for E, T, C, etc, etc, etc, etc 

I fell in love with
seven women
this week. They
all
had beautiful eyes.
Ranging from the color
of the inside of a walnut
to the face clouds make
right before it rains

The first wore
grey tights
The second told me
she wasn’t sure if she believed
in god. The third
was too tired
to make it up the subway stairs
They all
had beautiful eyes

Because they never asked
why I was dripping
I never mentioned that my eyes
are slow molasses
When I told one that hers
looked just like a robin’s egg
She told me mine reminded her of
a leaf
But only after it had fallen to the ground
She didn’t mention if that meant they were delicate
Or dead

I regret
Not having asked to dance with any of them
Particularly
Because I imagine they all would have been
spectacular at it
Though I am glad none of them
Mentioned
My feet impaled to the ground
Or my moth hands
flitting around
theirs
The fourth
I never talked to
The fifth
Told me she preferred silence. The sixth
I wrote letters for
and mailed only half. They all
had
Beautiful Eyes. Mine
are wood

chips.
The seventh knew this and
knew what I was
doing. She
left a note to me on the beach.

The ocean ate all of it
but her name

for E. 

I am removing
this bucket
And pulling up pieces of rope

My fingers are clogged faucets
That drip
love thoughts
As a precursor to my whole body melting

And I don’t know why it feels so good
To unbury the buckets I’ve swallowed
But in their place
There’s room for so much
more

And I am so much water
And so much love
And when I lowered these buckets
down they were too. Now
they are rusted tin
Removing them

Does not disturb the water
Just the poison. We
will still share
a river.

Always

For Max

If such a foolish thing as love exists
It has hidden itself in a deli
And has slyly winked at only me
While simultaneously being the most explosively obnoxious force
two people can muster
Ordering a pastrami sandwhich
has never looked so much slow dancing
And in case you two are wondering, No
this is not an appropriate place to slow dance
But instead of making aliens of yourselves
you’ve somehow hung lanterns from fluorescent light fixtures
And turned this mess
into a banquet hall
I swear
The waiter yelling at me in Spanish is wearing a tuxedo right now
And this
This might be what love looks like
Like
A child who eats only with his hands
makes a mess of everything
and crudely draws dogs on the walls with his fingers and ketchup
And just because he forgets to draw tails
Doesn’t mean they aren’t dogs
This love
doesn’t care about details
Not tonight
Not details like
The old man next to you in line
Or the worried woman in front of you
Or the lollipop sucking cashier behind the counter
And I’m astounded
at how much more beautiful all of these people look in your light
Tonight
Don’t be afraid to sing along with the subway music
This song is yours
The next one will be too
So will the silence
And the sound of the wheels on the train tracks
Tonight
If I could take a sip
Of the single breath that exists between your hands
I’d have a lot less questions
No more answers
(I know those exist in my third and fourth palms)
But
A lot less questions

Get your grease off my wheels,
Woman.

I’m moving fast enough as is

If you were to ask him about his port-wine stain
He would tell you it was a burn

And if you were to ask him how he got that burn 
He would tell you he was a hero in his hometown 

And if you inquired further
He would tell you his hometown
Was nestled in the crevice between two large breasted mountains

And then
he would not be lying

He was breastfeed 
And his mother’s name means “Queen”
And she always taught him she was as much

If you watch him in the rain 
And notice that it looks like he’s shaking fire off his hands
He’ll tell you he was only dancing

Don’t believe him

He does set fire to his arms sometimes
Especially when it’s raining
If only to see if he can defy the clouds long enough 
To mark his skin just a little

His mother always taught him she was a queen 
And so he touches women so delicately
They never notice until he’s painted flowers 
All over them

Then he burns his arms
So they’ll tend to him
And pay attention more to those marks
Than his port-wine stain
Or the weeds he’s watering on their backs

If you take him back to bed

Do not comment 
On his port wine stain

Always thank him 
For the weeds on your back 

Even as those tendrils tangle 
Tell him 
He’s getting things right
Don’t say “for once
Do not say 
“for once”

When you finally decide to remove the weeds from your back
Do not do it with a rake
Do not attack them 
Do not mistake them for malicious 
Think of them as dandelions 

