Soulless Solace

During yesterday's moment-of-silence
I wasn't being overly reflective
or appreciative of the moment.

Nor did I think back
on the past two weeks;
the unseasonable heat, the flood,
the collapse of the midtown bridge.

I didn't meditate on the loss of numerous
church members, your husband included,
who perished in the rush of water, venturing
from their homes against sound advice
to try and lift those drowning from the river
onto the midtown bridge.

I didn't have my usual talk with God,
the one where I acknowledge His vow
of silence and sarcastically scorn
His hands-off approach, while actually
fearing that He was listening and,
worse yet, playing along with the joke.

Instead, I looked around the circle
of people holding hands and watched
the candlelight play across your face
and wondered how soon I'd have to
wait to ask you to dinner

or just show up at your house, timing
my arrival perfectly with the intersection
of your vulnerability and hopelessness.
An eye of the storm doorbell ring.

well wishes

I'll forever say you're gorgeous.
You'll forever deny it.

So,
your face is like a putrid orange
your voice is a cat on the rack
your presence, a pestilence.

I hope you trip tomorrow,
stub all twenty toes.

One of these days
I'll fully commit myself
to a yawn.

Let my unbridled jaws
rise, stretch, and crack
until they overwhelm my face.

Folklore

Reynard the Fox was in the barnyard
up to his old tricks again,
roosting around the restless hens,
reaching for eggs between their legs.

The clucks, shrieks, squeaks, and squawks
woke Farmer John long before his clock.
He lit the lamp, grabbed his gun,
crept 'round the barn before Fox could run.

The door swang open, the hens rustled and sang,
but just before the fatal "bang!"
Reynard dashed beneath the farmer's feet.

The trickster'd tricked, the farmer tripped
and pulled the trigger as the shotgun flipped.

Reynard ate poached eggs that night.
The farmer left behind two girls and a wife.

That's the story my parents told
me when I was only five years-old,
about the death of Uncle John,
at that point, he was six years gone.

I heard he was quite the trickster too,
but it's hard to tell those myths from truth.
Tails of hitching a tractor to loose a tooth,
or the time my father said he threw

a handful of bullets into a bonfire
just to tempt ol' death's ire
or maybe he had an awful desire
to build and burn his own funeral pyre.

Years later, I heard another story,
of a night Uncle John felt mighty sorry.
His wife found him in the basement, sitting
alone with his gun, the chamber spinning.

2094

Two days of snow
and sleeping in,
our schedules shattered.
In the free time I sprawled
over all hours, tucked under
linen sheets, stained coffee-white,
while you photographed
my room in light too dim
for full exposure.

Outside our Senator
screamed obscenities
in the street. The neighbors
just laughed, handed him a broom
and said, "Sweep".
Tonight, Senate shovels
while we sleep,
while the solstice eats the moon,
blood-red behind the clouds.
There's nothing to prove.

Chores

Pablo's heart is beating at half-speed.
He's sitting crooked on the couch,
smiling at the screen.

Grandfather's throwing fire
in the backyard
at all the passing cars.
Something wrong with this year's
model.

Natalie takes a damp cloth
to Pablo's forehead,
trying to make herself useful
or keep her mind off the clock.
Her prom date's already ten minutes late.
If he doesn't show, she'll be stood up
for the fifth year in a row.

Mother and I sweep breadcrumbs
in the kitchen. Push them into little pyramids,
pack them in the freezer then thaw them
in the fireplace.

Father should be home soon.
He'll wrestle Grandfather to the ground,
tell Natalie she's gorgeous and useless,
hook the jumper cables up to Pablo's left ear
and right hand, rev the engine.

Then we'll all settle in by the hearth,
breath in deep the pumpernickel fumes.

the odicy

Come on in,
sit down, Monk.
You're soaking wet.

Pull up a chair,
my friend. The table's set,
but I'm afraid we don't have much
to eat.

Just chips. Rather bland and dry,
but with a satisfying crunch.

Just like the Host

That's uncalled for.

In the heart

As it turns out,
the knife had been a birthday present,
smuggled through security
in the side zipper of my smallest suitcase
seventeen years ago.
The perfect gift to give a nephew.

All the way from Spain
because those Swiss
are so cliche.
Really, we only want a knife
for one thing, the appendages
are just jewels in the hilt.

It took a minute to recognize
it buried in your chest,
but that's the one.

You're eyes were just as wide
when you unwrapped it
as they are now,
as I walk through the door,
find you in the living room
finally putting it to use.

I hope

I keep gnawing at my fingers,
don't stop at the nails
but get the whole fist in there
devour up to the elbow
finally hide my awful hide
I hope I choke.

I hope my plane crashes
scream like a turbulent child,
abandon ideas of civility and art
for survival, piss my pants,
curse my god, my mother, my luck
all things I don't believe in anymore

I hope I land in the jungle,
body torn apart by quiet tigers,
bones gnawed on by the yeti.
I hope my grave goes unmarked,
my luggage never found,
journals decomposing in the swamps.

I hope my heart stays broken,
hope these wounds stay split wide open
I hope I never write again
make excuses, drop the pen
I hope I give up hope
I give up

Infestation Tests in Jesting Gestation

The bees came back,
burrowed in the space
between the walls
and the heart of my home

they hum at night
buzz in the morning
when I wake, with honey
in my eyes

angry threats scrawled:
you mother
you cretinous
you son of a

Don't dare spray
insecticide inside
their abject hives

the swarm is too destructive
stingers too sharp
dances too instructive

when they stare
at me
I feel fractured
a million of one

We'll live in begrudging harmony
bees feeding off the flower
of my youth,
I wear pollen in hair.

Only takes one punctuation
to send me into a comma
thought cut off too short

All Art is Quite Useless

I ought to give my poems legs,
send them round the house at night
to kick up and swallow dust.

In the morning, when they lie
engorged and exhausted at the bottom of the stairs,
I’ll shake them out on the balcony,
stretch their letters in the wind.

