samurai chef

poetry

the warrior is shackled
and puts his blade
to use cutting appetizers
to sate the gluttons
and the all-gods of money
be they mystical
or real as the shackles

the cutting
lasts for 8 or more hours
a day

and then his hut for sleep

and then back again

and he might do this forever

but maybe his shackles
are made out of pride.

what i realized my first time taking lsd

poetry

there are no horns
playing for you
no matter what you do

a horn is played by
a person and that
person is just like you

and people don’t follow
other people around
waiting for important moments
to emphasise
with horns

there won’t be any
horns for you
ever

no matter what happens

no matter if you hear them

no matter what you’re doing

they won’t be there.

dithering and/or jealousy

poetry

ALL OF YOUR FAKE POLAROID PICTURES
EXPENSIVE CLIMBING GEAR AND
BEAUTIFUL SCENEREY
DITHERED AND BLURRED BECAUSE TODAY’S
MOMENTS JUST DON’T HAVE STICKING
POWER

AND YOUR LIFE MUST HAVE STICKING
POWER

BUT YOU’VE LOST IT ALREADY

UNDER THE PRETENSE THAT

YOU MUST EMPHASIZE ANY THING
AT ALL.

for lina

poetry

in my youth i used to
disconnect our family’s
home telephone and
run a line up to my
bedroom and call
girls or prank
call businesses

i was on the
internet
giving out my credentials

chatting
and
sometimes even
recieving phone calls
from california
or ann arbor
or iowa

even after punishment
i would run this wire
in the night
like a spy

i never knew
you were dying for that
and
i’ll be turning
24 this year.

there are moments of real horror

poetry

i was found but now i’m lost
on the sidewalk by the corner
and there are super-men in the streets
with their batmobiles and money
and suddenly lost i am sitting
the world now so foreboding
on the sidewalk by the corner thinking
about how much i owe and have yet
to earn or pay and work and starve
for
i’m almost fucking 24
and my mother came to remind me that
standing is for the impoverished.

is there life without love?

poetry

i wrote and wrote
with eyes i wrote
scientifically

and left the only
footprints in the
cave of the troglophiles

how could you know
how much i love you?
the knee-prints can’t
the hand-prints can’t
the finger-prints can’t
tell

even if they followed
the new lines in their
opaque world
no guess could be had
at me

even if my breath
reached any nape
no energy would pass

(even if it did
i can’t put a
blind lizard in
a prom dress)

i wrote and wrote
but only those with
eyes ever saw it.

words and speechlessness

poetry

there are no words for when
things are a-okay
and you’re a man in the sun
on a raft in a bay
and you couldn’t care what
the moving mouths say
every thing be damned
if just for today
they are impermanent
and pass like a wave
there are no words
when things are okay.

why i wrestle with anxiety

poetry

it’s about what you think
and how it drips out of your
forehead in confident drops
and tip-toes down your face
too small for you to feel

and it’s about what they think
and about how they smile when
they think it
and as their smiles grow there
are a million grating shreaks
growing, too and it sounds
like pulling a rusty rake across
a rusty tractor
in an aluminum barn

it’s about caring

it’s about how you’re all wrong

and i’ve stopped offering corrections

stopped giving out tours

to the lake from which to drink
only
if you’ve learned what direction

we took to get there

no one has ever made it
there and back

except
for those of us with coke-
bottle eyes
then

then

everything is far too clear
and there is water everywhere
everywhere
that you are not

i took a drive to clear my head although it never works

poetry

the mcdonald’s man talks to you
but he doesn’t want to be
your friend
and neither i, his
because fuck the mcdonald’s man
and every dream he’s ever had
and for that matter
fuck me too
his paycheck lies behind
handing me my plastic
and my satisfaction lies behind
this transaction going flawlessly
so i can put it in gear
and get down the road
and foreget his face
and he mine.

we’re forgettable people,
i and the mcdonald’s man

we are seen yet unseen
or relativly anonymous

we are unimportance personified
with no books or pictures
in our names
and i am uncertain
if that will ever hold any weight
at all.

i believe in miracles where you from you sexy thang?

poetry

no one’s leaving notes for you
in the paper that you pretend
to read

it’s all there
in black and white
standard fonts

the fresh news is miles away
being tracked and flashed to
you by satellites

but you crinkle it up
“this is all shit”
you say

they’ve filled your pallette
but you scour your carpet
for a new taste

and you refuse to love the sun
and stay in-doors
praying to your false idols

you believe in magic
like a child
and you won’t be hung for it
but you should.

petra

poetry

i take you daily now
to where the bone rot
sugar rests the nerves
and there we roll around
and i am content with
staying

pale yellow sunday
mornings burn our shadows
into the walls which
no one else can read

i woke up today and
sighed
i cracked my neck
i stretched and swore
i’d never have to
do it again

and if you take the
window for just its
light and not its
vista
this seems just like paradise.

a poem about going crazy

poetry

when it’s cold outside
and facebook is slow-moving
and the city-streets are grey
and your wife don’t love you
no more,
and the kids won’t look you
in your eyes faded from years
of looking
will you turn to your hope
chest
set up as
a time capsule
to remind
of what you asked of yourself
long ago
and will it be too late?

when i see you
standing in the cold-grey
street, my head barely
above a desk,
with your arms like propellars
i will wonder for a
moment where you’re flying
off to until you get crushed
under the weight
of the commute–

then systematically you
get cleaned up off the cement
like a stain on a white counter
that stretches for infinity
for absolutely no reason.

a poem about shutting up

poetry

ah the phoney drunk on
god’s greens in this modern
age they’re much easier to pluck
which plays to the phoney’s luck
and the critics agree
that his poetry on sitting
is of the highest degree
and his necketh doth strain
as he rigidly rambles

repeating retarded preambles

his living quarters in shambles

his bookshelf lined with candles

about hypothetical rain.
this, with none to gain
but the lull that come with refrain.