Sometimes 
The beauty just spreads too quickly 

If you take him to bed after removing the weeds
You’ve made a mistake 
He will notice
And it will break him

Then he will go out into the rain 
Without 
Setting fire to his arms 
Instead 
He will notice puddles for the first time
And reflections 
And his port wine stain 

You hopefully asked 
“is it snowing?” 
I too hastily responded
“yea” 

I didn’t say 
How much I wanted to kiss you 

So it’s a little past midnight
Right?
And I’m on winter’s stoop
Listening to 4 attractive women
Asking me to write poetry about them
(they tell me they are muses)
And although, Yes
It is more or less in jest
I’m going to take this moment
To pretend I am Mick Jagger’s
lips and hips
Gyrating unendingly and
Demanding to be kissed
Every body
Needs a moment like this. I
Bottled my drunken rock star dreams
A long time ago
So, honey
If you need poetry written about you
Just ask me slowly
You know
I’ve written a million poems
About brown eyes, and long necks
And soft hands
All in secret journals that
I’ve swallowed whole so
When somebody
asks me
to write them a poem
I have a hard time saying no
And this
Is my poets poem
The one moment I’m going
To revel in knowing
That last night four women
Wanted me to write poetry
About them
Goddamn that’s something this kid
Never expected
That Mick Jagger moment
And yes it was jesting
But for five brief seconds
I let myself pretend
Again
That this stick is a microphone
And this dirt is a stage
And that tree is a stadium
And the leaves are all people
Watching me
Just watching me
And wanting poems about them

For D.M.T.

The moon is battering my blinds tonight
Bright like
The sun’s only wife. Making
consummation
with the east only because
No One
Is watching

I was seventeen
You always said your best friend
Was
an “ethereal beauty”
I guess I forgot to tell you
You were too

There are days I’m startled by the other person in the room
Especially
When it’s late at night
And I’m the only one here
And I forgot to turn the heat on
Again

So in an effort to make a more hospitable environment
Today I tried
Hacking and burning the island inside myself
Because, yes
I am made of that much overgrowth and accumulated
Mess and the undertoe in my rivers
Will suck
you
down
No these rapids don’t roar
They hush

Everything

Only the water on the rocks
Is audible
And only when I am waist deep in it
It whispers to me

Listen
You cannot spend any more time hanging around your own hazes
That silhouette you picture is not here
But please do not define emptiness by its shape
Though you have holes
You are still holy

But I’ve spent too much time corking shut
My silences
So I don’t listen to the river
Even under water
Even when the world is frozen over
I reverberate in the throat just enough
To steadily hum out the truth I
Already feel pressing like actual thumbs
In my ears
I play band saws
So I don’t hear the river
In those moments when it tells me
That silence
Might not mean emptiness
We are all holy
And so holy enough
Even though I don’t want to hear that

Right now
I’d lay down
Next to any one
Who could sing over that in her sleep

Who could teach my hands
The violin curve of a swan long neck
My grasshopper music needs accompaniment

But without that kind of magic in my fingers
I just try to catch reflections as if
I might bounce them out my throat as lullabies
And float them into
The cracks in my walls
When the river gets too loud again

It is shocking
How many electric prayers I’ve spat to stop it
But pressing my tongue up against electrical sockets
Can only get me
So far
Please
I’m just looking for someone to tether myself to
I’m just looking for someone who’s weather proof. You
Need to board up my panes

Before the river
Rises over my head
Then I will not be able to avoid
Knowing
We are all holy
Even as individuals

But I don’t want to forget you yet

I took my love, and I spoke it
And I broke it into threes
To the one that was
To the one that wasn’t
To the one that will never be

The first took my heart, and broke it
The second I just let be
The third, I heard, never thought of the word
No she never thought of me

There are days I’m startled by the other person in the room
Especially
When it’s late at night
And I’m the only one here
And I forgot to turn the heat on
Again

There are days I am a giant in this skin
Lost in a vessel I only some times have control over
There is a marble in this swimming pool
Trying to inflate itself to fit all this space
But more of me is water than glass

