When you approached me,
I was smoking a cigarette
listening to Macklemore
outside my favorite coffeeshop
in the rainy city

You said something,
but I didn't hear you,
so I removed my headphones
as you asked
"Could you help a veteran out
by giving him a cigarette?"

I said yes,
asked you where you had fought
you told me Saigon

"Oh yeah? Vietnam."

you looked at me
dressed in a coat
that was a color of blue
not found in nature
face of canyons
and told me
"We got those ******* good.
We did.
We got those ******* good.
Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."
and you walked away.

I was stuck in a trance of
What the **** was that
and yeah,
we did get them
but I don't know if I'd lay down
Agent Orange
and call it "good"
Take Civil and Guerrilla warfare
and try to tie it next to butterflies
and welfare checks

I don't know
what you think is good
But me?
I can't find any other words
for 1.9 to 3.9 million casualties
in a war that should never have been fought
Than sad
and wrong

I wonder how many Vietnamese women
gave birth to half American babies
That they never wanted
that didn't even desire to participate
in the act
of child making

I wonder how many
Loved their children anyway
how many were honest with them
how many of those children burnt that odd color of blue
that should never exist in nature
But then again
neither should the bombs children are still unearthing
in the North
and South of Vietnam

I want to know how many of their parents
learned that American
is another word for a *******
How many of these parents
grew up telling their children
never trust an American
until you know where his gun is pointed
because he's always got it pointing somewhere

I want to know
If you would understand
where Saigon, now ** Chi Minh city
is on a map
if you had never fought there
Would you be on the streets of Portland
alone
asking a college kid
who was not alive
when you fought in Southeast Asia
for a cigarette

I wonder where are you going?
How many people did you ****?
how many are you sorry
for killing?

and then I realize I really don't want to know.

For Sam Cook and Michael Lee*

While standing at Marshall and 140th
the lightning over the horizon begs me to come to it
it's like the flickering streetlights, seeming like silent firefights,
simply asking to be looked for.

When I still elementary,
I used to watch the sky as the bolts shocked the earth
and I'd count:
one
two
three
Until I heard the boom and crack of thunder
three miles away, at least, the fourth graders said each second was a mile
it could have been true, it could have not, yet still I watch the light.

The flickering of the fading streetlamp tells me that this moment is not going to last forever
that it will not be heavenly or touchable, but it is there
and it wants you to touch the light as it flickers like a strobe light
like kids playing with the tabs of flashlights
and like the first discovery of light switches

and I'm reaching out so far.
Trying to grab hold of a piece of simplicity,
of normal,
of what I can always find:
Mistakes and wounds
and trying to hold on

Because lately, it seems like the only places we want to flicker are in the clubs.
Standing on a planet where illness and difference are cause enough to torch cities.
We like to light the fires and we like to watch them burn,
but we could care less about what their burning
and it seems like the dark ages came and stayed,
But like tributes to Guy Fawkes say:
A man can be killed and forgotten,
but four hundred years later an idea can still change the world
So I think as I stand at that intersection
watching the streetlights and the night's light bulbs flicker on and off like the light in my head
I can feel my fingertips prickle and I seize that moment to reach for the lamppost and final destination

those kids are flipping tabs faster and faster
my hair is at attention
and I can feel the race.
For a second,
everything slows down.
The streetlight stops flickering as my fingertips come upon it
and the lightning illuminates the sky
I can feel the breeze push my hair to this minutes path
and for a second,
I have something.

I pull my fingers away from the light and it returns to its flicker
the lightning fades away
and the boom comes in.

And here, standing at what once for me was Marshall and 140th
I realize,
that all I have
is all
I'll ever claim to know

A dark hallway at the end a door with light underneath.
Better men say Open it.
Better men, better inside.
Worse men say Wait, but open it.

Inside find axes and crows.
Everything a way to strip bare.
Better men leave them in sight.
Worse place them away.

Morning leaves no light to claim.
Sorrow comes, disappointment after a farewell of arms.
Soldiers lost in a cause reach for weapons not there.
They run, bare-******, unsure if a path of survival.

They chase sorrow into night.
Some come upon forest, become muffled from sight.
Others reach lake, creating in its depths.
Many run into prairie, where all is empty.

Better men say Run before morning.
Safer to flee under dimness of stars.
Worse men say Wait until sunshine.
In dawn's hands strip what remains to nothing.

Worse men feel they are not worse men.
Better men say *I am worse man.

When loved by an addict
you may run the risk of them finding another addiction in the softest touch of your skin
or the happiest gazes of your eyes
or the way your mouth curves into a smile

Maybe just your voice

When I think of my grandma, Bettie,
I want to know how she felt when the doctors plucked
one of her husband’s lungs from his chest like it was the petal of a flower
I wonder if she whispered
“he loves me not”
like we did as school children

When I think about the day he died
I imagine Bettie holding rib cutters over his body
cutting through his chest
pulling him open,
Plucking the right lung from his chest
saying “He loves me”

Before my grandfather’s death
I never saw Bettie smile the way she does now
I wonder if she walks with Marvin’s lung in her right pocket
whispering
“He loves me.”
“He loves me.”
“He loves me.”

