Thank God I'm not the idiot I was in high school.
Thank God I'm not the idiot I was freshman year of college.
Thank God I'm not the idiot I was yesterday.
Tomorrow, I will
thank God I'm not the idiot that I am today.

WE CONSIDER THEM VERMIN--
these visitors
to the rotting corpses of our loved ones.
But what if
they’re only there to say
hello?

And when’s the last time you paid them a visit,
anyway?

Well let me tell you something:
the maggots and
worms
know where we're going.

Billions of years, billions of ancestors,
busily moving
through their lives in
isolated
blips--
They’re just data now.
And did John the Amoeba, feeding on sunlight, ever think
that somewhere down the line
his great-something-grandson
would be a poet?
A doctor?
A teacher?
A football player?
Did he ever think that his great-something-grandson would
sit in his room
and listen to
the Mountain Goats?
To be honest, probably not.

Grandpa’s a stranger.
He got sick when you were young, but you
could never
remember
the name of the disease.
But it all came down to the fact that he never recognized his own grandchild—
he was an ancient basket case whom you loved
because
that’s what
you were told
to do.

You were 13 when he died,
and his passing gave you an excuse
to be sad,
which worked out pretty well because
sadness
was the most stylish emotion
at Marblehead Charter
in 2007.

Grandpa won’t be there on your wedding day.
He’ll be with the vermin,
saying hello.
But you won’t mind—
you still love him anyway.

Because one day
you'll be in his place
and your grandson will be getting married
and you won’t be there,
but he'll still love you anyway.

And somewhere down the line,
you’ll be someone’s—something’s—John the Amoeba.
And you know you would be proud.

I drove to Judah's Funhouse Orchard
to pick my own apples
and build my own lavender dishes,
but I put my new friends in a -famous- basket.

Oh, how it overtook me with its windswept stories!
It told me of a fat, shiny snake,
but we were drunk,
and the only person at the party whom I cared about gave me a slinky smile
and told me to leave.

So I left with a hurricane in all of my pockets,
and I played darts with the basket's forgotten, fairy-dusted nephew.
Illuminated by a single lightbulb in a concrete cavern beneath my mother's kitchen,
I learned to give up my apples
and forget my lavender dishes,
because my crudely-woven drunken comrade
is now a shining sober picture
of my sordid, henpecked past.

I imagine you to be a nightmare lizard poet
I imagine this constantly, and with all my brainpower

I have waltzed
with sunset ease
into your broken dressers.

I have juggled
like schoolyard doctrines
with guts forgotten.

For every shepherd, there is a butcher.
For every artist, there is a garbageman.

Deep-fried success!
Dinky potatoes
and little Schwarzenegger
on a hornswoggled bun,
oh yes--
How they soothe my lubes,
breathe my bubbles,
and skip *** straight to breakfast.

I haven't the energy anymore.
The pangs of gentle zest tricked me out of my boxers,
and left my only brain,
grinding against tight denim.

Without a calling card,
the mulch fell down like French Rain.
We were buried in its
turbid gyrations.

The sky was bright, but we could not see it.
Like a lemon,
Like a waffle,
Like a sack of potatoes,
I unhinged my door and
challenged my reality with a rotting submarine.

Now my eardrums are all of a sudden flooded with the lingering noise of
every curse I've ever heard,
but I find myself only mildly offended.

Checkmate!
Touchdown!
Presto!
You sunk my battleship!

Lust lust lust lust lust
Lust lust lust lust lust lust lust
Oh, ******* it, lust

With providence, I spin
the turbid gears of a certain Olivia Robson. I hear
the whispers of a secret automobile. I
wreck those around me.
I wreck them all, Paul.

I ate a conquistador
I ate a holiday
I ate an afterthought
I ate a bagel
Gosh, what a breakfast it's been

At the phresh gates of the Redwood Dreadnaught Blog,
I screamed! I dug a tunnel to
your murderous lips!
Everyone's swimming, but you and I are the Sunburnt Bourgeoisie,
so we'll resign to simply dancing
in my groovy groovy grave.

This is a weird weird world.
In draping the deepest of thrones, we find
the dimple of a newborn waterfall.
This is a weird weird world.

Flying endlessly like a crosstown log,
The modern mermen tip their tails and
flip their flails and
sip their sails in
this stillborn magical world.

I sit here, implying.
I waste no time in my elevator,
For I am dripping
and reminiscing
about everything
you
just
told
me
in this rickshaw striptease world.

But hey there!
Recalculate!
For I am dying simply DYING for a laboratory!
For I am dying simply DYING for some mud!
For I am dying simply DYING for an alphabetical totem!
For I am dying simply DYING!

