Storm Chasing

poetry

We thought we’d outrun the storm
only to find it waiting,
three hundred miles and three states
down the road,
with three hundred miles
of pent up fury,
and three hundred miles
of pent up rage,
ready and waiting
to beat and to batter,
to blind and to bruise,
to force us from our course,
to keep us from making it home.

why we as dudes just don’t get our girls. we try. but the truth is, they’re complex, and we… well… we’re just dudes.

poetry

they teach me it’s you i should learn
your insides and out.
but all i know is of your love for back rubs
and coffee
i can make you coffee each morning
(though often i forget)
and i can certainly try to rub your back
each day
but i wonder when it’s over
what i’m missing
in loving
in learning
to know much more than your
every curve
(a detail i assure you i can recite
perfectly from memory)

the learning process is certainly
not tedious, but rather daftly confusing
as i’m bewildered by why beer, donuts,
and me naked aren’t all you could
ever hope for.

that new place feeling

poetry

when you move somewhere
far enough away from home
you might get there faster
digging down instead of
flying around
and you land and see what will
become your new home and
as you spend the morning wondering
where you’ll have breakfast (and if
it will contain a tree-worm)
you walk the streets and take
in the sky and the sun and begin
to wonder how on earth all of this
will possibly feel normal. feel like
home. and then you live and you
live and one day when you’re running
home in the rain you realize you’ve
arrived and it does feel like home
but you dont know how you got there.

and somehow dwelling on it too long
like the spelling of a comfortable word
makes the whole thing seem once again
uncomfortable

Liquid Inspiration

poetry

All great writers are drunkards—
It’s a prerequisite, perhaps,
That too be profound
One must also be inebriated—
This glass and aluminum key
Unlocking chests of insight.
Thoughts flow evenly, quickly—
A bottle tilted to parched lips
Wearing worn pathways
Across yellowed pages.
Words that speak of fight
Words that speak of rest—
Saying nothing at all.
Waking to begin anew—
Waiting to find answers
Underneath sea spun foam,
Crashing into shattered shores
Hoping to find forlorn messages
Sealed safely in bottles.
Swirling stories fill full mouths,
Spilling over the oceans side—
But diluted behind a liquid veil
Pain cannot dissolve in truth—
There is never an escape.
It will always be a fantasy.

Boy attempts to swim

poetry

You threw your whole body at the icy lava
But it spat you out like a cork,
And all the little fish drank champagne
And danced the rumba because
They thought you’d given up
And they thought they had won.

The big green-eyed octopus down there
Skated along the soft ocean floor like messiah
Each day the slimy grin on his face,
That fatty enclave of salty grime,
Grew wider and wider, until the sea
Started to shiver at the thought of its size.

Months passed in the oyster-grey soup
Of the swelling Atlantic Ocean
But every morning you hear the
Broken-backed barnacles whispering your name
Your time is coming my darling, I can feel it
Put your goggles on, it’s time for a change.

Being Human

poetry

thick warm air
forced down throats by
heaving lungs
barely breathable
make it work, make it work,
cough and wretch and
gasp it down again
and every
little palpitation
of the heart
the mind
the spirit
will be painted in someone’s studio
immortalized wholly
for ever and ever

l’apathie absolue

poetry

the elephant in the room
is that your mother is dying
from a cancer

and your heart follows the
rain,
down through the gutters

apathy is a warm blanket,
your body is a cold machine,
all around you a million shades
of grey paint pop-culture
pictures that disappear when
you look at them like
all of the fake-stars in the sky

there are few words left for what you see

you put your art in a grey can
and give it a stupid name;
this survival is an encouraged
and repugnant greed
and is the cancer itself

beauty is right behind that elephant.

Shape Sorter

poetry

Scrambling like a firehouse
twirling down poles a’ clamoring
If theses shapes don’t go in soon
I’m goin’ to get a’ hammering
The alarm compliments the squealing screeching tires
I hurry to complete the task before the time expires
The wobbly and goin’ a’rollin’ stone
Falls into the circular shape of its own
Better be a’hurryin’ cause times a runnin’ out soon
Place it next to the star, slide in the crescent moon
Tick, tick! Yes, make it quick!
Will I make it in the nick?
Oh no, the square, it’s home, oh where?
If I can’t find it then—oh look, its there!
So urgently, oh the polygonal urgency!
Pick up the pace, this is an emergency!
The last two shapes are swallowed and contained
Times up! The piece pop! Let’s do it all over again

Conceited men

poetry

Imagine a little switch that
you could just flick
just like that
‘’flick”

and whoever you’re talking
to goes silent
Like a big fat blimp far
far away

Animated
but so silent

As silent as the
night

As silent as grandma’s
Sunday afternoon,
on a quiet week

If I could get that switch
installed,
(giving the handyman a
cold,  beer once
he’s done)

I’d use it on you

everytime

when you refuse to
shut the hell
up.

