he is the carnival bear
with the best balance
on two wheels
he traverses sketchy curb cuts
and stays upright,
stays cool

a dizzy name, a silly song
an old, cracked joke
a dried bouquet.

when Marshall realized Lilly was,
in fact,
being just a little selfish,
and Ted coached the appropriate response.

moments like that.

like why did i hang for so long?

right,
but,
there's strong truth to that too,
when maybe it was just her style
her lust for life that was so hot
so exact, it was love
maybe she just stole all your breath
and never
*******
gave it back.

i don't care if you're married,
i don't care if you're open or closed
older or colder or kinder or both
i don't care if we hug
i don't care who knows
but i'll be ******
if i never see you again,

Disa.

roll your gorgeous bones
my way
all of your nectar taking a chance
on me

waves of porcelain skin
i know
let's get reorganized
inside

let's invite the devil
over
for dinner

The star-crossed incident that broke their brains
Inspired re-enactments
And went largely unnoticed

Take time to laugh at
All these late night philosophers
Float your thoughts
Upon an endless ocean

Take time to notice
When it walks right past you
What's your answer
For an endless ocean?

Tell my God
To arch her back
We will cross
Every gap

Found my answer
For an afternoon
Sadie hates it
When you kiss the moon

If you fell from my sky,
Well I,
I wouldn't be quite sure what to say,
Which way
To twist my ugly face
There's no bite of me
That could taste sweet to you
These days.

Well, what a sad disgrace.

I circumscribed my world
It's true
With little glyphs
And memories of you,
My New
My learn to smile 2
Reminder to be true
A deep and solemn blues

Dearah, I can feel my heart
Latch on to something
When I think of you

You need to tell me when,
I gotta tell you too:
I'll be a lost cause
If you want me to.

You need to push the pin
I need that sweet red juice
I'll be a bad *****
If you want me to.

A bad *****, bad attitude.
Bad *****, bad attitude.

Don't cry to me,
I'm not in the mood
I'll be a lost cause
If you want me to

When these walls are thick
You're in the other room
A lost cause
Cuz you want me to

You need to put me there
Where you can say I'm square
You need to
Feel **** in your underwear
But you need to change
I don't mean to stare
I'll be a
Bad ***** if you want me to

Bad *****, I'm not in the mood

I'll be a bad, bad, girl, daddy.

in your clothes,
life is different
i can leave my body
and pay yours a visit
what i can't see
around your eyes
tears at me,
an Obscurity.

but without Me,
you'd be a void
at very least,
i'd be annoyed...
an envelope,
signed and sealed
empathy
is it a thing
to avoid?

but all the way,
you start to realize
starts to fray
starts to unrealize
false apart
you'll never get there
nerve on a nothing
nothing on--
the nerve!

so would you like to dance with me
sweet adeline, sweet mary sue?
sweet jessica and macy lou?
and emily and rachel too?
penelope and hot winona
soft-skinned grace
and fine fiona?
but never stacy
sorry, love
avert your eyes & kiss the sun

You're a dead duck floating morbidly in April's sunny pond
How anyone'll ever talk to you I'll never know
I'm hardly interested
Don't come to me with those questions
Didn't you hear his last squawk

I watch you shiftily between the reeds,
Waiting for you to do something but you never came

Now you have me feeling like a crazy man,
Out kneeling by this pond and peering between the reeds

It smells here

I think I'm just gonna pack up & head back home

She likes grey and desiccated veins
Lights up to say the most rosy and positive things
But she loves to decay
Dash it to bits

It's the deepest catharsis
To set it all on fire
Let it be underground, some soggy future Tuesday
Unheard but vaguely felt in the crudeness that keeps crumbling on,
And now it's too late
To learn French

Mice like to sleep in a spot in the floor
Under your bed.

There is a little family that lives
Three to four feet
Beneath your head!

