#lynn
She was the kind who saw
the perfect in imperfect things
she sees the world through a different lens,
but maybe it's her eyes that reflect
the imperfect into perfectness
and how would she convince the world,
that what she sees is perfect as it is?
Jan 7, 2022
Jan 7, 2022 at 5:54 AM UTC
she left her boots
by the door
dying
she killed a piece of me
on that floor
crying
doesn't seem to do any good
not anymore
idling
the day writing
maybe strumming
a few chords
trying
to move through
not past
and my best
not to score
plying
the pages
I'll pen a few lines
and a few lines more
and a few lines more
and a few lines more
because there is no truth
not in ending
not by
the door
Nov 8, 2020
Nov 8, 2020 at 12:49 PM UTC
“On Wednesday afternoon, Lynn Ungar — minister, dog trainer, little-known poet — sat down at the desk next to her kitchen table and began to type. A friend had posted something on Facebook about how much we need poetry in this anxious coronavirus age and she thought, “Yeah, you’re right.””
——————————————————
“Pandemic" by Lynn Ungar
What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.
And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.
Promise this world your love--
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.
Mar 14, 2020
Mar 14, 2020 at 11:51 PM UTC
The world is keeping secrets from me
maybe that the reason I bleed and fall
maybe I'm just growing closer to learning it all.
Maybe that's the reason I plead
for some sort of secret sweet release;
so I can learn the secrets
that the world keeps from me.
~lynn
Nov 8, 2018
Nov 8, 2018 at 1:06 PM UTC
acid pools in stomachs mingling
with melatonin and valerian.
struggling to displace oneself in the scheme of things.
there is no question that Mitchum was the man,
or that Farewell, My Lovely is still too expensive for me to buy,
but I do question the length of time we spent
pondering the truth with empty schedules and JWH-018.
we etched an identity from a corner-store drug era
filled with colorful characters and interesting flavors;
burning spare change and time probing the annals
of creativity for something to pop up and speak to us.
I know I shouldn't have stopped texting,
but you should have let the schoolyard bully stay home.
artsy flicks just don't have the same charm anymore,
and the struggle to stay seated is hard to purge,
pleading, wailing in a crowded cinema,
when we both know you could've prevented yourself
from never getting a chance to see this.
you hover still over the lights lining the aisles.
the phases of the moon have stayed loyal,
chili and tabasco are still great on a cold January afternoon,
and there is still some charm to cranking the stereo
on the stretch of highway out by Rock Springs.
Big Boss Man still asks "do you believe in God?"
before he asks an unsuspecting face for a dollar.
they still put on concerts in the summer over by The Winery,
but I haven't ever heard of any of the bands.
someone else manages The Smoker's Den now;
some kid I've never met, so I probably won't go back in.
he doesn't appreciate the comedy found in the face of Perot,
or the elusive, dark sweetness of the huckleberry.
in passing we exchanged a miraculous favor,
and in passing we managed to become different people,
in passing I walk on top of uncertain footprints,
and in passing you dream of film noir.
Jul 19, 2015
Jul 19, 2015 at 12:29 AM UTC
oh, the sun is burning hot
as the waves rise up off of the black top
forming the familiar distortion
distinctly laced with humidity.
the young man marches, toes exposed
with flip-flops smacking down
and on the verge of melting
to the grand avenue sidewalk.
fuzzy memories like warped records
spin their sharps and flats in awkward places
and bring scent trails of teenage years:
bonfires, exhaust, lingering birdcages.
kreckel's still serves the same lemon ice cream,
but the billiards out back have been closed for a time.
quarters spent on raiden fighters rust in time
as the men muttering in the background play bumper pool.
the heat still feels the same in present summer,
and some of the same faces stay on the card.
routine and commitments are starting to build,
blurring the expressions of familiarity into fog.
the young man marches, face exposed
to the blistering light of day
as lines start to form where charm has twinkled
in the schoolyard and stagnant hallways.
years spent in sleep are pulsating
as the lull between cicadas
seems to stretch the summers south
to the screeching of metallic showcases.
he's buckled to the cracks in the concrete
that bulge upward and trip drunks after last call.
unshackled only to ride shotgun with the few
that still remember their seventh grade summers.
