On behalf all of us who make bad decisions,
and worse excuses for them
I’d like to say that I’m sorry

I heard about how hard you worked on that science fair project
and how the teacher didn’t believe you
Because a week ago, someone like me used the same excuse
to get out of turning an assignment in on time.

And I’d like to say I’m sorry, for all the exams you studied for days to get a C on
and all the ones we aced without trying.
I promise, it wasn’t our fault, we’re just lucky guessers
I guess we could be little Irish
Like four leaf clovers are running though our bloodstreams.

On behalf of all of us who cried wolf,
because we fell asleep
and lost track of a few sheep.
I’d like to say that I’m sorry
that the boss didn’t accept the puncture wounds as proof
because we went too far one too many times for anyone to be trusted anymore.

For always taking the easy way out.
For every little white lie we told, that snowballed into an avalanche
and took you with it as it raced downhill.

On behalf of all of us whose dog did not, in fact, eat our homework
to you, the kid with a genuine excuse.
I would have liked to say I’m sorry.
I even had this whole apology written out
-It was cool, and rather poetic, if you ask me-

But there was this freak accident this morning
involving traveling circus, a ******* and a ham sandwich
-Trust me, you don’t want to know the details-

Okay, you got me
I guess some old habits die hard.

A moderately sized planet,
afloat in a distant spiral galaxy
orbiting an unremarkable star,
has taken the Tardigrazian nations by storm.
For thousands of their star cycles,
they have been capturing the imaginations
of countless people watching from their pods
both Planetside and Satellite alike,
brought together by the light
of the Blue Bead –

The little exoplanet and that defied all reason
and persisted at all cost,
despite itself,
possibly to spite itself.
Millions of lightyears away from our humble empire.

This tiny little dot
and the two-legged folk walking upon it
became something of a cultural phenomenon.
We have become the cheerleaders
for a people likely long passed.
We used to believe they might outlive their star
Go on to visit other planets -
meet their neighbors, like we did.

But recent transmissions from our probes
spell a tragic end on the horizon
for our distant friends,
whom we’ve seen climb down from trees,
invent tools, and writing, and cities, and more
but they never stopped at a reasonable spot.

No amount self-inflicted suffering
they brought in the name
of that momentum would stop them.
Progress, and the comfort that comes with it,
being not unlike an intoxicant for these people.
Addicts will always justify the means.

Their world has rapidly grown warmer
in the time we’ve been observing them.
Soon it will be outside the narrow window
in which they can reasonably survive.

We watched, screaming at our screens,
"The fuel - it’s the fuel causing the rise!!"
They’d gone this long, burning the dead
and expected no consequence.
It's not their fault they’re so short-sighted
It's how they evolved.
A mere hundred years or so,
that’s the lifetime of these feeble creatures
Hardly enough to gain wisdom,
let alone pass it down.

Nevertheless, they lived, they loved,
and they thrived.
Surpassing even the most generous
of our expectations.
Against all odds, they learned, and they grew.
Eventually, we did see the brightest of them
realize their jeopardy and speak the truth.
Just in time, they would unite as they did
so many times before
…or so we thought.

Instead, they fought more.
Even on the edge of extinction,
they dig their trenches,
and they pick their sides.
The great imaginations
that helped them build the world
now affixing them in rigid fictions
of their own making
Unable to see beyond
these preconceived limitations.

It feels, now more than ever,
as though we’re seeing the
final seasons of the Blue Bead.
The fall of a beloved people.
Who will never know
the billions of lives they’ve touched
in the brief time we’ve gotten
to share with them.

But then, they have surprised us
countless times before.
Perhaps they will again.

I found the wood knife today
it was shoved in the box
squeezed between the wall and a stack of half-used notebooks.

I grabbed it by its rope-
still strung through the hole in the center of the blade -
played with the wood disks and tiny beads that dangle from both sides.

I held it up by the hilt,
the metal ring clinked against the wood disks - imprisoned.

Grandma made these puzzles out of found objects all the time -
Contrpations that were usually a clever a mess of metal and wood.
All based on designs created before electricity was a thing.
The knife was the sole survivor from a box of flood damaged puzzles
    
Smiling to myself, I held the knife behind my back, in my right hand.

"Sometimes, I wish you never even had kids"
I still recall her words to my mother
as I tip the knife and slip the ring down to the base of the blade
"Write?! Josh that's a hobby! You're twenty, what are you going to do for a living?"

I push one disk through the hole with my thumb
"What if you get this girl your with pregnant? Then what?"
I bring the metal ring up and over the tip of the blade by tilting it downwards.

"If your father had done a better job raising you, we wouldn't be having this talk"
with a flick of my wrist, I fling the metal ring
though the hole and off of the knife.

It's been four years.
I still remember how it goes.
Muscle memory, I guess.
Engrained in my mind from years of practice.

Sometimes I think of her,
and I wonder if I miss her
or if that's just muscle memory too.

