A Closed Letter

To happiness,
or whom it may concern.
I don't think I'd recognize you
at first.
Sparkling, transfixed
inside me.
I'd wonder how you
didn't clutch guilt like a
sparrow in the spring.
Would you be like they say,
the ones with smiles?
Could you be so easy to kiss?
To lick like a paintbrush?
Sometimes, I think, I regret
the break up. As though I'm sorry for broken
wills and iron bloodlust.
But more often, I
imagine how you feel in my clothes.
So when did our ambition grow eyes?
The way you used to remind me that
breath and believe both started with
letting go.

highku

she gave me a choice
her or alcoholism
I chose being drunk

Un Tren! Un Tren!

I gave up experimenting with
train sets when
the breaker wouldn't stay flipped.
It's hard to move on track
when electricity doesn't exist.
You aren't
impossible,
but loving you is.
I let the Pacific Ocean run
up the rocks to
slap me a life-awakening.
And when my glasses got
wet, I saw water
prism bricks stack
up and mortar
themselves with salty breath.
I don't have patience like this.
Come down from blimp-clouds.
Trickle through bed rock and
basalt. Clean
the crops.
Promise me a rainy season
so I stop these ankle-
extensions dancing.
So I quit praying at 60 mph.
I wonder if oil would make
you thicker, like
feathers,
or slick.
And the smells of rewound tapes
leak out of our arguments.
Next time, you have the fight
and I'll read
the transcript. That way I
won't set fire to your
repeated mistakes. I'll just
love the way
your cross-examination makes me
feel guilty for moving my tongue.
How many stenographers did you hire
before you found a deaf one?

Train tracks rust in
the cuffs of my jeans.
This great escape led me to
a spine stronger than mine.
I performed the transplant, and walked
back into you upright.
Rearranged your veins until your
heart could finally beat again.
A shakey-handed surgeon with
ball point scalpels and morphine
in my touch but it wasn't enough.

Your Colosseum held peanut cans
filled with springy snakes.
A defense mechanism for those
easily afraid of a lie.
Thank your god I was born with blind faith.
Thank mine I was born with round legs.
Lay railroad ties and I will
dream up steel
pace to keep moving through
these dried-up jerk towns.
There is coal burning in the
back of my perseverance.
I study medical dictionaries
in the headlights. But
she's running me down and I
haven't found
the chapter on terminally empty.
I'm out of time
and I'm sorry.

Blue

There are runs in our stockings.
We shouldn't wear such things in the snow.
It makes us slow to apologize
for mistakes we purposefully
make. And quick
to make love
by smacking our glass against
each other.
I could have loved you,
if you hadn't reminded me of myself
so much.
We shattered,
but before that we had cracked.
Hairlines and fractures in the
concrete wishing wells
we call eyes.
I exchanged life savings
into pennies.
Muttered a prayer in Hebrew.
Translated it into promises.
I promise to never be good
enough for you.
I promise to pretend
I had Eloise in my sights
and an eye to shoot straighter
this time.
Grant me a seventeenth chance
so I can fail to make it up
to you.
Blue is not pretty
like eyes welling up with wishes.
It's lying about sleeping
when I lay next to you.
Blue,
like the bay I threw dollar bills
into. Signed
with your middle name
and the love I fell
into. It was wet.
Warm like a bathtub with
the arms of an ocean.
These are things I am not.
I am not disgusted with myself.
I am not holding grudges against
my mistakes.
I am not looking for problems
or sabotaging us.
I am not afraid of being a father
like mine.
I am not lying!
I am not blue-eyed.
I am not blue.
I don't regret every goodbye
that I painted on my voice.
I didn't want to stay.
I didn't want to wrap myself
in your sheets and forgive
everything. I can't come clean.
I'm stained with spilt faith
but I've never lost God.
I tucked her deep, next
to my self esteem.
Locked them up and
threw away the key.
I don't miss me.
I'm not lying.
I'm not blue
I don't miss you.
I can't tell the truth.