Jul 18, 2015
Jul 18, 2015 at 11:51 PM UTC
satellite of lust
stopping the presses
essentially broken
entrancing machine
never back-step
epileptic idol
old ways are dead
adhere to the lies
essentially broken
entrancing machine
netting a good one
nearer to mid-life
fed up with the ghost
starting blank again
in a different palace
cemented to space
cemented to space
cemented to space
Mar 27, 2015
Mar 27, 2015 at 7:55 PM UTC
I sleep in a crater on the far side of the moon.
I tell tales to the moon-cats about the warm month of June.
We sing songs with no lyrics, because moon-cats don't speak;
while we wait for the pizza guy who's been late for a week.
I sleep in a tree in the west end of the park.
I stripped it of leaves and all of its bark.
I just bummed five bucks off of a guy jogging by;
he said "fight the power", and held his fist in the sky.
I sleep in my car, somewhere outside of Denver.
Don't ask for how long, I don't really remember.
I met a weird looking guy and he said "Hocus Pocus",
now I spend all of my days in the back of my Focus.
Mar 27, 2015
Mar 27, 2015 at 7:47 PM UTC
The oxygen secreted from the walnut tree,
the snap-pole green beans growing
up the side of the rusty garden fence, and
bags of aluminum cans stored in the shed
with the old cash registers from the antique store.
These are the golden frames caught and
edited onto organic film, etched into grey matter,
projected from a foggy lens onto reflective marble.
We abandoned the clubhouse because of spiders;
they took the place for themselves after a storm.
Our new abode was the patch of grass between the
walnut tree and the fence in the back corner of the yard;
shady, rough terrain from fallen walnuts, and
the grass always had a slight dew in places.
"The place where the snakes live" is what we called it
when we were sprouts; now we could catch them in both hands.
One night, the wind blew over the shed doors;
flimsy, sliding rail, aluminum thing.
We slinked in and got to play with the old adding machines,
foreign tools, jars full of door hinges, and
rusty hand-crank egg beaters.
Eventually, the roof of the shed collected so many years
of twigs, walnut husks, and foliage fallen that
tiny trees began to pop their heads up from the clutter.
Crickets underneath the gutter guards-
two types; the black singers and the
ones you have to dig for that will draw blood
if they get a hold of one of your fingers.
Sometimes, if bravery was roused and boiling,
we would drift closer to the railroad tracks
in attempts to catch yellow jackets, or even hornets.
One popped their stinger into the back of my neck.
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 9:06 PM UTC
antlers
fourteen points
cernunnos stirs
while the daffodils
reach their thirties
orderly routines
-
stones start skipping
replete potholes, puddle-filled
paving the way
capsizing axles
-
sipping steam from fog clouds low-hanging
not really minding that my shirt is wet from the concrete
Mar 20, 2015
Mar 20, 2015 at 8:48 PM UTC
hurry boy, don't doze
etch the words before they perish
as the situation once again alters
coiling around your wrist
tugging you to that place
sleep every moment
dwelling in the blankets
soaking in that stale security
false impressions attached/removed
like velcro ripping in the silence
masks on masks on masks on masks on masks on
could spend days pruning in the seabed of potential
while the salt collects on my eyelashes and the days vanish like eons
there are days where the stillness in me quakes my feet
into the fervor of rabbit under moving tire and
I pound the walls for a train to pass and shake the foundation
but the tracks are too far away now, and the stillness creeps
dust collects on the fan blades, then the plastic grating, then the intake
the thing rattles all night now; loose ***** in the front
hardly a substitute for that rumble in your dreams
from an archer daniel's car rushing by at four
the bed is a lot better at this place though
king size, though I'd rather be in california
where the water is warm and the memories catch your falls
I've never been there and the idea is always better than the outcome
kicking sand like a beach bully *** flexing in strut
sun burns within seconds of shirtless self-reveals
the salt is being washed off of the cars
from an illinois winter that the plow conquered to the dismay of
the kids down the block who still waited
at dawn for the diesel yellow groan
the heat is swelling in the season
chirps return with the sting
of rolled up passenger windows
magnifying the clean white light
ninety-eight million miles marched
to a single point on a pale dot
burning that poor gal's cheek
but the medicinal effects
of the smooch are more than known
to generations of the summer awakened,
free-falling, reality born.
here we are again with showers and flowers,
here we are again with cyclones in the alley,
here we are again with cocoons and buffoons,
here we are again with milk in the valley.
this heart pumps as the snow goes rising
to the funnels and pillars east-stretched
where the baby boomers buy plots and
the love begins to reach for an even share.
