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

pasty white skin
on marbled floors
in black leg-netting

a yellow couch in
the lobby of the 70
story building.
—yellow leather.
beside a three story
pillar which looks like granite.

the elevator doors open
you emerge for lunch
and i’m more than thrilled
to leave

Every thought I’ve ever had
has been an electrical pulse
through a chemically balanced
perfectly grounded
tuned and tested
supercomputer.

Sparks have flown but once
or twice
And only,
I think,
when you’ve walked
in to the room.

Left upon my pedestal, alone, towering
over my self, my glory
never-lasting.
Others come to poke and prod at my
spectacle with their sticks,
at the ready to run
at my slightest twitch.
Nevermind-
it is Hell enough without their
flames, licking
at my open wounds drawn
by needles and reeds and thorns.
Sorry am I to them all
for their insatiable curiosity, driving
them, inevitably, far away while I am
left still, stuck, on my teetering, fiery
tower, trapped among the
ruins.

for E. 

I am removing
this bucket
And pulling up pieces of rope

My fingers are clogged faucets
That drip
love thoughts
As a precursor to my whole body melting

And I don’t know why it feels so good
To unbury the buckets I’ve swallowed
But in their place
There’s room for so much
more

And I am so much water
And so much love
And when I lowered these buckets
down they were too. Now
they are rusted tin
Removing them

Does not disturb the water
Just the poison. We
will still share
a river.

Always

five of twelve pills are gone
from their orange case where
i was told homeopathy does its
thang.

five of twelve. because five
didn’t work. who needs what
remains?

i know things have been rough between us lately, what with “global warming” and all. on behalf of humanity, i apologize. i’m sorry. i’m sorry we use energy inefficiently and i’m sorry we’re not smart enough or concerned enough or motivated enough to develop something better. but please, don’t leave so soon. stay awhile longer. bless us with your frosty breath and let me awake to icy roads and malformed snowmen. give us at least one goddamn snow day. (it’s one of the few perks of my job.)

i had some blurry vision
called the doc and was told
a migrane would join the party
in about 30 minutes.

then i spent the night
in awkward expectation of
that which never came.

like being stood up at that
coffee shop where everyone
knew me and was really hoping
this girl would turn in to something
great

except this time the poetry
i wrote about it was much
more emotionally detached.