Wake up earlier

Spend less time online
Spend more time outside
Every day, do something that scares you

Take more deep breaths
Realize you can't control certain things
Dance naked to 90s music when no one else is home

Meet new people
Meet old people – they have better stories
Listen to more people's stories
Learn to see things from different angles
Learn to look for Better Angels

Walk more
Drink more water
Drink less caffeine
Don't leave the coffeepot on when you leave the house
Be more aware of your bad habits
Be more patient with others' bad habits

Seek something every day
- even if you don't find what you're looking for,
at least you won't have wasted the day

Don't start smoking – despite what you may have heard
about what it does for stress
Worry less -
about what you can change
Change what you can
Stop writing cliches

Stop blaming your inaction on your home town
or your parents
or your emotional instability
Take responsibility for your inaction

Read more often –
you have books you haven't touched, ever
Write by the water –
the white noise of river helps you think

Return more favors –
people have been kind to you
Be kind to more people

Don't small talk –
small talk is for small minds
Don't ruin a good conversation by talking too much
Make something every day
(art, love, decisions, etc)

Go to bed earlier

Found on the beach this morning
by New Floridian tribesman
were sea-softened pieces
of the torch
the stone lady held
ages ago
before we found out
that freedom was just as imaginary
as any other silly idea we've ever had.

They propped them up
against what was left of the old Mouse-Man monument
their edges touching in a way
so that they may together provide shade
to any passing child of the wasteland.

Thumbs
anxiously poised
slightly above the qwerty
like little frustrated court stenographers
with other places they’d rather be.

Head
full with more memory than words
worlds away
dancing naturally
in the synchronized but broken
rhythm they used to call love
in a time before they took away its name
and comforting rules.

With broken glasses,
thumbs stumble
frameless
into awkward silence.

Nerves
trembling,
close the phone.

To poetry
guarding chickens
and chronicling crisis in Cleveland

To poetry
fighting back sleep
in a factory of miscarried dreams

To poetry
fighting for justice
with hashtags and cameraphones

To poetry in caves
gathering people like fire

To poetry in Halls
gathering children like home

To poetry
that is loud and activating,

To poetry
that is quiet and contemplative,

To poetry
that is honest and brutal

To poetry
that is tongue in cheek

To poetry,
in all shapes, colors, sizes
forms and meters

To poetry,
and to all of us
who are full of it

Once a **** is given, one can not get it back.

I heard somewhere recently
that people are the most creative
at the times they think
that they are utterly useless:
like in the morning before getting coffee
or while surrounded by ******* co-workers who won't shut up about their stupid gun collection
       (cause seriously, no one cares about how big your **** isn't, Phil.)

The amount of ***** anyone can give in a day varies based of many factors - the amount of sleep someone has the night before or if they ate breakfast that morning, for example, can determine how many ***** a person has to spare.

It is in that spirit - despite my better judgement -
I am writing to you at four AM.
Sitting in my underwear,
Forcing my eyes to stay open, licking my dust-dry lips.
and realizing that I forgot to brush my teeth -
I'm writing that tid-bit that down
in hopes it will embarrass me into making a proper oral hygiene choice
sometime in between when I finish writing this and before I pass out from exhaustion.

If someone deems a person or a situation not worth their emotional effort, they can choose to not give a ****, despite having ***** they can give.

Today at work:
Everyone kept asking me if I was alright
I told them that I think so -
because, that's the truth.
But also because it's easier to say than
"I don't want to be here, and your face annoys me"

A **** is approximately two damns. A **** is two *****, and a **** is two rat's *****.

I don't have much to say in this piece
So I'm hoping that self-deprecation
and artsy-fartsy stream of consciousness
still passes for decent poetry these days.

Taking a **** is morally objectionable.

Church bells.
That's my first memory.
Waking up to the sound of church bells
with a rawness in my throat
and stiffness in my cheeks
that could only come
from crying myself to sleep the night before

The sun is leaking through the window binds,
painting the entire room this muted sepia
corraling much of the sunlight into a few distilled beams
that spotlight dust and dead skin
waltzing in the air

I haven't the faintest clue about what
or why I'd been crying -
just laying there
overwhelmed with great relief
like a mausoleum was lifted from my chest
and I was taking my first breath in months

I want to say it was a Sunday
I always want to say it with conviction
but that might just be the church bells
which I've heard
ring every day

Every night I brush my teeth,
I lift up the blankets that hang over the side of my bed
and hesitantly peek underneath.
I sigh with relief.
No monsters tonight. I tell myself.
My finger lingers on the switch that turns the night light on.
Part of me knows I’m being irrational.
There is no good reason for a grown *** man to be afraid of the dark.
I tell myself, in my father’s voice.
But there’s a part of me, much deeper, underneath the fear even,
that enjoys playing this game.
It makes me feel young again.
It reminds me of a time before dorms, term papers,
bosses, deadlines, and death - looming eerily in the distance
Getting closer every year that I look over my shoulder,
before we learned that life wasn’t meant to be enjoyed,
only suffered and survived.
A time before the march toward Oblivion, in funny looking suits,
with high hopes that we can trick someone into thinking that we belong here
In this grotesque parade of strangers in masks.

I hide under my covers with a flashlight and old comic books.
Holding back laughter, with imaginary fear of waking the ghosts of my parents
who I  often thought of sleeping in the other room,
just like they did before they died,
One of old age, the other in a mid-life crisis motorcycle accident,
Leaving me the empty house with her romance novels
and his extensive **** collection.
I remind myself that I have work in the morning
which quickly drags me down from my euphoric nostalgia.

I put Spiderman back in his plastic case
and stick him in the dresser drawer
full of all my guilty pleasures and memories of  yesterday.
I then remove my mask and crawl under the bed,
where no one thinks to look for us anymore,
and drift into fantasies full of all those familiar faces
of my Neverland.

