#bozeman
The way that Villard Street composes a tease I take every time,
as if I'll get all the way to Bozeman Creek;
drive my car into the culvert and wash away a year or 15...
Or how the trees on South Willson won't let me forget
the bookstore I loved before, back then--
_Back when?_
...when it was there. Never mind.
Leaves breeze-swaying/dancing to the rhythm of a laughter
caught bitter in a swelling throat.
I remember a reminder. 7th & College. I'm not supposed to be here
by now.
A future my youth had rejected.
Never signed up for.
There's a piece of my fingerprint removed; it's shaped like
Scott Street--like rain in Osborne Village.
There's a piece of my Gallatin ghostwalk that's the color of Polo Park Mall.
It makes a Province of sense, but States nothing at all.
I'm invisible here.
_Might be there too._
But my insides--my infrastructure--were built for Corydon Avenue
and the R.M. of East St. Paul.
You-me mailed a promise to me-you back then
_BACK. WHEN?_
NEVER MIND.
from this Cat pawed zip code to R2E 1B9 and then what?
_been a long time_
Been a while for brown eyes to run dry. Drag my blue through the mud on Pembina Highway,
Dry my tired center out and sew me up, I guess, with
a stitching
of 11th and Alderson. Try to debride these festering wounds
I gave myself, back in Kildonan or sliced open on Bird's Hill Road.
_Had long enough to heal, ain't ya?_
I guess I've had long enough
May 23, 2025
May 23, 2025 at 11:34 AM UTC
We both had enough of the poison Springtime
So you picked me up, and you started driving.
The street's Westbound,
rain and wipers pound.
We can be reborn if we can just depart
our town.
Race away--
--like we'd set fire to Bon-Ton
Lose a day...
...take 84 past the county line.
Let the rain keep time on the sunroof
'til we're fine.
Do they ever feel it?
--Someone does!
The grinding. Rewinding,
hit play to repeat
and then
get paid.
The payoff?
You'll stave off
14 lies from their dead end eyes
for one fortnight.
Be forthright.
Am I blind?
Or do I detect that
our headaches kind of rhyme?
Make us reborn this time; phoenix down and back upright.
Continued the drive and the world we're righting.
We killed our time
and came back to life
Just in time to return to our twinkling
town lights.
When we have our fill of the pissant Summer,
let me pick you up and we'll head out driving.
past the Cannery
until Rouse turns free
our zipped up obits that we can't speak
cleanly.
Race away--
--like we'd set fire to Bon-Ton
Lose a day...
...take 84 past the county line.
Let the rain keep time on the sunroof
'til we're fine.
Let the rain keep time
on the sunroof.
You'll be fine...
Apr 23, 2025
Apr 23, 2025 at 2:28 PM UTC
That night we
decided that our streets led nowhere,
so we followed them any place.
Apartments
to grass outside the Molly Brown,
cracking faces, sidewalks, traced our way...
North on 7th,
getting warmer.
Inverted frowns
are getting larger
Now
I'm wondering if these
half-formed
flimsy, brittle life-plans
and
half-drained,
dented, warming pint cans
of Schlitz
clutched inside our fists
suggest that it's worth it
To pin our hopes on approaching
footsteps of Summer?
Or just halt our frozen
progress through the Wintertime
when we reach your front door.
We just kept
decoding all our scrambled rambling
'til we'd set the world on its head.
Keep walking,
keep laughing at our young mistakes,
sober night backdrop to beer soaked breaths.
X'd out eyes
and gravel sidewalks.
Bozeman Autumn.
Watch out, mailboxes
'cuz
We're wondering if these
half-formed
flimsy, crack-filled answers
and
empty,
drained, five dollar pitchers
of Pabst
humming 'neath our caps
will help us draw our maps
and stick a pin in the Summer,
page turned on Winter,
or just melt our thawing
progress to another time
when later days trickle down.
Oct 21, 2015
Oct 21, 2015 at 4:49 PM UTC
Past
closed up pizza joints
Past laundromats, through the dying noise
the nights tick on like clockwork
watch the calendar as my steps unwind
I'll wait for my thoughts to ferment
pick my words, hope I don't slur them.
Flip back past the page of these days
get a read how I got to this age
From the summit where I'm stuck and posted
reread the books where I come the closest
From the shelf spill my guts to ghosts here,
and relive old nights in Bozeman
When I found a place
where the nights grew longer--
grew confident that I wasn't always wrong
and just drank the moon
under dawntide tables
rolled the dice with the greatest friends
we said, "We're not old yet."
Through
crumbling bones at night
past skeletons of the city's size
the nights fall out like sand grains
curse the hourglass as my fate unwinds.
I'll wait for my brain to discharge
its contents on hospital charts.
Glued the book shut, stuck in the time
I gained my crutches and misplaced my mind.
From the bed that I'm ******* glued to
to cluttered basements I can't wade through
The foundation just won't hold up
against the cracks formed in Missoula.
Ran off the rails
where I stumbled and stammered
grew comfortable beneath pint glass hammers
I still drink the moon
under dawntide tables
grown apart from the greatest friends
who said, "You're not dead yet."
Jun 3, 2014
Jun 3, 2014 at 11:41 AM UTC