LAST

What can you really hear
your blood, yourself?
what’s near – what’s far, I guess

Grey haired women fill the seats
and I can see myself
If I look down

This could all be said
in less

Taking away to anywhere other –
the balmy night the radio
the impound lot

We passed through providence
got drunk, my face too red in
the pizza light

I thank the flashes, yellow sponge paint walls
in a building that might hold
nothing

else.

What happened after that?
I’ll remember inch X inch
She said “symmetry’s important to me”
In the auditorium the pipes ascend
Then climb down patiently
Check, do you have your medicine?
Everything will keep rising,
Falling like this
That’s what makes it all happen
Like a battle song
River’s music that starts so full
Then tapers hollow
Everyone was at the apartment Bob said
Apocalypse Now was “garbage”
Everyone drank and drank and drank to
The marching beat

Behind the ear cage
Is an unthinkable itch.

SHADOW TAG

“Like Tolstoy”
do you remember after
your accident, your lie
what you told me to read?

I think it’s what you tell
everyone to read
not uncommon to read,
or recommend

I drank a beer
For help

The metal tables
Did not belong

And I did not feel at home

It’s just that by now
I’ve found my own
required self –
it’s not so hard

Samantha put shimmer on her lids
lashes flared apart
on purpose?
I couldn’t tell –

A girl has to slip quick
sink into her own shadow

I walk alone, that helps
and imagine the quiet men
who took the time
to consider my own brain.

unfinished

No not last for in not finishing one is always relevant, always loved, always a glittering beast at the edge of a velvet curtain at the dawn of a new era amongst the dregs of humanity in the heart of the sort of figure who records uninteresting things in a compelling way.

No, not last, not finished for the sake of aesthetic continuity, for the sake of always having a reason for everything, always justifying terrible situations, always describing one's self as such on first dates which one never thinks of as first dates because one never goes on dates because one is secretly the reincarnation of an ancient warlord who, of course, would never go on dates or finish anything that isn't a battle but now nothing is a battle, Thank God.

impossible to think of you without thinking about cancer

nothing ever ends

one day i told you this—
i told this also to samuel, and
also i told this to my ex girlfriend*
when i hoped it would not end, and
one day i told this to you—
one day i told you this,
endlessness would
mend us, rest alone or
at least for a while alone, or

when there's nothing left
there's endlessness,
memory doesn't forget what's best
or worst, oops, but
it's impossible to avoid a
"stupid bitch" here, sorry
every case, give it a rest

one day i told you this,
i told you one day
one day i told you this,
nothing ends, ever
for though your relation alters
it doesn't really change, and better
thoughts go on, never

doch glaube ich das nicht mehr, ich
meine, es geht immer, aber das
"nichts verendet niemals, nimmer"
wegen der gefühle, die verändert habe,

es gibt immer eine begrenzung,
ein limit: mit gefuhle, denken,
liebe, memory, familie, this brings me to say,
warum zurückschreckst du vor das Enden, anyway?

jedenfalls.

i thought this in another tongue,
when you wanted to be my friend
i realized, that doesn't work, but
i owe you this: nothing ever ends







*jene, jeder

ending

hating such self-awareness, such meta, such breaking-down-the-wall poetry
but all the same, in myself, i'm yearning, invisible- i wish we could go on forever!

so here, baby, one last time- all today i walked through snowy roads in laced boots,
neck scrubbed raw from pounding
loofah, red dye still smearing out below the skin, resilient, soap-resistant

she'd pulled off her costume to show me her piercings, licked her lips
sorry sorry sorry that i held right out baby girl, honey bee
but, i want you frustrated, i want to remain full of unsatisfied longings

recognized some kids from saturday night on the path today
they'd pulled on my arms frantically that night, you're bleeding, you're-
today they looked at me like, you maniac

i'd really missed the danger, the gasping of breath
-like the hardness of running drunk, knees fierce against gravel-
in the shower this morning, i found purpled, dimpled bruising,
sunrises!
i found scrapes down both backs of my legs
the discovery made me giddy although it probably shouldn't have

i've missed the danger, and thinking about it back makes my heart skip
i want to teeter on the edge of trouble, of heartbreak
a permanent fall

i want to fall in love
i want to love in limbo

i want to stay full of desire, of yearnings, of
amorphous things
that move and stretch, continuous,
into the beyond

the end

i should feel accomplished having written 31 poems
but i actually feel bad
knowing that a month has gone by
and i don't know what to do with the remaining 11.

i feel so much pressure
to do something else
i'm told to do something i want to do
but it has to be something that will secure a better future

the better future is the future i'm happy with
not the one that will bring economic comfort

not that money isn't something i want
but it should be about profiting from something i'll be happy to share with the world
or just do myself
though what makes me happy is making people laugh

i also want to be loved
i've fallen in love so many times this month
only to discover that there's no reciprocation
and that hurts

i guess what i need is a for someone to give me a chance
in all aspects
and i need to put myself out there as well
i won't be discovered until i've been seen, as crazy/sensible as that seems.

i wish my last poem hadn't been a confessional
i kind of wanted to simply say
"be with me"
but i can only be mysterious for so long

Poem 31

Absurd enormous tears of frustration!
These I wept during my recent illness,
a bad cold. "Wept" is incorrect. They
just leaked out. No emotion other than
frustration. Still, a sign of some excess.
White kids trying unconscionably to rap.
All I've done for the past five days is
talk about sex, with present, past, and
maybe future sex partners--sex people?
The subject is inexhaustible. The object
is to come to terms with it. The subject
is tied into every part of living. Tied in!
Is the object to normalize it in some way?
I was so repressed when I was an adoles-
cent and now it's endocrine revenge!
All of my friends, people in their 20s,
"dealing with it." (People of privilege
all of us in our 20s, "dealing with it.")
And living in New York City! This town
is uh full uh rats. I'm quivering with
sensation. I'm mastering oversharing.
There are cycles I can now name: taking
out the garbage. Bringing the garbage
back in. Exposure and immediate
withdrawal. Endless, endless capitulation.
Specificity heightens tragedy--accessible
specificity, and it also heightens comedy.
J. K. de la V., I remember you. You're
the one who grabbed me by the shoulder,
and you set that shoulder to the boulder.
And we never even got naked all the way!
You! You stole that kiss from me, and then
you disappeared. Now I want it back.
And I want them all back! When I think of it,
I can feel my body turn into a mouse body.

culled personal truisms from the month of january:

guilt is an important motivator

ironic consumption is consumption, too.

you already made that decision,

you already know what to do!

when you don't know, its not time to know.

it's urgent when its urgent.

everything is an example.

pruning the family tree.

what does success even look like?

the internet is space.

information under-represents reality.