Meet me, once again, at the breakwall
where we will spend time sitting
reminiscing about times we spent wishing
on a sinking star for more time to spend.

Let’s go fishing for our selves
in snapshots of past lives
and see if we can find,
in this murky water of nostalgia,
some kind of definition.

We will quest forth, finding more questions
than answers, and accepting them
with a peaceful resignation
we could never have in our raging youth.

I’d talk about how
we used to debate
with our words
carved into primitive weapons
for savage discussion -

To win arguments with each other
doing battle for days
not realizing that language
was not evolved for the purpose of combat
but rather, the opposite.

We’d watch the waves wash ashore
all the places and people we’d been
all the bits and pieces of past tragedies
will lay before us
like a thousand-year-old shipwreck.

We will laugh together
the way you do,
when you see the heavy black clouds
storming off toward a distant somewhere
and they seem smaller somehow
less frightening.

You’d say something about how
we were the most obsessed with our mortality
when we were furthest from ever facing it.

And we’ll sit there for a while
just thinking about that.

She squishes the pill bug
with the tip of her shoe
giving it a nice twist at the end
to be sure the deed was done.

She stares for a long while
at what must have looked like a Rorschach test
speckled with bits of recognizable body parts -
legs and guts as such-
as if searching for the bigger picture
it must have been hiding.

She jumps back into her self
when she recognizes the voice of a little boy
calling from the swing set nearby.

She looks exhausted
like she's spent all day carrying the world
and this is a rare moment
when the universe allows her to sit down.

She reluctantly rises from her semi-comfortable bench.
and shuffles toward the impatient child
who is now screaming wordlessly for her.

She's been dealing with this behavior for a long time
you can tell because the pterodactyl screeches he's emitting
that send the nearby blind man's dog into fits
don't phase her at all.

She grabs the metal ropes of the swing,
pulling him back to the highest point of the pendulum,
and lets go.

The little siren boy falls immediately silent
his eyes slowly shut
His face melts into what can only be described
as the untarnished bliss we all misplaced,
or packed away somewhere in the attic
with all those old picturebooks,
long ago.

He's flying.
For the first time all day,
she doesn't have to fake a smile.

Across the court yard
The amorous twentysomethings
Open their window for the first time

They let the sun shine in -
They do not believe in curtains -
They let the sunshine in

He is Adonis
She is Mona Lisa
I hate them so much

It’s five in the morning
Our child screams us awake
Meanwhile, they sleep until noon

Passing by the window
I glimpse at the lovers entwined
“Not tonight” you yawn

Our friends are laughing
About what, we cannot tell
All we see is their love

He brings her breakfast in bed
Maybe it’s a birthday present? I suggest
Or he ******* up, bigtime - you reply cynically

They’ve become background noise
Only witnessed in passing
Or referenced in our idle conversation

A few weeks have passed
Their room is empty and still
We almost forget they were ever there

She sits on her bed and stares at nothing
She has not moved for hours –
A lonely still life

Adonis is waning
His eyes are sinking, and he’s losing hair
He’s become a walking skeleton

He does not move much these days
All of the time, she waits by his side
For whatever comes next

I keep telling you
That he will soon recover
I have to believe this

He's sitting up today
Telling jokes and laughing,
She's cracking that famous smile

The room is now full
With what must be family and friends
Saying their goodbyes

She is being cradled
by, I think, her mother – or aunt
We weep along

The guests are now long gone
The silence settles like dust
She holds his hand while he fades

Soon, it will be just her (and us)
Left in this quiet room
Alone

The bumper sticker
On the red jeep in front of me
Orders all who see it
to "Be happy"

Challenge accepted, stranger,
Challenge accepted.

Two hours till Kentucky-
The world is on fast-forward around us
The side of my forehead is flat
against the passenger side window
Trees crowd behind guardrail for miles - 
protesting highway pollution.

Two hours till Kentucky -
On the eighth round about this CD.
about around the fifth listen, songs began to blend into one another, morphing into ambient noise
that filled the empty moments between conversation
and the struggle against waves of tempting sleep.

Two hours till Kentucky-
I pause the song to explain
the biographical significance
of a particular lyric.
You're too focused on
the nerve-wracking traffic to indulge me.

Two hours till Kenricky-
My seat reclined, I am watching the clouds
creeping briskly across the sky
through the panorama of the windshield -
a silent movie.

Two hours till Kentucky -
an eternity of moments
gone as soon as they happen.
Evaporating into the air

We'll be there
in no time.

He pairs kinds of rain with kinds of jazz
like some folks do with wine and cheese.

He says a thunderstorm goes best with bebop
Especially if you can time the record just right
for the drums to explode just as the sky does

He says free jazz is for those unpredictable days,
where the rain keeps coming,
but will ebb and flow at it's own pace

He says a light Sunday drizzle is the perfect time
to pull out Miles Davis' Birth of the Cool,
and sip slowly on the moment

I think he may be a synesthete.

Drifting
somewhere between sleeping
and waking life

Dipping
in and out of the fuzzy lake
of my subconcious mind

Straining
to keep myself on the surface -
losing grip, (here i go again)

Waves a blue and white
painted like the sky in that Van Gogh
Starry Night.

