I remember the way
the alcohol
lubricated our words to each other
and she told me those three
poisonous words:
"I love you"
Except she added
my name to the end
to make sure I knew
how important it was.
"You're the only
person I've said that to,"
She told me that night
as we parted ways

The next day she told
me that it didn't count
and that she was being
dramatic
and I remained in place
amongst those
who function better
as shadows,
withering under her
light,
hoping to hear the
meaningless words
again.

A friend once
offered me a
cupcake.
Not just any cupcake,
but a Gourmet (capital G) Cupcake
from some bakery that sells
cupcakes and cupcakes
alone at almost four dollars a pop.
It was a beautiful creation,
pink with a little candy crown on top,
promising a fantasy world
of strawberry flavor.
It was named the Pink Princess
and I threw it away after one bite.

Because, much like everything else
in life,
it doesn't matter how much
frosting
sugar
and bright color
you use to present something.
If it still tastes like ****,
it is.

last night
I dreamt
that I got into
a fistfight
with Copernicus
because
he wouldn't agree
with me that
the universe seems
to revolve around
your smile

If you have something to say,
say it with conviction
believe in the words coming
from your mouth
because once they're out
they don't go back in
and no mouth to mouth
will resuscitate
a bridge that's in flames
and as long as you
meant every last word
every last volley
shot over the walls
built from years of
friendship
then no blame can be sent
your way
but do not be alarmed
when they come back around,
a little crispy around the edges
all shrieking like demons
faces black and sooty
and eyes red from the smoke
that rose from the fires
that only tears could put out
and they've got a hot coal
in their hand that they
don't feel and they
want to see you burn.

All that makes our demons
scary is who they're
throwing fire at.

If God
is love
then I really
need to tell you
how intensely
I experience
God
when you're in
the room.

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

Often, when I disclose the fact that I'm from,
The Lone Star State,
I am asked,
"Do you miss it?"

I don't miss the people,
but I miss a lot of things about it.

I miss the warm springs,
blazing summers,
warm falls,
and the chilly winters.
Chilly, but warm enough that you can still go outside and have fun.

I miss how flat everything was.
I was like the landscape itself was saying,
"I have nothing to hide. This is your adventure,
traverse me with force."
I miss the cotton fields that would be the spectators,
the spectators of the fun times and the hard times.

When I'm asked if I miss Texas,
I respond with "the weather",
but there is always more to every story.

A cheerleader
once wrote me a
love song
and it had lots of
horse imagery
and it turned out
that she had lifted
the song from some kids
tv show
but none of that mattered
because she wasn't a cheerleader
quite yet
and I wasn't educated enough
to scoff at plagiarism
when someone was trying
to show that they cared

That bridge in your mind, I wonder
how often it is I wander across.
Or did it burn with the rest of our letters,
tattered remnants of the time that we both lost?
Now which way are we running aimlessly,
in hopes that our paths won't cross some day?
The stars had crossed, the moon had cracked,
on the day that you had gone away

As the sun finally sets on our Shakespearean tale,
you said that we shouldn't have to be ******* in a cause that
we both knew had no avail.

Now winter's come 'round again,
filling me some form of bitter clarity.
About the day we decided we'd tear our hearts out
with a special deliberate dexterity.
It's been quite some time now,
and we're both loving without regrets.
With the exception of those nights alone,
haunted by old silhouettes.

You said that you couldn't follow your heart,
because you didn't know where it would lead.
You said that we could no longer be us,
You'd be you and, I, I'd be me.

That bridge in my mind, you wonder,
how it is I stopped you from wandering across.
I had to burn it with all of the sketches,
Lest I be reminded of just what I had lost.
And now you're here, you're standing before me,
talking of regrets and wanting a second chance.
The memories return, they flood in,
of a fateful day, and you ask me if I want to dance.

The bridge in my mind's rebuilt,
as we begin the poisonous waltz across the floor.
The sun, it started rising again,
I turned to your pillow but you were there no more.

The bridge in my mind is ashes,
no longer can you wander across.
Some day it will rebuild itself,
with patches from the hearts that have lost.

It is the silence
between strikes
of lightning
that gives
thunder any
real meaning
but that does not mean
you shouldn't speak

She was fun
in the way that
she would send
Poetry
to me
through text messaging.

Sometimes it was
just the way she wrote
to tell me to
do the dishes.

Other times,
it was prose
and verse
helping her make sense of the day.

Sending her thoughts
from the cosmos of
her mind
into the cosmos surrounding
our terra firma,
converted into
zeroes
and ones
and then
back into beauty.