For others I’ll pen a pair of hands,
shoo them out into the neighborhood.

A few will stand and point at the burning red
of the Japanese Maple leaves at the corner
of Beacon Street and Warwick Road.

Some will tug at the heels of pedestrians
until they turn and catch the last breath of a sunset.

One will skip around convenience stores
and warehouse floors
tickling everything it can get its tiny, rotund
fingers on.

For a few poems I’ll craft wings
out of stamps and glossy photo paper,
send them down the Masspike
to Mother.

They’ll flutter through the window,
perch in the oak ceiling beams
beside the dried azaleas and rusted washboard
to whisper in her ear as she scrubs
cereal bowls in the sink;

He’s okay. Eating well, not too sad.
He’ll get a job, toughen up. He’s okay

or

Your father is happy now, in heaven.
Drinking a whiskey on the rocks
(it’s allowed). Your mother will be there soon.
She knows how much you love her.
You’ve done everything you can

Better yet, the poem will land
in her twisted brown hair
while she sleeps, to murmur;

It’s okay not to know, to be scared, to be sad.

It’s okay to be sad

In the morning
she’ll stretch and scratch her elbow,
find the folded piece of paper
on her pillow, tuck it into her top
drawer and smile.

All these other poems
just sit around my room,
yawning on the radiator
or drinking in the closet.
They ruminate on death
and spurn the names of ex-lovers,
but are really all quite useless.

Milton with Mustard on his Shirt

I must know
if Monet ever sneezed,
if Melville mixed up
yours and you'res,
if Moore misplaced
her keys.

Did Shakespeare sometimes
stay in bed on sunny Sundays
snoring?

Did Whitman ever wake up
with strange wo(men) in the
morning?

Does Carson often buckle
and order awful take-out
food?

Has R. Hoyt ever burned
a song just 'cause he was in
the mood?

If you say no
and tell me that these minds
were all pristine,
that writing comes from style
and style comes from being

composed with class
and careful, that they
were never ordinary,
than I'll retire
regretfully, that's too large
a load to carry.

What a World

This evening
as I left Fulton 511
after watching a hip-hop/spoken word
performance by two men
who were born women

I met and fell for
a delightfully nervous
British woman
who had lost her red plastic
Timex watch,
and I promised to return it if found.

I wonder sometimes.

The One

Yes, I've kissed them all.
Some with tongue.

But please believe
that each kiss,
each whisper of skin upon skin,
each lip whetted upon a stranger's
was preparation for yours.

So I understand your surprise
at my lack of action
when we met today beneath
the bridge,

when I smiled with my eyes
but kept my hands
and mouth to myself,
against both of our best wishes.

To kiss you would be to keep you.
We would hold one another,
share secrets, and make love.

Eventually we would bicker
and someday even fuck.
I never want to fuck you
and I never want to be fucked by you.

Instead we didn't kiss
so you will stay forever
in my mind,
perfect, polished,
and a stranger.

Sabbatical

On Sundays, I stroll down Beacon Street
with no particular destination,
just enjoy the clear sidewalks
and overhanging trees.

Every week the monk joins me
pulling up beside my stride
somewhere between Strathmore Park
and Star Supermarket.

I don’t mind it, except
when he asks the inevitable
Have you been praying?
Have you kept the moment holy?

He always smiles
as I stammer
to explain that I’ve tried
but there’s the mail to send,
laundry to fold,
sisters to visit,
books to read,
mountains to climb,
demons to strangle,
loves to pursue

and I’ve been really busy
preparing to tackle each one.

The monk just winks,
clangs his bells
(I hate those bells)
tightens the rope
around his waist,
stays one step ahead of me.

The Universe is an Endless Pomegranate

Once all of its infinite seeds
were bundled together
at the very center
of the pomegranate.

Until o ne by o ne
they packed up and hiked off
through the thick fruit
towards the rumored rind.
Each seed picked a different direction
and they split,
unaware that the rind itself was on the move.

Now you stand alone
in what was once the very center
of the pomegranate
looking up at the night sky
and the spaces you see
are really the holes dug
by those seeds.

You can still catch glimpses
of the slower ones
twinkling with ambition.

On the Perpetual Certainty of Poems

Just as they laughed at Azophi's
crude cloud constellations
later coined the galaxies
and corrected Kepler's
widely obtuse orbits

so too will future committees
and young academics find fault
in our modern understanding
of the anatomy of quarks
and the love-hate relationship
between quasars and black holes.

But no one will ever
have proper authority
or power of fact
to correct me when I say
that your eyes burn like novas
with more color than the Cat's Eye Nebula

and no one can refute my massive
mathematical error when I say
that even though I love you
you will always be light years
away from me.

is vs. ought (ode to Streethawk)

There really ought to be a law
there ought to be an army
to keep me close to what I love,
guns raised 'til I've given enough
and not this petty stuff
but the real goods that I hoard
all the lovely lines I've stored
at the bottom of my body.

There really ought to be a room
there ought to hospital wing somewhere
where they can open up my brain
and pull out each refrain,
no love is free from pain,
but I'm too scared to sing unless
there's something to get off my chest
or there's really no one there.

There really ought to be an end
there ought to be a grand fateful finale
when each human, animal and plant
gets an award and million dollar grant
to tackle whatever task's at hand,
but our lives' work goes undone,
and even after all the fun
we just end up sleeping in the alley.

Ephmeralove

Last night I found love
memorizing cell structure
in the fourth floor of the library.
She pointed out the blazing skyline
from the window,
I pulled out the books in my bags,
most of them biographies of her

Love's hair is just past shoulder length,
her cheeks flushed and freckled.
We laughed over the madness of poets and scientists
who scream secrets (their discoveries)
to the world.

She refused to move from her seat
so I moved on, the smell of lilac in my mind.
She’s still there now, smiling at strangers
and scribbling notes in the sidelines of her books

waiting for one ignorant of her name,
who isn’t looking to excavate themselves
for her. The last thing love wants is more
of what she’s got.

untitled

The fit
walk with perfect posture,
spindly gazelle legs, dolphin laughs,
firm flesh bared to the world.