But I've stopped sleeping,
hoping I can be happy in
something other than my dreams.
I'm not ready.
I can't burn the list of
sins I drag from my wrists.
Or the failures
bent like staples holding my smile down;
it'll never be big again.
So let me be the body you
left behind.
And perhaps I
can forgive the
weight of my skin
and find you.
Intertwined in the padlock.
When the key clicks,
the world will have to
forgive me.
I will be useless,
except for loving you.

Bleach

When you pulled your skin back,
did you find what you were running from?
Was it shaped
like slow, open arms, lit
with magnesium? And
do you need me to undress you now?
Because I remember turning myself
inside-out
for your enjoyment and
losing my good coat in the process.
How we float,
dunking our heads to test our breath.
Slowly,
we are drinking this river to get closer to each other.
Catapults line our thirsty throats
and we cannot scream.
We cannot present our anthems of
frustrated worth. Tie
collapsing fortitude to my limbs.
I will not quarter.
My shoulders are cementing,
stagnant clay pits.
I've dyed my earlobes red from
all the shrugging. But when I sing,
the clay goes slowly soft.
And after 6 months of staining like children,
for my birthday
you gave me more bleach.
I scrubbed until I was clean.
Last night,
I watched a middle-aged man lose
two weeks of self help tapes in
a coffee shop.
He had been turned down
by a twenty-something who
didn't trust innocence.
So is this my sentence for giving up on love?
My dreams and nightmares are distorting.
Horses are running wild through cemeteries
and in the background you
are laughing.
I need an exorcist, most nights.
But I settle for a finger-painting,
or more bleach.
Which leads me to ask;
Did you understand I wasn't a jeweler?
Just a stranger who knew
rubies were found in the hearts of the missing.

If I had touched you
as hard as I wanted to,
my lips would still be imprinted onto your fist.
After all,
this explosion began
with the kiss
we missed.
But that's not to say I couldn't bleed still.
I digress.
If it wasn't for the scratches of the win,
I wouldn't remember the good parts.
Like the night we waltzed
between the knees of the butterflies
and you laughed,
and said it tickled.
Or those December windows
we steamed without breathing.
I've gathered these memories into
the type of neighborhood where
porch swings don't budge.
I watch the porcelain grey in the bathtubs.
I watch the wallpaper creep from the molding.
This is where I learned
to lie,
and to shiver.
I always imagined I would marry the girl
who left: the painter blind, the
poet speechless.
But she would want to see the neighbors,
and I can't go back there.
So instead, I will marry
a girl with eyes like walls.
A girl who fancies herself.
A girl who can't see the backgrounds in portraits.
And when she sleeps, I'll
sneak out into the night, alone, and
ask how we could forget that
flowers are still flowers in the rain.

I still water the plum tree you planted.
And sometimes, when the wind blows.
The branches scratch up against
the inside of my ribs.
And it tickles me to tears.

Reding is phun

If you look at Glenn Beck's library
record, you won't see...much.
Kanye West has admitted to
never reading books,
although he wrote one.
1 in 15 Americans
can't make sense of a newspaper.
Every first world country
teaches at least two
languages to children starting from birth.
And we don't know our own.
Where did we go wrong?
Did television announce itself
as a deity?
Did our busy hands move too fast
for our eyes to see?
Did we trade poetry
for portability?
Or was it when we knew?
When we knew we were smart enough.
When we knew the coldest wars were over.
When we knew how to advertise.
Maybe.
But maybe,
the end of culture should be blamed on us,
the weak.
The death of our language happened
when we were far too bold to listen
and far too scared to speak.

4 minutes, or damn near.

In the passenger seat of a
Chevrolet Cavalier, one of the
greatest gifts I've ever met
confesses they call her bipolar.
I tell her I am, too.
They just haven't caught me yet.
If they set a trap made of
6-pack rings and suicide attempts
I'd be fucked.
But they won't.
Instead, people become uncomfortable
when I tell them I was a canceled abortion.
Do you get it yet?
I'm not supposed to be here.
I drank a bottle of nail-polish when I was two.
Gave my mother a week before I tipped
the aspirin pill case back.
Stomach pumps are longer than you'd think.
But perhaps you can tell me what
it's like to have a purpose-filled life.
I party with the best of 'em.
Which means I drink alone.
If you ask, I'll tell you it gets
rid of the headaches in my chest.
Some days I feel like a latex balloon
no one has the breath to fill back up.

