i noticed in
the back seat of your car
that you do not breath
but beg for life
sucking in and
pushing out
and i am a minute counter
it is for common courtesy
that i waste this time with you
s
o
how many notes
am i to play
in your silent
composition,
susan?
for what should i solve
in your bad math
equation?
i frantically try
at the right words to keep yours
from coming
but our energies repel
and i like it that way.
“You’ve come so far,” you whispered
as you wrapped me in warm arms
robbing all my breath from me
“You know I can’t come with you.”
I felt you say in to my chest,
my arms finally overlapping yours
“I swear you’ll see me again.”
you crackled, tightening your hold
even as you began to fade away
You took the light when you left;
With hands and knees I found the cave floor
and laid my tears there in the darkness
a poem is all i can manage
the morning fog denies me anything more
as it grows thicker in my head
a big step up comes with a massive serving of humble pie
and this time it’s mixed with pecans and sweet potatoes
so i’m probably not going to be able to avoid binging on it
there is a way i feel about
things i cannot control and
when i put my arm out
hoping to stop what’s in motion i
find seatbelts were created for a
reason and reason is usually in
the way of doing what’s actually
good
so i wake up again and head back in, stuffed full of pie
and carrying along my now worthless broken arm in a
sling across my front trying to look professional
professional: a difficult look for someone who has learned
to live contorted in to a pretzel with foot firmly stuck in
mouth.
professional: a difficult look for someone who has learned
that fighting overconsumption of self-induced humility is a
lost cause i’ll never win.
professional: a difficult look for someone who never wears socks
and finds the thought of underwear overwhelming.
but this is a big step up. a big step up they tell me. for reasons.
walking in circles picking off dead skin
trying to stay alive
we ask big questions of ourselves
like what do i WANT?
until we forget how the sun feels
and why we need it.
I came to on a slab of hard rock
my eyes adjusting to the soft blue light
peering through a thin crack in the cave roof
Seasoked clothes clung to my skin
as I rolled my sore body to the side
working slow to stand before gazing around
You were there next to a gentle pool
there was a glow about your bedclothes
and a gentle brightness in your smile
We stood in the cool of our breathing
until you stepped forward to touch my shoulder;
I couldn’t say a word
I made tracks through the sandy beach
closing on the vast blue sea
which calmed and quieted with each step
There was only a yard between us
when the sea became stock still,
the air a perfect chill, and silent
I stopped a moment, hearing only my heart,
the quiet breaking as the sea exploded,
thundering upward in a great pillar
The watery monolith roiled as it blocked the sun
“Hello, old friend,” I whispered in its shadow;
it shuddered once, then crashed down to consume me
I made my way through sand-set grasses
beneath the heat of the high noon sun
falling forward with each soft step
The salt-air harassed my hair and clothes
The rumble of the unstoppable growing louder
I found myself on a short dune-cliff
The sea stretched out immeasurable
rolling softly beneath a nearly cloudless sky
its vista unmarred by passing ships or seabirds
“As cold as it ever was,” I murmured
as I dropped my pack in the yellow stand
climbing down to the beach below
you can be anything you want to be
except happy. if you’re okay with fame
and power and prestige and did i mention
money?
sell your soul, but really it’s not necessary
the price is much much less than that because
i know you’ll settle
you can be anything you want to be
but don’t count on loving what you do.
few, if any, get that.
—
“What are you up to these days? It’s been forever?”
“Living the dream!”
“Oh great! What does that mean though?”
“I’m a used car salesman.”