Now, they never pestered you once
No, never made a peep
All they ever did was move around when you sleep

Never took a crumb from a cupboard or cabinet
Just slept underground like Miss Mole and the Rabinet

Miss mouse and her babies all cuddled and cozy
While mister mouse works on his mystery project
And just what it is
Well I told you
Don't mind it
You never found mice
In your bedroom
Now did you?

i remember when
you were a hungry hungry caterpillar.

munching on the leaves,
twiddling mandible,
buzzing eyes.

i would walk in the room
and you'd start spinning your cocoon

i know that soon
you'll be a butterfly.

Some girls
Make me hesitate
Some girls
Make me think twice
About the years
Spent obsessing over you

I mean

We only dated for a year
I was nineteen, and you
Were twenty-three
But it was a drop of honey
& My brain chemistry

And besides I love them through you,
You should know you're quite dissolved
Quite precipitated
Kind of like my fall

But what never quite leaves me
Is the burn from how you'd smile
What big skies you held captive in your eyes
With strong, muscular thighs
Little golden hairs
And impervious bones of glass

Every angle you bend the sun is genius
And you give it
A shot of firewhiskey

Detached, perfunctory
Put your mind to it
Whatever my affect is
It is in poor health

How does this occur
What is going on
I am only here
Is death a deletion

Receded and receding
Come out of your shell
Learn a little Spanish
Or you'll start to smell

Lived and not living
Given but not giving
Pull yourself up by your boots
Roots and flutes and glutes and fruits

Oh where did you go,
My love
When you passed right through my fingers?

And did it hurt
When you fell from heaven?

...

My fifteen minutes of fame was cut in half
But I'm lucky it wasn't my brain,
Just hanging on by a silver hair.

I'll fall apart to the way you stained the sunshine,
With little token glimpses into whirling planets
With alien inhabitants

I'll keep it together with the way you fold in artisanry,
Or that eagle you put in my sky,
Or the kegels you do
To keep me satisfied.

And I'll fall apart to the way you say my name--
To the way
To the way we forgot this ever even happened.

---- doesn't exist.

That's the space they fold him into,
Easy with some lubrication though altering his form substantially,
Unnatural and making the grumblings of domestic animals,
Writing Orwell into this before even his mother knew it

---- doesn't exist,
The city of Philadelphia could use a good hero
But it sure is hard to find motivation when it doesn't exist

By the wayside,
Cast out by the hard steel walls of fate
Where I found my brother
The reason why we smiled

So put your strength into it and feel her warm blush--
You'll never know a finer thing than life.

you don't have to face it.

you can just fold fleshy time
into the space where you hurt kandace,
or into cracks in the pavement
hit it with drugs like round-up for god's good garden,
you don't have to face it

tell them your blood's black instead
of red,
do this by telling them your blood's still red--
oh what
did you ever
mean?

there was never a nuclear bomb to hide away
it started with just a rattling on the left axle
but you kept bailing out

you were never mister celebrity jesus
you were Himself,
but
you don't have to face it.

I was thinking about dressing as a nerdy comic scientist,
And going into town and running experiments

To show you I'm still alive,
To show you I'm not just some boring dead guy

I'd bring a measuring tape or a ruler
And see if the grass grew any longer after you stepped on it
See if the river ran any slower when you walked by

And if people asked what it is we were doing
I'd ask them to rate you on a scale from 10 to 10

And I'd just joke around with them like that
Do funny things,
It'd be the weirdest date ever.

I'll never see you again
And I'll never see you again

The distance between us is staggering.

December showed up dead
Her limp body supported by a gaggle of murderers
Between them little sense was made

The peonies were poisoned,
The hydrangeas were hiding,
The tulips were passing *******
And the roses don't even know what hit them

I curled up in the mulch

There was a pretty blonde girl,
Projectile vomiting

I will freeze your ***** and keep it in a ziploc
To feel closer to life
You will go on to make beautiful love mandalas on the very brow of the universe

I've got all this dead fruit
I think it's time for a change

you don't have to **** it
to have a good time

i was born the guy that should really hate you
that should really just feel nothing but ire and apathy
but my phone regurgitates the memory of you
and i'm reminded
that cute little voice i use
is how you spoke to your cat
the one that died in Oregon while I wasted your time

I'm sorry

I'm sorry I wasted your time
my eyes are wet

You are a world full of beauty
There is so much to you
I just want to exalt your name
And the fact that you exist

Keep going, don't hang on to needless negativity
Please power on, in case you're doing anything but
Because you really pack a punch--
You're so full of it!

