you touched me.
we came from tupperware and 2 to 3 sets of silverware.
with it i gave worms a home and with you i made fig jam and we put it in a mason jar.
i stared at my milk at your dinner table the way one stares at a speck in the gravel when one tries to balance on one foot,
to help from embarrassing myself in front of your older brother.
i loved him like my own; i loved you like any soul-searching, trampoline-jumping munchkin loves their best friend-
you touched me
as if i could just list off memories and believe that it compensates for our loss
and now i can't do anything more than to brush it off like life,
but that in and of itself makes me want to *****.
from tupperware, from textbooks...
to an eternity of unknown nothings and everythings,
you touched me and though i want to believe i've been through it,
though i say i've been through the dinner party irony of havoc, through the tupperware dilemma of sorts,
what faults in this life have i missed,
to help me understand what brought you to jump,
my trampoline companion with a curiosity and endless potential,
with textbooks and tupperware in hand?

This is a poem of a girl. A girl who is so cliché, that she needs to write angst-filled poetry to keep herself conscious and her thoughts free, but is too hipster to believe it. A girl who is too freckled to be fair, too fleshy to be flirty, too conspicuous to be classy, too prominent to be petite, but too small to be seen. A girl who’s piercing blue eyes absorbs everything and regurgitates emotions like a tampered slots machine—excessi vely and noisily. This is a poem of a girl who is so over-stimulated with color, texture, love, and life that the numbness in her head is a pink eraser. A girl who was brought up to have opinions and dreams as long as they kept her on the path to perfection, poise, and parenting. A girl who is experienced enough to know the difference between sorrow and guilt, manipulation and cowardice, hysteria and hyperventilation but is too naïve to know why certain boys are a bluish green, why math is a bafflement, and why ground up chili peppers in dark chocolate ice cream isn’t everyone’s favorite food. This is a poem of a girl who salivates at the mere thought of classical music, couture fashion, and feminine heels. A girl who breathes in culture like a caterpillar inhales hookah smoke. A girl who Alis volat propriis (flies with her own wings) but ultimately plummets to nosus decipio (Let’s just cheat) because her humanity held down her Heredity. A girl who thrives on music of every variety: as long as it can paint out her emotions in front of her. This is a poem of a girl who is so acerbically witty and harsh that she could unarm Napoleon but is so vehemently protecting that Mother Theresa herself would be awed. A girl with an attention span of a fish, short-term memory like sea foam, thoughts that outnumber armadas, and a bad habit of dehydration. This is a poem of a girl who talks but shouldn’t, speaks but doesn’t, and who is so badly burnt by the enticement of affection that her wallflower camouflage is now charred ashes around her stubby toes. A girl who has such infatuation that she could pin Lust against the wall and make Passion jealous. A girl who wears red lipstick because she knows it will keep a man’s gaze for 8.2 more seconds than with chapstick and the 50’s will never grow old. A girl too nervous and traditional to make the first move, but too strategic and over-analytical to lie back and forget. A girl who loathes the word mamihlapinatapai because it describes her every circumstance since the day she befriended the purple-brown boy who thought her personality tasted of Raspberry ice cream and to this day she still can’t pronounce it. This is a poem of a girl who needs a bed so crowded and protected with blankets and pillows that her monsters can’t penetrate her mazed-up mind. A girl who drinks tea with her lips, and philosophy with her soul. A girl who can’t spell the alphabet backwards but can make great mnemonic devices. A girl who can’t tie ends together because she doesn’t want to leave anything unsaid but whose tangents are kite-strings. A girl whose sentences are distracting fences in front of her literal eyes but doors for her mind’s eyes. A girl who has Synesthesia but keeps it quiet because of the condescending kids in kindergarten who called her a freak, and a liar. This is a poem of a girl who thinks about Death and whether he is a snatching thief or just the ferryman. A girl who dances with her eyes shut, her heart open and her toe-socks on. A girl who will clean her room at 2 am because she can’t handle the sight and the night is too lively for sleeping anyways. A girl who wears her heart not only on her sleeve, but on her chest, open as a blushing book playing poker with hockey players and still winning a game. A girl who’s emotions are kept in a Tupperware box and left in the refrigerator but if you shake it hard enough the lid just might pop open

Independent is the word they all use,
They tack it on me,
Let it hang a crooked ribbon.

Seeing all the things I already knew
Transcripted on the blanks of stacks of white and black,
Reverberating off chapped pink lips,
Takes me aback, shoves me into the corners of myself,
Tastes new like bird meat ****** off the bone tastes new.
I want to cut it up into little squares and abandon it in tupperware.
At least for a few days.

