how many freezing winds has winter breathed in this man’s face to carve lines so finger deep? and when did these twisted, ashen roots spring forth to replace his fingers? these could not be the fingers of his youth. even young man’s hands do not play claw as well as these. it is these claws that must have filled his mouth with hay. his voice is thick with paper, kicking out of his throat with every bullet sentence.

still, he is the cardboard delivery man who looks the most like a cardboard delivery man. his coat, his hat, his boots, are the clothes of his profession. the snow knows to ignore shoulders sloped like his, the cold has given up its assault on his toes. his hands, twisted as they are, lift and push the cardboard as if we were meant to watch this. and his voice, grappling its way down the shotgun of his throat, barks orders so efficient we begin to learn dance like him.

under his strict guidance, the back of the truck blazes and we all turn lightbulb, so fast are we firing cardboard onto the dock and into the warehouse. the cold turns around and goes home. our aching arms stop creaking so loud. our grease remembers what it is here for. it takes mere minutes to empty the truck, so cardboard delivery man is this delivery man.

when he goes home, does he keep everything on the counter in order to avoid opening a single box? does his wife massage lotion into his shriveling skin? does he throw off his beaten clothes and drape himself in furs? I imagine instead that he sleeps on a stack of cardboard. that he loves the smell. that he knows he is the best, and proudly teaches his child grace, waltzing boxes back and forth across the living room.

and if he ever dies, and I wonder if it is possible, I imagine him buried in a box made of cardboard. I imagine

he would want it that way.

Where men are finished with their speeches and can finally hear God
I hold my arms above my head and gravity pulls them down against my muscles
And I can hear the earth spinning—all the groaning of millenniums—
Trucks braking on abandoned highways, wheat stalks bending in forgotten fields,
And all of it spinning—held close—and forever fragilely intact,
With the precarious balance of a top—that in a moment it should fall.

we align our shoulders to roll balls
of wax across a slippery ice surface
and handle toilet paper in to wads
to stop the momentum.

#wowisucklately

And in the perfect chill evenings
of this little city I am happy
And maybe the happiest man on
this little green Earth and
I don’t know much about anything
really but I know how it feels
when I breathe in this perfect
chill evening and this little city
keeps on singing it’s catchy
little song

i feel i’ve planted something
here, by this place for words
but forgotten to water it or
something equally as life
threatening. i return with some
regularity to check on things but
find the withering distressing
and move on, blaming my lack
of a green thumb for the death
here. the decay. but I know a
bit of elbow grease and forgetting
for a moment myself for the sake
of these organisms would do some
good. i’m just unsure of how to
proceed from here. i know its
hard to begin to kneel and get to
the work when your back is
out of shape from lack of kneeling.

and these fingers. they need newly
acquired calluses.

i can’t believe these new surroundings
are smelly like this
and the grass grows so thick
i can rub my toes through it
(you know, it it weren’t covered in dog poo)

the driver says this is what it’s like
and i should get used to the rain
and the grey.

the neighbors tell me it doesn’t bother
them.

the police work with the shades closed
and terrible dark blinky blue lights
reflecting off pale white walls and
a grey ceiling somehow pretending they’re
not in deep depression, or perhaps
genuinely happy.

who knows.

but foolishness and foolheartedness,
and fattiness will be life.

thusforth.

Roads run red in New York City
or so I hear from time to time
on various news-stations speaking
over stereos and PAs in public
houses and restaurants

But here I sit at 25 years
and I’ve played a few parties for
guests who I knew would never
arrive but those times were the
hardest that I’d ever played

And blood in streets doesn’t
scare me, much, but bodies in
boxes bother me more than I’d
really care to admit right now

And I want to sing a lot of songs
but none of them really say
all the right words in just the
right order

So this sappy poem will have to do

the one who knows
does not worry about the future
or about the myriad of reasons
condemning him to drudgery

he maybe of mud, but he knows
as long he breathes, he breathes

and when, he loves- he loves
not just when it’s convenient or
comfortable

he does not acclimate
to seasonal pettiness or
begrudge in silence
he speaks his mind

he shows you the end of the road
says “what have you done?”

when you’re trying to hide from your
mistakes or from
all the time wasted

he changes your mind, but will not
cash up on the lies you’ve given him

he may be too late to catch on
on what’s floating in your mind
but he is not indifferent

he sees the good in you
he wishes to read happy endings in
the palms of your hands

but the one who knows
knows he knows nothing at all

he simply puts forward a sincere heart

uprooted for weeks
in the in-between
waiting in nothing
living with nothing
hoping for little
until the dust settles
and is swept away
then replaced with
new carpet and the
sunshine is removed
for rain and gray
because life sometimes
throws you a fastball
you mistake as a
curveball but discover
altogether too late
to do anything about it.

at that point you’re
already settled.
waiting on nothing
living with little
and hoping for nothing.