I am not reinventing what it means to be human.

we are all capable of embodying the opposite of our self conception.

its a question of bottom truth.

complicity in everything you think is wrong with the world.

embodiment of an ideal,

misplaced morality,

lack of model,

smart body,

unapologetic as its own end,

it's a question of bottom truth,

fulfillment of an ideal,

persistent lack.

Things seen from fast and far (which may last forever some place)

"Forever," he said.
-Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The black tarp huge and hanging from the overpass.
The truck in between and staring,
a light from within,
a bunk bed perhaps.
The church bell paused and poised.
The teens fleeced and awe-faced,
jogging into the night.
The couple, helmet handed,
shouting yellow-faced on the pull off
straight into the others' mouth.
They know there is something worth loving.

Pieces of something put together,
worth pulling over for,
or find somehow to roll around in them
while rolling on.

February first

let's find some glamour in this small room

a little sugar in our milk

it's been the longest of januarys

and spring is nowhere near

so I hold you like a sparrow

the slightest song in my hand

they say, you put vick's vapo-rub on your feet and then put socks on.



and some people can't do certain things like some people shouldn't eat tomatoes. tomatoes make my face itch, but vaguely, like it's still a choice, some things aren't choices, i guess.



and i think that when you say it's not bodies it's people, i think i mean almost the opposite, but it's that thing i go back and forth about before remembering.


the capital letters, safety quotes, don't look for it in India, it isn't in our bellies, but still.



we are getting a little post-post, and I'd been waiting without realizing it. all my friends are becoming the non-violentest of communicators, in the best way.



a truly golden German pancake, i cannot even tell you, the really tender greens. tenderness, in general.



a ponytail vision, a thing to fall back on, it's like having a type. i need to talk to you again.

Parties! Parties! Parties!

I'll go ahead and wait for the pot to boil.
I [ ]
returned, velour on velour, to dream of orange tiles
wooden cabinetry and nonspecific age groups
in ten minutes I'll get up, and I'll sit down, and I'll get up again.

I'll just go ahead and rest here for a while.
I haven't [ ]
and I just want to go to parties and sit down
my motivations are relate-able and all-wrong are
unsavory and unavoidable and I apologize in advance to
everyone I'll ever meet.

I'll just wait here, then, for that, and I hope no one minds.

You tell me Alice Walker says:

Let us bring attention to George's mother.

She who came weeping, and picked up the shattered pieces of her child,

as black mothers have for so long.

May you be free

May you be happy

May you be at peace

May you be at rest

May you know we remember you.

For learning to make rituals for hard things that will happen,

for those structures that explain but do not justify.

honoring aching in abstraction and in specificity:

This is a space where a poem was

for your patient who did not come in last week.

and this is for your father,

and for my uncle,

and for my uncle, and

for your father,

and for your father,

and for your sperm recipient's wife, and for your father.

KISS

In the deliriums of passion he promised everything, but when it was over, everything was left for later.
-Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The tree in the bathroom grows in every direction.
The forest untamed above the toilet.
The rows of trees between my house and theirs,
that make one only think of ancestors,
do not grow any more, but expand somehow.
In some other woods wanders a Cajun
who has had to leave the corporate world
and rat race for health reasons
and has moved into a small,
Class B (van) RV
and simplified his life.
The thing we think of doing
but do not.

"I turn over to you the keys of your life," he said.
-Gabriel Garcia Marquez

They two, in shape and texture, twins,
wandering in loops and stretches
as termites in wood.
We sit sedentary
as scenes and centuries pass.
My sister can barely bend
to put on her boots,
a baby, belly wrapped,
in her way.
We wait: for the space to grow bigger
for the new thing to come,
to know each others as something else.

Born in the green light

I was born in the light of the green
where once 17 banners hung.

As a child I would visit the garden, walk through
bright colored seats
and watch the block!
swish!
of hands and bodies dancing
to the rhythm of the court.

I am homegrown
a fan
if you will
of that fighting Irish.

Through injuries
tears (mine and theirs)
I watched.
Hands clenched
sweat streaming
heart racing as they run
back to catch a rebound.

I was birthed in their green
and white light
and I always be in it.

Singalong

Death is the ultimate intrusion of nature
Into self, and subtlety is God's art.
Just as parents make children
Their demons make the demons of their children.
One should not marry without a good matrimonial bed,
And one always has time to die,
So play the space around you like a virtuoso.

To Sviatoslav Richter

Put a small piano on a truck and drive out on country roads;
Take time to discover new scenery;
Stop in a pretty place where there is a good church;
Unload the piano and tell the residents;
Give a concert;
Offer flowers to the people who have been so kind as to attend;
Leave again.

things i thought about today

juice
noodles
erotica
glitter
real dolls
kiss
cairo
spoon
blood
red food dye
naked snow angels
trash-bag sledding
sociopath tuesday

how our kitchen looks like a hurricane
who drank all my vodka?
the (sad) ending of the poems

the way she smiled at me last night
where you have disappeared to
and whether you're okay

Trouble

plain straight table straight weary old legs
old plain young woman straight sweet chin old
chair slats slump back dear Doris Day lump rise well eye and
Volkswagen packed and ready to go go go go go go go go go go

Some Day it Will be Summer Again. Not Today, Though

Unhelpful as I am,
hands that don't hold,
reasoning wrong and driven so badly,
a small-eyed jockey saddled in my mind,
still in the round I join in the round
the water still and night as I never see it
dark, I never see the dark, never have seen the dark
so still the water and to trust my twisting feet
to walk so slowly, singing, past the different darknesses
the day's failures
by the water, towards rest

another shame

shame, when
bouncing around on aaron's bed,
he runs into me
and feels the squish of my diaper
underneath my pjs

and every night, this fear—
that even though
i haven't done it since then,
i will, again—
keeps me up, and
going to the bathroom
ten times before i sleep

You and Me, Bess

And then, out of nowhere,
after a day of sandpaper,
I find my voice again, and
always in the strangest places.

Eeemmmooo

I love
the way Cedric Bixler
screams
at the end of
"Invalid Litter Dept."

I Guess the J.K. in Your Name Also Stands for "Just Kidding

I went to your birthday party.
Young love was in the air.
People drank craft beers
and talked about careers.
It wasn't just scary, it was a nightmare.

I went to see you cook at the cook-off.
Young love was on the grill.
There's only so much
awkward conversation
a person can take before she's had her fill.

