money is your god
and i know you know you know that
fact
and the graveyard is the
only place left for people
like you
the graveyard is where you
must all go
the graveyard where i can
drink rum and laugh at
the size of it.

to write a poem about
your father would be
to assume that the words
i would put down could
change some part of the
fundamental stages of
life or the cold, hard
fact that someone has
disappeared from your life
in the way that you under
stood it and understand
it currently at this very
moment.

this is more
like an anti-poem,
because it is raining today
and your father is dead.

i am sitting in a chair,
thinking idly about what
it would feel like if my
father died,
the way yours did.
a black hole is eating all
of the words that could
be used to describe it.

and when i picture you, or
me,
or anyone, for that matter,
in old reel footage of a sunny
day with the sprinklers in the
lawn and propelling down a slip-
‘n-
slide
with your father there,
safely,
keeping everything safe and warm,
this black hole grows larger.
the words start spiraling towards
the floor.

i fear if i do not stop thinking
about this now it will most likely
swallow me alive like it is
trying to do to you and your entire
family at this very second, jeff.
you must struggle against that tide
and i will help you with any hand
that is possible to give even if
“i’m sorry for your loss” is the
only
dead
replacement
for “grab my hand.”

if confucius
was alive to-day
i bet he’d know
he’d be a hack
in the now,
mary. yet you
mis-quote his ancient
and relative
words/concepts
on your little
reminders,
taped to the
wall just like
your employees,
mary. and though
ritual propriety
is nice,
and so were the
things that kongzi
said, i doubt,
very firmly,
that he’d have
much to say
of the modern world.
even less of your
chinese restaurant
and the misdeeds
you’ve done to his
words and concepts,
mary.

i will never, ever
revise a poem after i
have dropped my pen
(or saved the document)

a poem is a moment in time
even

if

you spell
or punctuate it improperly

even if you fuck up on
some simile or metaphor
and none of it sounds
the way you’d intended,
because

chief

that’s the poem!
that’s life!
you do not have a time
machine so do not pretend
you do and rewrite what
has already been done
the best you can do
is make amends with
what just happened and
try and correct it at
the moment it goes wrong
but don’t you dare touch
my reality after it’s
been done unless you’re
willing to show me

notarized

documented

undeniable

proof

that you are,
in fact,
in possession
of a time machine.

i would smoke cigarettes with you in that field knowing the next day all the glory and gold and shine and sun and beauty would be gone, draining, depleating, disappearing, diluted, dead.
you know?
whatever?
the poetry only comes as the inspiration and lately the inspiration has been coming engulfed by shadows. these shadows contain inspiration’s cryptonite: reality.
and you and your friends,
out in an orchard of apples,
i want to pick them up like the build and crescendo of a distorted guitar solo, angels around us, ascending into some ethereal place where i can pull out my innermost lust and let it free like an atomic bomb.
some gloomy, michigan day.
autumn, the earth’s massive morning-after-summer-hangover. a time when
everyone
wants to
leave
or be someone else
or whatever.

the worst part of living in
an apartment complex is that
when the man downstairs yells
you can hear him but scarcely
what it’s all really about
and, you can hear the man
upstairs at all times but
the more you listen his
words seem to mush around
into nothingness
(maybe his thoughts are
getting absorbed by the
carpet)
but the man in the middle
(this is me)
we all know what’s going
on with him as you can
hear his words thumping
through the apartment
complex like some sort of
heartbeat or something.
this is the conclusivity
of morally disapposed
positions lying on top
one another in direct
proportion to the sun
or the neuro-pathways in
the brain that they call
“timber creek”

doesn’t the earth swing back
and forth like a pendulum?
…well,
doesn’t it?
doesn’t it just say one
thing and another thing
and another?
and you tell it to shut up,
one hand on her thigh
thinking
am i spilling my fucking
guts?
if i sit on this couch long
enough will god damn me
for leaving the indention
of my ass alone
for
however
long or,
whatever?

today is the day of
unnerving
inescapable
and totally necessary sadness
and today is the day
where the rain comes
and goes
and the sadness slides down
your throat like wet cement
and you wait for a long time
for it to harden in your
stomach
you are
off to see some place you sold
all of your belongings to go
without a hint as to
what your getting into
today is the day that you
wait at the train station,
whistles blowing,
none of them yours,
trains plowing through,
none of them yours,
sitting on a bench waiting
for the cement to harden
in your stomach,
whistles blow,
is that your train?
today is the day where you
don’t know if your train will
come
tomorrow is the day that you
realize you weren’t ready
to get on.

this night is creeping upon me
or, the sun is dropping below
it’s horizon
and the lack-of-light is
enveloping me
and i like it, to be honest
i really like it alot

my veins are now burnt
out black snake fireworks
the blood
crawls through them apathetically
the black tubes falling
where they may based upon the
original flame that birthed them,
no intent on anything

this night is creeping upon me
and the heat is leaving the
air and
in turn
drying out my skin
and i am lying on the pavement
as the children walk back
inside
and i like it, really,
to be honest.

breaking marijuana into an aluminum
coca-cola can feels much better with
Cherubini in the background
today is Helter Skelter day
somewhere south it is gloomy
right here it is mediocre
fat girls getting out of their
first day of school
people walking their domesticated
animals on the cracked
pavement behind my
apartment
complex
men in the background
from centuries past
playing ballads of
beauty and sex
all lost to us now
and the men walking their
fury dogs
and the fat girls on their
bikes
they get get to the bottom
then stop
turn
then they go for a ride
till they get to the bottom…
just like Mozart
but we don’t speak that language anymore
man
and we don’t hear those stories anymmore
man
Helter Skelter

oh marilyn,
i have returned a
man from the woods
and am arranged to
marry you,
you,
you,
and
you
but these hormones
go to waste,
this indifference
is killing me
oh marilyn,
you look so good on
screen.