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There are faces
In the clouds
They fade
As have those
Of people
I have known
The clouds shift
And different faces
Take form
As do those
Of passing strangers
On the sidewalk
The clouds stay
For an ephemeral moment
That lasts forever
As does the face
Of my lover
Looking down at me
Originally written: Sunday, Jul 18, 2021, 7:49 PM
As we grow old
Our hope wanes
And we attempt to birth
What we ourselves
Failed to become
August 17, 2021 at 11:54AM
At the library
I learned a little
About meter
This morning
I put my ear
On her chest
buh-BUM
buh-BUM
buh-BUM
The heart
Is a poet
Beating on
In eternal
Iambic
August 15, 2021 at 10:27AM
I can
Only taste
The first
Few sips
Of wine
In sips
Other than
The first
There is
Only a
Vague sense
That the
Liquid is
Alcoholic
Whether it
Is because
I am
Drunk, or
My taste
Buds have
Become bored
In either
Case, I
See little
Point in
Finishing
My glass
August 13, 2021 at 09:13PM
No matter how long
The darkness
Seems to be stretching
At night
A day
Will surely come
With its light
Once again
August 13, 2021 at 03:44PM
How high
I dream
Until I wake
In a body
Unprepared
To jump up
To the heights
I dreamed of
August 13, 2021 at 03:41PM
As if her being naked
Were not already enough
She got up and walked
Past the window
So I could see
In the light
The beauty I’d felt
In the dark
August 13, 2021 at 03:39PM
How sincerely
I wish
For what
When given
I forget
So easily
To be grateful
August 12, 2021 at 03:31PM
I am writing
The way
I know how
Which has changed
As I’ve
Gone on
When I read
And enjoy, a writer
Who writes differently
I think to myself,
“Gee, maybe
I should write like that”
But then I read
Another writer
Who writes like me
I think, “Well,
The way I write
Is just fine”
But neither
Should affect me
I know
I should just write
The way
That I do
August 12, 2021 at 12:14PM
Summer
Used to mean something
When we got off school
Now
It’s just the hottest
Of the seasons
And we work
Right on through
Sweating
August 10, 2021 at 02:42PM
After I
Have gotten drunk
And danced
I remember
There are things
I’m supposed to have
And I check
My pockets
In a sober moment
For my wallet
And keys
August 08, 2021 at 04:37PM
Is seeing young people
And discerning them
As different
Than yourself
August 08, 2021 at 04:28PM
Is it too obviously
Ironic
When fat people
Embarrassedly eat
More food
Than’s normal
August 08, 2021 at 04:22PM
Is the aloneness
A musician experiences
On stage
Performing for a crowd
Any different
Than the aloneness
They experienced
When they played
Just for themselves?
August 08, 2021 at 04:17PM
Three-legged dogs
Are heroes
Because having four legs
Seems to be such
An integral part
Of a dog’s life
It’s like a person
That has lost
One of their senses
It’s so sad
Because it’s such
A human thing
To sense
But then it’s inspiring
When despite
Their loss of humanness
They carry on
As humans nonetheless
August 08, 2021 at 04:04PM
Along the walkway
I’ve watched
At least a thousand different people
Walk by
While I’m supposed to be watching
The musician on stage
So far away
I can barely see
But I honestly enjoy watching
The people on the walkway
Much more
If I could pay admission
To somewhere I could sit
And unabashedly
Watch people walk by
I would pay that admission
As happily as I have
To any other show
August 08, 2021 at 04:01PM
It’s not that complicated
The emotion is real
Complicating it with words
Won’t get you any closer
To the original emotion
If these authors
Of thousand-page volumes
Were honest with themselves
About why they write
In the first place
God, I don’t know what they would do
Maybe they would just kill themselves
So maybe they are
Better off just writing
And maybe someone will read it
But it doesn’t matter
What matters is the writer
Did something for a while
Other than kill themselves
August 08, 2021 at 03:32PM
Have we done enough
In the meantime
To earn our right
To eat and sleep
Again
God damn
That’s all we do
Eat, sleep, eat, sleep
Try to fuck
With a semblance
Of the passion
That some great great
Grandfather of mine
Who I will never know
Fucked with
The passion he fucked with
That birthed
All the generations
That fucked with
Gradually less and less passion
As certain men and women
Fucked with such passion
To birth, not more
Men and women
But advances in science
That established so strongly
Our position on this earth
As a species
That those of us now
Don’t know what the fuck
To do with ourselves
It’s all a big sham
In these modern times
The only life that’s real
Is the surviving
The eating and being eaten
The sex and reproduction
And these originals acts
We still perform
But we are only
Going through the motions
There are no
Noble professions left
Other than
Being a burnout
Our species has burnt out
The only generations
That had to fight
In order to survive
Have long since died
Everything we do now
Is just killing time
Literally thousands of people
Over thousands of years
Have spent their lifetimes
Trying to come up with
Some meaning for our existence
And they can’t fucking do it
We’ve taken over the whole planet
And now we just want it to mean something
In the meantime
As we continue to exist
On the planet we’ve conquered
Each of us as individuals even
Want our individuals lives to mean something
Fuck me man
For once I should publish a poem
With all the expletives
And the rawness
As I wrote it
Because god damn
Of course I’m going to edit out
All the curse words
When I’m sitting in the apartment
And not feeling a damn thing
Other than the desire
To make the poetry good somehow
August 08, 2021 at 02:58PM
The stage is set
For the band to come on
The musicians
Are doomed to play
They could not
Walk out onto that stage
And do anything other
Than play
Their instruments
Are already set out for them
The opener has already
Come on and gone
The crowd has waited
For long enough
They could not come out
And take a nap
They could not come out
And eat lunch
There is not a single other thing
They could do
Other than walk out
Onto that stage
And play
Like we all expect them to
August 08, 2021 at 02:53PM
Did I capture
Consciousness
In its rawest
She asks me
Sarcastically
After I’ve written
I know
She really means,
“Pay attention to me!”
She won’t admit
She doesn’t like when I write
When I’m with her
But her question
In the first place
Was rather apt
I go back
And read what I wrote
To give her an answer
August 08, 2021 at 02:14PM
I always want
Want, want
When will I
Be satisfied
Even when
I am, after
Having gotten
What I wanted
It lasts
Only briefly
Before another want
Assails me
I know
Or, I have heard
There are ways
Not to want
Most of them
Eastern
America wants
Not to want
But we fail
Before we start
Because wanting
Not to want
Is still
Wanting
August 08, 2021 at 02:05PM
With my fists
Half-heartedly
Balled up
(Without vigor
Enough to make
My knuckles white)
And stuffed
Into the pockets
Of my jeans
I lean my bony hip
Against
The marble countertop
And wait
For the hot water
In the kettle
It does
Eventually
Bubble audibly
I look up
At the cracks
In the ceiling
And exhale
In the dark
Of the kitchen
(We leave the lights off
To save
On electricity)
Before I can
Pour the water
Into my mug
I walk away
To write
This
August 08, 2021 at 09:37AM
What crazy things
We wonder
When we are alone
In our minds
What impossibilities
We figure feasible
For the satisfaction
Of our fancies
What horrors
We conjure up
Only to have
Fodder for fear
What dreams
To hope
Especially
When we have none
August 07, 2021 at 09:53PM
To the thorned
Blackberry branch
Overhanging
The path in the park
Of those walkers
Unaware
How many
Naked shins
Have you cut?