So where's the ambulance?
Where are the white apes in white jackets?
I respect this world enough
to leave it
with one less dreamer.
One less chance.
And you can doubt my wings. I wouldn't expect
the lot of you to
see anything you couldn't proclaim a war against.
For calling yourselves believers and faith healers
you sure are blind to a love
built on empathy.
Pull the bit from your mouth
before you speak to me.
If you're right, I'll hang myself from your reins.
I've wanted nothing more
than to watch you watch me
suffocate in a hope chest.
Tucked underneath forgotten birthday cards
and a first marriage wedding dress.
The only thing worth hearing about me
will be my eulogy. It will read
like a grocery list for insomnia.
They'll decorate my coffin with
Parisian cafe charm because
I was an artist,
and artists adore elitist culture.
But if I have my way.
they'll march my body to a landfill
so I won't ever decompose.
And there I will lay, staring at all the stars
I threw away.
The sun will rise
to broken promises dancing on my grave.
And I won't blame them for holding a grudge.

I want out of a world where
your sins outlast you
and riches are held in currency.
Give me a world
where Raskalnikov weeps
and New York can finally sleep.
I want truth stitched into me
like a Star of David in the ghetto.
The Gestapo better bring their rifles.
I have no intention of going quietly
into the night.
I encased my heart in iron bars
that rusted when I cried
I pried them apart.
So don't call me a tin man
I have miles of love inside.
I'll rip open your permanent
record and stamp
"Too Gorgeous To Die".'
Just like the sky,
your eyes hold the stars in line.
Don't shut them, yet.
Sacrifice complacency for
acceleration.
Put your lead foot on the
burn pedal until
we all catch fire.
Mimic the sun.
Chase down the dreams you had before
they told you it couldn't be done.
They are trying to cut off our fingers
so lets all give them one.
Lick the teeth of your heroes
and call it a kiss.
Spit on the wrists of
anyone who tells you fairy tales don't exist.
Because we shouldn't be here.
We dreamers.
We rogues of a new dawn.
We love-song singers
and tear-hiders.
We were always told
to fall in line
so we leaped out,
foreheads glistening in sweat spelling out
"we aren't beaten yet".
And I'll keep
playing psalms on the harmonica.
And you'll keep painting smiles
on nativity sets.
And before this shit gets
us in the end,
we will weep passion
until those empty veins
run red again.

My grandfather was 85
when his wife left this world
and him.
He told me it wasn't enough, anymore.
He had stopped moving inside.
And I said "Grandpa, I don't blame you.
True hope in this world doesn't
come often. But I know,
for all the things that
want to kill us in this world,
when we love,
we find the only
thing worth dying for.

Welcome Back

Pour it out.
Vomit into my hands, and
I will hold you and
what you've needed to throw away.
Give thanks for the propellers
in your arms, call them veins
and love and goosebumps.
Whisper through trees too quiet
like you were the patience of starlight.
She spent 30 years getting here.
She traveled through an asteroid belt.
Stars don't get stains or
covered in satin or given
sainthood. What is it like to be
a needle in a black haystack?
I would ask her, but I'm frightened
of what her eyes would tell me
before her mouth could open,
swallowing me like a child's forehead
into wonderment.

Dedicated to the last 3 weeks of my job.

She only thinks
out loud, finding
a million ways to say
a million nothings.
Reaching deep for compliments
about her highlights
and slimming skirt.
I look at my chopsticks
and ask how hard I
would have to throw my face
to penetrate my brain.
It's been twenty five
minutes now and I'm
crawling with nausea. How can she
be so full of herself?
Then she asks how my day
has been, and
I realize
I haven't been
paying any attention to her
at all.
Sometimes, I'm too proud
to apologize.

To be shipwrecked

The head-rush is not
as instant as one
would think.
There is a settling
of iron in your
circulation, first.
Sweat retreats back
through your pores.
Then her empty
eyes ring like crystal
under a wet thumb.
And you pray to be deaf,
or blind.
Sirens perch on
her eyelashes,
inviting you into a paradise
filled with shattered hulls
and stories you don't get the endings of.
.....
possible nicknames continued
.....
Double-stitch,
sweet pea. Don't ever
let me rip you open.

