I stood for a moment in reverence and silence
watching the moon hang in the sky.
It’s glow was a great beacon. It curled my eyes a bit.
Continents sailed above me from one end of the universe
to places far distant, and on important duty,
I’m sure of it.

I got the car back down the road and my view became
yellow lines and glowing signs and not a star at all.
The trees are thick in most places, and always
at the tops of the hills that are big enough
to show me the sky for a moment.

When I finally stopped driving it was daylight again
and those nation-states had made their appointments.
My eyes still curled, a bit more even. The sun was bright.
I had money in my pocket for a plate at a diner and
a beer across the street. It was the best beer I’d had yet.

I’d give up that plate to know whether I’d ever see
the moon like that again. At least then I’d know
not to get my hopes up most nights.
I’d give up that beer to see
the moon like that again. Beer is such a
transient thing, anyway.

a different life source;
something from inside this
time, and i picture the kid
who just found it staring
down at his chest and thinking
“that was different.” wondering
from whence it came, and if
it plans on staying around
because there are a few fields
he can think of sprinting through
a little faster than ever
before, if this after-burner
is going to stick around.

and that bmx track? he bets
he can fly around the graded
corners a little bit different
than he has before.

and he just stands there
imagining the possibilities
(if this is going to last)
for a few minutes as the revelation
of what just happened is a bit
much to take in right now.

but that grin, as he stares down
at his chest, that grin just keeps
growing on his face and it’s
like a light has been
turned on inside.

He reached out to touch you once
but you were gone just like before
so I asked why he kept reaching

with all the sweat on his brow
and the tears in his shirt
and the holes worn in the soles
of his old Nike sneakers
he couldn’t answer

I asked what kept him going
if not the burnt black coffee
from roadside diners or the
sticky wads of deep-fried dough
and he didn’t have an answer
for that one, either

I asked him why he didn’t
just head back home, where
his recliner sat at just
the right angle so there was
never any glare on his
42 inch television, even at
4pm and even though he had
a big west-facing window

He didn’t even try to
rationalize, and instead
just started hiking for to
reach another time and so

Baby,

you’d better wait up a bit
because if that’s not love,
then there ain’t none
in this world, anyway

A happy smile,
a snappy remark,
a twinkling eye,
a firm handshake.
The things we do,
to feel accepted,
to be aknowledged,
to feel good.

We’d kill,
for you to like us.

For Tara

We sat, naked on my bed
and smoked my last two cigarettes:
The ship captain and
the Queen of France
on a raft made
of loose change and pocket lint.
You breathed the clouds out
of the rising sun’s view as I
whispered cardinal calls with
my lips pressed against your neck.
“Cling tight to the window, darling!”
I shouted, in my most hushed tone
“Morning’s ahoy”
And you laughed in the sunrise
as the light splashed through the window
so holy
I could have sworn
your voice was church bells on Sunday.
Noon struck us
like lightning molasses
too sudden
for all its slow sweetness
Only hunger
chased us, eventually, out of bed
you waltzing, and me
still tripping on my morning
baby doe legs
The sunlight
too bright for either of us
but still beautiful.

When our brief tour of
my neighborhood came to it’s
local sandwich shop conclusion
I surveyed the streets we had
just stumbled through
and promised myself to someday
promise you
all of it.

I built you a house
in my head, that day
Gigantic, at first
Then, slowly shrinking inwards
until it was the size of a room
anchored to a meadow by
a window with
no blinds. Close,
but not too close
to a sandwich shop
where we could eat breakfast
and childishly smile
at each other, each morning.

The house
the size of a bed now. Just big enough
that I could hold you and
watch your eyes herald in the morning
and mark each day holy
with your smile.

How about an invention?
A reinvention, a reimagining.
Now I know we can’t turn time,
but we can pretend.
Can’t we?
We’ll lose some weight,
get some plastic,
grow some hair
(or lose some).
Hell I could reinvent myself,
in just a day,
a second,
won’t take long.
I’ve done it before,
I can do it again.
As a snake sheds its skin,
I’ll shed myself.
We’ll become anew.
But then,
isn’t a snake still the snake?
A butterfly still the same catepillar,
with pretty new wings?

the warrior is shackled
and puts his blade
to use cutting appetizers
to sate the gluttons
and the all-gods of money
be they mystical
or real as the shackles

the cutting
lasts for 8 or more hours
a day

and then his hut for sleep

and then back again

and he might do this forever

but maybe his shackles
are made out of pride.

I live
in the dark finger of space
between two fences. One
on the formless neighbor’s side
and one on ours. In
a two sided attempt at
keeping each other out
by building
taller and taller fences
we have trapped an armpit inch to
permanently become what
no man tries to own.
So I burrow my secrets through
holes and
over the top, into the crack
and have named that spot after all
my bad habits and poor judgments.
I record my
petty lies just quiet enough they
never make it out
the other side, instead they
gather at the bottom like
broken leaves and cobwebs just
waiting
for my digressions
to burst the poor fence open
and wash away
my childhood home
in a tidal wave of hidden
personal shames
I’ve only spelt out here.
Some days
I get so goddamn remorseful
I worry all the
ants I’ve ever stepped on
have been reincarnated as bigger
ants
and are under my bed
just waiting to swarm me
in my sleep.
And the ants don’t scare me
as much as
the concept of retribution.
So I bury apologies
through the cracks in the fence
to the crack between the fences
because there is a very real possibility
that I might actually have hurt some people
that my petty lies combined
might weigh too much.
I’ve filled the fence to overflowing
with every small misdeed
that I commit
Tagged
with an excuse
and a note that says “I’m sorry”
“I’m sorry
that I hold parts of myself behind a fence
that I tuck the
ugly things
into the nothing between slats.
That I try to deny
myself humanity that way.”
I write this same apology
over and over
until my hand cramps too hard
to keep moving.
I have always
been afraid of retribution so
I wrap all my admittances in
the same silk apologies
hard knuckle pressed into fences
and forget them as strong as I can.
It’s easy for a boy to forget that he’s a man.
It’s a lot harder for him to accept it.
I’ve put this fence up
and I don’t know how to knock it down
I don’t know how
to allow myself the
most foolish pleasure of
openly wearing my flaws
It’s hard to see into this fence
And it’s hard to get out.