August 06, 2021 at 04:19PM
At first, it was only
To remove a bit of soap
From my eye
That I held its lid open
Under the direct spray
Of shower water
But even after blinking
And feeling the sting
Had been banished
I opened my lid again
And looked back up
Into the waterfall
Just to feel something
Even uncomfortable
Is better than nothing
August 05, 2021 at 06:23PM
The heat
From the oven
Warms my face
Almost to the point
Of perspiration
As I reach in
To carefully place
Slices of bread
Without burning myself
On the baking sheet
That I should have removed
But forgot
Before I turned on
The oven
August 05, 2021 at 12:02PM
I struggle with my work
And feel sorry
For myself,
But then I see
A fallen leaf
In the soil
Of the potted plant
Atop our dresser
A construction worker
With dirt and sweat
On his shirt
Leaning over, exhausted
And I realize
I’m not the only one,
Which makes me feel
A little better
August 05, 2021 at 10:36AM
Walked
To the window
In the bedroom
Looked down
At the sidewalk
Just in time
To see—
Running out of sight
Underneath
The bay window
Next to ours—
A pair of legs
Not-too-skinny
Dressed in denim,
A hand
Holding a grocery sack
Blowing in the wind,
And sneakers
With lime-green
Stripes on the sides
August 04, 2021 at 10:02AM
A fly crawls up
On the rose quartz
In the crystal grid
My girlfriend arranged
Atop the dresser
The fly takes flight
And buzzes
Over to the light
Of my laptop
Open next to the grid
Now
I feel good enough
To find this
Fantastic
Other times
I would swat the fly
For disturbing
My work
August 04, 2021 at 09:46AM
Our love’s
Not the only thing
That’s been dying
Around here
The bananas
In the fruit bowl
Have black spots
And flies
The arms
Of the cactus
In the window
Are discolored
The leftover chili
Has been sitting
In the back of the fridge
For weeks
And now
The construction men
Have knocked out
The power
August 03, 2021 at 11:45AM
While sick
Things seem
Different
My healthy mind
Is not awake
To impose
Its assumptions
My energy
Is focused
On surviving
In a moment
I forget my sickness
And see
A puddle
From the broken fridge
On the kitchen floor
Like
I was seeing a puddle
For the first time
I stood there
For as long
As my shaky legs
Would hold me
July 28, 2021 at 09:25AM
About whether
The tea bags belong
In the utensil drawer
Or the pantry
I have no energy
To argue
It seems to me
Unimportant—
Where things
Should be arranged
In our home
But she believes
In the art of it
July 28, 2021 at 07:56AM
Every new piece of furniture
That gets delivered
Every piece of art
That I help her hang
Every plant that gets added
To my weekly watering routine
Every welcome wine bottle
The neighbors bring
Makes me that much
More certain
I’m never getting out
Of this domestic prison
July 26, 2021 at 04:15PM
On the logs
Along the trail
There are
Fluorescent
Yellow markers
Screwed in
Two per log
So bikers
Can see the logs
At night
And avoid them
Some logs
Have only one
And a few
Have none
But I know
They were there
Because I can see
The screws
That held them
In place
I search
For the escaped
Yellow markers
In the forest foliage
Beyond
The log barrier
But they are nowhere
To be found
I wonder where
The yellow markers
Have gone
And what occupation
They have taken up
Instead of the one
They were screwed into
>>>
On the logs along the trail
There are fluorescent yellow markers
Screwed in, two per log
So bikers can see the logs at night
And avoid them
Some logs have only one marker
And a few have none
But I know they were there
Because I can see the screws
That held them in place
I search for the escaped yellow markers
In the forest foliage beyond the log barrier
But they are nowhere to be found
I wonder where the yellow markers have gone
And what occupation they have taken up
Instead of the one they were screwed into
July 26, 2021 at 09:49AM
Healthy
And already overwhelmed
The door creaking
Barely open
And then shut
Would have been
An unwelcome
Interruption
To the rare silence
I find
In my bedroom
Sick
I was bored
And grateful
For anyone
Who would talk to me
Even a creaky
Old door
July 25, 2021 at 12:51PM
Sick
I sat
On the edge
Of the bed
Shivering
Watching
The workers
Wearing
Orange vests
Outside
Working
On the street
One
With a shovel
In the trench
Sticking it
Into the dirt
And then stepping
With his boot
To drive it deeper
Another
In the yellow
Backhoe
Digging out
The trench
The big bucket
Of the backhoe
Dumped
Into a white
Dump truck
July 23, 2021 at 11:21AM
I am telling you
Exactly
What you
Already know
The wise men
Talk in metaphors
To stay
Wise
All that art
You don’t understand
Isn’t meant to be
Understood
Turns out
You can
Judge a book
By its cover
If it doesn’t tell you
What you need to know
On the back
Then it’s probably
Not
Worth reading
July 22, 2021 at 09:29PM
I do
Have
A scar there
Where
The baking pan
Branded me
With a reminder
Of my carelessness
July 22, 2021 at 09:11PM
Is a fact
Both depressing
And freeing
At the same time
July 22, 2021 at 10:53AM
Every word
Is further
From the truth
The fewer
The better
July 22, 2021 at 10:53AM
I want that word
To hit
No adjective
Need modify
Such a noun
With strength
To say
What it will
On its own
July 22, 2021 at 10:52AM
I’m susceptible to it
Today
To lift off
I can tell because
I take
My first sip
Of tea
And my brain bumps
The top
Of my skull
Like an astronaut
In zero gravity
And when I look
Through my eyes
Like windows
On a spaceship
Everything
That just before
Seemed perfectly
Terrestrial
Now seems
Terribly alien
July 22, 2021 at 10:52AM
In its glass pot
On the marble countertop
In the other room
But I might just wait
Let it cool
And heat up more hot water
A little later
After I’ve done my work
That might not go so well
If my hands are shaking
And my mind is racing
As tends to happen
When I drink tea
July 22, 2021 at 10:48AM
I look alien
In the mirror
In the instant before
I recognize myself
And my preconceptions
Load
Like a computer file
But in the instant
While the pinwheel
Still spins
And I am seeing
Beneath the veil
Splotchy skin,
Lopsided pectorals,
Crooked jaw
Rectangular prism,
Cylinder,
Cube
Color,
Light,
Dimension
Who am I
When I forget?
July 20, 2021 at 10:00PM
Up the crumbling
Stone steps
Next
To the lemon tree
In the backyard
That we can see
Through our window
But cannot access
Because it’s only
For our neighbors
Who pay more rent
Than we do
A black and white
Cat
Crept calmly
As cats do
Sat back
On its haunches
And looked left
Then right
And saw me
In the window
Watching it
And watched
Me back
Still
As a statue
For a while
We watched
One another
Then the cat
Lifted its leg
And licked itself
To show me
How much
Of a threat
It thought
I was
July 20, 2021 at 07:45PM
The knife
Makes a song
Of two notes
As I cut potato
Slicing
Away from me
The angle
Cut through
The gold
Is such that
The blade
Slides off
And bangs
Onto
The board
Then I make
The opposite cut
Down
And towards me
So that the blade
Meets the board
Muffled
On either side
By potato flesh
And so
The note
Is duller
And on I cut
Out
And away
Banging
Back
And towards me
Muffled
July 20, 2021 at 03:42PM
I walk by
A professional dog walker
In the park
Holding the leashes
Of six dogs
And wonder
What the rich owners
Of the dogs
Are doing
Such that they cannot
Walk
Their own dogs
July 20, 2021 at 10:05AM
With my eyes closed,
My legs crossed,
And my hands on my knees
Sitting on a Mexican blanket
Folded and laid atop
A fallen log
I started to hear drops
Falling
On the leaves and the dirt
This
Broke the concentration
Of my meditation
As I worried
That it might
Start to pour
I forgot about it
And remembered
My breath
Uncrossed my legs,
Got a book out of my bag,
And stood up
I felt something fall
And bounce
Off the top of my head
And into
The crease
Of the open book
It was a twig
No longer
Than a quarter inch
It had not
Been rain
Falling
It was pieces
Of the trees
Cast down
July 20, 2021 at 09:31AM
In a nightmare it occurs to me
That I can become the scary thing myself
So I make myself light,
Float up somewhere near the ceiling,
And shriek high and loud
My victims get out of bed, terrified
And run through hallways in their nightgowns
Stumbling against the walls
I don’t actually mean to scare
I never wanted to be a scary thing
I just wanted to not be scared myself
So I try to float down from the ceiling
To tell my victims it’s okay
It’s just me and I’m not scary
But all that comes out is a shriek
And that’s when the nightmare
Became truly scary
July 19, 2021 at 11:18PM
Two burners going on the stovetop
Shelves in the pantry freshly stocked with groceries
Diced onions next to the knife on the cutting board
A shower that runs hot or cold
A sink faucet with as much water as I could drink
My girlfriend in the other room on the phone
A computer with access to limitless knowledge
Shirts hanging in the closet
Pants and underwear in the dresser
July 19, 2021 at 11:28AM
After I had gotten
Out of the shower
Before I went
For a walk outside
I opened the second-
From-the-bottom
Drawer
In the five-drawer
Dresser
And took out
A t-shirt
But considered
Before putting it on
That I might be cold
So I put the t-shirt
Back in the drawer,
Took out
A long-sleeved shirt
And pulled that one
Over my head
Instead
July 19, 2021 at 09:51AM
The water
Got even hotter
As the heater
Heated it up
And sent it
Boiling
Through the pipes
I could not finish
Washing my hands
Without them burning
And so I
Took the handle
And turned it
To the left
To cool
July 19, 2021 at 09:47AM
In a storm
The rain peppers the windshield
Making a rapid
Pattering noise
Under the bridge
There is a moment
Of clarity
As the windshield clears
And the pattering stops
Until we come out on the other side
And the windshield blurs again
And the noise even louder
In contrast to the momentary quiet
July 18, 2021 at 01:57PM
I want it
To pack a quick punch
There are too many people in the world
Too much to read
Too much distraction
People don’t read novels anymore
If you only had one sentence
What would it be?
July 18, 2021 at 10:52AM
My girlfriend told me
That my grandma told her
That black people
Had slaves too
We sat in the cabana
At the rooftop pool
In Nashville
And talked about
Whether it was worth it
To try and convince people
Who are stuck in their ways
I told my girlfriend
I didn’t think
It was worth it
Or even possible
She said she thought it was
Because all people have souls
And all people have depth
She is making progress
In convincing me of this
I am arrogant to assume
That some people
Aren’t worth talking to
I assume they can’t
See the truth
But I am guilty
Of the same inability
If I won’t talk to them
And listen
And really try to understand
July 18, 2021 at 10:45AM
In Nashville sitting at the bar
In a diner for breakfast
After waiting in line for an hour
I got disgusted with the city
All at once
And couldn’t even order
When the waitress asked me
What I wanted
I just had to get out and away
From the food, the alcohol
The obesity, the intoxication
My dad told me
When we were waiting in line
That the wait was so long
Because everyone was still
Collecting their unemployment checks
Once I got out and walked
On the sidewalk
I saw a homeless man
Shirtless in the hot sun
Still not sure
Whether he should be awake
Or asleep
Or what he should do
I smelled the grossness of the city
The vomit from the man
We saw sitting on the curb
Last night
His friend was holding his head
To keep him upright
The leftover food in the trash cans
The sweat
The smells from the street food carts
That would have normally
Incited my appetite
Mixing with the foul smells
Made me want to vomit
More than I wanted to eat
I wanted to purge myself,
The people walking by
To eat, to drink
More
Already eating, drinking
On their way
To eat, to drink
More
I walked faster
To sweat, to move my muscles
To work
To do the opposite
Of eating, and drinking
More
It’s no wonder
How more than half the people
I saw walking around the city
Were obese
Every egg scramble
On the menu at the diner
Had cheese in it
All the tables were full
Of families, couples
And bachelorette parties
Eating, drinking
Smiling, laughing
Talking about where
They would eat and drink
Later that night
Sitting in their hotel rooms
Watching TV
In between meals
And bouts of drinking
July 18, 2021 at 10:27AM
I woke up
Sideways
In bed
Rolled down
Longways
To the foot
And lived
Days differently
From then on
Getting out of bed
On neither
The left nor the right
The right nor the wrong
But an altogether
Other
Escape from morality
And judgment
Through the hatch
At the bottom
Out
From underneath
Tucked-in sheets
July 17, 2021 at 04:42AM
I want to want
What I have wanted before
I know the wanting
Precedes the satisfaction
But I still try to force it
The sandwich and chips
I ate for lunch yesterday
Were delicious
Today, it is lunchtime
And I want to want
The sandwich and chips
So that I can satisfy
The same hunger
But I want something different
I don’t know what
I want to want
What I’ve wanted before
Because it’s easier
I learned to love
When I moved to San Francisco
I stayed up all night with strangers
I want to want that again
But I am comfortable
To hunger for a sandwich
Like when I returned home
From a hike yesterday
To lust for sex
As when I was young
And didn’t know what it was
July 16, 2021 at 03:22PM
After days of drunkenness
Sobriety seems
A more novel experience
Just to change my mind
Which is the same reason
I started drinking
In the first place
July 15, 2021 at 08:39PM
In my mind
My father’s face
Is as young as I remember it
When I was nine or ten
But in reality, it’s older now
More wrinkles
Red cheeks and nose
Visible veins
I didn’t realize until
I look at photo albums
At a family reunion
With his dad (my grandpa)
Who turned eighty yesterday
And see photos of my dad
When he was really young
And had blonde highlights in his hair
And smiled in all the photos
I wonder if my grandpa’s face
Is as young in my dad’s mind
As my dad’s is in mine
And what it will be like
When my dad’s as old
As my grandpa is now
I wonder how my dad feels
About my grandpa getting closer
To dying
It occurs to me only now
As I write this
That I should ask him
And leave nothing unsaid
July 15, 2021 at 06:34PM
P.S. This should be prose, not poetry.
