i’ve got these friends,

poetry

good, good friends;
who i know everything about;
who know nothing about me;
and with these friends,
i’m always happy to be,
just sitting back
watching their every move,
listening to their every word,
slightly detached,
as if they’re far away,
separated by a pane of glass,
the windows that i watch them through.

and sometimes i talk;
or at times i shout;
i’ve even whispered,
but they never seem to hear,
never seem to change;
just keep going their own way,
doing their own thing,
doing what they do,
oblivious of me,
oblivious of my presence,
oblivious of my love.
but still i watch;
but still i will watch,
until they learn to love me.

circus

poetry

i buy tickets to the circus sometimes
with spare
hidden
paychecks.
and i am enamored, i suppose,
by the beauty and the tact of the
horses with the long black mains
(although i am not sure of
what breed).
i think for a moment about
another life
where i am a horse trainer
and i bask in their majesty.
for these moments
rapt in contradiction
never last.

i am sure if i trained horses
i would hate them too.

so i get up before the lights
have raised
(with the idea of anonymity)
walk out to the parking lot
and commute back to my
home
which will never be just right

as long as it’s mine.

Shake

poetry

and baby I’d shake you
just as hard as I could
yeah baby, i’d shake
just as long as it took
oh baby, I’d bring you
on back, way back home
and we’d be here forever
and we’d be here together
oh, baby i’d shake you
if only I could

Promise

poetry

The music is
it is it is
and how it lives
it lives, oh
how it lives!

The bass it throbs
and all those frilly
fills flutter o’er
top of everything
and that’s the part
that sings, it sings
I swear we’ll make it sing

philosopoem? hmm… that sounds crappy. poetrosophy? fail. ah well…

poetry

the hopeless romantic has a problem.
if he’s truly a romantic it will end well
which will ruin the plight he’s learned
to love.
said plight, gone from life, makes the
romantic struggle. how can he be optimistic
about the future when the now is so
good?
we learn to enjoy our lives in hope
for hope is necessary to endure the now
and then the hope is realized. and we’re
at a loss no longer in need of hope
but of thankfulness.

and so i begin to ponder my favorite
bands/poets/writers/thinkers of old.
how can they feel the way they do

still?

it’s been 15 years. is that girl still just
out of reach? why haven’t they caught
her? fear of a lost muse?

Orange bag

poetry

I left an orange in my bag, oops
The mess was horrific
Over lining, zips, and flaps

For days and weeks,
Everything I owned smelt like fruit
Everywhere i went was fruit

Libraries became orchards
And bedrooms became an
Endless garden of Eden

My mood began to ripen
As i forgot about
Fruitless, damaging things.

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’