And oh, in this world, in THIS
sacred bloodbath,
the words fly like hummingbirds!
Like dreary, dreary, hummingbirds,
in marmalade, in mother's words!

This world is just a time machine,
And we've got front row seats.
So yes, we'll put on the rock shows and the tesla coils and the
posters of Winnie the Pooh,
because there's nothing leaving for us
in this freckle cookie world.

I've got ideas, Freddie.
I've got ideas--
And they've got me. They've got me good, like a
sundae and a soccer ball, like a
city-woven carnival.

I would describe myself as disinterested at best--
for I won't be coming back.

Curse this whimsical technobabble!
Curse it all day long!
Here's a short list of things:
Opinions!
Opinions about religions on the Internet,
Opinions about Where the Wild Things Are,
Opinions about
other people's opinions.

I have **** psychic brainwaves
You have hot sauce in your bones
So let's wreck the competition
In my **** psychic home

Bugdom returns!
A swift kick in the beta-traced alcove rocks my world,
and my dream release is twofold:
One of Mrs. Booras's 5th grade class, and
one of a crow perched on a tree,
looking through a window into
Mrs. Booras's 5th grade class.

I named the crow Sunshine,
And in that moment I saw rags upon
rags
upon rags
falling from the flickering lights.

Greg told me to stop believing in everything.
Greg told me ghosts weren't real,
but he'll see.
I'll ***** him up.

I will not be disturbed by this mother of three.
I will ignore her Cheshire makeup,
her matching white tennis club outfit,
and her wild dreams of a life on Mars.
I will do this because she is what I am not--
she is a ghost,
while I am free.

I see her in the stratos,
I see her in the sky.
I see her in the people,
I see her in my mind.

I am made of crooked a l p h a b e t soup and
I have seen the mother of death and rebirth and
understanding.
I have faced her in her milk cart prison,
and I have dreamed of her shining yesteryear.

For there is more than alphabet s o u p in the can.
There is a flood of m e m o r i e s reactivated by the
breaking of a
mental dam.

Now I see that I am aging swiftly and poorly,
for my years have escaped me,
and have long been forgotten.
Farewell, Stanley Elementary School;
So long, Marblehead Charter;
I remember you in J e w i s h tones
and chlorine-crusted c h a i n l i n k fences.

But a  f r e s h   s u n
s l o w l y   r i s e s, my dear,
and I k n o w
that I m u s t
become
a peacock
once a g a i n.

I
am a ridiculous monster
You
are a ridiculous monster
We
are ridiculous monsters

Moonlight in my dizzy shrapnel mindset
Moonlight in the keyboard on my desk
Moonlight in a stunted willow sapling
Moonlight in my heart and in my head

Sunlight on my secret perfect planet
Sunlight on the strings of my guitar
Sunlight on the lake and on the mountains
Sunlight on the lullabies and cars

Lamplight of my ****** windswept habits
Lamplight of my story and my ways
Lamplight of my laughter when I'm happy
Lamplight of the friends I'll see today

Streetlight with my purpose and my passion
Streetlight with my breakfast and dessert
Streetlight with the nature of ambition
Streetlight with the people that I've hurt

Starlight is the last remaining remnant
Starlight is my beaten Converse kicks
Starlight is my Internet connection
Starlight is the love we shared as kids

Darkness, how it feeds upon my daydreams
Darkness, how it snaps my board in half
Darkness, how it hides the whole **** city
Darkness, how it curses as it laughs

Yesterday I was a shovel,
Today I am a hole.
Tomorrow I will be a vanilla hurricane,
twirling on your merry-go-rounds
and landing like whirlpools
in your November morning coffee.

What's in a ******* day?
Ten days ago, I was in the
backseat of
a 2008 Chrysler Minivan.

One hundred days ago,
I was stumbling and
climbing in
Burlington,
reborn.
What's in a ******* day?

What's in a ******* day?
Three hundred and sixty-five days ago, I was trapped,
homeless and loveless,
in a private, Stepford-studded
sort of way.

What's in a ******* day?
You tell me--
but I've learned that while my streets may change,
the concrete is always the same.

One thousand days ago,
I passed the baton to Richie Sullivan,
thus turning my wild,
private reality
on its dainty little head.

Five thousand days ago, I learned that
Gregory was going to New Zealand
for three hundred and sixty-five days,
give or take a few. But
what's in a ******* day?

What's in a ******* day?
Yesterday I spoke with Janina,
today I did the same,
and tomorrow I will speak with her as well.

Yesterday I did not speak with Conor McCall
or Brian Gagnon
or Julia Ginsburg
though I knew them all once.
I will not speak with them today,
or tomorrow, either.
What's in a ******* day?