For T. 

My heart has been beating
two times faster than usual
for the past week.
I sometimes think
I have many hearts, Battling
each other and logic
for control of my affection
They all
live in my chest, Although
often take turns getting caught in
my throat, Or
sending subtle impulses
to the wrong hands
at the wrong times.
Sometimes each one takes control
of different eyes at once
Which is why my horizons
are now painted in water color
With too much water
And an excess of color
I often think the whole world is dripping
down on me. I often move
as if I’m sloshing through a foot of water
It’s at these times you can tell
that my many hearts are all
beating at
different paces
Playing
single notes of the xylophone
in a cacophony that expresses itself
through me
as general confusion. Some days
I have to remind myself to breathe
and write down all the million thoughts
barreling through me on my mattress
so I stop losing track of
myself, Starting
the moment I wake up. My train
has been moving fast enough these days
and, lady,
you’re throwing grease on the wheels and
conducting electricity through me
You should know
I’ve been thrown off this train before
And, goddamn if it didn’t hurt
Every single time
I didn’t stop getting back on
I hold a one way ticket
to somewhere these poems can’t describe yet
But I’m riding this out

There’s always room for more passengers
I don’t know at what expense
For either of us
I’m pretty sure
I can survive being thrown off a couple times more
This might be the right kind of electricity
There are moments, though they are rare,
in which my million hearts
beat at the same time
I’m always looking for harmony
It might
just exist
In the other seat

blue on the walls
on your lips
(cuz you’re weird)
on your shirt
as a flower
on a pin
you paid for with
green
on your shoes (laces)
in the corner
as a plant makes
you feel
grey
like your eyes
not quite blue
and definitely
not green

How many ways are there to say
go to hell?
Righteously speaking your tongues,
lashing unwitting ears.
Burn, burn, burn it all.
If you bore straight into my mind,
what lies would you spread?
What opinions would you plant?
Thankfully,
opening my brain would kill me.
Thankfully,
my favorite phrase is,
I don’t give a shit.

Sometimes
I think
if I had a gun
big enough
I’d cure the world
with a
copper pill

Sometimes
I have a fry-pan
and a spat
ula
and I make it
pancakes instead

I should
‘nt have said
‘all you can
eat’
because
this world
is never not
hungry

hank was probably
his name

i guess so because
of the 4 inches of
buttcrack (3 more than
plumber regulation)
visible between
his wranglers
and his wife-beater

Each chord struck like
pain or
whathaveyou
dissonance
buzzing beating
vibrating particles
rhythm and
sticks
no dynamic markings
improvised decrescendo
falling movement
Moderato click
to softer to
silence
and down

On the leap day
Of the leap year
I step out
the front door
while concurrently
Asserting my
non-existence (daringly[?])
on the bed. On the
leap

Day,
(My first in four years)
I con all my conclusions
And dissolve my disillusions
in eye widened awe
of the rain
under
the awning
(on leap days and[/or] Long Island
it rains sideways)
today is broken into moments of
blinding amazement at
something so simple as
exhaling
and how close it is to whistling
Yes,
we all breath music
We naturally harmonize
on Leap Days, we

Don’t.
Along with the gained wild child-hood
of this day
I’ve also lost a basic understanding of
sounds and shapes
And have found my slouch
pulling me
earthwards
to Crawl again.
Dazed.
On the Leap Day
I don’t understand
Anything.

Which lends itself to
believing in magic
But unfortunately flips
the horizon. I’m
upside down now
I’m caught in the ocean
And all my answers have become
Shrimp.
Which are very hard to find when
it’s just you in the ocean.
On a leap day. Or

any-
When I become five years old
When everything has new meaning
but also
No meaning.
At all.

i’ll give you a penny for your thoughts —
certainly
they’re worth about that much to everyone
in this room.

i take you daily now
to where the bone rot
sugar rests the nerves
and there we roll around
and i am content with
staying

pale yellow sunday
mornings burn our shadows
into the walls which
no one else can read

i woke up today and
sighed
i cracked my neck
i stretched and swore
i’d never have to
do it again

and if you take the
window for just its
light and not its
vista
this seems just like paradise.

