(no subject)
ok so i told you id do this. heres a bunch of old poems, the first section. i figured id break them into different sections but this one is pretty big, about 80 poems. theres a few more years of stuff i still need to go through after this, but here is a start. some (if not most) of these are kind of embarrassing but that hasnt stopped me in the past. some of them (surprisingly enough) i still find a bit charming. they run chronologically. im also going to queue them up on tumblr so they go up one at a time every six or so hours, so its not as daunting. but then itll just get monotonous cause u get four a day. but oh well, as i said before (maybe not here), i dont really care. for my own archival sake im going to post the whole thing in one fell swoop on here right now (if it doesnt exceed maximum length, which i totally have had this beast tell me before during some experiment). perhaps itll spark a bit more writing, but that FYAH OF YOUTH, i dont know if i have it anymore? i do have a fire still though. hmmf. <3
ps 'Error updating journal: Client error: Post too large.' so this is part 1 of 2. poems 1-40, next is 41-81.
pps follow the tumbles HERE
early clumsy lyric
march 2007 - september 2007
1
serotonin poetry do you lust after life
do you lust before life in moon chairs
do you wrap grasses in magazines
do you die a thousand times to be born
do you hold her swingset world on your shoulders
is there something on your lips
that burns your books and falsifies histories
like redline revision through youthful cypress
have you a taste for sleep that keeps
all hours propped and aurora suspended awake
wise with weeping weather and wine
or are the leaves of your hair your brand of innocence
the soiled nail-snagged leap through time that
makes your words the same as those i heard
from the street while dirty down and distant in the grass:
something about her gift that spoke something of mine
2
mines a balcony like juliets
with dayglow degas ballerinas
some prone and pure pulled fine by chariots
some moanmelt expression with inquiry
yet had i earthen hooves and backward eyes
id brandish wreathes as thallo should
and blossom shield pans cloudy pasture child
3
everlong night spent thieving with everclear
milky zodiac light and money as honey
sticking barefoot pennies to trees: scrounging
a western wind or the Owl blows in the sound of the cows
under the new moon where stars are all sane spotlight
and the grass is cold and wet like fear
4
queen mary,
you cascade
presley on the gospel dull night air everything cyclic
cigarettes on the sundial say the Owl spring is here
my hands as always caught in jade and the question
rides the updraft, 'did you string these these are real'
so real and so stolen mother im a bardot bandit
who fancies those gems as leaves to gain vision
of youth and time as a yawning lily lioness
rising from the foam of the unfolding falls
a penitent mary cyclic and bound but of course
as the waters wearing through the rock
you cascade
jack
5
bjorks scapular has got eyes
so shes seen me string the viola
pulling taut the shooting tendrils
now winding wet across her neck
or lilith as bjork the bare nymph
covering her flowers with leaves
and ripening as the pear is stretched
tense and harmoniously tuned
cleo claimed by coating cancer
sees now the firm friction of bow
as the dance of venus sans furs
writhing while riding undulating tides
and granting truer sailors ecstasy
with her whispered wailing tones
but now rest young watched viola
so we may play again tomorrow
6
on her back not even a care is eve in the wood
her seeds sprouting elsewhere but her eyes watching
ripples of life collide with puddles brewed fine
by the caught dancing twilight of our shepherd
his is a faith inside and hers is a love thats true
letting her lazy lids bow above a musky grin
the lords truth bridles worry to set her at ease and
a sleep sweeps over as shes always deserved
7
troy is a city or troy via sea no
troy is a mythical orange tree
bearing relics of terse temptation
from our grandfathers homesteads
but ive stolen your acres
where spiderweb widowers send your
tree nose to the books in feverish reality
you scribe passed out on the sofa
with your sorrows revealed quiet slow
like a horse through the gates
and i think of our mothers yes
all our mothers pleasured fine
then birthing silent only to fill our hearts
with tennis cookie recipes and
pass too soon as the temporal sun
oh sing of their hidden investments
or their gifted grateful suffering gravity
i felt it with you on the floors of new orleans
yet i still wisely know to you i am a child
as you would rather me be
so ill find the tree i heard you
and lay seeds and stones beneath it
fashioning more motorcycle riders
and cassady champions with
one you know, a preferred bride
in the twist of it all well conjure tink
full with cherries as a mystic little
memory mother: a firefly flashing
in the dusk and warding off the
loneliness of a wandering deity
8
shaking sawdust and standing tall
perched atop a cresting wave was i full
with the hope of seabirds but now im all
brittle sticks error and erasure
i keep seeing your face in his bed
collapsing into agonized cubism and
turning away from the headstrong
rust man sinking hot air balloons
after theyve risen as in your claw machine
with their greens and blues and browns
made buoyant by the sex of gods or
a breathy breeze and the bound bible
my burner fueled with love had
lifted me above the treeline
and wobbled my surfaces in a
careful updraft but i shouldve known
that the heat would find the cracks
and id deflate like the waning moon
pressured patient but trying
as my sunken basket hit the trees
investing inside has got me nothing
but bitter yet still i hope your experiment
pans no actually i dont i hope
pan stops and gives me a new balloon
9
purple vines cross the ballerina trees
and you slept in the middle of my bed
with your roots at the corners
smiling when i kissed you but
now im sweating worse and alone
and theres not even jasmine flowering
i dont have enough drugs or dirt
to deal with the multiplicities of folky existence
but you slept peaceful in the middle
and i almost fell off watching
cool blue i bet saves you from the heat of
this den now though youre the one on opiates
ill still be here sweating once you figure
four opposing fish is kind of like quartering
and youre the one left alone
i plan though to stay on courtesy call
but not quite like that of the cyclic seasons
no my loops are disintegrating so im
less and less the man youd want
with every hesitant reading
10
just like your dying grandmother
i watched the rappers organize a
pickup basketball game across the street
and it was sorta like daycare
cept nas was there and he knows
the games he knows kelis so
you cant steal and youve gotta
give the ladies back the ball
cause thats the only way theyll play
but beyond those rules life is
watching television with
hanging death in the room
and once you know youre
gonna die then its so easy
to lose all your games to
mary j and beyonce
only to board with them afterward
the old canvas busses holding
hands and accepting a shackled
pitiless playful fate
11
you tumbled down the stairs
like untrained childrens piano fingers
clunking through another fur elise
and you were angry
two beds seared together
held me up and i closed my
eyes and paused releasing
breaths in little sighs
quick soon you were back too
with a new clank and clutter
bearing tear glazed eyes
but oh with wonder you said
'come and see come and see'
i had no questions and
left our humidity for some
sacred coastline
seaturtle footsteps like cups
in the sand were drinking ocean
masked in the dim and damp
forgiving moonlight
you were disappointed
but walter and i believed
knowing another mother escaped
into watery privacy
but what a pause you granted
in it i saw tongues of moon dipped
over cresting waves and the wet air
had us clean windblown
our upstairs retreat then
rang out an ascending melody
and our now deft and penitent toes
set us into faithful harmony
12
whyd you have to throw
away my toothbrush?
i coulda sworn it
wasnt even mine
i thought that we had
shared it all those months
and thats why i had
left it behind
13
pressured caustic and biting tongue
im always looking out the window
grabbing something squinty purposive
like petals mixed to potpourri or cats
alive with the mess of birth or trains
rattling houses and jostling the ballerinas
i want to fill my grandmothers house
with all these and make it a menagerie
floating above the ground on pillows
of secrets and stories like the swelling
garage when the storms fell as blankets
or the dog at the door consumed by fear
and yet im stuck on the potpourri and
just as strong as im stuck on succulent you
those fragant lips are songs, georgia knows
and the taste and the prick and the theft
of the gathering are more than enough
to furnish whatever bayou bathhouses
live with me there and ill wash your
feet with the cool cistern rainwater and
when those stormy coverings again arrive
well both sleep on a bed of books
surrounded by blistered and bare walls
and soaking in the slip of our perfumes
14
elizabeth taylor took me back to the library
and we made love to the velvets on the sofa
she was soon to put out by the curb
she sat under running water hypnotizing herself
i was drunk she wasnt but she had the fishnets
and how i was smitten just begging for hurt
it was there wed lived and were hardly alone
there were always the whispered criticisms
as fingers probed the bindings irresponsibly
what of her acting? her face was too too nice
her nose too straight how could she be a seat for empathy
if her glare was always melting you over her curves
but whos afraid of virginia woolf right youve seen it?
