So ******* heavy-
handed that I cannot put
anger into words.

The purest of pure irony in that
we live to die, this is endgame,
nothing reminds us about life more so than
death. And so we fear, because we
do not know the result of the thing,
only the thing. Humans who assume too
much makes for messy subtext.

If I could pop open my skull,
find the part of my brain so often
mistaken for the heart, and ask it
a question, do you think it would
have the courage to respond?
Am I a soul, or is this brain and
its infinite connectivity capable of
fooling itself so deeply? I side with
the latter, not for depression,
but truth.

My poems sound like mindless simplicity.
They are poems because I call them such.
**** what the editor says.

Imagine burning by fire,
hustled bones piling up, a sanctum
seeped in dust.
It his here where I compartmentalize
the fire, its embers and heat
stacked neatly on hotbed coals, a flame with
labels, numbers, a name.

I keep the space neat and airy,
I have room for all of the fires
as well as some extra storage
yet to have a specific set purpose.
In this room of fire I read
constantly. I am currently on Marx, and
my next read is Durkheim's
Suicide, which is much less strenuous
than one would believe, having been
familiar with Durkheim but
not his work. All of this clatter and
sociology.

The fires remain lit, I have no need
to run the heater this winter.
Fire, in all its compartments,
organized and labeled as it is,
and still, with my world in such a state,
I cannot hold fire in boxes.
I am blindly adding fuel.

Is narcissism
an excuse for worshipping
my own handwriting?

I can get over the face in the mirror.
In fact I kind of like it, bunched and
furrowed in thoughts, wet webs of contempt.

I wonder if I'd be a good father.
It doesn't take much to show up.

How am I going to tell my step-dad
my grades ******* blow this semester?
These are the
important questions.

How will I tell this futuristic child
St. Nicholas died in the 4th century CE?
Is telling him/her a bad thing, or
is there somehow more fun in that?

I've caught myself treating twitter profiles
like messiahs, without the martyr.
Those two lines sound very self-serving
because I don't write sarcasm well.
I've found coherence to be tedious
and boring and that's barely it.

Most sad poems are also
beautiful because they are pure,
untainted and untouchable, some
golden pendant forged of
***** not given.

If I have a son.
If he has my face, my mind.
He will be sad. He will not know why.
He will be an artist. But he will not just create. He has to learn.

You cannot make a thing without first
taking a thing away.

You said he was skinny and sagging
and he wore a sad face for show.
I feel as though I am the man
in your nightmare.
I can't tell you to wake up.

Hearts sparse in this carpark,
the wind feeling rowdy, biting like a
small rabid animal with no collar
wandering the city alone at night.

The car is making me claustrophobic,
I've spent far too much time with the heat,
too many minutes burning cigarettes and
my hands near-numb from the caffeine.

Poems are less like action movies and
more like action paintings exploding
in suspended motion. I'm sure we all
remember when art felt new. I can't
recall when it didn't feel so lived-in.

(And of course this poem is merely
a memory of feelings, which is not much
of anything to me or you because the past
is dry and done and does not intrude.)

Lincoln, Nebraska is a livelier city
than one expects. It is like going to an
art exhibit expecting Rothko and getting
Basquiat, bombast and immediacy.

My favorite poet is Craig Morgan Teicher
because he and I may ramble but he is not
afraid to sacrifice accessibility for
feeling. He could find the beauty in the
image of Lincoln, Nebraska in January.

I will soon need to devise another way
to keep myself entertained so let us
say this CD spins one more time and
maybe I can go for a walk, clear my head.

I do not intend this to be wrought with
sentiment, but there are times I am not
as cold as this city. There are times
the mind must scream
so the heart stays safe.