I understand my panther pal.
if we lock eyes
we never turn our backs
to each other,
yet even if I did
his cuteness would creep
into my nightmares;--;
a phantom of fuzz
and moonish green eyes.
fiendishly plucking my
arm hair with his claws.
rend my flesh asunder
by nightly tongue lashings.
. . . . . .
I understand my panther pal.

I was stuck
there's nothing else to say.
I was stuck on the corner of Innes and Main
walking to Expressions, the only smoke shop
where high times wasn't ready to
come out of the closet,
where Hustler was always
6 months old,
where you had to call a **** a water pipe
because the cops came in too often.
I was thinking of the **** trailers
20 minutes out by the lake
and how when I was young they all seemed like
weather factories - heavy cloud but no rain
*sniff sniff
something's on the oven.
it's a world of difference
on Innes and Main.
bankers, business owners,
and old folks walk by with a
look in their eye that says "you're
exactly like you're t-shirt -- secondhand."
here I am secondhand.
here I don't have a name, just a presumption.
here I am nothing.
nothing good.
I kept walking.
I started thinking about my dad --
the first time we got high
together was on xmas day.  I was 20,
he was weary and his roommate ALWAYS
had bud.  here's the skinny:
we'd get ******, watch ****** movies,
he'd argue about how good they were
and I'd never quit laughing.
then the come down.
he'd start in about what a huge mistake
he's made of his life.
and he'd count his past regrets
on his fingers like he was learning
addition and it took the strength of all of my bones
not to grab him by the shoulders
and yell "DAD.
QUIT BEING SENTIMENTAL."
and I swore I'd never be sentimental
and I'm not sentimental.
I just know where I'm going.
but when memory's teeth breaks skin
like plaster,
when fresh marks color blood
over old wounds,
when you can't find home anywhere
but in a blunt or a bottle,
it doesn't matter where
you're going.

what we need is more banjo,
more djembe, more thunder finger
bass guitar --
what we need is less boredom --
less fear of failure,
less fear of *******,
less Jane Austen.
what we need is the electric charge
of neurons fire dancing like
the night sky of the fourth of
july,
what we need is to learn the lesson
of rivers and runners -- keep up
the momentum
what we need is more honey,
watermelon,
sweet potatoes,
peanut butter,
and coconut oil.
more weirdos, more hippies,
more punks, more rappers,
more poets, if you have something
to say we pretty much need you.
we need more gin and less gender roles
more sin and less slapstick
more trees and trampolines and ties
between you and I.
we don't even need to be human
we just need to be sustainable.

I won't see you take to the sky
like an eastbound ****** of crows
but I'll greet you in our nest.
until then

stay indoors today,
infantry of elderly,
lest you have heat stroke

and this morning, like most,
found you sprawled
out taking 3/4s of the
bed again.  don’t get the wrong
idea, I am not complaining.
I’ll take a sliver at your side
over mountains of blankets,
pillows, alarm clocks and
emptiness.  you can tell
my jealous mattress I prefer
to sleep on your floor
because 7 AM sunlight
will never look as good
as it does stretching over
your bare *******, shoulders,
belly.  I lie with a thin
sheet between my knees
tucked between your
legs and a curtained window.
I think about kissing you
but I’ll wait until the
jade buried under your
eyelids come to
meet the morning on
it’s own terms.  until
then…

when he says he wants to put you
in a poem, don't believe he'll
put your petals to his nose, inhale gently,
and enumerate the tickling scents
waltzing in his nostrils.
believe he'll put your stem to his tongue
lick the thorns slowly
to open his masochistic
metallic blood.
believe that he'll spit
that blood on the floor
or in a teacup to
sit out for hummingbirds.
believe he'll paint you
naked in verse
clothe you in meter
and strip you once more.
believe that no poem
is refuge
and that your ugliness
and his ugliness
will not make a poem
beautiful.

after earning their first grammy, Eddie
Vedder stood with the other guys
in
Pearl Jam and said "I don't know what
this means or what I'm doing here."

how
do we put a grade on art? do we find
our
favorite poem and give it a smiley
face
sticker with an accolade like "good
goin!"?
do we single out a Mattisse sculpture,
give
it a round of applause and an Applebee's
gift card?

I don't have a grade for the
things
I love. that takes the fun out of loving
them.