His power scared the crap out of me as a kid. But rain somehow dampens the fear associated with wind. The beauty of cleansing covering the reality of our need for erosion – sanctification. I suppose.

poetry

wind blows the rain
batting the ground the way
i shake my sheets to make ripples when
i spread it to cover the whole bed

God’s up there, shaking this rain sheet
making sure he gets enough wind underneath to pull
the corner over the side of this city

then he calms down. tucks us in.
and whispers goodnight

Everything Seemed Normal at the Time

poetry

After all, who doesn’t have their birthday party in the Pentagon?
Sean and I were partners as we colored espionage fish.
Cut them out with dull scissors, pasted them on the wall
Because then we’d get the tax break.
The trampoline we were on took to long to cross;
I didn’t feel as light as I should.
A few of us took pictures of the fish; no one could color very well.
We didn’t have time to asses our folly
Because that was when the eight thugs on rollerblades starting stealing presents
In the parking lot.
I knew one of them, his name was Lance.
He charged at me and I sidestepped under his swipe,
Grabbed his shirt and jabbed him in the neck.
Kevin punched another one and I tripped him as he reeled.
They ran, but I kept Lance’s shirt—it was a level nine.
The action must have been too much for Andrew though,
He kept screaming, ‘I’m going to freeze my dick! I’m going to freeze my dick!’
Your mom yelled at him not to,
But he peed in the misty corner of the room all by himself.
Outside was the beach and a verdant island.
Couldn’t visit though because Natalie wanted to leave and ran the other way.
There was a pathway between the valleys we were in with a barrier in the middle
That she couldn’t climb over,
Like when Ash tried to ride his bike over the miniature cliffs in Pokemon.
It was okay though,
Because Kenny quickly ran over and ate three circular holes through the barrier.
Natalie was still fat and couldn’t fit, so I think she went home.
The rest of us decided with her gone the next best course of action:
We spun in the sand.
Crowds joined and the tide came in.
When the waves were chest high, I saw the uniformed police officer,
He asked, “a little cold isn’t it?”
I told him it wasn’t that bad and climbed out of the lake,
The bear-sized teddy bear named Molly had been working
As a minimum-wage ranch hand all day
And we didn’t want to exploit the fact that he couldn’t swim.
His fur would get wet and then mold.
We went over to the truck rigs since we were in the industrial plant
And underneath a mountain of black trash bags we uncovered a duck suit.
The tall black guy with the mustache volunteered to wear it.
The farmer’s wife brought us eggs for breakfast and we ate them.
It would have been rude to tell her it was 28:02 o’clock.

memories or dreams?

poetry

i thought you were here but you were not
but i can feel you pulling me down
down into your sweet comfort
down into sugar soaked dreams

my eyes, heavy, catch shadows on the floor
thought i felt you pulling me down
down into would-be memories
down to where we sleep life away

my mind is tired, it needs a rest
i come to look for you again
you are not here, and never were
i made you up just for me.

Watch it.

poetry

I do not walk in to your house
with my head held high
and my sword-tip swinging low
for to cut up all the carpeting,
my boots making a mess of things
and all the while a smile across my face

I do not walk in to your house
a pistol in my hand
and a dagger in my fist
with a gun-belt and a bandolier,
and a swagger oh-so-cavalier,
my pomp and pride permeating the place

Outside, though,
I’ll kill you.

2.5 hours to get a table in a door is 2 long.

poetry

every time a table is delivered
on time and craftily built to fit
through a door in my lovely america
my confidence in this country
which failed to serve me butter
this morning for my pancakes
slightly diminishes. i need to return
home briefly, visit the dmv and
allow myself to bask in the misery
that is american red tape so as
to better appreciate this bureaucracy

Why Do I Do These Things I Do?

poetry

Not again? Not again!
It makes my blood boil.
Sold, misunderstanding—a slave to sin.
A slave to law.
Spiritually void at times.
For what I want to do I do not do,
but what I hate I do.
This law, this restriction—this good.
It is good, but I am not, am I?
I am good, but I am a slave to sin.
And yet?
Nothing good lives in me, that is,
in my sinful nature.
The desire is there—for good.
But I will always fall short.
For what I do is not the good I want to do;
no, the evil I do not want to do—
this I keep on doing.
But it’s not want I want.
It’s not who I am.
It is sin.
And I am not sin.
I am redeemed.