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

i woke up in a place where white girls
don't wear socks and she tickled the small
of my back with her icicle toes under the sheets

now the bulge of a small animal
is confronting fear in the form of
one loving glance

i was not poetic enough
until i lifted you from behind and
set you on a cloud

you pushed me towards a megaphone
and i announced you to the world, saying
she's a wild dove

and the wind pushed back
the lapels of my jacket and
you kissed me on the collarbone
without fear and then we
doubled up in laughter
like two souls tossing in hell,
on a grill

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.

here i sit
the night is over
i'm the only one awake
two guys passed out in the living room
will want me to take them to Starbucks in the morning,
but i won't
a girl in the spare bedroom
was making eyes at me earlier
i am too lonely
to be comforted or consoled
my only friend
the beckoning cigarette
and then off to dreamland.

i remember that night on your front steps
smoking cigarettes and talking with your mother
while
i cradled your heart and
you cried on my chest

i remember middle school english class
and your first thong,
pink and white and blue

i remember we made that bourbon summer
last until december

i remember bottle rockets and champagne
the morning your brother died

i remember carrying you home
in the rain
the day after you escaped from the hospital
and you cried then, too.

i remember lying on the cold ***** tile
of your mother's kitchen
whispering Neruda in your ear
shivering & sweating with you
that night we took ecstasy

i remember the first night
you let me slip an honest prayer between your lips

silence is the enemy of art
to communicate
the greatest art
suggests dissolution

the music
the eloquence of omission
the sudden vertiginous stop
the space between souls
the final paragraph recalls
the graves

that happened to me
a black hole
dense with rejected possibilities

This morning I was feeling
like a Savior
I saved a baby bird
from her sure demise;
pulled her right out
of his mouth, you
should've seen the
Snake's eyes

I said
I bet that doesn't feel real well
with a grin, and then
set him on fire and sent him back to hell,
to swim in the lake of sin

I cradled her gently
and heard whispered peeping
I studied her feathers carefully
for I knew she was worth keeping

By noon
I was feeling sort of grumpy
until I met an old toad
Sitting warm red and lumpy.
He asked for a snack
and I wanted to see him satisfied,
So I scooped up a grasshopper
and plucked out its' eyes.

And I picked up two more,
and a cricket just for fun,
today has been a good day
out here in the sun.

This afternoon I'm feeling
sort of combative,
A battle of species
is sounding very attractive.

For this next stanza,
no matter what the cost,
We will see titans cross swords
in the form of a spider and a wasp.

They begin fighting,
someone plays a koto
and I'm sorry folks,
I wish I had a photo.

when leaving a pretty girl
you must go in phases
it will hurt too much
if you rip away like a band aid

when leaving a pretty girl
you must go carefully
because you don't know
when her bare thighs will
beg your eyes
for another glance
or
one last lustful dance

when leaving a pretty girl
you must go directly
before her eyes convince you
of one more long seductive stare

when leaving a pretty girl
she must know you will return
or
her wet lips will long for
someone elses'

when leaving a pretty girl
you must grab time--
stop the marathon--watch her walk
slowly away,
hoping you don't ever have to leave her again.

i knew you were the one when you were just another
pretty girl in my bathroom mirror
thigh gap and eager-to-please smile just a
golden-lipped canary of the serene morning

and now your arms still go limp when i kiss you
your soul still whispers me to sleep
and when i see you so open in the morning
watering the indoor plants you are my
whole world in baggy sweatpants rolled to your knees
as the sun comes up and sprays golden sparks across
the imitation wood floors of the kitchen
and shatters over the mountaintop

just as summer birds sing symphonies
and bees hum at the window
you too were awake fresh and early
like a lily of the valley petal
glowing in 6am sunlight
beautiful flesh tumbling out
of an old plaid workshirt you wear
on sundays because you say it still smells like me
and you say i'm beautiful with funny looking ears
as i watch you make breakfast from across the kitchen

in this intimate environment we are dancing
like a bubble rising out of the dishsoap sink
halo'd in refrigerator light flowing together
as the morning coffee percolates
i am behind you pushing into you
burying my face in your neck and breathing in
and gently biting you on the shoulder

the sky breaks into veins of yellow cloud streaks
and you run screaming onto the porch
pelvis giggling out into the mellow morning
and of course i follow obediently
undershirt flayed open by a knife-like fingernail
the smell of fresh hay in both our noses

we are taking a summer journey
on feet full of the good earth and eyes
intensely warm under the bleached
colors of this april morning sky we're connected
and still dancing with my hands on your stomach
and your gentle fingers raking through my hair
making the giant white muscle bulge and throb
hosiery being shed like old skin off the snake
of your sun-kissed calves yes my fantasy
is finally made of flesh and colliding with the
soft green velvet bedspread underneath and
your feather-point tongue tickles the
outline of my abdomen shining thick and wet

until the record clicks and asks to be flipped.