Mar 17, 2015
Mar 17, 2015 at 10:53 PM UTC
scattered
individual
like the atma in every pebble
crowd drowning
Mar 13, 2015
Mar 13, 2015 at 11:32 PM UTC
On Saturn's day, his body quakes,
the lights go out, and the craters form.
He drinks the rye to ease the shakes
and watches as the cicadas swarm.
His records are warped from cellar air,
his walls are stained nicotine yellow.
The night creeps in from beneath his chair
to taunt and **** this charming fellow.
Fifty years of motherless meals
and fifty years of loveless mistakes.
Fifty years of seasonal wheels
and fifty years of screeching brakes.
Fifty years of challenges met
and fifty years of swallowing pride.
Fifty years and not dead yet,
and fifty more before he has died.
He draws in deep from his old cob pipe
and exhales the smoke toward the fan.
Once the orchards are good and ripe
he'll go outside and tame his land.
Until that day, he's mighty content
with sitting back and wasting his time.
These are the last days before his descent,
there is no call for reason or rhyme.
Fifty years of unpaid rent,
and fifty years of tall tales lost.
Fifty years he can't repent,
and fifty years of permafrost.
Fifty years that won't come back,
and fifty years of worn down soles.
Fifty years of catching flak,
and fifty years spent digging holes.
Feb 28, 2015
Feb 28, 2015 at 6:29 AM UTC
There is something breeding in the underbelly;
whirling and churning like an epicenter of *********** trends.
Someone found the formula to turn a profit on karma,
while we were distracted by viral beheadings.
Powder white moths opening mental portals
through the dazzling lights of self-immolation
while I trudge block after block through the snow
wearing slippers because I had to storm out.
The classes continue, the mail keeps going out, coming in,
and I'm obsessing over a splinter of worry; unavailing at best.
I keep thinking of how nice it'd be to see Seattle
and to stand near one of those Sequoia trees I've only seen on Google.
I keep thinking of how I'd like to see The Grand Canyon
and to to walk in the Arizona deserts with no socks or shoes;
the heat of the fine sand sneaking up between my toes
while the sky beats my pupils with that astounding blue.
Why am always alone in my fantasies?
Why is it that I can't handle the day-to-day?
Am I really even searching for answers,
or am I begging for what I want to hear?
My maturity and stoicity are rubber ***** bouncing on a line graph.
I can't go on bottling the venom that pools in my gut.
Feb 26, 2015
Feb 26, 2015 at 10:59 PM UTC
If she gathers enough sticks,
she'll be able to get the fire going real nice;
enough to see her hand
in front of her face for a change.
She's been scratching around in the dark,
wide-eyed and ravenous,
feeling the ground for wood
for what seems like hours.
Her fingers start to blister and sting
from the friction and the grinding
of her begging and pleading
for just one measly spark.
It's been like this since that day
when everything was still pretty nice
in her podunk town where she
was known as the black sheep.
That day, that day, in late April,
when she raised her hand up
stuck out her thumb and
blotted out the sun.
She woke up with dirt under her nails
and pulled a lock of hair out
that was starting to mat.
She went to sleep with dirt under her nails.
She went to sleep hungry
and now she chews on anything that moves
in the umbra that couldn't be too far
from where she used to live.
Dead leaf blankets-
"Are the trees still alive?
What did the forest smell like,
sound like, at high noon?"
"What were colors?
Light-lovers and their shrieking tears
filled with nostalgic longing for
magical, pretty un-black; privileges".
Sanctum in the murk.
She walks tonight, but not far.
"I am the mother of the moth,
and the sudden ritenuto".
) o ( ●
Jan 28, 2015
Jan 28, 2015 at 6:35 AM UTC
I. centipede:
-
They come from both directions and it doesn't take long
for me to realize that they've figured me out.
