What was her name?
****, I can’t remember.

It was a boy’s name
made feminine
with a little “i” at the end
like maybe hearing it would
make you think of
some fat guy making pizzas
until you see it
spelled out or
until it becomes attached
to her lips and hair and
skin.
The “i” was not dotted
with a little heart,
(not her style at all) but
I should have a picture
in a box some where with more pictures.
I don’t.

I’ve got little notes,
tiny thoughts scribbled
on empty match book covers,
on the backs of
pretentious
business cards,
in the borders of
the mutilated,
amputated flesh
of decrepit
used up yellow pages,  
ripped from a dead and
disjointed phone book.

I woke up from this dream
and groped for something
to scrawl on,
anything,
because it seemed significant
at 2:38 am.

In the desert somewhere,
(I’ve never even been)
you were
looking out the window
and the way the parched
dry light crackled
around you
you might have been an angel
or a sign
partially occluded by glass
advertising something
I could never afford
like family or god
when suddenly you were not
a silhouette,
not back lit,
but glowing.

You were so in love, with
who I don’t know, and you
went into free fall
back
onto the bed
pulled your knees up
to your chest and
kicked your legs giggling.
I was part dead, half ghost
and still happy that you
were so happy.
I said, “you’re pregnant?”
knowing the way you
know things without
really having a way
of knowing
in a dream.

You laughed again
grabbed your little dog up
in your arms,
(I’ve no idea where the pup
came from), and baby-whispered,
“You’re going to cut
the umbilical,
aren’t you?”

and I woke with
the image of that mongrel
chewing through
the cord.

I am
waiting at the pharmacy
and the…
technician,
is reading the
cryptic symbols
penned in
indiscernible Latin,
my prescription.
She is not beautiful
but very fuckable
And in my mind
I am constructing an
image of her ******,
likening  
the shape,
size, color, etc.,
to her mouth,
when I see
my own writing on
the back
through her precise
fingers.

The tech,  
she is holding a
snapshot of her.
It might as well be
a picture of me
vomiting or
******* or
defecating.
This
is what I have left,
my version of a photo,
my dream,
scrawled on the back
of my medicine.

**** getting better.  
I ****** it from her hand.

I leave fast.  I will
never go back.
This is no chemical imbalance.
This is not my inheritance.
The loss and pain, sometimes,
that's the pill we need to swallow.

Her long brown hair hung
occluding forty-seven percent of her face
and her one eye
looked a little manic.

It was slow and sweet
for a while
but she had been
gradually gaining momentum.

I am watching her
carefully and
waiting, really
for that moment.

Suddenly she stops.

She raises her hands up
clenched.
It looks like she is going to
pull her own hair
and then her right fist
slams into my ribs
followed by a left
and a right and a left.
A barrage of little hurts
pouring out
machine gun frenzied.

She digs her nails into my chest,
her mouth is twisted,
her teeth clenched,
I can see muscles
in one jaw line twitch.
More hair falls over her
Countenance.
Her hips move furious  

and then
Sensuous wails of red light,
screams of sumptuous green,
bright yellow trembling,
and electric blue rippling
like bright neon

She cools and dims
she collapses
into me
sobbing
and I can feel
salty wet
itchy dripping down my skin

I cry too
never having seen someone
this...



Michael L Sutter

If only


we could start off with

some horrific argument,

the emotion subsiding.

We would curse less and less.

Words would fall back into our mouths.



Nothing to be forgiven or

forgotten

because it never quite happen.

We would hold each other

comforting hurts that

would always undo themselves.



Each kiss would make us

a little more giddy and

every day

you really would look

a little more pretty.



The way we touch

would be a sort of

un-touching

that would redefine anticipation

Every ****** intensifying,

escalating into that first feel,

first taste,

first breath of breathing



and then

finally

we would

walk backwards,

away from us,

it would feel

like we were

approaching something though,

like we might

care for one another

one day.

We would go away dreaming

the parts

we hadn’t quite discovered

before losing sight of one another

without any of the hurt or

remorse.



We would still be perfect somehow.

Loving in reverse
instead of backwards.


Michael L Sutter

Nobody likes vultures.
Oh, but the eagle…
People ******* love eagles.

The vultures,
they tidy things up for us.
The stench of all that rotting,
decaying road-dead flesh,
all the life crushed beneath our wheels
when we were not paying attention,
when we were moving too fast,
they take care of that.
They clean up a mess.
How nice.

The eagle…
it kills ****.  
And in that we see such nobility and
Regalness.

I propose we change
the symbol
on all our currency,
in our courthouses,
on the t-shirts of so many
Wal-mart shoppers,
to the vulture

and then maybe
act the part

and when someone mentions the eagle…
we can turn our nose up at the thought.

