There's more
static in the air than
usual
and the faintest
signal is trying to
get through
to our novelty Garfield radio
but I'm not sure you want
to hear it
or if we're just gonna
watch TV instead

I saw the sky falling
but it didn't make a sound
seeing as you weren't around
to hear it

I'm writing
poetry
instead of
writing notes
for Econ
because I
derive higher
marginal utility
from poetry
than from
notes about
consumer surpluses.

See?
I've been paying attention.
Look at how I can apply
Economics
to my life.

I.

It had taken something
like fourteen hours
for the devil
to make a cake for her
perfect daughter
all custard-filled
and chocolate
and I threw it down the stairs.

Not that I was trying
to do so.

II.

It's just that
I slipped
on a rogue sock that
had made its home
on the sixth step down
and when I lost balance
I instinctively extended
my legs and
l a u n c h e d
myself into the musty
cosmos of the basement

And for a brief moment,
I was Superman

III.

"Great, it's in the
******* carpeting"
was all she had to say
as I lay gasping on
the concrete floor of the
basement,
pain blooming in
my side
and for a moment
I thought that maybe I deserved
to the pain because
I broke the cake.

Either way,
I hid the pain in my side
for weeks
and haven't
eaten chocolate cake since.

IV.

My side doesn't hurt much
anymore.
And my soul burns a whole lot less.

Perhaps we
could take
a lesson
from the
surgeon
whose knife
excises
any and all
inconveniences
from her life
standing knee deep
in fictional blood
spilled over
fictional drama
where
"just being honest"
is a license
to maim
and otherwise
eradicate
any answers
other than
"yes ma'am"
because like
a malignant tumor,
dissent messes
with the
clockwork equilibrium
of the idyllic
life in
chronic
glittering
suburbia

He liked to think
he had eyes
like the moon
reflecting back
unto everyone
the things best kept
unseen
but instead he found
himself hurtling
through space
with the promise of a sunrise
being always
just
out of reach

The last time I saw
him
he was sitting on
a park bench all
denim-clad and
cowboy boots
reading a worn out
copy of
True Grit
trying to find
his way home
to an idea of
the old west

We made love
in our tiny
bathroom today
and the cat
banged on the door
wanting to come in
so she could drink out
of the sink
which to her was
a lot more urgent
than whatever we
had going on
at the time

I was in a 50's style
ice cream joint
waiting on some Blue Moon
and I was staring at the checkered
floor
feeling nauseous from the pattern
and a couple came in behind me
who were more vivid than
any people I could ever make up

the wife said
"Dale, I got my own wallet, Dale."
and they ordered malts and I wondered
how many malts one could drink in a lifetime
and that my Blue Moon was taking a long time
but the lady turned to me and said
"i love your sweater so much it makes me sick"
and I said
"Thanks"
and she says
"If I were your size, I would knock you down
and try to steal it from you"
and we all laughed
in the beautiful
chrome ensconced ice-cream joint
before I took my Blue Moon
and wandered out back onto the street
of an old railroad town
with nothing else
to offer
other than reality

The cat's in heat
and I can't remember
the last time I slept
without the endless
coo coo
of my sweetest kitten
howling like a wounded
dove

I would like
to believe that all writers
know this feeling,
the one you get when you're in
the zone
and the words flow naturally
and you're in tune
with the universe
and the vibrations
of your soul
reach out into the
infinite
and come back with the
forces of creation
and we become the shapers of
worlds and words
and that
sort of power
is intoxicating
and that sort of buzz
is what keeps us coming
back to our
infinitely unwritten
universes

I don't edit
my poetry
for the most part
it's first draft
final draft
and a writer friend of
mine
tells me that this makes the
poetry more real
and perhaps I'm
inclined to agree
in that it's more real
in the same way that
blood
at a crime scene is infinitely
more real than the grainy
photos that make it to the
papers with the chalk outlines
and the grayscale
acting as formalities,
muddying up the
action and excitement

here's to those who still
get drunk
and hang out on elementary
school playground sets
and tell each other
secrets overheard only
by the stars
because feeling a bit tipsy
is easier than
feeling nothing at all