My mind was fast, but not as swift as the hands
of five-hundred outreaching hands; one angry crowd.
Grabbing at limbs, low and high, they don't waste a second
before tearing me in every direction; at least the cardinal four.
My mind takes flight, leaves fancy, but not before
I get in one last swear, and one last spittle in their faces.
II. snake
-
Tail and head aren't in sync this morning, I tell ya.
No rattle, no bite, just a lot of traffic and heat shimmers
in the one place I don't need to be today.
The people here act like they don't know me,
but they still turn their noses up when I empty my mug.
The waitress answers when spoken to,
but just stares in the time in between wheezing breaths.
I've got to get out of this county, this state.
III. scorpion
-
Ronny hasn't been on a roof since a couple years after we got married.
He wrapped his ankle in some gutters and took a spill;
his thigh popped right out of it's socket and he just dangled
like some kind of prize in one of those crane games.
Doctor says he can still have kids, and I know he can still get it up
from how he watches that ****** **** on t.v.
But he wont touch me; hasn't in fifteen months, I've counted.
He's in for a surprise once the settlement clears.
IV. lizard
-
Wallflowers never get anywhere with their mouths sewn shut
and I cut my stitches well before my teens;
I got what I needed and I made sure of it.
But there is something to be gained from
basking in the naivety of youth and ignorance.
Trouble doesn't set in as well, and boredom comes
as some kind of waiting period, rather than the norm.
These bars are a reminder of why they don't let me make the rules.
V. toad
-
Invulnerable, incontestable, unphasable, archetype.
I listen for the right words to drop the shields,
but I'm only met with the silence that accompanies
asphyxiation through means of wet wax paper.
The touch of phantoms tingle along my skeleton's core
telling me the time for lollygagging has long since passed.
Stand up, giant, you're running hot and the moon
keeps calling out, "follow the lit road home".
Jan 19, 2015
Jan 19, 2015 at 7:29 PM UTC
Lost in the fumes of a cloudy exhale
I search for a glimpse of myself in grimy water.
My remains are scattered somewhere
between boyhood and gutter trash.
The present is hardly of concern
when the blankets of mud offer such astounding
silence.
This swamp was flooded with the prosperity of quitters.
-
The face of the street I grew up on
has been radically warped and distorted.
Leave a good thing to the elements long enough
and you’ll see it begin to degrade.
Dust gathers and mold begins to creep in
from the moisture lingering in the air.
It happens to our childhood toys
just as easily as it happens to the people we know.
-
Everything still holds the same shape;
the same structure that casts a shadow in memory,
it’s just that now the cosmetics have worn off
and you can see the tired lines start to show.
You can hear the creak of arthritic wooden steps
to front porches where old kin with liver spots
sit and drink a shared Ice House 40 oz. while spitting into the wind.
Cavities from a candy coated childhood.
-
There are strangers in my old home,
that place where my uncle lives
surrounded by VHS tapes, pictures of Brett Favre,
and reminders of dead cockatiels.
The biggest struggle is trying to recall
if he was always this way,
or did it take a forty year dope binge
for the hoarder to finally stir?
-
I wrote my name in the sidewalk at the foot of steps.
I search for a glimpse of myself in grimy water
and check under the bushes for garter snakes .
My stomping grounds have been wiped of footprints
and grandma’s violets don’t come in very well anymore.
They cut down the walnut tree, and got rid of the porch swing.
No time for whimsy, no time for strays.
The cicadas will sleep for ten more years, ‘til summer.
Jan 19, 2015
Jan 19, 2015 at 3:57 AM UTC
ambiance amplified and gravitas dead inside
drink alone, danger zone, shot the Jekyll, saved the Hyde
cut my seat belts so my doors wouldn't beep, though
I creep with a fleet of conceited banditos
to the park, skip some rocks, play the shark, shuffle birds
find the narc, go and knock, make it bark, no one heard
a million reason to stay awake wide-eyed tonight
ninety-nine ******* one problem: you're in my line of sight
black & decker woodpecker, fur-trap chop with my power-drill
trill wagon, cool dragon flagon of honey mead on the window sill
unseen fiends mean for stones out beating streets to smithereens
you only live nine times: shake the earth, **** the silver screens
pair of sweet, pear-shaped tweets for you to meet in the suite,
they can show, you can see that they know how to greet
enough throwaways to keep boost mobile open
enough light reflecting princess cuts that they think my neck is frozen
Jan 19, 2015
Jan 19, 2015 at 2:46 AM UTC
You can't safely have a cigarette outside of the bus terminal
without a couple of folk asking for one.
