Through another storm
I worried,
but your mother is fine, and
you're still not coming back.
It's a drive I can't make, by morning.
Dogs bark, you disappear.
I annoy you with the
same two low notes.
One stinks, the other screams.
And I can't play piano.
Are you there Nate?
It's the wagon driver.
You left the back open,
or I forgot to close it.
Either way you're on your own.
Were you God, Nate?
Or just some gorgeous meth-head?
If they don't have a bed yet,
tell them you'll take the couch.
Tell them I'll take the floor.
My blood pays by the heartbeat,
with my veins in rebellion.
Bleached is my skin and I'm
sold in pieces,
to the dust, to the dark, to the smoke.
Nate, I cry about it, every single
ride to work. I beg the cars in
front of me for your life. I beg you,
for mine.
Oct 26, 2017
Oct 26, 2017 at 10:58 AM UTC
Still lanky dude with the long hair
Still can't tell you when, but I'm getting there.
Still the best poet you ever read.
Still don't think you'll read it till I'm dead.
Still gassing up past 3 AM
Still saying "Won't fall in love again."
Still waking up from the same dreams
Still getting air when I try and scream
Still wanna **** up a KMart
Still wanna skip to the next part
Still got a problem with some folks
Still tryna swallow and just choke
Still poor, still ***** and still tired
Still last resort if you need a ride
Still driving off of the Hairpin
Still hope the car lands in heaven
Still the one that loved you despite all of the pain
Still pulling the heart together, next is still the brain
Still the beating of it, stop it dead, leave it there to rot
Still wonder if you ever gave it a second thought
Still fighting toys in the playroom
Still saying "we're gonna move soon"
Still getting kicked out in August.
"Still this isn't breaking my promise."
Still smoking out in the same seats
Still hiding under the bedsheets
Still hit a home run in most cases
Still gotta touch all four bases
Still don't have the words for this feeling
Still tryna peel me off of the ceiling
Still chew my teeth instead of food
Still try to learn like I'm in school
Still hate the face in the mirror
Still my vision only gets clearer.
Still wanna ruin a Wal-Mart.
Still gonna race with the shopping carts.
Still scaling the shelving in home decor
Still can't go back, still banned from the store
Still gassing up past 4 AM
Still city streets, devoid of men
Still have to make wrong a few rights
Still, like a deer in headlights.
Sep 12, 2017
Sep 12, 2017 at 12:12 PM UTC
"I wish I was happier," she
confessed, to me, in-between
puffs and awkward silent
pauses.
"I'm not disappointed," was
all I could say, forcing
back down my throat, the "me too."
We stood there, in quiet,
surrounded by loudness. The other
few, ate, and drinking inside.
Goes back in, she kisses him.
What does he know?
Answer?
More than he's liable to make known.
I can't look at her. If I do,
I'm caught-in-love, and
stuck on the possibilities.
If my eyes can avoid you, my
dreams can stay fantasy,
not just unfulfilled.
She's tired of hearing she's perfect.
She'd rather be told the truth.
but no one that loves her lets honesty in earshot.
And I'm sick of love, lying, and
truth-telling, too.
I wish you were happier.
I wish the path of least resistance laid itself out,
before you.
I wish you'd hold my hand while we walk it, together.
I wish I could make happy,
like some folks brew beer.
I'd pour you a growler,
(On the house, of course)
and laugh at everyone else, while you drink it.
This poem is the list of
things I never thought could
make a difference.
This poem is the litany of reasons why
I think I deserve one
last chance.
This poem is the one I'd
read to you every night, if
it would change your
mind.
It wouldn't. It won't.
This poem bites, the last dying
hope of a beached shark, spying
the wave that could save it.
This poem is the black pods
we once foolishly believed were
shark eggs.
This poem knows I hate the beach,
and brought me along,
anyway.
I started this poem months ago.
It'll never really be finished.
Sep 12, 2017
Sep 12, 2017 at 12:08 PM UTC
The last time I wore a suit was
my high school prom. A
grateful world has left me,
without funerals to attend.