in her empty room shes more than that and i could tell by
the cathair tumbleweeds galloping across the floor
and the boxes of polaroids and the crumpling maps
that i pulled from my grandmothers closet to woo her
oh what a performance when she left me there alone
once id slept off the whiskey and cigarettes
i was spry in the dawn and exploring the empty
floorboards and the curiously stocked refrigerator
the orange juice was old and id always hated
the water but its meditative refreshment that morning
was like the heat of her chest when im underneath
elizabeth i missed you and couldnt sleep
i knew your gown was under your own covers
and i probably knew how they smelled so
i thumbed through your bookshelves
hearing the neighbors tend their lawns in
the productive workless void of saturday morning
and after terrance hayes and vacuums and
sitting hungover crosslegged indian style
on the towels wed played on hours before
i felt so comfortable like the lone book gracing
the empty living room floor, a manageable zen
akin to the surrender of those tumbleweeds
so i let the breeze push me bound out the doorway
to steal flowers for you elizabeth from your own
wet garden and bring them barefoot to your doorstep
15
ribald rimbaud its cold out today and i cant string together metaphors
i have a headache and have been crying and there is a kite in the yard
its a spiderman kite too and it musta not been tied tight enough cause
apparently it slipped offa some kids string and ended up in our yard
now it is glued with rainwater to the pavement in front of my house
and my father is in the garage using his left handed brain to grind
pistons into unmatched efficiency for some speed thirsty old man
my father likes to build things hes an eagle scout also hes a genius
also hes a cancer and also his mother trusts him with her estate and
hes not even the oldest he is always over at her house fixing things
she calls him up and says she has this to move and these light
fixtures to replace and this aquarium that needs to be emptied
one time he asked me to go over there with him i was down it was
right after the big hurricane and a tree in her yard didnt exactly fall
but it was bent into a compromising position sorta like the tree
i told rebecca about on the telephone that is old and an oak
that tree is gnarly and its on river road and sometimes i wonder
why i never noticed these things before because i drive by them
all the time like how come only recently did i look up and see
the trees under the powerlines pruned like forks all preventing
outages so whoever can run their washing machine and dryer
and touch lamps and televisions and piston grinding tools
at my grandmothers house though he pulled the suburban
into the yard and strapped the tree to the trailer hitch
and pulled it and pulled it and pulled it until it was straight
and then he put a twobyfour longways under one of its
branches to help it stay up and it was all fixed hes good
at things like that hes also good at tying knots and while
im glad that he straightened her tree im also glad he
didnt straighten that oak it was all leaning to one side
like a sprinter waiting for the BANG but it was a tree and
not a runner i was so impressed by it so i told rebecca
how gnarly it was really and i love those old oak trees
like i love my autistic cousins and my selfabsorbed
other grandmother who gives lamely thoughtful gifts
like today fatefully enough she had bought kites but
not for me for my younger cousins she gave me a bag
with candies and a ten dollar bill i dont really like candies
but ten dollars is good for cigarettes but i dont really like
cigarettes they give me a horrible cough and headaches
and make me feel dirty and they kill people like rebeccas
uncle which is a sad sad sad thing but sometimes trees
have to be crooked and sometimes kites have to get lost
so i told my other grandmother that my gift wasnt a kite
and that i wanted it to be a kite and then she let me look
through all her kites and i got to pick the one i wanted
it had bugs on it like dragonflies and ants i think and the
ants were riding the dragonflies like birds or horses
and they were making the most ungnarly happy faces
you could imagine so i had to call rebecca and tell her about it
when i put together the kite i asked my father to tie
the string to it because he has a left handed brain
and because he is an eagle scout and because i trust
him like nobody trusts me so i asked him what kind of
knot he would use and he said 'bowline' and he said
'do you know how to tie that knot' and i said 'no' see
this is sort of like a ritual when he hung the hammocks
in the backyard he gave me knot tying lessons
i think i forget them on purpose he said in the scouts
there were knot tying races and he would win because
he is a genius he is left handed after all and one time
he tied the knots so fast that the judges made him do it again
his technique wasnt the same as anyone elses he
didnt tie the knot how they taught him to he figured some
way to do it more efficiently i never really knew til now
just how efficient this man is also i feel like my head is heavy
he is efficiently patient i asked him 'why a bowline' and
he said 'because then you can untie it later' thats all he really
had to say other than that it wont come untied and he was
right i wish i was more right i wish i was more honest i wish
i was more true and i wish i wasnt a lying artist i wish
i was an efficient patient and trustworthy man that made
practical and realistic decisions in a timely manner i want
that respect and leaving poems on peoples doorsteps
is not how you get it im starting to think maybe you need
a time machine or maybe just a time kite, a time kite?
my kite flew too and its bowline didnt come undone
even in the rain and the wind and its cold cold out too
and i flew it for a while and now ill cry thinking about it
i wonder if someone misses their spiderman kite my
mother says we should put it by the street in case
someone is looking for it i dont know if i would miss a
kite but i am not six years old my father was six years
old in nineteen sixty one and today i told him that
that was before tables were invented but he didnt hear
he has bad hearing like me and i have bad eyes
and a hangover and a headache and im lovesick
and i wish i knew how to straighten trees that need
straightening and not straighten trees that dont
and tie knots for any situation and give everyone
their spiderman kites back and cry because i know
that i am temporary and that we will all die and that
you will never stop saying you could never trust me again
you know ribald rimbaud life as art i imagine myself
in a fantastic studio or my father maybe hes in his studio now
lying on his back frescoing eve and the annunciation and
pentitent magdalene and the last supper and the turkish baths
and les demoiselles d'avignon and nude descending a staircase
except they come out as more horsepower or more patient
efficiency or maybe he just knows everything im never to know
like how to build trust with knots or just be of service or just
be unerringly true and maybe ill learn something i never expected
like how some people call a bowline a rescue knot
16
thickthighed physics with einstein and calculus
is what i studied with some blonde alaskan girl
i used to like the big ones least ones bigger than me
cause id rather be trapped like i am now by the rain
or the pheromones bounced back under my thermals
she had sturdy legs like a house or a horse and
i bet the pillowing layers wrapped over her muscles
would keep the heat from escaping any of my surfaces
we could root ourselves beneath the polar snows
and name the cubs after streams of the aurora borealis
oh what a surreal fantasy but i only used to like the big ones
i may be an animal but i am not sequestered in this body
i am alive as your spaghetti recipes and watching you in
shorts painting the walls of your new kitchen is a thickthighed
humid heat gifting kisses of healthy hibernation
through the snows and blinds you could build a little den
and ill shrink myself down into your pockets or lay and let
you mother me watching your silhouettes flicker with greens
i used to like the big ones least ones bigger than me
but id rather be trapped like i am now by the rain
17
i cant sleep to music or to counting
not sheep nor lullabies nor to her breath
my minds always pacing on the telephone
and never exhausted enough to crash
ive seen some rosy cheeks so frozen
on their vinyl mats i cannot help but
harbor jealousy or search for something
strong and heavy that will quickly lay me flat
else my brains a jumble spilled and scrambled
over the pavement firing with shoddy reception
or turning and turning ceaselessly awake
awaiting some familiar morning television
i knew this as a child so id play a game
trying to wipe the chalk from my blackboards
i must lay and with only one purpose
become blind by keeping eyes so closed
i guess its just another dodge of wants
or ascetically summoned dopamine
cause its sorta like when our breaths match
and then collapse into a victorious dream
18
bermuda faith i swear there are monsters under the sea
and my cousin is not afraid of anything except monsters
i told him that i was afraid of him going to sleep so he
tipped his little head over and faked a big growling snore
and when he did that i ran away i took off i was playing
but he really believed me i guess he had faith in my beard
like i aint got no faith in myself or you should have some
more faith in me or god says there is no faith in proof
but thats all nonsense anyway and as fragile and caustic
as i sometimes find myself to be (alone) ive so much faith
it pours backwards out my ears bursts out of your closet
snarling gets down onto its knees and begs you to listen
19
good weather has me missing you
and your casual full trusting voices
i feel i polarize you either you are up
and art or down succumbed to gravity
without you aurora i sleep til im sick
and long for you in a morning stare
ive decided not to take care of myself
when i thought i was i wasnt anyway
im lost and stuck in the cold and wet
its as if god has gotten rightly bored
and with a finger slightly tilted his globe
my seasons are so badly misaligned
but things still rise right? fatefully
and the grounded symbols of depression
like stringless kites in puddles sooner
and so unexpectedly must again rise
i mean after a while the skies began
clearing and the kite was lifted til it
perched proud as a robin in a tree
that must have been enough altitude
for the little boy cross the street to
find it and reattach string and wait for
oh glorious loose brave windy today
and to be now out flying it again
20
the irish gypsy swept into town
in a kindergarten teachers dress
clutching a jangly bottle of jameson
in her drifting little scholars fingers
she climbed the stairs wanting to
be fucked as we warned her all
about crazy nextdoor will and his
stiffly lobotomized beer language
we swallowed our pills and she
sat crosslegged on the ashen
timbered balcony shuffling her cards
and preparing another prophecy
as she read and read away i sat
and sang some songs avoiding
the withering weight of her eyes
clapping through me like castanets
i like a simple mind and i like a wino
so i wanted will to read my cards
irish gypsies are drunkards anyway
that surely dont know what they want
the roma road may be a sort of home
but just like with your fabled dances
youve gotta plant a solid foot or
your sways will have no resonance
but will the thirty year old childish and
curious student sees easy and straight
through schemes like your cigarettes
falling through the slits of that balcony
when you joined me in song he
mustve seen the light with his brain
all tickled by trembling harmonies
and he knew that i was the pedestal
on which i place you and couldnt
help but afterward in his affirming
and repetitious way tell me to stick
to you, to hold that irish gypsy tight
then i saw him in my mind early in the
morning sitting along the banks of
a bayou with his line in the water
smiling and simply waiting, waiting
21
my father and the sea
lady we live in separate plac es
have separate fac es
dredge different depths and
drop different baits
go to hell with your
full fish
ill go to heaven
with a skeleton
and laze with
the lions
my father raised
til you know something of
fruitless accomplishment
good god just accept
and
release
you wont trust anyone
til you can face the gusts
eyes closed
opening your hands
to the gasps of the present
22
i feel a disappointed intoxicated mess
with an expanding misunderstood catalog
i am the confident gull atop the hull
filling its breast with a salted sea breeze
but far far from the spoils of solid ground
to dig into worms? what am i eating anyway?