The intelligent
walk with eyes up
assessing architectural integrity,
minds floating on a whole other level.

The beautiful
glide just above the porous concrete
with gaunt concentration and stern smiles.
My god how they dazzle!

The tyrants
slink around in shadows
taking notes and leave detonating devices
under flower shops and fountains.

I walk with you,
my little poem,
pleading for the color of your hair,
your hometown, your name at least,
but you won't give away a thing.

Homemade Rockets

On the baseball diamond
behind Granite Valley Elementary School
my father is bent down on both knees
fixing the red rubber wire
to the potassium nitrate engine.

Such force packed into a grey roll
of cardboard. My father starts
the countdown as he runs back
to first base pillow where I lie
laughing, my finger poised above

the red detonation button.
We reach Zero.
The rocket screams away from the earth
and I stand up, as the yellow decals
I’d carefully placed on the nose and fins

disappear into the freedom of inertia.
My father hoots and howls, dancing around
on one foot. There is a moment
I barely catch when the ship is absolutely
still (the back of the box called it
apogee).

Then it somersaults backwards,
gravity pulls open the parachute.
But I could have sworn
that this time we almost broke free,
almost kept on going

right out of the ballpark, out of
this town, and into the weightless
grandeur of outer space.

Everyone wants something

We were all born
with one vital part
ripped out of us.

It hurts,
sure,
but it gives us
a direction to walk in.

literal

I will never write you
into a poem,
no matter how many
times I try

to curl
your yellow tresses
into wheat bending
in whispers of wind

to draw
your lips with wine
onto the brick walls
of infant cities

to translate
your laugh from memory
into a thousand bursting
bubbles collecting
on a kitchen floor

to turn the night
you ran sobbing,
hysterical and hyperventilating
from the car

down the side of the highway,
your stomach splitting with despair
your heart betrayed and bleeding
your hand over your mouth

into a moment of my own
great vulnerability,
my fall into the earthquake
confusion of fading love.

I will be here typing
in my room, coffee
overflowing, and you
will go on singing
across the city
unconscious of my efforts
to write you down.

Sunrise

We’re almost at the end.
I don’t want that to sound fatalistic or scary,
certainly not morbid or suicidal,
it’s just a fact
one my mind insists on revisiting.

Since we began
we’ve been hurtling towards the end,
closer now than we’ve ever been and
I see it rising like the spiked beams of morning.

Don’t panic,
there’s nothing we can do
about it anyhow.
You can’t seem to understand
that this is not a bad thing,
in fact there will be no more
bad things,

no more stubbed toes
or awkward goodbyes
no more hunger
or loneliness
no more forms and forms and forms

of course there will also be
no more tip-toeing across summer fields
or chance encounters
no more seasoned pork chops and Sunday omelets
or time to think
no more flourish in your signature.

But right now we have all that.
Don’t be angry
you knew this was coming
from the start.

immemorial

Confused again by the young
desire towards, not poverty,
but desperation maybe.

The romance of locking
myself in the house,
fusing the windows shut
with cellophane and typing
until I run out of words.

Ashamed that I wish
to be remembered
but that's not it.

Not the vanity of worth
not the admiration of fame
not the power of power

Just the search
perhaps for truth,
but it doesn't matter what you call it.
We must walk, always,
down that path
knowing that it leads nowhere.

Glimpses of truth.
That's the only thing that stays
and acts as landmarks
for the lost
regardless of the time
in which they wander.

I don't remember writing the poem below.
I don't remember posting the poem below.

This isn't a comment on anything,
or a metapoem on the origins of art
or anything.

I'm just a little worried

Election Day

Will I trust you?
Will I ever trust you again?

I don't think so.
We let you hold the diamond,
the most precious jewel that meant
so much more to us than
its monetary worth

and you spit on it
and rubbed it on your
autumn sweater

and you shrugged because
this was just another jewel
and the world is full of rocks
and anything will sparkle
if you hold it at the right angle.

You weren't listening closely
enough. The rock you disregarded
was singing the most beautiful song;
a song about longing and fear,
about control and letting go,
a song about the most rare instance - -
seeing those cracks in the sidewalk
and knowing when to step around them.

You just saw the space,
the hole, the hurt.

And maybe I blame you but it does no good.
Know that my vote counts only once.
It has been placed
with the most pure of heart.

Entropy

We argued back and forth for days
over who could get the credit
for creation.

It was her idea to make the stars shine
but it was my idea to give them seven points.
She thought that burning gas would be the best
fuel to feed the fire,
but I amended this, insisting that the stars
consume themselves infernally
and eternally
or at least until they die.

She wanted to make them immortal.
I thought that was cruel.

We agreed on placing them in a grid formation,
a giant checkerboard hatched across the sky.
With rulers and double sided tape
we pressed the white dots onto the navy tarp,
simple, mathematical,
a framework for the earth.

But when we splayed the tarp over our heads,
waved it out like a beach towel,
the stars slid and fell
shooting off in a thousand different directions.

Powerless, I yelled and shook my fists at the dark.
She took my arm and pulled me down to sit
beside her on the hill. Pointing up at the stars,
random, disheveled,
she saw a dog, with a least two too many heads,
a throne, upright and captive,
a bull lowering its horns to the horizon.

“Look at what you’ve done,” she whispered in my ear,
her cheek touching mine.

I still didn’t see anything more than spilt milk
but I squeezed her hand
and put my head in her lap.

Thought and then Forgotten

Enough! I am finished with this world
of quiet writing that I’ve built and stored away
in the bottom of my sock drawer.
A world where men and women shuffle everywhere,
where flowers smell just like stones,
and love is a disease that causes bodily aches
best cured by hiding in bed.

That world is flooding. Townspeople scream
but secretly delight in this untimely end.
The promises they made to themselves
can be forgotten.

