Not a poem. Just shameless self promotion of a short story.

http://normanshine.wordpress.com/2012/12/01/this-little-patch-of-earth/

Part1
This body is full of worms
Glowing
And moving forever
If I could match their movement
I might know what it means to be still

This body is afraid of rusting
I shave ***** red banjo strings
From the creak in these joints
This body moves like a song
String snap at a high note

I want you to kiss me with your brake lights
Fast enough to snap a knee cap
Reset my gait

This body is falling apart
Like an old Volkswagen in your dad’s front yard
All rust and ***** engine rumble
Even at red lights
We idle like earthquakes

Feels like a bike rider taking up his own lane
In front of you
Makes you nervous
It takes patience
Not to speed up
It takes patience to stay

Part2
She smiles like I am a child
Asking silly questions

Think softly she says

Your body is dust
Swirling in daylight
There is your rust in the soft glow
It is free
And you are alive

You are still like water
A steady current
Your body is fish and worms now
They move and eat
They are free
And they are alive

Your body is a furnace for glass blowers
The men inside make marbles
They are blue
And gold
And green
And warm

Let her hold you awkward now

You are free
And you are alive

She is dressed like an unmarked bottle of tequila
Smuggled and homemade

There's some dirt on your cheek
Leave it there
Out here looks good on you

There is the crunch and scrape
of dirt in the threading
little pebbles against my teeth

I spit them out onto a smooth portion of cement
Pray that in the blurr
I can read divinity
in the way the dirt falls

Another swig and I am heart heavy
Like scrap metal
and old houses
like fat sacks of glowing mercy

She smiles like a pipedream
of twisted shining copper

She speaks in head spin
This is what it feels like when god talks to you
without killing you

She says
You are not in the business of
feeling sorry for yourself

Name the year

This is the year of the shedding of weight
The year of the cutting in half
The year of shaking the dust
From the fragile places
Wiping the dirt from the threading
even if you have to use your own mouth
so you can finally seal yourself
without worrying if it will hurt this time

The year of hotmess
And young love
The year of leaving
This is the year
Not where everything is lost
But a new lightness is gained
In the way you can walk away

So pull your heart out from the rubble
of the past

This is the year of being charming
The year of fist fights and no regrets
The year where you finally understand
what it means to be honest

This is the year of shaking the dust

This body is a memory
Like a phantom ache
For fingertips
For lips
For fists

There was the rug-burn

I sleep most comfortably on my belly
Shirtless
No blanket

From when he brought the belt loop
Buckle pinching neck
The carpet not as soft
As curls of fabric
Felt like razorblades and fire
Skin so red and raw
Window open it cooled me like a slow breath
On tomato soup
There were days my body looked like tomato soup

This body is a memory
For the soft against my chest
Puzzle piece breath
In the ways I want to fit

I want to taste your mouth like a cannibal
Lips so full of blood I want to bite them

Some days I want you to single cell me
For simply the fight and the ****

This body is a memory
A gentle tickle
Some things I’d rather forget
Phone book bruises
Elbow torque and knuckle gut

Some things I strive to remember
Beer breath kisses
Head on chest
Hold you like an embarrassed birthmark
Because I don’t want my arm to fall asleep
But I don’t want to move you either

If you arrive here
You will show up laughing
like a sigh
Headshake and shiver

It tastes bitter on your tongue
The last poem you will ever speak
When catching your breath is like praying backwards
Pulling heaven back inside of yourself
A struggle for composure before you lose it all

There is a man or woman
That looks like you
With a chest like a tree trunk
So heavy
And a stomach that rumbles
A body so empty

It asks of you everything
So you place before it
All that you have
Which it devours
Bits of all you’ve ever had
Confetti burst from the corners of its mouth
And then it asks for more
Until there is only you and it

With nothing left
You place its fingers into its mouth
It eats its own arm
Then the other arm
Then both legs

You watch it eat
Sounding so satisfied
It hums and drools
And bleeds to death

You catch your breath
You are alone in this place
So you laugh
And the sound of it startles you
An echo inappropriate
When you find this funeral funny

You pick it up
And sling it over your shoulder
Limp like a flower sack
Like a bag of potatoes

You tell yourself you are just going to bury it
And at the same time wonder
Why you didn’t walk away

The dust settles on your bare back while you sleep. Sometimes tries to bond back to the skin, but in the morning you shake it again as you rise. It shimmers in the sunlight like smoke. Though patternless, it does not look lost.

It sits nearly weightless in your palm
Hold it like a bible
with the page already marked in your head that you want to share
Like that page contains the only truth that you know

The closest to a magic wand you will ever get to
The only spell your voice
Speak honest
While words are still meant for this
Your mouth a shotgun for my tracks

Now dance

Follow my lead
Pick up your phone
And call someone

Pick one

1
While you were still earth
And I was still earth
And the thought of us
Sounded like a 4 year old learning to whistle
We had no stake
Just a note in the background of breath and baby teeth
You make me so happy
Your parents ****** on the day they did
2
If you were to die in any way
I want you to know
I have already planned your eulogy
It is simple
My name is Jonathen Hal Tobias
And this empty case of skin and bone
Formerly housed
The best friend I have ever had in my life
3
Your belly is a blackened furnace
Full of soot and sawdust
It is love the way it keeps me warm
And I will leave my hands near it
The distance of a magic spell for fire
My skin
Until there is no more sawdust
Until there is no more love
Until I have to warm my hands with breath
And press them against your cold black
Do you feel that?

4
Whatever you say
Through satellite
Over airwaves

Know your voice passes through stars
And metal
And microchips
And speaker

There is tongue
And breath and lips
Your heart when you’re honest

When words were meant for this
And your mouth a shotgun for my tracks