Paintied in thick blue tears
and yellow splocthes of infinity.

Snoring
snaps me back
to barely awake.

Tripping
up the stairs
I make my way to my bed,
Wrap my arms about my Love
and let myself fall into
Van Gogh's heavy tears

Somewhere out there, there is someone
who had a Creative Writing class in college
with E.L. James.

He remembers her
as that annoying sheltered Mormon girl in class
always telling people about how great a writer she was
and reciting her bad poetry
to anyone who pretended to listen.

He remembers fondly
the time she sobbed to her friends
because of the D she got on her final project
and the time the professor told her:
"Sometimes passion just isn't enough.
You've got to have talent too."

He knew that if he never made it as a writer
at least he could take solace in the fact that
wasn't as bad as that Erika chick.

After college, he cried weekly
over his mountain of rejected manuscripts
and eventually abandoned the pursuit of his art altogether
in favor of work that pays the bills.

Years later,
he comes home from work
at his 9-12 factory job
he finally, reluctantly, gives in to his wife's demands
to take up ******* in the bedroom -

- and Mid-****** she calls him Christian Grey

So, what I'm saying is this:
Somewhere out there, there is someone
who killed their loving wife in sudden rage -
because of poorly written Twilight fanfiction.

She lied to the nice man
told him
I'm fine
and kept walking
he was swallowed seconds later by her insecurities
never to be seen again.

My love,
today they found you in the alley,
an abandoned porcelain doll.
Your cheeks flushed and lips stained from the cold -
left shoeless in the snow.
Fist wrapped around your empty matchbook -
burnt out - used up - dead.

Those tight jeans and rag of a shirt
looked uncomfortable
even in repose.
At first nobody noticed.
Much to do, this New Year’s Day:
resolutions to be broken.  
No time to stop and smell the corpses.

They get younger every year
One cop coughed to the other
a cough of disgust.

They made you a nameless number.
A statistic doesn’t feel the burn of frostbite.
It lends itself to jokes -
and forgets humanity.

In death you are
The Jefferson Avenue Whoresicle
and sooner or later, forgotten altogether.

I can’t forget you,
on display –
hiding in that most undignified uniform.
Your eyes stabbing straight though me.
New Years Eve,
you tried to sell me a warmth.
I ignored you,
avoided your dagger eyes like the sun


I walked away,
Not after I saw how lonely
how frightened
how cold you were standing there
alone.
I can only image your visions
as you burned through those matches
and prayed for some John to come to your rescue.

You can finally rest
in a bed of your choosing.
No judgment passed.
No cold nights on the street.
No home to fear going back to.
It’s all over now.

"Humpty Dumpty was a metaphor, I think."
"What?"
"For the human psyche."
This man's skin was inhumanly pale and dusty.
He looked sick -
like he was carrying something heavy no one else could see.
"Think about it. An egg, beautiful in it's frailty."
"Teetering on a wall, ever in danger of the fall that will break him."
His eyes were lost in the thought. Cloudy.
Everything about this man made my bones want to run away

"and all the king's horses..."
He whispered. A calmness that stabbed like an icepick.
"and all the king's horses..."

I was immortal once,
believe me, you, I was
invincible.
And back when I was immortal
I used and play hopscotch on the clouds
high above New York City Traffic
and laugh every time I caught myself
on the edge.

I used to play hide and seek
with the truth

I'd hide in the bedroom closet
of this muse
and be there when
she’d come home after a long day's inspiration.
I’d watch her undress
searching her naked self in the mirror
like something was missing
but she never did find it.
I think she knew I was there
yeah, she knew.

I used to race with shooting stars
I won once
but I cheated
so it doesn’t count.

I used to dance with The Moon all night
she moved my waters
and I took her virginity.
Ours was a love of necessity.

I kissed The Sun.
She blushed
and The Moon got jealous.

Then I met God,
the most beautiful of all my conquests.
I knew no one else would quite match up to her.
She and I made man together.
It was parenthood that tore us apart.

Yeah, I was immortal once
but now,  
now I’m just waiting to die
like everybody else.

there is a sunken silhouetted imprint
where you used to sleep
you’d spent so much time there in those last days
I don’t think it will ever forget you
things are not going to spring back
to the way they were before
no matter how much we want them to
try as we might not to
when we go
we leave behind residue
your room still smells like you
your fingerprints are still resting on your keyboard
your reading glasses, unfolded, lay on the night stand
beside your bed
next to your half-finished crossword puzzle book
and a pen
everything is just how you left it
but different
heavier maybe
plastic
like an elaborate stage full of props
like there’s no way this is real
but it is
and we can’t stand to look
at the world you left behind
at all of the residue
forced to contemplate the reality
that you are no longer in

I am a mosquito on your holy-massive windshield.
You knock the air from my lungs and surround me in enough of it to crush my body.
It's all bigger than me,
all bigger than my eyes can see,
or my hands can hold.
All bigger than John mayor's body gives him credit for.