You can't safely have a cigarette in general.
But, if five of them have to last you a night and a sunrise,
you don't really mind turning down a few nameless hands.
Some of the bus drivers like to talk about football, weather;
others complain about management or the patrons;
a few don't say much at all, avoiding sympathy.
They're probably the smart ones.
They don't want to learn the sad stories in between stops.
I usually like to just sit in the back and ride out the best bumps.
The handrails jiggle and crash with every pothole.
-
The men who work at the metal scrap yard
usually get on in front of Debbie's Diner on 22nd street.
Bundled up for warmth and firm of face, they only speak to each other.
Small talk about who almost missed the bus, broken crane joints,
and who moved the most barrels of copper piping fill the blocks.
They tend to pick on the guy who runs the aluminum can crusher;
big guy, they call him "Boose" and he couldn't be much older than I am.
His hands and lips are dry and cracked from exposure,
but his face still shows ember of teenage years, though jilted.
There is a bar that serves three-dollar chili across the street, spicy.
The workers go there when they miss the first bus, have a beer,
down a bowl of boiling chili, and catch the return bus in better moods.
-
The railroads on Brush College road tend to hold up traffic.
The ADM plant doesn't really mind if a few twenty-something mothers
are late to their practical nursing and phlebotomy classes,
but they voice their complaints out of a cracked window to the side
of a ten story soybean silo nonetheless; steaming ears and all.
I stare at the graffiti on the laggard train cars, each unique
in color, quality, style, and message; the industrial Louvre.
These waits sometimes last a half hour or more.
In the days before Pell grant rewards come in,
when students still feel like they're working toward tangible cash,
the seats are all packed with heavy breathers.
The air becomes thick with community college carbon coughs.
Jan 18, 2015
Jan 18, 2015 at 9:23 PM UTC
What glamour could possibly be gained from this untrusion
hiphiphappy happy happy days
all the live long [(sk-ii-p-ii-ng---sk-ii-p-ii-ng)]
she should've shifted shape and shelter
_________________________
now I lurk, thick-in-the-murk
underneath
-
a witches brew of acrid broth
quicksand | quicksilver
dwelling under porches (lucid) dreaming
tapping out thoughts with a six letter alphabet
we gather in the quarries: VIOLET*MASS
underneath the newly linen husk of vapor
underneath the ethereal 0eye0
counterclockwisemarching --- total separation
---*---
At first, it was my grandmother's embrace that shattered the veil.
It was July and the tulips were in bloom; red and yellow
- like bold comic panel fire.
She had picked me up from the tilled garden ground and placed the
okra seeds in my hand to plant all on my own.
It was before the yard was fenced in, and before her mind was cloudy.
Before the alley was paved, and before the preacher was replaced.
In those days, I could escape under a blanket and afternoons
were a thing to be reckoned in the eyeseyes of a lie she saidin the neyeght kindlingsprinwintefalummer when christmas when birthdawndaynoondusknight iiwithwhatwhichii crippled finger
when the time is slower and the eyeseyesiiis are right and the skeye is wheyete with the sclera of 'SCYLLA' that hangs ever still in looming presence for iiii am the all-maker the breaker of thine ****** tonguu003.... NO REACH
FAULT
crumbllllllllllllllllllllll 000000 lllllllllllllllllllllllll
000000
000000
000000
000000
000000
*--undo
0
6
1
6
00:.,-..
