For some awfully
Long time now
I’ve felt like
A blind man
Playing tennis,
Listening for the ball
To bounce in front of me
And swinging with all
Of my might
Hoping to hit it back away.
And while it’s away
I’ll have peace
Until I hear
The ball bounce
Before me again.
It’s just that when
It passes me
I feel like I’m losing.

Last night I saw something
Very clearly
For the first time in a while.
It was her and I
Woven together
Like a basket
Made of sand-sized
Stars.
I heard the bounce
And stood as still as I ever have.
I feel like I’ve won.

If you want to know
what is happening
to the world,
don't just watch
the news every night;
watch what happens
to yourself
after watching
the news
every night.

And we sat there
drinking cold beers
on a rainy front porch day
wondering how
there could be
so many good people
in such a sick
world.

I found god
on my front porch
and we drank vermouth
from 12:00 to 12:00.
He spoke of how
he's trying to quit
cigarettes and women.
We raised our glasses
to that one.
I spoke to him
about how much I enjoy
asking people
how they really feel.
I told him how the earth
is rotating very quickly lately,
and that the centrifugal force
is improving the circulation in
my fingertips,
and how I'm starting to be able
to feel again.
He spoke of how
he had quit his job
to pursue a career
as a ceramic artist,
though he also claimed
he had always been one.
It turns out that god
is a neighbor of sin,
cut wide open
by the hope that lives
in the hearts of people
younger than us.
I told him
that I understand.
He filled my glass up again,
and then his own.
We did not speak of women.
He lit us a cigarette
and we shared it.

I feel like god
has been misunderstood
all this time.

I think he feels
the same way.

I wonder if the spider
is less lonely
with a fly in its web.
I wonder if the fly
is less lonely
in the spider’s web.
I’d like to think
they are less lonely,
just for a moment,
before the feast
in a world
where you die
if you don’t eat;
in a world
where you might be
tonight’s special,
served on a webbed plate.

I wish
I believed
in god;
that way,
I’d have
someone
to blame
and thank.

There’s an old lady
with curled fingernails
and proud wrinkles on her face.
She has worn a vinyl record
and a bird’s nest
atop of her head, for all of her good life.
The nest brings the music of the birds
the vinyl gives her shade from the sun.
She’s never thrown that vinyl on the record player
She doesn’t need to,
And that’s not what it’s for.
And as the birds sing
Dust comes off  
of the dancing shoes
she wore
when she fell in love with it all.

I hope you cancel me,
I’m sick of you
and most everyone else.
They talk
too **** much.
Except for the mailman,
who comes
to my apartment building
everyday.
He puts every letter
in every right box.
He has made other mistakes
in this life,
but has never put a letter
in the wrong box.
And some of the letters
are regretful,
love letters
that in 2 years
will find themselves
in the fireplace.
Maybe a birthday card
from Buddy,
which will be kept forever
because it is the last one
you ever got from him.
The best letter I got
was from the queen
of Cap Hill,
and there were
no words written on it.
Blank piece of paper,
I wrote a poem on it
and threw it away.
I’ve seen the mailman everyday
for 28 years,
and he never says a word.

Only her evergreen eyes
and painfully pink lips
can pull an object,
a young fool,
14 floors towards the earth,
faster than gravity.
The longest day of the year
had a clock that was criminally
insane,
the hour hand
moved like a propeller
of a plane,
and flew me to somewhere
that felt familiar
but I’ve never been.
And the moon I told her
that was mine,
really belongs to her.

This poem is for:
Bluejays that love the blues.
Tigers, not liars.
Beggars, not leapards.
Dogs that walk without leashes
and their human friends
trying to get rid of theirs.
Well rested trees in April,
and all birds....
even penguins.
This poem is for
people who don't take life too seriously.
It is especially for
the ones that
do.

I don’t know
where it comes from.
It’s not like
a song from a bird,
or a baby from the womb.
It’s less like a bullet
from a gun  
and more like
the constant
breaking and mending
of the heart
as it exhales cold chains
and inhales
the fireworks
on her lips.
I don’t know
where it comes from.
I only know that
it is one of the only things
still worth fighting for.

It was the kind of love
where when her heart would beat
blood would pump through my veins.

Put me on a stage
and give me the whole orchestra
to amplify the melody
of hazy lungs and mind,
let it drown out the static of our lives
so that I can act
just for a moment
like I'm someone else.

Take the smoke
around the corner
with a grain of
tequila,
life is better
like this.

We lay there naked
loving and laughing,
soundlessly saying
sweet things
with delicate finger tips,
escaping, for a moment,
from the fire
burning the world
outside the bedroom
door.

