My pen just won’t translate clichés
For one reason or another.
It would rather ****** the page
Than aid in the smothering
Of youth, bridge the gap of old age,
Take mass graves and cover them, and
Would rather fade into disgrace
Than find a remedy to the blubbering.

Because this pen was not designed
To draw rainbows from hurricanes,
It would rather commit every crime
Than sketch new hues to the stain glass
Windows of anarchy and rhyme;
Rather commit arson daily

Than dig up the past for all to see
But none to find.
And one day soon you will race past the
Apple Store with its blaring screens,
The calamity of another mise en scéne
With nothing new to say but alas,
You can always find my pen in dreams
That make burning sense
Before they come to pass.

One of these days
those static, predictable
moments
that you call chance
or good fortune

will become your
warmest reality.
You may take them
lightly or
overcompensate
at the moment,
but they will ultimately
define you,
especially if
by their absence.

Billions of women
Have known how to prepare a steak.

Libraries of recipes,
A deep glut
Tucked neatly into ancient scrapbooks
Boasting of delicate marinates, spells and
Sleight-of-hand saucery

Like witches hunched over a cauldron
Stirring,
Kneading with the same spoon
That their grandmothers fashioned.

Taste,
True taste, is a subtle dance
Between giving one’s all
(Every fiber, every ingredient)
And knowing the appropriate spice
Ever-proven to suffice
By meticulous, observable
Experimentation.

Billions of women
Have had remarkable taste,
Memorialized and passed down in a scrapbook
Tucked under the cupboard.

There is but one of these
I cared to read.
But it is covered in dirt,
Encased in marble,
And nowhere near the cupboard.

Why can’t these lines liberate
or conflagrate, remonstrate
or set me straight like
like they had in the
midnight hour
That may never have happened?

I saw you in a dream,
with no torso upon your legs
and I cried myself awake
unable to remember what you said
minutes after the doctors ascertained
all those swollen lumps had spread.

Like a pen could sort the difference,
pin my quiet words, or even listen
to the high-speed pileup of a listless mind:
pull my teeth and ask me one more time
What has more power than insistence?

Because your hair had once insisted that
even a dive can hold a rhythm,
and every follicle leapt from your head, lying
“We are the makers of our decisions.”

The horoscope instructs you when to try,
Sportscenter shames
Time poorly spent,
And a commercial on the tv tells you why
You tried to earn more
Than covered rent.
In fact, you’ve learned that you can sigh
From the same logo that aims to prevent
A tree growing straight,
Still wondering why
The kid from Into the Wild preferred a tent.

The weatherman told you when to go but
Those hills have eyes that
Tickle your spine;
You can convince your arteries’ juice to flow
But some streams run deep,
Deeper than a drill could unwind.

The schoolboard cannot be stopped
In rain. In snow,
Knowledge breaks the naked man’s vision.
The hardwood floors in an old house
Grow, and when those panels crack
I hear they glisten.

The thought of you makes me want to refashion old Bible verses,
“Consider it a pure joy to be a part of this trial,” I whisper,
“And you know that the testing of faith becomes perseverance.”

The sound of your voice carries more overlapping melodies than
Hard brass mallets hammering at the tips of my fingers,
More depth than does escape the open casing of my grand piano.

The warmth that flows from your heart is a testament to my lack
Of circulation, despite my ability to swim through the ocean naked,
Far passed the pier and into the horizon, every ceaseless morning.

The sight of you tears me open, tears me open, until I am all
But unable to put my nerve endings back in order, despite the fact
That they are reinforced every minute of my solitary waking hours.

The only thing I want for Christmas this year
Is an idea, one that doesn’t crack under pressure
Or insist on its originality, like 50 Shades to an era
Raised on bootlegged copies of the Old Testament.

Holidays are overrated but just this once, Santa,
Bring me a body more intangible than yourself
That can stir up the kind of emotion that adults
Would lie to their children for. It’s torture, the way
Few words sound before they join the tongue,

The way some names should never be spoken.
You can wrap a gift in a hundred different skins but
If it’s still fragile enough to swallow, snort or smoke,
Then Santa, I insist you hold onto it this year.