Do not be afraid to write
poetry,
do not be afraid to let parts
of your soul take form
in word and verse
and do not be afraid to crush the mountains
of doubt from the ones you love
and show them that what you have
to say is worthwhile and permanent
and show them that you are not afraid
of your scars and your thoughts
and your mistakes
and do not be afraid of the pain
of reopening old wounds
and letting the gush splash across
the page in witty diatribes
that make you feel a little better
about the fact that you let a relationship
nearly **** you
and do not be afraid to line up all the painful
memories and conversations you'll never be able to have
and one by one
write them into poetry
and get them out of your soul
where they've been rotting
and turning you inside out.

I like this place.
so many people
trying to deal with pain
and anger
and talking about
their joys
and so much of it
under the surface
because the profanity
filter is on by default.

I fundamentally
believe
that the best way
you can show
someone
you care about them
is to cook for them.

To take something
and spend your
time
energy
and love
to convert it to a dish
that quite literally
sustains the
existence
of another being
is
to me
the epitome of love.

Death is the absence
of Life
and Food sustains Life
so by feeding those around you,
you indirectly say,
"I want you to live."

After a day
of pondering
I flew into
a frenzy,
burning books that
couldn’t help me
and so through centuries
of love poems and stories
I blazed
wondering if this was how the
ghosts who wrote them felt
when they poured out their
souls
and I burned and
I burned and I
burned
until I came to my final
book.
A Dictionary…
And I burned that too
because in it
I could not find words to
adequately describe how you
make me feel.

We are all planets
wanderers in an
endless waltz
across the canvases
of the cosmos
trying to find the
nearest star to
provide warmth
and light
to support the life
within and
we sometimes get
sunburned and
we sometimes get
frozen
but
the endless vacuum
seems a lot less desperate
when we are in synchronous
orbit with
one another

how often we
block the future
by scrambling to
pick up all of the stolen
seconds that we gave
to people we want only
to forget
all while we
are in a continuous
state of forgetting
that you can't un-live
moments
you can't un-****
somebody
and you can't
rewrite your own
string of moments
no matter how much
they make you
flinch

we rely on poetry
in the same way
we relied on parables
to better explain the
universe within
our collective souls

Marduk
came down to Hammurabi
and provided the
laws
of the kingdom
in hopes that
the strong
might not oppress
the weak
and it all disappeared
under the ceaseless
sands of existence
and doubt.

My father was always
a bit of a showman
but I'll never know
if he was aware of that
fact
as he would stand up a little
straighter and puff out his
chest and his slight
Ohio/Texas twang would
become a full on
Sam Elliot drawl
but three octaves lower
like he was a real life cowboy
only to be outdone
by his favorite president
Ol' Papa Reagan
and I guess I found it strange
that he could never really
get into the role
of being a caring, kind, and sweet
parent

I'm not losing my
grip on reality
though it may
seem that way
with how abstract
my writing is
starting to
become
on the contrary
I somehow have
managed to
get a death grip
around the throat of
reality and the harder
I stare into the now-turning-blue
face of life itself
the more and more
nebulous it gets

Gone are the
didactic binaries
of right and wrong
and good and evil
and love and hate
it all just sort of
blends together
in a sticky narrative
of just what it means
to be alive and well
carving meaning
out of the universe's
hide in order to keep
warm against
the endless chilling
gusts of strangers
sighing and God
shaking his head
at the fact that
we stunt our
lives by
trying to contain
it in vessels
that hold the
organic flow of existence
in stasis for long
enough that we can
look at all the peculiarities
of this world
and classify them
without the risk
of living among
fellow human beings

why do we cling so
desperately to the past
and the ghosts of memories
of those with whom we
no longer speak
is it because they stay still?
because the ground underneath
our feet is constantly
shifting and rolling
with each new ideal
and we hold on to the flickering
still-life images
of summers long gone
as a means of anchoring ourselves
against the storm?
there has to be so much
more to this life other
than doggy-paddling
from buoy to buoy
memory to memory
endlessly bracing for
the next wave
the next wave
the next wave
until we finally
reach dry land
and can rest easy
on the beaches
of longevity
relaxing in the sand
made up of the bones
of those who just
couldn't make it
to the next
flashing
lighthouse

Poor in health,
high in spirits

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

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

contradiction
followed by
contradiction
with

u n u s u a l
spacing

endless metaphor
describing pain
and injustice

wash
rinse
repeat

you're a poet, harry

We all have
a story
and rumor
has it that
the more
scars
you collect
the more
wronged
you are
the higher the chances
are of you winning
the Prize
and I hear it's
a good one.
So take that pain
take that sorrow
impale it on your
words
and let it
bleed
bleed
bleed
into something
more beautiful
and more permanent
than pain.