a pennypinchers stale white bread or
hellraised alka seltzer playing dirty tricks
i am not so peaceful scrounging and
i was only ever born to fail myself
so i secure the confidence of a dream
like ones you dont surface-ly remember
just a fertilized sense of distant truth
revealed in slow dissolved capsules
sitting dormant in your belly til its time
oh convince me lord of something tonight
just anything to make me less a man
i am so tired and so very down were you
to string a hammock cross the insides of
my skull i would surely lay and never leave
23
fog hangs heavy on the land like inevitable age
after a dozing evening on the balcony with you
your brother ran with the dog darting as gazelles
in tandem: twins once removed only by species
oh how i remember
fog hangs heavy on the land like patsys 'crazy'
and every time your father heard our songs
im sure pigeons swept from line to power line
as notes rung true through his minds saxophone
oh how i remember
fog hanging heavy on the porch when the
cats eyed majestic lovemaking freedom
like when your eyes begged me through the
reflection of your cars mediating mirror
oh how i remember
fog hanging heavy on the lusts of my soul
as you lifted your playful desiring chin to the lord
presenting below the downpours of your neck
the humble soporific valleys of a lilting breast
oh how i remember
fog hanging heavy on the porch as we strung
together the columns as candycanes for
the depths of a cascading winter when i was
too scared and huddled raining lonely songs
oh how i remember
fog hangs heavy on the land like regret
as i leant in through the wet of day for a kiss
and found soon myself starved for a lip
dropping quick on my own--must i wait?
oh how i remember
24
do you not wish it was i that loved you
and rolled out linen carpets through the trees
beginning flat then rippling on into
a wild azure of hospitality?
tis not my airs that shake you in your sleep
and whisper words upon your ears as choirs
or in your wavering moments make you weep
in hearing all the verse that you inspire?
is not my voice a calming covering
that seizes 'pon your lids as heavy weights
closing you off to all thats troubling
through timbres warm that gently permeate?
for its what i do wish as days begin
awakened by the song of passerines
25
im not throwing up anymore
not even fine handmade tortillas
not even stealing signs not even
cavorting not even trying just waiting
for rain lots of rain where im stuck
watching weather updates instead
of worrying about something else
im not reading anymore im not
writing anymore im not singing
anymore all i do is lose my voice
and dampen my range im not
celine im quitting sodas im drinking
juice im learning a little in blakes
school of blunts and chicago blues
but i dont really like anything
guess cause not even fine
face covering handmade tortillas
or nothing is sacred you like
the things you like and i didnt
bring it up when blake and trudy
argued the other day but isnt
entertainment just distraction
i remember how high i was when
semesters began and i was so
steady with sleep schedules and
motivation and a new view for
morning but i cant place myself
in that mindset though i know it
exists but it never quite lasts
through the semester anyway
so on to subtlety right?
26
go to california be a star
ill drink the cheap rum change my tires
and stay so planted here
i have my compositional plans
and havent nearly received the credit
the peaks are fluffed with
sterile snows in the life of winter
maybe thats an appropriate cloak
go to california be a star
ill move like summits with the earth
while your magdalenas with inheritance
are birthed with faces that burn in
the kirsten kiln of distant space
starlets flowering in the cats eye nebula
not the crab so at once theyll
never fall not from my slow cliffs and theyll
never wish for rain cause what is rain in fissuring cali
we both fade to each side as earth builds between
but dont forget were round as this universe and
soon so soon continents colliding back to back
27
she had auburn hair this time
and what do i know of love?
i sat behind my glasses so my eyes
would look a little smaller
what do you think? oh cant we talk
you teased and stuck your tongue
out at me and i swallowed it
we used to sit so easy as one person
on the floors of beachbound buses
id like to think i am still just as handsome
you smirking sent me pictures with your chest
cause you knew how much id like them
you felt my blurred seclusion and undressed
as some would rather have me not remember
but wisdom is a grateful infants song
or shayne can tell me just how not to hurt
next time is she a piano? i catapulted
these vision correctors into the wall
so as to approach the detuned instrument
with the purity of inadequate eyes and
the voice of a disintegrating western tradition
long as i live and regardless the tree will
stand where we hid in dusk after leaking
we salty fumbled so much in that boat
kicking our feet over its edges so wary
of outside sounds--once we shuffled
swapping shirts and listing states and
loving loud all muddy mouthfuls muffled
its all so vivid like books bound by soap
i read the sultry eugenides i let you borrow
in a sauna teeming full with tangerines
but what do i know of auburn haired love?
much less than i know when im in a dream
the lusters you blessed me with in the dawn
arouse aromas dancing in the gleam
28
i can feel it cool slipping through my fingers
as the bottles are chilled in the pamplona streams
go buy a fucking house and be a trophy wife
its how youd hope those lustful profs saw you anyway
dont go breaking my heart what do you want from me?