As if there weren’t
Any other way
Of seeing things
My grandpa talked to me
About work and money
And asked whether
What I had been doing
Since quitting my job
Made any
If it didn’t
Then he didn’t
Want to hear about it
Writing,
Especially poetry,
Doesn’t make much
So we didn’t have
Much to talk about
July 13, 2021 at 02:25PM
I pulled back the cue
And held my breath
Playing pool with my brothers
In the basement
For a moment in the quiet
As I held my breath
And my brothers
Held theirs too
We could hear our parents
Arguing upstairs
July 12, 2021 at 07:50PM
My fingers feel
Bonier than usual
While washing my hands
Like lifeless cylinders
Unfeeling as they rub
Against each other
Windchimes
That collide
But make no sound
The calluses
Have calluses
The feeling skin
Wears away
Skeletons hands
Can grab, lift,
And carry as much
As skinless hands
So why not
Peel away
The excess layer
Like wrapping
On a package
July 12, 2021 at 03:50PM
It is this
Which comes on
Only as this can
Fast and strong
Out of contrast
As its opposite
Retreats
With equal speed
In the other direction
Out
As this
Comes
In
July 11, 2021 at 08:40AM
I cue in on
Just one aspect
Of her personality
As if it were
All of her
July 10, 2021 at 06:12AM
A moment
Which was in the future
In the past
Is now
Now
I am not surprised
I knew
This was coming
But it’s still
Surreal
To see the bones
Of an imagining
Dressed
In the flesh
Of reality
July 10, 2021 at 06:09AM
As if I had just seen
My fingernails
For the first time
Pissing
In the basement
Bathroom
Of the bar
On Broadway
For what seemed like
Forever
So what did I have to do
But look at my nails
And wait
To finish my piss
And then go upstairs
To get the drink
They said they would
Order for me
July 09, 2021 at 09:59PM
The plastic bags
My girlfriend deem
Excess
Are left
In the tall and narrow cabinet
Beside
The dishwasher
July 08, 2021 at 02:30PM
For as long as I
Can lie on my side
Looking at the light
Bleeding in ever so softly
Through the white, wooden slats
Strung together and hung
To face the fury of the sun
Staying in bed until noon
Free from the day’s oppression
Would not be possible
Without their bravery
I yawn, smack my lips,
And close my eyes again
To return to rest
In their honor
July 08, 2021 at 09:42AM
Dug my fingers
Into yellow flesh
Clutched wooden heart
With nails
Sucked sweet strings
Of nectar
Until there was none left
But what dripped
From my chin
July 07, 2021 at 11:41AM
There is no
Expiration date
On my hunger
Only a sign
Like the ones you see
In the window
When a shopkeeper
Goes to lunch,
“Be back in 30”
July 07, 2021 at 10:16AM
I don’t mind living
On rice and beans
If that means
I can think for myself
All twenty-four hours
Of the day
But I grew up
In the grocery store
Begging my mom
For sugar cereal
Learned the capitals
Of all fifty states
Instead of hunting buffalo
On horseback
Went to college
On government loans
Instead of walking
To the water
Got my first job
In a big city
Instead of moving
With the herd
Soared too high
On the dollar
Like a folded
Paper airplane
Even if I ever landed
Back on earth
I would not know how
To live there
July 06, 2021 at 07:40PM
The tag
On the pillow
Rustled
In the wind
Coming through
The open window
As if a bird
Had flown through
And alighted
On the couch
Making the same noise
With its wings
July 06, 2021 at 05:08PM
Why do I deserve
This boredom
This right
To do nothing
Is this the freedom
The revolutionaries
Fought for
Is this the luxury
The industrialists
Worked for
For me
To lie in bed
Until noon
Eat the food
Delivered
To my door
And struggle only
To find new ways
Of entertaining myself
July 06, 2021 at 04:34PM
Like a pool
With a sign that says,
“No diving”
But my hands
Are what really
Limit me
See, the sign
Did not say,
“No digging”
So I could go
And get
A jackhammer
Break through
The cement bottom
Of the pool
Then a shovel
To dig deeper
Into the dirt
There are no
Shallow thoughts;
Just shallow tools
July 06, 2021 at 10:31AM
Flowers, I thought
Were the fancy
Of hummingbirds
But this one
Hovers above
Bare, green leaves
Dewdrops, perhaps
It picks
With its needle beak
To punctuate
Its taste
Of sweet nectar
With dull dew
July 06, 2021 at 09:10AM
A loose thread
In the process
Of escaping
From the hem
At sheet’s end
Wiggles with each
Of my deep breaths
In bed
Blowing it
Like wind, a leaf
July 06, 2021 at 08:46AM
What are you capable of
Ghost
If you are merely
As your name suggests
I will pass on
Through you
Unobstructed
And unafraid
But if you are
More than just
A mirage,
A trick on my eyes
More than
A soul with no body
If you can
Enter my world
If you can
Grab me, stab me
I will be very,
Very afraid
July 05, 2021 at 01:34PM
In the moment
That you meet someone
Who is like
An apple cart
Rolling down a hill
You can see them
Shooting by
Even pick up an apple
And bite into
Its sweetness
But to go along
For their reckless ride
Would be both
To leave your
Present place
And also to share
In their eventual crash
July 04, 2021 at 10:01PM
I lifted my shirt collar
Over the bridge of my nose
To sneeze
Then turned it
Inside out
To check for snot
July 04, 2021 at 07:21PM
I forget
To eat
To give my girlfriend
Attention
To change
Postures
To breathe
Even
When I really
Get into it
I feel like
A kamikaze
Not caring for
My corporal form
If I could just
Get this one
Down
Is a cause
I could die for
Longer lines:
I forget to eat
To give my girlfriend attention
To change postures
To breathe even
When I really get into it
I feel like a kamikaze
Not caring for my corporal form
If I could just get this one down
Is a cause I could die for
July 04, 2021 at 06:53PM
An odd wish
To want
What you already have
July 04, 2021 at 04:02PM
I don’t mind
The bathroom
At a restaurant
Being dirty
As long
As the food
Is cheap
July 04, 2021 at 02:26PM
I did not know
That fish could frown
As those in the tank
At the dim sum restaurant
Do
July 04, 2021 at 02:23PM
Blonde pigtails
Dripping down
The back
Of her wet suit
Stood watching
Waiting
For her chance
Then ran, slouched,
And slid her board
Along
The wet beach
Where from
A wave
Had just retreated
Jumped on
And skimmed
Out to the water
In a moment
Of grace
Gliding atop
The froth
Then slowed,
Stopped,
Waved her arms,
Wobbled,
And fell
Splash!
Belly-first
Into the water
July 04, 2021 at 01:15PM
She waited
Until after
A couple of drinks
At the bar
Before she asked
In an off-hand
Kind of blasè
Way
What street
He lived on
So he
Would not know
That she
Was sleeping around
Rent-free
To see
What neighborhood
She would like
To live in
July 04, 2021 at 01:03PM
The glass
Of the bottle
And the air
Are all that separate
Me
From the molecules
That once
Have trickled
Down the hatch
And had
A second
To take effect
Would make
Me feel
For a time
Grand
And above it
But I think
I’ll have cereal
Instead
July 04, 2021 at 10:01AM
Crackers spill
From the plastic
I look
At how they lie
And consider
They could be
Arranged
More beautifully
Than they happened
To spill out
So I stack them
In a row
But the order
Is even uglier
So I pray
The taste
Will be the board’s
Redeemer
July 03, 2021 at 05:26PM
At the man in the car
Who stopped
For my teammate
To run across the street
And grab the ball
Out of the gutter
I don’t know you
Dear driver sir
But in this moment
We are connected
By my waving
And you’re seeing it
And stopping
July 02, 2021 at 07:02PM
I lie on the floor
Touching
The rug, the floor,
The brick, the wall
Any texture to make
I stand
On my head
With my feet up against
The wall
So the blood will rush
Down
And make
I start a song
And skip to another
That I hope
Will make
I read
The first few lines
Of a poem
And then the next few
Before I’ve understood
The first few
Searching
For what will make
In the fridge
There may be leftovers
To make
In some club
After nightfall
Deep underground
There she may be
Dancing alone
Just waiting to make
I crawl into bed
And touch her
Hair, skin
Look and ask her
To make
July 02, 2021 at 04:14PM
At some point
I’ve got to go
With what I’ve
Already got
And stop the getting
Just
To get on
July 02, 2021 at 04:13PM
Bim! Bim! Bim!
