I truly believe happiness
is listening to your hometown heroes
play their final show at their favorite venue
and crying with them as they play their final song.

And everyone in the crowd sings along.

It's always been a dream of mine-
a dream as big as the state of Nebraska,
but they've taught me, my hometown heroes,
that hope IS a good thing.

And my hometown is Lincoln. And my hometown is where dreams come true.

Zeus is ****** tonight.

Maybe he was having conflict with Hera. Maybe Apollo or Athena or Artemis accidentally attempted to rain art or astuteness or animals down upon Earth, respectively.

Maybe he drank too much wine.

Whatever the reason is, it's quite a light show.

There are no stars, only the
chemiluminescence
on my shirt and my shorts
that were poured upon me by
intoxicated partiers who thought it would be entertaining
to shower the combination of peroxide and phenyl oxalate ester
upon the party guests.

A map of the universe
is splattered across my hands.

It's as if Zeus
threw away the sky,
in an inebriated gesture,
and it landed around me.

Cronus should have swallowed the father of gods and of men whole.

Cue the banjo solos
and the violin swells.
Sleeping children in
withering weeping willow
high chairs
covered in creamed carrots.
Young cherry blossom lovers
shout curses,
shatter floodgates,
let tears flow;
petals are brushed away
by the wind.
Widows and over-easy eggs,
crossword puzzles and
sad irony on fifteen across -
"Murdered, 'Ides of March.'"
The weight of their fatigue
growing dark and heavy
under their eyes.

A waitress breaks silence,
"More coffee?"

A sleeping child awakes,
crying under the brightness
of the morning sun.

I smoke every cigarette in the pack
long enough that the filters melted
and my lips blacken
like the nightsky,
when you stepped down
the granite staircase
in a burgundy bouclé dress
that radiated brighter than
the chandelier overhead.

All we ever had was enough.
Now I smoke to remember
the nights when the fog
followed us home
and the music of us
slow dancing in silence.

I pack my bags
and I leave my keys at your door.
You hold me close and you whisper:

*"What the hell are you waiting for?"

The Mill sits comfortably among the sea of red.
Unwavering, unyielding, and thriving.

Cafe Espresso and oolong tea.

The booths are occupied with
reminiscence of the glory days,
contentment between mothers and daughters and sons and fathers,
appreciation of music and art and literature.

All the while sunlight illuminated
the scarf and the starfish
of the girl across from me

as our minds were slowly revealed to one another.

Imagine your eyes
as bluegreenhazelgrayamber
windows to actuality.

Now imagine your eyes
s lo   w lllllllly

f
      a
              d

                      i
                    
                             n
              
                                    g

to






black.

A panda sit on the frozen water.
Another stares at me from the wall.
Two pandas.

Then my phone rings.
The bears sing!
And bees swarm from their mouths
and sting me with needles.

Needles full of ***!
LSD!
ACID RAIN!
ICE COLD *******!

And then there is no more pain.
Sleep comes.

The pandas sleep under my bed.

The neighborhood hawk glides
gracefully over the dead ground.

He soars through the smoke of
my morning cigarette
My burning reminder of regret.

The hawk feels no anguish in the
haze
My haze.
That funnels above the dead ground.

You must make a decision,
but you are suffocating
and time is running thin.

It's as if you are an astronaut:
one hundred feet away from your shuttle,
and the oxygen tank on your back
is empty.

It's like you are a captain:
pulled under the abysmal blue water
as your ship of the line is submerged
and your legs are tangled in the sails.

But really,
you are a young boy sitting a park bench
next to the girl from the schoolyard
with whom you fell madly in love.

The decision you must make:
Are you going to kiss her?

Reach the shuttle with mere seconds to spare.
Free yourself from the ******* of a sinking ship.

For a
moment

I thought I (love)d you.

It's a tough word, it really is,
when you're sobbing behind a bottle,
bleeding red wine from the corners of your mouth.
It would be simpler to express this sober,
but you know as well as anyone
no one's ever sober anymore.

The inebriates are saying "happy ******* Valentine's Day"
to everyone who decided to break the glass the past year.
The antidepressants are speeding up my heart beat,
praying that this time it'll be my name you're crying about.

Even if it's for the wrong reason.

You're becoming and comely.
My elixir of redundancy;
the effervescent efflorescence
of my eloquent pretentiousness.