All poetry is drunk poetry
but some of it doesn't
involve
any alcohol at all

I went on a short trip
to a nearby port town
nestled on a lake that's
greater than any of your
lakes
and this town's identity is
inextricably linked to the
notion of being a port town
and everything is all
lighthouses and blue

I ended up at a deli
by the marina and
paid ten dollars
for a corned beef sandwich
that shouldn't have cost
that much
but maybe part of the extra cost
was paying for the view of seagulls plucking
dead fish out of the water
that was being endlessly rolled
by the late winter winds
and just like how all the other
restaurants were closed
because us food workers
need rest on Mondays,
the wind kept Spring at bay
for one day longer.

We were in a coffee shop
in a town perpetually out
of my budget range
when one of my
writer friends
asks me if I've ever
written a sonnet
and I responded with
something beautiful and
meaningless along the lines of:

"I like the freedom
of putting words
to the rhythm of
everyday observations
instead of trying to make
life fit into a specific
model of rhythm and
rhyme"

but the fact of the matter
is that I don't know
how
to write sonnets
or how that rhyming structure
works
since I spend all my time
learning about plants
and hanging out with my cats
instead of seriously learning
how to do
poetry

Welcome to the land of make-believe
where we all like to pretend
that the sun is always rising
and our dreams will never end
and here we are liars
defenders of the soul
believing we'll never tire
of making each other whole
but a brief word of warning,
something to keep you safe
don't let any of us lie to you
and say wine tastes like anything but grapes.

After we had
spontaneously kissed
on a cool autumn
evening
I brought it up
shortly thereafter by saying
"so..."
because I couldn't think
of anything else to say
and she said
"We are more mature than that."
except I wasn't
and neither was she
but at least the ensuing
fallout
was pretty to
look at

Poetry started out
as a hobby
for me but
as time has gone on
it's turned into something
bigger
if only because it's
cheaper than therapy

My cat,
Meatball,
tried to ****
my Venus Flytrap
and he claims that
he was just trying to
protect me
but I think it's because
he's a little ****.

Still,
I find it
tremendously
difficult
to stay in a bad mood when
both of my cats decide
to lay on my chest and
purr away
all of my frustrations
and anxieties about the world

I have been so busy
with other things
that I've just been
scrawling poetry
across whatever surface
will hold my words
my favorite medium
being McDonald's napkins
so now I have a ton of poetry
I can't seem to find because
I tuck it away between my notes
when I actually have to pay attention
in class

I'm sitting in a
different coffee shop
than the one I usually
would go to
because
I swore off the first place
after the owner was
rude to me and
I'm sipping on
some mint tea concoction
and the picture next to me is
highly reflective
and man
do I have long eye lashes

soon enough one of the
baristas
notices me winking at myself
in the picture
and there's no way I can explain
myself out of this one
so I'll probably have to swear this
coffee place off
too

Is it really any
surprise
that I write my
best poetry
when I'm
writing about
you?

I can taste the cheap beer
and hear the people screaming
to be heard over the bass-driven
music being blasted by a DJ
even though I'm too afraid to go
out in case I run into one
of the many ghosts of my pasts

We scooted along down
main street
past the bars where the drunks
and their secrets stand in
doors and clouds of cigarette smoke
and the cops walk through
"just to make sure there's no
funny business"
and up the road we went
hearts beating in time with
flashing street lights
passing a jewelry establishment
billing itself as
"the hardware store for women"
even though we knew it's already been
sold and would be shutting down within
six months
and we crawled through the great
oblivion
of main street at night
past the neon cavalcade
of fast food joints
and their ******* contests
of who is out selling who
and the billions of burgers
that plague the conscience
of nobody during this great obesity epidemic
and a police officer started following us because we stared
too long at the bars perhaps and so
we had to make a quick
getaway to a purveyor of tacos
to pretend we were up to no-good
just to give the boring police
in this boring town
something to do for a few minutes before
they had to go back to watching the
drunks and their secrets
and keeping an eye out for funny business
at the bars