i dont play two sides im either all in or all out
i watch landon across the street and want more
we used to play teeball and shoot for the pool
we used to eat soaked crackers and peanut butter
we used to pour all our pennies on the driveway
and ride our bikes to the corner store for ice cream
but isnt this all putrid sentimental bullshit
its recycled dying flesh and prissy backward age
no frozen mountain creeks to bind my fingers together
by the time it gets to solidifying its sank well below
my feet and hardened at the base of a heartless rust man
i am so angry at loss and feel wronged i shouldnt
long for youth i already behave as if in the throws of it
tell me more about your life im losing while
i disappear a little more in hushed huffs and sighs
the same moon that houses my sorry eyes sees
you folding next to whatevers in your bed so sure
tell me about your tanlines and let me glamorize it all
youre probably glad you get so harsh a tribute
29
and like my lamp i am not bright
my mother fears ill start a fire
if left alone building a heap of
heat in sleepwalking paces
i am a disconnect not made
for outlets of a modern home
with no notice ill spark sending
wildfires through the brush
i am the sole possession i should
have placed into your bedroom
allowing beams to tangle cross
the wordy lines of your bosom
we could have slept with that
light as a tender envelope
i read for many months all of
that verse and never starved
a moment for some snoozing
i love you like some low lamp
lighted reading--not truly bad
for eyes just sleep inducing
30
smoky adulation wafts from the candle out the window
as the wax forms oozing pools fused to the toilet top
theres no challenge in a finite wick so soon youll
have to case the ranks of the department store for
a new fragrance to dully bask you in a fruitless love
ive seen the particles parade as snowflakes in that
windows slitted glare right after the mermaid split her tail
to wrap her bluejean baby legs tight around my waist
she was skintight covered and so fiery lustful she
woulda came on the floor near the litterbox had i asked
and thats the challenge of a boundless twisting wick
when leaving is the hardest thing and you stare on up
thinking of the debris to collect and later spill over a page
its kindling forming impenetrable smoke from more formidable
fires that swell not carefully but with passionate abandon
31
blakes passed out on the balcony
and theres mattresses on the floor
cause thats where you sleep
sometimes in new orleans
approach the rails carefully as
theyre not so attached you might
lose tack like that green paint
and pass out onto magazine
and oh of all the things youd miss
in the heartbeats of that apartment
mosquito sucked dry of furniture
but so radiantly alive
a drizzle peppers the shutters
with a square subtle congo beat
keeping seamless pace with the
feet of sightless dancers
rich breathy blood im sure pulsed
from the rouge of aging curtains
as hand in hand two bounded
skirting past oppressive time
and twirling in ballerina circles
around the hanging locus of god
or the chain of the ceiling fan
in thirsty dionysian ecstacy
but oxygen should reach you still
despite the harshest blackouts
and coat your lungs with the blues
of a vibrant releasing recital
32
toke one up in the zeppelin and take me further
from this land on acidic busses devoid of reality
theres a dripping lonely pisces in my doorway
but its not the one i want to be there shes up
and sleeping in the rain somewhere else
i can only imagine--werent you crying to me
like the heavens split open by tonights neglect?
but thats all something truly important to you
not like your reticent residence with its hospitable
rentless comforts and a glaring empty bedroom
the kittens lick my toes and i long for something
im just not meant to have or maybe am i?
theres sanctity in rain and i can just imagine how
asleep she is with not a worry about me just
cleansed in mind by forceful frontal boundaries
dispelling brittle criminals from all doorways
im so alone and asking for good hugs cause
none adore me quite enough as that oh cant
you see im dreamless in these depths but her
thundering ideals might just keep me damned alive
33
click clank click clank
all levers and furry pads
goes my favorite piano
she likes to sit and watch trudy paint
or all the dodging footsteps
scratching through the front door
i used to get stoned and
play with her lettered keys
spelling beaded melodies
as if to say as with the rest of the house
'you must accept me as i am
i have never been more beautiful'
id fumble not inverting chords
but build up layered progressions
hammering out clouds of tonal dust
and when a leading line would rise
from the droning fires as a phoenix
clear would i hear the dull thud of a dead string
and just as clear as trudy crying on the phone
and wavering 'im sorry im sorry
i just dont know how to talk to you'
she and all were posed in youth with
a thick squatting family seeping
limitless voluptuous strength
the woman: a piano? as it should be
returning through a busted doorframe
looking for boys to tote in everyones groceries
trudy always in the greens of her selfless working garb
like a playerless piano buried by the life of a trying house
i know her beautiful sobbing songs
and that mommas are pears you never forget
when shes leading those sleepy dogs
to her bedroom shes really curtsey-ing through a tune
more heartbreaking for all its instrumental flaws
and more like a wrinkled guide through
and toward whatevers left of tomorrows suffering
34
idea(r)s:
no ideas but in [people]?
philosophy the metaphorical rock
or not the rock but the foundation
were all logicians right? reasoning beings
so arent our expressions subjective arguments?
its all in some sense about convincing
even those of us preoccupied with intuition
or the slinky nature of a viscous god probing
our unconscious for some ideal communication
maybe you have to think about your art so much
to finally execute without thinking
i mean no one exists in a vacuum
artists need artists its all just response right?
35
purpose shifting with the coals of the dawn
as a moss dangles damp from the rafters of the barn
a lame lamp flickers with the dusted sag
of the slumping ceiling fans swivel--emptiness
the sparking is never enough so bales 'pon
seeping bales turn flames straight into musk
and a 'coon sniffs for meaning in the silent yet
scuttering madness hanging stagnant as a fog
sinking down in this alone, detached or like my
deprived mind starved for sleep and retribution
conversing with hallucinated faces in the car
as a lone headlight frames.. oh!--emptiness
36
ribald rimbaud i dont exist
but im good in the sack
art is a joke taking a drunken
joyride at the height of celebrity
and meeting a subborn fate
in the formless form of a tree
i am suffering the vanity of
my egoism and reducing it
to squares or elemental fragments
i am no more than a summation
of my various exploits and at
the mercy of dwindling experience
ribald rimbaud i am negligible
i am a tax write off i am thousands
dead in the ditches and streets
embracing a life with no forced
schemes or purposes with no
imposed vision or reason and
bound so obviously through
historys rose coloured glasses
to fail and die in obscurity as
a champion of chess or hashish
or an ignoble suicider humming
rocket rocket usa i am so
selfish and pointless as i should
be and fueling with a tilt the
infinite chasms of a psychotic
breakdown with every hopeless
blasphemous reach and reach
37
footsteps or gunshots at the boat launch
sound out of the soles of my feet
as they devour spreading grasses
water lilies lie beyond the rail bridge
and doggish laps graze over
the searing banks as i board alone
my invisible boat in the early heat
of a groggy summer
a rickety steamrolled oasis holds them
silent afloat and shimmering
in a heavy dry mirage barred
by tracks from the cruelties of empty men
or those untrained and tempered
looking to preserve that tranquility with
a fearful setup of tripod just trying
(with hollow adoration) to falsify a monet
i though swell spurning wakes and
am glad to debase and defile some lilies
that get a little wet or no a lot with my passing
lilies, lady, venus, ma'am your art is
alive only with sensuous time and a bask
in the tongue-ing sensual glories
of a vigorous wetfaced gesture
dab your paint or arch your back just
please part simply, lilies, for a fuller bow
so we as one may submerge into this musing atmosphere
and then package through fresh coital elegance
parcels of youth and luck and love and
all your nymphaea timelessness for
heaving rustic distribution by rail to all corners
and all desperate men
just squirms of lilting primal fragrance
skirting past the noses of beaten vagrants
to whom your scented curves reveal the heat the secret
the faith the meaning and the end
38
i cant make it really
ic an make it raelly
i cant make it really
i can make it raley
i cant make it really
i can make it really
i cant make it really
i can make it really
ic ant make it really
i can make it raelly
i cant make it really
39
j alfred turn turn turn
a twentysomethings dilemma
as foretold by the girl with the cat blog
i seen her one time and she still hangs as a fog
ha ha ha pathetic
you are a glass and an animal
i am a liquid person i find gaps and cant be alone
i hide away and assume another life
i come to your parties and ride in your friends cars
because i need a new form to fill
i am tired of the ones i supply myself with
and am rejected finally as per usual
from the ones im comfortable in
wet and formless maybe inhuman
there was a card with mary on the floor
beside cecilia when she decided it was time to go
i sit in the bath imagining rippling installations
like my bowed crying heads shadow
on the base of the tub
i smell it all
her dead
the trees impaled
burning parasitic garbage suffering
and the only selfconscious solution
i just steal ideas! like everyone else
and a crab on the seafloor?
erase my intellect ive written it already
i dont want this anymore
the intimacy is fleeting or is it?
like sleeping in someone elses bed
you can realign your scents or
like wearing someone elses clothes
you can exist possessionless
and banish suffering, banish self
lobotomized? maybe this is the only truth of anyones reality
even intimacy in no ones space
is it through recipes or pets or instruments?
