I spoke with a Deacon

I said

‘Deek,
Why, my whole world can be summarized
in this pocket. And there’s some money
in it, and there’s some lint and hair
and other things to interest me barely.

‘A couple more folks jive in this pocket
too and they hear me. Every once in a while
it opens up and we get the daylight and
all’s well and good, except sometimes
here comes this hand to take one of us out.

‘And there’s a hole somewhere, though I
can’t ever find it for the life of me,
but now and again things get dropped and
runs straight down the leg in to some
beat up old tennis shoe.

‘So Deek,
my whole world is a torn pair of jeans
and some cat won’t take the time to patch
or stitch ’em, and grabs us out and
shakes us up, and so how am I supposed
to have any good reason to pay him
any mind at all?’

The Deacon spoke back.

He said

‘My boy,
you can disregard the man what wears
these Holy Cloths, but just you wait
until Laundry Day. Then we’ll see what
comes out in the wash!’

I replied to the Deacon

I said

‘That’s cool, Deek.’

And now I don’t pay him any mind either.

These arms they throb
and sometimes they get away and sometimes
they are permanent fixtures
and sometimes they are strong enough to
tear a door down and others
they are just strong enough
to keep it steady while the pins are pulled
and it’s a difficult throb
to keep up with when
it’s so far out of your head
and so dissimilar to your heart
but they throb nonetheless
and they get away sometimes and sometimes
they never leave

The air-pressure changes
(you can feel it in your gut)
All your hairs stand up
and I know you like your guitar
electrified, baby,
there’s nothing you can say
about a big brass sound
except for
Damn

i was found but now i’m lost
on the sidewalk by the corner
and there are super-men in the streets
with their batmobiles and money
and suddenly lost i am sitting
the world now so foreboding
on the sidewalk by the corner thinking
about how much i owe and have yet
to earn or pay and work and starve
for
i’m almost fucking 24
and my mother came to remind me that
standing is for the impoverished.

Shadows at night are scare enough
but night seems to do just as well when
hiding we miscreants and faltering ones

So does occupancy to the life’s direction
So does distortion on the guitar’s scream

I have walked a mile the wrong way
and it made me want to stop and
never walk again.

I hope I have not lived the wrong way
(too far, at least).

I have not wont for settling
(so far, at least).

Daylight breeds shadows as cesspools breed
insects, but they are few and far between
and a boon, not a burden,
comparatively. Particularly in this
heat.

And best to be occupied than occupying
And best to at least be playing

And when I walked the mile back
to the start of the whole thing I
was refreshed and renewed.

I have been living, so far
(and that’s enough for now)

But still, I won’t be settling

Earlier this evening I happened past the lake
where I learned you were deathly afraid
of seaweed
but we both waded in anyway
and I think that’s sort of
the whole thing in a nutshell
except
seaweed can’t hurt you
most of the time
(but I guess the snappers can)

For Tara

When I have finally peeled myself
off your back
And slip my arms from
under yours and
back in to shirt sleeves
And prepare myself
for the impossible task
of leaving you
In those moments
while my body wakes up and remembers:
it did function without you before and
can again
It is then
you can hear the breath sucked in
by the space between us
which we have spent the night
smothering. Space which,
as I push my feet into their shoes,
balloons outward; between
me and you.
So I stop moving
and inhale what is left of
our breath
And stain my eyes with
your smile
And turn the doorknob
which always feels like ice
Look, I’ve memorized
the feeling of your hand in mine
Though there are mornings
when I will have to leave you early
It will never mean goodbye.

I found you, my treasure, in the dark,
the rain pounding, falling in streams
down our faces.

I found you, light and curious,
beneath the cherry blossoms, bathing
as we wandered defiantly in Spring.

I found you, the wind
at our backs, the world before us
as we pressed on gracefully, down
whichever road we thought best.

I found you, mine, when
you were not mine to find.