Woof in Sheeeps Clothing

The want to know what I've been writing,
so I tell them.
.....
There were more blackouts
this week than normal.
And tonight,
when I laid in the grass,
I felt my hand touch a withered
dandelion stalk and mistook it
for someone next to me.
I suppose a more proper title would
be "What I am not writing."
Because in all honesty, the poems
exist in what I
leave out.

Possible Nicknames For You

Horse -
For carrying your long
face so proudly.
Jellyfish -
For transparency only
a mother
could love.
Still-Life -
see: your lips.
Dandelion -
For more than just the obvious
reasons. But I do know I never want
to see the color yellow, again.
Will continue list later.

This Weekend

Felt like a crash course in appreciating silence. And just when I thought it would be too much, I realized I had begun to enjoy not speaking. I've had my wings spread for the past two days and I am exhausted. It was a mission trip. And I come home, and feel as though I accomplished nothing.

This is going to be a tough-sleep night.

But in other news,
I've finished reading High Fidelity and have a Top Five list to celebrate.

Top Five Songs for Being in a Dodge Neon:

1. Punk Rock - Mogwai
2. Roxanne - The Police
3. Mosquito Repellent - The Mountain Goats
4. Wildflowers - Ghostface Killa
5. All Along The Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix

Would you like to know where hope is?

If so, let me hold your
palm under the rain. Feel
what it must be like to
catch your existence
by the tail. Parted,
but not split, from
an ego as large
as one could dream.
Sometimes there are
symphonies held
within the splatter. But
we don't have ears like that.
Like the sidewalk has ears.
She whispers (day in-
day out)
foot steps that smell so
exhausted, one could
mistake them for wanting
to rest.
But they don't want to rest
near the eavesdropping rain.
They know each symphony plays
far too loudly
in the dark. And
some of us must sleep. There is
work to be had
Grinning to be done.

Gamelan Orchestra

Let's continue,
strumming ukulele chords
until we sing out
of tune and shimmer
against the old man. The one
walking with a
bottle-neck girl dressed in brown.
Then watch them kiss
and never speak about
how jealous we are. Instead,
we laugh falsely and
deny we loved
like that.
Our lips weren't that dry.
When we loved,
darling,
the world
never stopped to take notice.
And neither did we.

It's only an attempt at destruction

There are many of us who spend last moments of every year in the glow of a dusty Christmas tree. Call it laziness for not removing traditions when we remove our faith. But maybe it's hope that we haven't lost anything as we sing a song whose words make no sense. It's no difference to the revolution of the earth around her majesty, the sun. They continue to dance in spite of holidays.

Always Making Duplicates

Tell me you have shape
under your scarf like an
awning.
Wind breaker like
a kiwi cut-open underwater.
Salvage the canoes.
Cut oars with cocaine
and wet rocks.
Then kiss the
ghost of my lips with apathy
not unlike sleeping
dreamlessly.

. . . . . . . . .

My life,
is often seen through
normal eyes who notice things.
Like the waiver in my gait.
Or t-shirt fabric.
This is who transcribes history,
strangers.
Without my tongue, you
cannot speak my name.
Without my scars, you
cannot have the plot-line, yet.
I've started a bonfire in a nearby
dumpster. The authorities will
be here
shortly.
So lets dance in burning plastic
while we watch our surfaces
turn into dripping/
modern sculptures.

Give Thanks

Where are you, gypsy?
Thunder is eating the tail
of thunder.
This is what it looks like in my brain.
This is what it sounds like in my chest.
Sagging windows are lit up,
partly due to
the hash smoke.
And the delusion that there is
something worth standing in the
rain for.
I spit in the rain,
but I do not spit at the rain,
sir.
I still shake with wet fists, letting
one cold finger after another
trace my temperature.
What is the Spanish word for rain?
I begin to count the ways I could
associate love with a thundershower
metaphor,
or perhaps memories.
But all the gypsies have left
before the monsoon could catch them.