The experiences come
Crammed once
Into thoughts
Crammed twice now
Into words
What is left over for you
My poor dear lover
Who I have not
Yet met
Though I wish to meet
All of you
If you happen
To be multiple
Or just one
Would be fine too
If you really are the One
Having not yet found you
Oh grandmaster God
With more pronouns
Than I can fit on a line
While still maintaining
The rhythm of the words
Broken up
By appropriate line breaks
The music of it
Makes so much sense
That it need be born
Into poetry
Which can be reduced
To oblivion
As long as that oblivion
Is still broken into verse
Because there must be
A music to oblivion
It cannot come all at once
Just bah!
And there it is
No, it must come on somehow
And so
There must be the line breaks
It comes a little
And then breaks
Comes a little more
And then breaks again
You are feeling it, aren’t you?
As if you were here
With me now
Fuck the couplet
Let it be one line
If it wills
The blind adherence to form
Has been the circumcision
Of so much good art
That would have otherwise
Bled on past the margins
Margins, which our boundless souls
Must be forced into
For how else could we survive?
And by “survive,” I mean
For our physical bodies
To persist, in time
Out of sync, I’ve gotten
The words overpowered the rhythm
Which is how it happens
Sometimes
Like back when I said
Fuck the couplet
All so harmonious
And rhythmic
It feels to me now
As it’s all music
On mushrooms
But how can I bring it back
Why
Do I need to bring it back?
But then
What am I to do?
Mushrooms all the time?
Is this life for me?
Or is it for others?
Beautiful, it is, when
By being me
I am for others
In a way they want
And so I wish for it
Crying on my knees
Begging please
But I would jump up
Just so giddy
The very next second
You would say I am crazy
As we are accustomed to calling
Anyone who can experience
Those two very different emotions
Deep serious sadness
And singing joy
So suddenly
One after the other
But I can, I tell you
I can
So much
That it seems most appropriate
To dance and sing
Out of my skin even
Explode into all of it
Around me
Return to what I know I am
But forget, I do
When I am not on mushrooms
And the problem
Is the rawness
How can I shave it down
Real particular
Into a needle that will pass
With little pain
Through the pore
Of a sober man
So the only pain he must endure
Is either
Reading, listening,
Or watching
Into his soul, I must pass
Somehow
How do I get in
Through his body
He has holes
His nose holes
His ear holes
His mouth hole
The pores of his skin
How can I get in?
Not to take you by force,
Dear brother, no
Take me, if you would
Please
I come onto you so strong
With all the desire
That is really my own desire
To be come onto
In disguise
Care not, we need
About who is coming
That we are coming
Together
While we still can
Is the point
But the great song and dance
Is just that
Called so
For a reason
The arts are how
We’ve all agreed
To come onto one another
And really enjoy it
With the ecstasy
That is otherwise only appropriate
Behind the closed doors of a bedroom
Where we have shut our sex
Into such a modern construction
For where did we fuck
Before there were closed doors
And beds with sheets
Out through the cracks
Around the hinges
Through the keyhole
Oozing out from behind that closed door
Our sex learned to define itself
Because getting out of the bedroom
Was only the first step
And then past
The guards at the door
Was the second step
So we disguised our sex
Into art
Song, dance, poetry
We sang to the guards
Danced to the guards
Read to the guards
And they let us go
Out of the doors
And we ran free
And ran and ran
Until we were exhausted and hungry
So we ate and slept
And then woke to run
But to where?
We ran for years
Until we realized
The love we were chasing
Came from the guards
The bedroom was ourselves
They locked us in there
Locked us in ourselves
What a trick!
And all the fucking desire we had
To fuck
Was for the guards
Whomever they may be
Anyone, really
Ourselves, even
The real question is:
Who built this house?
We don’t seek to punish you
But merely to show everyone
That you aren’t so great
So we can then proceed
With tearing the house down
Our sex need not be shut up
Who defined it as it has been?
I have gotten too particular
I do not wish for this to be a novel
Oh blah blah blah
I am back again
I have come back down from the mushrooms
It will continue on for some time now
Along the plateau
But the come up has come
And gone
July 02, 2021 at 03:46PM
Can’t possibly be
An accident
This piece of yarn
On the rug
Or any of
The rest of it
It’s all too
Itself
Each thing
Is
Very much
Itself
But she almost
Has me convinced
That it’s all, really,
The same
July 02, 2021 at 03:31PM
Why is it
The mushrooms
That bring it out of me
Where
Does my exuberance
For life hide
On the days when
Just the thought
Of getting out of bed
Already brings
Other thoughts
Of what I will do
Once I am out
And for some reason
None of it
Seems worth the effort
July 02, 2021 at 03:23PM
How could the industry
Have possibly picked
Diamonds
Over the blue-yellow
Holographic beauty
That is labradorite
What does it say
About our standards for beauty
That we picked
The cleanest, clearest
Rock
As the one of value
July 02, 2021 at 03:10PM
In most of what
Has been written
And deemed worthy
To have been read
By others before me
I can see how firmly
They must have pressed
Their pens into the paper
By the boldness of the font
Even though it is printed
So clear
Their editing
And obsessing over
The punctuation
What is it like
To sit in a room with someone
And watch them be
Who they truly are
Write, like that
I wish they would have
Like they would talk
If they were right here
On the couch with me
So that I could meet them
Instead
Of this castrated form
Into which
They crammed themselves
July 02, 2021 at 02:59PM
Pins and needles
Press into
The palm
Hanging at the end
Of this here
Arm, shoulder
Wooden couch railing
Pressed up and under
My armpit
I let it hang
To feel the pins
And needles
July 02, 2021 at 02:53PM
To tear myself down
From these heights
Up to which
I have built
Thinking to myself
All the while
Sweating, toiling
That I was really
Doing the right thing
Building myself up
To achieve something great
Only to meet
A fat, smiling Buddha
Appearing to me
As a curvy, curly-haired beaut
Who said to me
In her sweet, seductress way
That I had to now
Tear it all down
Brick by brick
I was wrong all along
Or rather
The ones whom I listened to
Were wrong
But it didn’t matter
Either way
I had to tear it all down
July 02, 2021 at 02:48PM
Like all the money
I made
In my short tour
Of the working world
Was for naught
But to buy
As many mushrooms
As our dear grower
Could grow,
Take them,
Trip my balls off,
And write poetry
July 02, 2021 at 02:37PM
More
I can always
Do more
Even
When my mind
Says to stop
I can still go
Until
The muscles tear
If not
For my body
Maintaining itself
For what?
For oatmeal
And cribbage
In a wheelchair
Without the strength
To tear myself
Apart
Even if
I wanted to
So why not tear
Starting with my pectorals
While I still can
July 02, 2021 at 02:34PM
She is my veil
Shrouding me
And my insanity
From the outer world
Which would not know
Why I lie
On the hardwood floor
With the chair legs
Gripped firmly
In both my hands
Shouting,
“Too narrow!
Too narrow!”
Because it is
Of course
Too narrow
But they
Would not know that
And neither does she
But still
She protects me
Like a young fledgling
In her nest
July 02, 2021 at 02:31PM
Unlike her feminine way
Of seeing the world
Soft
And all the same
I plunge
With my mind
The spear
That they put
Into my hand
And sharpened
For reasons
Other than this
Though I broke
From that race
And now fling
My spear
At thought
After thought
Somewhere off
In the neverland
Of my mind
That they built up
So strong
To be for them
It has wrested
Itself free
Not even for me
Does it fling its spear
I know not now
For what I fling
Maybe I will crawl back
To her soft
And feminine ways
July 02, 2021 at 02:26PM
Just to be
Is quite a feat
Which wins
No awards
For we all
Are born into it
But collectively
We might all win
The award together
And this is it
That award
If I might be so arrogant
To don it on us
Myself
Here it is
July 02, 2021 at 02:24PM
Peeing in the dark
I stared at
A stack of toilet paper
The dark, inner circle
Around which
The white paper was rolled
Expanded
And shrunk
Expanded
And shrunk
Like it had a slow
And epic
Heartbeat
I finished peeing
And went to look
At the plants
To see
If their hearts
Were also beating
July 02, 2021 at 12:58PM
I opened one of the windows
In the second-story bedroom
Of the Baker Street apartment
Locked eyes with a painter
Standing on the sidewalk
With his arms crossed
Smug and unflinching
His stance set wide
White shirt with paint flecks
Tucked in
To his blue jeans
Looking up at me
Like the referee
Of all household things
I was suddenly unsure of how
To properly
Open a window
Pushed out the pane
A little too far
And the ref blew his whistle
Brought it back in
The hinges squeaked
And he shook his head
Went to get some grease
Pushed it out somewhere in the middle
And stepped back
The painter opened his palm,
Flicked out his fingers, frowned,
Bobbed his head
As if to say, “Good enough”
Then walked across the street
To get into his white van
And drove off
With the ladder on top
July 01, 2021 at 09:39AM
A physical therapy article
Say it’s only in rare cases
That back pain turns out
To be a tumor
The investigator writes me,
“I don’t know what will be decided,
But your cooperation and honesty
Will certainly be in my report”
My fears of being stuck in a cell
With another inmate, larger
And able to overpower me
Might subside, if only for today
But I am still stuck in this cycle of thought
Which subjects my well-being
To the ups and downs of the material world
Which I am passing through
Any later than this very moment
Is already further into the future
Than the spiritual book I’m reading
Would recommend me thinking
I am caught in between
Walking out into the Presidio
And lying down next to a tree
For the next rain to wash me away
And continuing this mad existence
That is all I’ve ever known
July 01, 2021 at 09:15AM
I play pretend
I have a friend
Who has told me her troubles
I imagine
We are at the park
And I ask
How her troubles have been
She catches me up to speed
While we watch
Our kids swing
July 01, 2021 at 03:49AM
When you are hungry and tired
You cannot satisfy both
At the same time
Unless you know how
To eat while sleeping
Or sleep while eating
I have tried both:
Once, arriving home after a day
Of foodless travel
I put some chili in a pan
Turned on the stove
And sat down at the bistro table
To rest
While it heated
But I fell asleep
With my head on my arm
And when I woke
There was a burning smell
Another time,
After a long day of work
When I had to skip lunch
I tried to take a nap before dinner
But only tossed and turned
On the couch
With my stomach grumbling
So I had to get up
And play the dangerous game
Of not falling asleep
With the stove on
July 01, 2021 at 03:27AM
To the defender
In front of me:
I have no left
It might as well be a club
Or a phantom foot
One, two, maybe
Three times
I’ll have my glory
Dribbling past you
With my right
But you’ll learn
Like they all do
And then I’ll have to find
A new game
With new defenders
Who don’t know me
June 30, 2021 at 09:05PM
Where can I stay
If I don’t go
In what state
Other than death
Can I suspend myself
While still living
If I could persist
Without eating, sleeping
I would find just one
True true
And chip away
The excesses of myself
To become
A statue of the truth
I am not fit for this life
I am a weak body
A limited mind
A sinful soul
Where can I go
If I don’t stay
June 30, 2021 at 07:53PM
The price of a human life
Has gone up, Brother
There is no more time
In the bank
And survival is cheap
I have made enough
In one year
To live for ten
So what keeps me
From taking the first train
Out of the city?
