but where you were born
determines your ability to play
in some three letter acronym at the national
scale
be it nhl, nfl, nba, or whoever

but say you’re born in samoa?
you’re probably great at just one

maybe your grandparents are from africa?
you’ll fit in any at all.

but before you say i’m racist
let me tell that you i aint white
i’m as minority as the day is long
in the country full of yella’s

coming to earth in
human awkward form
running, walking, eating, sleeping
incarnate holiness
still you chose
to die painful death for me

stuck there, hung there nailed there,
till three days later
undeservedly, the breath fades from your lungs
carrying my sin with it
k

wordlessness fills my mind
but it lacks the beauty
inherent in white
woven
acid-free
virgin
paper

i pasted letters of hatred
death threats on my wall

repetitious pounding of heel to cement
slowly (faithfully) produces delusions of grandeur
and
i run not for exercise but to flee
cognitive stagnation

then dreams flow in

you’re God not man and your power
not limited by my dreams
is by all means larger than i fathom
(should i choose to try…
when i choose to try)

so when i pray to tug your heart strings
to change
for transformation on the city/province/country
scale

i know my dreams too small
i beg for bigger
i run much harder
thinking

if i can numb the pain in these joints
over time
perhaps i may numb the walls i’ve built around you

a little more
one bigger dream at a time.

when despair sets in like loneliness
i take out a plate
penut butter and jelly and
i sing along to R Kelly

if that bastard can be famous for those
words

i can probably touch the sky

says the roll to
two sheets on a nose in blow
“lucky basterds”

pictures paint words and all
but who’s to translate
painted word into digital vomit?

your words translate themselves
to pictures in your dreams and you
wake and find you fail to understand
the pictures;
the poetry
behind the prose.

这么爱那个
坐被破的沙发上
永久未来变

love like this
seated on broken sofas
futures forever changed

aint poetic in the least
they stream like uneducated
ebonics flow from a non-minority’s
mouth

it aint pretty
it aint even funny
and they damn aint poetic

the problem with the digital age
is the lack of analog
‘digital’ reproduces in my brilliance
in too strong of color for the average
man to take in all at once

you’d like me better softened
by the blur of wear and tear.

they always fail to reward humans
where a cow receives praise
simply because they call it cud.

(you’ve something in your teeth)

this poem constructed in my dream
had different words
but the form (very similar).
better punchline for sure

oy these days press in on me
like walls in windowless rooms
with padded white cloth linings
screaming lack of money
lack of faith
worry worry worry

i know the cure but i fear the pill
because i must focus to partake

ache eases in slowly like the pain
in my back as i sit on these all too
soft all too cheap couches knowing
my posture is bad now but my
back irrevocably ruined

i know the cure but i fear the pill
because i cannot be numb and partake

(a new sieve norm – once it’s been done twice)

you spent at least two years
too many
in a former soviet republic

received at least two
too many
massages from strong muscular
bearded men in awkward
spa/tea houses because
that was just the custom

ate at least two
too many
parts of the cow which were
never intended by nature
or God
to ever be consumed

gave your wife at least two
too many
drinks on more than one occasion
just to watch her motor mouth
impress even you.

left at least one
too many
pairs of em… soiled(?)
boxers in my guest room during
a brief visit
where the child you’re about father
may well have been conceived

(probably not… i’m not soo good with
the numbers)

you waited at least one year
too many
to join the ranks of fatherhood.
welcome to the brotherhood.

“but i am confident you will
be brilliant” (and that boy will
love a pipe, beer, and literature
like a man should).

(p.s. i love that it’s a picture of you with someone other than your wife)

for you and me
but right now
a kid like you and me (once were)
cries out for parent’s whom’ll
never hold him again

and fathers dig through
piles of dirt
till fingernails fail
and more
because children aren’t
something you give
up on.
no matter
how many bodies
are dumped via bulldozer
into trucks to be removed
after the already departed
souls.

so many lives will go on
so many done and gone.

the long day deserves
nay
demands
the levels of sugar you’re about
to pour through these veins
chased by butter and popcorn-topped
piles of salt
i’d stop you
but my lifeless limbs
no longer work
(save the channel changing
finger pointer of course)

an IV may be nil by mouth
but these years
where movies were my livelihood
made the entitlement
so much more
alcoholic

the hopes of mine
waned
they say paint on modern cars will never
fade
the engine block may
rust
your feelings for me (like your ring) slowly
tarnish
and i’m left here
dying
knowing you were worth the
pain
but feeling for now perhaps this is
spring

rubbing my nose in
photos of endless mountains,
greenest pine trees, purple lakes,
cloudless blue skies, and old friends
reminding me

i’m living my life for the next
mine may now satisfy
but it’s ugly as hell

these cobble stones
underneath all their glory
began as mere bricks
flat and unloved
by tires and horseshoes

slowly over time
they were worn down
into something beautiful
despite gaps and bumps
weeds throughout

they began as mere bricks
flat and unloved