The last time I wore a jonny,
I danced the wind in dad's room.
Machines that beeped and whirred
were somehow keeping him alive.
When I finally picked the phone up,
we'd already talked, two hours.
The person, your disease has curtained,
read my poems for the camera.
The last time we got high, I wanted you
to hear that Strokes song, and
listen to you list objections, to our
sharing a kiss.
I'll take a dare, and tell the truth
to you, over phenomenal music and
exhaust. I'll be desperate if you promise
to stay as vulnerable as you know how to be.
The last time we took the car together,
I remember you weren't so afraid.
The next time you try being alone with me
I'll insist I shouldn't be driving.
The last few times I'd felt brave enough,
but courage never serves me. If the
Queen's decided not-to, it's as
sure as our demise is.
And all-Earth smells like a lake town,
hurts, just like a headache, can't get
all the ink-out, blinking
at the sky.
The last time I felt so alive we
were driving some way, that you
realized, halfway-there, you're
sick-of.
On a runaway ride out from trouble
the passenger seat always
seems to be
empty.
Feb 25, 2017
Feb 25, 2017 at 6:48 PM UTC
There's a better version of me,
up, ahead. And
he loves you in ways,
I can't figure ways,
how-to. Yeah,
you cried when he
left you.
And lonely,
you screamed.
"But if he'd come back, then,"
you think,
you'd believe it? The
roads don't just sparkle, every
time that you need it.
In the poem I write next,
we're both losing games.
I press up then, catch on,
turning to flames.
In a grand winning gesture
you burst
into diamonds,
before I can remind you
about asking Simon.
In the distance, outside the door to your
basement, a crowd la-las the
Star-Spangled Banner.
From the bulkhead and foundation,
from "the Hobbit door," but,
behind me,
the Anthem goes silent.
"Not home. Headed home. Stopped
here. On-my-way."
"Where would you rather be,
than right here, right now?"
Ralph Wilson died a rich man,
with a football stadium
by which to remember him.
"Well then trace your
depression to its sources."
I'm afraid I'll never own the franchise.
There's a father, presiding
over a service,
for both of us. It's the
same priest, at every
front of the room.
Our parents are crying, regardless.
I'd say somewhere, we sit,
together,
sipping on the universe. This one
or another.
If we don't, then they do.
And they're having the best time.
But in our past,
the same one we share now,
a version of you stiffens.
She glazes her eyes, sugary.
Holds out her palm, fingers to the sky.
And he matches her thumb first,
before the four digits.
Her face bursts, all rosy.
His turns away.
Dec 27, 2016
Dec 27, 2016 at 10:08 AM UTC
I really miss
24 hour super-markets at
around 11 PM
on a Saturday night
in July
I miss the t-shirts on strangers
from Super Bowls long-played and
done-over. I wonder if they'll go
home to the same houses
they watched the
wins in.
When they've finished
with their shopping, do
they read magazines, or just
fall asleep.
Aug 27, 2016
Aug 27, 2016 at 9:40 AM UTC
I've been yearning for a future I
had around me four years ago.
I would pace, and you would
sip your coffee.
We were both falling-in. Before
our falling out.
A black hole, a sentinel, shoots
through the space, above the
apartment.
Time bends. Twenty-different, endings.
Cursed to see them all. Granted,
as a gift.
The path leads, not back, but away from
the car door. A martyr for secrets, each time
that I'd shut it.
Over a short hill, I caught my breath.
Fixed my eyes on a snake, and
inhaled the devil.
(If love is for losers, I'm
damn-sick, and winning. A laugh-
it-off stab wound, for each
failed beginning.
The noise in my back just can't
drown out my brain. The one-
volume-voice lies, and insists
I'm sane.)
But I burped up a bottle, betting to
blur my vision. And, I burned down the house,
trying to warm-up my hands.
I try not to look
back-past-two, or
further than eight.
I remember "what comes after four?"
I'm just hoping to forget.
