water not the weeds
that grow down your spine
and have the determination
to cull them eternally
for i remember when i noticed them
at least five years ago

i said aloud to my friends:
“why these weeds on my
straight and narrow spine
they have to go!”

a young man still, feeling
very old at heart i sit
crooked, wavering
trying not to feed the weeds

do not prevent them,
the weeds
do not loathe them and
bring them rain
just do not feed them
and cut them down when you can

and never tell of them
your friends

the weeds that will grow
on your spine
inevitably.

It snowed for six straight days
and on the seventh there was nothing
but white and a few
footprints from the bravest souls
and I looked out on the emptiness
and was overcome by awe and fear
and for a moment I
was sure that I was dead

But then a cold blast of air
struck me, as a door swung
wide, and with great relief
I knew that I hadn’t
nothing to fear
after all.

With great relief
I knew that I would live
to freeze another day.

Sometimes when I’m sitting in class I get bored and I start to think about ridiculous things like eating my weight in raw-unpeeled potatoes or cliff diving from absurd heights in to freezing cold water while wearing a clown suit. But somehow no matter hard I work I can’t distract myself well enough to check out.

no altruism i felt at then
your eyes drifted t’ward me
like some ghostly wet dream

a modern temptress sent by
fate in an aged rotting package,
another hannah

i kept my mouth shut
like how i keep my pen
when love stops reading

the half-baked moon whispered
to me secrets i already knew
and i’m sick, sick with feeling.

Teeth are chattering in the other room
in worry and also from the awful cold
but their mouths are still grinning

There will be no admittance of fear
nor show of weakness
even as the sun sets on these things
and the wind blows that much
colder

And these teeth and mouths
will freeze and die
on the third day; when they realize
that they were wrong all along
but it’s too late
to do anything about it

We hate cliches
if you ask.
We always thought a story
would be better if
the bad guy won,
or if he didn’t
get the girl,
or she dies,
or

whatever.

But the truth is
despite all the times we
listen to a Pink Floyd album
all the way through,
our favorite songs
have always been the ones
that we dance to,
and that sexy
four-on-the-floor
funk beat,
or glittering synthesizer line,
or a one-word chorus
or

whatever.

Never if you ask though

i’m an artist dammit
and i don’t need you
giving me your opinion on
the curvature of my
sculptures or the shading
of my paintings.

sure art is subjective
except for mine you asshole.

my melodies are objectively
beautiful, my stick figures
objectively perfect and
my nude self-photography
accomplishes exactly what i
was going for and objectively
what you wanted it to.

i’m an artist dammit
and this live exhibition
i’m doing here on this
street is a piece i’ve been
working on for months so, no,
it isn’t my fault if you’re
too stupid to see the work
that went in to the smell in
my dreadlocked hair and the
perfection in the placement
of the holes in my pants.

and i couldn’t give a shit
if you think something inferior
of my objective superiority.

there’s nothing worse than
losing the event you’re good at
outright

and watching the grinning faces
of those whom you considered
contemporaries

it doesn’t quite matter the
arena or the time or
conditions

there’s nothing worse than
losing your reason for
waking

unless, of course, you include
losing it twice, or three times
onwards.

there is that feeling
you get
(not me but you)
(not a universal you, but you)
where one minute you’re
(you you, not all of us)
on top of the world and then
you (… you get the idea)
just fall

and i
(all of us)
stood there
watching not entirely helpless
to do something
but doing nothing nonetheless

nature is a prudish lover
and will not give secrets first
you must learn to win
them honestly
or not at all,
i’m afraid

for without you may
well kiss the wind
but the wind
will not
kiss you,
back.

Sometimes I roll a die
and a number comes up
and that’s my number
and I have to deal with that
for good or ill
and sometimes I lose the game
and sometimes I just lose
everything
but I have to deal with that
and if there’s one thing
that I have learned in my years,
sir,
it’s that if someone hands you dice
and you don’t know them
and they ask you to roll those bones,
why,
it’s time to head home,
to your friends and family,
and make yourself a sure bet