For a letter I found in an old notebook

You should have licked me
before the tar & feathers.
I wouldn't have dyed your
tongue black
or stained your eyelashes
a fence.
I can tell by the foot print
dance mat your staring at
that you aren't ready for a slow song.
So peace be with you.
The only sound the procession will
hear
when they slam the lid shut
on your wicker casket
is complacency.
Then your tears will whisper
"we have
spent her whole life trying
to escape. Let us
tell you her truth!"
But all the people
will be somewhere else,
forgetting how
much they didn't know about
you.

What language

did Adam and Eve speak?

And can I speak it, too?

Rite Aid

The woman stumbles circles

around her shopping cart.

She is excited to use her

new mop in the group home.

“I used to clean things, too.”

Is the only courage I can muster.

And then I lie.

“I’m an out-of-work exorcist. No

money in demon hunting

these days.”

She knocks her cart

over, says she recognizes me.

Then beings to yell at the cashier

about how I stole her baby.

I turn sideways and stare at the tattoo

growing out of the assistant manager’s

sleeve. I hate being locked into

a story, but I can’t stop now.

“I need work,” I say.

“Do you have any possessed customers or

employees?

I discount for group rates.”

He calls me a faggot, so

I leave.

I should stop pretending

everyone is as bored as I am.

Life is too short for this.
Transcend the bullshit.
So here's the truth.
I am so frightened of dying I
often imagine every intersection will be my last breath .
If I ever said I love you, I meant it.
That includes you.

I am done with being immature, for the moment.
Please believe me when I say that every dream I ever had was shattered when I saw the backs of your eyes. That's a half-compliment, but take it as a good thing.
People like us are enemies to this world, and I like that. I like the way I smile at children. I like the terrible job I do at hiding my tears. I like that I still remember details about every girl I've ever listened to. And I love how big my heart is.

I love how big my breath is.

I want to crawl into you with a wrench, and clear the blood clots near your zest.

But that's not my job.

I am an acrobat and a chimney sweep, a word-weaver, a son, a kurt, a Kurt.
A poly-para-psycho-quixotician.

and as of right now,
capable of elaborating on the effects of shooting for the moon.
(In summary; cold, but well worth it)

love

Nighku

My Lotus Blossom,
You taste like a prison break.
This freedom won't last.

in three sittings

Take comfort in the
peace that is within your skin
because I did once.
In the two seconds your
mascara brush hesitated.
I shrugged it off
took both you and your sheets
for granted.
These jars don't keep
when you leave the lights on.
Cellars are for storing preserves.
It's damp between my voice and the sky.
So let my eyes be a pressure gauge
when you whisper about
evils we don't get better from;
just better at.
If you can't believe them,
join them.
Tote cannonball handbags
with you when you walk
these freeways I've paved.
I've forced prohibitions
in my organs and now the rum runners
run wild.
They all carry tommy guns
and poor judgment.
Self defense is imperative
to your survival in my heart.
And if I weren't so tired of
being alone,
I would not have let you in.
But my constant fidgeting has
left these pages thin.
Be gentle when you shelve me.
The glue has brittled in my bindings
And at any moment
a chapter may scatter
across the floor
that you haven't read yet.
I lost the patience putting me
back in order deserves.
My spirit guide quit
two weeks into the job
sighting my second guessing
as "problematic" to our professional
relationship.
But darling,
I didn't grow wings to be a vulture.
Don't trust the soft voice of
a preacher when he has teeth
like a leech.
You'll bleed out
and have nothing left to spit
when you speak.
You're a legend I've been
convincing myself will jump out
of a fable
and keep my apathy in its cave
Don't call me a pacificst.
I'll set fire to your libraries,
until you learn to read
in between my lines and
accept the fact that I've been
dislocating my bones to reach you
before compassion is extinct.
Don't love me like you fucked me.
Love me like you birthed me
and I was worthy of being proud of.
And perhaps I'll be exhausted
enough to admit I'd give anything
to be an anonymous martyr
for you.
Because I believe,
during days drowning in rain,
that your heart cannot be contained
in a cage so tight,
you bleed rust.
Saddle a cannonball with me.
Serrate the wind
with your sternum,
chest first.
Breaking clouds over your collarbone.
Let tomorrow be much farther
than a day away
and holding hands a capitol crime.
So at dusk, we would
trip over panic attacks
slinking into an alley
to play thumb wars.
And when I lose,
I'll pull back 23 years of lies
so you can know
that when I called you beautiful,
I didn't have to consult my eyes.