I explode my **** mixing with the blood of millions from which i drank, and you see it like a rorschach test and the results are in, you're the holy mary ******* what killed by brother, and all my brothers, and our souls are in your brain screaming ****** and pain

All bigger than all I know the universe to be, you are lightyears ahead of my understanding,
but nonetheless I strive to get passed your windshield.
I see what you have inside there and I want it.
I want to be with you there. Crushing the souls of bugs like me.
Wiping them from the glass, and not thinking twice.
But since I can't, I'll make sure to bleed for you,
so much that I leave a good smear that will take your wiper blades at least four swipes to get me off.
I'll make sure you remember me.

is that Vera Hall on your stereo, singing out from beyond the grave, singing Death Have Mercy? Vera Hall from beyond the grave hatin' on John Mayer. Vera Hall the old sooth sayer. Vera Hall with one last prayer,
Oh Death, have mercy.
Vera Hall, in a dream but lucid.
Oh Death, you're out of wiper fluid.

He has crows feet, and gray hair.
He's got a scar just under his cheek, and arthritis.
All of it looks earned.

There's a slight breeze,
you can tell because charmed snake of smoke
belly dancing off his cigarette drifts a little to the left.
He takes a drag with this intensity
like he's in a movie
and he's about to say something cathartic
to our young protagonist about the meaning of life.

But he doesn't say anything.
He just flicks the ashes to the ground
and keeps staring across the steaming asphalt of the empty street
at the now vacant lot
like something's supposed to be there
and he can't for the life of him remember what.

Sort through it all
a box for the good
a bin for the bad.

Set the boxes in order
in a safe space
on a high shelf
in the back room,
in a spot you will remember
for when you need to remember.

Make your space Shine
sweep the dirt away
replace what is broken
scrub the years off of what isn’t

Standardize this practice:
Every day find a way
to sort, set, and shine.
This is how you Sustain yourself.

When the sun sneaks above the horizon
he is awake to see it
but that's the only thing in his life
that one can envy

He never dreamed of being this
although
he never dreamed of being a factory worker either
but that's what he was before

His truck stalls
he hopes it doesn't work on the second try
but it does

He drives on out into the field
the fact that the smell of rotted flesh
doesn't bother him anymore
bothers him

He spots one
a blonde girl
she might have been beautiful
at one point
but now its hair and teeth had mostly fallen out
and its skin is was covered in sores and scrapes

Its emaciated body reminds him
of those TV commercials
that used to air
about starving kids in Ethiopia
she could have won Miss America with that body
he thinks
what a shame
the corpse gives one last kick of life
as if to say
*******, dude

No matter how many times he'd seen it before
it still kind of freaks him out

He shoots it in the head
just to be sure

Then he and his partner lift the body
and heave it into the truck bed

Blood leaking from the bullet hole
gets on his jeans
**** it
he thinks
That'll take forever to get out

Later, when he lights the match
he always thinks that he should say a prayer
or something
but he never does

After work he visits the bar
spending the rest of his night
trying to forget
what he does for a living

The doctors told me I should abort.
But my mom convinced me this was for the best  

I told them I wanted a closed adoption.
They said that I'd never see you again.
I was okay with that.
It made things easier.

You have to know,
I never wanted any of this,
I never thought I'd be one to abandon my only child
That's monstrous.
Please believe me,
I am not a monster.

But he was.

Your eyes are the same.
Dark and hard...
but sort of empty too.

Your smile
is soft and gentle - like his.
A practiced liar's smile.

Your hands,
they look just like the ones he wrapped around my mouth and neck,
long and thin, but surprisingly strong.

Your voice -
Identical to the one that whispered
"no one will believe you"
into my ear that night.

You even kind of smell like him.

I don't know what you expected to get out of this:
Money?
An apology?
Closure?
Love?
I can't give you any of those things.

I will tell you this:
I could have spared you this moment,
And not doing so, is my biggest regret.

She's sitting in a nearby booth
telling her friends a story.
She says

"It was mid-day.
Like, noon.
Like, the sun was, like,
directly above us"

I was on my way out,
so I did not catch the rest
but I secretly imagine it sounded like this:

"We were, like. almost exactly half way through,
like this twenty-four-hour period.
It was the opposite of, like, midnight -
like, the opposite of crickets, gazing at stars
and contemplating the utter insignificance of,
like, all life on this planet."

"It was all, like, birds chirping, and like,
one single star in a blue sky,
so close and so bright that gazing at it would, like,
blind you or something."

"It was like this pure moment,
like, a rush of endorphins, or adrenaline.
like there was nothing
that mattered more
than the two of us,
there,
then,
like, around twelve P-M, to be specific"

"It was, like, you know, lunch time.
So I asked if they, like,
wanted to hang out,
grab something to eat, maybe,
or maybe, like,
you know, do something else
or whatever..."

He sat there behind the table,
with his glasses sitting on his nose,
and his skin sitting on his bones - both loosely,
the way you’d expect someone to sit
after 75 years of good, but hard, living.

“The trick is-” he said
deliberately pausing to shift the weight of the sentence
toward the upcoming words
“you have to wipe away all the things you don't want to see."
He said this as he scribbled his name
inside my new copy of his old book
smiling in that gentle old man way.

I scampered away like a schoolboy
feeling like an idiot
having rambled at him
in my best impression of a scholar
- like a kid wearing his dad’s oversized suit.

I talked at him about
how well he captures a moment in poetry
like this former US Poet Laureate
wasn’t aware of his talent
and I was somehow the first
delivering the good news.

As I wander the campus,
having escaped my embarrassment
I think back to a poem he read tonight
about watching an old couple sharing a sandwich.
It was an ode to love,
an image you can see in any sit down restaurant,
literally anywhere in America.
He focused in on this couple,
in this diner
at this moment
apart from time, like a moving still life
forever framed by his words.