He liked to throw
rocks
at the sun and
at kids
who had never stopped to
question how they
had gotten their names
because he was sure both
were out to cause him suffering
by bringing joy to the eyes
of strangers
and all he ever saw was a dark
reflection illuminated by
an infinity of setting suns
against his eyes
all glazed over with
chronic daydreams
of being able to play
hero
in a world without consequences

Though I am
diametrically opposed
to looking into other
people's vehicles,
I couldn't help but
notice that this one
in the library parking lot
had eleven welcome mats
in the back seat and it was
a welcome sight indeed
but then someone started
yelling at the church across
the street
perhaps the holy spirit had
finally arrived in all its glory
or maybe it's just tax season and Jesus
is coming to collect
but I could sell this painting
at the library
it's a giant cat all neon orange
and green
or perhaps I'll just head
home since the library closes
early on Saturdays

Some fool once
suggested
that I start to
carry around a
little notebook
to write my poetry
in whenever
inspiration strikes.

I'd rather not live like
a
caricature
all scribbling melodrama
in the corner of darkened
bars and seemingly
unable to work out the mystery
of women
and exuding an infinite
aura of depth
to draw
the eyes of strangers on
a passenger train
as I ride from mystery
to mystery

the fact of the matter is that
there are
no ******* trains
in this town and
there are no picturesque
vistas with which to fall in
love
but rather an endless
array of fast-food
joints
and thinly disguised
bigotry
and the neon red, white and blue
gets nauseating after a while

truth be told
I had a notebook
once
and a stranger came up
to me and asked me what
I was writing
and I said "poetry"
and he laughed
and sneered
and said
"oh, SOMEBODY is getting cultured!"
and I learned at that point
that more often than not
"nothing" is a good answer
for strangers and that
my poetry is better kept
in my head until it is time
to type it all out
because writing poetry is not
a spectator sport for me

my poetry is a *****
little secret between
myself
and the few who care and
my thoughts are not a persona
I am not a performer for strangers
in an endless act of
"more cultured than thou"
I write for me
and
notebook or no

I am a god ****** poet.

He liked to use
clip-on promises
because it was so much
easier
than learning to tie knots
and facing down the
fear
that you could strangle yourself
if you weren't careful

Needs a title
as all things do
because existence is most
palatable
when it is defined
and while every action
screams
for meaning
and every inaction
wails
to be heard
we are somewhere
in between
a holding pattern between
meaning and meaningless
and we latch on to
the floating driftwood
of trends
and fads
and music scenes
because everyone has it
figured out but
you

so anyway
that's why you should
drink
Diet Coke
because all the cool
people are doing it
and you do want to be
cool


right?

Every day brings a new adventure!
or so the sign had told me
hanging so delicately
on some sort of kombucha based
drink
as though I could augment my life
and invite adventure in just by
drinking a drink
but that's how advertising works
I suppose
and we must be above the ads
because we are all independent and
free
unless...
that too is an ad
and the revolution has been bought and sold
and we are all just loosely strung along
quirks
that are indicative of our specific
ideals of humanity

here's looking at you
white dude with flannel and dreadlocks
and Rastafarian colored shoes

here's looking at you kid with pompadour
haircut, pastel shorts, and a MAGA hat hanging
off his backpack

are we all truly going our own ways
or are we just advertisements for
something better than
being unknown
and undefined?

