I can't tell you
much
about love and poets
and how well that'll
work out
but they'll sure as ****
write about
it.

what will happen
to our electronic
umbilical cords
when the power
finally goes out?

Maybe I'm just
getting tired
and overworked
and overwhelmed
and this is wearing
my faith
in humanity
and an intermittently-existent
God
thin and frail
and like the Autumn
leaves
I'm just another strong
breeze away from
floating off into
the gray sky

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 had a great aunt
named Karen
"had" being the
operating term here
and she exists in our
family as a cautionary
tale
because she tried
to pray away
her cancer instead of
seeking treatment
and she died
eventually
and some called it
an act of mercy
and some called it
a **** shame
but either way
at the end of the day
the cancer
stopped.

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

She had a heart like
one of those two-way
mirrors
and those around her
debated endlessly
about whether or not
you could see in
or if it was her heart looking out
and when the mirror
eventually cracked
under the constant
poking and prodding
those around her
were suddenly
a lot less
interested

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

Fool me once
Shame on me
Fool me twice
And leave me with scars
forever unhealed

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

We took turns
placing headphones
on each other and
plugging them into
our hearts in hopes
that we would be able
to hear all the things
we should have said

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

She was the kind of woman
who would light
candles
only to blow them out
because she knew that the
wafting smoke
made her look mysterious
and I
a fool
who likes concepts
more than dealing with people
allowed myself to be enveloped
until the secondhand smoke
made it hard to breathe
and I couldn't see anything
anymore
and all I could hear
was the flick flick
of a lighter that
had run out of fuel.

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?

Human beings
being human
always looking
with despair at
the sheen
from which they
stumbled
always swearing to be better
than the previous people
as a means of rebellion
against existence itself

Save me a spot
next to you
on the next bus
out of town
as I'd rather go
anywhere with
you than
stay here
looking into
the faces of strangers
and trying to see
the divine

Pitch dark rumbling
as the plane crawled
into the night sky
away from you once again

and out the window I saw
blinking
another plane perhaps
taking other lives along
their given paths

and I looked again
and saw only the stars
against the blackened infinity
and in those stars
I saw only you

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

"I've got a good one
working
my dear,"
I said a bit louder
than a whisper,
"I can feel it rolling around
in there."
"A poem?" She asked
and it was beautiful
and it was perfect
and then the poem was
gone.
and I couldn't find the words
so I looked around the library
to see what words would
spark
and the sign on the copier
bellowed
NO PENNIES!!!!!
which is fun for a title
and a sign on the wall
wanted to introduce me
to Muslims on the 26th
but at the end of it all
I was surrounded by endless words
while at a loss
for my own.

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 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

It's not about
you
necessarily
but it is about
the words
and the patterns
arising every single
day with new
old thoughts
and speculations
over the nature of
everything
and we call it poetry
endlessly repeating
ourselves for that
ever out-of-reach
notification bubble
bright red like a heart
to show us we are loved
by strangers
and I can't stop craving
the flavor of that
particular
carrot we call
validation
because all words
and thoughts
need an appreciative
audience

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

I saw some
sand hill cranes
on the soccer field
on my way into campus
today and the male
with all the fire on his head
was dancing in a circle
to get the attention
of the female who
was too busy rooting
in the grass to be
concerned
and the poor guy
looked like such a
fool
all long legged
and beautiful
that we all mistook
him for a lonely
college freshman
except lovesick college freshmen
don't get to fly off at the end of
the day

but sand hill cranes
don't get to fall in love
either
as far as we know
so maybe today it's still
one notch better to be
human and
lonely

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

In our attempts
to remain unknown
it's no surprise
how long we're
alone

"she looks like she's got her life together"

"I think he wants to fail me"

"I haven't studied for a test since middle school"

"I don't love him like that but he's nice to keep around"

"Well she got what she deserved"

and so on
and so on
and so on
ad nauseam

"His father really
does
provide for him,"
The woman said
as she slid a small
paper scrap across
the counter
to me.

It had a credit card number on it.

"He still feeds his son
even when he's locked up."

The boy avoided eye contact
with me.

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

I once caught
Patriotism (capital p)
and it was like the
spirit of ol' Ronnie Reagan
had possessed me
and I wanted to fling
myself through the
rows
and rows
of houses that hold
the standards of modern suburbia
and coopt the values of the
chrisitan (lowercase c) flavor
of ethics
and I found myself surrounded
by emptiness
and the flag flying outside
had become a stranger to me
as I had become a stranger to my
country
and I looked to the horizon
trying to find a savior
and I couldn't see
past the sun

Find a penny,
pick it up,
and whatever happens next is entirely up to you.