Little by Little
He softened in the Head
He drank from his own Spittle
Stored in Jars
Under the Bed
He said Daily Prayers
And waited for The Girl
But Drowned in his own Pale *****
Then Stiffened
In a Curl








© Jon Thenes 2005

i go through this daily plot
waking, working, trudging
first world ease, office walls
wheeled chairs

afternoon run
tupperware lunch
dinner the night before

home again, dinner
dishes again,
play again,
daughter picks up
new phrases, new looks
vegetable strainer toy
"umbrella," she says

i see those eyes, my wife's
and i wonder

what is this place?
these walls, these roads,
those sitka pines and shrinking
glaciers?

how 'm i supposed to be a father
with all these things stretching out
vaster than reason, than comprehension

those talking heads, ranting this or that
liberty's *****, freedom's snatched,
the world warms, the world cools

Filipinos scream in the face  of angry
winds, the prim cut weatherman wildly
gestures at a colorful map, powerful
he says, historic
he says

more dripping mouthes,
government want guns now,
more money to ****** our phones
to send unmanned drones

our president's muhammad,
or jesus, or kenyan, or raciest
a genius or incompetent
everyone knows

just back home
a tiny algae grows and foams
thrashing in the autumn water
brown oxygen choking life
never found on our shores before
kills fish,

i imagine so much more

i hold my daughter in my lap
reading mother goose,
run my hand through her
thin smooth hair,
sometimes afraid
of what she'll see and hear
with her mother's eyes
and her father's ears

1.  Shoot *****
2. Ski
3. Free-dive
4. Sky-dive
5. Vote Republican
6. Eat raw fish
7. Play naked volleyball
8. Eat haggis
9. Walk on coals
10. Yodel
11. Visit Somalia
12. Jell-O shots
13. Learn Klingon
14. Fish
15. Sell *****-wigs
16. Drink Genesee Creme Ale
17. Run a 5K
18. Pay mortgage
19. Divorce
20. Shoot ******
21. Go to Tupperware party
22. Drink Gatorade
23. Visit Poughkeepsie
24. Tend bar
25. Serve on a ******* trial
26. Eat glass
27. ****
28. Trump rally
29. KKK rally
30. Watch Sally Fields in The Flying Nun
31. Attend a MegaChurch
32. Listen to Death Metal
33. Watch American Dad
34. Moonwalk
35. Eat brussel sprouts
36. Watch Fox News
37. Turn 20
38. Turn 30
39. Turn 40
40. Turn 50
41. Turn 60
42. Turn over in my grave
43. Eat a tern
44. Teach Fall term
45. Terminate a solemn vow
46. Take a vow of silence
47. Disavow core beliefs
48. Operate a snow plow
49. Forget that I do know how
50. Insinuate
51. Dissemble
52. Lie, cheat and/or steal
53. S'Mores
54. Wet my bed
55. **** my thumb
56. **** a duck
57. Watch Little House on the Prairie
58. Rent a yacht
59. Not rescue animals
60. Not neuter pets
61. Not give to Food for People
62. Not appreciate Public Radio
63. Not appreciate Public Television
64. Knot like a Boy Scout
65. Play Parcheesi
66. Pay credit interest
67. Feign interest
68. Pinterest
69. Instagram
70. Eat spam
71. Exam cram
72. Karaoke
73. Jet-ski
74. Snowmobile
75. Pretend what the ******* are going on and on about matters (whoops; that’s number 67)
76. Blame my parents
77. Not take responsibility for my choices
78. Invest in oil futures
79. Renege on promises
80. Waste my time listening to telemarketers
81. Waste my time listening to zealots
82. Waste my time listening to racists
83. Waste your time
84. Waste my time, I hope
85. Not seek truth
86. Not seek answers
87. Not be authentic
88. Not be xenophobic
89. Accept lies
90. March lockstep
91. Buy the latest and greatest
92. Be consumer extraordinaire
93. Not be present
94. Not be conscientious
95. Not be good to my fellow human beings
96. Consume too much
97. Waste too much
98. Boast too much
99. Post too much
100. Not think about consequences
101. Not be me

It was a Friday night,
I was on the phone with my grandmother when I looked at the clock suddenly remembered,
it was time for the ritual.
I immediately hung up on my grandmother,
and stripped of my clothing.
The ritual required I be naked.
I then took some goat cheese out of my refrigerator,
and put it in the microwave.
I waited.
The goat cheese seemed like it took forever to melt,
but it only took a few minutes.
In those few minutes,
I just sat there,
and played with my left ******.
Finally, the timer went off,
and it was done.
I took the melted goat cheese,
and poured it onto my body.
It burned,
but I suffered through it.
I would do anything for the Goat Gods.
Anything.
Once the melted goat cheese was poured onto my body,
I began to lather myself in it.
Soon, I was covered in melted goat cheese.
The smell,
was horrendous,
but in a way,
I enjoyed it.
Then, I removed the goat blood from my refrigerator,
and poured it into a ***,
which had been on the oven all day,
waiting.
I began to boil the goat blood.
I took a sip of it.
"No" I said as a shook my head in disappointment.
I had been ripped off again by my goat blood dealer.
There was no flavoring in it.
It tasted like goat blood.
So I threw in some carrots,
and a dollop of horse radish.
While it was boiling,
I went to my bedroom,
to my closet,
where I found my goat mask.
A real goats head I had carved out and made into a mask.
I put it on.
When I had it on,
I felt like one with the Goat Gods.
When I returned,
the goat blood was done.
I poured it into a Tupperware container,
sealed it,
and put on my shoes.
By now,
the once hot and slimy goat cheese,
was dried,
and stuck to my body.
It was crusty,
like the crusties you get in your eyes,
just all over your body.
I walked out the front door,
across the street,
to my neighbors house.
I tried to open the front door.
Locked.
They knew I was coming this time.
Last week,
they forgot.
So I left the goat blood on their front steps,
and left.
When I got home,
I immediately went to the TV,
sat down,
and turned on "Antique Roadshow".
I looked out my window,
and saw my nervous neighbor grab the goat blood,
and bring it inside.
"Soon they will join the Goat Side" I said as I repeated it to myself, "Soon they will join the Goat Side".