a few summers ago
i climbed the water tower
wearing overalls with
four beers and baked in the florida sun

i almost spent the night there
but you saw me from your window
and asked if i was thinking about airplanes

i hadn't considered them
up to that point
but then i was swimming
on a hot tin roof
with paint chips in my mouth

i stood to my feet and flew
like a pencil or a piece of paper
folded into a football
flicked at a 4th grader

and i landed in
your hips
and on
your
kiss.

I need space
not much, just a small place
next to you

This bottle of Maker's Mark
on the floor
in the dark
is my bed,
the weeping willow
bent down and cried me a pillow
And this is wear I lay my head
But I

I need your face.
I need your face to call this my home.

I need your taste
and your waist
I need your hips and your lips and your voice.

I need your noise
I need your chin and your shins and your toes

I need your nose
snuggled so close to mine
that no light can shine through

I need you.

i am illumination

i am the greatest idea you've ever had,
skittering across your mind at 1:17 am
i dare you to catch me

i am elimination

i am the empty space where
your dream should be
i dare you to sink into me

i am concentration

i am your great brow furrowed in frustration
twittering fingers and fidgeting knees
i dare you to set me free

i am disintegration

i am your subsequent writer's block at 1:20 am
because
everyone knows
the greatest idea you've ever had
vanishes into thin air
as soon as you find a pen.

somedays i drink, but thats not the point
sometimes i think while rolling a joint
somedays are for sailors and i curse them away
sometimes i feel lonely as night turns to day
somedays i feel stronger, i'm feeling just fine
sometimes it takes longer, im reeling in time
somedays i get ****** up, and then its all over
sometimes i shut up, and you read another

i almost cried tonight
as i was smoking a cigarette
these thoughts have long hung over me
like a black cloud of bad debt
and i know sharing this is
something i'll probably regret
i take doses of insanity
but i haven't been diagnosed yet
i am not swift with stability
on a swivel my life is set
my moon is filled with water
but it hasn't burst yet
my hands are growing quite shaky now
and my body is drenched in sweat
just as soon as you are reading this
i hope you just as soon, forget

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

I am
a swerving vehicle

I am
a broken and waterlogged branch

I am
a fast-approaching but unseen stop sign

I am
floating
            >down
                       >blood
                                  >stream

if he asks who i was to you
glance sideways & lie a little
exaggerate my mistakes &
laugh with him about my shortcomings
then feign bewilderment at the question

if he asks why you skip that song every time
lie a little & say it doesn't play all the way
through anyway but don't
tell him it was our lullaby for the rainy nights

if he asks how big it was
don't hurt his self-esteem
lie just a little bit & tell him
i had chapped plump lips carved from **** roast
a long curved nose like the scroll of a violin
& a heart like a busted squirrel cage
but omit the weeks we spent sprawled naked
on peyote friction furniture digging
our toenails into the floor

when he asks you what you're thinking
don't hint at the nostalgia
buried in your eyes & throat

if he asks what you're writing
on the edge of the bed first thing in the morning
lie a little lean down & kiss him
but never show him the dream journal
you stole from me & are keeping
as your own now

if he wonders aloud how you got those scars
after months of seeing you naked
tell him a little lie & never whisper
the names i gave them that first night
when i kissed your whole body

don't ever show him the tearstained
underside of your pillow &
act like you've forgotten my name
when he claims you say it
in your sleep most nights

if he corners you after work one day
& demands to know who i was
distract him
tell him you love him
& **** him right there in the kitchen
so he forgets to ask about the extra toothbrush in the shower
or the old flannel work-shirt hanging on your side
of the closet that smells like nothing he's ever smelled on you before

when he forgets your favorite flower
on your ******* birthday just shrug &
blow him in the car on the way to his parents' house
so that he never wonders about
your finger on the trigger of the gun at his head