Whatever.

I try too ******* hard to impress.

A 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera
A mixtape
Valentines Day

A tuxedo
A seafoam green dress
Prom night

A starlit road
A taste of your lips
Spring

A weeping embrace
A slamming door
Summer

An empty bedroom
A bottle of gin
Autumn

A silent girl
A disturbed boy
Winter

"I don't love you like I did yesterday"

Dear Diary, you're completely full of ****. You are that streetwalker who passes by with a faux smile and a greeting that defines Charlatan.

"Hello! How are you?"

Well, Diary, I'm broken and full of rotting organs and a brain just screaming for serotonin and a conscious that wants to shove a knife in your chest and a heart that's too weak to do it.

"I'm doing just fine, thanks."

Charlatan Diary, you're nothing but a shallow waste of ink. Waste of ink waste of ink wasteof ink wa ste o f ink wasteofink.

We are the ones,
cast from the warmth and into the cold
where lungs break down
and hearts are left for the wolves.

We bloom in the chill now.
Like a hellebore bursts
from the banks of snow.
We have arrived
where the exiled
were bound to go -
we've packed The Tinguit Inn
and there's no vacancy.

And yes, oh yes,
we remember you,
tugging at our bound wrists.
We can see your eyes- -
your damnable dark eyes,
twist the chains around our necks.

Gendarme, what say you?
Where are your comrades now?
Where are the revolvers
you issued them as you said

"Just in case of an uprising..."

You know, son,
we have a history of
slitting the throats of our cousins
over a handful of stolen grain.

Imagine what we do to a thief
who robbed us from the sails
of our Mediterranean Sea.

Look at the sky!
The plateau and,
beyond,
our land that stretches to
the shorelines!

We are the exiled
from the Tinguit Hotel,
and yes - you will pay.

*Tu paieras.

He knows where he is at.
His while t-shirt clings to his sweat soaked skin
and he waits for another chance to waste his breath
on the walking skeletons.

He walks outside with a hole in his umbrella
to wash away the salt from his arms
but to protect his face from the water
to make sure the walking skeletons know he was crying earlier.

When the sky falls,
he will catch the pieces in his mouth
like he did during winter.
He will recite his opinions on why he should die
in front of the walking skeletons,
while he slowly loses his skin himself.

Let the neon lights speak for themselves.
They'll sing my eulogy, I know that for sure.

"What a bright man he was,
always making sure we illuminated the downtown sidewalks
for the boozers and the streetwalkers to see.
See? He wasn't so bad after all-
he helped ease pain".

When you bury me,
bury me with my favorite drink,
and nourish the soil with *****.

Holy Spirits
flow freely
like the Mississippi
down the border
of Mississippi.
The girls with
the purple party beads
and the sax buskers
on the brown streetcars
drink through their
Mardi Gras,
down streetcars named Desire.

Holy Spirits
flow freely
like the slow jams
from the Apollo
during Locke's Renaissance.
The young gangsters
down every block
drop their
fists sticks knives guns
and shake to albee.

Holy Spirits
move through
vast cathedrals
and through
empty pews.
The zealous hearts
and the corrupt voices
all drink
and listen
to the voice
of the serpent.

He lays in his bed
under a thin layer of dust
and ash from his cigarette after cigarette.

The sheets tremble above his breath.
His chest cracks and crumbles.
His heart's an inferno.

He ricochets between
anger and self-pity
and denial.

Two days ago
she left without a word;
slipped from underneath
the covers and buried herself in
bottles of *****
before crossing the street
to the vineyard.

She weaved together
the branches
and kicked the stool from underneath
her bare feet.

as he watched from the window.

He knows she will come back.
She will untie herself from those
grapes of wrath
and rest her head
against the pillow next to his own.

Saudade)
This is a division;
a dissection of blood cells;
a severance of the colors on a canvas.
Separating waters - Moses' staff in the air.
We are singing parting songs into each other's eyes
because we are slurring our words across the pavement.
One final moment slips through the palms of our hands,
flows through the back of our minds,
and calls our hearts to break.
This is goodbye.

Retrouvailles)
And, after all of this,
I will see you again in
the brightness of dawn,
the twilight of dusk.

I will see you again in
the blossoms of Spring,
in the fervor of Summer,
in the colors of Autumn,
in the snowflakes of Winter.