Money used to buy
All that we ever wanted
Now it just buys
More of the same
But you can’t buy time
June 30, 2021 at 04:20PM
On a silver, metal
Hook
In the shape
Of a “U”
Stretched out
Shallow
More like a bowl
Than the tall letter
A white towel
Hangs on
Just barely
To one end
June 30, 2021 at 02:06PM
Beads of moisture
Burst
Into individual life
On the underside
Of the concave glass lid
At first, each bead
Is not even
Itself
In the pool
Of hot water
In the pot
Then the water
Evaporates
And travels
Through the air
From the hot pool
To the lid
On the lid
The bead is born into
Its individual life
Which it lives
In community
With the other beads
Thin borders of dryness
Separate them
Gravity pulls them
From the apex
Of the lid
Down toward
Whatever side
Is nearest
On their way
They cross the borders of dryness
Join
With other beads
And lose
Their individuality
Larger beads form
And grow
Even larger
With each bead added
To the mass
Until gravity pulls it
Down to the edge
Where it drops
Back into
The pool
Of hot water
Below
This process
Repeats itself
I am like a bead
Addicted to my ego
But I will join the others
In a suicide dive
Back to the water
Eventually
June 29, 2021 at 07:46PM
With the metal bar
Pressed down upon
Its broken neck
The mouse died faster
Than its little mind
Could get from
The satisfaction
Of the cheese
To the pain
Of death
June 29, 2021 at 07:37PM
My forearms are flat
On the table
On either side
Of my bowl of chili
The wind blowing the leaves
And the sirens outside
Are too obvious
(But you have to understand
How constant
Those two sounds are
In the city)
I can hear her sighs
Coming through the open door
Of the bedroom
Across the hall
The dog upstairs
Runs back and forth
But doesn’t bark
The wind sounds like
A rainstick
Full of waves
The kitchen light
Makes a buzzing noise
That I’ve gotten used to
This bowl of chili is so big
I’d have to write for hours
To work up enough
Of an appetite
It’s quiet in a way
That makes that book
The Lightness of Being
Make sense to me
Even though I’ve never read the book
Just me and my chili
And the metal spoon scraping
The bottom of the bowl
There are moments of silence
In suspension
What makes them jarring
Instead of peaceful?
Knowing there are other parts
Of the world
That are loud
Even right now
And parts of my world
That have been loud
In the past
Is it only in contrast
That the silence
Strikes me?
Like the hardest
You could ever hit
A stone statue
With a pillow
The waves wash over
The sirens come for
The dog runs toward
Someone
Somewhere else
June 29, 2021 at 07:18PM
Remember when
We woke up early
To drive to that tournament
Out in the farmlands
You opened the garage
And we stood
Behind your truck
You breathed in,
Sighed, and said,
“The morning air
Is the best air all day”
You played rock songs
On the way
To pump me up
Slammed on the mat
And shouted, “Squeeze!”
When I had the other kid
In a headlock
I wish I would’ve won
Every match
You ever saw
If I could go back
And squeeze tighter
I would
June 29, 2021 at 05:08PM
They’re not
Who they are yet
Some of them
Think they are
But they’re still
Just
Playing the part
Others have no idea
Who they are
But these
I like better
Because at least
They’re not so sure
And still wrong
June 29, 2021 at 01:33PM
You chomp
With confidence
Until
There’s a rock
In your food
And then
You chew
A little more
Softly
June 29, 2021 at 12:41PM
It is hard to think of her
As being anyone else’s
Now that she is mine
And has been, for so long
It would be like
Someone telling me
That my mother
Is not my mother
I would tell them
They are wrong
Of course, she is my mother
Of course, she is mine
As if by blood
June 29, 2021 at 12:18PM
I want
What I don’t have
When I get it
I am overjoyed
Nothing else
Could possibly be better
Eventually
I get used to it
I can’t taste it
Anymore
I eat so much
That I get fat
And then I want
To be skinny
When I get skinny
I am overjoyed
Nothing else
Could possibly be better
June 29, 2021 at 10:23AM
Farmer Jim’s wife
Lynn
Always let me
Eat their frozen
Country-fried steaks
Out of the freezer
It was the best part
Of my day
After picking cherries
Tying up tomatoes
Mowing the lawn
One day
I microwaved a steak
Put it on the bread
And sat down to eat
When I saw some customers
Through the window
At the shed
Out on the driveway
Which was another part
Of my job
To take their money
Bag their fruit
And be nice to them
So I left my food
Ran out there
Helped them
And came back
But my steak was gone!
I spun around
Looked on the floor
The plate was there
Had I not
Even made it?
I checked the freezer
But the box wasn’t there
I looked in the garbage
And there was the box
It was the last one
I looked down
And there
Was the old terrier
Named Pete
Looking up at me
As guilty
As a dog can be
June 26, 2021 at 06:20PM
Used to drive
A trailer-full
Of watermelons
Back from Georgia
He paid my brother and I
Cash
To wake up at 4am
And help him
Move the melons
From the trailer
To the cold truck
He’d stand in between
The trailer and truck
And hold each melon
On his knee
While he wrote a price
In permanent marker
“This is a biggun”
Holding it
On either end
Sizing it up
With a satisfied smirk
Squinting
In the shed light
17.00
He wrote on it
And he always underlined
The two zeroes
But nobody could read
His writing
At the market
Shoppers would ask
How much for this one
And they’d point
I’d look and
Make an attempt
To decipher
The markings
I already knew
Were illegible
Even if they hadn’t
Smeared
From the moisture
In the cold truck
I’d do my best
Farmer-Jim impression
Size it up
With a satisfied smirk
And say,
“That one right there
Is 20,
But I’ll give it to ya
For 18.”
June 26, 2021 at 06:07PM
Pieces of her hair
Are everywhere
Tying together the tassels
At the ends
Of the hand towel
Twirled around
The shower pipes
Clogging
The drain
Interwoven
In the threads
Of the bedsheets
Stuck
To the bottoms
Of my socks
They latch on
And enmesh themselves
In the lives of things
Like she has
In mine
June 26, 2021 at 12:25PM
The delivery man
Buzzes
Once, twice
And the footsteps come
Clop, clop
Creaking floorboards
The door downstairs
Swings open
A package gets dropped
On the floor
The door
Slams shut
The unit above ours
Goes back to what they were doing
The delivery man
Goes to another delivery
And we lie in bed
Waiting, listening
June 26, 2021 at 09:20AM
The towels hang
On the drying rack
And meditate
Without moving
To become one
With the sun
Shining
Its wisdom
Through
The window
June 24, 2021 at 04:32PM
I am hungry
So I
Get some cheese
Out of the fridge
Slice
And eat it
With crackers
June 24, 2021 at 09:51AM
I opened the cabinet
To grab some nails
And a hammer
To hang a piece of art
I saw the bottle
Of glue
And almost grabbed
That too
As I remembered …
First, that
I had broken my glasses
And needed the glue
To fix them
And second, that
It was only in a dream
A dream, which I had not
Until that moment
Even remembered
Having had
Only in that dream
Had my glasses
Been broken
And I did not
In the same world
In which
I needed the nails
And hammer
For the art
As yet, unhung
Need the glue
For the glasses, which
Were never broken
In any world
Other than
That
Of my dream
June 22, 2021 at 05:55AM
Doing exercises
With my hands
On the ground
I saw an ant
Crawling
Between my fingers
How many
Had I squashed
Already?