Enough! It is high time I start picking fights
with strangers over they way they spell
gawd, not because I know but because
neither do they.

There are too many answers
scratched into stone
and not enough questions.
Formulate! Formulate! Formulate!
Dictate your masterpiece
to the masses
and then contradict yourself
on the walk home.

We must ice skate through existence;
moving forward only by pushing
in opposing directions.

Maybe.

Enough!
The world will always wake up
before you.
You can add numbers to the clock
but the hands will just sprint faster.
When you finally fall in love
it will be with a French philosopher
from the fifteenth century.
Tomorrow, when you are finally perfect
in every way it still won’t be
enough.

a song. To be sung

We sat behind enemy lines
the night your lips aligned
with mine.
Oh if I had known
that it would be the only time.

I kissed you like a baby bird,
simple and trying to assure
you it was better not to migrate
but to stay
and I would be your warmth
on all those winter days.

I should have kissed you like a missile
with all the force of a land-mine.
But I kept my ammunition stockpiled.
I guess I assumed
there would be another time.

I kissed you like a gentle lover
and you ran off with another.
If I had kissed you like a Casanova
I would've had you over my shoulder.

Would I try to be
the man the movies sell to me,
and you the woman I sweep,
desperate, off her feet,
given the chance to repeat?

No I don't I'd change a thing
if I could do it all another time.
But if I'm being perfectly honest,
it hurts pretty bad that you're not mine.

Yeah it hurt something awful
that night.

Late Again

You and I
we stay up late
trying to think of new words
for companionship
and isolation.

Outside the bombs go off
in the hands of children.
They march through the street
with colorful words
and ribbons in their hair.

We've given them the go-ahead.
Not you and I, per se,
but the people,
the collective parentage.

If you and I had children,
they'd be dressed smartly
and with style, asked to answer
questions about the heart
and to smile
through increment weather.

I think we both like kissing
but neither of us know how
to lock lips without sinking
hopes, so we just stay the
course.

This has been a summer of diligence
and promises.

This will be a fall of realization
and recompense.

I hope only to survive the winter
for it knows how to find the holes
in my soul.

Summer if you leave...

I'll never love again.
I'll stay inside on lovely days,
listening only to music in
minor chords.
I'll kiss with my mouth closed
and my hands in my pockets.
Summer if you love me,
you won't leave me.

Don't say you're coming back.
I can't stand the games you play.
The way you sneak away every
autumnal equinox, just when
I've found perfect balance.

For some reason it's always colder
without you. Grayer. Darker.
I don't think I can make it through
this winter without you. I'm
NOT being melodramatic.

Winter is a terrible lover.
His hugs are suffocating
and his kisses bitter
and biting.
I'll be here, wrapping myself in layers
just to look unappealing to him,
while you sleep on beaches in some
other hemisphere.

Summer I won't let you leave.
I've left out bottles and jars to trap
your toes.
I have the greenest leaf in the world
thumb-tacked to my wall.
You wouldn't leave
without it, would you?

I know I'm not your only lover
but no one knows you like I do.
Remember building sand forts
to barricade the ocean from our shores?
Remember naming the rocks deep
in the woods of my backyard, collecting
moss from trees as carpeting?
Remember jugged wine, BB guns,
and the best friends I'll ever have?

I know you can't stay.
I'd probably get sick of you anyway.
Just promise you'll visit sometimes.
Poke your heart through the clouds,
melt the snow when you can.

I'll look for you in flower shops
and travel agency billboards.
I'll smell you in designer perfumes
and mexican beer.
I'll feel you any morning I wake
up without an alarm,
just the warm caress of light
on the side of my face.

SOMETHING'S HAPPENING

Occupatience

One of you is an architect
building mansion for the blind
with monorails and velvet stairs
and embossed murals designed
to be touched.

One of you is a surgeon
with fingers quick as knives.
With metal hearts, human spare parts,
in the theater you save lives
with your touch.

One of you is a financier
moving money young and old.
With fine silk suits and leather boots
you can turn people to gold
with your touch.

Now me, I'm just a postman
who's delivering the news.
I skip up narrow streets
and winding avenues.
Into the ear of any passerby
who cares to stop and listen
I'll give the mail
and tell the tail
of how I'm always missin'
your lovely touch.

The Origin of War

The day we killed the only dragon still alive
(purple blood pooling around our boots)
everyone cheered and high-fived,
took turns trying on his scaly wings for size.

Then the celebration died
down and we let out a sigh.
The knights began to glance
around, a feisty glint in their eyes.

Consecration

I chase you up the maple tree
in our backyard, scrambling
over twisted limbs.
I lose you in leaves
catching only glimpses of pink toes,
following squeals and giggles
as they tumble down through branches.

Near the top
I wrap my legs around a thick arm
of the maple tree and scoot like a gymnast
towards the trunk.
You peak your head out of the owl hole,
grey bark caught in your curly hair.
I scream, as there are bugs on your arm,
but you just laugh and brush them off.

We sit on the end a branch,
feet hanging in the air
like drawstrings off a faded attic
hatch-door. Below the monk walks through
the scratch grass by the river,
blessing almost everything he sees.
Dressed in pure white under a brown
coat, he bends one knee to touch his antlers
to the stones, to the grass, to the bank
of the river.
Holy stones, holy grass, holy river bank.

You try to see it as it happens
but the holy
jumps too fast from his bone-crown
to the thing itself.
All I can see is the monk
dipping his face down
to the river, as if he were
simply drinking it in.

Dawn

Not just brighter.

The sun shines through my window
through the air
through the soft hairs on my arm
and draws itself on my skin.

Red around the edges
or maybe yellow
it won't stay.
Just visits til we mimic
it with fluorescent or filament
decay

Not just lighter.

I've never felt a warmth so gentle.
Even the finest sweater knit from the wool
of sheep raised on a diet of the skin of summer peaches
and captured bits of cloud,
who sleeps in a nest of cotton balls
and has never heard of mutton
feels like an iron maiden oven
next to the rays of day.