What is illegal is damaging someone's career the way you did
Sending lies to my place of work
Which resulted in my termination.

It was a good job,
And you took it from me

You got really creative in that letter.

No, this is not harassment.
It is right that I speak out to what you have done,
And this is totally legal,
Hate it or love it.

You silly girl,
You can't win with lies.

You disgust me.

You have slandered my name
Spread so many lies about me
You are so foolish
It doesn't matter how upset you are
You can't just fabricate
Your plan is futile
You have shown yourself to be a desperate, spurned liar.

You have nothing.
You can't damage me anymore.

Give up your crazy little war.
Stop making **** up.

Maybe you won't let go because you don't want to be exposed as a liar
Kick and scream, you redfaced baby

It's really hard to convince people of something that never happened.

kid, you broke the world.

i heard there's latin-speaking catboys harassing musical artists
i heard he's a wizard with one bleached eye
i heard he swallowed a sunflower seed as a boy and now it's growing out his ***--
sounds painful--
anyway i heard you can see it through a window, he lets everyone in.

i heard he's got something for hayley and derek and soupy...

i heard him singing the other day,
and *******
was it different from the first time i heard him sing.

he can SING
i heard a sharp guitar splashing in the mud
but sometimes,
sometimes it rains

(in Texas!)

kid, if you're god
if you're holding back on us
just let a brother know,
right?

but it was a mutual disagreement.

fruition came to those who sought it really,
and even though i never said i'm sorry,
i'm sorry.

and i still say it
cause it's true.

Sparks fly from the wreck behind,
The wind carries them into a deep May dusk
Extinguishing their life

The wildflowers are blowing
And glowing
With the fire and the rain.

This is the direction I will face from my affect
Casually smoke a cigarette and carry on conversation with two nightingales
Til the early morning hours
Unable assuage my burning conscience

There's a nexus of twisting connective tissue

There's a deep connection between that wreck and my brain,
Between the fire and the rain and the sweat on my face.

There is a lot of swearing and a tearing away
There's a storm and a path that leads to my grave.

Pull out all your hair and set yourself on fire *****,
I don't care if you're clawing because you're evil
Or clawing because you're sick

Wish you'd twist around a telephone pole
And shatter with your windshield

You folded lies and launched them,
Used time to spin them up.

///

I saw you using your own blood to write my name in the center of town
Spinning stories to gain attention

You fed blood to your resentment
And now, you're stuck in a lie

You're willing to go there,
You're ****** in the mind.

I've become feral and foam at the mouth

Now I've got a knife because life is a crime

If I **** out my jugular, don't raise a doubt

Kathrine Kalecik could crash

& I'd laugh.

Writing her lies in the center of town.

focus on living
life's too short for every explanation
just go
don't be so afraid
don't just run away

REALIZE what you're DOING
be humble and be bold

NOW--
simmer down your temper
stop whining, you're an adult
sometimes, it's still worth it
but this time, it's too late

see me,
are you surprised
you little blue boy
screaming with black eyes?

well didn't you like the rain!
wasn't it soothing?
when it fell straight into your fancy receptacle,
cooling your blood
as it ran through those luxurious tubes
that surround your body?

well isn't it soft,
when a pretty girl lets you bottom out
in her bed
and on her couch?

well wasn't the rain so lovely,
when November couldn't be everything you wanted,
you had to reschedule that brunch with Bernice--
and you wrote a little poem
about how nice the rain is
in the fall.

well i don't like the rain at all!

it's wet and it's cold
when you can't sleep
and you can't get a job.

and i tried
a lot harder
than you did.

