I feel pretty sick knowing
you’ll be a part of my
art.
My poems have you in
them like a metallic aftertaste.
A hint of nuts.
Did you put vermin in
this fricassee?
Some people put God in
their poems but with me
it’s always you.
You’re the inky air in
the corner that congeals like
bad music.
No, I don’t want to
listen to that song.
Just put it on “shuffle”
for Chrissakes.
You sit there in the
crack on the wall and
scrunch your body at me.
You’ll ruin your posture but
you’re not really there.
It’s a metaphor.
It’s what poets do when
they hate you as much
as I do:
You blast my taste buds
away from the ordinary and
force me to talk about
you in euphemisms.
Or dysphemisms in this case.
God, I don’t freaking know.
You just make me angry!
“I’ll treat you to dinner.”
*******, go treat yourself to the bottom of a lake.

I told you you were
black space in the walls,
but I’ve opened a window.
Weren’t expecting that, were you?
Still, perhaps you’re too utterly
utter to suffer the flutter
of the breeze.
I’m going out.
And believe you me pal, you’d better be gone by the time I get back.

Even though I know you’re not really there.
It’s the principle of the thing.

Blink on and off
In the trees.

Blink on and off
From the hedge.

Blink on and off
At waist height.

Blink on and off
Waiting for something.

Blink on and off
In the honeysuckle.

Blink on and off
Nearer the roofs.

Blink on and off
Landing but briefly.

Blink on and off
Inside a jar.

Blink on and off
Waiting to die.

Blink on and off
Seeing great fingers.

Blink on and off
And I start to wonder how long fireflies generally live.

I stop thinking about it when the little girl smears me on her face.

I fell in love in the cloudbank,
And like all the purest infatuations
I was the only one who knew what had happened.

I feel it terribly.
8A, what is your name?
The sounds up here knock off of my defeat like radar.

I thought I caught your eye
Between your perpetual noddings off
And that one time we crushed alongside a lightningcloud.

I am the man named 9B
But I doubt you know that.
The sky won’t ever pick me up again.

I could see the stars tonight; three of them.
Half-turned from the face of the moon, one
Could just barely make out what they were
Maybe thinking.

It was as if they were reading out their own
Transcripts of all the good nights I have ever
Had: bullet list format, possibly written on
Index cards.

Small though they undoubtedly are (if they
Are, because I’ve never seen one up close)
They make the wideness of Everything feel
So poor.

When my evenings were read out in their
Starched mutterings, the sphere of the sky
Was delineated utterly to me: one club that
No one joins.

Deep grit.
Fine, fine tacks.

Over-heated night.
My face, the light.

The glass points at me.
Musk and moonflowers.

I throb to the beat
Of a glycerol heat
That keeps coming
And going and coming.

I've just written two hundred or so pages of prose.
I've cradled each word in my arms
And dreamed about their futures.

I've mapped out every interaction between the characters
I've created them and given them their instructions.
And they know what to do.

I've sent my multitudinous children off to the editor.
I've made sure all my wordings are whole
And healthy.

And I have made some mistakes on purpose, I must admit.
And I hope they distract the editor from noticing
I've emptied a dime-bag of ****** into the manuscript.

That should keep the little buggers reading.

Speed is an ocean,
My shore lined with its salt,
Walking quiet in a chasm
Paved in bitter broken stone.

A relapse breaks out mid-step:
Pupal voices, murmuring hearts
In origami churches.
The anticipation dogs me madly.

My days are hollowed out by what you give,
I’d set myself on fire to see you live.