I'll listen to your song. I'll play it
again.
I won't give it any stars but I'll give
it
all my attention.

As I was changing my settings I noticed
Explicit poetry, by default, is hidden.
What is poetry but the explicit?
The clarity of everyday
Are melodies of vulgarity
Strung together.
Tinsel on the ****-tree.
And when you poets talk of love
The plutonic is a bore.
You say beauty as a synonym
For *******.
BEAUTY IS *******
*******.

If hellopoetry has a swear jar I owe a lot
But at least I don't hide what I say.

pierced by my own punctum
I'm the Tacitus of my times
scrawl from pen to page
scrawl from pen to page
. . .
seas of needles and crestin waves
the climate's been bound to change
climates been bound to change
I aint reachin for the needle no more
but needle still reachin for me
. . .
scrawl from pen to page
scrawl from pen to page
and I need water
ink been bound to dry
throat been bound to close
jaw been bound to lock
she's a cuckoo, but whose the clock?
she's a cuckoo, but whose the clock?
. . .

**** poetry when I could be in a bed
with you         no unfuck poetry
because how else could I enumerate
your tidal wave hair rising and crashing
under the light of my moonbeam fingers?

**** tv when I could be at tate street
coffee        on saturday morning livid
with jazz hopped up on the best **** cup of coffee in greensboro sharing bass notes with a caricature of iggy pop and you.

no unfuck tv because that's the way we spend our tuesdays          giggling
up in high definition with a freshly packed bowl and your head on
my belly tired as tires pushing 85 on 85 for 85000 miles but netflix leads to chill leads to naked leads

to my tongue to your belly's favorite cavity leads to **        ly **** hallelujah! if anything **** god and
the devil **** yin and closed fist yang **** bodhisatva **** dharma and the other things i dont know **** the big bang because the
universe we **** into creation is a rainbow balloon

bursting candy confetti compared to the one we leave when I, all hands and ribcage, am allowed to share your bed.

they took my hidey-hole
the ******* *******.
rolling up bass
thumpin to the groove
of a blunt rap.
h'rghroth's testament
to summer tours
and turnin up till four.
the land I love
the most
(....well,
maybe not quite that,
but something.)

Morning calls, business
Time. I tell you there is such
Joy in emptiness

this is the black that I cloaked myself in,
my father's inheritance,
cold blanket of blindness.
that is the crescent slipper I wore
on my feet.
I was Hermes,
coal, jet, fresh leather,
I was a ****** of crows:
a carrion cluster feasting on white
dwarfs and other dead things
that hang by this stellar roadside.
I was alone
and I thought it was magic.
I was alone
and I prayed for magic.
when I sealed that spell
the words made me jump,
I wasn't expecting
to see you here.

A gallon of 2% milk
Untouched since breakfast.
Mexican blend cheese. A
Half eaten sandwich - best
Tuna I've ever had caught
Between your teeth like
Black sturdy nets. The
Bottle of coke you let go
Flat. 8 eggs, washed like
Infants and just as smelly.
Our acid art on black magnets
And the one screaming
Urgent care in a dull office
Font. You go to the kitchen
And leave the fridge closed.
"Tomorrow we're going
Food shopping."

French fries and thick thighs
Makes a man sigh sigh sigh
Calico cats and ransacked rooms
Make a man blue blue blue
Tickling ivories wells somethin inside me.,
A guitar tuned flat.
Needs are nothing but fever dreams
That's all and that is that.

even the possom's blood
evaporated sunward.
raven throws a fit.

cankerous open mouths.
dead breath like exhaust.
this is your world,
you who would not have it.
pockmarked by age
and pockmarked by plague
and a palpitating heart.
repeating pleasure as if it were a litany.
a cowl to wrap yourself in
and create a new identity.
and it's the weight of your heart
that matters
no matter how small.
and with pooling abscesses
and with enough drained blood
you could fill a new world.

my stomach gurgles empty.
like my heart.
for want of you.

air conditioner --
basso rumblings below our
sweat's tickled singing

where are my ugly people?
shuffling with holed shoes,
defunct ****** organs,
crossed eyes.
those whose strides echo their
genetic abnormalities,
a leg an inch longer than the other (like me),
arms fat with blood,
skin resplendent with eczema
boils on eyelids,
dilated pupils,
escaping from the mirror with
horse tranquilizer
and enough ***** to sink
the state of California.
where are my ugly people,
too long under the delusion of
"finding inner beauty"
by the pretty ones;
straight teeth,
combed and styled hair,
brown and ivory skinned
drowning the streets with their
cackling and condescension.
we should scar their faces
with buckshot,
carve those empty smiles across
their high cheekbones
to be an omnipresent companion.
show them a bit of our own
benevolence;

where are my ugly people
like me?

