I thought
I was just going to write
a poem about your eyes
but then I caught a glimpse
of the nape of your neck
and your throat
and your ***** line
and I watched a bead of sweat
trickle down your heaving chest

I thought
I was going to be fine
but then I saw your cleavage
and I melted into sand
and I sank into the ocean

I thought
your eyes were the moon
and I was being tossed by the tides
but then you turned away
and I drowned in self-doubt

i just tried to
adopt a metaphor
because
i was lonely and
i didn't have any
good ideas
because
it's rainy out and
i feel like lying down
but
when i got there
the page was blank
so I said
"I'll do it my **** self,"
and that's what this is.

lately i've been having these good days
i don't have sad wet cigarette saxophone nights anymore
i watched the sun wake up six times last week
i found a blue bucket of tulips &
gave them to a bald-headed krishna girl when
she sang to me on the sidewalk

i hired a boy to hide in the foyer
& peel a fiddle if i rouse from sleep during the night
or whistle through a harmonica
if i'm wet-eyed during breakfast
i finally got rid of all the pictures you stuck
to your side of the dusty bathroom mirror
except the blissed-out polaroid of us
perched on an old oak tree limb
like a couple of soft doves versus the turreted sunset

i deleted your number because you don't call me back anyway
i stopped mailing letters to your father's house
i haven't listened to the Plantasia record
you bought me since you left
i never feel the gray heat from your
staticky hand warming my shoulder
i forgave you for the blood in my kidneys
& old smog in my mildewed vinyl lungs

i sleep under the running green vapor light
of the moon & stars instead of the frothiest pillows
rippling on an ocean of sheets & project quilts
i finally scoured the lipstick stain from my collarbone
after what seemed like two years
i forgot how your armpits smelled
i sewed all your sundresses into a shower curtain
& i never see your delicate ribcage
peaking through the streams of hot water



i hardly ever notice the noose
you left hanging in our apartment

to the pretty girl with dreads whom i met stumbling down the strip last night around 1:30, i never asked your name.

you were drunker than i, which is an impressive feat. i followed you into a greasy dimly lit punk rock bar and we danced to 80's *** pop.

i remember i twirled you.

at last call you asked where i lived and then laughed when it wasn't within walking distance. you led me by the hand to your house.

descending the stairs into your basement room, you referred to yourself as a "cellar dweller" and we both laughed at that.

i met your dog and he liked me. you offered me a beer but took off your pants instead.

we had all kinds of anonymous *** for an hour and twenty three minutes and then i left without cuddling. you were already nearly asleep.

i left my wallet tangled in your sheets.

do you remember that night in early fall
almost two years ago now
that you asked me to meet you
in our secret spot
that everyone knows about
but doesn't use anymore?

down the snaking dirt road
right passed the broken and twisted wooden fence
you know the one i'm talking about
and we sat underneath that big oak tree
and dreamed?

i remember losing you that night
you ran away into the dark
and i couldn't see a ******* thing
but i eventually stepped on your light blue blouse
and i thought "oh, ****, the dogs have gotten her"
even though i didn't hear any barking
no sound at all

and then you came to me
all of the sudden
running, prancing
glowing, naked, shining, smiling beneath silver moonlight
and we kissed
and ******
and i held you
and you really touched me
right there on that sandy mattress
under the stars
in the middle of that snaking dirt road?

well if you do remember,
and are feeling lonely,
or just bored
and drunk
as i am now,
feel free to come and join me
and the night
because here i sit
and i found your light blue blouse
in the middle of this snaking dirt road.

I find hope
when there is none
But love is a fine wine

I sleep when I'm tired
I fight when I'm drunk

I'm always tired
I'm always drunk

I lay my head down
on your shoulder
If my head is light
I am drunk

I see your headlights
over my shoulder
My head is not right
I am drunk

the poets reach for gin
while the athletes reach for water
the christians teach of sin
and look forward to the Slaughter

the warriors fight to win
while the poets become authors
the dancers flash their skin
and look, the right one is your Daughter

the poets look within
the mathletes become solvers
a musician breaks a violin
and serenades the eye of a Revolver