i am trying to kill my mind and bring it to
new levels of nonexistence
j alfred turn turn turn
or kerouac fuck you all
my friend looks like michaelangelo
especially when hes in the street and jumping
this is done
the strings and bindings of life deteriorate
work falls to work
fate falls to fate
man falls to man
aah-- poof--
wisps and you, breeze,
tickle the disappeared leaves
and landon cross the street just like the universe
gone
40
shoulders hold the hearts of men up contrapposto
as maradona's trophy held the world
after his deliverance with the hand of god
and broad high classical shoulders
as the hearts just as the world
hold tenfold denser dignified subtlety
than all those proud postured argentinians
pouring into the streets in celebration
ps 'Error updating journal: Client error: Post too large.' so this is part 1 of 2. poems 1-40, next is 41-81.
pps follow the tumbles HERE
early clumsy lyric
march 2007 - september 2007
1
serotonin poetry do you lust after life
do you lust before life in moon chairs
do you wrap grasses in magazines
do you die a thousand times to be born
do you hold her swingset world on your shoulders
is there something on your lips
that burns your books and falsifies histories
like redline revision through youthful cypress
have you a taste for sleep that keeps
all hours propped and aurora suspended awake
wise with weeping weather and wine
or are the leaves of your hair your brand of innocence
the soiled nail-snagged leap through time that
makes your words the same as those i heard
from the street while dirty down and distant in the grass:
something about her gift that spoke something of mine
2
mines a balcony like juliets
with dayglow degas ballerinas
some prone and pure pulled fine by chariots
some moanmelt expression with inquiry
yet had i earthen hooves and backward eyes
id brandish wreathes as thallo should
and blossom shield pans cloudy pasture child
3
everlong night spent thieving with everclear
milky zodiac light and money as honey
sticking barefoot pennies to trees: scrounging
a western wind or the Owl blows in the sound of the cows
under the new moon where stars are all sane spotlight
and the grass is cold and wet like fear
4
queen mary,
you cascade
presley on the gospel dull night air everything cyclic
cigarettes on the sundial say the Owl spring is here
my hands as always caught in jade and the question
rides the updraft, 'did you string these these are real'
so real and so stolen mother im a bardot bandit
who fancies those gems as leaves to gain vision
of youth and time as a yawning lily lioness
rising from the foam of the unfolding falls
a penitent mary cyclic and bound but of course
as the waters wearing through the rock
you cascade
jack
5
bjorks scapular has got eyes
so shes seen me string the viola
pulling taut the shooting tendrils
now winding wet across her neck
or lilith as bjork the bare nymph
covering her flowers with leaves
and ripening as the pear is stretched
tense and harmoniously tuned
cleo claimed by coating cancer
sees now the firm friction of bow
as the dance of venus sans furs
writhing while riding undulating tides
and granting truer sailors ecstasy
with her whispered wailing tones
but now rest young watched viola
so we may play again tomorrow
6
on her back not even a care is eve in the wood
her seeds sprouting elsewhere but her eyes watching
ripples of life collide with puddles brewed fine
by the caught dancing twilight of our shepherd
his is a faith inside and hers is a love thats true
letting her lazy lids bow above a musky grin
the lords truth bridles worry to set her at ease and
a sleep sweeps over as shes always deserved
7
troy is a city or troy via sea no
troy is a mythical orange tree
bearing relics of terse temptation
from our grandfathers homesteads
but ive stolen your acres
where spiderweb widowers send your
tree nose to the books in feverish reality
you scribe passed out on the sofa
with your sorrows revealed quiet slow
like a horse through the gates
and i think of our mothers yes
all our mothers pleasured fine
then birthing silent only to fill our hearts
with tennis cookie recipes and
pass too soon as the temporal sun
oh sing of their hidden investments
or their gifted grateful suffering gravity
i felt it with you on the floors of new orleans
yet i still wisely know to you i am a child
as you would rather me be
so ill find the tree i heard you
and lay seeds and stones beneath it
fashioning more motorcycle riders
and cassady champions with
one you know, a preferred bride
in the twist of it all well conjure tink
full with cherries as a mystic little
memory mother: a firefly flashing
in the dusk and warding off the
loneliness of a wandering deity
8
shaking sawdust and standing tall
perched atop a cresting wave was i full
with the hope of seabirds but now im all
brittle sticks error and erasure
i keep seeing your face in his bed
collapsing into agonized cubism and
turning away from the headstrong
rust man sinking hot air balloons
after theyve risen as in your claw machine
with their greens and blues and browns
made buoyant by the sex of gods or
a breathy breeze and the bound bible
my burner fueled with love had
lifted me above the treeline
and wobbled my surfaces in a
careful updraft but i shouldve known
that the heat would find the cracks
and id deflate like the waning moon
pressured patient but trying
as my sunken basket hit the trees
investing inside has got me nothing
but bitter yet still i hope your experiment
pans no actually i dont i hope
pan stops and gives me a new balloon
9
purple vines cross the ballerina trees
and you slept in the middle of my bed
with your roots at the corners
smiling when i kissed you but
now im sweating worse and alone
and theres not even jasmine flowering
i dont have enough drugs or dirt
to deal with the multiplicities of folky existence
but you slept peaceful in the middle
and i almost fell off watching
cool blue i bet saves you from the heat of
this den now though youre the one on opiates
ill still be here sweating once you figure
four opposing fish is kind of like quartering
and youre the one left alone
i plan though to stay on courtesy call
but not quite like that of the cyclic seasons
no my loops are disintegrating so im
less and less the man youd want
with every hesitant reading
10
just like your dying grandmother
i watched the rappers organize a
pickup basketball game across the street
and it was sorta like daycare
cept nas was there and he knows
the games he knows kelis so
you cant steal and youve gotta
give the ladies back the ball
cause thats the only way theyll play
but beyond those rules life is
watching television with
hanging death in the room
and once you know youre
gonna die then its so easy
to lose all your games to
mary j and beyonce
only to board with them afterward
the old canvas busses holding
hands and accepting a shackled
pitiless playful fate
11
you tumbled down the stairs
like untrained childrens piano fingers
clunking through another fur elise
and you were angry
two beds seared together
held me up and i closed my
eyes and paused releasing
breaths in little sighs
quick soon you were back too
with a new clank and clutter
bearing tear glazed eyes
but oh with wonder you said
'come and see come and see'
i had no questions and
left our humidity for some
sacred coastline
seaturtle footsteps like cups
in the sand were drinking ocean
masked in the dim and damp
forgiving moonlight
you were disappointed
but walter and i believed
knowing another mother escaped
into watery privacy
but what a pause you granted
in it i saw tongues of moon dipped
over cresting waves and the wet air
had us clean windblown
our upstairs retreat then
rang out an ascending melody
and our now deft and penitent toes
set us into faithful harmony
12
whyd you have to throw
away my toothbrush?
i coulda sworn it
wasnt even mine
i thought that we had
shared it all those months
and thats why i had
left it behind
13
pressured caustic and biting tongue
im always looking out the window
grabbing something squinty purposive
like petals mixed to potpourri or cats
alive with the mess of birth or trains
rattling houses and jostling the ballerinas
i want to fill my grandmothers house
with all these and make it a menagerie
floating above the ground on pillows
of secrets and stories like the swelling
garage when the storms fell as blankets
or the dog at the door consumed by fear
and yet im stuck on the potpourri and
just as strong as im stuck on succulent you
those fragant lips are songs, georgia knows
and the taste and the prick and the theft
of the gathering are more than enough
to furnish whatever bayou bathhouses
live with me there and ill wash your
feet with the cool cistern rainwater and
when those stormy coverings again arrive
well both sleep on a bed of books
surrounded by blistered and bare walls
and soaking in the slip of our perfumes
14
elizabeth taylor took me back to the library
and we made love to the velvets on the sofa
she was soon to put out by the curb
she sat under running water hypnotizing herself
i was drunk she wasnt but she had the fishnets
and how i was smitten just begging for hurt
it was there wed lived and were hardly alone
there were always the whispered criticisms
as fingers probed the bindings irresponsibly
what of her acting? her face was too too nice
her nose too straight how could she be a seat for empathy
if her glare was always melting you over her curves
but whos afraid of virginia woolf right youve seen it?