I never knew you had a thing for scalping your favorite patrons
or feeding the crackhead on the street
and I certainly never took you for a fighter
though goodness knows you could never be the bigger man

put the front glass down
and don protective eye-ware
then cruise these streets
like a badass in a badass
car.
foldable front windshields
don’t win the favor of the ladies,
but leather flying helmets
and bottle-cap glasses earn
the envy of the idiots
(your target audience).

put the front glass down
and don protective eye-ware
in the rain like you own
this street. smile like
the cold doesn’t chill you to
your bones because you’re already
much too cold inside.

cruise these streets like
a badass in a badass car
because the shops are closed,
your friends are all at home
but your pipe is firmly
planted between your teeth
and you own this street

like when standing in the eye of the
tornado is silent
in a deceptive way.
deceptive like a woman with it’s beauty
and seductive powers.

i wrote and wrote
with eyes i wrote
scientifically

and left the only
footprints in the
cave of the troglophiles

how could you know
how much i love you?
the knee-prints can’t
the hand-prints can’t
the finger-prints can’t
tell

even if they followed
the new lines in their
opaque world
no guess could be had
at me

even if my breath
reached any nape
no energy would pass

(even if it did
i can’t put a
blind lizard in
a prom dress)

i wrote and wrote
but only those with
eyes ever saw it.

As people some hide
in the nebulous nature
of most things

They are protected
by the general failure
of those around them

And so long as the bar
is not set too high
why, there’s no need to
jump
if you can just lift your leg
a little

Most people would do better
as dogs, I think

When dogs lift their legs
they mean it,
at least

there are no words for when
things are a-okay
and you’re a man in the sun
on a raft in a bay
and you couldn’t care what
the moving mouths say
every thing be damned
if just for today
they are impermanent
and pass like a wave
there are no words
when things are okay.

Bodies like barbie dolls, void
of all nature, all feeling, all
joy and splendor.
Ken dolls, all of ‘em-
stupid bulge spots as if
there’s something there to hope for.
They’re all the same plastic,
inorganic lumps waiting
to try and rub against
whatever kind of senseless parts
I don’t possess. Me,
I’m one of them-
the lifeless, the shapeless, the
unpleasurable mockery of all
which is holy. I am unfit to fulfill my duties.
And, well, this whole world’s a joke.

Sometimes I
fucking hate a Hammond Organ
but that’s an off-day
mostly

An average human being
can spend
without food
(as long as he
remains hydrated)
approximately
forty-five days
if the weather is
alright,
before his body
runs out of
muscle
to absorb
and starts in
on the organs and
such, then the
brain, when he
will probably
suffer
irreversible
brain damage

An average human being
does not need
to experience
this for any
reason

For Tara

Before you,
and before this,
I was a wool sock
full of lead bricks
in a clenched fist
I was
stone.
My favorite books;
those love stories whose quotes
I had once etched into my
eyelids
had moved
to the bottom of the stack
had
slipped under the carpet
my eyelids
were erased
and replacing these quotes
were notes to myself
saying
Keep these lids closed.
You can’t miss what you pretend
you’ve never seen.
So I spent one month
this past summer
sleeping on the floor
And I always locked the door
and I never bought a bed
Instead
I focused on
turning myself in to bread
With the hope
that enough people could
pull pieces from me
as to make me feel needed
I needed that.
Meanwhile
I laughed
as I gracefully slipped in to cynicism
like a robe made of glass
It’s a lot easier to
say you may never fall asleep
beside anything but the wall
if while you do, you laugh. I
wish you knew
how few things I believed in
before I believed in you.

But I could already feel
these fists unclench
the night we met
I changed my pillow cases.
I didn’t need to erase
my eyelids again. They’re
wide open now
I can only barely remember
what they once said.
The robes I wore
are burnt and
forgotten
The first time I got dressed
after meeting you
it was all linen. Soft
like I had forgotten how to know.

I was writing poems to
pray that you existed
before I ever knew you or
knew this
I knew I was looking for your eyes against mine.
I just didn’t know
what they would look like.
And I don’t believe in resurrection
but I do believe in redemption
and you pulled out of me
the man who needed to be saved.
So I renamed love after you
It’s a small thankfulness
for reminding me
that it existed.

i wrote a poem twenty lines long
with repetition, alliteration,
and a few other fancy elements.

but then in a move so poetic,
my words can’t describe

i erased it because it sucked
and saved you the pain of reading rubbish.