Michael L Sutter

There is never nothing new
Just rearrange things

I don’t write poems
I just remove the extra words that are in the way

Hold on to the words like whispers and shadows and wings
Recklessly insert adjectives
Tie it all to your delusions of profundity

Dig down deep for pain
no matter how senseless
Pick at your emotional scabs
Bleed

No one likes poetry
Constantly remind people of that
Tell them that you make it sound good to you and **** them
(Even though their ovation means everything)

Slip, dip and weave
With ambiguous wet dreams
Full lips and thick tongue
Mouthing…
Come
to an understanding
***** is much better than clean
Make it filthy
Soil it

Make it nostalgic
People need to be reassured that you were really ******* up as a kid
and that this poetry **** doesn’t just happen to people overnight

Make it esoteric
That way, when no one knows what the hell you are talking about,
you will have a good word to explain why

Say things that are so ill mannered that they are weighty
I will give you an example
“I’m not looking for a girl that is beautiful
I'm looking for one just barely ugly enough to **** me”

Incite large groups of people to *****

Get so personal that it gives people headaches

Expose yourself until everyone is embarrassed for you

Spew it all over the bar
In a drunken stupor
flaunt it lasciviously with your genitals
Pour yourself into reckless collisions
Drink from your soul until it rots your liver

Write until you want to **** yourself
then write about that

Make it as bitter as a Wal-mart associate
Make it so sweet she will swallow it all
before looking up at you with eyes like tiny puddles
To say, “that was beautiful”
(even though it was disgusting)

It should be raw
It should make you itch
It should be like rubbing up against it spreads it
It should be like VD

Make really long
Like it’s your *****
No,
Make it really, really long
Like its my *****

Make it rhyme
I mean don’t
Don’t

Don’t ever write another ******* poem
because I assure you
if I did not write it
than it must ****

and that is how poetry works

Michael L Sutter

I wanted to stop someone

on the street

and ask them.

I wanted to stop the next random person

and say, hey

can I ask you a question.

They would think

I wanted some change

to buy a little more alcohol

but I don’t really drink

and they would say sure you don’t, buddy

and maybe hand me some coins anyway

or just walk on

without another word or turn of their head

convincing themselves that my homeless state

is my own fault

and it is

but I am not even homeless

Not the way they think.



I want to ask them,

the ones reverently typing into their phones,

excuse me but what exactly does LOL mean

because I don’t hear anything.



I wanted to ask someone

but everyone seems in such a hurry

procuring caffeine infused drinks

with names that are so long

that you couldn’t fit them on billboards

but they rattle them off

with a fine, practiced precision of the tongue

to Baristas in green aprons

wearing Verona smiles,

their eyes glinting from farther away than

the place which the precious coffee whence came

and I want to ask

if this is maybe their own illusion,

one that mimics conversation,

making the five-something they pay

so ******* worth it.



I wanted to ask someone

sitting at their desk

incessantly checking their on-line profiles

and commenting on comments

made in response to the comment

they left on the post of a picture

that has captured a small snapshot

of some life

while they pretend to be working on something else

so that they can pay the ever increasing price of access

because its important to stay connected

and I bet if I asked them to list

six things they could never live without

surely Facebook is what they would list

right after water, food and God

but they just seem too busy which

I think is their intent.



I wanted to ask someone

but everyone seemed so focused

on getting home

so they could embrace their loved ones

on the sofa

and hold each other close

while they memorize the reruns of

some reality TV show,

while they don’t talk to each other,

being so engrossed, and

I would ask them

if I were in their living rooms

while they strain to hold their heavy lidded eyes

high

shooting their television with their ray guns

chanelling their TV gods,

chanting,

there’s nothing on,
there’s nothing on,
there’s nothing on.



I wanted to ask someone,

anyone,

if that girl was right

when she told me that

I speak too passionately when expressing a point

and if it really is good

to nod in agreement

with the things people say

like a parrot

as opposed to posing an argument

because she professes to know that

beneath my façade of not caring

that I do care if they accept me or not and

I really do want to know

if she is right and

I wanted to ask someone

but instead I decided to just keep it to myself

because deep down I do know

she was as wrong as

I always was

and if there is one thing that I did learn from her

it is that

if you cant fit it

in the one-hundred and sixty character space

of a text message

no one really wants to hear it anyway



so instead of starting a random conversation

with a stranger

I spent the morning memorizing acronyms

so that I might communicate more effectively

with people farther away than my voice.


Michael L Sutter

I try to imagine you with a few more wrinkles.
More pucker lines around your mouth
and fatter
Liver spots indicative of aging,
a few of your teeth gone brown or missing,
and maybe some sort of growth upon your nose.
I wish your beauty bad

I imagine,
in your desperation for
a little bit of the attention
you once had,
you would come back for me.

You would leap out from behind a tree
like on our first date.
You would shout boo
and we would laugh
like the way I can’t forget.

I would take you in my arms
and kiss your crinkled lips.  
We would walk again on a city street
so that I can watch you digest
     the art of the sidewalk,
          the music of dive bars,
               the difference between two woven fabrics
that look quite the same to me.

And I would
help you back up to your pedestal.
I would stand close to keep you safe.

I would love you.
Forever.
No matter.

I wish you were ugly like me.


Michael L Sutter