He wiped away the screaming kid
and its overwhelmed mother in the booth to the left,
the table of teenagers playing hooky to their right,
and the underpaid twnetysomething waitress
who clearly didn’t want to be there anyway.

He wiped away all of that distraction
and unearthed this beautiful moment
this pure example of true love-
A sandwich cut from corner to corner
by the shaking hands of a man
whose glasses sit upon his face
and skin upon his bones
all the way you expect a man to
with woman he’s loved for forty years
with whom he shares everything.

I think about the moments I have missed
the poems never writ
because I was staring at the waitress,
who clearly didn’t want to be there anyway.

The still quiet of the empty apartment
serves to only echo the steady tapping
of rainwater dripping onto the concrete
just outside the window

Everything feels like it should be painted
by Picasso, during his blue period
in various shades of the clam, but icy color

The fact that it isn't
gives the soul a sense of nervous
displacement. All of these commonplace
colors and shapes feel foreign and surreal

The world seems like it should be frozen
in both the sense of stillness and temperature
but it’s not

A warm breeze is moving the bland, beige curtains
and that is more terrifying than any monster
that has never hidden under your bed

The rainwater still drips, and echoes
and nothing is wrong, out of place, or eerie
except that it should be

and so it is

The last story ever to be told
was whispered to an infant
born in an unlucky time
just moments before the end
of everything we once thought to be Everything.

Almost a biblical scene:
The ash-snow covered the ground outside,
and a baby lay in a makeshift manger.

The child, understanding nothing of the plot,
was only comforted by the raspy voice
and rough, cracked hands
of a kind old stranger.

A lance of morning light
beamed on them from a small hole
in the rusted ceiling.

He spoke just loud enough
to drown out the distant cries
of those who burned alive
for the sins of greedy men.

Sometimes I look through snapshots of my past lives.
The edges of each photograph tinged yellow by time.
I barely recognize myself.
A stranger with my blue eyes.

There's no use in wondering what he'd think of me today.
He will never have to face my decisions.
He will never stand trial for them.
I couldn't care less what he thinks.
He's long since died.
Replaced by several incarnations who also have passed
on the road to becoming me.

These relics, tokens of breath taken,
remind me to keep in mind the person I will become.

What will I happen across in an attic box
someday, lifetimes from now?
Will what I leave for the future me
be enough to bridge the gap?
Will he remember me?
Or will I be a faint ghost in the back of his mind?

I guess only he can answer those questions,
and when I become him, I will.

Until then,
I linger too long on an old picture of myself -
This boy, he has promise.
I think he's going somewhere.

Nobody knows the boulevards
and back roads of broken hearts
better than he who has been there
too many times and counting.
He loved to get lost in this neighborhood
practically growing up there
seeing his fair share of roads in need of repair
bridges built up and burned down
and train tracks leading everywhere
and nowhere.
Exactly where he was going
before he was distracted
by a pretty girl with a flirtatious smile
in a pink Corvette passing by.
Occasionally he’ll come to his senses
and head for the city exit
but before he’s home free
some dame, with a dangerous name convinces him to stay
and play cat and mouse.
Nobody know the boulevards
and back roads of broken hearts
like he.
and he still gets lost
in familiar territory.

I don't know if you remember me
I was on the jury two weeks ago
When you were being tried.

Our eyes met for a moment
As your lawyer went on and on about
Crimes of Passion.
You smiled at me.
and bit your lower lip,
all ****-like - like those women in the movies.
I smiled back.

I can't get you out of my head.
All I keep thinking is -
do you have to be married to get conjugal visits?

I dreamt I was visiting Heaven

There was a riot going on.
The entire city in an uproar.
Glass shattered all over the Golden streets.
Children, hiding under their mother's wings.

Nobody knew where God was.

In the middle of the city,
In an otherwise empty park
stood a large monument
to the Son and his chariot.

It was there,
at the feet of our savior,
I watched this angel
set their wings on fire.

The sign by their feet
in crudely written black marker, read:

“In solidarity with my brothers:
Who will burn forever for sins
I didn't have the freedom to commit.”

“One thousand words.” He said “that’s the going rate.”
I looked down at it in my hand.
Taken back to the day it was first shown to me.
“What if it’s burned?” I asked.
“Burned?” He asked. “How burned?”
“Not very, just around the edges.” I explained.
“Like, it was saved from a fire. Would it be worth more, then?”
“Well, no.” He answered, matter-of-factly.
“What it it’s old.”
“Old?” he asked. Leaning forward, now engaged. “How old?”
“What if what used to be white is now turning yellow.
and what used to seem new now looks antique
and she looks so young that you think it can’t be her.”
“Well…” He paused, thinking it over – or pretending to.
“No.” He finally decided, leaning back into his position of power.
“One thousand words. That’s the going rate.”
“What if…” I searched it for any other idiosyncrasy “It’s autographed.”
“Like – half in cursive and half printed – and the ‘I’ is accented by a tiny heart.”
“That’s tempting, but rules are rules, and rates are rates.”
He smiled, enjoying my pain too much.
“It’s worth a thousand words. No more, no less.”
“What kind of words, I mean do I get to choose them?” I said
“Mostly fluffy words, not very heavy handed words. Not five dollar words.
Just our two cents worth.” He said through his grinning teeth.
The thought of her being reduced to one-thousand two-cent words made me ill.
So I left and took the picture with me.
I wandered and pondered and got lost
finding myself
at that pier she used to talk about, where she first met my father.
The sight there had to be worth twenty thousand words, in French.
I don’t speak French.
So I did not understand why it was beautiful
only that it was.
So it was there and then that I decided I would set her
priceless and free.

