Alchemy

poetry

Hovering somewhere above nowhere
I’ve begun to grow,
To see,
To create—or maybe not?
And I’m only in the likeness, the likeness of a creator.
But I did what I did and on my own.
I’ve created too—it was my strength,
My effort,
My abilities—or was it?
And I can’t tell:
Should I be Victor or not? Should I hate me, who I am?
What I’ve created—what’s created me?
Not average, no, not at all.
Larger than life—and yet? Still in it. A part of it.
I’m incorrectly labeled,
Who?
Which?
What—am I?
And most of all why?
Why am I the monster—or am I?
But don’t ask me.
I don’t know.
And even what I do I’ll never tell.
There’s no jade skin, there’s no bolt through my skull,
But there’s a horror story.
My brain (is it mine?) tears at itself
Searching/not searching finding/not finding
Still wondering/convinced (and unconvinced)
Idontknowmaybepossiblyperhapscouldbe
STOP! JUST STOP!
But I doubt it just the same.
Wishing I could shake it
Hidden away in a babushka doll
Layers Layers Layers
Layers Layers Layers Layers
Layers Layers Layers Layers
Building a barricade you can’t break down.
Open it up, you can’t—can you?
I’ve got padlocks on each with no combos.
Crack me open, there’s only more shell underneath.
You can’t.
I don’t.
I might—do I want to?
Does the creator hate what he’s created?
Is it fear? Fear of truth? Fearing that I really am hated?
Or fear, fear that I’m wrong.
All wrong.
Is it fear that that I’m not hated?
Not all on me?
Not a monster?
Not alone?
Not at all.
Fear of what I really am?
Fear that maybe—I’m loved?

when i was a kid my dad used to try to gross people out by saying bread was really just yeast fart. cheese was something similar. just farts. thats what those holes are in swiss. believe it or not thats what it basically boils down to. unless my mother was right about fart being a medical term standing for flatal anal rectal transmission in which case it would be a lie. after all how can yeast rectally transmit if it lacks both anus and rectum? how? this is the thought i leave you with before i drop some rhymes up in her.

poetry

i’ll serve you on bread
or better yet a cracker
insufficient you be
all alone
in want of a snacker
but with my love for you
comes love for yeast farts too
i’ll cut you up in pieces
my illustrious cheeses

favorite bland

poetry

dumping ashtrays in parking lots
on brochures about the effective-
ness of time as a decomposition
agent,
lighting fire to the pedestrians
in the nova,
saturday before the big let-down
sure was fun,
was wild,
like your eyes.

stranded and strung out chasing
strippers,
sex
and
success
’round the street from
old men in book stores closing
down gotta love kalamazoo,
michigan,
the homeless.

oh why i gotta love the break
down like i loved the build-
up aint so easy to understand
staring at this whole thing,
this whole big thing,
running away again.

Noughts and Crosses

poetry

The little girl next to me
is playing noughts and crosses
by herself.
I’m not quite sure who’s winning
but she’s a skillful player.
She doesn’t know i’m watching,
probably because she’s
concentrating
twice as hard.
Noughts went first last game,
now it’s crosses.
I’m eager to interrupt, offer a
spare set of hands,
a new perspective.
But then again, maybe the rest of us
have been playing it wrong
all along.

The Founding of Boston, Or: How to Build The Worst Place in the World (A Revision)

poetry

Step 1: Abolish the Sun

surreptitiously slip it under the mattress
inside the air duct or wrapped up in a pair of soiled socks.
that shit should be harder to find than porn.
it should be gone so long people forget its color forget its purpose
forget the fact we orbit the fucking thing and begin to think
earth drifts listlessly on a blank page.

Step 2: Institute Permanent Cloud Cover

throw a big sheet of depressing gloom over the sky
it should be soaked thick with soviet cement
so uniformly it numbs minds
crushes souls acts as a collective headstone
making people constantly contemplate
and compose inevitable epitaphs.

Step 3: Mandate Rain

get those fuckers wet.
go ahead and reroute the seas to the skies
and revise the water cycle to skip condensation
in compensation for perpetual precipitation.
it should soak through boots socks skin sink in to bones
till they’re less likes stones more like foam.
it should create standing puddles so immense passing cars
kick tidal waves—or sink like ships into an abyss.

Step 4: Decree Decreased Temperatures

slow down molecules to a near fucking standstill
but never grant them the soft relief of an absolute zero sleep.
it should be so cold skin dries cracks bleeds without provocation.
passing pedestrians should be reduced to pairs of eyes
peering hopelessly from piles of outerwear
on the precipice of petrification.

Step 5: Enact Gale-Force Gusts

let trees street signs and people bend at seventy degree angles.
it should be so windy windows shake nearly shattering
rain from step three should be redirected horizontally
and together with the wind should pluck umbrellas from fierce grips
turn them inside out or send them sailing
leaving the defeated drenched denizens woefully wondering
“Why the fuck do I live here?”

We sure did play a lot of music together.

poetry

There’s a talk we always used to have
we’ll never have again
and now I miss you already
but that’s just how these
things gotta go, you know?

And that project that we started
last March, if I remember right
I guess we’ll never finish like you
wanted to. But I guess that’s
gotta be okay now. I guess
that’s what we’ll work with.