I am locked inside of this brazen bull
And yes, I get too warm sometimes
But behind all my gilded gold and horns
I forget I am bull and the man inside
I am Minotaur
Call me Minotaur
Never think I’m anything but bull and man
I am rock and glass
I am earth and wind
And I sometimes also claim to be the
Labyrinth
Not lost
I am many corridored
Not horned
But I do roar

So I pick up tiny cups with hands
Too large
Trembling mountains into desktops
Tapping holes in walls
Breaking feet with every step
Flailing bullet limbs
No you’ll never see me dancing
I break things
I break things
And I don’t clean up

And I break my back down
To hide my giant shoulders
Because you always look small
And your hands look soft
And I want to be the marble
Not the swimming pool
And curl tuck myself behind your right ear
I want to live there

Whispering my labyrinth truth to you
And figuring out how I can be soft too
Soft like
The snow on mountain tops peeking over my shoulder
The slope of your neck when it first kisses bone
The sun that rises over you
Or the hawks circling me
But the truth is
If my hand was a mountain
I would crush you

So I pull my hand back
And I never touch you
Because most days I fear
Being in this bull

And if my arm snaps back and I crack you
If my roar makes you shiver in your skin
Know I only ever meant to make myself so small
You could wear me like pearl

You could curl tuck me behind your right ear
I could roll down
Your body
With no fear of breaking you
Because some days
This body is all boulders
And goddamn do your hands look soft

It is 8 oclock this morning
And we are chasing 7:30 just to see you
dragging our dirty hubcaps against this long road
And sparking poetry fragments.
Often yours, sometimes ours
Many times unspoken
These spokes wont stop turning
Until North Carolina hits us
like a sack of books in the face
But to cross every bridge back home
Carrying your signature in our pages
Is the shot of adrenaline we’re banking on
So please keep your eyes open
For three bed burning broken bodies
Bursting out of New York like
700 miles worth of bad ideas
Nicotine
And the resilience to not nod off
That only comes from knowing right now
This highway was made in the hope that someday
Three kids would take it
Just to hear poetry in North Carolina
So I’m first time marveling
At the solid brick buildings that pull
Hills out of forests
And the broken down barns that still manage
To conquer
The emptiness surrounding them
Despite the infestation of fast food rest stops
This road is stupidly beautiful
And, Buddy, I’m quoting you in every state
And finding new meaning in everything
Inside and out of your poems

I’ve had this headache now
For 3 days
The doctor
-who was British, and therefore trustable-
told me
It was probably not
a tumor And
I should try physical therapy
Which I talked about for a few weeks
Before letting that too fall off the face of the earth
The dentist told me to see an orthodontist
So I did
And when I got braces
God damn it I choose the bright turquoise rubber bands
Looking like I had first exchanged my teeth for scrap metal
And then massacred a neon blueberry pie. When I
was younger
I bought attention not spent on me
My eye doctor said I didn’t need glasses
Which had been my last hope for
An easy answer
Now I take guesses
And fear as much as I morbidly hope
I need a specialist
To prescribe me a 3 times daily regimen
Of medicine
To fight off the invisible monkey
Clinging on to me for dear life and death
Biting vice grips into my temples
You know sometimes
Everybody wants to feel like they’re special
So for one day
I told my brother yes it was
a tumor
Went to a second eye doctor
And stopped wearing my retainer
Because if these headaches were the worst thing in the world
I would be a hero for my strength
And for all that
I still take pain killers every day
It turns out
That being a hero
Didn’t make these headaches go away
So I wait
As the brass balloon in my head inflates towards
Gargantuan
When I die
I expect to be preceded by
A faint pop
Alternately
Sometimes I get bad headaches
And sometimes I take myself too seriously

I realized 

Halfway to late last night
That it has been a year 

Since you became the moon 

I left your room as ancient Rome 

Praising something I could not understand
Because you cast light 

And I could not understand 
I gave you names like 
Goddess 

But all civilizations collapse
Even great ones 

Often perhaps 

Because they are great ones 

And though I once thought it impossible

I have forgotten prayers 
I once could trace in the dark
Like freckles on your back 

There we times 

We only loved each other in darkness
And your moon shine
Could only fight the sun for so long 

