from ~The Blood You Don’t See Is Fake~ selected poems (September 2013)
[multitudes]
oh, here they are. the interested persons we will find later. for now, this field. my gestural father holding a broom for what he calls the welcome mat of exodus. if my mother is watching it is because she long ago dropped birds from a single passenger plane. if instead she is privately seen by god, then the whole bird thing was a bit of a stretch. in memory alone I am alone.
[another ****]
in such times, it is constantly 2am. a friend pulls carefully at your ear. a friend’s thumb is a hologram of a thumb. you are being told that what you’re about to be told is highly confidential. because it’s dark, and because your bed is the prize winning bed of a formerly dethroned insomniac, you are nothing if not empowered to listen. your friend’s tongue redacts the parts of your body that have been marked. this is done in secret. what you’re hearing right now was scored some time ago. when things were the same.
[word of the devil’s death]
my mother and father cower under the kitchen table and my brothers are dead. my father has clammed up since asking me to tell him something he can take to his grave. this last week I’ve mastered placing my ear on the table in such a way I hear what I am supposed to do. impossible things that are no longer terrible. dispatches from a simpler region. for example, hack your roommate’s youtube account. also, poison the non-pregnant. my baby sister laughs with me when I say some of these aloud. she believes the table is possessed by the devil’s ghost. her beliefs are clear and specific. the ghost thinks itself the actual devil, and will need a good amount of therapy.
[men statuesque]
I am struck by the urge to pray.
my trauma has yet to occur.
the stress my father knows
knew his hands
as he waved them in front of nothing
on a tarmac obscured by speech.
night is a ruined crow.
I see the city as possibly bombed.
[steganography]
every day is a scar’s birthday. this is how I am able to start most of your sentences. I praise your god, you worry, and worry keeps him from finding out. on the day you started talking the rooms were horrified. the termites fled your blood. a cold stone appeared outside beside a stick. the home’s most loved dog died without spatial awareness. your mother began to compose a series of poems by Franz Wright. for inspiration she put her hands in the dog and in doing so dropped a sack of black groceries. a thing that changed over time rolled into your father’s mouth.
[the wave]
we let the phone ring out because it keeps the babies quiet. we have this dance we do to straighten side leaning semi-trailer trucks. the sports we play require that one’s sickness occur only when it’s run through the others. we limp beside any creature that limps. the great romance of a complete thought is something our parents plan to leave each other. our father is two mathematicians who argue. our mother says her feet feel as if they’re still in prison for what she’ll take to her grave. our guesses mean little because they are facts. at school we are voted on and kissable. if you see us coming, *** is a small unplugged television on top of a small casket. details belong to god.
[fixture]
dying of young age, your brother nurses at the breast of the stage hand’s version of a mother. the stage hand is off arguing with a lamp on the impossibility of attracting moths. beside a tall cake, a groom with lockjaw and a stiff neck has to take life’s high point on faith. if you remember, brother made for the groom a bible so light it could be held by a cobweb. and then it was.
~~~~~~~~~~
from ~father, footrace, fistfight~ selected poems (June 2014)
[future stabbings]
you take photos of men and women who aren’t all there. you post the photos while your dog barks. you doze on a hot day. your mom calls to tell you about the spider in her eye and while she talks you look for your dog. your mom thinks you sound desperate though you’ve said nothing. you go outside and see your dog in the backseat of a parked car. the car is not yours. your mom has the hiccups and says the first part of goodbye.
[dog years]
the longer
I grieve
the more
[crystal]
a foster boy using an alias teaches my son to shoot.
it’s the tooth fairy on a sad day finds
under my pillow
a handgun.
you know your father
is a night owl.
[mendicant]
this doorbell
is for the inside
of your house
-
to some
you’re the giant
you’re not
-
hearing isn’t for everyone
-
a fog-softened man
with a baby
might experience
a sense
of boat
loss…
-
hurt
what you know
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
from ~Eating the Animal Back to Life~ full length poetry collection (July 2015)
[uppers]
god gets ******-up about which hair to harm on your head. in some, this goes on for years. I have a lucky razor, a father who’s blind in one hand, and a suicidal thought that scares me to death in front of cops. my last meal came to me on a toothbrush.
[themes for orphan]
you will never be
a virus
-
the animal’s moment of bliss
before it is named
-
*******
as the seizure
had
by hologram
-
the cyclone
that makes a baby
you can’t
put down
[accession]
starvation
is the invisible
cannibal’s
birthmark.
water
is nothing’s
blood.