I

We sit on a tailgate pointed toward
the hills, where life ripples down the slopes
gathers in pools of the creek and begins again
to climb up the peaks and tree trunks on the
other side. It colors the breaths we take
green.
Children run here, learn their legs, as stalks
graze their shoulders and block their
view. They get dizzy as rows rush by.
We rein in our bovine friends here, watch
them jump and kick, see them call in
spring

II

We walk between rows of highly stacked cement and exhale smog that drifts
upwards to
join the cloud of soot.
We walk among so many abrasive shoulders. We get
hung up on abrasive personalities.
A gray wave in a black sea we’re vapidly
drifting. Legs move quickly to stay afloat.
swimming. Swimming always. Swimming further.

III

We sit for pictures with clogged eyes and stuffed chests
We coo at portraits of masks and dummies
We write books for laughs and money and friends
We read a little to find the romance and sorrow
and lay cold on the slab while our own pages turn.

IV

We pass out of porcelain faces with their tightly
drawn eyes that cast gazes over shoulders, homes
of last night’s kisses. We pass out of the electrical
current of youth
numbed and still alive
with eyes that look like stained glass windows of the
Church of Holy Suffering.


V

We wait for Sunday night to turn the dial to the Blues. We keep throwing something for an animal to pick up and return.  We string beads and sell them for redemption.

VI

We think of our friends. They’re draped in a future,
warmed with hot blood rushing through their veins,
slamming fists to tables, pronouncing their minds.
ripping off dresses, sharing their madness.
tossing paint to canvas, showing their hearts.
asking questions to startle, proving their love.

VII

We think of our parents.
dead and gone, dead to us, dead by self-proclamation -
Is their blood cold and still in their withered veins?
Have they their fill of slamming fists and ripped dresses and tossed paint and startling questions?

VIII

We are sad.

Naked pictures of God on my nightstand,
Dry bones of Moses painted on my button down shirt screaming,
“to be or not to be” is not an English word.
In the daze of the thoughts of Neurology, I saw a man kick a bucket full of Starbucks giftcards down the avenue street. He screamed in pain as he watched the bucket tumble and roll down the street, blessing every Bohemian with a slight cold.

Naked pictures of God on my nightstand,
I dreamt about a land before man where the Oxygen that sprang from the pores of flowers
sang a sweet death. Where dishwashers are saints, for afterall, man will not be if not for food.
Where books are written not to be read, but for the sake of Orange trees that will grow in the future.
I once wore a poker face to a funeral and laughed at the man in the casket because the souls he had underneath him were two left feet.

*We all once had naked pictures of God on our nightstands but lost it after Einstein  
Lost the fried chicken war of 1812 to Isaac Newton.

because we fell in love with the law
and fell out of love with ourselves.

because the ***** of great minds
wear pineapple fatigues in their fathers’ *******;

from Judas swallowing 9 bullets
to one day being a kid at heart
a symptom of some abnormality.

Ever get the feeling that you’ll die on a Tuesday?

Or one day wake up on their government bed
Screaming,
“you can blame the French Revolution
On silent reading!”

watching

as three teacups of *** plan war on the asphalt.

Everyone hopes that they are broken,
Because if you're broken
That means that there is a cure,
A treatment,
A medication,
A program that can fix you.
If you're broken,
Then someone can make it stop.
The real fear is that you're fine,
And it can't get better.
The real fear is that this is normal.
It really hurts this much to lose a friend,
To move,
To not get the job,
Or to get the job.
Just to feel so sad and scared and disorientated.
It is all completely normal,
And you can't fix it.
No one fears being broken,
You can make that stop.
It's the real ability to feel pain that you can't change,
And that is terrifying.

I used to hear the moths tapping my blinds at night
but chose to believe it was you instead,
getting out of the shower, hearing the doorbell ring, I would
pretend it was you having come to visit me.

Eventually bought a compass for the curtains
because I wanted to see
what direction the rocks you threw were coming from.

Well, the thing never moved
eternally pointed south, and I wondered if distance could be
silent when our love is so ******* loud
but it seems I had only fallen for the moths at night.

Moonlight gives us fainting spells
the fall changed your face shape, touches your white back
until it is as freckled as Planet Earth itself.