in her empty room shes more than that and i could tell by
the cathair tumbleweeds galloping across the floor
and the boxes of polaroids and the crumpling maps
that i pulled from my grandmothers closet to woo her
oh what a performance when she left me there alone
once id slept off the whiskey and cigarettes
i was spry in the dawn and exploring the empty
floorboards and the curiously stocked refrigerator
the orange juice was old and id always hated
the water but its meditative refreshment that morning
was like the heat of her chest when im underneath
elizabeth i missed you and couldnt sleep
i knew your gown was under your own covers
and i probably knew how they smelled so
i thumbed through your bookshelves
hearing the neighbors tend their lawns in
the productive workless void of saturday morning
and after terrance hayes and vacuums and
sitting hungover crosslegged indian style
on the towels wed played on hours before
i felt so comfortable like the lone book gracing
the empty living room floor, a manageable zen
akin to the surrender of those tumbleweeds
so i let the breeze push me bound out the doorway
to steal flowers for you elizabeth from your own
wet garden and bring them barefoot to your doorstep
15
ribald rimbaud its cold out today and i cant string together metaphors
i have a headache and have been crying and there is a kite in the yard
its a spiderman kite too and it musta not been tied tight enough cause
apparently it slipped offa some kids string and ended up in our yard
now it is glued with rainwater to the pavement in front of my house
and my father is in the garage using his left handed brain to grind
pistons into unmatched efficiency for some speed thirsty old man
my father likes to build things hes an eagle scout also hes a genius
also hes a cancer and also his mother trusts him with her estate and
hes not even the oldest he is always over at her house fixing things
she calls him up and says she has this to move and these light
fixtures to replace and this aquarium that needs to be emptied
one time he asked me to go over there with him i was down it was
right after the big hurricane and a tree in her yard didnt exactly fall
but it was bent into a compromising position sorta like the tree
i told rebecca about on the telephone that is old and an oak
that tree is gnarly and its on river road and sometimes i wonder
why i never noticed these things before because i drive by them
all the time like how come only recently did i look up and see
the trees under the powerlines pruned like forks all preventing
outages so whoever can run their washing machine and dryer
and touch lamps and televisions and piston grinding tools
at my grandmothers house though he pulled the suburban
into the yard and strapped the tree to the trailer hitch
and pulled it and pulled it and pulled it until it was straight
and then he put a twobyfour longways under one of its
branches to help it stay up and it was all fixed hes good
at things like that hes also good at tying knots and while
im glad that he straightened her tree im also glad he
didnt straighten that oak it was all leaning to one side
like a sprinter waiting for the BANG but it was a tree and
not a runner i was so impressed by it so i told rebecca
how gnarly it was really and i love those old oak trees
like i love my autistic cousins and my selfabsorbed
other grandmother who gives lamely thoughtful gifts
like today fatefully enough she had bought kites but
not for me for my younger cousins she gave me a bag
with candies and a ten dollar bill i dont really like candies
but ten dollars is good for cigarettes but i dont really like
cigarettes they give me a horrible cough and headaches
and make me feel dirty and they kill people like rebeccas
uncle which is a sad sad sad thing but sometimes trees
have to be crooked and sometimes kites have to get lost
so i told my other grandmother that my gift wasnt a kite
and that i wanted it to be a kite and then she let me look
through all her kites and i got to pick the one i wanted
it had bugs on it like dragonflies and ants i think and the
ants were riding the dragonflies like birds or horses
and they were making the most ungnarly happy faces
you could imagine so i had to call rebecca and tell her about it
when i put together the kite i asked my father to tie
the string to it because he has a left handed brain
and because he is an eagle scout and because i trust
him like nobody trusts me so i asked him what kind of
knot he would use and he said 'bowline' and he said
'do you know how to tie that knot' and i said 'no' see
this is sort of like a ritual when he hung the hammocks
in the backyard he gave me knot tying lessons
i think i forget them on purpose he said in the scouts
there were knot tying races and he would win because
he is a genius he is left handed after all and one time
he tied the knots so fast that the judges made him do it again
his technique wasnt the same as anyone elses he
didnt tie the knot how they taught him to he figured some
way to do it more efficiently i never really knew til now
just how efficient this man is also i feel like my head is heavy
he is efficiently patient i asked him 'why a bowline' and
he said 'because then you can untie it later' thats all he really
had to say other than that it wont come untied and he was
right i wish i was more right i wish i was more honest i wish
i was more true and i wish i wasnt a lying artist i wish
i was an efficient patient and trustworthy man that made
practical and realistic decisions in a timely manner i want
that respect and leaving poems on peoples doorsteps
is not how you get it im starting to think maybe you need
a time machine or maybe just a time kite, a time kite?
my kite flew too and its bowline didnt come undone
even in the rain and the wind and its cold cold out too
and i flew it for a while and now ill cry thinking about it
i wonder if someone misses their spiderman kite my
mother says we should put it by the street in case
someone is looking for it i dont know if i would miss a
kite but i am not six years old my father was six years
old in nineteen sixty one and today i told him that
that was before tables were invented but he didnt hear
he has bad hearing like me and i have bad eyes
and a hangover and a headache and im lovesick
and i wish i knew how to straighten trees that need
straightening and not straighten trees that dont
and tie knots for any situation and give everyone
their spiderman kites back and cry because i know
that i am temporary and that we will all die and that
you will never stop saying you could never trust me again
you know ribald rimbaud life as art i imagine myself
in a fantastic studio or my father maybe hes in his studio now
lying on his back frescoing eve and the annunciation and
pentitent magdalene and the last supper and the turkish baths
and les demoiselles d'avignon and nude descending a staircase
except they come out as more horsepower or more patient
efficiency or maybe he just knows everything im never to know
like how to build trust with knots or just be of service or just
be unerringly true and maybe ill learn something i never expected
like how some people call a bowline a rescue knot
16
thickthighed physics with einstein and calculus
is what i studied with some blonde alaskan girl
i used to like the big ones least ones bigger than me
cause id rather be trapped like i am now by the rain
or the pheromones bounced back under my thermals
she had sturdy legs like a house or a horse and
i bet the pillowing layers wrapped over her muscles
would keep the heat from escaping any of my surfaces
we could root ourselves beneath the polar snows
and name the cubs after streams of the aurora borealis
oh what a surreal fantasy but i only used to like the big ones
i may be an animal but i am not sequestered in this body
i am alive as your spaghetti recipes and watching you in
shorts painting the walls of your new kitchen is a thickthighed
humid heat gifting kisses of healthy hibernation
through the snows and blinds you could build a little den
and ill shrink myself down into your pockets or lay and let
you mother me watching your silhouettes flicker with greens
i used to like the big ones least ones bigger than me
but id rather be trapped like i am now by the rain
17
i cant sleep to music or to counting
not sheep nor lullabies nor to her breath
my minds always pacing on the telephone
and never exhausted enough to crash
ive seen some rosy cheeks so frozen
on their vinyl mats i cannot help but
harbor jealousy or search for something
strong and heavy that will quickly lay me flat
else my brains a jumble spilled and scrambled
over the pavement firing with shoddy reception
or turning and turning ceaselessly awake
awaiting some familiar morning television
i knew this as a child so id play a game
trying to wipe the chalk from my blackboards
i must lay and with only one purpose
become blind by keeping eyes so closed
i guess its just another dodge of wants
or ascetically summoned dopamine
cause its sorta like when our breaths match
and then collapse into a victorious dream
18
bermuda faith i swear there are monsters under the sea
and my cousin is not afraid of anything except monsters
i told him that i was afraid of him going to sleep so he
tipped his little head over and faked a big growling snore
and when he did that i ran away i took off i was playing
but he really believed me i guess he had faith in my beard
like i aint got no faith in myself or you should have some
more faith in me or god says there is no faith in proof
but thats all nonsense anyway and as fragile and caustic
as i sometimes find myself to be (alone) ive so much faith
it pours backwards out my ears bursts out of your closet
snarling gets down onto its knees and begs you to listen
19
good weather has me missing you
and your casual full trusting voices
i feel i polarize you either you are up
and art or down succumbed to gravity
without you aurora i sleep til im sick
and long for you in a morning stare
ive decided not to take care of myself
when i thought i was i wasnt anyway
im lost and stuck in the cold and wet
its as if god has gotten rightly bored
and with a finger slightly tilted his globe
my seasons are so badly misaligned
but things still rise right? fatefully
and the grounded symbols of depression
like stringless kites in puddles sooner
and so unexpectedly must again rise
i mean after a while the skies began
clearing and the kite was lifted til it
perched proud as a robin in a tree
that must have been enough altitude
for the little boy cross the street to
find it and reattach string and wait for
oh glorious loose brave windy today
and to be now out flying it again
20
the irish gypsy swept into town
in a kindergarten teachers dress
clutching a jangly bottle of jameson
in her drifting little scholars fingers
she climbed the stairs wanting to
be fucked as we warned her all
about crazy nextdoor will and his
stiffly lobotomized beer language
we swallowed our pills and she
sat crosslegged on the ashen
timbered balcony shuffling her cards
and preparing another prophecy
as she read and read away i sat
and sang some songs avoiding
the withering weight of her eyes
clapping through me like castanets
i like a simple mind and i like a wino
so i wanted will to read my cards
irish gypsies are drunkards anyway
that surely dont know what they want
the roma road may be a sort of home
but just like with your fabled dances
youve gotta plant a solid foot or
your sways will have no resonance
but will the thirty year old childish and
curious student sees easy and straight
through schemes like your cigarettes
falling through the slits of that balcony
when you joined me in song he
mustve seen the light with his brain
all tickled by trembling harmonies
and he knew that i was the pedestal
on which i place you and couldnt
help but afterward in his affirming
and repetitious way tell me to stick
to you, to hold that irish gypsy tight
then i saw him in my mind early in the
morning sitting along the banks of
a bayou with his line in the water
smiling and simply waiting, waiting
21
my father and the sea
lady we live in separate plac es
have separate fac es
dredge different depths and
drop different baits
go to hell with your
full fish
ill go to heaven
with a skeleton
and laze with
the lions
my father raised
til you know something of
fruitless accomplishment
good god just accept
and
release
you wont trust anyone
til you can face the gusts
eyes closed
opening your hands
to the gasps of the present
22
i feel a disappointed intoxicated mess
with an expanding misunderstood catalog
i am the confident gull atop the hull
filling its breast with a salted sea breeze
but far far from the spoils of solid ground
to dig into worms? what am i eating anyway?
