i’d say this made me
a better person but we would all know it was a lie.
it does nothing to add or take
away (for that matter)
from my personhood-awesomeness
factor.

rather it makes me a more approachable
man.

it makes me seem down to earth
(as i’m stuck down in it)
and open’s people’s minds to hear
what i might say
think
or do.

they don’t look at me and my aesthetic
and open up naturally.
my beard ruined that possibility
(though they do giggle sometimes).

but this.
this of all things,
brings a personal note they love
adore
relate to.

opens doors otherwise closed
and lets the air in to filter
out the smoke.

You told me
you are a firm believer
in the Oxford comma. Baby
THAT
is fucking sexy.

even defacating is lonely
without your cell-o-phone friends
in the place where your
bad dreams wander into daylight
in the place where they pay you
to sift below the lazy pyramid
it’s okay, it’s your day off
drop acid.

no these words will not do you justice
just as they entirely failed me.
leaving me to grope around in the dark
chasing after a poet teachers said i
wrote like, and then later—forgetting—
they told me said
poet should have stuck to editing
and i just stared in response.
because that’s what words do, they fail.

or maybe it’s me who fails them and you’ll suffer an entirely different fate.

the heat went out
and we all pretended like
it wasn’t the third time,
like we could still blame
somebody else. So we
bundled up and played guitars
and card fames and
got the boiler running enough
to spackle our rooms with
limited flame whispers and
heat licks like warm water
was less necessary (so we
showered somewhere else).
And the whole time we were
singing and drinking in
defiant opposition of the suited
men who held hostage our oil and
we never even called them
or cared to check our bills.

i’m fairly certain this will make me feel manly,
or look manly
or be manly.
what’s a man anymore?

We could have dashed away
in the deep dark night
and never venture to cross our paths
again

we shared our warmths
instead
and counted headlights on the highway

and I never considered
the deep dark night
again

I promise
to be always your lamplight.
Rooted outside your window even
when the cold is breaking me.
And always your room
will be lit by my bulb,
even dimly, sometimes,
but I will glow if I can, when
I can’t, I will flicker
your fingers and nightlight
your walk home. Though I
cannot claim to be
the brightest light you will find,
I will be constant, and will
be your window’s sunrise.
There will be days I may start
to burn you. I will try to
not be the fire and only
the light, I am sorry
when I don’t get that right.
And

I promise
to be always your window
I will show you
the most beautiful things.
Lay your head near me;
hear how easy you make
my wind breath. Let me
whisper you lilac, and
cool your pillow before
you sleep. I cannot claim
to be the world, but I can
show it to you, and what you
want to, you can see through me.
There will be
days when I will not open,
when the force of your
fingers even cannot pry
fresh air from me,
when this happens,
I am sorry. And

I promise
to be always your pillow.
Yes lumpy, yes old, yes
imperfect and feather leaking;
I know I am like this
in the same way I know I am yours.
I cannot claim to be the silk
or the dream, but I can always
try to help you to sleep.
You may rest your head on me
at the end of each long day,
I was made just to carry that weight,
I can promise you that.

yea, i’ve been distracted.
uhuh, it’s been bad.

my mind has gone places
i wish i could bring it back from
but the beach it’s found there
is wide and the sand is white,
the water is clear and warm
and the mountains are something
of a comfort to a soul that’s simply
tired of fighting the good fight
and want’s a rest.

the problem is my mind
left my body behind to fight
and void of intellect my body
isn’t fighting very well.

sure sword is in hand
and the battlefield is where
i’m standing, but i’m uncertain
if i’m facing the enemy or my
own combatants. what color
are we? are we home or away?
and why are all the commands
of my leadership seemingly in
a language i cant understand?

my mind has gone places i wish
i could bring it back from, but it’s
told me on no uncertain terms that
it expects me to win this one
on my own. when the battleground
is clear, then, and only then will
it brave leaving the beaches behind
for the dumpster that my body
has become.

She never heard a disparaging remark
as beautiful as when he said ‘I love you’
but they were still going to drag him away
and kill him.

Now she sits alone every night and drinks
but it’s not to forget, she
just likes the taste of liquor
and the soft bread she soaks in it

When he comes back she’ll be better
or she tells herself as much
but that cold blood puts a damper on things

Then, she was a bright morning flower;
Now, but a pile of pedals on a concrete floor

for these wounds
keep healing
faster than i can re-open them

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.