We went to Governors Island
and camped out in the moat.
My uncertainties reached out for me.
They had me by the throat.

Oh, I get so damn frustrated.
I don't know what to do.
I just can't seem to stop running out of things to say to you!

Well, I don't want to hang out with you.
I just want to sit in my room.

(Alone alone alone
alone alone alone
alone alone alone
alone alone alone!)

And I don't want to make out with you.
I just want to sit in my room!

(Alone alone alone
alone alone alone
alone alone alone
alone alone alone!)

And you're never gonna return my calls!
And I'm just gonna sit in my room!

(Alone alone alone
alone alone alone
alone alone alone
alone alone alone!)

Three Step Plan

Life is too short to be angry at exes.
Life is too short to be angry at anyone
other than myself. Problematization
of consumption. Problematization
of irony. Pathologization of
problematization and vice versa.
Also flirting--problematization
thereof. Depression & anxiety,
hand in hand like heartburn
and halitosis. Life is too short.
Step one for the 20s. Step two is:

I learned to sleep again. This is part of
a series of realizations: things can be
easy once you decide that they will be.
I have so many habits, but I
remembered at least how to take control
of my hypnogogia and turn them to rest.
My dreams are my dreams and there is
no reasonwhy they should make me bolt up
in the night. So many habits. Step three is:

Let's see me apply this to the act of speaking,
to the act of singing, to the act of doing it.

dangerous games

i wake up twice and i find that i'm exactly where i thought i'd be

but i don't want to be there
i was secretly hoping for something else
something bad
something that would have
done damage to us

but maybe it's for the best
that nothing happened

my mind takes me places where my body can't possibly go
and for lack of a better word
all i can say is
thanks

sad to see it go

i used to think
it was everyone else

that was missing something
but i think now

that i'm the one
who's missing out

on all the fun
that i thought i was having

CORVALIS II

The kind of town I’d like to show Stefan in Sofia
this is America 1 and 2 and 3

Sitting on the bench like I did
working a wedding in St. Paul

The stairs were wet I wrote a letter
the bridesmaids were more beautiful than even the usual beautiful

I wanted a coke the plastic cup
cracked I left a print

Oregon state university football
is a big deal and Jerry Garcia

Things like gelato, espresso,
Indian embroidered fanny packs

I talked to Ellis in a similar sunshine
a parking lot in what’s that town called where the Kennedy’s stayed

Friends in pairs bring paper cups to the benches by the river
friends in pairs and cocker spaniels

Our families floated down the river
everyone was upset

Everyone floated in a certain way
to show how much they cared

holidaze

starting the day dehydrated, elbow-deep in cupcake batter
mixing in pounds of edible glitter, stringing up christmas lights,
ripping duct tape to later cross over nipples

lace-clad mingling, leather crop, running fingers
over her studded collar
vodka, gin, whiskey, sparkle-dipped pretzels

give me your sequined bras, leave your furs on my bed
girls, bedazzle me! take pictures, dance with me, come here, fall down
with me, tangle into a mess of bodies like old times-

there's just so much flesh I can't choose
what I wanna grab onto

it's so cold outside (we're all so naked)
she wove her shirt out of dollar-store hair extensions, I think I must love her

taking kiss-risks

miniature red gems all over her lips
drinking wine through a straw

come on guys, just make-out and get it over with!
we have to move the party, the show has started

she looped metal cord round her dreads, crumpled tinfoil dress

he wore a tent, invited us in to drink champagne
dancing on the windowsill until he fell down

fuck, you're almost totally exposed! fuck.

swooped through like nightingales, at the show, pulled up onto the stage
by groupies' hands, eager and painted,
glow-in-the-dark eyes and boys and girls on molly pulling tentatively
on my newly platinum hair, rubbing hands down my leather pants

flirt-faced
it was all in her wink, insinuated shrug
fell right into her sass, lips on lips

i miss you, i miss you
remember we were lovers once?

sunglasses made out of plastic forks

her friend, my friend, long-time-lost, came to me
shy, smiling, her shining eyes, to pull lower lips
he grabbed my waist to pull me in

the lights were too much for us,
go-go girls, swinging in hot pants, butterfly kisses
bruiser in horns whispers tell them i loved them, raises herself over
the crowd that surges into itself beneath us

waking up still covered in blood, in a room eerie with florescence
fake eyelashes still clinging on, eyelids encrusted with rhinestones
steeped in thirst, amnesia,
satisfaction

We fell deep

At first
at the surface
where the land beneath is flat,
things seem shallow.

Walking is easy.
One step forward
another step
repeat.

Suddenly a foot drops
feet below.
Always into something
cold
or wet,
wishing that summer had dips like this.

That is the falling
we do when we do not expect it.

puff

the wedge,
of what, chocolate?
or sand? your history,
mine, padding the boundaries,
letting adjustments be.

he was all the rage.
he was a part of it.
she was belgian, and beauteous.
he was magical in mind.
she sapped his touch.
she surfed.
and he was glad.

BOFF KILL MARRY

IT'S WHERE YOU PICK THREE PEOPLE
AND DECIDE WHAT TO DO WITH THEM

LET'S START WITH YOUR EXES

IMAGINARY LETTERS

Files
looking 4 it
to be frank
I had a crush
parse down
cut
like vegetables
like cultures
fractured, conjoined
huddled in bars
sick breath,
secrets.

Rare to see
fire and guard truck
roaring down the interstate

I don’t understand the system that is driving
how does it work so well
and also fail so often

Dad tells me there’s a new young
universe, haven’t you heard

He was stuck in traffic when some
teens loped across. From this to that to this.

CORVALIS

Walking across the am/pm parking lot
it’s pm now, the light plum-dark
square jawed crack-up
skids his bike across
the Motor Inn parking lot
and I haven’t got the time
to not have the time

For 3 or 4 days now my face holds the drano feeling
salty waters, underlay of muscle marsh
we talked nature vs. nuture
girl at the am/pm smoking
moon face through the glass
pajama pants alien print
faux felt, faux raven feather hair

Corvalis

I was here before

Now people are coming into their rooms
on all floors there’s noise
rush of cars like bath water
simple metaphor for your
wink and blink
water for your eyes
new vision

And I guess I would be disappointed
If I hadn’t read somewhere
Maya Angelou likes to
rent out motel rooms
weeks at a time
lays stomach down
yellow legal pad and…sherry?