last night i stayed up late after the sun kissed the horizon's eyelids and wrote poems as letters to all my exs and some to my one night stands lying to them about not being scared of the dark anymore and that i don't recall the exact shape their outline made on my bed sheets.
this morning when the sun rose pink through my window i
did not lick the envelopes instead i lit the corners with
matches and shouted out their names to the walls in
my bedroom. my feet did not take me to the
mailbox instead i'm standing on cold toes
naked in front of the bathroom mirror
waiting for enough warm water to
collect in the tub for me to bathe
in. tonight i'll drink the star-
light that spills out on
the cold kitchen
floor tile and convince
myself i've never truly been
loved by anyone; that i've gotten
here by sheer force of will. that i'm
fearless and invincible while my fingers
fumble with the heavy pistol and my tears
write her name in the folds of my favorite shirt.
tonight is another late night holding sepia pictures
of her because i'm scared to go to sleep alone now. my
whole body hurts when i think about the new empty closet
space she left and how her hand would find a nest in the soft
crook of my elbow when we were walking anywhere or the fresh
shock of electricity when my fingers first found her fingers and her
fingers tied my fingers to my other fingers tight around her waist. my feet ache, because the first time we danced it felt like i had swallowed
a gallon of violent purple hummingbirds and my earlobes are
burning swollen because her painted lips aren't here to cool
them down. her finger nails found the place between my
shoulder blades naturally and i feel so foolish because i
gave my whole self to her but it was an unwanted gift.
it's three in the ******* morning again and i'm
writhing under the thick down blanket but her
velvet toes aren't tucked deep into the small
of my back for warmth. before i choke on
my mistakes and crush my fat tongue
with a bullet i just need to ask her
why

why did i lose you to him?
why are his hand prints on your hips?
why does he get to wake up next to you?
why can't i think of a good excuse to call you?
why did my right foot disappear when you left me?
why does his morning breath get to tickle your eyelashes?
why can't i remember what your nose looks like when you laugh?
why isn't my pillow as comfortable as your bellybutton?
why do you have nothing to say to me anymore?
why does my mouth still taste like a bird's nest?
why did you take my cast iron skillet?

This sentence is
bits and pieces;
empty manilla folder
postage stamp, but no letter;
a phrase would write of paradise.
feeling
will pass
like every other phase
the dancer
the central movement of the torso
the comportment of arms
a leap,
a winged seed.

So
before
the end,
shout down a street
the consonants will moan
at the ultimate release of meaning.

her name was Grace
daughter of the school's nurse
but in the sophomore locker room
after phys ed the boys called her Tubesock
because she was
known to take a foot or more into
her superhuman mouth from time to time
& my time was a quiet wednesday afternoon
when school let out early
for a faculty meeting & no one
was left in the administrative wing
except their children

"I want you to possess me"
she led me a trembling ape
into a medical supplies closet
full of gauze & the scent of latex
(the latter curiously adding girth to my ******* for years since)
i must've been dreaming or
i'd found the ideal mixture
of breakfast
vitamin capsules
& perfect stride during my daily phys ed mile
because good god she was down on her little red knees
incredible mouth already on **** through pants
unbuttoning them swiftly with one hand
actual tongue
actual girl
actual sweet lips
actual ****
which she then quickly released
from a too-small sports bra
during the hardening of the meat slug
slipping it smiling in/out of her mouth-soul
in my head i could only hear
synths
screaming saxophones
bass drums
maracas
permeating percussion rhythm
the closet a dark conch shell
resonating shifting vibrating
like the uncarpeted floor of a dance hall

proud, brave Tubesock taking my pink *****
in as far as it would go
radiating like a sun
teeth to tonsil
cheek to collarbone
with a deep southern-gospel choral hum
vertical as a sword-swallower
performing under a streetlamp horizon
my legs silent & stiff as she sang into it
glancing up at me at the base
making the smallest choking sound/lady like
fumes of her own ****** arousal blooming/flower like
into my nostrils from her scarlet tights
her left hand
holding my coin purse/doorknob like
gently pulling twisting kneading
her right hand
inside her own self
seeking a fire or some source of heat
in the drafty dark closet

when i came too quickly
(still a victory in my mind)
shooting my cannon smoke
into the midnight of her mouth
adrenalin shivering in my shoulders and throat
my hand locked around a lock
of her crimson hair
she unplugged herself & without wasting a drop
smiled back up at me
returned the unstiffened dagger to the
cold nest of my boxer briefs
but kept kneeling in the dark closet
split in half by the thin crack of light i created
as i emerged among the sound of seven hundred bells
to kiss the soul of revolution
a brand new too-tall man holding a lamb
bigger than god himself
standing on steel pistols for legs
shouting cursing beating my breast
under the sharp fluorescent light of a high school highway

you caught me in a **** show
you watched me falling down
you know i've never been one
to pick myself up off the ground

you caught me in a slip stream
i was aimlessly drifting down
you knew just how to call me
so i would hear the sound

you caught me in a tidal wave
i was tumbling all around you
the moon is high and full tonight
and i'm so glad i found you

you caught me in a fly trap
on a sweltering summer day
my tongue stuck to your paper
in so many different ways

you caught me like a fire fly
in a ***** mason jar
i imagined you as my clear night sky
you saw me as your star

you caught me like a coughing fit
and i could not speak to say
that i will be right there to comfort you
when you are afraid

