A drawing of a superhero
Done by a fourth grader
Who’s father died in a fire.
He’s standing ten feet tall
With the wind blowing in his hair,
He’s got so many friends
And feels no despair.
All the happy people
They say they love him
And there’s nothing he can do
But just keep going.
But teacher asks a question
And he doesn’t know,
So all the children laugh
At the broken Superhero

There’s a dog on the bench

By the car on the sidewalk 

She won’t move — 

She wants to stay dry 

And stay on the sidewalk.

I am paved in gold & the

Parts that make up a radiator 

A rigid source of heat 

In the cabin.

Like a ligament at the crook

Of your, her, leg — I am bathed 

In the light of the fireplace 

Waning from the moon. 

I am afraid of the moon 

It may render me a wolf caught

In a bear trap;

I howl.

I howl like the dog perched

Upon the bench by the car

Crashed upon the sidewalk. 

She nor I will move for fear

Of straining the safety of dry fur.

My Father's mother wrote me a check
And though she has a checkbook
with her name on it
From four years ago,
She sent me the decadent sum
of twenty-five dollars
On a slip of paper with a name
that was of her husband,
My Father's Father,
And still is.

When I look at this check pinned to my wall
I am reminded of the man,
The eighteen-wheeling man,
And how a few years ago I was afraid
and unamused
So I did not peek into his open casket.

It was a year since I had seen him,
And 'goodbye' escaped my lips (which were sealed
incredibly) until he was lowered.

I hope he went to heaven; if he did not
I am sure I will say 'hello'
After I cash this check,
But not yet.

You put a little glass box on the table
Said here's mine now show me yours
So I took out a piece of paper
And drew something like a shoestring
Now this is all I've got you see
I don't have very much at all
But this is down way deep inside me
So deep you would die from the fall

Midnight has passed and the fan won't stop spinning
My brother is asleep already after a long night of stories and drinking
Cheap beer without glasses, cans and hands locked in each other's grasps
A rattle from a car passes the bench we sit upon with a homeless man
Black and temporarily homeless. A
Year out of prison with experience in law writing documents and saving lives and smoking grass in the seventies
We went to the same beaches growing up as chance would have it, but with thirty years between the ventures.
Midnight has passed and the fan won't stop spinning
My brother is asleep and I can hear his snores in the room and I can hear the tv through the wall
A show about cops and robbers plays like we did when we were kids
Locked underneath my porch in the dark we kissed
Or at least I thought about kissing you and
That's half the same

Johnny remembers the barn
He kissed his first cow in
It burned down two years ago

Johnny holds his head low
Pointing towards the floor
Pointing towards the door

He drinks homemade grape juice
And thinks about how odd
It is that we crush small things

And drink their blood

Johnny does not want to be crushed
He does not like the sinking feeling
He gets when he thinks about

The grey silo that still stands
By the dark patch of grass
That won't grow back again

He wishes the clock would stop
Talking at such a steady volume
Johnny has trouble sleeping

Ever since the barn burned down

Watch this
You mumbled deep in slumber
Took your hand
Unzipped the skin just beneath
Your occupying ribs,
Slipped four fingers behind the walls
Of your cage (what does it hold
Does it protect or alienify?)
And wiggled them between the bars
Look at what I can do
I almost have it all figured out
If you tried
So would you

The child fell in mid-July
When he held three rings
Rippling out from his bones.
His knew smiled a toothless
grin that dropped guts & goo
While the child screamed
Hoping that mother would set
Down her dishes and break
In half her paint brush. He hoped
That mother would stitch him back
Together. A scarecrow wears a costume
Of a strong superhero three months
Later with the help of rubber bands
And metal barbs.
The child fell in mid-July &
Left a scar but not a bruise.

The oar reflects and 

Casts a shadow on the thick red

Swelling lake, 

Thick with time gone and

Nights past. 

Thick with my hands 

Loose and deft; stained now 

With a momentary solution

To a mountain of problems.
Mountains are formed when

Two great stones collide 

And push in against each other

Reaching up and up and 

Up until the clouds are daggered 

And snow falls asleep towards the peak.
My hand makes waves and

In it’s rippling wake 
I feel myself die

I feel myself wince

I feel my bed beneath my feet

Rich with sulfur and stone 

Straightening out my back

It’s good for my back because

I’m always aching from the weight

Of two stones slowly colliding

In my thick stupid skull 

Always full of rippling red lakes.

I am composed of so many
Different Shapes
That while I am touching
Myself in the dark
I do not recognize
Who is in the room

Well, not we
But you alone delayed
Those blurry red lines
That poured from
An officers light.

He pulled you from the grave
In the way
You pulled those stones
From the ground,
Pillbugs and all,
To call them boys
And count their fingertips.

Each had ten
While you had twelve
After the crash.
The car wrapped around the sharpest
Pole you could reach
(The car wrapped around,
Twisted like a cobra,
With poisonous barbs ready at will)
and spit you out towards the top.

You slowly slid down
Peg by peg, full with splinters,
Then the officer came
And let down his hair
To weave into yours.

After we went camping
The forest swallowed you whole
And the belly of the world
Was swollen with guilt.

After we went exploring
You swallowed your tongue
And your belly was swollen
With rage and your
******* with milk and metal.

