An ode to running

When I run
it is like the world around slips
past.

Looking up the sky seems closer
the air rips into your lungs
everything is beating.

Legs begin to tighten
breath whips faster through lungs
into muscles
beads of sweat collect in the crooks of your body.

The run is like a race with yourself
time and space run with you
as you pass street after street
blurred faces, cars that you can beat.

Your legs are the instrument
you tune them
work them
push them
until they crumple.

To run
like the pulse in my body
is a driving
thumping
force.

Waters underneath

You stiffen
while the waters churn below
what has been shut in before.

Educated to be a rock against the floods
you stand
stoic.

Everything if fine.

Yet the tides
tossing feelings right below the dermis
mumble the unsettling hidden.

Those feelings
never brought to surfacing,
bleed out
and the embers that burn of you
die out from the seas beneath.

I wish you could burst open
expose yourself to emotion.

Scream what has been sitting inside until
it's out and you are you
no seas beneath
or tidal waves
but blood pumping
skin warm
heart beating with an earthly rhythm.

melon in a mouth
a promise in a footless patch of land
like leavening,
like an early season's air
burnishing thenceforth and flourishing
buttering up to head again
evenly to the wheel and without scorn.

Think fast

Quick
Think fast
as words line up like a shooting range in front of you.

String them together
so others can knock them down.

This is conversation they say
a debate of word clouds
either covering or pouring at the table.

Devise something
take lines from the last
revise them.

So you can be word savvy
flashy to a room of other strategists.

There is a timer
and hands tapping on desks.
You need to say something
witty
interesting
questioning
chaotic
anything.

Just don't stay silent.

Perfect's Perfect

I am not that labeled Perfect.
You are so organized
put together
how do you do it.

Each line lays down another layer
That I must be perfect's perfect.

But I am not that
I am an actor.

I play the role of the poised
the knowledgeable
and spend hours practicing
just so the persona stays a live.

So I can be perfect's perfect
even for a few hours
and then sink back into the
imperfection of patty
the spillage of my self.

The Storm

We got swept up in its tide.
A crowd of people
like waves
pushed us forward and down
in a crush.

All that can be heard our the whoosh
of voices.
Together in chants as the tide
leaps high
and breaks.

We were caught in the storm
no perserver
or jacket
just the movement of bodies
pushing against and away.

Holding our breaths we tried to be air
but the world
from all angles
was just a sea of air
and dirt
and sky
of people.

The epidermal layers

It is a cliche.

That piercing feeling below layers of dermis.

You have been shot.

No one wants to believe it.
A winged baby in diapers hitting you with an arrow.
The image taunts on red and pink cards
and in windows.

But one day you are somewhere
and you feel a piercing
in the middle of your chest.

You hope it is an anxiety attack
a heart palpitation.

Sadly it is something unexpected.

That L-thing
as the arrow pierces
1, 2, 3 layers
into rib cages
and hits the heart.

its not over
it's not over
it's not over
its not over

Deep Down

Deep Down
Deep.
We sink through potholes
in our paths
quicksand at our toes.
Fast moving we push upward
trying to free from the blackness below.

But we still plunge in
feet first
head still seeing sky
and feeling wind.

Deep down
low low down
it is fast
a sucking of the body into gravity
as you beat against it
the dirt tide pulls harder
and all you see is dark
brown soil
to breath in
gaze at
consume.

In the deep down
deep
all there is
is ground.

traveling band

gambled my life
for a traveling band
gambled my job
to travel the land
and play for the fans
and feel like the man
a sea full of hands
gambled my house
for a thread dangling plan
brother got canned
built on sand
where will it land?

sailor stephanie

sailor stephanie
sparkle star hat
i can picture your apartment
with a cat

sailor stephanie
squaresville girls
i can picture your hair
curls on curls

sailor stephanie
avocado mash
i can picture your stomach
without a rash

sailor stephanie
koreatown queen
i can picture the fortress
of scientology

sailor stephanie
pho tofu
i can picture vietnam
inside of you

sailor stephanie
crash floor vixen
i can picture my smart phone
charge in your kitchen

sailor stephanie
borrowed a car
i can listen your records
of simon and gar

sailor stephanie
california powers
i'll buy the store brand
of 24 hours

sailor stephanie
silverlake swimmer
i can picture you glisten
in silverlake silver

sailor stephanie
surfer boo
i can picture your name
in a heart tattoo

white abortion crosses

pristine fields of
white abortion crosses
harken to
population control in action
a more sustainable planet

the brilliant blinding light of
ten thousand
white abortion crosses
a tribute to
avoided suffering
negated custody cases
deciding against
incompatible marriages

monument of
transcended dogma
rationality
modernization
evolution

utopiac pastures
of white abortion crosses
bravely into the future

You Could Be in the NBA

Follow Your Dreams
Do Your Best
You Can Do Anything You Want

Have Reasonable Expectations
Give it a Try
Sometimes Things Work Out, Sometimes They Don't

Forget Your Dreams
Don't Try
There is Nothing You Can Do

don't pick it, it will get worse

It started on a Tuesday.
that means by Sunday
I shouldn't be able to feel it
and by Thursday
it will be gone.

It's funny how
when you have it
you think about it constantly
but as soon as you don't
have it
you never think about it.

the circumstances leading up

i have, of course
masturbated
countless times
imagining
having sex
with Debra

but sometimes
I try to
masturbate
imagining
what Debra imagines
when she masturbates
imagining me

and i found that
her fantasy
wouldn't have
much to do with
tactile sensations
how it looks
which positions
penetration

it would all
focus on
the circumstances
leading up to
the sexual act

Winter dance

In its depths
it is hard to imagine anything but white

But in moments that open up
and life begins to melt into something new
a new dance occurs.

With legs outstretched
and arms held tight
we dance against and alongside
ice and the remaining snow.

We tiptoe
slowly
and sometimes
slide against the white.

It can be dark
dank
and long
but let your body
move with it
change
dance

i am short on poems
i can't end with a sad poem
i think i prefer to laugh
when i read a poem
someday we'll catch up

Wind down

After the speed of the day

Stop.

Not the full frontal, foot on brake
where the whole body jerks

It is a soft slow down
where muscles slow in
motions that are replayed.

After the day
where speed, dodging
between people
there is no speed bump, not light to tell you to

Stop
and end this.

So the day moves on
in acceleration
until the hours drift
and each appendage calls it a night
and you wind down

until you stop.

no way to tell

night, yes
day, ok!
not asleep &
not a clock in sight

no sound, so :
great panels of light rise,
fall surround
:Us:
(all tiny opalescent
pearls inside)

writing most often
when the harrow lies
alongside the furrow
and there is ease
in all
the air.

address to seven yous

proud of your noisy penis too. o lady, crown of my mouth, ribbon of my tape. have a crush on some facets of you, facing away from me though

left the country
because you wouldn’t look at me much. bobbing on you all thrilled
like riding a dumbo balloon in india
over the people. aye eye i
’m a secret when your eyes upon me.

wanting to marry you, but you are just
making cakes.