There is a switch in the back
of a drug-addled mind, I think,
that sets it to barking and

it’s claws come out sometimes
to reach to try to maim but
addled with drugs they tend

to miss their target most times.

The switch is tiny and difficult
to find even by experts with
technical diagrams and

nimble fingers, but when it
is flipped, one can plan a short
night for everybody, I think.

And they make no mention of it,

not in this diagram book anyway,
but these drug-addled minds
always set to barking at giants.

Surprising they don’t need more
maintenance than they do already.
Well, unfortunate, really.

Tell me what am I to you?
Am I a cloud rolling through,
whatever your imagination deems me to be?
A bubbling, frothing image back dropped by the evening sky?
One moment I’m the evening sun,
the sparkle in the night sky,
the next, I’m the nightmare you’re running from…
Tell me…
What am I to you?
What do I mean?

socks socks daddy you wear some socks
daddy tickle me
daddy tickle me
or like this or like that
daddy tickle me
tickle me
daddy tickle me
tickle me

Cupcakes and hugs are

nice,

my sweet tooth is happy,

I guess.

People have been

kind

but I’m a little

overwhelmed.

And so my

Big Day

was celebrated

alone,

in the library,

with a hefty,

well loved,

copy of

Norton’s Anthology of Poetry,

flopped open to page

262.

Goosebumps tickle my arms as I

swim through

Sonnet 55,

floating on its buoyant imagery,

falling in love with its

cocky perfection.

Peel the Bible-thin pages apart to reveal

page 801

and I have to suppress my happy chirp when I find

my other favorite William

and his beautiful daffodils.

 

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

Order up
come all the way from china
Music in a little wood box
with a lock on front
and no way to play it
(Key cost extra)

Good music though
they said
when fella picked it up
from the retail outlet
carried them

Fella took his word for it
didn’t buy a key though
so it’s closed up
on his kitchen table

sits next to unopened mail
an old comic book collection
a stack of magazines from ’93
getting older with the rest

Hopefully it keeps

What’s on my mind tonight?
What isn’t?
long gangly fingers gripping,
clutching,
my throat…
the nails they dig and scrape,
and dig and scrape,
till there’s no meat left,
no flesh, just bone…
But I grin,
and laugh,
it’s good to cackle in death’s face,
great to spit in those empty eyes,
who needs it?

What’s on my mind tonight?
What isn’t?
Just thoughts in passing,
synapses firing,
consciousness audible,
cognitive dissonance blaring….
I can’t hear for my own thoughts,
doubts,
fears…..

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

It’s a quiet somber feeling
of safety and security behind
miles of red tape and
piles of paperwork, and
even when the rest of the world
is on fire and screaming,
Here in our little fort
with the shades drawn and
the locks done up,
everything will be alright,
you promise.

We are match heads
In methane gas times

sometimes all we really need is a swift kick to the buttox of our pants
but other times a swift kick needs to followed by several hard blows to the face
and when that is insufficient being threatened with our lives tends to help
though should our own life prove disposable loved ones are always there for threatening

This is my dope,

it fills my blood

and forces these words

vomit on the page….

My dope,

the smoke, it chokes

and burns your eyes.

You can’t cry.

It clogs your thoughts,

it clogs your arteries.

Arteries and areolas.

Blood and milk.

Blood and tears,

blood and semen…

My dope….

it takes me down trails I’ve never been on,

some good,

and some hell…

but I go where it tells me…

trust in something

that’s what I do…

Put faith in something

that’s what I do…

My dope?

It’s my words,

my thoughts,

me feelings…

It’s all from the heart.

It’s all off the top…

Off the top…

And on the subject of hands his
strangled a man once to death,
and on the subject of dogs his
has had a throat or two I’m sure.

That doesn’t stop him from laughing,
though, once in a while. It doesn’t
stop him from being real and flesh
and fragile like the rest of us.

He just killed a man, is all.

And ol’ Fido ate well that night,
I’m certain.

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

Fought tooth and claw for
a few bits of
scrap meat
and that dog is still
starved.

And now he’s
bleeding,
too.

And now he’s laying down
with that rasp
in his breath
again.

And he’ll get up
to fight
tomorrow.

Clock runs whether you want it to or not and I’ll
smile while it ticks and I’ll grin while it clicks
and I can hang forever, strong as these hands are
so I wouldn’t get too many bright ideas, yeah?

Snowdrifts are old hat, ice is just a challenge,
cold-starting amps this beater’s got for days
and the sun comes out sometimes to help anyway,
and the trucks do their part too, now and again

there’s always change to scrape when scraping’s
on the order, and I haven’t found it yet but I
know there’s an easier way to book a nice evening
so I’ll keep my ear to the ground ’til it shows

And I guess you can drive your 22 hours down yon
every now and then and just to see what shakes
what but I’ll tell you, there’s not much for it.
Strong as these hands are, I can hang and cows
come home.

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

The winter woods have always been my home.

They do not judge the girl who walks alone.

Their skyward branches lift my spirits high,

the snow is my white blanket when I cry.

The trees have heard my songs and seen my tears,

the rocks have felt my joy and know my fears.

The mountaintops have always been my stage,

they do not judge, or tremble at my rage.

The wind will stop and listen when I speak,

the forest makes me strong when I am weak.

The winter woods have always been my home,

for the embrace the girl who walks alone.

a seashell on a wooden table
inland
so inland you’d never buy sea food here
and you hold it to your ear
because you’ve never been to the sea
and don’t know a clam shell holds
no sound
and wonder at the sand
you’ve heard is like your dirt
but finer
cleaner
less dead-moth-ridden

a book of wisdom
filled with pages
of foolishness
in the hands of many
without hope for
more
basing every decision
on being better
when the best is
nowhere near good enough
when the best is
menstrual rags
before the only One
whose opinion matters