June 21, 2021 at 07:42PM
At brunch David
Taught me how to
Roll my r’s
In Spanish
I erroneously
Rolled the “r”
In “naranja”
And David told me
It’s only for
The double r’s
As in “burro”
Which is Spanish
For donkey
David started to
Roll his tongue
And show me
How to do it
He said it’s not about
The tongue muscle
You just
Relax the tongue
But I still had
Food in my mouth
So I told him
To wait
Until I was finished
With my food
And then
I would try
Originally written: May 30, 2021
Water
Is clear
So the bottom
Of the mug
Can still
Be seen
Through
The water
With which
It’s filled
June 13, 2021 at 12:10PM
One moment can’t
Hold up against
All the others
Attacking
The outside walls
Which define it
When the walls
Eventually crumble
And the surrounding moments
Invade and mix
The moments
Breed and assimilate
June 13, 2021 at 09:05AM
“You see things
In a different way
On the shoot,”
Says the model
Drinking
After the shoot
Pontificating
About photo-taking,
What it means,
And how good
The cameraman was
June 12, 2021 at 07:56PM
For her ranch water
I would have used
Ice cubes
But there were only
Four or five
Left in the tray
And I knew
We were going to drink more
So I unzipped
The bag
Of frozen strawberries
And plopped in
A few of those
Hoping
They would have
The same effect
As ice
June 12, 2021 at 07:51PM
The wooden deck planks
Took fire
From the rain
And bled
Spreading
Wet darkness
From their bullet holes
June 10, 2021 at 01:48PM
The world seems wide again
As I’ve just narrowly
Avoided disaster
Yet again
The allegations
Were not as serious
As I trumped them up to be
In my head
I can hold onto
My precious world
The way it is
For a little while longer
But each
Of these near-disasters
Are teaching me
How to lose it all
June 10, 2021 at 09:37AM
He opens the door
To the deck
Steps out
Onto the wood
Looks up
At the mountains
Bows his head
And ambles forward
Humbly
Approaching their majesty
– Krys in Big Sky 06/10/21
June 10, 2021 at 09:31AM
I was so worried
I wasn’t breathing
I realize now
As I’ve gotten the news
That what I feared
Isn’t true
And I take my first deep breath
In a while
June 10, 2021 at 09:12AM
About my writing
He says he wants to ask me
The question
Which he wishes
Others would ask him
About his music
This is the question—
“What question
Do you want me
To ask you
About your art?”
I cannot help but feel
That he is cheating
Isn’t digging through the dirt,
Clamoring through the confusion,
And finally finding
After much searching
Somewhat similar to
All the sunshine and rain
Required
Before a flower
Will unfold for you?
Did nature
Have it so easy
As simply having to ask
What it was
That the flower wanted?
Or did many flowers
Have to die
Before nature learned
The unfolding
Of a single flower?
Was it worth kneeling
In the soil
And watching
For every second
Of every day
To learn to ask
The right question?
June 09, 2021 at 12:00AM
Lake explains
How a machine-learning algo
Makes art
“The code
Prunes out what’s bad”
“It grows into
The right composition”
“It either ends up
Too random
Or not random enough”
Kyle argues back
On our behalf,
“It’s the same
As a human artist
Learning what feels right
From experience”
Lake responds,
“Those learnings
Are rules
That can be coded”
June 07, 2021 at 01:50PM
When I stab
A knife
Into the jar
Of almond butter
There is really only
One thing
That can go wrong
Because I hold
The jar
Over the toast
On the plate
And once I’ve gotten
A glob
On the knife
I hold it
Over the jar
For a few seconds
Before I move the knife
Over and down
Onto the toast
—This way
If there is any drippage
It must fall
Either
Back into the jar
Or onto the toast
But there is
A terrible
Third possibility
That, in the time
I am moving
The knife
From over the jar
To over the toast,
A drip
Could fall
Onto the side of the jar
Which is really
The only thing
That can go wrong
June 07, 2021 at 10:58AM
In the morning
I work on my writing
For as long as I can
Before I eat
Because eating
Is the only thing
I know for sure
I’m doing right
June 07, 2021 at 10:41AM
There are at least
Three layers
—Sun,
Legs,
And couch cushions
But I cannot tell
Where exactly
The sun hits
The skin
Of my shins
The cushions
Press up against
My calf muscles
A general mass
Of warmth from the sun
And comfort from the cushions
And my legs
Somewhere, sensing
The warmth and the comfort
I know that
My legs rest
On top of the cushions
And the sun
Somehow
Warms them
But when I look
For my legs
In my mind
There is only the mass
Into which the three layers
Have melted
June 07, 2021 at 09:58AM
In my travel bag
There are
A pack of gum
And a handful
Of cough drops
That have gone bad
The gum breaks up
Into grit
And the drops
Are fused
To their wrappers
All the times before
That I would have
Chewed a stick
Or sucked a drop
I said to myself
I’ll save it
For later
June 07, 2021 at 07:57AM
The ocean
Still holds its power
Over man
The land
Is being dug up,
Built over,
And otherwise shaped
By man’s desires
In the ocean
We cannot keep our grip
For long
Even the biggest boat
Can capsize
The ocean maintains
Her mystery
And her strength
Originally written: Wednesday, Jun 2, 2021, 6:50 PM
Through a plane window
There are a few
Simple sights—
The sky, the clouds,
And the ocean
But the land
Is complicated
At least because of
All the man-made structures
—Roads and buildings
But the natural land
Is also varied
By the spines of mountains
And the ridges
Running down the sides
The flat lands
That are different shades
Of gold, brown, and green
And the lakes
And other land-locked
Bodies of water
Which would be as simple
As the ocean and the sky
Going off forever
As themselves
And never changing
But the land-locked
Bodies of water
Are defined by their shores
And so contribute
To the land
Being more detailed
Than the sky, the clouds,
And the ocean
Originally written: Wednesday, Jun 2, 2021, 6:41 PM
Honestly
I think a lot of it
Was luck
But the joke
You don’t realize
You’re the butt of
Until you finally
Get it
Is that being lucky
Can turn out to be
Just as unlucky
As everyone else
Thinks they are
Originally written: Tuesday, Jun 1, 2021, 2:56 PM
At dinner she said
Something
And he said,
Oh
So she asked,
Do you like that?
Yea
When I say it
With my tongue
Flicking
My teeth
Like that
The trick
That some girls learned
Younger than others
And held more power
Over the world
Than they ever
Did again
Originally written: Sunday, May 30, 2021, 8:22 PM
The bee landed
On the rim
Of Greg’s glass
He leaned forward
And blew
On the bee
To get it
To fly away
But the bee
Fell into
The glass
And Greg
Flagged down
The waiter, Rubèn
To get
Another drink
For free
So the bee
Didn’t die
For nothing
Originally written: Sunday, May 30, 2021, 6:14 PM
I lay on the couch
And played
With a pillow
Long, rectangular
And woven
With traditional
Mexican threads
Just to feel
The texture
With my fingertips
Holding the pillow
Above my head
Bringing it down
To my chest
To hug it
And have an experience
With an object
In space
Communicating
Its
Physical existence
To
My feeling
Originally written: Sunday, May 30, 2021, 3:03 PM
I opened the cabinet
To place the wine glasses
Back on the shelf
The glasses
Already in there
Each reflected
A small picture
Of the room behind
In miniature
Originally written: Saturday, May 29, 2021, 10:50 AM
The older people
Joined our dinner party of five
To make it eight
And after
The introductions
And the small talk
To figure out
Whether we had anything in common
And if not
If we could at least get along
The old people
After so many drinks
Started to thirst for more
For the youth
And us young
Started to want for some things
Too
That the old people had
Like money
And power and respect
So we sat there together with our drinks
Half drunk
And our empty plates
And sucked off each other
Originally written: Friday, May 28, 2021, 9:48 PM
So good this night I
Try to breathe it all in through my nostrils
With my hands on the rails
Looking out at the biggest whitest moon
I have ever seen
So clear
I can see the light grey dark freckles
Like skin cancer on older skin
A boat bobs in the water in the moonlight
A smaller boat
Than all the other boats around it
Different music
Plays from different places
As everyone
Quietly enjoys the night
On their own
Originally written: Wednesday, May 26, 2021, 9:14 PM
If I could foster
With others
The same fascination
That I have with
This beautiful girl
Sitting here
Saying anything
It doesn’t matter
I am as interested
As I ever was
In whatever else
Was supposed to
Hold my attention
Originally written: Tuesday, May 25, 2021, 5:42 PM
I wrote some poems
On the plane
Even after I said I wouldn’t
Write on this trip
I wonder
If other writers
Know
When they are going to write
Or if
They are like me
And sometimes
It just comes
Originally written: Tuesday, May 25, 2021, 10:44 AM
A lady in the seat behind me
On the plane
Talks
To the person next to her
About her body
And how
Her brain has not been doing so great
And one of her toes is swollen
As if
Her body parts
Were members of her family
Appendages apart
From herself
Originally written: Tuesday, May 25, 2021, 10:41 AM
I went downstairs
And into the bedroom
To get my laptop charger
Out of my bag
I didn’t know
I was walking into
A dance
Set to music—
The cold wind blew
Through the window
I opened last night
To stay cool
The red curtains wavered
And shafts of warm light
Shot through
The dark bedroom
It was the chill
Of the cool morning air
Crisp in my nostrils
The way the light
Came through the curtains
In the brief moments
They were blown open
The color of the light
Yellow
Coming through the red
Like gentle orange fire
And then darkness again
When the breeze subsided
And the curtains went back
To being shut
I stood there
In the doorway
And watched all the love
Being made without me
I guess I’ve gotten
This misconception
That things are only happening
When we’re around
To make them happen
But the wind and the light
Lost their egos
Long ago
They play
With
Or without
An audience
June 06, 2021 at 06:11AM
We will have plenty
Of time to talk
In the afternoon
My friend
The morning
Is for making
What music we can
In the silence
Of our solitude
So with all
Due respect
Don’t talk to me
June 06, 2021 at 05:45AM
A single thread
Of spider web
Stretched
From the table
To the ottoman
With a dewdrop
Weighing it down
In the center
A spider
Must have made
The leap
Across the chasm
In the night
June 06, 2021 at 04:56AM
A robin flew up
And landed
At the very top
Of a pine tree
With a worm in its beak
Squawking gently
Twitching its tail feathers
Stretching its wings
With erratic pumps
I could see it
So clearly
In contrast
To the light blue
Morning sky
I looked down
To write this
And then looked back
To write more
But the robin
Was gone
June 06, 2021 at 04:49AM
I am awake
At 5am
I have energy
I will waste it
If I just lie here
And spin my wheels
Thinking about other things
I must
Get out of bed
And get to work
June 06, 2021 at 04:21AM
In the morning
The many birds
Sang
Like children
On a playground
Make noise—
Because they can,
Just to hear themselves,
Or because they haven’t learned
To keep quiet
And only talk
When it’s intelligent
But these are mountain birds
Robins and finches
Nesting in the pines
And the rafters of cabins
Picking worms from the soft soil
They lack the education
That the pigeons in the city
Have learned
To keep quiet, conserve their energy,
And eat trash when they can
June 06, 2021 at 04:05AM
I screwed the lid
Onto the glass jar
While the wick
Was still burning
Watched the flame
Lose its vigor
And slowly shrink
Until the light was out
I felt
In the dark
Like I had murdered
An innocent
June 04, 2021 at 08:38PM
The man
Whom I write
Over and over
Is me
You see
I cannot escape from him
Even when
I look at others
I see myself
June 04, 2021 at 08:16PM
Suspended
In this life
Viscous
So I can’t
Move much
Side to side
I’m stuck
Right where
I was born
June 03, 2021 at 06:30PM
Half dressed
For the night
—Hair done
Red lipstick
Dinner coat
But no pants
She poked
Two fingers
Between
The blinds
So she could see
Outside
As I
Was not joining her
This night
I lay
On the bed
And asked her,
“Are you waiting
For you car?”