I Think

Far too often,
and not nearly precise enough.
6 letters haunt my existence:
Atomic
Gender
Middle
Hatred
German
Nigger
Father

None of which I am to blame, personally.
But all with which
inheritance checks are signed
and stamped. Sometimes
I believe those
around me should know
that I am only one of my father's choices.
I never voted yes on the Manhattan Project
nor did I believe pigment to be
a verdict.
But my ancestors did.
So please hold me accountable/responsible
for everything they ever wrote
on cave walls.
And parchment.
And clay tablets.
And history.
Because I have never been my own actions
and have never had my own idea(l)s.
I am only a megaphone with
which they speak.

you realize

Many of us look for god
in women and in men.
We look for her in the fronts of
churches and the backs of prophets.
Look for her
in the bottoms of beer bottles.
We
search books and hallucinogens and soundtracks.
We often ask,
late at night,
for the
proof of purpose
and understanding.
Most of us spend
borrowed money to
hear the gospels
translated through opinions.
Some of us weep hoping tears will magnify her.
Then we give up,
and have children.

Exactly

Those who say the poet is a very private and precious person I don’t agree with. Generally he is just a dumb, fuddling asshole writing insecure lines that don’t come through. Believing he’s immortal. Waiting for his immortality which never arrives, because the poor fucker just can’t write.

-Charles Bukowski

A haiku for Ken's return to Spokane

You pulled the trigger.
Blamed me for stepping in front.
So I pled guilty.


Sidenote: Pled is not the correct past tense form of "Plead", but I don't give a fuck what yo' dikshunayree says!

Return to Zion

"Don't finish that bottle off,"
I tell her,
"I'll need something to
drink tomorrow night. When
I'm alone."
Stunning holograms
mimic folding screens,
portable partitions,
and castle moats.
Who dares to enter
this facade of a division?
If my eyes could fuck you,
we wouldn't need to
waste so much time
establishing foreign policy.
The worst nights are those
where I am too drunk to drive
but not drunk enough
to sleep.
But you left enough liquid courage
for me to face my nightmares
this time.
And for that, I owe my deepest empathy
to those who have none.
May resentment come
all too soon for the righteous
and disheartened.

I was so on the clock when I wrote this

They all walk
with purpose, downtown.
They fear
being caught gawking
or wondering.
Panhandlers always
chase the first twinkle of
awe. To be caught
off the trail here
means certain
change purse death.
They're staring at me, now.
At the shrine of cigarette butts
I've erected to the deity of
warm weather absorption.
At the collection of pages
I hold that look nothing
like memos
and legal briefs.

Young Man Leaves Party

my take on Mark Strand's 'Old Man Leaves Party'

My tie was pre-loosened.
This was not to be like before.
Saturdays are not Fridays.
I didn't perceive breaking her heart
I promise.
Not on Saturday.
Seemed like more of a Tuesday thing.
I look like a burnt-out businessman
in a suit.
Or a sleezy car salesman.
The sound of rolling beer bottles
down the street
made more sense as a recording
of "they're laughing at me."
Ha
He's a poet. Its ok.
You won't ever know what I think about you.
unless I tell you.
I've eaten all the taffy I can stand.
Whiskey and ginger ale hurl bricks
through my facade.
I'm a much better actor, sober.

Almost One Night Stand

I drink a different beer tonight.
These are different people.
They drink for escape
and enjoyment.
I drink for work;
to write.
I drink to find
demons I haven't
exorcised yet.
I don't drink to find shelter,
but to escape it.
I drink so I can flirt.
I drink to love you.
I drink to scrawl words
on a notebook
on a porch
on a cigarette
on lips
that I won't bring myself to kiss.
I drink to hurt myself
I drink to remember you.
I drink I drink
Alcohol
Alcohol
Alcohol
Alcohol
And we forget ourselves.

a beginning with no end, yet

I begin to notice
now.
Being downwind from loneliness.
Like raft logs
in whitewater
I am both afloat
and sunken,
praying for
the day I am
named driftwood
and burn
as two soulmates
spend sand in
the search for beauty
not seen by firelight.
I have not been
waterlogged, yet.
But I've swallowed
my share of rapids.
There is not
enough wine
in this world
to wash me from you
I know this
and I almost apologized, but I was far too jealous.

