i recall youth
and fields where i asked my father
to explain the minutiae of the
grain my family called ‘wheat’.
i’d run through with broken
shoes on skinny paths past
harmless snakes and burst past
sandstone while chomping straw
freshly picked and void of
grain as it’d already been chewed.

i recall smiling as the skies were so
bright my mother feared for sunburn;
that and my father’s smile of delight
on his boy and his utter obliviousness
to the complex world around him.

i was there when snow fell and filled
the dirty fields with redemptive white
long before i understood any symbolism
i appreciated the beauty, even the cold.

and the mountains i took for granted?
now i regret my lack of understanding.
regret my granted taking
my youth leaving
and my lack of picturesque memory keeping.

in my youth i used to
disconnect our family’s
home telephone and
run a line up to my
bedroom and call
girls or prank
call businesses

i was on the
internet
giving out my credentials

chatting
and
sometimes even
recieving phone calls
from california
or ann arbor
or iowa

even after punishment
i would run this wire
in the night
like a spy

i never knew
you were dying for that
and
i’ll be turning
24 this year.

Some days I find a box of pocky on the desk
and that’s all I really need in an evening.

my most brilliant yet
wait till july to resolve
and change things half a year.

long term is overrated hence
my most brilliant yet

For Tara

I am moss
growing slowly
and climbing up
rocks at catatonic
crawl. You are lightning
Splitting the ground with
proud movements. I’ve
always been ashamed
of the moments
when my subtle
is too much but
When you touch me

I explode to grow into
the whole forest. This
is like a million years
of sunlight
condensed in to a single second
like a magnifying glass airplane
right over me
like the ground is covered
in broken bottles
refracting and acting like diamonds
I’ve been

rough.
I’ve been the moss
and the rock
I’ve been sand on the bottom of a lake
been driftwood
been dead leaf been
mulch
It’s never been like this. Listen

there’s never been a painting
like
your light
through my leaves. Please
keep
shining. That’s
all I need to
Stop
being moss
To start
climbing up
It’s never been like this
Trees were never ladders until
I had somewhere to meet you between
the canopy
and the sun. I’m
running up now
for the first time
and this time
It’s permanent, so
keep your light on me. Please
Listen

I never did know eyes could glisten like
yours. Like
the whole sky
in half an inch
I used to be moss
but you
the sun and moon and
the in between
have made me
Greener
than I thought I could be
You
have realized
the forest inside of me.

your model is broken
but we’ve got a fix for you
a tweak here and change
in philosophy there and
you’ll be on the road to success
in no time
having hopped over from
the road to nowhere
(where you’ve been for
a while now).

and boy, have we got a fix
for you.

oh child today may be warm
but the night is not so forgiving
and if it makes me sleep well
you can call me foul
but those of you who spend
their whole day smiling
will freeze in the night
for truthful men
know no conceit.

My arms numb, my chest
collapsing, my head
sinking. I am alone-
why wouldn’t I be? Here
I am, left aside-
rot and wonder all
I’ve left in this.
Wishful thinking never gets ya
anywhere, and I’m done
with all the plausible reasonings
I had stored in my artillery crate.
No defense is good enough, for
I’ve clearly met my match.

I still look at the sky
when I get out of the car
most nights
and it still takes my breath
away
seventy percent of the time
and this is going on
for years now.

And sometimes it’s nice
with the balance how it is
but when you say Good Morning
all I want is saxophones
and when you say it again
I shouldn’t hear nothin’
except for
damn

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