She said, “No,
I’m just trying
To see what
The weather’s like.”
June 03, 2021 at 04:59PM
The construction crew
At the job site
Across the street
Must have
Taken off today
I can hear the leaves
Blowing down the hill
Scratching on the cement,
The soft wind
Whistling around the edges
Of our bay window,
And even the light buzzing
Of complete silence
For brief moments
—Sounds that,
For as long as
The construction project
Has gone on,
I haven’t realized
Have been drowned out
By hammering, sawing,
Nailing, shouting,
And other sounds
Of industry
Which usually
Make me feel guilty
For lying in bed
Instead of getting up
And doing something
But today
I can take the day off too
And sleep in
June 03, 2021 at 09:33AM
The fajitas I ate
In Cabo
Haven’t even
Fully digested
As I order a drink
At a bar
In San Francisco
June 02, 2021 at 07:04PM
She looks at a photo of them
From years ago
And says it’s a good photo
We know
She was looking at herself
And no one else in the photo
When she said that
June 01, 2021 at 06:39PM
Holding a seed
In the palm of his hand
He could see the tree
It would become
Or so he thought
To save myself
The time and energy
He would spend planting
Who can tell, other
Than the many days
Of sunshine
And rain
June 01, 2021 at 02:04PM
Two salesmen
On vacation
Talk to each other
About their products
The features
And how they really
Help their clients
As if they really
Care about
What they do for work
When all they really
Care about
Is their next vacation
June 01, 2021 at 11:42AM
On Memorial Day
An American holiday
Which didn’t mean much
To the Mexicans
In Todos Santos
Except in the same way
That anything from the U.S.
Influenced Mexico
We drank margaritas
That weren’t very good
Which we already knew
Would be the case
When we asked the waiter
Where he was from
And he said Seattle
We read love poetry by Neruda
In English
And it was already good
And then we read it
In Spanish
I didn’t understand
But it was still better
Because of the music
Of the words together
In the original language
May 31, 2021 at 04:26PM
Was a drummer
I locked eyes with
Whose band played
On the open roof
Of the restaurant
During dinner
Afterward
He was outside
Drinking a beer
And smoking a cigarette
My friend nudged me
To say hi to him
Which is how
I learned his name
My Spanish was bad
And his English
Was just good enough
To ask me
If I liked music
I said yes
And then I said sí
He asked if I played an instrument
I said no
But wish that I could have said yes
So that we would have had
Something to talk about
Though I wouldn’t have been able
To express myself anyways
So we shared a brief
Mostly-wordless moment
After the sun had gone down
In the street of Cabo
He drank his bottled beer
Leaning against the wall
Outside of the restaurant
Waiting for his band to go back on
And I, full from dinner
With my hands in my pockets
Feeling much less talented
Than the man I was admiring
He wasn’t even aware
Of how perfectly himself
He was being
May 31, 2021 at 04:23PM
A sweet
Old lady
Shop owner
We met
In Todos Santos
Told us
She grew up
In San Clemente
The only people
There
Were jarheads
And surfers
Her mom said to her
When she was young,
“Mary Beth,
Why don’t you
Bring home
A nice marine
Instead of all
These surfers?”
May 31, 2021 at 04:22PM
San Francisco is a lot
For a writer
Trying to get down
The small stuff
You see
A piece break off
From the whole
When you’re
In the right place
And time
To see the break
The wheel
Of a mail truck
Pulls up and over
A curb
And you think
To write it
But then
Another car honks
And you’re distracted
Which would be fine
You could return
To the wheel
And the curb
If not
For the other sounds
And sights
That come one
After another
One moment can’t
Hold up against
All the others
Attacking
The outside walls
Which define it
When they
Eventually crumble
And all the other
Surrounding moments
Invade
And mix
The moments
Breed
And assimilate
So you can’t remember
What the moment
Was before
And it changes
All the time
May 31, 2021 at 01:51PM
The bubbles from
The lime seed
At the bottom of the bottle
Ascend
To the surface
In a pillar
Of molecules destined
For kin air
Escaping
From an ocean
Of amber gold
Intoxication
I promised myself
Again this morning
That I would not
Drink today
Now it’s early afternoon
And this
Is my second
May 31, 2021 at 12:42PM
I stood on the balcony
With my new friend Peter
Who was about twice my age
We had just gotten back from dinner
And were starting our evening drinking
He started to talk about how
He was old
And I was young and full of energy
I asked him
What he meant by energy
And he pointed out at all the lights,
Boats, roofs, roads, water
And asked me
What do you see out there?
I said I saw lights,
Boats, roofs, roads, water
He waited patiently
Like a teacher
For the right answer
He said there are protons and electrons
It’s all energy
And that was his point
Which I did not completely understand
But then again, I did, somewhat
May 31, 2021 at 11:32AM
A rock hit the windshield
On our drive
To Todos Santos
We could not have
Avoided it
Just one of the risks
Of taking the car
Out of the garage
May 31, 2021 at 11:25AM
How far can I
As the writer
Get away from
The subject
Of my writing
If I must sense
See, hear, smell
Something first
In order to write it
Where can I
Cram myself away
So that
The subject
Can be what it is
Independent of me
Sensing it
May 31, 2021 at 11:21AM
I struggle to explain
With words
What I am experiencing
So I can only explain
With words
The struggle itself
May 31, 2021 at 11:07AM
I broke the blender this morning
Burned up the rubber piece in the bottom
Blending
A smoothie that was too big
On the high setting
I should have started low
Until it was mixed some
And then turned it up higher
So it wasn’t so hard on that poor
Piece of rubber
In between an engine that had
All the strength
And a blade that had
All the ambition
To blend more than the machine
Ever had before
But the rubber wasn’t ready
And the engine and the blade
Did not consider the rubber
In their plans
May 31, 2021 at 11:09AM
Is it even
Noon yet
Our brunch
Started
At eleven
And we must have
Spent more than
An hour there
So it must be
After
Noon
Now
May 30, 2021 at 12:24PM
I feel like
A floating speck of dust
In a very big world
Walking back to the resort
After
A very boozy brunch
After the third
Bottle of champagne
We had to get a fourth
Because it was two-for-one
I took off my shirt
To avoid
Sweating through it
The shirt
Hanging on my shoulder
And all the rest of it
Including
The dust speck
I am
Blows in the wind
May 30, 2021 at 12:20PM
I spend
And spend
And eat
And consume
And earn
And then spend
And eat
More
And more
And earn
Again
Until
I’ll eventually
Lose either
My appetite
Or my ability
To earn
And then die
Or else
Get taken care of
By another
Earner
May 30, 2021 at 11:35AM
The waves
Creep up along
The sandy beach
And then retreat
Forward
And back
Forward
And back
Like a dog
Nipping at the heels
Of the city
Waiting
For the collective power
Of their element
To overwhelm
All at once
In the rush
Of a hurricane
May 29, 2021 at 10:20PM
We stood on the rooftop
With our hands on the
Railing
Looking out at the ocean
And the lights from the few
Larger yachts
That stayed out in the water
Overnight
The other boats
Went into the marina
To dock
Most of them
Before sundown
The ocean
Dark
And mostly without any
Perceptible details
To our eyes
Numbed
By all the lights
Of the city
In the half of the view
On our side
Of the shore
May 29, 2021 at 10:15PM
Dancing
I go back and forth
Between
Being aware of myself
And forgetting
That the experiences
Feeding into my senses
Are predicated
On the attachment
Of my sensory organs
To my body
With which
I identify
May 29, 2021 at 08:30PM
In the very nice
Bathroom
At this place
The hand towels
Are linen
Not paper
And they still get thrown away
In a waste basket
Lined
With a plastic bag
I hope
They wash them
And don’t just
Throw them away
May 29, 2021 at 07:25PM
I am less worried now
About getting back
Across the border
If my test comes back positive
I’ll just stay
In Cabo for a while
It’s all alright
It’s all
It’s all
It is all
What is it
And I am here
And part of it
Anything past that
Is unnecessary
Complication
May 29, 2021 at 07:24PM
At dinner
Some of our group
Wanted to order
More drinks
But the artists
Among us
On budgets
Stumbled
Over our words
To say
We’d rather wait
And drink the cheap alcohol
From the grocery store
Back at the room
May 29, 2021 at 06:54PM
I try to drink it in
Eat it
Consume
And digest
All of this moment
That taste, smells,
And feels like
I wish it always would
I want it
So much
That I miss it
Already
Even though I still have it
Right here
I breathe in deeply
To get as much
As I can
May 29, 2021 at 06:47PM
I can close my eyes
And escape
From where
My sight says
I am
Off into
My head
It seems
Black
As far as my eyes
Are concerned
My other senses
Still tether me
To what I can hear
And feel
I try to escape
Plugging my ears
And lying down
On soft cushions
But I still remain
Myself
Loosely
May 29, 2021 at 05:48PM
Sitting in a chair
I started to drum
On the armrests
And really
Got into it
Tapping
A rapid
Multi-fingered beat
On the one arm
And a deeper
Bass beat
With my whole palm
On the other