I want to smoke crack *******
I don't want to feel any pain

write a poem.  what?
write a poem.  ******* mean?
congratulations.

gourd bellied black boy
in front of the camera is
a calf facing a tentative ax.
the hands are motionless.
dropping quarters into an envelope
stamped for africa
will buy him a pack of ramen
but it wont' turn of the cameras.
sunlight doesn't reach him anymore
only sharp electricity.
I see this gourd bellied black boy
on my tv.


I turn it off
pitilessly.

red sun descending
cicadas chant litanies
filling the darkness

I work with a guy a year younger than me
got two kids
and two jobs.
meanwhile all my money goes to
whitewater rafting and books
and ****
and paying for school.
one of them is two years old
the other four months
and he doesn't read.
probably doesn't go whitewater rafting
either.

A toast to vulnerability.
To tying ventricles and fingers
To the bravery of fear and being braver still to face it.
To romance, to ***, to sweat beads sticking hair to skin and tongues to lips.
May love be bolder in the arms of our lovers
than our blood brothers.

**** is tight and rad.
it gives me smiles and laughter.
it takes knives away.

I crave the short days.
trees with wide open arms.

I am 24
this is new for me.
I can't hang
it around my neck
like a silver
star of david.
it doesn't follow me
around like
a tame rhinoceros.
I am 24
and I don't know
what to do with it.
why don't you
take my 24.
if there's a penny
in your pocket
you'll have
a quarter and 
there's nothing
you can't do
with a quarter.

it is strange that I find you here
unpopulated
w/o a bottle of ***** and orange
juice in backpack
w/o a ukulele in hand with which
I would sing about
drinking alone and my
******* roommates.
with the moon close
to the fretboard
and the electric lit windows
of the residence halls
like constellations
closer.

clamorings, joyful
earth blossoming to the sun.
roots stretch sleepily.

mosquitoes never
quit - find another sweatsoaked
armpit to slurp from

the rain receded before
the sun crept her hands up
to the yielding skirt of ice and
snow on the ground.
I could put my boots on,
go outside,
crank music and
oscillate wildly
to distorted synths.
it’ll drive the neighbor men
crazy.  coax a shotgun
warning.  better yet, I’ll grind
my *** on their windows,
pressing my cheeks to the glass
taking their eyes off those
50 inch tvs.  they’ll lumber out
wide-eyed and open-mouthed
at the pale peach outside
and its inebriated rhythm.
we will turn this arabesque
of morning into an open air
dance club, complete with
mixed drinks and molly.
ours is a sad cul
de sac if only the trees
are allowed to oscillate
wildly.  it’s not a place
for nanoloops.

before the bubonic plague, men would
choose their surname on their career path.
this is where we get our smiths, hunters,
etc.  why'd this fall out of fashion?  I'm
still waiting to meet a Jonathan Chronic-
Masturbater or a Bill Potfarmer.  I guess
that last one would fall under Farmer,
but you get what I mean.

my windows are covered
so the cardinal will feed her
chicks tonight; and not fly,
head first, into a blind
meeting with death.

legislature.  no
music to it. another
endless distraction.

it hurts me to know that there are people who just seem to refuse beauty.  to chase it.  to stir passion, create something of value.  to chip away stones into sand if only to prove it can be done.  to be breaking waves.

another nail driven into the bad news coffin
another nail driven by our hands -
inconsequential as it may be

the rusty patched bumble bee has been marked for
endangerment.  and though Rusty Patched
stretches his wings over vermont

way and though I've never seen a vermont
sunrise I know that it does.  and I know
it's the same as carolina's.  and I've

never met a person from vermont in
person, but I know that they like
flowers, blueberries, tomatoes

and that Rusty is a good friend of
theirs because of that.  planting his
pollinating pixie stick into receptive pistil

and flowers flowering, blueberries
blueing on bush, tomatoes tip
toeing to life on the vine

thank Rusty.  and vermont, Bernie
Sanders and all, thank Rusty with
a new spot on the great pesticide

death list.  whose bright idea was it
to grow our food with ******?
I think I missed that city council

meeting.