My ex-girlfriend and I used to play this game, I guess we made it up, called Sing That For Real. So at any time, when one of us said "sing (a song) for real" the other person had to sing it. With sincerity. Whether it was playing or not. Had to put their best effort into it, without any humor or undue theatrics behind it. Any song. You had to just sing the portion of it that you knew to the best of your ability. In public, alone, didn't matter. Over the phone. We would tell each other thru text sometimes. Sure, you could get away with not doing it and the other person would never know. But I never did. I always sang.

Because it wasn't really a game. It was a trick. A ruse to get the other person to open themselves up. To be vulnerable in front of you. Honest with you. To break yourself open--if only slightly, if only for a moment--without fear of judgement or insecurity. Without hiding behind humor or parody, to sing directly into the face of the person you love. Or on their behalf. At their behest. Have a moment of tangible honesty between the two of you. Show that person that you aren't afraid of anything, at any time. Once, at a deli counter on A1A, I sang "Not Fade Away" directly into her eyes. She showed me a secret Beyonce taught her at a pet store in front of the fish tanks. We duetted on “You’re The One That I Want” on the trunk of my civic parked in a starlit cow field. It was a secret promise we made to each other. A private joke, almost.

She hung herself in her apartment 6 years ago today. She was high on *******. She was bi-polar. She was off her meds. She was scared of herself and everyone else. I picked her up. I cut the belt. I puked downstairs in her garden screaming. I loved her so much and I'll never stop singing for her.

last night you were my dream again
hair pinched up in a messy bun
you know who you are so
****** don't act like you don't to
tag you in this would be silly
& embarrassing because you
never text me back &
even if you did i wouldn't

know what
to
say

you know the one, i'm staring up at you
my head is on a goodwill pillow in your lap
you're not wearing a bra under a cut-up willie nelson tshirt
you're ignoring me holding back tears
watching one of your shows
i'm feeding you sunflower seeds & you're
spitting them back onto my sweaty chest
one hand has absentmindedly wandered to
trace my belly-button &
when a commercial starts i whisper

"hey"
"hey, down here,"
"i love you"

& your nose shrivels up & you giggle
simultaneously plucking two finger-fulls of hair from
my belly making me squiggle & bite your wrist
& you flick my nose hard

but you never
say it
back.

It ended in abrubt victory like a baby being born
But the doctors all looked sick to me, somehow this wasn't the norm

Actually I'm not in a hospital
Not witnessing the miracle of life
I just woke up
and am 48 years old with
the realization that someone's
******* my wife.

There you have it, my love
She sighs, shining white like
a dove discovered dead
On your grandmother's doorstep.

This isnt a poem, it is an open invitation to any member of this community to attend a poetry reading that myself, Travis McCullers, and Jaysen Good are hosting. It will be held in our homely hometown of Live Oak, Florida at a certain Spirit of the Suwannee cafe on Sunday, March 4th. You all are more than welcome to attend and any contributions you wish to make to the performance will be considered. The cafe is a full service restaurant and bar, so please feel free to get obscenely drunk on the premises. Directions and contact information will ne provided to serious inquirers via private message. Please feel free to ask any other general questions that may occur to you in your comments below.

thanks for reading,
David Badgerow

my ***** throb this morning
the way they do when a girl
demands to sleep in my bed
but refuses to cup them with
her hand or mouth or a com-
bination or rotation of both.
they hold pent-up anger or
cruelty, energy or love and
destruction that will be wa-
sted into the toilet bowl, or
a bed's sheet, or kleenex or
all three of these before 12.

it's Friday morning &
we're up early sitting at
the windowsill after
shuffling as one self
down the carpeted hallway
toward the miraculous
coffee kitchenette with her
knuckles belt-buckled around
my hip bones & her head
tucked into my breastplate/armpit

still in our peejays
shirtless in sweatpants
rolled to my knees &
she's wrapped in the sheets
but still vulnerable with one
bare tattooed ankle living
in my lap

we're waiting for the sun
to sing an orchard symphony
to our skin & burn last night's
clear coat off the pane
so we can laugh & pull weeds
in the garden & share a
bath bomb afternoon or maybe just
jump in the river holding hands

just as I began to wonder
about the green/white/striped
thong she let me ****** off
last night & if she replaced it
she stood up
arched her back to
stretch out the dimples there

winked at me

& then she dropped the sheet

If your eyes--
they were a chariot,
Would they
swing down under
and chose me
as their favorite?