I will see you again.
This is hello.

Landing on both feet
is never as easy as I thought it would be
when I saw you jump
gracefully
from the top of the crabapple tree.

I've always hit a branch along the way down.

You'd pick me up,
dust me off,
and say to me -

Breathe the smell of the crabapple blooms!
It's the smell of freedom! Of release!
Inhale,
and you'll sense it in the air
and land perfectly on your feet.

The fisherman tells the sea
that he promises to weather its storms.
The sea tells the fisherman
that she promises to carry him
to adventurous lands
upon her leeward waves.

As for me,
I promise we will be okay
as the winds blow the shingles
off our tiny, little house.
I promise we will be okay
as we follow the maps
and navigate the roads
while the radio sings static,
our hands clasped together
at your knee.

I promise that the rain
will radiate diamonds,
that reflect the gleam of your eyes,
onto the shores,
into the sea,
onto me,
and especially onto you.

We will find hope inside the clouds.

I.

He carried the weight of his World on his back.
Backpacking from the house to the oven
to the house to the oven
to the house to the oven
to the broken house he called his own.
His World was a paranoid wife,
a broken son,
and a heartbroken daughter.
No one ever offered to carry his cross.

II.

She paces back and forth
in the confines of the kitchen
and finally breaks down,
slouching down against the cabinets.
The pills inch their way down her throat,
and her tears wash them down
to the very depths of her soul.

III.

His eyes are bloodshot and glazed
as he holds the blue glass that burns with
the smell of illegal freedom.
He exhales a sigh of smogrelief,
letting the real world disintegrate
and entering the Hallucination world,
where nothing can pierce his skin.

IV.

She stares at the face on the computer screen.
A young boy - blond hair and green eyes.
He stares at another girl in the photo,
her hair blond and her eyes green.
The computer screen starts to crack,
and she realizes that so is this youngheart love.
If only she knew how love really hurt.

I recall the rustic leaves,
and the sound they made when crushed
under skateboard wheels,
as they settled around the half-pipe
and the worn rails of Peter Pan Park.

Youngsters,
with their colorful helmets and their
better-safe-than-sorry knee pads,
kicked and pushed their way across the pavement
and pumped their fists in the air
as their boards reached the other side.  
In this Neverland, the kids wanted adventure first -
the tea could wait at home for a little longer.

But, as dusk settles,
the pirates emerge upon the asphalt shores
in fleets of tinted windows and loud exhausts.
These pirates, still adolescent in their own age,
bicker and fight until a hook pierces skin,
blood spills upon the crisp leaves,
and a boy - with naiveness still glistening in his eyes -
becomes another boy who would not grow up
in the Never Never of Peter Pan Park.

The dissonance feels indiscernible now.
My favorite bench became home
for both of us.

You didn't scorn,
rather embraced me from the beginning.
And the sky opened;
the stars glowed only for you.

Watch them glow,
watch them sparkle for you.
(I bet you didn't know this was for you)

Only poetry was being written.
A screenplay coming to life.

Avant la prochaine fois, manquer,
avant la prochaine.

The marketplace (the one I admire
from the opposite side of earth)
is adorned with
best prices,
city memorabilia,
and vendors willing
to drop their prices for
the Western Civilization.

This is the gaudy side of town.

But just on the other side
of the crowded booths
is a bay that opens
to the sea adorned with
sunny afternoons,
crashing waves,
and books in hand and toes in the sand.

Your peaceful solace outshines
my tranquil plains adorned with
fallen leaves,
barren trees,
and the whispers of poetry that
is in the wind and
in the blue and orange sunsets.

Yet we are in solace together.

"I'm taking care of myself, and I miss you too"

I'm gonna wear
my weathered cardigans
and be swallowed by the pack
of Seattle commutes
with my vinyl records in one hand,
a guitar in the other,
and a backpack full of
J. Kerouac and C. Bukowski
and R. Adams and L. Cohen.

I gonna live
off of the San Francisco Bay saltwater
and the bummed cigarettes outside
of bars that play nicotine music
to my ears.

I'm gonna sleep
on the ground in front of cookie-cutter houses
with their fence posts painted white.
I'll feel my psyche strum its last chord
and soon I'll be gone
without a sound.