sitting down at the library
hunkered down where you can't see
buried deep inside another world
nose in a book a second life unfurled
give me a week and I'll come right back
a hundred pages and a midnight snack
it's just enough to get me through the day
between the lines is where I wish I'd stayed

when the world seems torn and frayed
take a long look inside
and read (read read read)

witnessed the fall of House Atreides
saw Olaf's eye etched below his knees
many a friend to meet along the way
each of us have our own dragon's to slay

whether escape or a place to play
just take a long look inside
and read (read read read)

I remember thinking I couldn't listen to Led Zeppelin anymore
when I discovered punk rock.
I'm glad I was wrong.
I used to worship Eddie Vedder
before I met Odin
(he's still a hero tho)
I used to not be a feminist.
I used to think I wasn't free to kiss whoever I wanted.
but I am.
I remember picking up the guitar the first time
totally ******* confused.
I wrote a song in a week and even then I thought it was crap.
now I'm three instruments and two hands deep in the
ocean of stringed music.
there's a moral to this
and it's easy to find.
but even if you can't
that's all right.

"ever think of babies as pet humans?
I see some on leashes, dressed up in
clothes they didn't choose to wear.  some
photographed under steaming white
lights completely ignorant of what it
is they're doing.  is it defined in their
tiny bodies?  yes.  and they're doggish
grasp of speech.  everyone is a mutt,
from the cradle to the kennel, it's true."

if she had kept me
would it be tango or samba?
happiness is an ill gain.
false security and contentedness;
beer is better.

it's nothing glamorous.
there's nothing pretty here.
when you're a poet words
pour from your pores and your belly
turns hard.
muscles tighten, bones chip
(and you often get mad instances
of carpal tunnel)
pounding syllable upon syllable
at the punching bag before you.
an empty screen.
a yellow notepad.
you pound and pound until there's nothing
left.  nothing for fanfare
nothing for friends
or publishing
or shares or notes.
the words cake on your skin
and wash away
but you sweat them out again.
you've taken up the task of
solving the world's problems
when you first set out just to write
something nice for your girlfriend.
trust me, man,
this is a loser's game.
there's nothing pretty here.

the final cinders of winter
burnt away.
and the sun stretching downward
dog across the sky.
dripping with uv.
desperate to bury the hatchet
of February and late snow
and empty beds
and cold.
I don't feel like being
a hermit today.

at the moment the sun grows
colder, running shoes are laced.
buds planted in ears to let music
grow.  stretch thru the legs and out
the door -- now he is running
for two miles or more.  *******
down air like coal, this locomotive
just goes, goes goes -- slower now
up a hill, opening a stride before
fertile skyscrapers with applauding
windows.  downtown olympian, do
you do this for fun?  what rhyme or
reason make Hermes' feet run?
sweaty dynamo, athlete without
sport, endurance is a gracious import.
may your heart pump wine thru-
out each vessel. may, like Solo, you
run, these streets your Kessel.

running shoes, gym shorts,
98 degree midday --
I'm an idiot.

blank.
inviting intimidating
I've neglected poetry,
left it in a cat-**** basement.
it hasn't eaten in weeks.
dehydrated
dessicated
burrowing thru
gossamer and cerebellum
with a wooden spoon.
it escaped thru my mouth today
getting back into phosphorescent
sunlight.  
malnourished, weak
but fighting.
of all the things I've learned
from poetry
it's how to fight back.

let me thaw in this new season.
let me contain what contains me.
dump me out of this bucket room
and let me crash against the slippery
crags of the west.
let me flow quietly, gently
let the tongues
of every creature on my path
tickle my face
and belly as I sink by.
let the sun **** me up into
the sky and let me fall
back down as a green glass bottle.
pack me tight, hurl me when the leaves
drip into the soil once again
let me bust apart on your face.
let me be soaked into the ground
let me soak the seed
so he may grow.
let him thrive higher
let me dry slowly.

I am a waxwing
feathered in snow
fat on juniper
with a wingspan 6 months long in either direction.
I sing the hollow bone electric
above the din of coyote
wolf pack on the hunt
... winter's whispers to bare branches.
there's no sun to sing to.
there never has been.
I will take flight, I will find it
6 months long
in either direction.