I think of threshing out
a new life in a jungle somewhere

where you only worry about
Dengue and venomous things

The parking fines are low

Near non-existent,
I would guess

Of course,
so is the parking

I wish to go a-sailing
and ride high tides and
low swells while the ship
I cling to dearly sways
to and fro and port and
starboard

while I stare down deep
through the roiling froth
and flashing wash I
would start to know
that my wit and strength
and even my love is an
overstatement

as my muscles tense and
my eyes begin to water
I will understand
between a great blue sky
and a great green sea
how absolutely
paltry
I am

then the angels would glance
down, and so, ‘Look at my ship!’
I would say

but they would glance
away from me, again

because absolutely paltry
is an overstatement, too
among these crashing waves

oh humble potato
my hero in the dirt
destined to fulfill thy purpose
and free from the burden of ambition which so oft hampers it.

oh humble potato
destined to fulfill they purpose
my hero in the dirt

you don’t dare look your mother told you it is a monster when i open my chest wide to let out the pressure and in a moment i cannot feel the shame woah it is just me and the beast born in me which to me is an old, clever friend who licks at my face and wags its tail and jumps around on me, it’s negligent captor, only knowing of its cage and its surroundings and that i am never home with it or let it out to be pet glad to see me, like i am its father, and in the darkness it is a cruel beast with red eyes pretensed though that is i cannot disagree, much, and yeah maybe i admit that it is a bit monstrous and yeah maybe i admit it needs the cage, the malnutrition the snaps of anger i have when you walk into the room and it growls, and grumbles, and shakes its rusty cage, for the sake of civility and sanity and all of the rest but what i find to be curious and what i know to be true and what really drives me nuts and what really doesn’t seem fair is how the dark ages for me are like a renaissance for you and you parade your monsters all around town on thin leashes disregarding the damages done and it doesn’t seem fair, not one bit, for me to live in shame and hide this natural human-monster that wants only to eat and eat until it is full, and be carnivorous, and do all the bad things that your monsters secretly crave YES I WILL SAY IT your creature secretly craves this one to be let out, maybe only leashed, but even sometimes then let off growling and snorting and sniffing the dirt on your body looking for a place to lick clean of nutrients and then move right along to the next.

When I was younger
than I am now,
I’m sure I was a fool.

I am sure of it
for I have fooled myself
for some time,
it seems.

So I guess I’d like to say
that I’m sorry
if I ever worried you
but I meant every word
that I said,

and I know that,
sometimes,
words are scary.

So I see you now
through the proverbial
windows of a proverbial
ice cream parlor

and you’re on the other side
and you’re walking fast
and I’m happy for us both, I think;
I went driving hours ago
and you’re not stuck
behind the register

you leave the angel in your bed for the street
afraid that she will wake up
and want more than light-beams for blankets

you know the rent is not due
and all-around people love your pictures
but they can’t love you
not even you love you

in your eyes are the shadows of 23,000 ghosts
give or take
and as the madness sets in
you don’t know what is more real

maybe my couch would not have been good enough
for you
even if we talked all night
maybe your back was crooked beyond the repair of
any doctor
maybe it is like that

for all of us, one day

and only those who like the pain
fight through it

but what you didn’t know, robin
is that you held the hope of the world
and if your eyes saw enough
well
what are mine good for?

Last February
I saw a man in a top-hat
ride a tornado through the center of town

It was quite a spectacle
and if I wasn’t so sure we were real
I’d have chocked it up to a most excellent
CGI program

He rode out the other end of town
after just a few moments of his
monumental display,
knocking over garbage cans and even
tearing the soft roof from a parked
sports car

He was cackling with glee while
my friends and I stood and watched
and whistled through our teeth saying
Boy, I wish that was me right now.

i would reach into our mother’s womb
untagle your cords and
strangle the heavens

i would spend my time
not as a child
but a wise mentor

instead of tripping you
face-first into the table
i would catch you
in all manners of speaking
in every extensive metaphor
i would catch you

but i would give it to you straight
because i knew you could take it
because you’re fucking Jesse James
and in a past life

you were the baddest

i would show you how to lift the world as a whole
we would grow up together
and plot and scheme

good god would we plot and scheme

with our backs together

if i could make time travel backwards
and lift up all this rain
i would do it just for you,

my brother.

So after your tenth straight day
coughing and burning and
you realize you forgot how to sleep

That’s when it hits you
all at once. That’s when you realize
you’re hardly fit to be tied

Not worth the trouble to be troubled,
the commitment to be committed.

You are useless.

A wretch on the street
like a whale in a desert,
like a terrified monkey flailing
in an infinite sea

Except you’re too tired
to be terrified. You can’t even swim.

All the more useless.

I’m growing up slowly
step by step bits by bits
i’m getting a better grasp of what it is to be alive
though my heart is still immature
though my mind has yet to focus my thoughts
on what’s good –
and desires to conquer and win blurry my sight
Though sadness like a 5th season comes with
a flurry of despair,
i will not yield to or lapse into darkness
there is so much beauty left in this world
I will gather courage and borrow some of God’s strength
Surely, i too can bloom
with sunshine
i can bear good fruit:
“Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and
Self-control”

i come to you an oversized
ball of pretense
you think flies may be following me
my falling weight is just too
much for your bed springs
you can smell that i am drunk on
hormones
i burpingly lean to you
cold outside but cowering within
and vomit to you my innermost desires
of things that just cannot be
i talk to you like i am actually hunched
over a toilet
sometimes as my spine curls
it’s just thin air
and others it’s what i’ve ate
often you see blood come out

i know,
i don’t know why
you can’t stop
letting me in

i bring my head up and groan and you catch for a moment a shadow that looks healthy and young kind of like what i looked like before but then i waver and fall upon you mouth wide sucking on your skin sloppy drunk and smelling now of a mixture of disgusting neglected emotions and you know now that i am after that waterfall of validation that lies between your blank white pages

when i am sated
and i roll off you
you count the seconds
until i am asleep
and relish in the silence
who loved you before
and loves you still.

now i sit
breathing and shitting still
staring at
a door with a plastic
wooden facade

boxed in
trying to keep quiet

while the world of thoughts
whirlwind around me
laying their judgements down
silently upon this
“bath
room”

and my eyes stare down
into the marble looking
composite-vinyl
and see an odd reflection
of myself

fat, tired
eyes
faded,
grey

what awful tricks the mind plays.

Gone for months
Only to return
With flatulence

Seemed appropriate

I bleed like everyone,
of this I am certain,
and I am glad it is true;
I know that some rules
that apply to every other
man to come before me
also apply to myself

I know, as such, that time
is constant and that
life is finite and that
some things don’t work out
and that good men die sometimes
and bad ones run forever

and I know that I
will soon run out of days
to say I am a young man

And that’s not so bad
but it also means I’m
running out of days
for every other thing
too

i spill my soda onto
the grass
as i sit and watch
fawns play around
metal factory fences
the geese hate me
the ducks, too

these blotches of
grass used to be
marshland
and realizing this
i too conlcude that

these are the factories
of squatters

i stand up and the
deer take notice
a plane flies
overhead
they look away
like
i am not a threat

i am, though