I dreamt of restriction
I could not farm my favorite seaweed salad
slow swim behind the skin, dream stain
when last night I drew
pencil on colored paper
particles so crude
like rotting fabric

Outside they hum “motherfucker” and shuffle on
in eastern Wisconsin
there was that bad motel
all the others full
from a dog convention
we slept rigid
and we were cold

I know that I am lucky.

sleep reception. or an e mail i wrote.

you there too there oh hi

i actually was just calling to propose a visit if

maybe fenders by then

and wanted to know, "you work until 3 tomorrow, right?"

still feelings are habits and i have a lot of those.

notes on a chart on/in a cabbage patch

The cabbage, my love.

enough food for a feast, an abundant bloom in shades of green and purple

utilitarian stalwart of the enchanted brassica genus,

those healing prodigies of the mustard family.

cabbages! and their ability to break down and become

exactly what my stomach needs to feel good

the food that makes it possible to eat food

who would think that such a pungent specificity would belay such edible altruism?

you, cabbage, are the center of my attention and then repay me, support me, throughout my every eating day.

oh cabbage,

In the popular imagination, what other vegetable still grows in a patch?

I am honored by my derisive association with your home,

don't be so cabbage patch must mean something like don't be so saccharine or so uncool.

but I am embracing you

I'll imagine my covers are your outer leaves and I, I am in a cabbage patch. sweet and exhausting.

I choose to immerse myself in you, cabbage. it's time I know you if you model me so well.

But wait, there is something exciting happening at the base of the Magic Crystal Tree.

Code Green ... Mother Cabbage is in Labor!

The sonogram is glowing pink, it looks like it is going to be a girl.

She has green eyes. Our intern remembered to fertilize the patch so this baby has auburn curls!

It's a beautiful Newborn girl. Would you like to help name her?

woah. um.

this?

fascinated, I preemptively apologize to myself for intrigue looking like irony,

guilt is an important motivator, because ironic consumption is consumption, too

and I don't know even of it is- which is a whole different story.

but what is the relationship between repression and the cabbage patch?

world of euphemism and false sanitation. are these my people?!

and how do I Own It when stating the phrase aloud makes me try to be tough and

ownership is a possessive concept that I don't want to foster too deeply.

and I do not like euphemisms, I don't even like metaphors

my vagina is not a cabbage that gets fertilized to grows babies while sitting under the magic crystal tree.

xxviii.

can't believe you guys don't like this fork
it's so cute!
it's my new pet

it's the handle
?
a lumberjack
alone in the woods,
whittling

a serial killer's
twisted oak,
firewood, puff of chimney smoke

fork
that he made
himself

flickering milk

flickering horsetail




flickering person

How Cupid Explained Psyche to his Mama

Oh, mama. She is the valentine clean.

sleep

Eardive in to the pile of coats in the back seat of the car, and sleep until the rest stops. There is not much safer than knowing I can tune out that inanity, mom and dad will keep each other company and I am the kid to be cared for, I can sleep.

I could: be attentive and time it just right, try and get it wrong, not try and get it wrong, not try and have it fine. Sleeping with your hand against my stomach, or lying there wishing you'd wake up for our routine. There is power in yielding to this contingency, there was power in letting it pass.

The returned luxury of not sharing. I find books, needles, socks, hats in my bed, and it does not matter that they were there all night with me. It's cold but I'm comfortable, and I'm grown here, relishing the absence of another set of luxuries, of a body to share gone and all the opportunity to be my own elation at myself swathed in blankets. Some nights, I sigh.

Headfirst in to my own lap soft spare sweater side of my teaching bag turned upwards towards my forehead. It's really just me here, elbowed in to the crowd. The comfort of asserting that I feel safe, burrowed on my valuables and witnessed unconscious by strangers. They come and go, and I am so somberous as we go over the manhattan bridge. It must be something I breathed in the city air all those years, I have never overslept and missed my stop.

Atchoo!

Chump at the zoo
flips a cig in a cage.
The animals chew.

Miraculous humans!
Lightbulbs opening,
Olympics, Rwanda,
molasses n’ arson.

Babe at the beach
gets pinched by a crab.
The animals teach you
to own one’s each.

no pulp

i've been invited to a party

and i run away

to another party

that i've been turned away from

at the last minute

because i didn't have what i needed

and i don't know what that is yet.

parades, lemonade
tired ponies laughing
little rhino toothaches, harpoon leggings and tangled cobweb legs.
We jumped headfirst into the frog pond and ate lilacs caught vicious between our teeth,
cantaloupe butter smoothed our lips and pillow juice drooled out of our mouths like true love.
Caviar dancing drizzled our tummies with fresh mockery.
Sleep forever darling child, don't awaken from this tale of tinkery your face won't fit like a jenga puzzle and your eyes will bake with teary coral.

Rambo Fantasy

you're going to grow up to be a bum
drinking 24 oz Coors
on strip mall lawns
smoking Marlboros
in the middle of the god damn day

no longer hooligans getting into mischief
adults of sound mind
making poor decisions

keep walking, son
we don't like your kind

i'm tough, but
i just want to be left alone
people have to learn the hard way
like in Rambo

Dill's Deli

loose ceiling fan jiggles
brown and orange coffee pots
iced tea, lemons
sandwiches
party trays
mochas and lattes
Freddy Mercury on the radio
under pressure

the smell of oil and vinegar
soup in a bread bowl
cranberries, fifty cents extra
avocado, a dollar extra
unless you order the vegetarian
big screen tv in the corner
hosni mubarak
will at least try
to remain president

order here
restroom
black mat
clock
exit
we I.D.
the president condemns the chaos
a plot to overthrow
aware of the suffering of the people

red plastic tray bowl
thin metallic forks
Tork Xpressnap dispenser
salt and pepper
demands that social networking be reactivated
keep the troops off the streets

rectangles of sun
shadows of homey kitchen chairs
concrete floor
cool air
sleepy tables
grey plastic register
microwave
toaster
kitsch trophy
tanks on the streets

Lays, Doritos, Fritos
Coors, Buds, Coronas
truckers
pink sweatsuit headband
helicopter photography of our town
Mount Shasta
panorama
far off riots
a threat
to you
personally

"Tell me something, lionlady of my soul," asked Florentina Ariza, "how would you feel if you received a love letter written on that thing?"
-Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A moment of dry things
spread out for touching.
A circle of chairs
and birds in throats.
The supermarket bright.
The shout from the dentist chair
heard in the waiting room.
The look of two things
next to each other.