let him fill the spaces i left between your fingers with his fingers
let him plaster the hole in your chest with new promises
let his toned shirtless testosterone replace my warm soft flesh beside you in bed
let his brass belt buckle be more comfortable for your angelic head
than my bare waist
let him replace the lingering scent of my insecurity with the new stench of his over-confidence

eventually he will learn to ignore the way you
twitch when he says my favorite curse word

eventually you will forget how my
bare feet used to tie into yours on the sofa

i asked you if we could maybe just stay
like this a few days or spend forever
sitting on the roof of a camping pavilion
with water on my cheeks running from
my eyes & you told me to never cut my hair

we are above the surface of the earth
green & magenta in all directions & your daughter
whooping for joy below us dancing in softness
at the bright fire's edges always unfolding
she is your personal blossom & i'm
pulling the yellow ribbon from your hair
with my sunset teeth while your eyes
send me signs of warning

but our souls cannot resist each other since
i came back from snowy colorado
after learning all my mistakes in a single year
& that night we escaped your mother's
cigarette breath and found shapes in the clouds
like an elf looking closely maybe sniffing at a flower
as your daughter giggling swam naked in the river

today we're pushing boats across brown water glistening
in the sun & sweat droplets collect individually
on my chest & your daughter's forehead but you're
wearing a crown made of vines & wild roses
& absolutely smitten with love glowing in
sepia tones shaking a tambourine

we drifted along until the sky peeled back
& we're carried into wildness by the
fragrance of fungus & mud as we struggle
under the long tarp against the premonition of rain
while she chases invisible fireflies the fresh
curls you put in her head begin to wilt under the
weight of gravity & the afternoon sun at the
wet edge of the river it's near sunset & i'm
kissing your knuckles nibbling on nourishing
sweat & fingernail polish

that night after she went to sleep we stayed up
drinking whisky warm discussing liars
& lucid dreams & my desire + inability to grow a beard
as she snored a raw spring wind rattled our tent
& my body began to turn against itself stomach
decided to see what i was really made of & you
were at my back convincing me to stay open just
breathe & be myself telling me i'm not a criminal

this morning i awoke desperately clutching you
spinning on a new earth red-eyed & suntanned
dream-caressed & with morning trash breath but
i know your hands & feet become hypersensitive
just before waking so i'm burrowing under bundles
of clothes to find your curly cues smelling
like new pine needles & cotton

after breakfast you're lost in meditation over
the magic of this little girl dancing again around us
glittered mouth widening into a grin beside the river
we're sitting close together on a sandy beach
blindfolded by the magnificent sun rising
in an acidic orange sky with your gentle hand
at the back of my neck under a tree

& i'm focused on a spider
suspended shining in the light not accosted by skyline
thoughts & the murmurs of distant traffic
instead unraveling new wet silk against
the glare of sunstruck aluminum

Today I saw
a small white pebble
suddenly
burst open and
expell small specks
of multi-colored dust;
I guess it just
couldn't hold it
or help it.

And then I
trapped
a small black flea
beneath my fingernail;
it fought
and struggled but
I could hold it
and it
was helpless.

Today
I watched
as the sun
baked an
ant's bed warm and roasty;
it even smelled like
burning ants when
I bent
and looked more closely

Then I imagined
a black widow spider
fighting
off
three preying Manti,
they were winning at first
but she carries
the gift
of the Magi.

Today
I watched a
few horseflies give
fervent chase
to one another;
I'm not sure but
from what I saw
I think one was
the other one's
brother.

Today
I saw two flirting butterflies,
one gently kissing another
I bent my ear
so I could hear
what they were whispering
to each other

But
I could not hear the words
she said
by the wind
they were covered,
but in his eyes
I read his
soft reply:

I know
you don't belong
to me but
I will love you
like no other.

hold your tongue
until
you're soaked in saliva

hold your breath
until
you can't get much higher

hold my beer
until
I finish with your kiss

hold my hand
until
it can't get better,
this is bliss.

hold your liqour
until
you're puking into a plush beige carpet

and I will

hold your hair so
you don't look like a cheap harlot
or some trashed starlet.