Mar 11, 2016
Mar 11, 2016 at 10:08 AM UTC
In the distance, outside the door to
your basement, a crowd
la-la's
the Star Spangled Banner.
All swirl-eyed, and promising water,
a circled-hiss, a lie.
Fox-headed, and painting Old Glory
onto his chest, to the amazement
of even the millionaires.
In a dark room, eyes roll back,
towards Wellesley. Eternally, hung
on the wall. The
patriarch, shaking the hands of
your grandfather.
Dreaming of the
late 1960s.
The mountain, surrounded by
clouds.
The Gods throw bolts, and
fireworks, at-You, through the
television set.
From the cinder, on the lawn,
of a house, on-fire and crumbling,
the kids
are catching flame.
And if all goes as planned then
the bonfire's a beacon,
we're not going anywhere.
We are the rocket's red glare.
Garnering hope from those
driving to work.
Hitting the light switch, to
see the results.
Trying to look for America.
Bernie 2016
Mar 1, 2016
Mar 1, 2016 at 12:40 PM UTC
Put my name on the deed to a Rolls Royce. See a live elephant, before they all go extinct. Spend a year in New Orleans, with no one else's help. Win an Oscar. Own a Super Bowl Ring.
Train my husky to walk my Boston terrier. Finally quit cigarettes. Never quit spliffs. Go hiking, every day. Drink less coffee. Get a better job. Get an even better job. Take less bathroom breaks.
Fall for someone that helps me up. Have a talk with Fiona Apple. Write the screenplay we'd always refused. Ask relevant questions. Give accurate answers. Win a Peabody. Own a football stadium.
Write the news my now doesn't know yet. Drink bourbon in Kentucky. Learn how to program. Make the best-sellers list. Fill dad with pride. Do laundry this week.
Go see a chiropractor. Stay off the junk, would ya? Smell less-like I just smoked. Pay back your lenders. Keep close, your real friends. Let someone publish my work. Win a Pulitzer.
Be punctual. Write something you'll want to read. Clean my room. Lower the volume of my voice (but not really). Earn my P.h.D. Adequately meld the personal and the real, the universally and the delusionally relevant.
Make them pay me to do what I love. Spend it all on you. Get a bigger ferret cage. Live a greener lifestyle. Trash fewer K-Cups. Let people be themselves, without worrying if they're sneaking around. Hug Tom Brady. Thank him. Explain what he means.
Reconcile with the town of Webster. Pay the city of Brookline for those parking fines. Spend time in all 351. Read Infinite Jest, and all of Ulysses. Identify when a work is "Joycean." Interpret it, as such.
Act. Tell a good joke. Become a falconer. Hug a chimpanzee. Dismantle a hate group. Put them all in their places. Cry easily. Stay happy.
Revisit Paris. Discover Ireland. Stay awake. Talk to another wolf. Record the perfect song. Compile the perfect playlist. Want to go to work. Enjoy New York City. Maybe live there.
Inspire society to care about poetry. Re-certify my black belt. Center my self. Listen to it. Take photos that stop you. Draw pictures worth buying. Keep the gun in your waistband, in the small of your back, and never, ever, pull that **** out. Mean something, when you flash metal.
Learn photoshop. Laugh at the all-encompassing parody. Love first. Haunt your dreams with a good story. Make you truly regret it. See the damn-good in everyone. Know the past, own the present, visualize the future. Catch a fist, dodge bullets.
Nov 27, 2015
Nov 27, 2015 at 11:50 AM UTC
I watched a spider
walk a webbed wire,
waltzing 'twixt me
and the water.
Thought of turning to words, and
concur did the birds.
Hoisting colors,
not flying more fodder.
For the staff's, (standing tall)
flag is not flown, but tied-on.
And, for it,
the boy seems more chipper.
Still he stares at the stars,
drawn-with, cigarettes, cars.
Doing his best to
pick-out, the Big Dipper.
Oct 22, 2015
Oct 22, 2015 at 4:49 PM UTC