There was a beauty in her brokenness
the way an abandoned church is spiritual
beaten in the fight against her nature
submitting to the ivy
She was self-destructive and potentially poisonous
but she was my punk rock goddess
and I, her poet-slave
muse and mistress
I knew I was doomed to heartbreak
nevertheless
I took the bold steps toward my apocalypse.
Her name is Catharsis – the Sun.
I am Icaris’s wax wings.
I can’t get too close or she will burn right through me.
It’s a defense mechanism, she says
she’s crazy and I should fly far away.
I should heed the warning
but I don’t.
I’m drawn onto her -
inked by something more than animal attraction.
I am a blood-lusting mosquito
and all I want is a little bit of her inside of me.

She makes me want to write metaphor heavy poetry.

You know, man
before all this went down
I used to think that zombies
were just a metaphor

Really? For what?

Yeah, like, for our struggle
to remain individuals
in a consumer driven culture
where identity is mass-produced
and we are pressured to belong
to some sort of group
or fit into some sort of mold
It’s like being the last survivor in a zombie apocalypse
it’s only a matter of time…

That’s some deep ****

Yeah, this is good ****

What do you think it means now?
You know, now that it’s really happening

It doesn’t mean anything now
Consumer culture is dead, man
People want to be able to eat and ****
and not have to worry about dying every day.
That’s Maslow’s hierarchy of needs man
didn’t you learn anything in highschool?

***** you, dude
What’s that diploma doing for you anyway?

Touché

Dude, puff puff pass!
Quit hoggin all my ****
…****

Every night I load my riffle
take my post
and wait

The waiting is the worst part
it's like fishing
you have too much time
to think about ****

I usually think about my life
and how much of a loser I was
living under my brother's perfect family home
like a troll under a bridge
distracting myself with Call of Duty
and beer

But then the world ended
and it was the best thing that could have happened
for me, that is

Not so much for my brother
who met his demise while on an evening jog
on an otherwise insignificant Saturday

I didn't know any of this until two days later
coming out of my cave to get more beer
to realize that the only one still there
was my brother's beautiful inconsolable wife
she thought I'd been dead
like everyone else
and awkwardly hugged me

She had just gotten word about her two missing children
the ******* little boy was found
gnawing on his little sister's arm
the rest of her was motionless, on a street a mile away

Killing them is too easy
way easier than I thought it would be
you just follow the rules laid out for us in the folklore
aim for the head
keep your distance
don't second guess yourself
double tap

I'm not a religious man
I have no particular thoughts about the soul
I leave those questions for the priests and philosophers

I don't care
I do my job
and I do it well

I've won
I've taken my prize
I spend my days with the woman I've always  loved
but could never have
and my nights doing what I do best
playing a game

I pull the trigger
it's head explodes
in a gust of red mist
...just like in the movies

Summer death lingers
in the air, corpse leaves fall - still
soon to be buried

8 .
I hear bullets
in the thunder of the storm
and wake up, fist balled
clenching onto fabricated memories
the only things I have
aside from the haunting neighbor kids’ taunts
and the hearsay of my mother:
the murderer

10.
someone told me this once
- I forget who -
but they told me that
my father picked me up
the morning after the shooting
- although he didn’t know it then -
he carried me over the corpse
as I slept
it slept under the porch
freshly painted
- a thick red

12.
seat across from me is empty
the killer’s chair
I walked into this building like an ant
(so small)
Its tall gates like sharpened teeth
opening wide - consuming me
and my insignificance

a long line of hair tangled
and miserable looking
women in orange enter the room
like the life had all but melted from them
and all they had to look forward to
was mashed potato Tuesdays
and cross-stitching classes
I know her from across the room
I don’t hate her
as I think I should, or imagine I would
Instead, I am overcome by heavy understanding

I am soon to be face to face
with the vessel that brought me into this world
and I could ask it any question
yet all I can think to say is
“hi “
she smiles at me and tears up a little
tells me she’s glad I came
and we stumble over small talk
still in awe
I wonder how it was that I just knew

she asks about me
I don’t know who I am yet
is the truth she never hears

13
I’m told that the gunshots
haunting my childhood dreams
were never fired by her
I believe that
she doesn’t seem like the type

the story I hear these days
is that she did what she had to do
to keep us kids alive
I like that much better
my mother:
the heroine

15
their drug of choice, dad tells me
was *******
and I’ve also learned some interesting
but hopefully forgettable facts
about the night I was conceived

17
they let her off her leash
she came back home
tail wagging between her legs
Got back with my father, and took
(another?) half-hearted jab at motherhood
She didn’t know how
Or me
And I felt bad for her

21
I wish I could tell you
that this story has a happy ending
but life is the shattering of people
and sweeping together of what falls on the floor
nothing is ever completely swept away
and the microscopic slivers of the past always
find their way into our feet

my parents were never built to last
not calloused enough to walk
barefoot in the kitchen
dad still calls me nearly every day
even just to gossip or complain

She hasn’t called in months
but she only calls when she wants something
so, I guess that’s a relief
Still, its times like this
I wish I could hate her

I hate to admit it,
But I kind of miss the time in my life
when she was made of stories
and I never knew her from across the room
or learned what she is:
another shard on my kitchen floor

I hear a voice of a guitar -
the cords to an Irish jig -
Whisky in the Jar.
I stand there a moment
listening hard and rocking softly.