Brilliant beyond elucidation
enhanced by morning hallucination
Faster than life, but patient
enough to travel all this way
instead of circling around itself
like some self-centered star.

illumination
illumination
illumination

my favorite type of radiation

to see what I could sea

The mackerel cuts out early
from its silver ribbon school,
to swim swiftly and surely
towards a coastal tidal pool.

Floating in the shallows
above the starfish and the clam,
she stares (eyes as wide as owl's)
for the horizon of the land.

Somewhere on that shore, I'm sure
a child sits unaware
that the sea, so wise, so pure,
mirrors her probing glare.

I also sit digging my toes
into the sand of my soul's beach.
I wonder what secrets it knows
and watch waves I'll never reach.

Breathless

"Grief is stupid."

To feel nothing.

At least grief reminds us
that there are things worth losing,
things worth dying for.

To feel nothing
is to die from a random bullet
in the countryside.

To grieve is to hear that your husband
was shot by a gambler,
much handsomer than he.

"Take your top off."

You would, most of the time
because you only ever felt
his full attention
when you were making love.

He spoke, always with a cigarette
smoldering in between his lips,
eyes darting towards the pregnant phone.

To love him was to lose him.
To not love him was impossible.
Somehow his compliments would derail
into praises of foreign women's faces

and asses,
but the way he called you charming
sent shivers down your slender fingers.
Try to see your smile from the side.

"Cowardice is the worst flaw."

Worse than recklessness?
Worse than infidelity?
Worse than betrayal?

Cowardice is the acknowledgement
of the tiny creeping voice
that asks if perhaps you are wrong.

Bravery is stepping on that voice
until it's screams are stifled
so that you never need
to think twice.

Stern Commands

To father is to captain
the tall-masted ship
through dark and icy waters,
emerging from your quarters

only to bark swift orders
at the blind and sunburned crew.
Navigate the foreign seas with gusto
as if you are certain of this direction,

but at night you stand alone
at the bow, staring into the sky
searching for polaris, the only stable star.
All you see are shapes of noble women chained,

awaiting the jaws of the sea monster Cetus
or the sword of some bastard, orphan hero
Perseuing immortality. She waits, immobile,
with galaxies swimming in her eyes and hair.

You retreat below deck, stepping around your sleeping crew,
pause before the youngest, watching his eyelids quiver as he dreams.
You pull the salty blanket up under his chin and hope
he will be strong enough to someday steer this ship in circles.

family gardens

To mother is to cut off your finger,
plant it in the garden.
Wake up everyday, crying on the soil
as the sun rises.

Tend to the cuticle bushes
and knuckle stalks.
Regurgitate lunches onto gaping sprouts,
sit in the lawn chair all night long

guarding your seed from scavengers.
Watch the blossom of brilliant
reds and yellows exploding
on the face of what was once a mere digit.

Helpless as passerbys stop and breathe
deep your disembodied fragrance.
You struggle with one stranger,
who tries to prematurely pluck

the narrow stem, and a sharp thorn
or blade of leaf cuts deeply
and you withdraw, shocked. To mother is to surrender
your flesh to undecided freedom.

Department of Romance Languages. Part I

She walked home along the same roads
every day, dragging her bag behind her in the sand
or snow.

Each time she went under the overpass,
across from the burning library,
her fingers traced out whatever word
she'd heard that day
from the teacher or a sparrow,
against the dirty concrete wall.

Cars screamed by.
Headlights just alive for seconds,
lit up the walls with all
the beautiful, terrible things she'd scrawled.

the muscle

You stare at your sad sagging arms
and wonder
where the atrophied parts have gone
and how to coax them back.

An exhale
and the gut sinks full
over your belt. This mirror
is pathetic. And warped,
probably.

After all these aching mornings,
all these unopened calendars
and notebooks dripping with regret,
after all these years of challenges
you still look like a child
flexing in the mirror.
Dukes up, chin out.

Absurd that play and hand grenades
would sleep so close.

A child isn't meant to fight,
and neither are you.

St. Edwards vs. St. James

I watched my sister sprint across
the soccer field, discerning
her jersey number through the pollen
thick in the air.

What would this game have looked like
if the parents on the sidelines were cheering
for the actual saints instead of the parochial
schools bearing their names?

Probably more slide tackling.

And definitely more miracles.

Although that 8th grade goalie had some pretty magical saves.

I took all my spare change
and threw it against the wall.

Every coin that didn't stick
stared at me from me bed.

I melted shoes for you from
nickel, and pressed the half dollars

against your eyes. We sat in the sun,
day dreaming of ice fields

she holds her face
in her hands,
her hands
in her pockets

Step Sprightly

Music to cope to

Precautions

They saw my smile
as a gnashing of teeth,
my waving hand
as a middle finger salute.

To avoid any confusion
I will move with labored
deliberation.

The sun will rise
three times
before I open
my eyes,

cities will crumble into distraction
as I shuffle shoes down
melting sidewalks,

children will toss
trash like streamers over
my lumbering form

to try and make the statue
blink or cry out
in anger.

Some Doctors Stole My Appendix

It's really like that Counting Crows song,

"Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you got til its gone?
They paved paradice and put up a parking lot,
hey farmers, put away that DDT, they charged the people a dollar and
a half to see them"

Well just the first part really. I always took my appendix for granted.
Now that its gone I miss all the little things it used to do for me.
Like wake me up when I was late for class or
leave notes on my pillow with a little chocolate candy

UR the best!
<3 appendix

or that time everyone forgot about my birthday, and then I walk into my room
and my appendix organized a surprise party and all my vestigial organs were there.
My sinus cavities got soooooo drunk.

So look around you and realize how important al these people in your life are
because before you know it they'll get infected and surgically removed from your abdomen.

The Return of Typhon

The dead arrive at noon,
ropes slung around their necks.
The maidens’ glittered glory,
black hair hung around their necks.

Loathsome, fearful Typhon
drags his body from beneath Mount
Etna’s weight, dead eyed and starving,
head spinning in the stars.

