I’ve got fifteen years tied in knots
of green and brown and I have
decided that it is time for a change
of scenery. So I climb onto the roof
and pretend I am a chimney, spewing
smoke of blue and grey and lung cancer and
voggy Hilo mornings. A helicopter
circles overhead at an altitude of 805 feet, its
searchlight catching the neighborhood
lying spread-eagled on the living room
floor, brutally desecrated and left
bare-bones to die. I am a catalyst,
an instigator, a cynic with a palm tree.
Today I read an atlas and find
naught but “A Hui Hou” scrawled across
the pages in black pen. I burn the
book, the bridge, and the old tires in
the backyard.

On Saturday it rained and the floodwaters
took my bicycle.

Sometimes I sit by the roadside reading
Bukowski with hibiscus in my hair and
Indiana in my eyes. Hunting dogs
clash with rescue dogs at the house
with the stop sign. The moon falls
from the sky and engulfs the mynah
birds and the plague. The floodwaters
recede and leave a jigsaw puzzle
on the slopes of Mauna Kea. “I am not
afraid,” I say, “for I am only gravel.”
I play the eight-bar blues on Fortieth
and sing songs of drugs and missed
connections. I am hit by a truck and
a little gold car, but I proclaim myself
immortal as I am flattened to the pavement.
I am the Ki’i Pohaku beatnik, and
I write of nature and nurture and
the never-ending rain.

Someone has painted my walls blue
and my hands grey. So I pack my suitcase
and run down the highway for
seven thousand miles and all I see
are mistakenly-numbered houses and
blank maps and dead neighbors
from families I used to know.

There are torrents of rain now,
forming puddles in the forest.
I know the reason. It is twelve
in the morning.

The neighborhood grows obscure.
We are demolished.

I have an airport named after me
and no need to fly

mom says we should buy an axe.
she shapes her gum into a moon,
craters and canines and molars,
like a fake suicide on national tv,
the passing of the torch,
the running of the bulls,
the macy’s day parade.
ashtrays don’t lie, but ashes do,
they’ve got their canines and molars
and tongues tuned to calamity,
slick as sunsets as they chop away.
and this fortnight is something you can read,
go ahead, turn the pages,
one to fourteen and you’re caught unaware,
what the **** were you doing,
counting casualties, coming closer to the yellow sky,
it’s petroleum sliding down your throat now.
the human body is 70% *******
and you may meet your quota but you’ll never meet your end,
racing through the stucco in the room your girlfriend rents,
the ridiculous ambivalence seeping through your pores,
staining the sheets you haven’t washed since february,
turning off the tv you were never watching anyway,
letting bulls run and torches light
like that little corner of your eye that twitches when you touch,
like that interrogation manual you can’t read anymore,
the door shuts in your face and your books crush your bones.
and you and mom buy the axe and leave it by the fridge with the broom,
and the more you scratch the rustier the blood.

he wasn't born a begging man
he'd take you out in his trans-am
and parallel park next to your favorite art museum
he'd give you every alibi
he'd look manet right in the eye
and exemplify all that you didn't know
and the only songs he'd listen to
were all by dead blind blues musicians
and to you all of them sounded just the same

but when you told him wait a minute he just rolled his eyes and sighed
and so the thieving beggar man condemned himself to die

And this is desperation
it is muttering to a windowshade and dreaming
     "always" "always" always
it is looking without seeing
     when every side street and roadside looks like
          the devil's territory
it is what you sound like when you speak
     all your sentences backwards
it is listening to sad songs on airplanes
     and pretending like nothing has ever changed before
it is staring at varicose veins
     like vandals
          underwater
it is building shelves for every little thing
     so every bigger thing goes not astray
it is becoming a martyr
     for the morningdew chills
it is watching as skyscrapers blur

I write an evening by the
waterfront with candlelight
Freemasons paving the
boardwalk. In the
morning the newspaper
prints my biography and
I laugh cacophonously.
I stand in my treehouse
and scream a note of
finality. I learn how to
synchronize and mispronounce
waning and soon I
realize.
I have left my voicebox
in my other pants.
Ulysses sang the blues today
but the sirens had more soul.
"So wrap your head in a scarf,"
I say! "Paint your house grey
and your churches red."
Jesus sang the blues today
but the sinners had more heart.
Dare ye burn a cross or
run afoul or sob for the mountain?
Then name yourself an apostle
and head for the hills of your
heaven above.
I sang the blues today
but the liars-
The plane lands with a thunk.
I roll my window shade up.
Sand turns to grain and
rainbows to tornadoes.
I have arrived.
I go to the gun shop and empty
the cash register before it is
too late. My uncle calls from
prison to wish me a happy
Boxing Day. I rent an apartment,
a car, a television, a diploma.
My thoughts are scattered and
my words ring through my head,
but these blues shan't get to
me any longer.
The truth, I decide, is overrated.
I study metaphysics, pataphysics,
and I am going to be sick. Our
hero reads Hopkins and takes
another shot.
Today I stay in bed
and count the cracks
in the ceiling.

it is dark inside the moon.
the moon tastes like candlewax
and cold sweat.
you cannot be beautiful on the moon -
the earth will not allow it.
that is why,
if i should ever slip into a spacesuit
and you should ever kiss my helmet goodbye,
i will not think of you.
i will think of the earth
and break out in a cold sweat.