Where will you be, my love, when the trees become
skeletons, haunting,
reminding me all is gone?

Where will we be, dearest, when the time comes
for you to return
to corrupted territory awash
in heatwaves and malaria
while I remain, lost in the land
of death and ice, alone?

Why not run
away to where the death-trees cannot find
us, to create our own edenic gardens?

What keeps us in our hell-holes held-up locked
in spiraling misery?

the marionette only does what he’s told.
he dances on command,
he cries on a dime,
he smiles like a chap.
wires breath life into him,
his life,
not his.

watch me dance.
watch me smile.
watch me cry.

He sat down like he always sat
with a mixed drink and an ink pad
and he always looked upset about
this
or that
but if you took the time to say
‘Hi Jon’
he’d smile for a moment and he’d
collect himself from the bar in
front of him and he’d shudder on
whatever conversation
you shuddered on
with him

He knew a thing or two about
everything, I think,
and he would instruct
and he would exhort
and though a bit pushy, I think,
his was always a valuable,
if damnable,
opinion

He was not so large
but distressed was the one
what bullied him, and
broken was that one’s parts
and in short and simple fashion,
too,
but Jon,
he was not a fighter
most nights

Most nights he sat down
like he always sat
with a mixed drink
and an ink pad and
if I could take him with me
I would but I don’t think
he’d be fit to travel
considering.

With every waking breath I
ponder the future.

I am no seer or soothsayer.

And some would say
my lack of worry
says it all.

Your diviner parts subside
on cold cuts and microwaved
franks and they wash it down
with motor oil and I can’t
begin to tell you why you’re
incorrect but I can tell you
to at least try and eat right
once in a while I mean would
a home-cooked meal a week
kill you?

for E, T, C, etc, etc, etc, etc 

I fell in love with
seven women
this week. They
all
had beautiful eyes.
Ranging from the color
of the inside of a walnut
to the face clouds make
right before it rains

The first wore
grey tights
The second told me
she wasn’t sure if she believed
in god. The third
was too tired
to make it up the subway stairs
They all
had beautiful eyes

Because they never asked
why I was dripping
I never mentioned that my eyes
are slow molasses
When I told one that hers
looked just like a robin’s egg
She told me mine reminded her of
a leaf
But only after it had fallen to the ground
She didn’t mention if that meant they were delicate
Or dead

I regret
Not having asked to dance with any of them
Particularly
Because I imagine they all would have been
spectacular at it
Though I am glad none of them
Mentioned
My feet impaled to the ground
Or my moth hands
flitting around
theirs
The fourth
I never talked to
The fifth
Told me she preferred silence. The sixth
I wrote letters for
and mailed only half. They all
had
Beautiful Eyes. Mine
are wood

chips.
The seventh knew this and
knew what I was
doing. She
left a note to me on the beach.

The ocean ate all of it
but her name

My coffee was black,
it seemed the rest of the room was just so.
we sat and drank,
and looked silently ahead,
at what, I’m not sure.
You told me that silence is golden.
I replied that silence is overrated.
every now and then I would take a sip,
the blackness falling into a black hole.
after a while you asked me,
“What type of music do you like?”
i jumped at this,
just the chance I’d been waiting for,
to show just how complex I was.
to impress you with my taste…
the look on your face after I finished,
suggested my taste was black.
like my coffee.

This man is dead

His words and thoughts
will live on in all
of his disciples

And mostly beyond
the scope of their
original concept

This man is dead

a sickness took him
but you’d never know it
the way he talked
those last few days

This man is dead

It is a shame that
his private library
-The collected works
of everyone worth reading-
will be split and sorted

This man is dead

and I hope he stays
that way. Or I hope
there’s a great party
for his resurrection day.

Whenever the ball drops
there’s someone just behind it
who couldn’t keep their grip

Sometimes it rolls a bit
and it’s hard to find the
dropper

Some people have weak hands

Some people rely on that