I can’t have you
whistling through the vines
out there,
teasing cool
in the summer heat
and bringing,
for just a moment,
the fragrances
of another man’s
supper
My head lays
on the kitchen table
like a chopping block,
pressed against the scratches
in its perfect,
marred surface,
lolling on
the center leaf
it is seven PM
exactly
when I will lift
my head again
to gaze in to you,
cool night air,
like a memory
to think your name
and dream of you
in winter
you want to
eat the eiffel tower
you want to eat
notre dame, the grand canyon
so you can fill your
brain with images
“go outside and breathe in the crisp air
and smell the city”
but for what?
for myself to keep?
you think you live to eat
i think you live to kill
and shit
the colors are already
inverted for me
and i just have to
live like this
so that i won’t one day
find myself
in someone else’s brain
trying to tell them
what to do
I watched that video
again
for the hundredth time
but maybe only the twenty-fifth
without you
and I don’t even know
what day it was
it was every day
at 6:01
until we memorized
each word and we
laughed whether
we fucked it up
or not
but look, man
we’re in the
prime of our lives
got to live the way we got to
gonna make us some money again
gonna fight
but not all fighters
are champions
and I don’t even know
what day it was
but I hope
it didn’t
hurt
I fell for you
and I think you fell
for me,
too,
maybe eleven
years
ago
we did our best
to fuck that up
and it worked
so well
that I
stopped
calling
***
You can’t answer now
even if you
ever
wanted to
but I’m sorry
I never remember
anymore
to miss you
somehow,
though,
I don’t think
you would
mind
at least i’m in wichita
and one of
maryann’s cousins can’t just
towe my car
at least i’m wichita
making over 50 thousand a year
and my mom can’t
yell at me
i’m not back home
smoking mids
behind a gas station
with some kids i went to
school with
rob’s dead
a lot of shitty things have happened
(and continue to)
but it’s fine
it’s fine
what takes me out better be
something
not like falling in the
shower
i’m too self important
for that
i want to say thanks
for the cold air
and thanks for the
moon
Nightmares of the past
Walk unhanged, unburned.
Could they be any cuter?
Your stock has been one in a million.
Given away freely,
Now of priceless worth.
Your steady trend has been upwards,
Always forward, never back.
And there have been recessions.
There’s even been depressions.
But you’ve been resilient.
Downturns will surely come in the future,
Opportunities for you to turn up.
And here we are today,
More than a decade since inception.
You alone are my portfolio.
Un-diversified.
Exposed to risk.
Betting only on the appreciation of you.
You are a white-hot point in space
searing through my retinas as I
stare and I
am clinging to this moment
trying
so
desperately
to
hang
on
but I know how this ends
even as you burn as hot as ever
I know how this ends
because it’s the same
every time
and it will be no surprise
as my fingers tire
my grip slips
and I am flung through nothing
and I am incinerated in your
holy light but I
am clinging to this moment
trying
so
desperately
to
hang
on
but my clothes
are already
burning
So watch your back
Two days gone,
Two’ve passed on.
I hope that you’re not next.
One had lived on the edge for years,
Fighting cancer’s deathly grip.
The other dead in two hours’ time,
“Unforeseen” and “tragic,” just as they said,
So, as is always, the rule of threes.
The rule has begun,
So a second life was taken.
Too early for all involved.
The rule has begun,
So who’ll be next?
A question to ponder, all.
I hope it’s not me,
But will it be you?
Or someone unforeseen?
Time can’t be stopped,
so this we all know:
Don’t get in the way
Of the rule of threes.
you are but a fruit fly
born into a garbage can
it’s so hard to understand
there’s nothing to understand
every night you go to sleep
in order to wake up again
tell your family tell your friends
make your little stupid plans
get all fucking stressed out
eat and breathe and play pretend
there’s nothing to understand
it’s so hard to understand
my pulse beats
within my skull
day by day by
hour by minute
potential
more impossible
by the second
systems slowing
logarithmically
cells regenerating
less
and
less
while the sea ice
e v a p o r a t e s
to the North
of us
I Am Dying
just as the Earth
is Dying
And faster
from arrogance
And faster
from greed
Time does not heal
all wounds.
Time
is a wound
there is no stopping
the bleeding from
i dare not speak on
lake skaneateles
the silence
is for me
and the clean water
and
the birds chirping
are for me
i don’t want to
think about
the muscle men
of wichita
or the land lords
or the
hit-men
but i do make noise
and i do think of them
and i vomit and
vomit bile
the entire time
all over the
eagle’s nest
muddying the
blue water
all over ed and marie’s
pretty little cabin
as i become the soul of skinny atlas himself
straightening my spine
and readying
to shoulder this
globe forevermore
for those who toil
and think to build
onward, to the foot of niagara
where one shouldn’t go (but wants to)
a billion pounds of water crushing down
be it for the sharing of ideas
and these planks of wood
i am baptized by the gods of america
uncertain and raw, in my natural
state
AND I STILL SEE YOU SOMETIMES
DANCING EVEN THOUGH YOU DON’T MEAN TO
LAUGHING WITH YOUR MOUTH CLOSED
YOU REFUSE TO SMILE
Please don’t make excuses for me;
If I am to die in this sphere
let me die by rights,
I beg of you
i kept those letters you wrote to me
for twelve years in order to
read them today
when i finally cared to wonder
what you had to say
and i’m not sure why
i try not to cry as i hold
love letters written from my
fever dream-girl as i begin
to wake and wipe my eyes to
realize that you were real
all along
i bury disgust in my queasy stomach
my selfish, selfish queasy stomach
that i was born with such hunger
for the tender loving words
of a girl of maybe fifteen
i devoured you in waking dreams
but you were as real as me
and wrote love letters that shake
now in the hands of a man
and i’m not sure why
it is not enough, i know
there are lessons to learn, i know
in between the lines
of the young girls
who once loved me
and i will learn them
oh thank god for the twenty four seven
when you’re gone i can’t live with myself
the sunflowers i can’t even see on the horizon
i bet they’re not fucking real anyway
oh, renee
gonna write you a million lines just to
fill up the dead spaces i
didn’t even realize they were there
like a little boy left in the car
oh, renee
take me way o’er the rolling hills
i keep my heart beating for you
my fireworks travel across your nerves twixt your freckles like the constellations
our feet are in the reflection of the sky and dance cross the surface of the ar-kansas river
let’s get married. can we get married? i want to get married; to you.
you are a stretched out stock image in a powerpoint slide
your gait is the struggling of a worm on drying concrete
your breath is the rot of fish clogging a dam
your voice is a diesel engine whirring through the night
your smile is two particles colliding in the vacuum of space
your mind is made of ice yet dreams of being iron
your heart is the laws of the universe, unreasonable and pointless
die, make do
or get strong
lose or break your heart
every couple years.
take up the space that math
will let you
fight not to fall
due to gravity