But Man,
it’s gonna be hard working
without you.

it’s that time of the year again

poetry

i’d like to hit the road,
and i’d just like to go
out into the roads of America,
where i could watch it all roll by
from the back of a pickup truck
or the passenger seat of a car,
picked up by whomever,
whenever,
wherever,
so long as i just go,
exploring,
traveling,
leaving
with only a bag and a whistle,
and perhaps a stick or two,
and a can of beans at night,
shared with a good friend,
met perhaps by chance
but still a friend for the night.

but there’s just one hitch in my hike,
that no one would pick me up,
but would instead see my lack
of matted facial hair,
or of straggly hair, blowing in the wind,
and of features made hard by the sun;
and i would be given just a passing thought
that i must be a serial killer,
running away from trouble back home.

even if i never have sex again,

poetry

and it’s all your fault,
i won’t hold it against you,
and i’ll still love you
because it was not your fault
but only natural
to come between us
to separate us
to keep us apart
whether we wanted to be
or not;
and you have your needs,
and i have mine
and nothing,
nothing i say,
nothing you do
is going to change that;
so we’ll go on this way:
never looking back;
never turning aside;
never regretting;
never having sex again.

heaven for a moment on earth. oh and then immediately followed by earth. we didn’t leave afterall. they’re drug addicts. not millionaires. what are they going to buy tickets on one of those private spaceships and fly off so they can be weightless and claim ‘heaven above earth?’ i don’t think so. they’re drug addicts. not millionaires.

poetry

‘plimsoles’ they called them
in their not-forgotten
british background best english
and we strode thirty of us
in line up a mountain
single file
(don’t disturb the traffic)
(don’t die en route)
to a waterfall
you were surprised i’d never been
and smiles on faces that never
smile
lit up and dove in
i sat for 30 minutes under the pounding
water in my shorts
i watched in silence
heavy water drowning out the joy around
me
so i can enjoy mine

then we stop, add shoes, shirts
and stride thirty of us
in line up a mountain
single file
(don’t disturb the traffic)
(don’t die en route)
to a hellhole we named ‘home’

Soft Eyes

poetry

Soft eyes
sometimes
sometimes not
so soft
but do they cut!
oh, do they stab and
do they wound! I
hardly find the time
to parry those soft
eyes of yours. I
hardly ever find
the time to parry.
Oh, your eyes, they
strike so
deeply.

9:07 last thursday morning

poetry

I watched a man-
a construction worker-
eat a sandwich at
a huge picture
window, a fifth story window.

Outside the snow slowed to
a float, flakes
suspended in the grey
New England morning.

He sat heavy on
an upturned crate and
chewed, looked out the window
over his shoulder at
the slabby world around him.

Outside light snow rose upward
past him on the
opposite side of the
glass and hung, hovered – paused.

He wiped the corners of
his mouth and
gazed hard one more time,

tossed the wrapper to
the ground, pressed hands
to knees,
lifted,
and strode back to building.

Outside snow sifted
downward again,
finely,
then furiously.

Sprung

poetry

Recently—only a moment ago
Snowed mountain ranges landscaped
Vehicles into knolls
Cities into still frames
And then to look in my backyard
With tulips pushing through
Crocuses already in bloom
Spring—Resurrection
A time for planting
Dusting off wicker rocking chairs
Dreamily hazily on the front porch
Greeting the neighbors as they pass
Getting to know why, again

fair weather fan

poetry

i’d love to pour into something
like i used to pour into you and
stop believing i’m a better man
with a slightly elevated blood-alcohol content

i’d love to love something like
i love my pipe. my tea. my beer.
to find a love affair like that
with paper

instead its the pages i never fill
the words i never write on white
in black or blue pen
it’s empty notebooks i feel somehow
begin to lose heart at their unloved fate
wishing ‘if only a true lover of words
had embraced me’

every now and again,

poetry

i still count your toes,
just in case one happened
to grow overnight,
perhaps sticking out askew,
or hiding beneath the others,
trying to not be seen,
trying to hide the freak within;
and if you did have an extra digit
or even four, i really wouldn’t care
and i might even love you more
for openly embracing the freak within.

“synide, virtue, constipation” – in hope it’s never been done before

poetry

a pianist knows his next note
by virtue of the previous and
his fingers follow by leading him
where to go

in much the same way my thoughts
spill forth from my mouth as victims of
every word spoken to me over
the years and i feel trapped in
shrink-wrapped reworked quotes
plagiarizing vomit from other mouths

lost

unable to paint a canvas
of my own without my fingers
following learned instinct

knowing just what to say after this
word because
they’ve

heard it all before.

It’s Just I Get This Feeling

poetry

Some of you
you try so hard
I understand
you’re trying

but I wonder
do you get
all of the things
you seem to get
or are you lying?

paint a picture
show it to me
will the brush marks
stand the scrutiny?
Dear I wonder
do you get it?
Yes, I understand
you’re trying
but I can’t be sure
you’re half
you say you are

To Be Half

poetry

I. Thoughts

I imagine your [           ] on the other side of the world
how the [                       ] softly against skin as you [            ]
seashell seaweed jetsam-peppered sand
[                           ] so as not to break skin
You: contemplating [                      ]
carefully selecting one suitable for sitting, then: [            ]
now: drawing legs up [                   ] them with arms
a socially acceptable [                ]

II. The time apart

:as death
:slowly disappearing
:is another place of absence
:although it is inevitable that
:will forget me
:as close to the end as possible
:freckled
:meant for me.

III. The Shore

I imagine your life on the other side of the world                 :as death
how the sunlight presses softly against skin as you walk :slowly disappearing
seashell seaweed jetsam-peppered sand                                :is another place of absence
stepping softly so as not to break skin                                    :although it is inevitable that
You: contemplating shoreline stones                                      :will forget me
carefully selecting one suitable for sitting, then: sitting    :as close to the end as possible
now: drawing legs up encircling them with arms               :freckled
a socially acceptable self-hug                                                   :meant for me.

nightmares, government, love

poetry

sleeping with your memories
can make for a bad night laying
in bed all day next day thinking
(circles)
going on for hours about how
they are here to get you or will
be soon, you are sleeping in a
(square)
sweating through the ghosts
shooting glances at your love,
in the back of your eyes like
(stars)