It was the wild
(About which you had forgotten)
Which drove you to madness
And
It was the madness
That drove you to
Crash the car
Once before

And though I hope otherwise
We fear it will drive you
To crash again.

Well, not we
But I still fear for you.

Dear Rabbits & Rabies & Silence & Bones so hollow they can break upon landing & Sleep & Teeth & Being radiation free & Radiation for being clean energy & Dieting & Headphones & Lightning & The Sky & Thirty-Thousand US Dollars, really it’s closer to Twenty-Eight but let’s round up to be Safe & Playing with Blocks as a kid & Starting my car with a screwdriver & Learning from failure & Failing quizzes but passing classes & Teachers who need to chill the **** out (because they’re excited and I don’t get excited so it scares me when people get excited) & my mother and father and brother and unborn sister (she might have been named after Bob Marley like I almost was) & Clever titles & Bad titles for making clever titles seem more clever & Robots for making life easier & Robots for taking over the future & Passing cars & ****** bars & Oil Tycoons ******* straws from MotherEarth, bleeding her dry just in time for winter

You’re all okay—
I have a lot of feelings
That I don’t like feeling all that often
And you’re vital, pivotal to the waking world
But you’re also ruining my life; I’m no good at math
But I’m trying anyways and slowly learning that
Good & Evil are pretty much the same side of the
Same battle if you’re standing far enough away but I
Am not quite that far away yet.
The world is a clock and without every gear in locking place
Time would stop altogether—a redundant thought,
Yet still relevant upon revisiting.

If I am a cloud then you are a storm, a billowing hurricane
With sugar for blood and wire-tapped veins, broken
Like I ought to be except I am afraid
To truly really break like the love of my life
Did when she was seventeen or eighteen—I don’t
Quite remember when it all started but how it pains me
Every day that you (not you, reader, but an old friend)
Did this and do this to yourself still.
No matter where I go and no matter how much
Powder you buy just to look at (it’s comforting—
I want to believe you) You will always be
At the front of my mind & for that,
I owe you.

In a dream
My brothers old lover couldn't
Recognize me
Though we laughed
Though we chattered
Though we spilled like glass
Six or so years ago

She laughed and called me names
As if my brain had boils
Ugly, afraid of mirrors
And lights

Opened my eyes and felt a longing
For the company of a near stranger
Faultless and unimportant

Familiar hands tease my throat
With japes and whistles
Like when we returned
The albatross
To it's nest and her children
Hatched violently
Forests in their eyes.
They are my hands and
The clock is heavy with guilt.
Long since he and I acquainted
He knows when I falter, when I ache.
The clock chimes out many times
Each and apology for raising
His hands and so he raised mine too
We match yet
He is guilty, the clock
And I am empty, the envelope
Sealed right with a kiss
A long hairy lick from a muscle
Wet with power and rage.
They are my hands but still
The clock feels guilty.

I wish I grew up with this face
That my beard were my hometown
Where all those awful memories grow and grow and grow
Long enough to hide the scars they made
Where all those first kiss memories
Show and show and show
When I remember just how sweet
Life can be

Do I make you miss your dad ?
He lives so far from home
It’s been a while since you’ve seen him
Does he still keep you warm?

Do you want me to grow out my beard?
It would turn my face small
But I know you like it when I’m furry
But do you like it when I call?

Do you want me to stay tonight?
Are things going the way you thought?
I try and give you all your space
But is that what you need for what you’ve got?

Silver tongues like the wind on your cheek
For all you’ll listen, twice they’ll speak

It used to be that
We couldn’t go a day
Without talking.
Now I’m joining the army
So that I can die
With a rifle in my hand
For something I don’t understand.

You chose a wise hour to try and die
We all were asleep
We wouldn't know about the thing
You did until long after you did it
After the hard stuff was done
After you cried into a glass and
Drank it in one gulp

But you stayed awake all night
Trying to find your own persistence
Instead you found morning light
And I found you with your hands
Inside the box of cereal
Crispy sounds wove around your fingers dancing like spiders legs

Your web is strung tighter than you think and it's time you get some sleep

I had a lover once
Her eyes were wide and
Winter was chilled
Cold and draining
My hair grew dark coarse and flat
Like cardboard in a storm
Of cats and dogs and needlepoint
Pillows quilted with inspiring phrases

I had a lover once
But I spoke too soon so she changed that
With a swift hand and deft arms
Powerful legs made of iron and
Brimstone, holding me down breathless but alive, aspiring

I had a lover once
Who failed me by the heat of dawn
With liquor kisses and broken bones
Her outfits swore she never
Would wear a tomb stone
To match her boots and dresses
******* dangling like matchsticks
Bent from their case
A strong hand could start a fire

I had a lover once
I tried to give her the world
On a platter with a fork and bib
I tried to give her my life and skin
My bones and teeth and things
Made from vitamins and exercise
My soul and headphones and heartbreaks and toothaches
My t-shirt with a torn tag that read too many different sizes for me to wear and
My skeleton made of sulfur and
Eventually
Lies

I had a lover once
Who wanted me but wanted more
Who wanted more but wanted me
Who snapped and said
Leave

I had a lover once
Who is teaching me
That it'll all be okay soon
Just not right now