I told a friend
that my gallbladder
had stopped working
and he said
May Allah bless you
with good health
and I thanked him
but can't stop thinking
about the time God
wiped out humanity
for not listening
to Him
and I hope that I've
been listening well
enough
to at least
survive the surgery

I saw a flower
wilting beautifully
in a bed of
uncertainty
and I wondered if it
was afraid to face the sun
because it perhaps forgot
sunscreen
and in its attempts
at self preservation
it starved itself of what
it needed
--the sunshine.

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

I remember how
you got upset over
the fact that I didn't cry when
we reconnected after several years
apart
and I still think
about how absurd that
is to me
because there's no way in hell
that after two marriages
and countless jobs
that you hadn't encountered
a situation in which the narrative
in your mind
did not match up with
how things unfolded in your life
and what do tears do anyway?
Sobbing in a George Webb's
would only make the desolate
atmosphere even worse.

We went to the
humane society
to get acquainted
with some cats
and we met a cat
who was returned
after five years in
a loving home
because he was
an inconvenience
and found another
labeled
"hidden treasure"
which was an
awfully nice
way of saying
that this cat had
been abused
and would never
be a 'normal' cat
a plaything for your
kids
a trophy for your
instagram
and in his bleary
eyes as he tried to hide
behind a scratching
post to avoid the fingers
of strangers poking through
the safety of his plexiglass
in his eyes I saw
more humanity
than I'd ever seen or felt
in my life
and I sent a silent
prayer to my intermittent god
hoping that he found a home
and happiness
because he never did anything wrong
other than be born into a world
where the value of life
is on a sliding scale
based on agenda and feeling
rather than the simple
acknowledgement
that life needs
to flourish

And I cried in the car
on the way home
because I have no space for
him in my life
and I wept
over the pain
and panic in his eyes
that is so easily recognizable
after you've seen the same
eyes in your mirror
for too many years
and all I can do I rewrite
the narrative for my cats,
rescued from poor circumstance
and impulse
and give them life
and help them flourish
and breathe into their
very existence
a notion of security and hope
and warmth
and love

I need a friend
with whom
I can talk about
things like
poetry
and the shudder of
the earth when we
write a line that
seems to resonate
with infinity
and with whom
I can discuss
the fear of rejection
and the sneaking suspicion
that maybe none of this
is actually very good
and I've struck
an anomaly
and I need a friend
who will bear with me
during moments of weakness
where i want to burn away all of
my words

Don't forget the past
but rather forgive
it because of the two
choices only one
stops
the bleeding
memories
that come forth to haunt
you in your dreams
and waking hours
and when you let go
of the pain and let it
fall below
you will be truly free
to remember the lessons
learned
without a need for
revenge

I'm really trying
not
to be jaded and
disappointed by
everyone else
as they tread water
flinging political
tweets
like daggers
and passive facebook
statuses like
gospel
and I can't help
but feel
disgusted
at everything
all
McDonalds and chrome
shiny and beautiful
shades of dried blood
on our hands and lips
and all I can do
I pretend I'm not a part
of that
as my car is littered
with fast food garbage
and my thoughts littered
with judgements against
people I've never met
and I write
poetry
instead of bleeding
out
because this feels
just a little bit
better

Instead of trying
to stigmatize
perhaps you should
prioritize
and realize that
everyone flinches from
pain and for some people
life hurts so ******* much
that flinching out of existence
seems to be the only option
and instead of trying
to minimize
perhaps you should be trying
to sympathize
and it doesn't matter
if nobody was there
for you during the
bad times
that you pretend didn't
happen
because withholding
your compassion from
those who need it most
is the worst sort of death
you can inflict
and there's no
justifying it.

It was misty
and gloomy
as though we had
lost rights to the sun
because we'd
misbehaved
and I got out of
my car to try and talk
to someone in charge
but the second my door
opened,
huge
heavy
raindrops
fell from the skies,
spat by angels at our
collective sin
and I tried to tell them
they had the wrong guy
but the rain just went
into my mouth and
made me choke
and I ran into the library
newly baptized and shivering
and an old man
all dry and sweatered
asked me
"It's it raining out there still?"