Rarely, if ever,
the toolbox in the closet
comes out for some
easy fix.
Today it was my lawn chair.
But I can’t use a wrench
to fix the way you look at me,
as you try to sip
the entire Colorado river
through a plastic straw.
Part of me wants to let you
have your fun,
to believe that across
the table from me
you might find
your own wrench.
But stainless steel
has no effect on the cortex,
no effect on the river,
no effect on a sun
that has overstayed its
welcome.
Drink me
until the wrench
must come out,
but I have a duty
to warn you
that I am not
a lawn chair.

Pour me a shot of something
that actually interests me
and I’ll pour you a shot of
how sorry I actually am.
Pour me a full glass,
I can handle it.
Pour me a shot of
hope.
Pour me a shot of
I don’t care,
with a splash of
seriousness.
Light the place up,
I’ve got all night.

It hit me
so much faster than I could fly.
And here I am
on the windshield,
immobilized by glue guts.

I remember a night

half smoked spliff
dipped in red wine
napping on the windowsill
I don't remember
when I first heard
I'd rather go blind
and when I turned off the lights
a handful of deep breaths
passed
before my eyes adjusted
to see a newly naked
old tree
posing outside my window
it painted my bedroom walls
with the shadows
of its anatomy

(what a blonde)

I saw your face
in the street lamp behind it
and I'm starting to fall
less in love with you
and more in love
with the shadows
you cast.

Worms eat the dirt in
front of them
and leave their ****
behind them.
It is a ******,
yet noble existence.
And when the sun comes up
the robin will pull
yet another juicy one
out of the soil.
Until then,
leave me behind, love.
Eat your dirt, love.

Somewhere
Along this rusty railing
sits a fairy who smokes cigarettes
and prays for all of the busy people
that walk by
with their eyes to the sidewalk,
who have given up on writing
their own songs.
She sees children in expensive suits,
asking stupid questions like,
"What is the thread count on this piece?"
She prays and laughs at herself,
but her days of crying are over.
People are like corks
flying off of champagne bottles.

There is a ballroom
full of gorgeous off-beat
dancers who wear dresses
made of childhood dreams
and shoes that sometimes
still sing
when they jive.
It's a terribly chaotic
and heart wrenching scene
where you can find peace
on a dopamine drive
as that airplane chases the moon
through an open sunroof,
your lifeblood tuned in perfectly
to its frequency.
Go ahead,
play in the traffic
of the extraordinary things
you regularly neglect.

I didn't really know
how I was going to feel.
I was in a room
full of things that sparkle
[champagne
streamers
firework pupils
diamond teeth
sterling saxephone
a ring
that was once hers].

Girls with castles
in their eyes,
princes in those castles
whose faces
the girls could not draw
with their minds.
Guys with hearts
in their hands,
and hands hidden
in their pockets;
maybe they'd use those
tonight for the first time
in a long time.

When the ball met the ground
and we met a new year,
lips met lips,
but mine remained mine.
I don't even know
where she is
now.

In a room full of revelry,
all I could hear
was my breath;
In.
Interval,
equanimity.
Out.

In a room
full of things that sparkle
[champagne
streamers
firework pupils
diamond teeth
sterling saxephone
a ring
that was once hers],
I found one more
[a part of me
that I forgot was there].
Spring in January.
I smiled.
And I didn't
even have to fake it.

Some of the best
of me survived
her.

Sometimes
it gets so bad
that I stop drinking
or smoking,
or, god forbid,
both.
Sometimes
it gets so bad
I think I might
do something really stupid
like pray,
or move to California,
or get a tattoo
of an empty pale blue dot,
or throw myself to the lionesses,
or write poetry,
or call her.
Sometimes
it gets so bad
that lilacs turn black.
Sometimes
it gets so bad
that I make statues
of happy people
out of the rocks
at rock bottom.
Sometimes
it gets so bad,
that I shoot
hummingbirds
with 24 caliber regrets.

There are sidewalks
soaked with apathy.
There are ladders
that were intentionally
built to be
almost tall enough
to reach the fruit
on the tree that your soul aches for.
You'll thank yourself later.
It will always mean more to you
if it is constantly just beyond your fingertips.

Sometimes
it gets so bad
that I see the ghost
of the person I thought you were
In the smiling
eyes
of a brand new human.
I see fire escapes
and think of the best hypomanic episode
I ever had.
And then
It gets so bad
all of it rushes back
and the knife
that once cut me free
guts me.
Sometimes
it gets so bad
that I dare it to get worse.
And then it does
and I start to laugh
like some kind of
*******.
Sometimes
it gets so bad
that I start
to love myself.
Sometimes
it gets so bad
that caterpillars
make me cry.
Sometimes
it gets so bad
I melt away,
and all that is left
is the music of revelry.
Sometimes
it gets so bad
that I wear down cinder blocks
with my tongue,
and those black lilacs
don't get their color back,
but I see them as August.

Look at them all,
Falling in love
The way young people do;
Walking toward each other
On a bedsheet
Tight rope
Between two towers
While wearing
sparkling red
High heels.