A low growl bellowed between
his parted lips, but his brow is calm.
The world’s still upon his chthonic resurrection,
anxious for the destruction he harbors.

Legs crossed and coy,
lustful ladies twirl their hair,
resting on his deified limbs,
feel pulsing power, rippling fur.

Mother’s swollen breasts swoop onto her full
stomach. There is gold in her hair.
She smiles ground teeth, envisioning
diamond homes her monster will conquer.

Three bored fates step over
his serpentine feet remembering
his last defeat, drawing plans,
with pale fingers, of today’s battle.

Lurid gorgons clamber atop
the stalwart creature’s shoulders.
Crazed skulls gnawing on their fingertips,
ready to burn down Olympus

and freeze the onslaught of Zeus,
who approaches swift from distant hills,
lightening in his eyes and fists,
jaw locked stern, unsure.

Sunday

Weren't we all
once inside
an egg?

Yeah, but its not as much fun
to hunt for brightly colored plastic
ovaries all over the front yard, now is it?

My Father Speaks of Ginsberg in Boston 1969

I secretly recorded my father telling me about when he and my mother saw Allen Ginsberg do a poetry reading and lead an impromptu meditation in Cambridge in 1969.
I wanted to share his words so I put it to the song"Curves of Air" by Fourcolor. Enjoy!

No one uses clotheslines anymore.

We force our fabrics into dark

holes, instead of letting them

sprawl in the wind and the sun.

Maria in the summer

floats above the pond,

shimmering legs of a Gerridae,

porcelain toenails cracked.

My mirror shaves its beard.

Small hairs fall like feathers,

resting on the porcelain sink.

The shoulders of an angel.

Before Evaporation

Puddles are the way

raindrops reconnect,

holding their bent hands in sidewalk pools.

They brood with the lost

fury of their descent,

mourning the days of heaven condensed.

Perhaps puddles signify

oceanic attempts to colonize dry land,

or bring the lakes back home

Pedestrian boots

march through divided ranks of rivers,

splash apart wet hearts.

Once separated

drops of rain will rise

as the sun burns their tears.

I Was Wrong When I Said Elevators Were Large Intestines

I was wrong and I apologize.

Elevators are temporary group coffins.

We are not living as we mumble to others

or think to ourselves,

dangling between the floors

that hold our callings.

So don't ask me of the afterlife.

Death is standing silent in a small

steel box, watching for the next

red number.

The Resting Machine

When I walk through the hedges

of the library, it is difficult to keep

my mind from turning

each instance into verse.

The colors and titles stream past

my face like a rainbow obituary

as the window at the end of the hall

reflects the ceiling light into a crucifix.

I realize, once outside, that I was so busy

pontificating that I missed the moment

of my surroundings. We cannot constantly

metaphor the world, at times we must

be a resting machine, whose function

is to observe and feel without a means

of processing any of symbols in our coffee.

Later, at night, by the fire or in the quiet

bathroom waterfall, we can remember

the silent elevator ride and how the closing

doors were lips of a beast that swiftly digests us,

dumping strangers into the bowels of this building.

Leaving the library, I wave back to a greeting

meant for the person behind me,

but a smile is a smile and perhaps

I simply needed to move my arm.

I had to write a pantoum for class. It was hard. Here goes nothing...

Inheritance

If we had listened to our fathers

perhaps there would be no need

for all our midnight wandering

along the walls of desperation.

Perhaps there would be no need

to sit with pen in hand and carve,

along the walls of desperation,

lines of furtive love forgotten.

To sit with pen in hand and carve

cursive genealogies connecting

lines of furtive love forgotten.

Fathers would rather have us sever

cursive genealogies connecting

son after son with a cursed surname.

Fathers would rather have us sever

dreams of hopeless truth in spring.

Son after son, with a cursed surname,

ignore paternal threats of failure for

dreams of hopeless truth in spring.

Lead us back to the same path we’d travel.

Ignore paternal threats of failure

for all our midnight wandering

leads us back to the same path we’d travel

if we had listened to our fathers.

The Coolest Conversation Ever

And I was all,

"You better not be thinking what I'm thinking!"

And she was like,

"PANCAKES WITH CHOCOLATE SYRUP ON TOP!!!"

Bird's Eye View

Here's a new playlist for traveling. For my wonderful friend Jaclyn.

Ps. There is a file in the folder of all the artists and song names. Still trying to figure out the best way to share playlists so feedback is welcome!

Thirteen Attempts at Starting a Poem, Which Will Never Be Finished

I.

When we were young
our limbs reached up towards heaven
and came back empty-handed,
but wet with rain.

II.
Children stand around
in my backyard,
pointing at my stained-glass window
as the sun streams on their freckled faces.

III.
I was working on a tree fort
in my backyard, with a hammer
in one hand and the other empty.
Jennifer came out to say we lost the baby.

IV.
The man at the hardware store,
who helped me find the plywood
and long nails, asked what they were for.
“I want to build him a home closer to heaven”.

V.
I worried, as I climbed the ladder,
that this would be too high for him
even with sturdy walls and a railing.
My son will not tremble at his height.

VI.
Her face, as she spoke up to me
through the leaves, trembled
with unwilling certainty.
I was waking up again.

VII.
Black coffee in the dark kitchen
makes the morning focus.
Birdsong fights the radio
for ownership of background noise.

VIII.
Before getting out of bed this morning
I curled up beside Jennifer. Inhaling
her dark hair, I traced the shape
of her full belly with my empty hand.

IX.
When we were young
we built people out of clay
and named our cloth toys,
who were only alive as long as we held them.

X.
The dirt in the backyard was soft
beneath the blade of the shovel.
Digging away at the world was revenge
for having nothing to bury.

XI.
From home to my office,
the highway was empty
the sun was born silent
the sun was born still

XII.
We are gathered here today
to remember our anticipation,
keeping him alive in our blessed
willingness.

XIII.
When we were young
we asked where babies
come from, and your answer
made it sound so simple.

It's Fine, China

Drop that cup,

let it break.