Now he read it again, this time syllable by syllable, scrutinizing each so that none of the letter's secret intentions would be hidden from him, and then he read it four more times, until he was so full of the written words that they began to lose all meaning.
-Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Full until every word that comes out is a stutter, beautifully halting, mad-voiced, bull-legged, bee-stung blurts. It makes a difference. It makes a difference which color scarf you pick out to wear from the shelf and which side of the street you walk on. If you're on this side you will see me and I'll love you as light as I can.

Would that have made you
any better
the four points of a cross
kissed upon
your shell
the movie made me miss
my grandparents
the structured love of
wartime
volcanoes within men
erupt
as they lose
their cool

robert seydel 1960-2011

yesterday one of my college professors died
it's a strange feeling
being so removed from college
i only had robert for my last class at hampshire
he helped with my documentary
gave me some useful advice
but otherwise i didn't know him that well
i don't know how he died
he was scheduled to teach photography classes this spring
in the papers
they say he was a very kind gentle person
and dedicated professor
known for his probing intellect
and dedication to his students

Poem 26

You and me, babe,
hand in hand, just like
heartburn and halitosis.

Break

I only texted you because they told me it would not be a big deal
And I wouldn't have known, you would have been immortalized for me
in my last glance of glimpse of small block letters, jokester, kinkster to the end,
Had she not-

But she sent me a picture of you that night
Drunken reverie of fear and flight, spilled scrambled vowels,
A voicemail of a choke




and a long silence

Snapped half-shutter, half-mast your throat open and tongue trapped
Too much light filled your fluttering hands, caught as soft sludge, the blurring of lines
into ice blisters, a ripped collar and--- bluish lips, parted, full
What look like wine stains down your shirt, turned colors of cold and clutching
Feathered hair set alight, haloed in crimson

Look what you did, vixen

We spring

We spring again.

inside cracks
outside.

We jump back

into paths
out of.

We spring again
and our birthed.

From snow
dark puddles of slush
rain.

Into concrete
sludge and piles of refuse.

Yet we spring toward
forward into something
new
or old again.

paranoid

i'm being watched

by dozens of poets

REST STOP

I took a break it is too easy to take a break I showed the lake it is too easy to show the lake some days it’s barely there like everything, grey air, other days some golden light, the god of water and earthquakes, the god of choices, doorways, keys, the small key between the ring and copper square, the not so secret code will also let you in: sure, share my house, and when you leave, leave traces, I’ll find them here and there, sweep them into squares, shuffle faces through my mind’s eye's rolodex and next we won’t recall.

In honor of a snow day.

First you wipe out the residue of yesterday's egg from the pan. Then you turn the heat to #4, and put a tiny bit more coconut oil in using a fork. leave the fork next to the stove.

Get one half of a frozen dumpstered bagel out of the freezer. Put the bagel in the toaster, set to 10 minutes at 450 degrees.

Go back to the fridge, get out one leaf of kale, the carton of eggs, and if you have them at the time- a jar of left over carmelized onions and the avocado out of the fridge. Wash and cut up the kale, using the little cutting board and the little blue knife that are on the counter.

The pan should be hot by now. I f you're not sure you can check it by rubbing your finger on the faucet and flicking the bit of water in to the pan.

Find the spatula and use it to spread out the oil in the pan. Leave the spatula next to the stove, and crack the egg in to the pan. Plop the kale on top and smush it down a little bit, to crack the yolk open. Using the fork that has coconut oil on it, sprinkle a little bit of carmelized onions on top of the egg. smush them in too.

While the egg is cooking, fill the kettle up half way with water and turn it on high heat on the back burner.Dump the contents of yesterday's tea in the compost, refill it, and place the strainer back in the tea pot.

Flip the egg over with the spatula. Get a little plate off the drying rack. Cut a tiny sliver of the avocado with the little blue knife and leave them both on the plate. Put the rest of the avocado and the eggs and the onions back in the fridge, and get out the kimchi or the sauerkraut.

Your bagel should be thawed and just slightly toasted by now, and the egg should be done. Turn off the heat on the stove and the toaster. Remove the bagel, put it on your plate, spread the avocado on top with the little blue knife. Bring the egg from the pan to the plate with the spatula, and put it on top of the bagel. Get the fork from next to the stove, and use it to put some kimchi or sauerkraut on top of the egg. You can decide whether the egg-side or the kale-side is facing up. They're both good.

The water in the kettle should be boiling by now. Fill up the tea pot, and go find your mug from your bedroom.

Eaten in the vicinity of breakfast and/or lunch, this meal will set you up for a day of perfect digestion and possibly total bliss. When implemented as one's primary nourishment, this abundance reveals itself to be both surprising quick to assemble and affordable.

Leave adventure for dinnertime, start your day the RachelBreakfast way! With a balance of protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins, fiber, and probiotics, this meal is designed for the gluten tolerant but dairy-sensitive, and is especially helpful to those with anti-biotic trauma in their digestive past. It is mushy, crunchy, sweet, salty, sour and spicy, when you want it that way. After more than a year of almost continuous allegiance to it, it continues to reveal new levels of deliciousness and satisfaction.

Nix

i do not mean to say
i wish you were a marine bivalve mollusk
and not a lad.

i only mean to say you are not my brother.
but love you somewhat as i do my brother:
sadly and with a lot of bother
and wonder.

wet trees, ii

you are walking for miles with your friends in the forest,
and then, everyone has run out of things to say,
and you walk along in silence—
words are losing here

wet trees

sometimes urgency of the body occurs as
unavoidable call which must be heeded

like this:

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twins

i like how half these poems
can be seen to
oh!
here they are!
they are from these other poems
posted,
these poems
here we are! here you say something,
and i think oh! this has to do with
me and here i am,
and i will say it!

Apocalypso Hangover

A sleeping man asleep on the El.

A sleeping woman asleep at the counter.

A sleeping child asleep on yesterday's newspapers.

A sleeping mother asleep in her coffee.

A sleeping couple asleep in the park.

A sleeping photographer, shooting, asleep.

A sleeping tramp and a dog asleep.

Two sleeping lunch-men asleep on a beam.

A sleeping disc-jokey sleeps: asleep at the wheel.

A sleeping fireman asleep on a sleeping Dalmatian asleep.

Sometimes he went to the office without having slept, his hair in an uproar of love after leaving the letter in the prearranged hiding place so that Fermina Diaz would find it on her way to school.
-Gabriel Garcia Marquez

In a college a boy with hair in his face
and on his face
sat at the long oval table
and said
WHEN THE WORD IT IS UTTERED
IT IS CUT OFF COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY
FROM THE UTTERER
AND IT BECOMES A FORCE OF ITS OWN.
I said, with my messy hair, in a messy bun
DON'T KID WITH ME
A WORD IS NOT ALIVE
IT HAS NO NUCLEUS
IT NEEDS SOMEONE TO READ IT.