For four months 

I would only ever and always collapse next you 

When you were already asleep 

And wake up
When you were already gone
So the sun rise
Stopped spelling beauty
And started forcing goodbye
Through defiantly sealed shut windows
We barricaded ourselves against
But making myself in to steel
Had turned me cold
I am no longer ancient Rome 

But like so many decades of peeling paint
You have left in me

Whole aqueducts 
that I longer know how to fill 

Coliseums 

Only remind me of you 

You lioness
You soldier

With more layers of armor around you
And sharp teeth 

That still did not stop you 

From biting into my shoulder
And crying 

Uncontrollably
There were nights I was terrified of you
Your brightness
Could be blinding
Your shrine 

A monument now to “I’m sorry” 

And heaps of letters I never finished 

Is like marble columns
Collapsed and dissolved
And still drawing my breath 

Despite the decades between us
I still find ways to pray 

I thought you were eclipsed
But the truth is 

You were never the moon
You have become and have always been
One constellation 

Brighter sometimes than any 

Bringing beauty even in darkness 

And yes, sometimes only in darkness
Dotting the sky 

Like freckles I could still trace on your back
Your light 

Coming towards me from millions of years ago 

Is still visible on nights 

When it’s late enough
And the streets are as empty 

As ruins

I hope your rooftop winters are treating you well
And I hope that cigarettes and cheap beer
Are as heavenly to you as they were when you were seventeen
Because I’ve only recently acquired those tastes
I hesitate to say we were children
But just because it might have just been me
But we were shadows of what we would become
Ours was the briefest relationship either of us had had
The approximate length of one movie
And I’m pretty sure during that hour and a half
I sweated more into your hand
Than 6 relationships worth of being afraid of women
I’m not even sure I paid for your ticket
And you definitely drove us there and back 
We kissed through your car window as I headed to my house
And it was too weird for either of us
You headed home, and we broke up
And it could not have been healthier
We both moved to New York
But you shot up like the skyline of the city 
Rocketing upward in a blaze of apartment parties 
And performing in experimental theatre pieces
While you move up I’ve moving outwards
Like the island I live on
And heading towards the water 
And whether your ship or mine takes off first
It may take a while for our paths to cross again
We spent one night together 
And the sexuality of it has now escaped me
But the passion has not
And after four years of sweating for the same things together
It was only appropriate that we lay in your parents’ bed
And shared that passion
You woke me up with coffee on your breath
It was my first hangover 
And for a moment
I thought we were adults
From that moment on it was on awkward date
A text message break up
And goodbye
And I’m not sure when our paths will cross again 
But I look forward to it

There is no forgetting
Not even when you broomstick thwack
The back of your hand a thousand times
Each night
And not when it stops hurting
Not even
When you cut all of the old letters into one inch
Strips
And make a paper mâché piñata of them
You do not forget
When you pop the balloon
When the stick finally hits
The something behind you only knows memory talk now. How
the blindfold feels like everything you
used to intimate to other shadows
But you never bleed candy despite
Sucking sweetness straight through every lovers ear hole
You’re all pulp
So you ring in the morning with
last night’s bootstrap bells
While imitating
This day’s first bird call through always chapped lips
Knowing it is not perfect
It is still beautiful
Because you are learning to teach yourself
How to raise the sun
and how to harmonize with it
Knowing fully that if this porch was an island
And everything not on it right now
Was a thick ocean away
You would not forget
You would always still find your small toe
tracing subconscious names in the sand and
the ash would settle looking too much like
the silhouette you define emptiness by
But
You would always find ways to survive

We are match heads
In methane gas times

For B.

Before we speak again
We need to acknowledge how precipice close we were
To kissing that night and
That we both wanted to know what
would happen

 

 

 

 

Had we let ourselves fall in

My mother always asks me to write a poem about her
But it doesn’t work that way
And I told her that
And she continues listening anyways. She says
She’s going to beat up
all the women who have hurt me in my poems
And only half jokingly
And has learned the art of subtly asking who
each new poem is
about
And I don’t doubt that if she could
She would become words from my pen and
On my page
So that she could protect me
Without needing to get on a plane
And though it’s just love
Yes
It still makes me feel safe
And allows me to day dream twice as hard