This is just a mirror and this is just a desk and this
is just a car crash and this is just a bicycle just as
this is just an exit like Greco-Roman architecture
where you may see someone approaching like a
UFO or a synagogue or a suicide bomber ATTACK
shh don’t fight don’t close your notebook look
the leaves are falling said the blind man while
the columns collapsed and the bluesman strummed
on the sidewalk see we are all dying here we
just know when to lose to let go to buy to sell
to realize that the mountain we made means
that we may never breathe again

night
shrug off flannel coats
     leave them alone with each other
     on the floor
     get reacquainted
night whispers nothing all too sweetly
with its sore throat
down the hall, in the bathroom

now
on a floral sofa slipcover
reading two books with one light
     allegretto
night expects rain to peek in
barely humming nocturnes
barely ambient

barely
burying faces in crooks of knee
     dips of side
     curvature of neck
night relaxes
contentedly fallow
chilled
closer

And then there was orange, glinting in a pile
from the ground outside my second story window.
I sit and count the scattered papers on my
bedroom floor, thinking, "Maybe someday the
past and present will meet," though I know full-well
that they already have.
Now it is twofold, it is insult to injury, it is
twenty seven eleven.

We are lies, aren't we? We are thankful for
the unknown. My father sips scotch and devours the
truth. I catch my connecting flight and travel back
in time. The man in the blue coat is replaced by
the man in the black hat, the man with the feather
hat, and the man with naught but war paint.
It is like the movies, I decide. I settle on a log bench
and read the classifieds in the newspaper.

Mother and father tell me to count my blessings
as if they are sheep. I tell them that their analogy
is flawed. Morning comes and I tie a string around
my ring finger, proclaiming, "I am here to collect
thanks! Bring out your wish lists and your tattered
diaries!" I am a liar; I am thankful for nothing but
sickness and ink. I write "twenty seven eleven"
three hundred times and vow to make a difference.
I fill my car and my fridge and roller blade up
the mountain, chanting, "Noa! Noa! 'Oia'i'o! A'ole
mahalo nui!" My cries go unheard and I sulk
back down, a landslide for the ages.

I begin to write poetry that oozes pretension and
reflects obsession. I try to pronounce the disease
and instead find myself bound to a table crushed by
feast and fear. I have written "twenty seven eleven"
on my forehead and am forced to listen to the "Lord"s
and "grateful"s and "God"s and I have had enough.

I break free and head for reason.

did you know that i once saw you
looking down from your window
toward the avenue pierre
and the wind rustled the oak trees while you wrote

and the tourists took their photos
looking out through their lenses
at the things that were not there
and the wind blew threw the tower all the while

and i watched you trace the letters
all the upstarts and go-getters
they can't make it any better
if you're trying to forget her
so forget it, take the high road
and you watch your daytime talk shows
and all the while the river seine flows
and you'll never ever ever ever know

that all those times i saw you
i couldn't see right through you
no matter how i strained my eyes
and the wind took all the colors with the night

in c sharp minor you're pulling on your wrinkled shirt,
slight blue pinstripes clawing at your shoulders,
breath escaping your mouth
dolente dolcissimo,
hands slowly buttoning from the top down,
fingertips reading beatific notation
as if each callus could savor it but once.

I loved you as one loves the first sniff of a *** of instant coffee,
and I loved you as one loves a slight breeze on a slight day.
I loved you as a tree loves its leaves,
and thus I held the winter in disdain.
I loved you as one loves the artful blurs of city lights
succumbing to each other in the September rain.
I loved every slip of my tongue against my teeth
as I set your name out in the world on display.
I loved you like the last unread book on the shelf,
and I loved you like verbosity could not conceivably convey.
And though I loved not like a song, nor like a ballad or an ode,
I loved you with intensity that one could never feign.

We are the kinds of people
who love first
     (maybe against mountains
     landscapes
     mountainscapes)
fingerpick cherries
cherrypick at dawn
paint birds and blues and telephones.

Live in E
die in B
sleep in space.

Write of main characters
     (but dream of antagonists
     on planes
     or fields further upstate).

Frame flowers before they have the chance
     to wilt
stuff clothes into backpacks
sing along with church choirs
     from the alleyway next door.

Imagine biography covers and post-war memorials
look at poetry like a lampshade
leave for fear of holding on
return in hopes of holding
     (set sail for north woods
     carry weight like hurricanes
     steal moments for beggars
     retreat as quickly as god)
stride past roads with cameras.