Don't clean up,

it's okay.

More Joy

The other tourists,

staying in the lodge with the giant

copper bear in the lobby

and bison heads in the dining hall,

may have taken my absolute wonder

for somber-osity.

Let me clarify this for you,

woman in the purple fur coat,

if I were any happier I very well might explode

or least burst out in tears.

It's simply hard to take in all of this at once.

Flying down a mountain coating in frozen oceans,

with two fence posts on my feet.

Submerging myself up to my nose in the bathwater

swimming pool, as vapor rises

like mist over a graveyard,

creating optical illusions as the light

streams in between fence posts,

and listening underwater to the foreign wait staff laugh

in the hot tub.

Drinking beer as dark and heavy as liquid steak

with my father and brother,

for the first time.

Flying thirty-thousand feet over mountains

which some one thought appropriate to name "The Rockies".

We live in a world where a tremendous, breathtaking mountain range is called "The Rockies"

(because mountains are made out of rocks) and nobody thinks that's

the most absurd thing since turning wild animals into pets.

So I apologize if I seemed distant while staring into the fire place at two in the morning.

This cowboy country has got me spinning in delight.

Public Mastication

Can we just take a second to acknowledge

that humans, all life forms in fact,

run very smoothly unless we forget

to chew up plants and animals

at least once a day?

DAS CRAZY

When We're Away

When our eyes were first formed,

the striated iris was solid.

We stared into each other’s deep, colored

eyes but there was no hole for the images

to penetrate.

We pierced a pupil with our sharpened

fingernail and all the world came flooding in.

Our hearts too, were once intact.

A balloon of blood floating in our chests

but there was no need to beat until your love

cracked it and a red river spilled into our starving

bodies.

Stars wouldn’t be as majestic

if there wasn’t so much emptiness

around each one.

A lifetime’s worth of space between the suns.

The million miles of highway

between where I sleep

and where you sleep

is what pulls

my daily momentum.

If we ever meet

then we may as well disintegrate.

It’s no longer necessary

once it’s complete.

We Kidnapped the Principal's Dogs, but She Was Working For Him the Whole Time

Last night I dreamt of a woman

with overwhelming purple eyes

Instantly I fell in love with her

though I knew she told me lies.

Ash Wednesday

I haven't been to church in years.

Well that's not quite true.

I snuck into one last spring

to kiss a girl against the unlit altar,

and I wandered into one last fall

at sunrise, drunk and empty,

listening for meaning in the silence.

I haven't been in a functioning church

in years.

Still I want to anoint myself

with premium grade oil,

walking around looking

like an unemployed mechanic

who wiped the back of his dirty

glove across his forehead.

Tomorrow I will wake up

lurching into the desert

with all my sins draped

across my back.

My feet will burn in the white

sand, my throat will clench

with fury.

Returning Home After Four Years of College in the North

On the Night Before Valentine's Day

The hallway was filled
with party-going kids
waiting for the bathroom.
We all let the girl who walked in with ripped tights
and bloody palms go to the front of the line.
She had fallen outside on the ice, and there was gravel
mixing with her nerve endings.
It was the same color as the streamers and balloons.

My roommates and friends, and my roommates’ friends,
were all here
scattered throughout the floors of this house.
The kitchen smelled like syrup, and the floor was sticky
with footprints.
I made my way through the crowd and found a drink.
When someone caught my eye we’d talk about the constant
stream of work, dwindling hours of the weekend, and who else we knew
here.

We didn’t say anything about the thousand miracles
that trumpeted our arrival.
The clockwork automobiles fueled by dead monsters.
The sink on which I sat, where a simple twist would summon up
a river fresh and boiling.
The constant rhythm of our collective heartbeat.

It takes a certain amount of mindful neglect
to enjoy one’s self,
or perhaps it is purposeful ignorance,
or just unconscious abandon.

Pulling the stairway door open,
my free hand swung and knocked over someone’s beer.
For a minute too long, I stared at the amber pooling on linoleum.
Gravity makes us congeal. This invisible force pulls people together
at our point of greatest depth.
I’ve heard gravity described as resting on an infinite trampoline,
and its mesh is the fabric of space and time. Every body, no matter how small,
makes a dent in the fabric, warping the very nothingness around it in all directions.
Any object rolling by gets pulled in
towards our individual depression.

If heavy enough, the object will orbit us until it has the momentum to break free,
but even if it just glides by we have still altered its path.

I got the man another drink, and tossed some toilet paper over the spill.

Flying down the stairs, I used the railings like rope swings,
holding on dearly as my feet left the ground.
Two,
three,
four stairs at a time. The corners are my favorite
part because estranged walls of the house can reconnect.
Passing by the first floor door I felt the February breeze from the backyard,
instantly made aware of the thick sweat that hangs
in the air.

The lights were off in the basement, except for one bulb right above the washing machine. Bodies swayed between the pillars that held up this house.
Looking into the crowd, there were no faces
that I knew and every song was foreign, which probably meant that they were new.

I walked into the center of the dance floor and closed my eyes.
Starched cotton rubbed across my arm.
Turning,
pale blue lights
jump and flash obscene letters.
The floor began to sink beneath my feet.
Someone turned the cement into quick sand.
Slow and falling, we all reached out our hands.

V-day

We live in a society completely drenched in fairy-tale fantasy.

I think that's why so many people don't like valentine's day.

How can we be happy since none of relationships will ever match up

with hollywood romances. But in reality, that's not what true love looks like.

True love is dedication and hard work. It means not giving up the first time there is a bump

in the road, but relentlessly pursuing love. Even if your love leaves the state and claims things

"won't work" because of "obvious mental problems". Those are just ways of showing love.

And gifts. Buy her lots of gifts.

Rest In Profanity

They say that we all

live our lives and die

completely alone.

Which is good

because when I die

I'm gonna cuss

like a motherfucker

and just go buck wild.