I'm gonna die
in a new town where nobody knows my name.
I'll be a Chicago artist
full of New York poetry,
a Great Britain romantic
full of Alameda Victorian architecture,
or a Nebraska idiot
full of Midwest ambition.

I pour myself
a glass of
Klonopin water
and chase it down
with a handle of
cheap *****
and a cigarette.

I move slowly
and stand in front
of my bathroom mirror
and watch my eyes
change from
bloodshot
to
blackout

and I ghostwalk
to the bottom
of my mind,
the venom slowly
filling my veins
and I dive deeper
into this hideous
numbness.

I can only imagine
flying kites with you
as the sun sets
and the stars cross.

He orders a plate of his favorite cigarettes
(Lucky Strike) (filterless) (nostalgia)
and a cup of coffee
at his favorite diner across town
that surprisingly hasn't burnt down yet.

He sits at a window booth and
he observes
a couple making lust in the street(Lucky Strike).
He observes
an infant child begging his mother to stay(filterless).
He observes
hummingbirds pecking at the corpse of a dog(nostalgia).

His hat is emblazoned
with valor and bloodshed and death.
His legs are turning into dust
out in the midst of a battlefield
where other soldier's limbs are turning into dust.

Yeah, he fought for t(his) (nostalgia).

The clouds reach their hands down
and cover the mountain peaks.
They call the Moon to reflect the Sun's light;
the fog glows a golden orange across the slopes.

In a dreamstate,
we are driving through Castle Rock,
the star brightly shining atop the granite anomaly.
He lights his pipe,
his hands swipe the match against the book like a maestro conducting a symphony,
and exhales the aroma of Philosopher's Blend into the thin Colorado air.

Many miles now separate
us, from the Rockies of Colorado
to the badlands of new Mexico;
but his smoke rings still
linger in the air, among the clouds,
that shroud the mountaintops.

I see a girl
jumping from the Big Dipper
onto the object to which
the action of the sea is directed.

She takes flight,
with the boldness of a Willow Ptarmigan,
and soars high above
Palmer and Seward and the bowl of Anchorage.

She lands atop the snowy slopes
of Denali and carves her way down
into the withered trees of Ghost Forest.

She swims among the Aleutian Islands,
floats on the waves of the Turnagain Arm,
and basks in the waters of the Gastineau Channel.

I see a girl
whose eyes sparkle brighter
than Klondike gold,
and whose voice whispers more beautifully
than the wind that blows
through the great land of Alyeska.

We are under a tornado warning.
As I look outside my window,
it appears we have reached the calm before the storm.

The ghosts are occupying the sky,
yelling and firing their guns.
Tears falling upon the heads of the breathing.

I only want to see the sun.
I frantically claw toward the sky.
But I am showered by a million little specks
of a war only Mother Nature understands.

I could dance.
Swing my body under a luminescent streetlight.
Feel my shoes and socks become more and more heavy.
Until my toes are unable to move.

Or maybe I should be more cautious, more vigilant.
maybe I should protect myself from
"life-threatening" danger.
But maybe I deserve it.
Maybe this is the perfect storm for me.
Maybe I shouldn't act like I am comfortable at all.

No more acting.
We have reached the calm before the storm.
Now I'm ready for my curtain call.

I yearn to gaze into a lens
to view the outer space.
What my eyes will see all depends
on how I view this place.

Alive and well, stars burn with life;
while others, growing old,
will view these orbs with growing strife
until themselves are cold.

An asteroid falls across the sky
to find its resting place
in the minds of observant eyes
then die without a trace.

A satellite reflects the gleam
of our colossal seas-
vivid as a child's first daydream
to journey where they please.

I yearn to gaze upon these lives
in space that's all but void,
but I open my sightless eyes
where space is none but void.

I've watched as my leaves changed
from emeraldgreen
to jaundiceyellow
and tumbled from their blood vessels,
for my body could no longer support them.

I've witnessed petals descend from blossoms:
a flowergirl tossing the colors into the air
to pave the way for a father to let go of a daughter.

I gazed at buildings and bridges
buckle at their knees
as cornerstones and foundations fail-
Atlas crumbling under the Celestial Sphere.

I've seen many things fall.

But I've never gazed upon a girl,
fear as heavy as millstones
eclipsing her overcastgrey eyes,
ghostwalk off a ledge,
waving a whiteflag
as she plummeted to the ground like a bomb.