Stencil where we should sketch
finish with a flourish
lay by waterfronts
lie by stormfronts
take breaths like in movies.

Need like children
dream of signs
     (road signs
     shop signs
     celestial signs
     all are the same, all are the same)
climb heights to speak of majesty
climb down to think of it.

Witness each other's faces like
     smatterings of people in cars.

Arrange alphabetically
depart dramatically
realize with horror
     but abolish without difficulty
watch things fall apart
mix up the pieces
work without ethic.

     (Things we get wrong we
     right but things we get
     right are already wrong.)

Wind up in books we've never read.

Change chords and regret the knowing
     that we can never not know last.

You say that you wish to be making this call from an
apartment in San Diego but instead you are
making this call from a rental car in Boston and you can't

figure out why. You don't know the meaning of the word
ephemeron, but you don't know who does either. You tell stories
of brutal attacks and high-priced lawyers and being subpoenaed

at the age of 12 for reasons you still don't understand.
You used to hide your big ears behind your sideburns but now you
hide them behind a woolen hat with dark green *****

although it is not cold. You walk alone through the cities,
stopping for nothing and going for something
that you can't quite put your finger on.

You claim to know the words to every song and the
directions to every house, but you have not been alive long enough
to achieve anything quite yet. You have seen a license plate

from every state except Delaware, but the only one that
sticks in your mind is one from Arkansas. You quote the wrong
Shakespeare play and the wrong Vice President and believe that

the only thing you'll ever be is correct. Your calendar
still reads "March" although it is June and tomorrow you will go
to your doctor's appointment instead of your son's

birthday party. You think things that cannot be said but never
remember them. You check into a motel on the 11th and check out on the
19th as if nothing ever happened. Your thoughts read

like a news article about the runner-up in a dog show. You
buy a plane ticket and cancel it at the last minute
because it turns out there ain't nothing for you in Oregon

anymore.

you you you, always you;
standing in the doorway
sleeping on the floor
always questioning.
fingers on faces and hair behind ears,
you do?
always
god, to think
that if some people believe
in things like god,
then what did we believe?
there was nothing left
the closet, the drawers,
like the scrape of teeth on the cusp of a spoon,
you whispered something
raspy from the cigarette
sleep will come.

Waking up feels strange,
like you’re coming to in an asteroid belt
or an avalanche. You pour fog
into your morning cereal and every clink of the spoon
against your teeth
seems to have something to say -
a letter, a number, an apology,
something unintelligible.
The bathroom tile on your bare feet is unseasonably cold,
and looking at yourself in the mirror
is like reading Tolstoy in Russian
for the first time. She’s left your drawers
and counters bare.
You hadn’t noticed how colorful her things were
until they weren’t there. She’s taken
her bottles of lotion, the pastel ones and the neon ones
and the one with green and white stripes,
and now everything in the room is white.

The pills go down like pebbles.
The light outside seems either brighter or dimmer
than it should be; you can’t tell which.
Your eyes have been trained to focus on her,
every little curve of her lips and wrinkle in her clothes,
every twitch of her finger as she stirs her coffee,
and now that she’s not there there’s nothing to focus on.

There’s a draft now. You’ve never felt it before.

It’s amazing, how many things
she hasn’t touched. She hasn’t touched
the books on the third shelf,
or the stuffed duck you keep in your bedside cabinet,
or the bottle of nighttime pain relievers you forgot you had
near the fridge.
But looking at those hurts worse
than looking at the things she forgot,
because they’re things that she could have touched,
could be touching right now.
But she isn’t.
You don’t know where she is.

You touch everything for her,
with your left hand,
the hand she squeezed before she got out of the car
and you drove away before you could look back.

You bite off all the nails you’ve been trying to grow out.
You chew at them while you wait
for the shower to warm,
and they’re gone by the time you’re ready to shampoo.
When you step out, you’re bitten by everything
that isn’t there anymore. You wonder
how long you can be occupied by these novelties,
how long you can be intrigued by them
before they start becoming too much.
You think about moving out,
taking only the things you were both indifferent towards,
finding a smaller house
further away from everything.
You think about doing what she did -
packing up all your things into a bag
and getting on the first plane you can,
but something ties you to where you are.

So you stay.
You pull away from everything
and pretend she has left you with nothing.

bandages on your fingertips
cigarette residue on your lips
it tastes like it's two in the morning
and maybe when i say goodnight
we can all stop pretending

so let's not watch the clock now dear
there's so much out in the air to hear
and tonight we can freeze together
and maybe when i say goodbye
god will pluck out his feathers

i've got pills that look like pebbles
i've got hands that look like fire
i've got pictures of every worry we ever had
and it's all right to look at them
every once in a while

but tonight when i say goodnight
i'm going to stop pretending