Or
would I burst asunder,
headlong like Judas Iscariot?
If your face--
it was a mirror,
through no glass
could I see clearer;
Would you stare back at me
and begin to understand

Or
laugh at me
and brush me off with
your dainty right hand?
If your lips--
they were a tourniquet,
I would wrap them
tight around me;
Would you choke out
my loneliness,
with spiritual nourishment
could you douse me?

Or
is that not what
this is all about?

I had died
my friends had me buried
nine feet underground
in Australia
and they drank to my memory under the Sun.

Nigel was a hired hand
he dug my grave carefully
he talks with an accent and a cigarette
he toils under the Sun for three long days
silver tools chinking away at the hard desert rock.

I took a long ride on the Flying Spoon
up and around the lover's moon
and finally I've come to rest
in this spot under the Sun
nine feet underground
in Australia.

i haven't slept in two nights
i live my life from
cigarette to cigarette
i live my life from
word to word

i haven't brushed my teeth in two days
i live my life from
bustop to bustop
i live my life from
raindrop to raindrop

i haven't had *** in two weeks
i live my life from
pestilence to perjury
i live my life from
decadence to debauchery

i spend my days in the sun
i spend my days in a stupor
i spend my days in a sofa
i spend my days in a state of confusion

i will rest my head on a brick tonight
and i will dream of a young girl with blue eyes
being swept away on the crest of a blue wave

i will dream of selling my soul for a handful of quarters for laundry
i will dream of old eyes by firelight, and old war stories
i will dream of a blindfolded angel with fire for hair walking slowly across a room
i will dream of a clear night sky in the country
so black but i can see the stars,
my god can i see the stars

i will dream of a world as bright as the sun
burning and falling to the ground
burning and falling to the ground
burning and falling to the ground

Matilda has been rolling cigarettes all morning.
Her fingers are nimble and pinching
"We're going out tonight," she says,
And I don't know what that means.

"But I have to work late again," I say,
But to Matilda, that does not matter.
Matilda does not mind.

Peter has been pacing around all morning.
His feet are bare and his toes are flinching
"I'm going to lose it tonight," he says,
And I don't know what that means.

"But you've tried so hard to keep it," I say,
But to Peter, this is meaningless chatter.
Peter has lost his mind.

this morning i will
pick a fight with the sunrise,
i will scuffle with the dew
i will punch the morning
right in the face,
for taking me from you

last night i danced
with you in dreams
and we never were apart
with the morning you've
been washed away
and taken with you, my heart

she calls me
she calls me & I don't answer
she calls to say her grandma
is failing fast & the twins
aren't sleeping & they're angry

come on over I say
I only have two calloused hands
& a sixty hour work week
bony feet & a bottle of
chocolate wine & I ask if she's ever
slept four on a full sized mattress

the boys will be fine I say
bring both elmos
a set of pastel paints
& you can run your fuzzy-sock feet
up my legs & warm your small hands
on my space heater heartbeat

grandma will see good Friday
& easter sunday I say
& probably even her own
late April birthday
barely audible as the boys snore
like miniature sawmills
through peppermint toothpaste
ringed open mouths

the last thing I feel before sleep
is her smile stretching across my
bare chest & her hands catch fire
& wander toward a cooler spot of skin

i'll tell you
fingertip secrets
whispered
softly
inside

your blouse.

heaven calls
my name but i'm a hard-headed man who
turns soft at night

heaven knows
it ain't what you got it's the way you shake it

heaven says
keep your hands where i can feel them

heaven is waiting
outside the gas station
in cut-off denim shorts
on our way into the mountains
over dolly parton bridge

i don't usually rhyme much
but my thoughts are coming quicker
i'm lifting into the sky right now
drunk on a curious liquor

i recall a scene in a bar last night
one involving a french tickler
i'm seeing her much more clearly now
my memory no longer flickers
i offered to take her eyes home with me
and her body didn't bicker
i took her to a street in pound town
and oh god, did she take me with her

at the top of her lungs, she called my name
sometimes she called me mister
but alas, it's the next morning now
and i think i'll have to ditch her

