the cat birds will no longer find perch on
south greylock soon
because the oak tree there is
starting to die
and the grey squirrels almost
fall off the thin branches
when the cat birds land

I am an astronaut
made of
a million or
so bugs

and i look down upon
cosmic rain washing the city

although, not god
I see my own reflection
on the oceans

walking in space
each step, another miracle
“I am not god”
I say to myself

just an astronaut
walking through
space, although

of all things I wield the most terrible power

to your children the beach is magical
but they are only excited by the novelty
of fresh neurons firing

that is for you to know
and them to find out

and their bodies are not much more
than a carbon copy
of yours

and the beach really looks like shit
i mean, it looks just like a
soggy
and impoverished
wet plane
where trash and debris wash up

but we love the beach, daddy!

like how a lion loves the warm and
gushing blood of a gazelle
as it’s limbs go cold and
its life fades away

they don’t tell you what to do
when the high wears off
and you are left feeding on slop
day in and day out

in a big cage
suspended in air
and seemingly
suspended in time
and lined with springs
for to absorb the shock
from any momentum
you may have had or will have

they weren’t your friends
but enemies before
and enemies hereafter
and that’s why they didn’t tell you
is what you finally realize

don’t let it be too late

tonight we rise up
i dont love the reasons
i dont love the means
but i can no longer stand by and wait
non-violence is ignored
my neighbors kill, and i refuse
but i cant fault them

weve been killed, displaced, in the name of their god-given right

it may just have to be
like this

—

it’s like hawaii. they have no right to it. but theyre there….
we have no right to this
but conquering isnt new

though it may be passé

they may not like it and i can both understand why,
and fight back. you kidnapped my family, my neighbors, you meant harm for harms sake

loss is loss. i get it. but

not like this.

philadelphia is an extra long and erratic drum
solo in a jazz set
with a stressed out show promoter in the corner
because it’s 45 minutes passed closing time
and everyone is angry

the band is angry, which is what the extra long
improvised solo is about
and the bar owner is angry because people are
still coming in
and the crowd is angry, looking for that catharsis
from the drum solo
and the bar tender is angry because he is still
serving drinks
and they are all looking for catharsis
catharsis as the drummer goes on

and eventually the owner of the bar
shows up and says
“everyone go home, everyone
fucking leave”
so the band winds down and the people
file out of the crowded space one by one
and the band is there even later, packing
up gear as the hanger’s on try and
talk about the set with the players

and the drummer eventually gets home
to his angry wife, who says
“Jim, it’s 4am, you can’t keep doing this
you’re going to lose your job!”
and she’s right, because he has to work tomorrow
and it’s going to be a long shift because he will
be so tired

and the drummer’s shift the next day is
really bad and the whole time he’s thinking
“i can’t play in that band anymore”
and when his boss remarks on his tired
demeanor he knows it won’t be long
until it becomes too much for him anymore
and after counting up the tips and calculating
for the drive and inflation and the time he decides
he’s not going to do it anymore

so the drummer leaves the band and
the jazz band can’t sustain it so they break up
and the drummer’s boss at work eventually says
“wow your work has really improved”
and so he decides he won’t have time for
the drums anymore

so the drummer sets out to sell the drum kit
and the pawn shop offers him a price that he
can’t stomach, so he goes online to list the
drum set
and gets asshole after asshole offering him
next to nothing for this vintage set
although it is well kept
and the deal he finally accepts
he wouldn’t tell any of his musician friends
even less-so the guy who sold him the kit
which was practically a favor
from another musician
and overall just a sad way to end the storied
history of the drummer’s jazz kit

both his wife and boss are pleased
with his performance after he sells the kit
and leaves the band
and the drummer feels good too

he is getting paid more and everyone
is happy except, well, we can’t call him the drummer anymore
so he’s just Jim now
and Jim goes along feeling well except for
a weird twitch in his right eye sometimes
and that some nights he can’t sleep because he is
worrying away about everything

so one day Jim goes to a doctor and the
doctor diagnosis him with high blood pressure
and depressive symptoms due to stress
and he prescribes some pills that make Jim feel
leveled out but not quite there
and they make the twitch worse, actually
but he doesn’t tell the doctor that part
and one night when he is up fretting
he hears a strange noise coming from the
basement

so he goes to check it out
and it gets louder and louder as he gets down the
stairs and like an insane acid trip he
is suddenly transported back to the bar
and there is a guy just wailing away
during an extra long and erratic drum solo
in a jazz set
and he thinks
“oh, this is so cathartic”
catharsis
he stays for the set and as the people start
to leave, he walks up to the stage and
strikes up a conversation with the drummer
as the drummer is packing up his gear

Jim says to the drummer
“hey man, great set”
and the drummer says
“cool, man, thanks for coming out”
and it’s kind of awkward
so Jim wanders away feeling dejected

tears creep up on him slowly
which can sometimes be the worst kind
so he starts to really let it all out
and before long he is loudly sobbing
like rolling waves of vomit out of his face
and Jim does not go back to his apartment
or his job
and they don’t really come looking for him
so he just sleeps downtown now

that’s what philadelphia is like

you’ve only a vague idea of
which way we should go
and
you don’t know what it will be like
when we get there
and
i don’t think i’ll be any different
even if we do

the birds will be chirping
regardless

what does a scared little boy
know anyway?
but what he is afraid of
and when to run?