There's a faint
tingling in my
fingers today
and my doctor
who I never visit
says I should lay off the
caffeine
but my fingers are tingling
in beat with the piano
playing in the room
below me
with only my breath as
accompaniment to
the melodies
and all I leave are clouds
of condensation in the air
as evidence of collaboration
where for a moment
I didn't feel so
disconnected

I keep coming back here
because I crave the rush
of putting words down
and pretending they are
totally original all the
while holding casual
disdain for how this
digital medium rewards
punchline after punchline
and punishes exploration
and long winded
discussions about existence
because even art needs to
fit into our busy schedules

My apartment is haunted
by the ghost of Robert Frost
and it's not out of
recognition of poetic ability
but more likely due to
my cat
chewing up an old vinyl record
we found at the thrift store
of him reading his works
and now he wanders the apartment
always around the corner whispering
"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood"
and I tried to ask his permission to use
that line in this
but he doesn't answer me
when I talk to him
but he likes to call my cat
Jerry McCormic
even though her name is Gumbo
and I don't mind having him
around
even though he doesn't do the dishes
and watches TV with the volume way
too loud
but I haven't seen him
around today
and the cat was sad to see him go
or perhaps she's just hungry again
on account of the Ghost of Robert Frost
spoiling her with all those
cat treats

It's too early
for this
there's a kid
whose subwoofers
that keep shaking
the trunk of his '04
Honda Civic
providing a tribal
staccato
a background
trance
to keep me
motivated
as I use a
screwdriver
to pop the latch on my
door for the
third time
this week
because I accidentally
ripped the
door handle off
and
I realize that I
forgot
my coffee on the counter at
home
and I forgot to tell
my cats that I love
them
before I left
and this is
all being obscured
by the threat of
sleep in this parking
lot
because I can never
seem to get to bed
early enough

They say you
can't
truly know somebody
until you
see them
hurt
so I write
these words
and peddle emotional
****
for the lonely ones I'll
never meet
in an effort to
better get to
know myself

I dreamt last
night of a long
lost friend
which was strange
because I hadn't been
drinking
and this friend
talked me out
of suicide
even though I wasn't
considering it
and I almost reached
out to her
when I woke up
but that would
be worse than
suicide

Death my darling
I keep writing you
because I'm finding it
harder
and harder
to talk
to people
and not feel
empty

O, death
wait for us
for some of us
don't quite have
our shoes tied
yet
and
there are leftovers in
the fridge
that I'm sure the cat will
get into
and you know
how the vet
said poor kitty needs to
watch her weight
o, Death
wait for us
because the theater kids
are doing the Charleston
in a flash mob
in the library during
parent teacher conferences
and it's kind of hard to hear,
o death
and O, death,
wait for your turn
you really should have called
i'm just so busy these days
with school
and work
and the kids
and really it's kind of late
and I should be getting to
bed
but let's schedule something
for a week or so from now
because I just don't have time
for you today

O, death
o, death
o, death
my love
do not cry
i hear you've been
awful busy these days
and you just can't catch
a break from the tedium
so let me help you
and I will walk myself
over, o death
and together we shall wander
the horizon
behind the sunset

he walked
from station
to station
his heart in a paper bag
holding it out
asking for spare change
because it doesn't matter
when the heart's not beating
all clogged and weighed
down by quarters
and half-cent platitudes
that it'll all get better in time
and that everything happens for a reason
and there is nothing to worry about

and all the kid really needed
was a little blood

It's midnight again
and the guy with
the truck
out back is
revving his engine
3
no, 4
times tonight to
get going
and I am once again
here without adventure
with wine to tell me
secrets
remembering the time
someone told me they loved me
and how disastrous that
all turned out to be
but hey
at least i can make
perfect over easy
eggs
at midnight
when the occasion
calls for it

