My emotions are trapped, reverberating
like a haunting echo bouncing back and forth.
In my youth, I read that wealth is in the mind;
does this imply that only contemplating
about riches can manifest all the fortune I want?

And am I in haze of indulgence – thinking
only about ****, whenever my responses
come out blunt?

The high seeps into my bones
trickling slowly, inward, and deeply
as if my body has turned to liquid
I float

i float past the anger i felt during work today
the desperation to be anywhere but there
i pass the happiness i felt in my car with a smoothie bowl
jamming to my music feeling optimistic for once
then i see it,
the despair, the guilt, the ugly
the moments growl at me
they are so wrapped in their own misery to never see the light
they deserve to stay here

the place i can float away from
where they only haunt me when I'm trying to escape from solitude

There once was a gal from Zumbrota
(A city in Minnemesota)
     Who drank in a bar
     And then got in her car
And crashed it while smoking some mota.

when love blossoms
from a crack
in the sidewalk
of your life

remember

a garden would grow there
if you let the concrete crumble

We were both smoking long blunts;
-having a much longer conversation
and she confessed a truth about self:

[Her hands had grown a fatigued touch,
too tired to touch the rest of itself
Her body a trade of secrets; constantly learning
all of the best places, to please herself.

And lastly, our eyes, both held history of
**** pictures- seeing each other with our naked
eyes; and of course, the many glares of knowing
how to please ourselves.

      Two lovers, who truly loved themselves.

On one of the myriad bays
along the Maine coast. Keep the holocaust
at bay I said to Dave because
you’ll spend all day gathering
2,000 calories and still be miserable hungry.
An undiminished population of humans is risible.

Black spruce and balsam fir,
you can eat the inner bark
in a starvation emergency.
There’s plenty of Cornus—bunchberry—
each orange pith around the stone
worth maybe a quarter calorie.

Lots of sarsparilla but the fruits
not out yet and to date I have not
savored one. Let’s see—dandelion
of course and huckleberry but
the most important source of sustenance
would be seaweed.

Learn your mushrooms! for the protein.
Accept the situation
come the apocalypse.
I struggle against my insignificance
but it would be better to struggle
against my ignorance.

Less effortlessness, more fishermanliness.
That’s the lesson of this Maine vacation
there’s a lot you can eat when in need—
the hips of roses and the pips of grasses.
And an endless supply of seaweed—
bladderwrack, dulse, kelp and thin green lettuce.