I walk city streets sometimes and I
understand a few things here and there
and I can see where you’re coming from
about the used-to-been’s and the
back in the days

All your clothes are kind of worn
from long, too long, spent
pulling levers and filling tanks
and counting and sorting and
you were the best, I’m sure

But I’ll tell it to you straight
as I can, and i don’t want you
to be upset, so I hope you can
take it, but
there’s never been any honor
in the scent of gasoline and
beef jerky

I wish you could walk these streets
just like I do and I wish that
here and there some things would
come together but you’re still wearing
your company jacket and still
rattling off line-counts and
pressure ratings

and the gas smell has more or less
come out of all of your slacks
but jerky, so I’ve been told,
is still two-for-one at the
Stop’N’Go on 12th street

oh the horror of the mold
on the edge of the cheese
which wont be removed with
the swift slice of a knife
despite your prowess in
wielding objects of the
sharp assortment because
the mold is merely a metaphor
of something much harder to
extract from your worthless
life. the kind once valuable
but stored for much too long
in an environment much too
stale and humid, hence the
mold. you were asked about
this at 17, when you admitted
you knew not the meaning
of life, but you chose to
live on anyhow. like that
cheese — under-refrigerated.

oh the horror of the
worthlessness of meaningless
life rubbed in your face on
this long drive between home
and your old home where your
parents live but you were too
ball-less to move far enough
away to make a clean break
and find direction and do
something worthwhile.

yes
your life is meaningless.

and not because of your
dead-end job at the local
coffee shop. but because your
passion dried up in jr. high
when you turned down the only
thing you ever knew was
undeniably true.

Dear Tara.
I know you know this: every minute that has passed since I last opened my eyes against yours has been an increasingly stretched hour. I am considering naming each day that passes without inhaling your exhale at least one time, a week. I sincerely hope you will not find the age that I will be freshly wearing the next time you see me unattractive; but each month that I don’t see you buries itself so jarring against my skin that I have wrinkled harder than my twenty years are worth.

What I mean is, my watch and calendar have conspired against me. Sometimes I lie down and close my eyes as if to sleep, and open them an hour later to see them proclaim it already the next day. The sun is in on it too. They all tell me I just miss you a day’s worth each hour.

If this were true, it would help explain how few sunrises I have seen in the year since our fingers unlaced.

I have been wearing your memory heavy, like a wool perfume; it often overwhelms me with warmth and sweetness, and even strangers have noticed how lovesoaked I am.

What I mean is, the letters in your name sometimes fill my mouth so aggressively, they spill out quicker than I can catch them. They have flooded the rooms of a handful of strangers, who are now also vowing their love for you. I have told them that whenever they are ready, I have an open challenge for a race from here, to you.

Because I have no other choice, I will win.

The problem with two asteroids falling in love is that they have a whole lot of space to fill. And so sometimes, the radius of their orbit around each other needs to expand. And with every inch outward, space gets a whole lot bigger and a whole lot colder.

What I mean, is I have written “home” between my arms, and will someday bring you home.

What I mean, is I miss you. Come home to me.

What I mean, is I will see you soon. It will never be soon enough.

For Tara

There are nights that hold
a handful of seconds,
brief like breathing out,
during which
the stars line up perfectly
to make monkey bars from you
to me. Know this:
If it ever lasts longer
than my eyes can stay open,
you can be sure,
I’ve been training for this voyage a long time.
I’m going to ride the sky to you.

i dwell on invincibility
when time is short
and worthwhile thought
will probably drive useful
conclusions but take
utterly too much time.

so i stand in front of busses
and fly off of cliffs,
out of airplanes and
underwater
in my mind
because it takes me nowhere
of any value

my favorite place to be

silence is real
in speech lies confusion
there is nothing we can share

I night only lasts so long
until it fades in to negative space
and the breathing is heavy
all along the front stoops and patios
of a long drive home

And with a horn-case in one hand
and a bag of gear strapped loosely
I can understand and credit
a man’s taking to extremes
with the things they love left
back on stage and the person
in another town

Negative values shift black sooner or later
and everything eventually turns real
again
and there’s food and sunlight and
room to exhale
maybe time to take a walk somewhere
and it’s just fine

but soon it circles back again
and I understand things one more time
and a little more clearly
and even through the negative space
what with all those other towns
and all

coffee at three
and new friends
(more than i can manage)
bring new conversation
and a schizophrenic (my first experience)
who brought…
new conversation.

and coffee at three
to keep me up till two.

contrasted with truth
the lies are just a bit
overwhelming
the burdens
too real.

The thing about Memphis is
The water runs different there.
In circles.
Like a ten year Old when nobody’s watching
Or a six year old that’s proud.

They don’t check every bag on the outbound buses
Or log their miles in their taxi cabs.

The folks on the street smile
Most times
And everyone is happy enough
cash and carry and all.
Even when funds are a bit short.

And even though the water runs different
it feels wet just the same.
Doesn’t it?
It’s just as wet as water ought to be