right in front of me
but out of reach
windiness

tests upon tests
you teach me
patience

i’m weary
but i keep chasing
and i just don’t know
if i can reach the top

collecting pieces
of facts like rags
i shape opinions,
secrets map

trust impasse.

i may never know
the mountain shade
unearthed in doubt
from years of pain

but for it all
i love you more
you teach me
strength

and i’ll plant my flag
and print my foot
drag my wooden,
peg-legged soul

lose my voice,
foretell my wake
altitudes high
and immense

please believe
what i can see
let me teach you
acceptance

everest man
i am
shrinking

as you hide the sun
behind your back
as you hide the sun
away from me

i read like a thermostat
i feel cold shrill of eyes
hot blisters of souls

i’ve seen aplenty

fully literate to the hunger
inside denim of men
with twenty tongues

pulling their weight
like untrained dogs

they lick my face to a swell

heating and cooling
my metals expand
silvers contracting

but I can very much tell

who is ready
who is not

some do
some talk

if you'd like
to open me wide like a mouth,
be mean with your smile

to get my thaws down to feet,
**** fire to the wind

with the door
wide open

let
it
all
hang

i’m very keen on intense
i salute a heavy gut
and the confidence of a mutt

an appetite

and if I’m truly your win,
jackhammer
the thermostat
out of the wall

get the wires all bent
and with violence
cement

the
type
of
love
that
knocks
me
dead

completely illiterate
i don’t want to think

met a man once
and he took me to a steakhouse
the type where tuxedo men come back
with a twee bite-sized piece of meat on a plate
he ordered my steak for me
and though it glistened
the slab barely satisfied
the crack in my teeth
i was starving
and he kept talking about
business deals
and networking
to the type of cars that make him hard
which one of these thousand ******* forks
is best to stab?
making friends
with a bunch of pruned men
chatting business
he introduced me
she speaks Spanish
how exotic
raw and juicy
STEAK
sure does go well with potatoes
i started ordering loads of wine
when they all agreed that it was time
to make America great again
i downed even more down my throat
‘till I was seeing spuds in Versace
drinks for everyone!
we ordered like five bottles
so drunk
that I started mooing
but if this gasbag ever hopes to get laid
he’ll need to go to the slaughterhouse for that
meanwhile, let the bartender do the milking

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

Strands and strands of my hair
On the ground
I’m twisting, I’m balding
I watch the minutes and seconds rake

Strands and strands of my hair
From the time
I stayed put on the ground
But a **** of cutting wood remains

Widening and splitting
Deep in my body

I see me now
I’m loud

After many years, a small seed
Under earth, a lost child
I was never this loud
But I can hear me now

The moan of these branches
wrap around me like wires
My weary throat
tightening, tightening
with nothing to show

From a tongue in its comfort
Long impaired in the silence
Hushed, hushed
till I blacked myself out

And now my roots rip
above land
they
hold
on
like desperate hands
now that I must
get ready to leave

And the minutes and seconds,
won't wait for me

I cannot sow leaves
back to a tree

Take my name plate
To the farthest of gates

It is too late
It is too late

*We must now
rake
rake
rake

I look inside my skeleton
Love-hate bulging
eyes out of my face
Two warts of ambivalence

I want to hug my skeleton
Heart twitching in a rib-cage
Admire the asymmetry
of every piece broken

Dear beautiful skeleton
In veins runs the river
In a stream of excitement
I flood in disappointment

I talk to my skeleton
I tell it that I love it
Rub my head against it
Lungs violently sighing

I believe in you, skeleton
in the blood of your tongue
A kick in the stomach
Everything is working

I do not like it here
I do not like what we have.

Take the shovel,
here.

Pigeon-toed,
austere.

Dig deep in the earth,
big capable man.

Plunge through that dirt
until you reach the other side.

I'm
restless
as desert dust

the steps on me,
heavy.

Plant in me
the rose

and garden
the romance.

Won't you
resuscitate
the dear
in my tongue

tighten
the clutch
of these arms

soften
this face,
unalarmed

out of its casket
into a smile...

Take the shovel,
here.

You’ve been cold too.
Your body is quivering

so
dig
through
that
dirt

Dig deep in the earth,
big capable man.

Bring us both back
the last breathing rose.

But the man with the shovel
never came back...

However
I did hear he reached the other side.