I am not sure if it’s just the weight of winter
finally melting off my shoulders,
or if there's something deeper,
something spiritual happening here.

I take a nice long breath of the Ohio air,
feeling relief, release, and repair.

When the light sparkles  
Off of the dust in the air
I understand faith.

go to sleep
godless heap -
goddess leap
...gotta sleep

It's 2am,
for Siddartha's sake,
you ain't gonna find zen
at the other end of this computer screen.
******, I mean -

No creative dam is gonna break open tonight
(this morning)
you're all stopped up, or drained
so just stop drying.

Seriously, quit diddling with your self
doing that horrid poemry
(po-mory? poor-merry? potpourri? poopoory?)

just fu-cking
go
     to                                     (*******)
         sleep.

Snake-boy’s arrival
has ****** everything up.

People are in a frenzy
some curious to see how their personalities
are going to dramatically change.
Some just curious to see what the tabloids will say about them now.

Others are forming an angry mob
in defense of nostalgia.
They haven’t been this ******* since
Pluto stopped being a planet.

These are the great injustices people get riled up about.
Nothing is more important to man
than the talk of gods and destiny.

We will **** for the things we cannot touch.
It’s in our worse nature
to look up at the sky and make meaning from the emptiness.
Just as it is in our worse nature to fight about what that meaning is.

So, here we are,
In midst of the ever changing chaos of the universe,
which far more interesting than what they may have to say
about our terribly insignificant lives,
caught up in our own imaginations.

Like children,
we make up our own games
and we don’t like it
when other kids change the rules.

Despite the fact that other children are starving
and other children are sleeping and dying in the cold
and real things,
horrible things, tragic little things
still happen.

We don’t think about them nearly as much.
They aren’t intangible gods, or destiny
yet, they affect the us more
and they are not
beyond our reach.

Reruns of That 70s Show
Interrupted
by the blonde lady
who smiles too much

She says there was a breakthrough
a medical miracle
They brought one back to life

I step outside for a cigarette
already, the town has gone nuts

A group of people
standing outside the grocery store
with signs that say
AbomiNation
and
We Can't Play God

They tell me that it's wrong
to circumvent God's punishment
that only bad can come
from bringing the undead back to life

The sick *****
honestly still think there is a god
and that this hell on Earth is his will
if so, that's no god of mine

They scream at me
trying to tell me what to think
while I buy my milk
and ****
just to make them gasp

This heathen here
really don't care
I'm more concerned with whether or not
Hyde and Jackie are getting back together

He takes in a deep long breath
and billows out the flames
on all nine candles

His mother smiles
and remembers they day he was born
the only doctor in the sanctuary at the time
had been a dentist
he pulled him out of her
like a stubborn tooth

For those first few months
she stayed awake every night
watching him
terrified
hoping
and hating herself for hoping
that he would stop breathing
in the middle of the night

On his first birthday
218 had experienced a breach
nearly everyone was infected
no survivors
she thought about taking his life then

She poisoned his sippy-cup
with the stuff they used to **** the roaches
and in a fleeting moment of weakness
dumped it down the drain

When she does sleep
she relives her father changing
into a monster
and watches the man who raised her
chomp into the forearm of the man she was to marry

She remembers how much blood there was
and how much she hated them
and loved them
at the same time

The little boy
turns and shoots her a thank you smile
she smiles back
faint and almost fake

She makes a wish
but does not dare tell a soul
and continues to hate herself
for loving him too much

17/30
long walk through a park
an abandoned swing set sits
waiting just for you

18/30
thump-thump-thump-thump
woosh-click-click-beep-thump-woosh-thu­mp
broken radio

I once heard this somewhere;
that there are only two stories:
A boy leaves home
and a stranger comes to town.

Sometimes I lie
in my bed and think about the strangers.
I think about how terrifying some strangers are.
How we tell our children to run and hide
from what they don’t know;
to stay where it’s safe
here, at home
with their stories untold.

I think of how lost those strangers must feel
with no one who will talk to them.
I think about the darkest villains of childhood lore.
How they all started out as children
afraid of reaching out and changing anything.

I think of how hard is must have been for them
as young adults, to built up the courage
and tell their parents they were leaving
against their wishes
to explore the world
and find the role they were meant to play.

I think
of the stories
hiding in between the boy
and the stranger.
The conversations they wished they could have
if only time weren’t so stubborn
and bent over backwards sometimes
for special cases,
like true love or some karmic mistake.

I think of all of the heroes and their journeys
and that how inevitably, at some point
they are going to be the stranger coming to town.

I think about where I live.
How many stories I’ve heard and told
that are heavy on one side.
I both envy and pity those who live the stories.
Those little boys leaving home;
they know how strange the world really is
and what it’s like
to strike fear in the townsfolk of some distant village;

Where it’s probably nicer this time of year.