There's too much
noise sometimes
and all I can think
about is my friends
rambling in corners
scrawling Confucius
across Facebook walls
trying only to be heard
and taken seriously
through the wisdom
of people long dead
in lieu of facing the
instant rejection of
developing a unique
personality in a sea
of cynical personas
where it's better to
have never loved
than to admit that
you are human.

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

perhaps I'm getting worse
or maybe better
I can't seem to tell most days
where my mind is
and some days i feel alone
in the universe and
am terrified that a breeze
with scatter my atoms among
the cosmos
and some days I feel as though
a god I haven't made up my mind on yet
is watching me and
I am terrified
that He's going to send a breeze
that will scatter my atoms among
the cosmos
and at the end of it all
I'll just be re-purposed into
something,
perhaps someone,
better.

historically speaking
lobster was food
for the poor
and carp and
dandelions were
staples in our diets
and now that time
has passed
lobster
is a delicacy
and carp and
dandelions are
considered
nuisances
all the while
we seem to forget
that at the end
of the day
lobster
carp
and dandelions
are just
a crustacean
a fish
and a plant
that all exist in their
own right
without any inherent
meaning other than
what we outwardly
project

I love having
positive people
around me
all sunshine
and rainbows
so that my tired cells
can feed and thrive
until I get sunburned
and push them away
because I am a
delicate
*******
flower

Given all the things
humanity is doing
on the land in the name
of Gods and Science
is it really that bad of an idea
to want to live on the open sea
where at least the
sharks look you in the eye
before tearing you in half

It's easier to talk
in obscurity and metaphor
than it is to be honest
with ourselves
because it sounds more
pleasant to be tossed around
at sea
than to be sitting quietly
at the bottom of
a well in a rainstorm

I once knew a guy
who was obsessed
with death and
all its possibilities.
He once informed me
that we are more
likely to survive a gunshot
wound to the head
than to the heart.

"The mind is resilient,"
he said,
"but the heart can't handle such
a blow."

I guess that's why heartbreak
feels like ******* death.

A friend of mine
told me they don't
like to write poetry
because it's too dark
and people tend to
panic when they read it.
When they send poetry
to their friends,
the responses are usually
"are you okay?
let's hang out
I miss you"
As though to make up
for lost time and apply
social interaction to
staunch the bleeding
that has formed such
turbulent verses.

But perhaps if those things
were said more regularly
without provocation,
their poetry wouldn't be so dark.

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.

They told me
to think more
positive thoughts
so I described the
movement from
a perfectly good day
to a severe depressive
low was as exhilarating
as being on an
out of control tire swing
attached to a tree that
was half dead
and they told me I needed
to take it more seriously
or leave.

I watched a video
where a pastor was
talking about why they
were building a second sanctuary
in the mega-complex-compound
that was his church and he said
"We've thought carefully and prayerfully
about this..."
and I tuned out because I got
caught up in the time I couldn't
come home because someone had a
dream that they had to ****** me
and how
"That was God's way of telling
me that I can't let you come home"
which made me feel really
special that God was sending dreams
about me to people
and so I asked Him real prayerfully
while He was at it
to send a Magic Mike-esque dream
about me
to this girl I had a crush on
and in the dream
I would have the body of Hulk Hogan
in his pre reality show years.

She and I never ended up together.

Instead of
practicing what we
preach
we should
preach
what we practice
and laugh in the
ensuing chaos

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 once knew a woman
who did jigsaw puzzles
and it was interesting
how
when she would finish them
she would glue all the
pieces together
as a sort of testament to
having conquered chaos
and made order out of
scraps
and I think perhaps
she was on to something
as I see how desperately
people long for
the stability of Facebook
photo albums
and friend lists
stuck in perfect
suspense
and free from the world
and all you have to do
is look at your glued
puzzle collection and say
"I have conquered this day"

An
ancient
monolithic
structure built
before the advent
of written history and
all we can really do is try
to speculate as to the building
processes without acknowledging
how many people always must perish
in the name of megalithic shots at greatness

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.

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

It's raining today
and I'm laying in bed
listening to the raindrops
fling themselves at my windows
and I keep wondering
what's going on in Chicago
New York
or any other city
where the rain makes
things seem picturesque
and a perfect backdrop
to fall in and out of love
instead of this town
where the rain just
makes things
wet.