98 bottles of jack on the wall
my stomach is getting sicker
my mind is sharp like a noodle
my tongue is getting slicker

wish you could see me right now, mom
*******, i'll take a picture

honest, the ones that hurt the most to write
are the self-love poems because
they remind me no one's around
to do it for me. they're also the most rewarding
to finish for the same reason. sometimes i sit at
the hickory writing desk my grandfather built
waiting for clarity to be chirped out of the bulb of a
trumpet or true love honked longingly from the
fever nose of a saxophone but it never happens that way.
instead i write my feelings -- veined hand curled
around a crude pencil with gnawed erasers at both ends.
or idly scratch the flowers from the wallpaper
while the moon looks down like a twisted bottle-cap
smashed in half by macho fingers into the gray
asphalt sky primping its reflection in the pond,
i think that someday i'll learn to love myself the same
way, by facing all my bad parts in the sharp mirror and my
friends abandoning me. each time they do i hold church inside
my own individual heart on sundays or saturdays,
huddled tight on the first frozen december morning around
a hymnal fire altar, only standing to **** or light another
stick of peppered citrus incense. but right now
i've got a crumb of real turkish hash
and only spittle left in the wine bottle reciting Keats
to the empty moon-painted cow field across the brittle fence
and laughing with lilac bulbs pasted on my face, watching
a low cloud thread itself between the skinny
barbs of pecan tree fingers as i wander through
the orchard. the stars hop restlessly like chigger bugs
and sparkle raw in my
swimming-pool-blue eyes but the ones that
blink back really aren't stars at all.

Never have I ever
stalled a fire,
But I have been
cheated on with friends
embarrassed and
called a ******* liar.

Never have I ever
installed a light switch,
But I have dated
a couple pychopaths
and most recently
a real *****.

Never have I ever
laid down with a ******,
But I have had
two pet fish once
until I drowned them both
in dish detergent.

Never have I ever
listened very well
But I have spent
a year in isolation,
living in a buried Hell.

Never have I ever
spoke a dishonest word
But I have been borne
up by an eagle and
I swear I scream just
like a bird.

i wish i was a black poet
or a woman with a twisted ankle
even a teenager filled with brooding angst
because then my poems would hold more weight
people would listen
i could recite them with my eyes closed
brow furrowed, talking with fists
my throat swollen with passion
i'd get applause -- an ovation even
for spitting on the microphone at poetry night
blowing the roof off
destroying walls
seeing all rooms at once
instead of despondent laughter
in an empty bar
the clinking of glasses
and the obligatory whisky after.

but i'm white
and only in my twenties
living in a vaccuum
nothing terrible has ever happened to me
sure, i have problems

but who the **** wants to hear about
not learning how to tie my shoes until i was 9?

quitting every sport, not because i was bad
merely because i wasn't the greatest to ever play
and no longer saw the point?

adhd and couch surfing in new orleans?

how hard it was to learn to roll the perfect joint
when i was 17?

the fact that i had an itchy ******* last month
but switched to organic detergent
now it's a field of velvet daffodils down there?

no one's posting youtube videos about
doing laundry on a tuesday
not meeting a pretty girl at the laundromat
instead teaching a mexican boy multiplication tables
and a couple jokes, then leaving with
half your clothes still ***** because you gave the boy
the rest of your change to buy a girl he likes
a pack of her favorite gum tomorrow
or
losing your cell phone until thursday afternoon
then the bill collectors start calling

i have good credit
i bought a used honda last year
at a good interest rate, i haven't missed a payment
i'm never bothered at airport security
i live alone, take my coffee black
or with cream and sugar
write checks and balance a budget
on sunday mornings
hate cats, never vote or testify in court
i went swimming yesterday
laid down in thatched grass, alone
don't smoke anymore
quit drinking too
don't own a boat
time moves so fast
i cook, sometimes with wine
friends seldom visit
i stand on the balcony, naked
my house is quiet
except when it isn't
and jazz floods the kitchen
i dance through the hallway
with an invisible lover
and she drifts silently away
uninterested in my melancholy poem
as i slosh sweetened tea on my bare chest
i hang on
she hangs up

i still remember her braless
in the summer sun of Vilano beach
she's just wrapped in my undershirt
and glowing in the Spanish wind
she still lives in the tunnels
way down below my heart

we couldn't find wifi
in her apartment so i knelt
at her alter in the whirling dark
but she kept me
at arm's length and touched me
only with her fingertips as if
i was particles in a braille warning
her fingerprints smelled like menthols
i can still taste her skin on my teeth

i slipped just as she caught her footing
she stood silent and true on the raised edge
she said she was looking for something to
hold onto, "well, what about me," i asked
but her fingers just formed rings around my eyes
to dam the water there she cut the string
that was always between us
she laughed as i was on my way down
through the vines i saw her rising
toward the ceiling

and now any time i make love to someone else
she comes to me projected on any bedroom or
back alley wall she opens my chest
so the Spanish wind can escape
and shows me the places
she inserted the blade

Let's play
Army;
I'll lay down,
******* to bits.