There’s a bird with one wing
that still flies,
but only in circles
and so it sings many songs
where the birds with two wings
never bothered to sing more than one

The mountains never play dress up
and sometimes I feel
like we shouldn't either.
But that doesn't
cleanse us
of the sad reality
that we do,
the sadder reality
that we can't help it.
We throw lights on trees,
as if the moon doesn't exist,
like a child who makes a cake
only out of frosting.
We put lipstick
on cuts that need stitches,
and I'm reluctant to admit
I find that painfully gorgeous.
We pour dressing
on salads,
and talk about the weather,
and then pour dressing on that as well.
Even when we undress,
we still cover each other
with dots of infatuation,
but neglect the reality between them.
That's where the honey is.
There is a sweetness to our naivety.
It is an unpredictable ghost
that drinks the ocean
through a straw
and sings hallelujah
to draught stricken fields.

Tell me about how how you are a just a tourist everywhere you go.
Let me pick you up from the train station,
and drive you past
balance beam sidewalks
you once walked on
to get home after
you bulldozed the night
out of the sky.
Our lips tango
at every red light.
When they do,
I forget myself.
The light turns green,
I change the song.
I the mouse.
You the cat;
playing youthfully
with the terrified dinner you caught.

And I’d go to church in the mountains
and sing praises with the crows in the pines
to a god most misunderstood,
rarely seen or heard;
the lynx of the feeling in my sternum,
the missing word in my vocabulary that
has bought permanent real estate
on the tip of my tongue.
And then she looks at you
with Medusa eyes
that turn you to stone.
You lie there naked
arms and legs woven together
like sacred silk,
the warm blanket of god,
the purring lynx.

Don't sketch me
the outline
of a broken heart.
That would be
like wearing jeans
to a funeral.
Instead,
paint me
a granite boulder
fractured
by the roots
of a cottonwood tree
that grew atop it.
Drench the rock
in golden
leaves
that the tree cried,
but leave a couple
on the nearly
naked
branches.

She asked,
"How've you been?"
He replied,
"I've been getting older."

In the courtroom
there are incoherent murmurs
whispers
"I wonder if it will change"
siblings
strangers to each other
bound by blindness
and gorgeous imperfections;
each an abstract reflection
of another.
Guilty.
Not guilty.
Human.
Human.

Could you love her anyways?

I’m learning
that there is no such thing as a ****
and that the space
in which we fall
is precious.
I’ve dismounted
my three legged horse.
I’ve cast aside my sword.
I made a coffee table out of my shield.
I’m learning how to untie my shoes.
I’ve learned that
when we love,
a tiny man
at the center of the earth
puts another quarter into the machine
and the world
continues
to spin.

She told me,
“I want to be close.”
I replied,
“It’s lovely to sit by a fire,
less lovely to be in one.”

What good are these words
utterances
noise
in my ears
in my head.
They are always on sale,
and always on back order.
Words
surely won’t
bring back
the Amazon,
they won’t save
the pig
from the knife.
They will never
wrap themselves around
how much I miss the
girl I’ve never seen,
let alone met,
let alone kissed,
let alone left.
How I miss
the moon
that never set,
how I miss the words
I never said,
the place I’ve never been
filled with streets
I’ve never walked,
full of puddles
that reflect the green stop light,
the neon light
in the old star drenched bar
I never visited
to quiet
the words
in my head.
The words.
Always on sale,
always on back order.

I took a sip of my beer
and then I said
to the monkey on my back,
“Nothing has ever hurt
so much in my life.”
He took a breath,
then a sip of his beer
and said,
“Ah, it must be love.”

Sometimes it feels
like people are all the same,
and I don’t want to be like them.
Watch how they fight
because they think
they are different.

It’s the small things
that get us through
and eat us alive.

I've seen sorry clowns,
happy hobos,
and a sun that's tired.
Lucky black cats
intelligent rats,
and words that expire.
Today I played hopscotch
with my demons
and fell in love
with multiple strangers.
It's easy peasy
lemon squeezy.
Squeeze me tighter.

I am not the lion
I am the impala.
I am the cabinet
in the kitchen
left wide open.
I am here
for so much of my life
setting alarms
on my phone
for the next morning.
The ash tray
is filled
with exactly 73 cigarettes,
but not exactly 73 memories,
and not exactly 73 regrets.

Quit me the way
rain drops quit
the cloud from which
they came.
Back to the earth
you go,
I might plan
on visiting soon.
Might.

