water not the weeds
that grow down your spine
and have the determination
to cull them eternally
for i remember when i noticed them
at least five years ago

i said aloud to my friends:
“why these weeds on my
straight and narrow spine
they have to go!”

a young man still, feeling
very old at heart i sit
crooked, wavering
trying not to feed the weeds

do not prevent them,
the weeds
do not loathe them and
bring them rain
just do not feed them
and cut them down when you can

and never tell of them
your friends

the weeds that will grow
on your spine
inevitably.

It snowed for six straight days
and on the seventh there was nothing
but white and a few
footprints from the bravest souls
and I looked out on the emptiness
and was overcome by awe and fear
and for a moment I
was sure that I was dead

But then a cold blast of air
struck me, as a door swung
wide, and with great relief
I knew that I hadn’t
nothing to fear
after all.

With great relief
I knew that I would live
to freeze another day.

Sometimes when I’m sitting in class I get bored and I start to think about ridiculous things like eating my weight in raw-unpeeled potatoes or cliff diving from absurd heights in to freezing cold water while wearing a clown suit. But somehow no matter hard I work I can’t distract myself well enough to check out.

no altruism i felt at then
your eyes drifted t’ward me
like some ghostly wet dream

a modern temptress sent by
fate in an aged rotting package,
another hannah

i kept my mouth shut
like how i keep my pen
when love stops reading

the half-baked moon whispered
to me secrets i already knew
and i’m sick, sick with feeling.

Teeth are chattering in the other room
in worry and also from the awful cold
but their mouths are still grinning

There will be no admittance of fear
nor show of weakness
even as the sun sets on these things
and the wind blows that much
colder

And these teeth and mouths
will freeze and die
on the third day; when they realize
that they were wrong all along
but it’s too late
to do anything about it

We hate cliches
if you ask.
We always thought a story
would be better if
the bad guy won,
or if he didn’t
get the girl,
or she dies,
or

whatever.

But the truth is
despite all the times we
listen to a Pink Floyd album
all the way through,
our favorite songs
have always been the ones
that we dance to,
and that sexy
four-on-the-floor
funk beat,
or glittering synthesizer line,
or a one-word chorus
or

whatever.

Never if you ask though

i’m an artist dammit
and i don’t need you
giving me your opinion on
the curvature of my
sculptures or the shading
of my paintings.

sure art is subjective
except for mine you asshole.

my melodies are objectively
beautiful, my stick figures
objectively perfect and
my nude self-photography
accomplishes exactly what i
was going for and objectively
what you wanted it to.

i’m an artist dammit
and this live exhibition
i’m doing here on this
street is a piece i’ve been
working on for months so, no,
it isn’t my fault if you’re
too stupid to see the work
that went in to the smell in
my dreadlocked hair and the
perfection in the placement
of the holes in my pants.

and i couldn’t give a shit
if you think something inferior
of my objective superiority.

there’s nothing worse than
losing the event you’re good at
outright

and watching the grinning faces
of those whom you considered
contemporaries

it doesn’t quite matter the
arena or the time or
conditions

there’s nothing worse than
losing your reason for
waking

unless, of course, you include
losing it twice, or three times
onwards.

there is that feeling
you get
(not me but you)
(not a universal you, but you)
where one minute you’re
(you you, not all of us)
on top of the world and then
you (… you get the idea)
just fall

and i
(all of us)
stood there
watching not entirely helpless
to do something
but doing nothing nonetheless

nature is a prudish lover
and will not give secrets first
you must learn to win
them honestly
or not at all,
i’m afraid

for without you may
well kiss the wind
but the wind
will not
kiss you,
back.

Sometimes I roll a die
and a number comes up
and that’s my number
and I have to deal with that
for good or ill
and sometimes I lose the game
and sometimes I just lose
everything
but I have to deal with that
and if there’s one thing
that I have learned in my years,
sir,
it’s that if someone hands you dice
and you don’t know them
and they ask you to roll those bones,
why,
it’s time to head home,
to your friends and family,
and make yourself a sure bet

i hide my face
from the eyes
of the passerby’s
looking down
from the bridge
i’m on at the crowded
street on the
fourth sunday
since we said
we’d meet. i came
again, but
i know you haven’t been waiting for me.

My feet get gold
even through my boots
but I wear them anyway
because at least they don’ get wet
and dry feet are important
every day of your life
and there isn’t any reason
not to wear those boots
unless I don’t care about
wet feet no more
but the lady likes them
so there really isn’t
any good reason
at all

as the snow comes back a
subconcious picture of you
burnt in the screen
a microscopic mostly-
see-through-bug on my
eyeball
wriggles around all day
and my friends never liked you
except the ones who loved you

i wonder what you’re doing now
loving someone else like i am?
or wriggling around

or falling to the ground

as the snow that comes back
to michigan.

I want to lay down with you
the way the shadow of the cloud
lays down on the mountain. Gentle
as a sigh. The moon is bright, tonight,
brighter than I’ve ever caught it,
like a circle ripped out of the sky,
might it be that it shines to remind me
that you are shining, like always,
lighting my way to the sky.

i could not drink the monster’s cup
but i could stand amidst his fury
i would not claim to be a hero
i just like to prove that i won’t fold
the monster lashed out at his daughter
and i thought i’d rather die
than see honesty destroyed over
drunken sunset tired ineffable anger from
her father the big white monster drinking
vodka from a cup
he called it eggnog
i called it vodka milk and icecubes
he looked at me and then he smirked
he should have rapped me once at least
one real fucking good one on my thinker
for i am 5’9 and have the fight of a
newborn baby bird flapping violently
plunging t’wards the parking
lot.

I wrote one about a fighter
with a big date coming up
and he was on top of the world
and that purse was going to
retire him
and partner, he couldn’t be
any happier

And the date was rigged but
nobody told John that
the other guy, he was going
to switch gloves in the
fourth round, and those gloves
were filled with birdshot

so John got hit and in the face
and hard, too. He went down
fast in the fourth round, and
it looked like he would never,
ever,
fight again

And I didn’t write a
come-back story,
so he never, ever did.

i know the crickets sounds
will grow with time
and overwhelm the beating
of my heart
in the grass near my
head as they inch
out towards my nose
and my toes grow further
numb buried in the sand
below me.

can’t press this
duh nuh nuh nuh, nuh nuh, bump bump
can’t press this
duh nuh nuh nuh, nuh nuh, bump bump

yo i’ve been around the world
from san fran to LA
and everywhere i travel,
wordpress and various copyright restrictions always say

can’t press this
duh nuh nuh nuh, nuh nuh, bump bump
can’t press this
duh nuh nuh nuh, nuh nuh, bump bump