Something's happened to you,
Joseph k.
Something bad
And you can't explain it to anyone
And all of a sudden you're here
Sitting in front of all these judges

My blonde college goddess knows all about that thing
It burns hot around her pupils as she takes another pull at the river
A solid girl
A kayak woman
And she pushes back the earth another hair of a degree

On her morning run.

She doesn't stop for anyone

They won't ever understand.

tightly bound in a symmetrical web of muscle,
her skull is her chariot in this world
she's a solid arrow
pointing in the direction of her faith,
though you claim to have none,
sharp--and brimming with love,
though you claim
to be so empty,

heedless of their jabs and grabs,
the engine is alive in blue coals
held there by one who knows something
deeper there, somewhere inside...

and when the system breaks down
she holds her grace.
so much is vibrant with this woman
pushing past her definition
iron strong
but nothing's normal--
just the way
i like it.

so you see, so it's just ****** up--
and now i can't talk straight,
and now i don't feel i have a fair or even shot at anything
and i really feel cornered out of everything and ostracized by everybody
you know, these kinds of things are hard to recover from,
or recuperate, whatever
so you see though, these people,
they don't care
they can't possibly imagine
the stress they've put me under

you know it really is a shame
the good we lose
constantly
due to negligence like this.

All my life is target
Practice, a bunch of arrows
Make me quiver.

Diana loves her
****** sport. Her visage makes
A good man shiver.

All my life is target
Practice, down by
That muddy river.

And Cupid's off his
******* rocker. Someone, please
Deliver.

Need I say more?

There's no sign
Of the places where you left
Park benches where you slept
No scent
No trail
To find your body

No evidence of hatred where you bled
They used bleach to watch the stains
Your aching heart
Was played
Like a pop song on the airwaves, baby we've got it made

But I'm crumbling
And I think it's my fault
You poured the concrete and I'm following
My center of gravity
My center of gravity
My center of gravity

i can't bring myself to it
it wants to live so bad,
cultivate.

but i can't wrench my mind together
it's howling, rushing in
suffocate.

i just don't seem to care as much
i always seem to **** this up
apathy

i was supposed to be so brilliant
but i'm just venting, babe
it's not gonna happen--
this is killing me.

I can't write a poem
I can't say a thing
Without hearing the off judgments
Of the incensed and myopic

I can't be assumed--
I exceed your burning minds and stomachs,
But the irony is
Now I hear their voices
In my head
All day.

Just Be Cause
That was always your motto!
Well *******, brother
Til I hit the lotto
Spin and spin them
Round and round
On your awful, twitching ride
It clogs my veins and makes me spit
'Flect twitchings in my eye.

I'm the perambulator of body parts
I am scared to be dressed like a cat
I am walking along the Gulf coast
I am dressed like a **** cat
If one piece of hair comes loose
It's really something to laugh at.

I am a walking abstract painting
I am a face and a foot and fussing hands
I am emergent of buzzing molecules
I am emergent of the Philly suburbs
I am not who people say I am
I am more than my mistakes
I am shaped of some dimension
I am more than what I am

I am proving it right now
I am entropy itself
I am filling in my shoes
Now I kick them off my feet

I am everything you dreamed,
Only local to myself
I am bound, but I will die
And I
Will always be myself

I've heard this all before
I can drink it with my thoughts
If I missed a couple things
No need to tell them I forgot,
You forgot
Apricot
I think we all forget a lot.

That I'm the earth and wind and sun
And I am not the only one
One day I will untie the Giant
Microscopic knot

Touch me and you'll know me
Where and when you touch me
Do you feel what's steady
And what's softer, giving way?

Do you feel what's present
And have you daftly learned to trust it?
How will you ever know, my love

What I really was?

So wedding rings have melted,
Or else they're just like roses.
And vouchers of commitment
Need I say another word?

But solid as my bones are here--
A skeletal opinion.
Not that it really matters
But is this a sacred stance?