In a past life
I think I was
an elevator operator.
Like one
back in the olden
days.
Going up.
And down.
And up again.
Back down.
Talking about
the weather
with people
who were somewhat
strangers,
even though
I saw most of them
everyday.
And when I first started,
I liked the music,
but anything played
over and over again
starts to sound like hell.
It was an elevator
I had never gotten off.
And I know I was
an elevator operator
in a past life
because it wasn’t
so long ago.
Now I’m somewhat
more of a crane operator,
or a train conductor,
the card in my own
back pocket,
or the time it takes
the occipital lobe
of a child
to register the light
in the pupil
that paints the picture
of everything new.

He fights a good fight.
You can say what you want
about that boy.
But he fights a good fight.
It's okay
if you don't understand him.
No one does,
not even himself.
But he fights a good fight.
And all around him
butterfly wings freeze
and old women hack up
mucous.
Baby birds wait
in a wet November nest
for a mama bird
that never comes.
He blows kisses,
with a mouth
that limps
when it smiles,
to sinners just like him.
He's not always right,
but he fights a good fight.
Waters his garden
with tears,
reaches with scarred hands
into bushes full of thorns,
pulls out berries
and gives them to people
with thin and tender skin.
You can say what you want
about that boy.
But he fights a good fight.

Some days I feel
like a guitar
that is missing
a string.
It sounds sad
but I assure you
it’s okay.
And I’ll never know
the sound that string sings,
but my foolish heart
believes that string
is the one that says everything;
the one that puts me in the veins
under your skin,
between the synapses that fire
in your mind,
between your inhale
and exhale,
and on the tip of your tongue,
so that I can taste you
before my moon
splits in two.

The mornings
are the worst.
Writhing between my sheets
like a night crawler cut in half
by the piercing apathy in your
permafrost eyes
the last time I saw them.
I'd cut off my own arm
before I went back to Barcelona.
It's that special kind of pain;
where I feel sick to my stomach
when I see young people holding hands,
kissing.
That special kind of pain,
where no girl is beautiful anymore.
I am the black hole,
the mouse hole,
in the bottom corner of the room.
It ***** out anything worth savoring.

I can act like I'm fine
for approximately 22.2 minutes a day
22.2 years I lived without you
two too many to count.
I used to be two
Now I am barely half of what I was
and I can't bear full moons.
I have the right to bear arms.
Especially after what you and I did to me.
But now I'm armless
You're careless
I'm handless.
I can't pick up the pieces
you scattered all over Denver
Appleton
North San Diego County
Barcelona
Valencia
Bilbao
Cumberland
and West Falmouth.
Maybe you can retrace that trail of blood.
I can't,
but that doesn't stop me from trying
every day.
And I keep arriving
at the same dried up
empty ocean
where only salt is left behind.
9 months later I'm still too ripe.
I'd cut off my own arm
before I went back to Barcelona.
I want to salvage
the parts of me
that sank with that ship
struck by whatever
the **** that was.
Whatever the ****
we all keep writing about.
In your defense and in mine,
no one as young as us
could ever be ready for that.


The world has two poles.
I was 23 when I was told
that I do too.
You brought them both out of me
and everything in between.
But now I'm stuck on the lower one;
a windless white flag at half mast.

Nightmares are just dreams
and nothing could be more real.
A heartbreak to a poet
is just a dream that came true,
and so are you.
Daymares are not real,
and neither is the frozen hemoglobin
they **** from your veins.
I used to get so high,
and laugh.

I've had one first cigarette
and a million last cigarettes.
I guess that pretty much sums it all up.
And back I go to Barcelona.
With one arm.

There’s a battle
That they don’t see
Between the david and Goliath
Within me
Some mornings my feet drag
More than they skip,
I skip breakfast
Because it doesn’t make me
Less hungry
And courage is fragile at times
Because it’s most often the sister of fear,
I want to be the way she moves,
Slow motion,
When water is white,
But also the river when it feels still.
I still feel,
And David loads his sling,
David got me this far,
I believe in him more than god.
Do you?

Certainly
When she used
To look at me,
All of the factories
Would shut down.
But now,
I see a forest
Filled with vines
That suffocate trees.
They climb and ****
To survive
And I still don’t know why.

Wisdom lives
not only
in knowing
our power,
but acknowledging
where it exists
(and flexing it)
and where
does not
(and letting it go.).

A large
and important part
of the human experience
is getting this
wrong.

It is the elephant
before it knew the big lights
and roaring crowds
of blind mice
at the circus.
It isn't the black ink tattoo
that you left on my heart.
It is the only bullet
I almost didn’t catch in my teeth.
It’s not you.
It was you.
The bus sized trumpet
that screamed sugarcane rain
through the soul in my spine.
Life sings to us
in tongues
we are no longer fluent in.
Sometimes I think
the only way to step the stones
is to burn between them,
burn like an ant
under a magnifying glass.
If you ever have the chance
to ask a burning man if he's bored,
ask him.

All of the factories
would shut down
when her eyes
took naps on mine.
Many moons later,
here I am;
Soot on the lips
She used to kiss.