a pennypinchers stale white bread or
hellraised alka seltzer playing dirty tricks
i am not so peaceful scrounging and
i was only ever born to fail myself
so i secure the confidence of a dream
like ones you dont surface-ly remember
just a fertilized sense of distant truth
revealed in slow dissolved capsules
sitting dormant in your belly til its time
oh convince me lord of something tonight
just anything to make me less a man
i am so tired and so very down were you
to string a hammock cross the insides of
my skull i would surely lay and never leave
23
fog hangs heavy on the land like inevitable age
after a dozing evening on the balcony with you
your brother ran with the dog darting as gazelles
in tandem: twins once removed only by species
oh how i remember
fog hangs heavy on the land like patsys 'crazy'
and every time your father heard our songs
im sure pigeons swept from line to power line
as notes rung true through his minds saxophone
oh how i remember
fog hanging heavy on the porch when the
cats eyed majestic lovemaking freedom
like when your eyes begged me through the
reflection of your cars mediating mirror
oh how i remember
fog hanging heavy on the lusts of my soul
as you lifted your playful desiring chin to the lord
presenting below the downpours of your neck
the humble soporific valleys of a lilting breast
oh how i remember
fog hanging heavy on the porch as we strung
together the columns as candycanes for
the depths of a cascading winter when i was
too scared and huddled raining lonely songs
oh how i remember
fog hangs heavy on the land like regret
as i leant in through the wet of day for a kiss
and found soon myself starved for a lip
dropping quick on my own--must i wait?
oh how i remember
24
do you not wish it was i that loved you
and rolled out linen carpets through the trees
beginning flat then rippling on into
a wild azure of hospitality?
tis not my airs that shake you in your sleep
and whisper words upon your ears as choirs
or in your wavering moments make you weep
in hearing all the verse that you inspire?
is not my voice a calming covering
that seizes 'pon your lids as heavy weights
closing you off to all thats troubling
through timbres warm that gently permeate?
for its what i do wish as days begin
awakened by the song of passerines
25
im not throwing up anymore
not even fine handmade tortillas
not even stealing signs not even
cavorting not even trying just waiting
for rain lots of rain where im stuck
watching weather updates instead
of worrying about something else
im not reading anymore im not
writing anymore im not singing
anymore all i do is lose my voice
and dampen my range im not
celine im quitting sodas im drinking
juice im learning a little in blakes
school of blunts and chicago blues
but i dont really like anything
guess cause not even fine
face covering handmade tortillas
or nothing is sacred you like
the things you like and i didnt
bring it up when blake and trudy
argued the other day but isnt
entertainment just distraction
i remember how high i was when
semesters began and i was so
steady with sleep schedules and
motivation and a new view for
morning but i cant place myself
in that mindset though i know it
exists but it never quite lasts
through the semester anyway
so on to subtlety right?
26
go to california be a star
ill drink the cheap rum change my tires
and stay so planted here
i have my compositional plans
and havent nearly received the credit
the peaks are fluffed with
sterile snows in the life of winter
maybe thats an appropriate cloak
go to california be a star
ill move like summits with the earth
while your magdalenas with inheritance
are birthed with faces that burn in
the kirsten kiln of distant space
starlets flowering in the cats eye nebula
not the crab so at once theyll
never fall not from my slow cliffs and theyll
never wish for rain cause what is rain in fissuring cali
we both fade to each side as earth builds between
but dont forget were round as this universe and
soon so soon continents colliding back to back
27
she had auburn hair this time
and what do i know of love?
i sat behind my glasses so my eyes
would look a little smaller
what do you think? oh cant we talk
you teased and stuck your tongue
out at me and i swallowed it
we used to sit so easy as one person
on the floors of beachbound buses
id like to think i am still just as handsome
you smirking sent me pictures with your chest
cause you knew how much id like them
you felt my blurred seclusion and undressed
as some would rather have me not remember
but wisdom is a grateful infants song
or shayne can tell me just how not to hurt
next time is she a piano? i catapulted
these vision correctors into the wall
so as to approach the detuned instrument
with the purity of inadequate eyes and
the voice of a disintegrating western tradition
long as i live and regardless the tree will
stand where we hid in dusk after leaking
we salty fumbled so much in that boat
kicking our feet over its edges so wary
of outside sounds--once we shuffled
swapping shirts and listing states and
loving loud all muddy mouthfuls muffled
its all so vivid like books bound by soap
i read the sultry eugenides i let you borrow
in a sauna teeming full with tangerines
but what do i know of auburn haired love?
much less than i know when im in a dream
the lusters you blessed me with in the dawn
arouse aromas dancing in the gleam
28
i can feel it cool slipping through my fingers
as the bottles are chilled in the pamplona streams
go buy a fucking house and be a trophy wife
its how youd hope those lustful profs saw you anyway
dont go breaking my heart what do you want from me?