And the sexy/ugly charming professor said
NOW NOW.

evening blues

silenced

before i could even speak

because our plans

became your plans

you only hear yourself

when you talk to me

NO SUBJECT

Sorry,

TUO FO DRROE

A Pewter Cup

Is this it? Is this a sphere turning inside out--

Saddles and smiles and bowls all collapsing in on each other?

Gone viral, gone like a belt twisted, just

weak brained, is all, narrow minded and diminishing lucidity.

If I knew where you were calling from I wouldn't have asked

to read them someday. You know, she gets embarrassed.

this momentous thing

Today I cleaned my computer and eliminated the folder called 'art stuff'.

because it had everything in it.

contents dispersed yield:

this momentus thing,

another poem about

Being an artist!

that I have written so many times before.

say it in hushed tones or swallow. when I say it I cringe.

it feels so much like what I was already doing,

except now (fulfillment of an ideal) I don't feel so much like I'm waiting for something else

to come along.

it's self-packaging all the time these days

a million opportunities for rejection. mood swing revelation.

these moments with myself that I wonder are connective or delusion.

you already know what you'll say to yourself, so does it count as a poem?

writing it down messily on a scrap of paper

and putting it on her wall. waiting to be made:

you already made that decision,

or, you already know what to do!

or, when you don't know, its not time to know.

or, it's urgent when its urgent.

or, everything is an example

or, pruning the family tree

or, rachel comes up with a truism for everything she imagines she'll ever experience!!

and then,

writes it down messily on a scrap of paper

and puts it on her wall, waiting to be made

Sleep

Sleep is conferred through grace and sleep is never guaranteed and sleep should be indulged in without reservation, like the intoxication of autumn square dances, and the undigested footage of each grindingly familiar day that scrolls through the commercially interrupted video jukebox of consciousness as it folds into shutdown.
-Rick Moody

I miss you
These days I can never seem to get enough
Performing throughout the day
into the evening
and late night
When the clock strikes midnight
I know I have lingered too long
I think soon
we will be able to catch up

dating

first dates are kinda my thing
i am really good at them
i have not yet had a bad first date
one was mediocre
the rest
quite fun

second dates on the other hand
not so much

#14

heatheryness, those baggy clothes, that search.

there's just, there's a lot going on there. i want to spill my guts.

the older carpenter says, it's good because you have time to space out.

humming iron, of lungs, of focus, of strong girls. vision as in already, relatable, okay.

, love

I have been irregular
   and you know.

I've seen your poems:

   (you will thrive
    In Green Pastures

Another time,
a blind man made mention
of the sound
of a skirt

and you could see me coming
all the light was in
Your Eyes

Already

if i could i would thank you.
but what gets in the way.
facts? you borrowed time,
very dailily.
and all the promises subsided,
easily.
did you hear the chime?
knew when to duck your crest?
everyone in the neighborhood has seen us naked.

My fEeLiNgS!!!!

Here we have a play.
An honor to speak, an honor
to live in a small house near
the cemetary an honor
to receive the news, an honor
to be well met, the company all
of us in the company and associates, I am
honored.

I have a family that expands and contracts and
I am a member of the King Arthur Book Club.
I love lots of people sincerely and easily and
I do not know how to run.

The King Arthur Book Club never has a meeting
and shall never meet an end.

And here a play is fitted.

meditation on breaking up

My medicine cabinet is filled with ancient shit

and some of that ancient shit

reminds me of other things

There is an old bottle of acne medication

given to me years ago

by someone I haven't seen in years

sitting in my medicine cabinet

"My sister never uses this stuff, so I took it from her"

The bottle of acne medication is almost empty

I'm reluctant to face this fact

It's like saying goodbye

again

that's not how it works

no names

we don't play that way

i can't feel

when you expose

i'll connect to you

and only you

no one else

here

i want to know your innermost secrets

without knowing a thing

second date

I want to say to you,

I am so totally psyched about this

in whatever formation, for

whatever duration.

But!

I'm not saying it yet, I'm playing it cool.

for, of course, the hope of a duration that doesn't end tomorrow

and some super social superstition in those dumb games.

this week,

I am in love with the relationship with myself that I am having because of you.

new thoughts with you as filter,

new problems,

I get all nervous but its hypothetical so I can say,

oh, no! everything will be great!

and everything is great. some day spring will come.

I do not use 'in love' lightly

and I will not ever say those words to you.

but to myself, my own primary p., my own wope,

me and my inky hands that I won't scrub for you next time,

I hope there is a next time,

I must be some psycho for learning. this is going to be hard.

the touching point of the assymptote: it does not exist.

But, I am empowered with potential and

totally preoccupied.

you are a big, busy bird and I am

filling my little belly,

drooling on the subway

moonie mooning, gender identing,

(complicit in everything I think is wrong in the world)

and everything that's just totally annoying

expert voice postulating, ringing around and leaking out my ears

rolling my eyes at myself and unselfconsciously dreaming out,

wet all the time, hair twirling,

it is so much easier to go anyplace when there's someplace internal so nice to go.

to think about what might happen and say

fuck it if I jinx this by fantasizing,

if you call it off tomorrow I'll always have

how I felt this week and what could have been.

Fresh Semester

Favorites back from the dead, from the beyond
trembling reality, eyes hung with shadows but smiling
Breathing below zero, wrist scars
But I haven't seen you in more than a year! We'd all given up hope-
And here you are outside my door with a knock and a bottle of vodka
and a smile like old times and my heart cannot find a beat fast enough

Rejuvenation! It's
seeing old lovers and familiar faces from across the frozen lots,
calling across the rugby field,
Come over, baby!

Sun sinks, and we've collected people along the way, hitchhikers,
lost friends, happy, cold, wanderers
my girls are making chocolate milk and laughing
about human rights biddies and
the color our water has turned over winter

the boys are wearing matching sweaters and setting the table
I can't believe you're here and I keep pinching your cheeks
I'm real, I'm real, you say, I fell into the world, but here I am again

I'm mincing garlic and chipotles, cooking up a big pot of beans and corn,
caramelizing onions slowly-
filling and rolling tortillas into the wide baking pan,
grating cheese, doling out fresh salsa

All you people, c'mere-
bring me your plates and your lips and your skin
I love you

This idea moved her.
-Gabriel Garcia Marquez

this video game where in the inside of these rings is a rock that you want to explode -you lurk outside waiting for these gaps to all align, the chance to shoot your laser through.

in my own self there is a resistance towards most things outside myself. barriers between this one thing that is me and the things that are not me.