“…”
she’s real sweet
he says
crying outside of my door all night, too
i hope you can
find a good place for her
and just like that ~
a bus ticket
a backpack
he says he only eats vegetables
right after purchase
and runs everywhere
now
and
there are ghosts all around him
working for food
trim plant
cut weed
make nice with zombies
as
the ghosts just grow
and grow
while endurance starts to fail
the drugs and money
come back
like cancer in the
lymph-nodes
a rush of euphoria
a gasp for air
let the beat ride out
because it’s feeling tight
leave your stupid fucking
artist persona at the door
the vampires can’t get us if
we’re in the woods dancing
let’s all become one
and kill our grandfathers
they can’t fool an athiest
a post-modern punk fuck up
let’s end the song here
before we get off track
and they gun us down in daylight
or we lose our faith
My body rose first the next morning
awoken in part by the rattling cold
I stood watching the sun a horizon away
The tin kettle was near the top of my kit
the black grounds in the bottom were thick
“Just a taste sometimes,” I muttered, stoking smoking coals
When I descended toward the water
it was full on oats and coffee
and with steps unsure as they were careful
By the time the sunrise had ceased
I was half-way down the mountain
with only the great blue sea in my sights
It must have been twelve hours
Though the dark laid useless my pocket watch,
I could have counted clacks
As the car slowed beneath my flour-bag perch
I pushed the slide-door wide
leaping to beat the bulls
I rolled to and stopped in a pile
my eyes finally finding me on a mountaintop
overlooking a great wide sea
The dusk set in as the freighter set out
“Mountain’s cold as scorn,” I mumbled gathering fuel;
I found no serpents under fallen brush
In the afternoon sun
I could have heard my fits of coughing
but for the freight train’s clatter
you were somewhere near the ocean
“I’m sure of it now.” I said from my knees;
My feet found ground beneath me
My pack lay heavy on my shoulders
the blood nearly reddening my cheeks
my tracks leading to the freighter-line’s
the clatter had ceased by then
and it was just a short climb inside
to the long ride up the mountains
In the autumn dark
between silence and sleep
I’d thought you could be found
I fumbled with my switchblade
When I heard the racket
Just beyond the edge of the clearing
there was a rustling then
a whisper to the din that had come before
and the viper slid up my leg as carelessly
“What did you do with her?” I asked unanswered
while the fangs found my deepest reddest vein;
I was dead by morning
What do you say to me?
you asked me on night by telephone,
when I call you you crying,
how do you calm me down?
I tell you that I love you,
I replied from atop my car hood
behind No Fun House,
and that things will get better.
You always kept that sugar
in the back of your throat,
and it fooled folks in to thinking
that you felt better than great
Four years is a decent stretch
for two friends to fail to connect
but I guess it makes good sense
that we failed the way we did
When you called me at 1am
three winters ago, I wish I would
have spent more time telling you
that I love you like I always had
When you called me at 1am
three winters ago, I wish I would
have taken just a moment to say
that things were going to be OK.
I guess I would have been a liar
but I love you still – it’s still easy to love
And I’m sorry things never got better
Even though I always said they would
you are tiny motors
driven by light
beg like the rest
make deals with
the devil
refuse
to understand
yourself
as an object
in space
never take
a best guess
at how you are perceived
by others
and i cannot decide
whether or not
to breath again
you just let me so i started to eat you i was so hungry but slowly for it to last and you laid yourself down for me night after night the only other person i thought for miles that i’d see and i left your lungs so that you could breath i left your heart so that you could bleed together in a bed in which i could not sleep i was intense and disgusting and covered in fleas i got so mad at you eventually that i ate your eyes so you couldn’t see all through the night i would wail and scream and i puked up all the parts you had given to me you covered yourself in ink to hide away and last we met you revealed unto me that all along you’d saved pieces of me too and in the graveyard there was something poetic about me cumming in your mouth near decomposing bodies neath the dirt and i miss you like a heroin spoon in my dreams you still look tasty and i know you don’t feel the same you never had the stomach to keep down human flesh we were so young we just couldn’t tell that you can’t eat people like i do you can’t eat people like i do
was slow on the way to the river
born with bad eyes, you know
oh
please don’t leave me behind
was last to get round the bend
to see it brown and shallow
y’all got your fill up stream
but i’m still thirsty
and when we tried to go there
together
someone always runs ahead
they run with the devil
and after 28 years
not that i was counting
i’ll step on backs to get to the head
i’ll bend glass round my eyes to see
i’ll cover my ass with animal skin
i’ll dig a hole to the fucking core
i will pass you and crush you completely
to behead the devil whom sits at the mouth
oh
i hope that i have the spirit
to crush that damn
it is because the worrying won’t go away
that i must stretch out my standing with
long bouts of meditation
hiding, and looking away from
the beasts of currency and wealth
this failure is not a destination but a
bitter road to travel
it is a neurotic compulsion
that drives me to such barren solitude
to stop from sifting through your pedals
i, desiring
via morose curiosity
to feel disgusted by the microscopic bugs
that actually live on every flower
where there are some