.-undue::
.:-
momma=bogmama=mulch=lather
kruksog
..-.:*******
..:
-.:
.-:-.:
*--:
63 72 75 63 69 66 79 20 74 68 65 20 77 65 61 6b 20 73 61 69 6e 74
-
marchingmarchingmarchingmarching
esiwkcolcretnuoc
chant the wave abackISAY with vestigia((nge((l wings
and stoke the fla(mes)merize with-or-out gallant spree
THOTHTHETHOUGHTTHINKER
THOTHTHETHINKEROFTHOUGHT
HERMETIC
HERMESOCYLCONE
we sprinkle the drops of cymbal tonic downward
in the pattern so elegant so rooted upon )we(
the ones who kept the secret in our teeth
that was told to mercurio and passed on to ego
sheltered by cernunnos//squandered by that ******* G/O//A/T¡**
to mark the coming of that with nine heads
that with eighteen horns for eighteen years
that with eighteen eyes for BABYLON'S HAGGARD ****
that with fivehundredfortyteethththth
spit powder faith upon the squelching pest
let him see him
let me son
I am the strongest of the creatures
-
-
-
cellar door dribbledribble--
no more are words beautiful-
-
-
++++++
++++++
++++++
++++++
++++++
++++++
DONOTLETTHEDOGOUT
DONOTLETTHEDOGOUT
DONOTLETTHEDOGOUT
DONOTLETTHEDOGOUT
DONOTLETTHEDOGOUT
DONOTLETTHEDOGOUT
THATDOGWITHNOLEG
THATDOGWITHCRUSTYEYES
DONOTLETTHEDOGOUTJOHNNYSOHELPMEGOD
DONOTLETTHEDOGOUTJOHNNYSOHELPMEGOD
DONOTLETTHEGODOUTJOHNNYMYSONSOHELPMEDOG
DONOTLETTHEDOGOUTJOHNNYMYSONMYONLYSONWHOIKNOWSTILLLOVESMESOHELPMEGOD
THATDOGTELLSYOUTHINGSABOUTMEIKNOWIT
THATDOGTELLSYOUIMAWHOREANDYOUKNOWTHATSNOTTRUE
-
-
-
;
UNDO_
=_oor
_____
________
___________
_____________
----------------------_
_________________
underneath
I lurk, thickinthemuck
there''''''s bed for you
bed of you
bed of goo
bed w(h)eredog lay
licked clean
god in statue
no speak
not to me
maybe to the tip-toe man
but not me
knot anymhore
-
-
-
-
-
-
They told me I must go back to them, but I could see you later.
I saved the paper, the one you gave me.
They told me I could see you later.
They told me.
Dog told me.
Bless us.
Ysgramor.
|
|
|
|
|
|
-------------------
| r| o| o|t|s|
underneath
and I am sleeping
dreaming
feeding god
Jan 10, 2015
Jan 10, 2015 at 3:05 PM UTC
My naivety died with my father
at the bottom of Lake Shelbyville
when I was seven years old
and still losing little teeth.
-
I turn twenty-four next week;
January the fifteenth.
I can still sense the difference between you and I
by the long pauses in between weather talks.
-
I find solace in solitude
and that will never change.
Too many years of misunderstandings,
dope addled family, and conflict avoidance.
-
My mother has an addictive personality
which she tries to superimpose onto me
as a way to keep me away from the ****
She wants me to be her negative film; her opposite.
-
I wish my grandma had leveled with her
instead of surrounding drugs with the mystique
and the danger of a loaded weapon
in a teenager's back pocket; denim daredevil.
-
Grandma.
Now that is a name I miss saying.
She was the stern force that matured me
and my protector in time of matriarchal absence.
-
Her mind started to die years before her body did
and I had to sit and watch it happen, helpless,
with my mother; her daughter.
Alzheimer's, falls, strokes, and in a flash she wasn't there.
-
I don't find myself rooting for the cause these days.
I just want to escape where I came from;
who I am, but the path is circular.
I'm accepting the fate, bathing in lust, and waiting for summer.
Jan 7, 2015
Jan 7, 2015 at 1:44 AM UTC
I am the flightless pelican.
I’ve found myself with my mouth full,
my stomach full, and so much still on my plate.
Possessed by an inhuman hunger,
I will gorge upon pure potential.
I will yowl on and on, without sleep.
-
I have sand between my toes.
My shoes are glued to my feet.
Keep on running ‘til the calluses come.
There has to be a point where I stop to sweat,
and I’ll finally get my sigh of relief.