I read things to know that it’s all made up, there is no me separate from any other thing - said it in a theory class, or spirituality, or the history of mysticism, or some science class - inside me I said not that, because it is not what I know, and why would I be one with everything ?

Four Brief Poems About Being Sick and Talking

I misunderstood your email
and moped for a week and got
sick, sick, sick. Now you're coming
over on Thursday and my room
is a mess and I don't know
if I'll be able to keep from
coughing all over you.

-

I owe mom a call.
I owe mom a call and
I don't know if I'm going
to call her soon because I'm sick
and talking stresses me out.

-

My broom-headed friend tells me,
"When you're sick you lose the
strength to carry on, even in
your bad habits." Imagine that!
Even mistakes, even inadvertent
mistakes, take strength.

-

My voice was Grand Canyon deep
for two days, but it was clear.
Now that I'm getting better
it's filling up with gravel again.

sometimes having kids seems like something you do so you keep having things to say to people.

sometimes i don't care.

it is too late to take a nap and too early to go to bed

it is 59 degrees in the living room which somehow i find unlivable

someone says something about privilege

but it is muffled under all the sweaters

when you send me on an errand with a buddy whose sole purpose is to make sure i don't fuck up and you say that is why they are going i do it wrong even though i know how to do it.

stop practicing self sabotage. it isn't funny anymore.

i think i just want to lie in bed with someone warm and read the rest of this novel and pretend i am doing all my work.

numbers

numbers are supposed to mean something
you put a number there
and it gives you the answer
rates you
a score of your achievement or lack thereof
so you can look at these numbers and know what you are doing
or not doing so well
they are supposed to motivate you to do better
to achieve
to change yourself for the better
we are rated on these numbers
the numbers you give
display the kind of person you are
and how well you are doing
these numbers are inaccurate
these numbers are made up
they mean nothing

PROCEDURE

The control army undergoes maneuvers of the banal and practiced.

A testament to the travels, and legitimizing of knapsacks and lagging briefcases.

Arms crunch rolled papers, and outer ears (of those courteous) shuffle down for a courtesy.

Arms twinkle to the hands, the hands twinkle to the head, and the head loosens the fingertips.

Three dozen flip books sound, each flickering to the designated bookmarkings, telephone cards. A knocked gaze opens the flat flat border. Large unfortunates led to another walled border, absent of any verbality, or a keyhole peep. Simply left were defeated looks, covering all degrees of the surrounding and pinned foreigners, all welcome to the same speculation of, speculation.

Of course this wouldn't end in exile, they all made it. Victory like butter.

Repeat

Days can feel like repeats.

As if someone pressed rewind again.

You wake up and build the day up from your bed

to the outside.

As much as you want to take a different road

one where dinners are at noon

bathroom breaks are every hour

laughing is like breathing.

The path straightens to the same line.

kitchen creep

waffle iron blues crash down cast iron, places to stick when I am unprepared for reshaping via heat
oh,
oh
pat my head, please, look:
In every part of the room, every part of the everywhere I ever go red lights say "I am hot" and "I am on" or "I am not ready, you have done something wrong" or "I am ready, now do something" or "Now you will be immortalized" and they are so small, I don't know
what to do, I need help oh
waffle iron come down from heaven look up a checkerboard of heat, grid of butter, I hate to cook
oh,
oh
Somebody tell me and then do it for me if I do it I might do it wrong and if I do it wrong then I'll have been right about what I thought might be wrong with me when I thought about it, years ago
oh,
I don't know, I need, maybe, a wife?
Who does these things, not me, I can't.
I can't do anything.

if you could shrink

someday I, too, will have old friends that I will have fought with,

with all of it behind us, now.

the oldest actress on the stage says

when I was in my 20's I would have these panic attacks

uhyea. me and all my friends.

I am not reinventing what it means to be human:

just an hour of this trembling,

not so bad...compare it to:

compare it to!

oh, you know. enough.

it is

so

far

from

not so bad.

space heater. nutella. miso soup.

subway delays. fights with my mom

always getting home, always making up.

again, I ask myself the embarrassing question of my comparative maladjustment.

the question is the answer itself:

not so far gone, yet!

which is what makes this cringeworthy,

that that's not what I want to hear.

if only I could hold my friends as children,

if only I could walk off the ledge and know what it feels like,

and get real big and know what that feels like,

and if only I could see myself as old.

Favoritism

Terrible enough telling you I had cracked under pressure, abandoned the torture thesis
in favor of pop-sociology, pseudo-science, religious zealots and their painted flags
All I can say is, I hope this is worth not endangering my life
(You didn't laugh)

But now, before I can explain about nursing school, when we meet in your new office
large expanses of bare wooden floor, me missing the cramped bookshelves, the narrow steps,
tattered carpet, matted colors into grey

You catch my eye just briefly as if you are telling me a secret
and turn to nod towards the slim, open window
It is very cold

So you can be on the other side for us, you say, and I don't know what you're talking about
Those who break their Hippocratic Oath- the doctors of the Black Sites


And then I can't explain
I can't let mundane words like "health" and "educator" slip from my lips,
the spiel goes dead in my throat, it doesn't belong in this newly gaping wound,
this slit into the dimension of dark
I can't small-talk my way out, can't joke about the oppressive library lights,
mention my reading-heavy headache

The negative nuances loom up
as shadows, wide and tall,
free of hyperbole


I'm
too crippled by a misconception of
swelling of pride,

Terror

Left in this tremendously billowing ideal as you watch me, waiting
I've no intention of-
but-
(Once again, I think, how dare I retreat to live this cushioned life?
What right do I-)

drawn in, of course, curious,
to this underworld

of potential broken confidences,
heroism,
and danger

memories

it was yesterday in my mind

i liked you

i thought you liked me

and the chase began

i've jumped hurdles

made some stops along the way

but you've always been just

out of reach

and now i find out

you feel the same way i do

i hope the finish line

hasn't been taken away

sometimes i hate you

because i never said how i felt

and i just assumed

you knew

and maybe you did know

but i never put it out there

i still haven't

but maybe i'll do that soon

the fear is that it will ruin

everything

but this can't go down

any further

this is my chance

to say what's been in my heart

isn't it amazing when an eternity

lasts a heartbeat?

well not parsley

the truth skirts girlishly the talk
like a garnish on green salad: radishes?
or nuts? the kitten flirts with scissors,
carefully: we will have to be decided,
flash, into a unit of cohesion.
like a squirrel.

highlands

However she was going to learn very soon that her drastic decision was not so much the fruit of resentment as of nostalgia.
-Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Far from the thing itself
it gets to be just what it was
and not shrouded in all these heavy clothes
wet wool bathing suits get shed
and left on the beach.
Yes, he was in love with her, not me.
Yes, there is all this
S P A C E
around it now.
Now it is no more and no less
than it was.
Two souls
in different fish bowls
but not fighting fish.