Free Writes to Catch Up

Mark and Danielle are pulling steady with NaPoWriMo, I am not.
But I have been freewriting lately, thanks to this Bukowski quote from his poem, 'How to be a great writer'.

"...get a large typewriter
and as the footsteps go up and down
outside your window

hit that thing
hit it hard

make it a heavyweight fight

make it the bull when he first charges in."

So here are the freewrites, hot off the typewriter, typos corrected, untitled.

You forgot,
quiet mouse,
that we used to be in love.
As though a fact that
obvious could be claimed by humans.
We only know of god
and the mixture of salt
and chocolate.
Any creature with
the knowledge of a tomorrow
cannot love.
Its obvious, we must forgive
our minds for changing.
And our livers for giving in
to our heart's repair settings.
Which set of eyes
will finally send me into cirrhosis?
Hopefully, she will be brilliant
and i can blame it
on intelligent design;
interior lead coated semi-
gloss.
Shine on, those promises
we kept like secrets
in high school.
I pity those who heed warnings,
for theirs is the kingdom of happiness.




My dad
was everyone's friend.
Sold supplies to contractors
like nails
and wood
and siding
he used to insulate buildings, too.
Tried to buy and flip a house, once.
Always in the best of shape to help a friend
in need.
Never found without a white Bic lighter.
Used it when his turn signal broke.
Drove a silver Nissan
that would overheat
when he drove long distances.
Had to fix that
Had to fix the house
Had to fix the supply order
Had to blow insulation
no wonder
he never had time
for me.


I'm too drunk to call,
besides,
I don't remember your phone number.
But I wanted to punch this into your
nose. Hope
it breaks
into your cerebellum like frostbite
thawed by the heater in my car.
This is not
near as painful
as watching you drown
knowing i was the only one who saw
what you could be.
I've been accused of
trusting
and believing
too much, or
not enough.
Those innocent beekeepers
whose hands are history books
know what this life can
pretend it knows.
Punched you in
a dreamcatcher,
no surprise it looks like a spider
web.
What a trap,
sleep is.
When I breathe, moisture
settles into my diaphragm
and condenses
into a precipitate.
That's why it always rains
in my chest.
Contrary to popular belief,
you share no guilt for my
insubordination.
I simply
let
mysel
fgo


I prophesize on
nights like these
that my breast will leap
free from my lungs
and dance like the '20s
were yesterday.
But what do i know
of things like
the past?
Frozen radio control
towers in Chicago reported
that tomorrow might be a real blustery day
but I live in hell,
where its summer, all the time.
Don't attempt to empathize
with gears and transmissions.
They only allow
proper handling of highway junctions
and stop go.
Stop is a vernacular juxtaposition
we need not explore.
Sunset Princess, keep your
tears and attempts at holding on
for church.
I will never admit to missing you.
If Freud was worth a shit,
he would have explained
why hardwood floors make
the best of hammocks
when you're drunk
off sentimentality
and preoccupation of
gotta get it done
gotta get it done
gotta work tomorrow
gotta get a job
gotta remember how to wake up.





I watched a squirrel
groom itself for five minutes.
Then i went to write it down.
It was gone.

I wonder how much life
i have missed
just because i was trying to capture it.

But i am a writer
I am a writer
but
what?

Some of us fall in love
to songs.
Some of us fall in love
to write them
I don' fall in love
I fake it.
and I am a liar
sincerly,






I can't recall what zodiac sign
entered the sun that week.
Nor will images
of weather forecast materialize on
blue screen.
Most of my wardrobe is loaned to friends
or lost in laundry dungeons.
If given a palette i could not
find the colour of your hair.
My bank ledger has no recollection of
what the restaurant's name was.
My chambers hold no scent of
perfume or hairspray.
Your middle name has not left my pen
since that day.
But i remember, vividly,
the rhythm of your breath while you slept.