We stood there,
the fire lapping
at our feet,
and argued about
the best way
to achieve salvation
instead of putting
the fire out.

I read through
my recent stuff
again and I
appear to be
profoundly
depressed
over something
or other
but the words
sound nice
as I write
about my
waning hope
and I suppose that's
all a poet
can really ask for

I've spent more time
than usual lately
thinking about friends
who became strangers
and I feel a mix of
sadness and anger
when I let myself go
and forget that
we are all in a perpetual
state of flux
and the space we occupy is
only as temporary
as the nights we spent together laying
on blankets under the stars
and hiding out in your mom's car
that you finally got to borrow since your
sister was out of town for the weekends
and I always am too busy mourning
my newfound stranger group
that I never remember to
remember those to whom
I became a stranger for some reason
or another
as there is no emotional profit
in counting those you've left
only those who left you
matter
in this great wheel
of organic existence

I put a picture of my parents,
Fifteen years divorced,
Into my copy of Gone With the Wind
and took a moment to muse over the irony.

"God's really a nice guy
once you get to know
Him,"
they said
after the flood

I’m tucked away nicely in the JC section of the library. Apparently, they use the Library of Congress method of categorizing and organizing the library literature here instead of the Dewey Decimal system. I suppose it’s one way to set this community college campus apart from the uneducated townsfolk who still want numbers to tell them where to find their books. Looking at the shelves nearby, I see a great deal of books about dictators and rights and privacy, so I guess this section of the library is all politically charged. Which would explain this headache and general feeling of frustration, but that also could just be from the procrastinating I can’t stop doing. Strangely enough, I have been blocked into this row by a librarian who has her cart of endless knowledge parked in the middle of the political aisle of books. I don’t know where she ran off to, but I’m starting to get antsy. I mean, what if there’s a fire? All these books aren’t exactly flame retardant and the last time I had to jump through a wall of fire it wasn’t the best experience. I imagine these stacks of knowledge burning and I wonder how much it would be missed. There’s a book here titled “Management in the Public Service: The Quest for Effective Performance” and I can’t even tell you what the first page says because the second my eyes landed on the words, I fell asleep. But hey, the librarian is back and she moving her cart of ideas out of the way so that I may procrastinate in peace.

Your age is
but the number
of times you've traveled
around the sun
hurtling at
nineteen miles per second
endlessly through the expanding
void
so don't tell me
that there's nothing
interesting about you
fellow space traveler
don't tell me there is nothing
remarkable about crashing
through the universe
while sitting in your armchair
you are an astronaut
capable of searing
the stars
Do not float.
Fly.

Maybe original sin
is just a term
we gave to
justify
our inability
to believe
in anything
so pure
as love

I hear Buddha
whispering something
in the corner
both profound
and simple
(not that the two are mutually exclusive)
and I'm sitting here
not raging
I don't "rage"
at anything
but I do find this world
so
so....

Unsatisfactory

But I'm not sure why
since things are pretty
okay right now
all things considered
and we must remember
to consider
all things
like
the lobster
the children
the inevitable heat-death of the universe
and rejoice
in our abilities to consider
and to evolve
things like the
poetry we write
by adding creative
spacing
as a flourish for
simple words
that feel profound when
we write them
but when we read them
they are as obvious
as they ever were.

I'm still
down about
the little kitty cat
and I think my
other cat
knows because she's
relaxing with me
while I listen to
an old Doobie Brothers
record
even though she's more of a
Marty Robbins kind of cat
so that's how
I know she's thinking
of me.

I do not
know
what I struggle with
every day
but I do
know that I struggle
otherwise
I wouldn't be
so worn out
from waking up

The statistical impossibility of our births is something that hurts even more when your parents aren't fit for the role as such and you grow up in this haze of if and when. Of "If I catch you, when I catch you", and you learn to run faster than any Olympian but you're too afraid of going to practice because you know your parents will be there and you are a prize, something to be marveled at, and you are breakable and replaceable and you know the second you do wrong, like when you lost the spelling bee on the word Massachusetts, they will be there for you. You will always remember that there are two T's at the end because there's no way to escape the brand on your soul of making a mistake in their eyes. Parents will always be there for you.

But so will vultures when you die.
But so will death, waiting for you to make a mistake.

With the strength
of the devil
he pulled his heart out
and held it up for all to see
and in his final moments
he saw in their eyes
the realization that they had
done something wrong

the thing about mistakes
is that nothing
feels
better than
when you're making
them
blissfully unaware
of unforeseen
consequences