the sieve and the sand

Festooned with an array of fresh-picked weeds
in the breast-pocket of his light blue button-down shirt
a gentleman rides a subway car quietly
in the early evening of a warm New York night:
There is a suitcase sitting next to him
that does not belong to either he
or the dirtied waif on the other side
of the upright bar they both grip.

The waif glances sidelong at the gentleman -
the only other passenger in that particular car -
and takes interested note of the weeds which
so prominently adorned his person. He nods.
“Got a little girl?” The waif asks, making clear
that the nod was toward the gentleman’s greenery.
“Yeah,” The gentleman replies sheepishly,
“She’s 7 today. A real sweetheart. A gem, really.”

“Seems like it.” The waif says with another nod
as the subway begins to slow, finally screeching
to a soft, if shaky, stop. The doors open but
no one gets on. The gentleman does not move an inch.
The waif is fingering a knife in his pocket,
but the Gentleman does not see it.

It is a swift and fluid motion that the waif makes
as he spins suddenly and draws his knife. He stabs
the gentleman seven or eight times (neither of them
were counting, really) and lets him drop to the floor
while snatching up the now (and always) unguarded suitcase.
The waif leaps from the car just as soon
as the doors start closing, making off with
another man’s tax information from the previous year,
and leaving a bloodied father of one to die,
and everything right with the world,
unfortunately.

I, as a vulgar man
have made mention of you
and in polite company, too.

Nearly was I ejected from that brood
and sent on my way to colder climes
but I swore, on my life,
to never speak of you again.

But alas, an absolute
is such a fickle, wish-washed thing
and sooner or later I,
try against though I might,
will curse your name again.

Right about now,
specifically.

And pretty soon things
got so bad that I
had to process all
forwarding messages
and take the responses
as Gospel

the greatest speech i ever wrote
was told in front of the hangman’s noose
for a moments time the nearly departed did think
“why maybe this aint’ so bad”
and the greatest moment in my career
was communicated through the still, dead feet

no twitching

a relaxed hanging, i thought
is a good one

i felt most human then.

i wander these woods looking for a tree
to mock nature in revenge for the many
times it’s merely cried with me
when i needed to be cheered up.

on that late night walk home
(already melancholy from a rough
and lonely day) nature gave me silencing
snow
enveloping the world in beauty but
giving me ear muffs and sending the world
inside as if to say, “you’re lonely?
i can dig that knife deeper for you.”

but now my life overwhelmed with joy,
i need me a weeping willow to sit beneath
and laugh hysterically at it, rather than it
at me.

alas nature knows my intentions and gives
me nothing but sunshine, tulips, and fields
of green grass where i swear there were
woods last year.

i read today the writer’s juices flow
best in the morning.
i write at night.
hence the lack of quality emitting from
my fingers of late.

oh i smiles
sometimes you know
i smelly done good good
and never look back
the thing in my pants
i store it there
a brand i can depend on
holds it there
and i carry it around
i smiles you know
sometimes just so right right
take off, throw out now
and carry on.
makes me to smiles

the web is flooded with the need-to-know-now
and the more i know the less i’m valuable to
the world wanting to more about the news
so newsworthy it passes in five minutes notifying
me if i need to know i’d best not linger
or get up for a beer

it’s the grey cloud
that will be all there
is to write down that
you were here.
frustration is not
quite the word for
what it feels like
screaming into this
thing wondering
what it will write
if it writes
anything at all.

tiny diamonds in fire
you could never grab them,
though
and hang them ’round your neck
no
they disappear too quickly
to keep and show your friends.

real dry diapers are to keep
we reuse them because we’re cheap.
peepee diapers smell something funny
but 1 void of 2 is a waste of money.
poopy diapers are the best
they’re more potent than the rest.

It was Condensation-damp that night
when I paid a visit to your garden
and it grew well, at least the Morning Glories did
and it was your mother’s favorite spot
in the whole wide world

and it was fitting, I suppose,
in all the wrong sorts of ways,
that you went so far to show it to me.

After all, though we tread softly,
it was not our garden to trod upon.
Your mother was quick to show us that,
too.

Dry goods and processed foods deaden your palate
While your gullet undulates furiously
to make due with what amounts to nothing
and your body is hungry and your eyes are dry
but your nails have grown long in this squalor
and every now and then you scratch yourself
deep enough for the blood to just get through
and you know that you are living
though you feel as though you’re dead
but you only think that it’s a terrible shame
and you’d be far more comfortable
six feet under in a large padded box
or less hungry at the least.

a rhyme (at least) outta do
a simple one or maybe two.
for tonight i’ve nothing to write

Those thoughts came across as vacuous and venomous
hardly worth the time taken to think them
blown out of proportion
creeping like a terrible octopus from a wooden chest
just like in that nightmare you had
and they scared you just the same
so you sleep with a spear next your dresser

Those thoughts tried to kill us
and tried to tear us to shreds,
or to split us in twain or strangle us whole
(as a terrible octopus might)
they tried to inject their terrible venoms -
a cockail of pain and wrtetch and necrosis -
but your spear was at the ready

And when I ran to you to warn you
you were standing over the fleshy, spineless corpse
of some terrible octopus,
And though your spear was snapped in two
and the monster’s tentacles were still squirming
I knew you had won the thing
and I knew that we were going to be alright

“the violently shaking house”
“the undoer”
“corn syrup baby”
“i wish i could eat different food”

when i read through, i remember
the police laughing
“this house doesn’t shake so bad”
they said
he must’ve not had the spirit for it

everyone thought

when i read through, i remember
how he kept repeating
“i wish i could write different stuff”
“everybody wants to read different stuff
but this is all i feel”

and i wonder what happened
to the corn syrup baby
growing in a stagnant puddle in his shower
i wonder what came from that cesspool
if it killed him or if he killed it
if so he didn’t say so
in his journals.