like  just  ill  know  girl  head  words  hold  want  say  away  ­time  wasted  heart 
write  pain  id  eyes  dont  right  wrote  r­eally  think  night  left  listen  tell  thats  wont  youll  hey ­ old  youre
make  hope  start  word  drink  place  hole  lips  tr­y  got  inside  wanted  pretty  hear  hand  white  worth  paper
f­ace  sick  wish  good  things  maybe  morning  kiss  leaving  lov­e  mind  speak  look  caged  sun  small  high  oh  life  light  a­sk  forget  real  *****  heard  skin  feel  truth  blood  turn  c­omes  ear  hands  dead  dream  long  man  house  didnt  matter  w­et  perfect  tonight  work  burn  stand  touch  years  voice  ope­n  family  thing  longer
watched  pen  dance  pure  feet  youd  b­ad  care  day  alive  naked  better  gently  need  begin  sort  f­ight  does
hed  walk  thoughts  ****  trying  mouth  taking  whos­  warm  reading  revolution  shining  gods  whisper  skies  crowd­  taste  tongue  fists  sky  calling  attic  soft  cause  gets  h­elp  fun  wouldnt  home  god  met  fall  little  dark  nice  past­  best  christians  slowly  putrid  rope  used  hermit  hate  for­gotten  lungs  red  way  ready  eye  arms
bowl  held  set  brave ­ room  guess  grows  soul  tastes  microphone  window  wed  peopl­e  change  smell  lay  war  year  slots  fears  chair  holding  g­entle  lonely  talk  friends  wasnt  true  bed  glazed  breathing­  higher  ants
future  brain  believe  burst  song  laugh  wicked­  buried  seen  winning  fine  fly  leave  burning  mountain  day­s  leisure  hair  sharp  able  pet  knew  million  spend  mixing ­ saliva  hovering  syrupy  stumped  needy  feed
money  abandoned ­ betrayed  defend  egotist  fancies  wishing  zombie  standing  r­ide  pounding  cares  ****

i will rock you out tonight
i will shoot your sputnik to the moon
i will be an itch in the crotch of your space suit
i will be inside you
i will crush a star and sprinkle it in your hair
i will open your eyes and
i will open your mouth
i will start you up
i will let you loose
i will hold pure life in my hands
i will sleep on another couch tonight
i will dream of famine and golden wheat fields
i will dream of contradiction
i will recite the lords prayer
i will pull us under and
i will ***** a device that will bring us afloat

I've suffered in the throes
of writer's block for seven sordid days
I've spent the wordless week wandering in a silent daze
I tried to pick the lock to lift the fog and haze
But the words were stacked against me backed into their dark caves
They never left me entirely they were cold and huddled together
in the sticky-damp attic of my mind mumbling themselves chanting in time
I thought the ***** would loosen their fearful grip on reality
but the words proved to be a stubborn people
singing We Shall Overcome while hovering
behind my whiskey-drenched eyes
I tried jumping up and down up and down
nightly to rattle one word loose
Just a lonely word a sick child of a word
the one with the least hand strength and the most fierce imagination
but even this word proved thick with endurance
vitality perserverance and clung tightly to his handholds
Any attempt to moisten my palate with the
smooth syrupy texture of a word
was met with bitter reluctance by my parasitic tongue
as if a mountain man were holding a red-hot iron
inches away from my bread hole
There they clung with surpirising tenacity
on the steep cliffs of my inner skull
Some of them proved hungry to be spoken
but the sacred few I managed to twist into an
audible figurine balloon were useless and elastic
Words like **** and **** were flowing like ichorous
from the aperture in the front of my face
They dangled and then I broke free.

my excuses breed like the mayflies of the bayou
when your legendary grandmother says
i remind her of cool-hand luke
actually blushing & looking
down at his knees

so i wrote this while i sat
rocking back & forth
on her kitchen counter alone
watching the tanned florida bodies
with muscled calves & stomachs
full of beer whistling songs:

here i am
a blond faced writer
turning to ash
on some radioactive night
gathering paper from living
tree roots & unconscious moss
hair parted in the middle
& slicked back by river water
a little schizoid with a typewriter
telling myself to forget
old feelings
old words
old bodies
an angel filled with my own strong
music & careful passion under
the purple-gray moon & sky
dark like chewed-up bubblegum

i realize i've
laid down my insecurities
like hilarious graffiti
on paper a thousand times
but no one believed a word of it
until i came out of the blackness
of this river with silver wings
growing taller & stronger
nourished by the mud
into smokestack manhood full
of furious breath mouth
searching for a thunderstorm
finally awake on the liquefied air

but this dream will not leave me
like the horizon lost in teardrops
hunkered down invisible
on the banks of this peaceful river
as stars streak like knives across the sky
& beard-faced frogs sing
about naked bellies marching
across a frontier i know
i'm a certain kind of handshake maniac
miserable with sensitive armpits
writing a personal story with
fanaticism about rubber shadows writhing
like fat-eyed snakes dancing between
bales of hay on a clear night
cranked out on a bone-shattering
bullet of burnt coffee
big wintertime sky the color of wet cement as
cumulonimbus gather directly overhead
i'm lying on my young sweaty back
concentrating on large drone-birds
through a tinfoil kaleidoscope
flying free in native space
faster than i can knock them down
with either comfort or refined guilt