I have one ride left on my bus pass.
-
I have a tendency to ramble
and languish in my own stench.
People tend to forget this at first;
lured in by the false face of a genetic fluke.
They want to know the impression I left,
not the procrastinator; the cud-chewing goat.
-
I can’t sleep being held,
or if I feel someone’s breath in the still.
I start to feel the urge to burrow
into the quiet quilts; patchwork Promised Land.
I cater to the crowd that caters to themselves,
but I’m no Utilitarian. Fox and Lion.
-
I have cousins like brothers,
and I have brothers like strangers.
Stray cats with names
and a copy of The Mahabharata that I stash my money in.
I’m sitting on a sunny pier with my hook in the water;
avoiding conflict with no bait.
-
Paper cuts from the gold leaf
on the edges of hymn book pages
with burgundy leather covers.
These guilty cuts, bleeding for what seems like hours,
while we steadily forget that anyone was singing.
Alone with our thoughts in the crowd.
Jan 6, 2015
Jan 6, 2015 at 9:54 PM UTC
my friends, my friends
we are birds on power lines
huddled for warmth
specks against the grey
surrounded by the late october gloom
and the steam rising up from the gutters
we are restless and sour
eyes pointing outward
-
every step
every teensy, solitary step
sealed with egg shell footprints
womb nostalgia
tenderness found in autumn colored flashes,
moth-wick sparkles, and fried dandelion blossoms
we remember our grandmas’ knuckles,
chipped tiles on the kitchen floor
-
my dear, my dear
we are stray brown tabbies
bellowing rumble, ears stripped of fur
settled into our corner of the front porch
once we were roustabouts;
waltzing to the waxing and wane
carpeted floors gave way to concrete chill
but now the summers seem longer
-
the smell of cardboard,
cinder block walls, and duck pond water
stale memories with naked omens
we turn to face the chilling draft;
tomorrow
harping on and on about grey areas
while we kick up alley gravel
balanced by surface tension
-
under quilts counting freckles
plasma paychecks peddling uphill
Nov 16, 2014
Nov 16, 2014 at 11:59 PM UTC
By this time of the year (In days of old and times past)
we would already be
skipping off
onto deer trails--------
^^^^^^^^^^in the woods of Fairview park.^^^^^^^^^^
-
at
the
bottom
of
Stevens Creek runs through
those
steep
hills.
-
We will dip our toes in the slow, murky water
(James came to town)
as the thick, sweet smell of my burning cigarillo
(and the whiskey fell into our glasses.)
lingers on the water's surface.
(It was a race to see who would pass out last)
It is here that we are young; No moss clinging.
(and be the one to see him off at dawn.)
-
That old shit-colored truck with the key broken off in the ignition
will take life with every well-used car I'm in. "The Brown Trout".
Marcus called from the 24-hour gas station on Eldorado
to tell you he broke the key in the ignition and couldn't seem to get the ****** truck started. We gave comedy its due.
What could we have done at that point but stumble into the blue?
I recall forty girls & boys crammed into an efficiency apartment that night
as the bathroom vent sapped the room of smoke, liquor stench
and Nag Champa incense, while the dense fog
of budding lust hung in stasis over our heads.
Boys on the exit living out their tree house fantasies;
drinking away boredom and skateboard injuries.
-
Phantoms of the apartment buildings
(Do you remember Dipper Lane?)
at the end of West Main tell tales of past tenants.
(I seem to have forgotten your name again.)
What does it feel like
(Did you hear something?)
to be a home away from home?
(I've been alone this whole time.)
-
It's four years later and the bikini tree has tan lines,
they cut down the big black walnut at my old house,
and built my ark from its wood.
Supple leaves line the Sylvan Queen's Kermes colored hair
as we sail for higher ground.
Now the stinging sunlight cuts through the cracks in the wood.
-
I'm examining the border of a much larger picture.
Even now, the resolution grows fuzzy.
You are a leaf on the five-hundredth page of my dictionary. Ginko.
I placed you there on a particularly sunny day in July
when the Magicicadas woke up to the sound of Joe Cocker,
and we both learned the language of the spheres.
Sep 25, 2014
Sep 25, 2014 at 1:57 AM UTC