The sky is masked
with billows of gray clouds
that have made their journey from the north
and move without haste
about the Gateway to the West.

No bird casts its silhouette
against the dreary backdrop,
and rain falls
like tears from our eyes:
two wanderers
hands interwoven,
trying to find a place to call home
so our weary feet can rest.

Oh, we are prone to wander.

She rests her head on my shoulder,
her soft brown hair falls
gently across her amber green eyes.
I rest my head on hers,
and we are timeless.

She whispers: "Everything is going to be okay"

I drive west
and she drives east
and rivers and roads
finally fall between us again.

The sky breaks its masquerade
and the gray dissipates
and the blue is radiant.
The birds take flight,
their wings directed toward
the four winds-
no concern for
northsoutheastwest.

I look up and whisper:

*"Everything is going to be okay"

And busting forth,
I found a new Joy.
I was called out of this darkness
into this glorious Light.

A firefly. A firework. A kaleidoscope. A galaxy of flames.

I will not be cut down and be scattered
among the legions of sand.
My roots will grow
deeper.
My palms will flourish;
my heart strengthen.

The writing on my soul
will never be vandalized or destroyed.

For where your treasure is,
there your heart will be also.
There your heart will be also.

He says to her, "goodnight." ("I never meant to hurt you.")
She walks away from him. ("You never hurt me; you shattered me.")
He begs her, "I hope you sleep well." ("I am sorry. Please let me put you back together.")
She continues to walk. ("I am a sinking ship. I am an earthquake. I am a falcon without a falconer.

I am beyond repair.")

I lit a fire tonight
upon my grandfather's old typewriter.

I kindled it with all of his old pencils,
his favorite ballpoint pen,
his yellow-paged novels,
his newspaper cutouts of his past successes.

Hell, I even threw in the bookshelf.

And, just like that,
it was mortal history.
I did it for the **** of it.

I mean, if it was REALLY important,
it would be sprawled all over webpages.
Sprawled all over online searches and
digital databases.

Trust me, grandpa,
the future looks much better in High Definition.

Slum ditch ****
and a double-decker train
heading straight for the heart;
bypassing all other organs.

I sit next to
dresses and scarves
and MomandSon kisses
and journals in the hands
of Chicago lovers
documenting every moment.

I was never afraid of ghosts
before I kept seeing your face
in every mirror I passed.

The past kept you silent.
Locked you in a casket
and buried you in a pile of
faded photographs and
ink that bled recollections
across blank pieces of paper.

Now you are the thunder
that comes after lightning;
you are the shards of glass
after each mirror b re a  k   s.

Rain fell like bullets of glass.
The wind blew from the mouth of God Himself.
The cold was suffocating us.

Fragments of a disaster,
and we embraced each other amidst it.

Words like red wine dripped from your lips.
Thoughts like tidal waves crashed in my head.

You were wrapped in a blanket,
and I simply stared at you
as I stood underneath the streetlight.
In moments, you'd be time zones away,
seas of water and seas of uncertainty between us.

We did not know if this moment was the end of the show
or simply the beginning
of beautiful poetry.

So I kissed you to find out.
A one-eighty degree turn on my heels
from whatif to whynot.

My only regret is that
I thought the only option was
to let go of your hands
and simply walk away.

The weathervanes
swirl snow into shimmering spirals.
The trees,
in slow rebirth,
retrogress to barren skeletons.
The cold leeches the green
from the emergent grass.

I perch atop wire farm fences
to rest my wings, to mend broken feathers;
the wind moves silence amidst the cold,
for my voice is void of song.

I see a flock flutter in the sky,
their call beckoning my flight to be one with theirs;
our voices to be one as we sing
songs of hopeful blessing
amidst nature's dissonance,
and chimes will resound from porches
and deer will drink from running waters
as if nothing has moved backward at all.

I will have a new song to sing,
as clouds break, revealing the splendor
of divine daylight.

The pain settled
in the marrow of her bones
like termites feeding on timber.
The pain battled
with the beautiful thoughts of her mind
like a prize-fighter pinned against the ropes.
The pain dragged
her youth and her innocence

and tossed her off a twelve story parking garage.

