don’t numb that brain silly boy

put it to good use



cleave in half

the line parsing

chest from

chin hair

        you’re a man when

        you say you are

save the streaks of palm-filth

dug-under nails broken

buried under dirtweight



what do you know of slippage

        —something  



****** as inch-thick glass

run through a filter

                        tossed aloft

                into

        the ceiling

fan  



I’m left for nothing of my efforts

it's dirt under the fingernail

        you can taste it

it's dirt


        taste it

14
Every song or sonnet
singular in its intricacy,
in time it becomes something
other, hyper-personal and resonant.
14 things may burst into millions.

13
Three times I've felt alone
this minute. I should stop tallying
hours in my schedule, messy
rubric.

12
11-years old and jumping off
mud-mounds, playing King of the
Hill. The strongest rises to the top.
The cleverest usurps.

11
One thing for certain:
we are human. We are
not human.

10
Six times in school I got
detention. It was often due
to my willingness to be a
follower, silly sheep to a
slaughter.

9
Five languages of love we are
sure of, no more so far.

8
10 tally marks looks a lot
like less. Some things, like
people, refuse to show their
face.

7
13 is supposedly an unlucky
number. At this age I uncovered
a part of myself I did not know
before. Discovery. This is luck.

6
A dozen is meant to represent 12
because it is simpler, same syllables
only one less letter, a convenience.

5
If you flip an eight on its side
you can see forever.

4
Seven times I've thought this poem
gimmicky.

3
[redacted for time constraints
and continuity]

2
The artist places her pen to
paper and borrows, not stealing
so much as salvaging, wrapping
old presents in neat new bows,
satin or silk or rough twine.
Nine variations on the same
subject.

1
Four lids harbor two eyes,
a galaxy, universe,
each hiding half a heaven
from view.

I've lent myself to self
parody. I am yellow grass
in summer. So easy to see
in daylight, split-rays.

Again I stumble through the
door too closely, nose grazing
siding too rough, not fit for
suburban living.

I am outside now, cigarette in lungs
almost empty of airspace. Tight
breath, silt sinew of exhale and
burning, eyes painted in panic.

Four smokes in, cherry blossom
cheeks, a rosary of liquor, perhaps
lending myself to sanity,
a bright morning in autumn.

Bend at the waist
be a doll, doll,
dance your *** down
this way, my way
into sentiment, burning
images onto the brain
you can't get away.

Bend babe, shake or
shiver as you please
let lethargy melt into
unkempt smiles, deep
dimples of face-skin
softened in sweet sun ray.

All the people in the street.
Where are they going, and
what does that mean in the
end-times, the ever-present hour
of a dying world's last breaths,
here for sole reason of shepherding
the sheep, because you're a wolf
are you not?

Miles above the weeping masses,
holding it together with barely
a grip to give name; coping
they call it, accepting reality as
objective, something separate from
myself.

I imagine the world as a bubble
and I hold the pin-needle, too close
to body to alarm and too close
to bubble to bat away, bend
please, bend at wrist for sake of
sanity, bury yourself neck-deep in
chance. Bend babe,
bend away.

There are empty pages that yearn for ink describing her loving caress.
There are empty beds that beg for the arch of her lower back.
I know which one I would rather fill.

In the glow of an intransigent moon,
she looked up at dull stars with a twinkling bitterness.

All she wanted was the sun.
She wanted endless yellows and reds.
Blues.
Greens.
Light to be shed upon her world.

But she was stuck under a film of grey.

And the night would not relent.