so weak that but time
and silence are all that
are required to slow your
heartbeat down to none

i never tuned the guitar i play
for your ghost the decaying tune
keeps track of the time i’ve saved
your memory and one day i won’t
recognize the song anymore
and that day i will put it back
in the case like a coffin

i say i talk to myself
but i am really talking to you
out loud it’s just another
habit i need to break
as i am breaking faster than them
i think i will stop trying

but i beg the fools not to cry
for me but to think for once about
the dead canary at the mouth of their
caves and stop making excuses and
dooming me and you and them and
us all to the same fate as me and you

like a gift from your family
not well received
but understood as a nice gesture
and now ugly and out of tune
in the closet
to be cleaned out
at the end of it all

i am joking with life
but it does not joke back
very often

when i die
i will finally know
the punchline

you should have killed me back then
when i was weak
but you let your guard down and now
that i am strong

i am moving heaven
i am moving earth
i am coming to find you

and when i greet you it will
be with a sudden movement
that will rapidly reduce
the span of your life

i don’t really say hello
these days

you throw everything in and go for it
pack it up and ship on out
and settle down and make friends
and fail
at what matters
and you sold all your shit
because you thought it’d work out differently
and now you have to start from scratch
even though the decision was
obvious

settle down and make friends
it’s not failure
at what matters

the guy at the bodega called me his friend
there’s Canadian smoke in the skies of Philadelphia again
you can feel the walls of possibility close in

don’t play with me

what once more the sun’s energy begets
the all hands meeting this morning was tense
a homeless man on my block just put up a tent

don’t play with me

lol, lmao she responds to a reel
the rich control the definition of words such as “steal”
i know exactly how long it takes for blood to congeal

don’t play with me

they couldn’t, they won’t, but they already did
then hopped in a casket with a waterproof lid
we, as a society, should have taken care of our kids

and played more with them

i know i need to do hip mobility exercises
and eat less and see the sun more

in many ways the gate is in your mind
or the pressure or the thin air is in your mind
whether you are trapped in a metal tube at the bottom of the ocean
or running through an idyllic field of lilacs and roses

we are in a multi layered simulation and the
first layer is your own mind and you aren’t
even close to escaping that one

let alone the next where maybe you could fly
but you can’t stop mouthing for the nipple
and crying

wah wah, i don’t want to do my hip
mobility exercises
i don’t want to eat less or see the sun
or call my brother and remind him that i care

because in many ways you live in your mind
and it is in a metal tube at the bottom
of the ocean, and not running through
an idyllic field of lilacs and roses

although, it is just another day on
the plane of the trickster god
you can at least try to laugh
and try to smile
and get off the nipple
and stand up

and
s
t
r
e
t
c
h
your legs until you come upon
the plane of pure thought and reason
that the tricker’s can’t even find

you won’t make it out alive
or do anything good
but your anxiety about being wrong
or, rather
your selfish desire to always be right
will drive you to feel good
about what you attempted to do

but that’s not enough

and i am writing this poem about you
but you think it’s about me
we both may be wrong
but the actual problem is that
we don’t live in the same universe

we don’t see the same reality

while i’m looking at a dirty room
all you see is a bad day
and i’m trying to find a place to start
when you’re searching for a bottle opener

and i can’t make the sun go down
but i can drive east, real fast
that’s what i’m attempting to do, man
no matter how dark it gets

you can come too

i would leave you
upon softened mound
where carnivores know
to look

in that the water from
your eyes would fall upon
a soaked earth
and prove each drop
a crocodile

as we are all frantically
searching for safety
i love you but you are
wrong

and sleep at night, though
tossed and turned
but awake the next
none-the-less

I hop up on the ledge because when I’m up here I can feel

and then harness
the potential energy.

i could never want from you
you contemptible beggar-king
whose metered time and breath
will be celebrated upon its passing
yet to no avail
you lord of shit flies
whose smell is an open secret
among those who sit about you
and hold their noses, and pledge
false loyalty

nothing in this world
was actually
ever yours
not yours to horde away,
nor yours to distribute
but that what you took due to your loathsome
and crooked heritage
you took from others, like a common
beast of the field

and among God’s cruelest jokes
and critical flaws, and cause to be ignored
(if He were not an apparition of a
fools mind)
is your station in society
and yet for you to be self-assured of it
is a joke so great that it cannot
even inspire a single smile

no

the power you feel is not one borne
of your own wit, you plagued rat,
but one of the absolute terror you
instill to those who sense the supreme
unfairness in this life by your
every succeeding breath

your power is terror and sadness and hopelessness and all more fitting of your nature that you think it is love or respect

no

that you are not cut down by man or
God or your own folly is enough
to subjugate even the strongest
among us

as they pay 10 hours of wages to stand
on a sticky cement floor, standing room
only
to taste even a molecule of spit
and be saved by osmosis
by one who has been so blessed

with no
salvation
in sight

found a four leaf clover,
thought that it was rare
and that you’d touched the face of God
who loves you

but you can’t hear the sounds
because your ears filter out
a cacophony
of screaming

the clover though,
it makes you smile
and reveal your devilish teeth
to the world