To know you are loved by an addict,
You must see they have the ability to pull away from the substance they have come to love as much as the oxygen they need to survive-
But without asking them to.

I wonder if there will come a day
when I find a woman
that I would keep myself
on this planet longer for
try to save myself from the family tradition of dying due to substance abuse
Some nights
I drink shots of gin
1. “I’ll find her.”
2. “I won’t.”
3. “I’ll find her.”
4. “I won’t”
At noon,
I wake to an empty bottle,
But I don’t remember what phrase I ended on.

I am plucking away at these flowers
trying to find the petal that could draw me away:
It goes:
“Not this one.”
“Maybe it’s her.”
“Not this one.”
“Not this one.”
“Not this one.”

At dawn,
the flowers stand
with petals outstretched like they are getting ready to fly
every one of them is shining due to the glistening dew
I ask myself
staring out the window at this floral covered plain
what life was for my grandfather
wish I had taken the time to know how he knew
my tiny, brunette, curly haired grandmother
was the right woman for him
and how he found her petal
in this field
of flowers.

I don’t like how
hot
cold
empty
reminiscent
final
full
starting
this morning is
too easy
hard
open up an old book
it is never the same
she-
this is full and empty
I cannot find the in-between
just darting to and from
gluttonous and starving
I once found the in-between
held it closer than she holds hair
I straddle quest
I straddle settled
the only time we find the answers
is when we empty bottles
empty is just the other side of full
we crack bottles
over tombstones
they shatter
not full
nor empty
I am trying not to mourn destruction
birth
smiles
cigarettes
kisses
teardrops
I don’t want to capture
just earn
not full
nor empty
just be
I don’t like how
the last time we kissed
we were not cataclysm
nor inertia
I am trying to get back to her
without asking her to find me
not knowing how full our contents might be later
I know we’re empty,
pretending we are sailboats
filling out linens with as much misery as we can
calling it moving forward
in the corner of this body of water
I feel the breeze run through my hair
her fingers used to run through my hair
When the breeze comes
I tie the jib so I might reach somewhere else.
When I reach somewhere else it is
not different
from what had been left.

Wet newspapers strewn in the yard
fire burning in dry season
marshmallows in dirt
glistening starlight reflections in hose-water
glass cut feet
soil gripping hands
soldiers that do not wish to be called soldiers
cigarette butts in grass
ash
everywhere

I heard birds chirping this morning.
I wondered if birds conduct sonnets to other birds in their little bird languages.
Maybe there is a bird tongue considered "French" of bird tongues.
All romance and delight and cheese and devoid of home.
They speak soft when chirping of flights South
and loud of thawing North.

Are they dissatisfied?

Does flight seem like walking?

On the bus I hear chatter.
The workday not over. Wake up
get back to work. If you pause
remember you are a failure.

If you invest, call it working.
Unless it is French, do not pronounce anything that is not English correctly.
Condemn those who make mistakes at what you do not know how to do.
Say it is easy. Say you could do it better.
Don't try.

Fly South for the winter. Eat cheese by the fire. Pay a thousand dollars to hunt pheasants in an enclosure.
Give your son a hundred dollars.
Tell him to take her "somewhere nice."

Kick him out when he takes him "somewhere nice."

Watch people swoon at your feet; hate you; want to be you.
Hate people who want nothing you offer to give them.
Act as if the offer is a debt.
Give gifts and ask for a return on your investment.

Are your hands soft?

Are your wings weak?

Is there anything else you need

Your smile says
your load is large.
when alone
Your room feels like a crater
parties
feel ******
Questions regard beer
****
or cigarettes

No one wants to know
How you are
Just chug and run

This is slow dance
In the darkness of night
I feel how your eyes
wished for naught on an unknown number of stars

When asked if you still believe.
You say:
yes,
The only way I sleep
Is knowing I've asked nothing
For something

In the yard
I see they
ask for nothing
we wish for everything
don't expect the granting of anything

Nothing comes of it
Yet, we cast wishes at the sky
Not knowing where to aim

I imagine this is why people pray
Wishes are mobile,
Portable,
two quarters in my pocket

My sister and I
Throw them off the balcony
Into the grass of campus
We make it our wishing well;
night sky
Neither of our wishes come true
It seems the wish casts back our chances

In the morning
I toss dozens of quarters
Into the grass on my way to school
Nothing will ever last as long as I keep wishing

I remember how you told me
*if the sun cannot make you calm when it has risen before you have
maybe if you rise first
You may be able to catch the dew as it collects on flowers
Maybe this will let you breathe easy
lighten your load
keep you from wishing on
Stars
That owe you nothing

There is nowhere you would rather be.
You cannot sleep.
Blame the coffee.