A Response to Mark Doty

The first thing you notice

when you're dog has stomach cancer

is that she eats less

and shits more often,

usually everywhere in the house.

As a puppy Goldie would squeeze between

our legs, as we walked in the front door,

and tear down the path to the beach.

We'd chase after her, leash in hand,

apologizing for her slobbering terrorist affection

and relentless bliss.

Crowds would form around us

as we threw the tennis ball again and again

in the cold and rolling Atlantic.

Goldie would throw herself bodily

into that wet mess, honing out the spot of yellow

among the floating seaweed and debris.

Of course she only swam doggy paddle, but with impeccable form.

Never once did she return without retrieving.

It's in her blood and bones to bring back

what we've lost or tossed away.

Goldie would tear through salty waves

with hacking breath, and when she'd land safely

back upon the sand the audience of beach-goers

would burst into applause.

She never took a bow or victory lap,

but shook herself dry from the last rescue

and waited for me to wrestle the ball

from her vaulted grin and launch it into the sea again.

The day before we put her down

she slumped off the green plaid couch,

which she used to claw and gnaw on as a puppy,

and stood before the living room screened door.

Abigail and I let her outside

and walked down to the beach.

We all sat with our chins in the cold sand, watching the lighthouse spin.

Goldie rolled over on her back and we scratched

her bloated belly,

laughing as her legs thumped out joy.

I wonder what the steady crash of waves

sounds like to a dog,

or if her huge ears used to fill with water

in the days when we played fetch.

Perhaps it was all the saltwater she used to swallow that made her stomach sore,

but nothing can stop a fearless dog.

Hibernatural Beats

A mix for Winter Warmth.

Of course

Is it unreasonable to be sad when I realize
that I very well might never again,
in my days of blooming adulthood,
have sex in an open field,
beneath a brilliant sun
and clouds shaped like medieval transportation?

Making love in dorm room
beds never seems to last as long
as the red river scratch
of long grass on my backside.

The stream bubbles secrets
over our toes.

I love you

I love the way your eyes light up
at the sound of distant explosions
or when you have been fully charged.

I love your metal claws
and how they click together
once they have severed the sinews in a neck.

I love the way you throw fire
from between your jaws of death
singeing my shirt red.

When I hold you at night
I press my chest against your back
and feel for the reverberations
of some sort of heart beat,
but all I hear is the steady hum
of gears, like a mechanical buddha's prayer.

I love the way you try to destroy me,
printing all the reasons you can never love.
Its cute the way you can't connect.

RxRy

I can neither confirm nor deny these rumors.
However, I can tell you that I've met the man
whom you think I am.
He walks tall and has perfect pitch.
He remembers everything you bought him
for his fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth birthdays,
including, but not limited to,
the red swiss army knife
which later cut his flesh.
He told me that travels often
but its home that he loves best,
and his shoulder don't sag
when he smiles.

Cast your lots
I lost the cats.

new years rezolutions

1. No more chocolate!
2. Cut down on pain killers
3. Find my son
4. Stop using the internet to trick old people into believing that God speaks to them in their breakfast cereals.
5. Work out!
6. Show up for jury duty in clothes next time
7. Learn how to unhinge my jaw
8. Join the kkkk (Kids Kan Kreate Klan)
9. Abandon my dreams
10. telekinesis

Caught in ice flows
summer streams

Boy I lost my will to bury

Never quite sure
what it means

Boy someday I hope to marry

Prayer

Dear God,
Please give me all the candy in the world and turn my teeth into steel.

Love,
Michael

P.S. No Licorice please. Gross!

Tall Latte

Carlos and I sat in the small coffee shop, sipping our drinks of choice.
"I think this is an Ethiopian blend."
"Mmmmm. Mine is from Columbia."
We took a moment to reflect on the homelands of our beans.

"So sad whats going on there, isn't it?"
"Oh yes....so sad."

Coffee Pals!!!

Window Shopping

We went into three boutiques on Valencia Street. Chris marveled at how the novelty of the items in each store were worth more than its realization. They should have just filled the store with note cards saying things like, "Googly-Eyed Hair Clip" "Pencil Holder Shaped Like Pencil Sharpener" and "Crocheted Octopus in a Glass Jar". People could read the cards and have their chuckle without the making of this useless, adorable shit.

We left to get ice-cream. I walked behind Chris and his fiance, both twenty one. My parents were married at that age, but it seems obscenely young to me. I was told they were getting hitched so the woman would gain US citizenship. They would stand before a man of the cloth, dressed to the nines, and be joined forever. Their marriage certificate will hang on a wall or sit in a bureau, screaming love.

Night Terrors

I held my breath as the bedroom door creaked open.

The light swept and rolled across my bed.

My throat tightened and the floorboards bent.

Soft shoes stepped into the room.

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to look asleep.

The criminal sat on the edge of my bed,

And stared out the window at the falling snow.

But thats only the length of one mixtape!

M. Pyres - Consider Me, Ghost

Myspace try

I can't seem to stop listening to this. One of those albums that feels like ten years of life poured into a night of recording. These demos are full of energy and catchy melodies, hidden behind the lo-fi fuzz. (Favorites: Submersion, Loud Lights, Groundswell, and Imagist Complex [for the poetry heads]) More here.

Thee Fair Ohs - Summer Lake EP

Myspace try

Some warm tropical tunes for these snowy days. Close your eyes, sip some pineapple and rum
(rumpinale) and enjoy!

Women - Women

Myspace try

Strange and funky, just the way we like em. Released on Chad VanGaalen's label Flemish Eye and sometime his touring band. (Winners: Cameras, Black Rice, Group Transport Hall)

Pre-Med Nightmares

I was in too far over my head to quit now. What had begun as a routine hang-nail removal had quickly turned into complete skin detachment.

They all kept staring at me, waiting for me to screw up. If they find out I'm not really a doctor they'll run me out of town and take away my doctor hat.

Worst of all the patient wouldn't stop screaming.