms rest below you on the sidewalk,
having lost their sense of being and direction,
having died but lived to feel it.
Remember when you're aching for the earthworms on the sidewalk,
there are some that didn't make it to the surface,
having drowned before the sun could take them slowly,
having died without a preface.
And
remember when you find yourself embarrassed by the cycle
that destroys and then destroys what pleads for safety--
--these are patterns that remind us we are systems:
Rainbows wax then die like earthworms.
Apr 3, 2015
Apr 3, 2015 at 3:01 PM UTC
Bring about a second war,
or pack up - and go home.
We can't accept apologies
from Sicily or Rome.
We can't impart cartography
to mayors without maps.
And no one wades the rivers here,
and water fills the cracks.
And water, liquid power naps,
repels us at the coast,
But draws us in at pipeline ends
and haunts us like Dad's ghost.
I died sometime, the future came,
and everybody smirked
and asked me, while we waited
for my casket, if it hurt.
Mar 17, 2015
Mar 17, 2015 at 1:17 AM UTC
As runners in a fastened loop
stop often to recount their breath,
and lookers placed around the group
in blocks of twelve and twenty-four
laugh quietly and think of death,
an older man who runs a store,
who's still content without a wife,
flops aimlessly against the floor,
and thirty men in tailcoats swoop
to save an upper-level life.
Mar 5, 2015
Mar 5, 2015 at 12:03 PM UTC
Some men trek the marathon with grace
and finish gently.
Some men catch their second wind and roll
their way on empty.
Feb 24, 2015
Feb 24, 2015 at 8:45 PM UTC
The girl who thinks Tuesday is "almost Friday"
bakes in her room like a milk-crate left for Phoenix dead.
Nobody's knocking
but nobody's thinking.
How do we know that the fly loves its life on the web
if we've only consulted the spider?
How do we document
a Grecian revival of a Spanish writer.
Jan 31, 2015
Jan 31, 2015 at 5:01 PM UTC
So after we got to the go-kart place,
we adjusted our hats,
and recorded our thoughts,
and until someone shouted our monikers
(Tasters of Life and Cool Guys,)
we took turns at the cage
while the others recalled their most
Jersey-like memories.
Somebody died on the beach,
and they chose to shut down our requests
for more info.
We ate with the lifeguard
who shook when he spoke.
Jan 27, 2015
Jan 27, 2015 at 12:10 PM UTC
I used to think in numbers.
1: There’s one of me. Alone. Plus
4: my family. Still 1, but 5, or
4 plus 1; that’s me, alone.
I used to think in numbers.
36: That’s weeks of school;
That’s weeks of math class,
math class, calculator;
Father, Son, and Calculator.
Trinity: the holy three, the three, the
3 times 36: that’s 108.
I used to think in numbers.
Math class, algebra, room 108.
I hate, I hate, I love, I hate,
I hate the way they look at me.
They look at me like man at dog,
like planet hogs,
throw books at me like cannons cogged
at ninety-minute intervals at cinder walls
until I fault and cringe and fall, and fall
like London Bridge and crash, and fall like
Blown-out glass gone back to class. I pass the
tests and cash regrets like rent checks
bounced across the bridge that they knocked down.
Because I used to think in numbers, yeah,
but now?
Well, sure. Abrasions hurt.
And yeah, we all want friends.
But at least equations work
and keep their balance on both ends.
So I will rock this scatter-plot of
social contract to its peak until
my hands are red meat.
I am no dead beat;
I hold the world record for blood lost
to a summer camp spread sheet.
But then,
but then somewhere along that number line,
a 6 stared down its stage fright when just
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 days before the show,
I met a girl who barred my better judgment
like a cage fight,
and thank God she did,
because for once, I put away the calculator,
and I listened to her voice,
and it sounded like…
well, it sounded like it sounded.
And for once, I sat and wrote about the things
that can’t be counted.
I surrendered to the cage fight,
and I fell into a deep hole.
And to be honest,
I don’t miss spreadsheet summers,
‘cause it’s easier to keep cool.
I used to think in numbers,
yeah,
but now I think in people.
Jan 21, 2015
Jan 21, 2015 at 12:25 AM UTC
The city spikes that peer out over
rock-spires in the distance taste like
coffee grounds and finger paint.
They're bitter, but they matter.
Maybe someone north of Washington will
read our S.O.S. and send an airplane full of
urban-types to gentrify our graves.
And maybe Jesus saves.
Or maybe Jesus raves with coked-up
Gandhi up in Jersey, when the
winter turns to mush.
Jan 12, 2015
Jan 12, 2015 at 2:19 PM UTC
I live in a cat.
There are people who
buy their kids hot tubs
and buy their dads
caskets in shapes that
get buried like reruns
of Cheers among thousands
of channels that sputter
through static to
emulate social
experience.
And I pour my experience
into a bowl labeled "milk."
I live in a cat.
Jan 7, 2015
Jan 7, 2015 at 2:01 PM UTC