Lay there.
Her stomach rises and falls

Close your eyes
remember the waves you first learned to love
how they washed up and down your four year old body.

She rolls to you,
murmurs something you cannot make out,
you ask what was said
it is the same muffled whisper

touch her arm
kiss her shoulder
she comes closer.

You recall this honest twisting of lips
forgot how easily it came

Close your eyes
that first touch of a basketball
the excitement flowing through legs
dribbling your way forward

Open your eyes
find hers gazing upon you

she awoke to snoring
says she’ll be in the next room

Blame the cigarettes

she asks to be awoken when you do

hear her in the hall
in the bathroom
going into the next room

close your eyes

I’m Eighteen now.
Never been more afraid of the ups, the ends, or the downs,
But they still come.
This is birth’s end and death’s start.
This is forever banging her fist against my heart.
And here’s me wishing for her to stop.
For her to slow down,
to cherish each moment.
Don’t believe Forever is now.

I saw you in the night as you drank your coffee.
Sipping down caffeine like you were taking in gasoline
Wishing for that fuel to take you a few hundred miles farther than this.

I’m sorry that your addiction could not take you farther
Across this country of methamphetamine addicts and alcoholics;
I should know,
My nicotine has never gotten me farther than another cigarette
And my lungs can only line themselves with what we pave our roads with;
They say “Thank you, for smoking.”

It feels good sometimes

To know
That even though both my grandfathers have died due to this addiction
That I carry a legacy, a legend,
A map to where my blood has been going
Living through tradition like it was not something forgotten by our siblings,
Parents,
Even our friends.
It’s like we’ve fallen deeper into preservation
Putting no chemicals into our lungs, but plenty into our stomachs-
I wonder how we justify it.
I guess it’s cheap can serve as satisfactory,
But I can still remember being a child and hearing:
“Erik, nothing in this life is free.
Do not be cheap.”

I’m sorry that the maps still show that New York is three thousand miles away from Oregon
I cannot rewrite them and manipulate the ways in which we travel
Take Minnesota and place it next to
Montana
Or Florida
I’m sorry that it seems we are still children
sipping on Coca Cola on the docks of Lake O’Dowd
Or teenagers still smoking **** in Kenwood park
Or like we are still college kids
Not doing our homework
So we may drink Pabst.

I am only twenty years old,
But I can already see how the paths are only highways towards the destinations we wish we could reach-
Yet sometimes cannot.
We are only children,
Wishing to be older, to find
We wish we could still be younger, only to
wish we could live forever,
To wish we could still be mortal
To wish this was not inconsequential

I am only twenty years old,
But I can see that we are already lost.

If you would trust me,
enough,
to lay your hand in mine
I’ll find the best drawn highway
on this barely marked map
And take us to the end.

You can take your coffee.
I just may take my cigarettes.

The moments spent acting like you’re making love to a person
are the most blinding of them all.
Turn us into ashen cocktails of white and blue
from the flames of setting stars.

Those nights you become whitecaps on oceans,
she is sunset orange,
and only one of two wants to be there -
that is why you are always churning.

Each time you whisper “I love you,”
before her irises set behind eyelids
you will slowly realize you have been an actor
and this play has not been paying you.

You will one day quit pretending,
let this star exhale its own mortality,
begin finding the smiles you overlooked
while she flared above you;

When your waters calm,
you may find a new star to whisper to,
but this time without scripts;
this time Honestly.

We were born screaming
hounds roaring from the belly of midcontinental lakes.
We would grow by learning to bury ourselves beneath the brush of Midwest forest.
The leaves are more sibling than brothers.
Can you hear them?
They are ruffling through the darkness,
They have nothing to teach you.
You light a fire from the brush
You hear only the death of family -
Can you hear me?
We never believed we could birth such darkness.
In the event of calamity
We will call this a forest fire/
an arson/
an accident waiting to happen -
Can you hear me?
I have been waiting for this to shatter
for us to again fold inwards on ourselves
Begging each other to find a way to stop the burning above us
We will bark into the darkness
towards all we had made
Hoping for it to enter the fire/
to burn away/
to forgive us.

We never meant to burn everything that made us.
We got lost amongst the lighting of matches.
We didn't think we needed to put them out,
We thought we could just be
With paws dug into the dirt
we will seek to unmask what lit this flame
if somewhere in the dark we had kept our creator around
If it saw anything beneficial in our pyre
Would it learn to forget us,
to regret sending us roaring into the forest
only seeking to consume all it had to offer.
We didn't think we would do so this way
With all our plunder becoming tinder around us
Hoping we might make it