The blood in my veins
is as frozen as the
sap in the trees and I can't
come up with a better
analogy because my
head hurts from it
being so **** cold out
and I get depressed
when I see pictures of
lush
green
landscapes and
I dream about the warmth
of the sun
because there's nothing
green around here
other than the green
I spend trying to keep
myself from dying of frostbite

and yet

there's always a guy
walking around in shorts
and a tank top

When I was younger
and perhaps wiser
than I am now
I went on a date
with a young woman
to see a movie whose name
I pretend to forget
and I remember her laughing
at children being hanged in
the opening scene and I knew
that it was bad and that I was
in the wrong place at the wrong
time
so I told her I loved her
because I was a wise boy back then
and luckily she said
"okay"
and we parted ways
and it wasn't until I became foolish
and a few years older that
I realized just what I had
done and that
the children on the screen
were all dressed like me

Write your poetry
like accusations for
crimes never committed
against the love you hold
dearly in your heart
better than anyone has ever held
you in loving arms
and write your poetry
like bottled messages
floating adrift in the endless sea
we call loneliness
and hope that you may bump into
someone out there
even if it breaks the glass and you both
sink
you won't be alone
and write your poetry
like some vigilante cowboy
from days past
and treat each letter
each word
each line
like a bullet that will
always meet its mark
and save the day
so that we can all ride into the sunset
happy and free

at least
until someone changes the channel

I wandered down
the street in
a Manhattan daydream
pretending to be in
a town to which I've never gone
imagining the boring
small-town architecture
to be skyscrapers
and the strangely viable
candy shop down the street
to be something that isn't
the embodiment of the
hokey nature of this town
and all I want is some noise
someone to yell at me from their
car and call me an *******
instead of the vultures who
stand outside the bars
with their cigarettes and secrets
who get all quiet when you walk by
because their conversations are just
that important in this
small town
where nothing happens
and the pulse of the city is
a straight flat line
because any deviation
would cause our local
herald of the free world
to sit down and write
and form everyone's opinion
about just how great it is to
never change,
and that only a fresh coat of paint
is ever acceptable around here

She asked me to write her
a poem
for Christmas
and so while I sit here
waiting for the car to warm up
I look at all the sets of
footprints in the snow
all going in different directions
going to different locations
some out of religious obligation
some out of unconditional love
and all I really know is that
I don't care where I go
as long as my footsteps in the snow
get to be alongside hers
from now until eternity

There ain't a thing
here other than
ghost stories
for you to pack up
and tell over your
campfire made of
burning books
and love letters
leaving our memories
suspended in the smoke
and the carcinogens blend
and I don't know where I begin
or end
and I refuse to choke
because that's not what you
do at a campfire
to which you weren't invited
but it's a show for you
for your birthday
and the ghost stories
are there to tell you
to behave
because you are nothing
but a book
a story that is
oh
so
flammable

We love the dead
more than ourselves
if only because
the dead sit still long
enough for our worship
and love to solidify
around them
ratifying them in the
cosmos
as a memory to rally around
because the people down here
on earth
are all moving too quickly
for love to stick
and the best moments
are the still ones
where we can wrap each other
up in the
honeyed cement
of our love
and just breathe
before the next thing comes
along and we have to go
dropping pieces
all along the way

I get so anxious
when I get nosebleeds
the red dripping
sounds of thunder
against the porcelain
sink where
water waits to take
that part of me to
an unseen place
because blood
out of context
is something to fear
and must be washed away
and with prayer it is welcome
and they all commune
but here I stand hoping
that the flow will stop
long enough for me
to stop making a scene
in this Chinese restaurant
and I can get back to something
more important than
some mild bloodflow

I'm tired of
drink-coaster
poetry
words that are
forever inspiring
that can hang on
your fridge
and make you feel
good and deep
and so very
inspired
to carry on with the
day as planned
bolstered with the
strength of
a thought
or a prayer
and it's so
easily digestible
through and through
and I want teeth
I want gristle
I want poetry that
rips me out of my sleep
words that haunt me
like they're in on something
I've never known
but we settle for that which
brings us comfort
we settle for the airy quotes
that we co-opt into our
daily mantras that everything
will eventually be okay

When in all reality
every poem
every string of thoughts
will have to end

unremembered and
pure