& i'll probably die trembling
under fuzzy patches of starlight
ignorant & weeping of lust before i'm 30
after falling in love 3 times a week
because i'm more vulnerable
in a moment of boiling telepathy
than i should be at my age to
grapefruit ******* and
pretty girls in little underwear

i
will find you
overdressed

i
was up and
i looked out
the window

i
imagined
i knew no one
in
the echo

the noise
opened
its grimy,
dark quarters

then
a break,
a mere stopover

i can remember what we did on each and every one of those fifteen days and nights.

I'm so glad
that no one cares about
Me
or what I write
or what I do
or who I am
or what I think I am
Because if someone
Did
I might be forced
to care a little about
Someone else  
which is terribly inconvenient for
Me
and what I write
and what I do
and who I am
and what I think I am

my mind is crazed
on cartoons and
my lungs absorb my own
existence in a cigarette.

i am perched on a roof
the green dusk sky stretched
out like a beach towel
above me.

thirty-four stories up
and i hold the moon in
a cradle.

young you
and
young me
shimmy down fire escape
together?

i want to brush your hair in bed
i want to kiss your ears until you fall asleep in my arms
i want to make plans to conquer the world with you
i want to get lost in the immense galaxy behind your eyes

i want your toes to be buried
in the small of my back on cold mornings

i want your mouth to be the one that nibbles
my fingers when we're holding hands in public

i want to lounge with you on top of me
inside a sunbeam and read the same book together

i want you to give me those torturous
hold me down crying tickles i claim to hate

i want your thighs to jiggle when you
sing and dance in the hallway

i want you to know that i'll die without your
quick good-morning bad breath kiss

i want to tumble and tell secrets with you
on fresh warm sheets

i want to be the wall you throw your
anger at after a long frustrating day

i want to flail with you
against every imaginable current

i want to listen to your heartbeat
with the soft pink stethoscope of my lips

i want it to be your fingernails that leave
my back red striped and scarred for days

i want to be the pillow made of flesh you scream
and fall into with exhausted tears on your cheeks
when the world turns its back on you

i want to hear the music your belly and throat make
when you laugh in the kitchen and it echoes
through the house late on a quiet night

i want to be the one that calls you back
immediately after you hang up on me because
we're just not communicating right

i want you to hold me like an alcoholic
grips a bottle and rock me in the dark while
i drown my pain on the swell of your chest

i want to be your siamese twin connected
at the earlobes creating cloud animals in
a soft green velvet summer field

i want to own the shirt you wear on sunday mornings

but more than anything
i want to be beside you
when you climb that
******* mountain

you'll say "I'm tired,"
and
I'm tired too
not hardly as tired as you
and not nearly as blue

I'm putting you
in the ground where
the dead men
go and where
that really is
no one really knows
but I will whisper
                             I miss you
right next to your ear
even though I won't and
                             I hope I see you again
even though I don't and
                             I can't stand to see you like this
because you know that's true
and
you'll just stare at me
                             tired and blue

i'll use this shovel
to find the truth
i will bring the story out of the ground
i'm busy chasing circular thoughts
working long hours
but sleeping, i'm not
television and prescription pills
by the poison in this bottle my
blues will surely be killed
once it's gone
pour me another round
i'll get up and come back to life
i will scatter my notebooks
across your shadowy lawn
we can read and breathe and burn them
long into the dawn
i will never believe what someone else
tells me is true


except you.

I do not believe
in color schemes
not white
nor red & blue

Only what
my pen to paper bleeds
is what I consider true

I cannot recognize
what psychics see
but I know my past
is void of  eyes
and does not make the future me

I do not swear by
what the christians say
but I've seen angels fly
both night and day

I cannot affirm
what the muslims claim
in turn I see it all
as the same ball,
same chain