Don't let it get you down,
all this bad news going 'round.
It's all inconsequential.

No need to fret
over stubbed toes, lost bets.
It means nothing to me.

As I
go down
this road,
I
begin to see
what it holds for me.

As the
clock turns,
I slowly learn
why it is
I'm trying

to

believe.

~


days expanding beyond mere hours
the long dark of winter sweeps the land
              wide brush strokes lay snow across canyons
                    famished mammals push thick undercoats
                            to the limits of temperature control

red chapped cheeks carry scarf string
holey mittens and thin thermals
           barely sway the frigid breath
                icicles stretch and grab
                            clawing at beanies

strollers set in the drifts
playground toys like sticks pushing the odd
                     single bar into the sky
                            one lone sled waits by the hill
                                   hard red plastic shell and yellow rope handles
                                             as isolated as an Antarctic station

my words fall as fog
spilling to the frozen ground below
               my thoughts held in the tundra
                       await the spring thaw
                             so that they might finally express
                                 the ‘buuurrrrrr’ that no one heard   /

in the summer:
she poured peach wine down my body.
she folded her paisley hands into my hair.
I made art for the dead prostitutes and the dead carpenter,
and I made art for her.


in the nightclub:
when the floor was red with liquor and gunshot, did they know?


in my heart:
I’m scared that I’ll betray you when the rifles bring us down;
I'm only hoping my switchblade can protect us now.


a mass shooting in a holy place
in the summer
I heard bodies dancing and laughing
I heard bodies bleeding and dying
I heard bodies
I heard bodies
in the summer


when I taste like judas, will you tell me?
when we exit the tobacco smoke, will you tell me?
I’ll betray you,
I’ll betray you, and I don't want to,
because if I could only breathe in your daisy chain hair,
if I could only breath in your summer eyes,
if I could only breath in you,
I’d be singing of my revival from the hanging corpse life I have been living,
and my aunt lisa’s gonna weep when I tell her about you.

I hope your next girl takes care of you.
I hope she always tells you
how much she misses you.
I hope she never hesitates to
love you.