She laughed and tossed her hair aside
And speaking to an alien
She said, "This man interesting
But never learned to dance."

There are things I wanted to be
An incomplete identity
A current that was dashed and spun,
Now looking for another one!

Watch the river twist and writhe
You'll find me in the rapids
But before you find me there
I must be peaceful, like the Delaware

An instrumentalist for sure
A writer, but a reader first
A learner, oh a student of
The drunk vicissitudes of love
A scientist and avid man
Adventurer with sturdy plans
I want to hold these eyes again
With certainty
With piercing gaze

A donor, for the sake of form
A human body feels so warm

"your bloom will only reach so far"
yeah, that's what the warden'd have you think
you may just find from your guitar
entire universes spring

you'll only speak so many tongues
you'll only be one human song
how small you are indeed, my friend
but there are songs that never end

where surely definition stops--
but wait, that's flowing through your mind
i'm wearing out this lyrical style!
i wonder what else i could find...

but settle down you ******* madman
the passers by, they'll start to stare
oh, settle down you worry wart
and don't you know i never cared

Jayson, Jayson
Jayson knows
Oh Jayson he knows what I mean
He'll beat his drum all the way 'Om
something here should rhyme with 'mean'

But Matt, you really should consider
Crystallizing something, bitter
Tastes the moment when you ramble
Ramble, ramble
Ramble, ramble.

i can't carry on with
these empty, dying eyes
i'll find a little fire
to rejuvenate awhile
i can't hold a candle
without it blowing out and dyin'
and i can't hold a candle
to the way that you been tryin'...

i'm another person
with more needs and less too offer
i can't carry on with
these empty, dying eyes
i might lose my mind
to the demon of frustration
but when i lay a demon flat,
i call it demonstration

know that youth is fleeting
see the patterns all repeating
catch yourself with grace
before the grace you have left dies
i can't carry on with
these empty dying, eyes
i've got to hold them carefully
at least i've got to try

i care about your shot dude,
and all that goes along
i care about your singing
and i care about your song
i was blessed
with real sensitive skin
i try not
to cry about it
but when she puts me up on top
i can try to help you out

she loves a man with cactus skin
inside her heart, the world begins
it's curled up there
kept safe and warm
and in her eye
a twirling storm

performing for an audience
he shrinks to see his inner self
and up on someone's pedestal
retracts his spines for smoother skin

an evil eye reflects the light
of hotel room, some other night
where everything collides just right
but not here,
where this bead
meets a page

I can take you down
When I speak of death...
But honey, this'll never be anything less
Nothing less

Yes, yes yes.
I do confess
To seducing God
In a tight black dress...

The spoils are mine.
Now,
We're perfectly entwined.

What you lose to heat death
Is all you'll gain in this cold life:
She takes you
And makes you
Abstract
Until you're gleaming with a ***** jacket
Sordid skin
Sleeping in this public park until you make it to the west coast
The weather is better there
Maybe you'll find work
In a pizza shop or something

I'll find you. I'm clawing through a labyrinth of flesh
I'll find the main artery and rip out the beating heart
Drink and drink and drink like a dying dog someone left in the desert

Will I find you...?

It's only right the previous owner will have to wander the same distance through the afterlife
To find the waters of retribution

I wonder what will make me sing again
Lift up my skeleton and make it ring again

Sometimes I see you holding up a sign
With black smudges in a language and a world I won't recognize, and I

I wonder what will make you sing again
Or maybe you were singing and I didn't hear you
Or maybe you were just on your way to headline your first show

Or maybe you just got drunk too much, I don't know

Then I look back to myself and float down the Automobile River
I'm looking at the highway but really I'm looking in myself
And it's empty.

Empty and scarred from the clawing

But what am I looking for? That's why it's empty.

I put my hand to the fleshy wall in this dark, wet, uncomfortable place
It is full of blood, and scars, and right now (beat)
It is more (beat-beat)
Than the sum of its parts (beat)