The grief stole
the satisfaction of life from his control
like a gust of wind upon candlelight.
The grief fogged
the gleam of hope in his eyes
like factory steam blots out the stars.
The grief shackled
his energy and his spirit

and bound him to a hospital bed.

...why couldn't they find a hand to hold?

The current cautiously carries me
between canyons frosted with crystals
incessantly sparkling under the sun.

It's blinding, this ravine.
The owls hovering about me
hoot hoot hoot their pleasant accord.

The stream takes a turn
and becomes pavement.
The canyons become metal poles
and the crystals convert to street lights.

The front tire hits the curb
and the sirens' sound
violently throws me behind a steering wheel.

The owls transform into vultures.

Forward, Captain,
and the sea is yours.

You were once a street-lamp man.
Commander and Chief
of the nocturnal.
Of the neon ghetto.
Of the dime-bags,
the loan-sharks,
and the rotting estates.

Trunk of an off white sedan.
Gagged and tied
like a pig over flame,
melting off the skin.

The cement shoes
are a perfect fit.

Forward, Captain,
and the sea is yours.

My joints ache and my back is broken.
My lips are parched and my throat is decaying come on and hydrate my being.
Because I know one thing is for sure -
Heaven and Hell both long for my soul,
and this dense and gyrating battle
exhausts me immensely.

My eyes are sore.
With one blink, the dawn returns to dusk
and the owls start to call out to each other
No sound of the morning songbird
or the church bells signaling the Seraphs to flight.
I am always in the night,
and always in transit with the nocturnal

Let us hold each other to sleep.
No liquor will drown the moon away.
Sense my brokenness and fill this empty vessel.

We are shipwrecks needing rescue.

He took a snapshot of me in the rain
in front of the vacant house where
ghost lifted the dust and
suspended the rocks like a puppeteer.

He called the shot
A Thousand Different Versions of Your Soul
and he swore, if it takes a community to raise a child,
then a thousand different people ******* me up.

I walked back to my house under an umbrella
with the polaroid of my incertitude tucked close to my heart
I pulled down every Vonnegut book from the shelf,
took the Holy Bible from its case,
called Plath up from her grave,
and asked them what the hell my life meant, anyway.

Vonnegut told me to travel to Titan.
There I will fall in love with the beautiful Sirens
and die with the aliens of Tralfamadore.

The Holy Bible told me to carry His cross
to Golgotha,
so He could die for
the salvation from my sins.

Plath told me to keep on writing.
Then I will live until I'm thirty,
and die in with my head in
my kitchen oven.

All provided valid arguments
on why my heart keeps beating
and why the thousand different versions of my soul
haven't crawled out of my throat yet.

Soon, each of the things that I cherish the most,
like pottery formed by my hand,
will fall from its rest on the eye of a needle
and breaks into pieces of sand.

If I cannot see when the moment arrives
when something so fragile falls
from its balancing act on the tip of a pin,
will time delay for me at all?

A thin, glistening sleeve of rime
refracted the rays of sunrise light
into a bright and shiny morning.

I stood tall amongst the resonance of the
distant hymn of birds,
trying to conceal my
quivering knees.
I took a breath of
the anticipation in the air -
the breeze preparing itself for
the coldest season of the year.

I'm in motion now,
realizing that time goes on,
but unable to comprehend that
time is going right now.

Yet I have my Compass
and I have my Map.
I will sing melodies of hope
for the wind of Winter to carry away.

For I am convinced that
the distant hymn of birds
is the melody of hope
you, too, sing into the wind.

He walks into Patty's Pub
on the corner of 27th and Vine
with a guitar in his hand
and a bag on his back.

The bartender marks an M
on his left hand.
He is only 18; he is a minor.
But he pulls a water bottle,
filled with *****,
out of his bag and takes a drink.

Inhale, exhale.

He listens to the other performers
sing songs about
love and loss and regret.

None of the stories compare to his.

He finishes the bottle
and plugs his guitar into the amp onstage.

He sings
"I will never see her face again. I will only see her ****** veins. She said it was all my fault. My fault her life came to a halt and she couldn't catch her breath".

Inhale, exhale.

"The blade in her hand slit her wrist, and she twisted and persisted and I couldn't stop it".

Inhale, exhale.

"I couldn't stop it..."

He splinters his guitar
against the stage floor.

He falls on his knees.
He couldn't stop it.