i dont play two sides im either all in or all out
i watch landon across the street and want more
we used to play teeball and shoot for the pool
we used to eat soaked crackers and peanut butter
we used to pour all our pennies on the driveway
and ride our bikes to the corner store for ice cream
but isnt this all putrid sentimental bullshit
its recycled dying flesh and prissy backward age
no frozen mountain creeks to bind my fingers together
by the time it gets to solidifying its sank well below
my feet and hardened at the base of a heartless rust man
i am so angry at loss and feel wronged i shouldnt
long for youth i already behave as if in the throws of it
tell me more about your life im losing while
i disappear a little more in hushed huffs and sighs
the same moon that houses my sorry eyes sees
you folding next to whatevers in your bed so sure
tell me about your tanlines and let me glamorize it all
youre probably glad you get so harsh a tribute
29
and like my lamp i am not bright
my mother fears ill start a fire
if left alone building a heap of
heat in sleepwalking paces
i am a disconnect not made
for outlets of a modern home
with no notice ill spark sending
wildfires through the brush
i am the sole possession i should
have placed into your bedroom
allowing beams to tangle cross
the wordy lines of your bosom
we could have slept with that
light as a tender envelope
i read for many months all of
that verse and never starved
a moment for some snoozing
i love you like some low lamp
lighted reading--not truly bad
for eyes just sleep inducing
30
smoky adulation wafts from the candle out the window
as the wax forms oozing pools fused to the toilet top
theres no challenge in a finite wick so soon youll
have to case the ranks of the department store for
a new fragrance to dully bask you in a fruitless love
ive seen the particles parade as snowflakes in that
windows slitted glare right after the mermaid split her tail
to wrap her bluejean baby legs tight around my waist
she was skintight covered and so fiery lustful she
woulda came on the floor near the litterbox had i asked
and thats the challenge of a boundless twisting wick
when leaving is the hardest thing and you stare on up
thinking of the debris to collect and later spill over a page
its kindling forming impenetrable smoke from more formidable
fires that swell not carefully but with passionate abandon
31
blakes passed out on the balcony
and theres mattresses on the floor
cause thats where you sleep
sometimes in new orleans
approach the rails carefully as
theyre not so attached you might
lose tack like that green paint
and pass out onto magazine
and oh of all the things youd miss
in the heartbeats of that apartment
mosquito sucked dry of furniture
but so radiantly alive
a drizzle peppers the shutters
with a square subtle congo beat
keeping seamless pace with the
feet of sightless dancers
rich breathy blood im sure pulsed
from the rouge of aging curtains
as hand in hand two bounded
skirting past oppressive time
and twirling in ballerina circles
around the hanging locus of god
or the chain of the ceiling fan
in thirsty dionysian ecstacy
but oxygen should reach you still
despite the harshest blackouts
and coat your lungs with the blues
of a vibrant releasing recital
32
toke one up in the zeppelin and take me further
from this land on acidic busses devoid of reality
theres a dripping lonely pisces in my doorway
but its not the one i want to be there shes up
and sleeping in the rain somewhere else
i can only imagine--werent you crying to me
like the heavens split open by tonights neglect?
but thats all something truly important to you
not like your reticent residence with its hospitable
rentless comforts and a glaring empty bedroom
the kittens lick my toes and i long for something
im just not meant to have or maybe am i?
theres sanctity in rain and i can just imagine how
asleep she is with not a worry about me just
cleansed in mind by forceful frontal boundaries
dispelling brittle criminals from all doorways
im so alone and asking for good hugs cause
none adore me quite enough as that oh cant
you see im dreamless in these depths but her
thundering ideals might just keep me damned alive
33
click clank click clank
all levers and furry pads
goes my favorite piano
she likes to sit and watch trudy paint
or all the dodging footsteps
scratching through the front door
i used to get stoned and
play with her lettered keys
spelling beaded melodies
as if to say as with the rest of the house
'you must accept me as i am
i have never been more beautiful'
id fumble not inverting chords
but build up layered progressions
hammering out clouds of tonal dust
and when a leading line would rise
from the droning fires as a phoenix
clear would i hear the dull thud of a dead string
and just as clear as trudy crying on the phone
and wavering 'im sorry im sorry
i just dont know how to talk to you'
she and all were posed in youth with
a thick squatting family seeping
limitless voluptuous strength
the woman: a piano? as it should be
returning through a busted doorframe
looking for boys to tote in everyones groceries
trudy always in the greens of her selfless working garb
like a playerless piano buried by the life of a trying house
i know her beautiful sobbing songs
and that mommas are pears you never forget
when shes leading those sleepy dogs
to her bedroom shes really curtsey-ing through a tune
more heartbreaking for all its instrumental flaws
and more like a wrinkled guide through
and toward whatevers left of tomorrows suffering
34
idea(r)s:
no ideas but in [people]?
philosophy the metaphorical rock
or not the rock but the foundation
were all logicians right? reasoning beings
so arent our expressions subjective arguments?
its all in some sense about convincing
even those of us preoccupied with intuition
or the slinky nature of a viscous god probing
our unconscious for some ideal communication
maybe you have to think about your art so much
to finally execute without thinking
i mean no one exists in a vacuum
artists need artists its all just response right?
35
purpose shifting with the coals of the dawn
as a moss dangles damp from the rafters of the barn
a lame lamp flickers with the dusted sag
of the slumping ceiling fans swivel--emptiness
the sparking is never enough so bales 'pon
seeping bales turn flames straight into musk
and a 'coon sniffs for meaning in the silent yet
scuttering madness hanging stagnant as a fog
sinking down in this alone, detached or like my
deprived mind starved for sleep and retribution
conversing with hallucinated faces in the car
as a lone headlight frames.. oh!--emptiness
36
ribald rimbaud i dont exist
but im good in the sack
art is a joke taking a drunken
joyride at the height of celebrity
and meeting a subborn fate
in the formless form of a tree
i am suffering the vanity of
my egoism and reducing it
to squares or elemental fragments
i am no more than a summation
of my various exploits and at
the mercy of dwindling experience
ribald rimbaud i am negligible
i am a tax write off i am thousands
dead in the ditches and streets
embracing a life with no forced
schemes or purposes with no
imposed vision or reason and
bound so obviously through
historys rose coloured glasses
to fail and die in obscurity as
a champion of chess or hashish
or an ignoble suicider humming
rocket rocket usa i am so
selfish and pointless as i should
be and fueling with a tilt the
infinite chasms of a psychotic
breakdown with every hopeless
blasphemous reach and reach
37
footsteps or gunshots at the boat launch
sound out of the soles of my feet
as they devour spreading grasses
water lilies lie beyond the rail bridge
and doggish laps graze over
the searing banks as i board alone
my invisible boat in the early heat
of a groggy summer
a rickety steamrolled oasis holds them
silent afloat and shimmering
in a heavy dry mirage barred
by tracks from the cruelties of empty men
or those untrained and tempered
looking to preserve that tranquility with
a fearful setup of tripod just trying
(with hollow adoration) to falsify a monet
i though swell spurning wakes and
am glad to debase and defile some lilies
that get a little wet or no a lot with my passing
lilies, lady, venus, ma'am your art is
alive only with sensuous time and a bask
in the tongue-ing sensual glories
of a vigorous wetfaced gesture
dab your paint or arch your back just
please part simply, lilies, for a fuller bow
so we as one may submerge into this musing atmosphere
and then package through fresh coital elegance
parcels of youth and luck and love and
all your nymphaea timelessness for
heaving rustic distribution by rail to all corners
and all desperate men
just squirms of lilting primal fragrance
skirting past the noses of beaten vagrants
to whom your scented curves reveal the heat the secret
the faith the meaning and the end
38
i cant make it really
ic an make it raelly
i cant make it really
i can make it raley
i cant make it really
i can make it really
i cant make it really
i can make it really
ic ant make it really
i can make it raelly
i cant make it really
39
j alfred turn turn turn
a twentysomethings dilemma
as foretold by the girl with the cat blog
i seen her one time and she still hangs as a fog
ha ha ha pathetic
you are a glass and an animal
i am a liquid person i find gaps and cant be alone
i hide away and assume another life
i come to your parties and ride in your friends cars
because i need a new form to fill
i am tired of the ones i supply myself with
and am rejected finally as per usual
from the ones im comfortable in
wet and formless maybe inhuman
there was a card with mary on the floor
beside cecilia when she decided it was time to go
i sit in the bath imagining rippling installations
like my bowed crying heads shadow
on the base of the tub
i smell it all
her dead
the trees impaled
burning parasitic garbage suffering
and the only selfconscious solution
i just steal ideas! like everyone else
and a crab on the seafloor?
erase my intellect ive written it already
i dont want this anymore
the intimacy is fleeting or is it?
like sleeping in someone elses bed
you can realign your scents or
like wearing someone elses clothes
you can exist possessionless
and banish suffering, banish self
lobotomized? maybe this is the only truth of anyones reality
even intimacy in no ones space
is it through recipes or pets or instruments?
i am trying to kill my mind and bring it to
new levels of nonexistence
j alfred turn turn turn
or kerouac fuck you all
my friend looks like michaelangelo
especially when hes in the street and jumping
this is done
the strings and bindings of life deteriorate
work falls to work
fate falls to fate
man falls to man
aah-- poof--
wisps and you, breeze,
tickle the disappeared leaves
and landon cross the street just like the universe
gone
40
shoulders hold the hearts of men up contrapposto
as maradona's trophy held the world
after his deliverance with the hand of god
and broad high classical shoulders
as the hearts just as the world
hold tenfold denser dignified subtlety
than all those proud postured argentinians
pouring into the streets in celebration