He felt the shape of his liver with such clarity he could tell its size without touching me.
-Gabriel Garcia Marquez

If only there was no thing
If only
If only there was no
If
If only there was no thing inside
If only there was
If only there was no thing inside me

key west

it's a queer sort of restlessness

born out of midwinter

waxing and waning with each

little downfall

I laid all this before you

my tightlipped stammer

for your April grammar

Annoyance

A cum-eyed cryptic's been milking my guts.
He keeps me uptucked in a cramped and cold white gash
in his brain. He's sucky. He won't grow buds of us,
or belong faces to the skins of us. Nah.
For him, the truth is useless (lessons tension, thus
undoes us. We loosen and go limp as floss, post tooth.)
He likes to double up for nothing,
tickle my sores out of boredom. That maggot
drains my stillness regularly, in shifts.
I'll have my day. I'll fuck in layers, buy buttered fish whole,
acquire a mean slap and meander through the rest of the dead,
picking off their wise birds with a long gun.

The shade

Sometimes in the rough

the shade pulls over.

Slowly, it creeps.

Like a shroud I try to push it away.

Force myself into what is left of the light.

But it is there.

Out there, in the places that are empty

and I am alone.

Like you.

The shade is there, soft and open

until it closes

and it feels like a reunion, like it felt before.

occasion

occasionally think about ex girlfriend
this no longer tortures but raises
dilemma, why still think about
despite obvious distance of time
place, feelings, and knowledge?

but it's been
uh long time since
"tilt the screen
down" in tha motel six
an emotional scene,
an sum postcoital netflix
damn gurl —
sometimes i see
yur yuppie brooklyn twin
on OKC—
okay, see, this silly drama
is no longer a song
not a piece of art anymore
guess i done wrong with this
confessional shit, bitch,
yeah i called ya a bitch
why? lemme write a list
a gullible twist,
a twisted switch
ah, man did i miss
her? NAH son
that was just a
shameful sitch

but i rememba
just yesterday
a stream of pearlescent fluid
beading off my elbow
dayum

Private Property, No Hunting or Fishing

through rock wall BAM or step over, either
down foot, down shin, down knee to newt valley
newt city, newt highway, newtopia, newtropolis
until newt means naught its deal forgot;
that's the ideal day.

So there I am, there you are.
Fallen in the forest, the damp forest
the forest where I learned to fish,
for I am the type to fish in a forest.
But you are fake and I am listless; alone
covered in mud and disappointed

Kamikaze

child watches Kamikaze
too short to ride.

what would it be like
to be so high?
to move so fast?

someday i will be tall enough.
will i be tall enough someday?

tall enough child
watches shorter child on the ground.

Kamikaze clanks
rotates
stops, starts
loading, unloading ticket holders.

between flips
remembering shortness.
flipping doesn't feel quite like flipping looks
unfathomable, otherworldly
height looks
mammoth.

from the inside
you still look out of
the same eyes.
and it somehow
persists
in looking
fathomable
uncannily
like real life.

Kamikaze flips
spins circles
unfeeling
unaware
reliably, dutifully
continuing.

CNN

the news was just
attractive women in pantsuits
against a backdrop of monitors
explaining
how one can earn five hundred dollars
selling sports memorabilia
and jewelry
collecting dust
in the closet
on ebay
on amazon

but their accent-free cadence
the space they occupied in the frame
reminded me
that somewhere
is a bomb
a starving person
a drug mule
a virus taking shape
water torture
something that could make our
bubbled existence
thrift store oddities
sunglasses
giggling
farting
misadventures
seem quite silly
quite dwarfed

rocky mountain poem

winter train curiously spreads across the elevating

slumbering snow patiently shines upon the spreading

white sun stoically watches above the shining

rocky crag boldly rises toward the watching

wooden poles dutifully power beside the rising

bushy scrub humbly speckle between the powering

winding tracks confidently travel through the speckling

immortal mountains proudly elevate beneath the traveling

I think I'm ( gonna / not gonna ) fuck tonight

I think I'm gonna fuck tonight, so I'm putting on a
conDUMBoJacksonFIVEaliveNationSTATESofconsciousNESmonSTIRitupRockIslandRECORDStoreUpDOGgystylandInTheSun

I don't think I'm gonna fuck tonight, so I'm putting on OperationIVdripCoffeePOTAWATOMeWorrybehappyGILMOREgirlsPlusBoiseIDAHObaggins,Bilbo

For the sake of a host

Wind howls against a 22 story apartment building just above Chelsea

There are three people inside

One is sleeping

One is awake

Another is awake

A window on the 19th floor looks out onto Manhattan

Behind it there are three people

One is dreaming

One is laughing

the other is tired but trying to stay awake

Buildings howl when the wind hits them

And sometimes people sleep

sometime people laugh

and sometimes you're caught in between

Resonance is always PERFECT

good morning

gave a reading
worried i packed too much vagina
into 15 minutes
not that it was anything like the
amount of penis
men pack into a life
i told the host my concern
she said "it wasn't too much vagina.
you wake people up."

A shrinking poem about friends

talking to a friend helps you realize how ridiculous you sound

shifting your food to make it look like you're eating

A good friend knows when you're hungry

I hope I was some help to you

Do me a personal favor

go fuck yourself

I love you

Memory Box

Vodka in a water bottle

and crumbs falling out of the bottom of the toaster

like water

Collect in the corners of the same places

as the crickets and the grass

and the firefly masks

glow and quiet glow and quiet

and get broken open by sneakers

sometimes when they're glowing

sometimes when they're quiet

always better when they're glowing

January

I spend an entire saturday

counting dark-eyed Juncos

2 at the feeder

3 on the ground

puff up their feathers like a hymn

scratching at the ground

like a devil at the door

my brown dog won't stay in

even though she shivers

curled up

between the tree and the porch

something still wild and wolfish in her blood

that refuses to be a house pet