Bobbing my head
Bouncing my feet
May 29, 2021 at 04:07PM
On the beach
He lies
With the brim
Of his ball cap
Pulled down
Over his eyes
Seeming
To be asleep
But his hand plays
Intelligently
With sand
Flowing through his fingers
And into mounds
By his side
May 29, 2021 at 03:40PM
I point, cock,
And shoot
My finger gun
At boats
Out on the water
From my
Sand castle base
On the beach
Making war
In peace time
May 29, 2021 at 03:21PM
Treading water
With my ears above the surface
I heard
The squeals of children
The music from the beach bars
The waves crashing
The vendors selling
Underwater
I heard
What I try to remember
How to describe
Back on the beach
It was
Not silent
A soft
Ahhhhhhhh
I’ll have to
Swim out again
And fish
For words
So you can
Bring it back to shore
Inland
To wherever you are
Grill it
Bake it
Or however you like your fish
To taste
And hear
And be there
Underwater and at peace
May 29, 2021 at 02:08PM
I held her
In my arms
On the beach
It seemed
To both of us
Like the thing to do
At the time
To maximize
Our pleasure
Despite her being
My friend’s
And the other
Usual reasons
For abstaining
From what we really want
May 29, 2021 at 02:03PM
I got up off my cushions
And ran
One bounding step
After another
To set
As few feet
As possible
Onto the hot sand
And reached the water
Quickly
Took two more bounds
In the shallow water
And then
Took off and soared
As best
As my young body could
My pointed hands
Were first
Into the water
And then all of me
Was in
And under
Suspended
And supported
On all sides
For as long as I
Could hold my breath
May 29, 2021 at 01:58PM
The fan spins
So fast
Shaking
Its center piece
Whirring
Whispering
To me in bed
Its blades
Blur
Into a circle
That looks
Like it’s painted
With one
Very light
Circular
Brush stroke
If you spin
Your eyes
Around
With it
You can catch
A glimpse
Of a single blade
Static
For a moment
In the blur
A blade flashes
To cry
To beg
For escape
From the race
That goes too fast
In circles
Never ending
Going nowhere
May 29, 2021 at 09:09AM
Your part of the table
Succumbs to the silence
You rack your brain
For something to say
To the person across from you
Or next to you
Or anyone
Or else sit
In the silence
Staring off
At something else
Caught between
Still thinking of something to say
And seeing something interesting
Or thinking your own thoughts
And not really caring
About the silence
May 28, 2021 at 09:49PM
When you talk to someone
And listen for a while
And get restless at some point
Wondering when the story will be over
But you get past that
And forget about yourself
And actually start to live in their story
And be interested in it
And ask them questions
Really wanting to know
What it was like
At the twists and their turns
Like watching a movie
But even better
To meet the character in real life
And ask them questions
With no outtakes
It is their eyes
That always get me
When I am as close as I can get
To living their life
And leaving my own
Their eyes
Are the last door into them
That I look into
And then fall
Completely in
May 28, 2021 at 09:35PM
Talking to the restaurant owner
From Germany
Who made his way over to the U.S.
At some point
And sold automation technology
To auto companies
Even though baking
Was always his passion
He would take the executives
Of these auto companies
Out to dinner
At the nicest restaurants
And that is where Marcos told himself
He would open his own restaurant
Someday
It started as a bakery
And then expanded to
A dinner menu
I got the chicken
With brussel sprouts and pumpkin purée
The chicken was perfect
But the brussel sprouts were undercooked
I wasn’t going to tell him
Because you don’t tell strangers
What’s wrong with
What they love
But he told me his story
And I told him I believed in him
And thought his restaurant would be big
And then we weren’t strangers anymore
And so I told him
The brussel sprouts were undercooked
And he shook my hand
And said he would tell the chef
May 28, 2021 at 09:31PM
We sat and listened
To the wives
Talk about their preference
For flying first class
On certain airlines
And not others
As the fountain
Of their private pool
Splashed in the water
We nodded
And acted like
We lived lives
Similar enough
To understand what they meant
About spending
Thousands
On plane tickets
May 28, 2021 at 05:15PM
Arsenio made us our
Margaritas
With tamarind and jalapeño
And brought them
To the frontside
Of the infinity pool
Where we had our chins
Resting in our forearms
Talking about how
It’s easy to be
In the present moment
When nothing else seems
Like it could be any better
Arsenio
Told us about how
He went to the states
When he was fourteen
To Santa María
His uncle
Who was a coyote
Took him walking
Through the desert
From ensanada
Across the border
There was a fence
But there was a hole dug
Underneath the fence
Like little animals
Dig
He said
When he couldn’t translate
What he meant
By the hole under the fence
May 28, 2021 at 02:47PM
A desert eagle landed
On the roof across from our balcony
And James explained
How the falconer
Brought the eagle everyday
To chase the smaller birds
Away from the resort
We watched
The majestic eagle
Pick with its beak
At its plumage
As one small bird
And then another
And another
Landed
On the roof next to it
Not doing
Very good at its job
The eagle must be
Like a crooked officer
In cahoots
With the small bird mafia
May 28, 2021 at 02:46PM
I lean my head back
Against the headrest
In the backseat
Closer my eyes
And let the air coming through
The open window
Blow my hair
There is something about
Driving on the highway at night
With music playing
We stay between the white lines
And behind
The red taillights
The black of the night
Blankets
Everything other
Than the road we speed along
May 27, 2021 at 09:30PM
The two tamales
The chicken in the salsa verde
And the beef
In a sauce I could not translate
On the plastic plate
From the street vendor
In the square
Of San Jose
Was the cheapest meal I had
Cheaper
Than the tourist traps
Near the beach
I sat on the fountain
And picked with my plastic fork
Through the sauce
To find the meat
May 27, 2021 at 09:05PM
A white older man
Gray stubble on his face
Wearing a cowboy hat
And an oversized
Buttoned-up shirt
And oversized khaki pants
Slouched
In a straight-backed wooden chair
His long skeleton fingers point
And he says something
To explain
What he’s pointing at
But
It’s indiscernible
Maybe because of
The empty
Bottle of wine
Next to him on the table
But for a guy of his size
He would have probably needed
More than one bottle
To get to this point
By his demeanor
I would guess
He is either
The proprietor
Of the gallery
Or the artist who made
All the pieces
Or the man
In charge of this moment
In some way
Or another
As we all watch
And wait for him
To take the lead
May 27, 2021 at 08:20PM
I watch for
What
I can write here
Whether
This is the way
Or
It should come to me
And surprise me
Like
I wasn’t
Waiting for it
May 27, 2021 at 08:14PM
It’s amazing
How much better
I feel
From one
Margarita
Made with mezcal
After passing
On the first two rounds
Of drinks
That my friends ordered
“Amazing”
Is not the best word
I know
But if you’ve ever drank before
You know
What I mean
Which is the point
Anyway
Right?
May 27, 2021 at 08:08PM
I woke up confused
By
Not feeling worse
Than I should have
And confused also
About
What to do
With myself
Other
Than whatever
Would make me feel better
But because
I did not know
Whether
I was
Sick to my stomach
Tired
Or just fine enough
To go down
For a swim
Which is what I eventually did
And so started
A day full
Of what wasn’t planned
But just happened
One thing
After another
And so passed
Another day
Of living
As pain-free
As possible
May 27, 2021 at 07:55PM
We sat at the table
Waiting on our drinks
Watching
The flamenco dancer on stage
Stomping her feet
Violently
And rapidly
The guitarist invited us to clap along
But there was
No hope of that
We could not even applaud
At the right times
The dancer
Would stop
And then we would applaud
And she would stamp right on through
Like a mother
Scolding her children
She snapped her head
As flamenco dancers do
And looked at my friend and smiled
Our drinks
Arrived
Eventually
May 27, 2021 at 07:40PM
The young musicians
Played on a rug
Laid on the tile
In San Jose
For a crowd of mostly tourists
And a few locals
The pianist
Was better than the other three
Combined
He played the electric keyboard
And varied the sound
All over the place
Hunching his shoulders over the keys
And then leaning back
In the old, tattered office chair on wheels
That he was sitting in
His fingers jumped
From key
To key
Like grasshoppers
Making sounds of pressed
And held
Passion
Taking off
And landing
I don’t know much
About music
But I can feel
When someone else is feeling it
And I could feel the pianist
Feeling himself
And everyone else there
Feeling him
May 27, 2021 at 06:07PM
I wonder when
I should stop the white
And start the green
In order
To have some hope
Of sleeping
Tonight
May 27, 2021 at 01:48AM
James and the girl
He was trying to get with
As well as
The other nice guy
Who I didn’t think was nice
When I first met him
And his girl
Listen to music in the room
The girls dance
While the guys pretend at it
And mostly just watch
The girls
Up later
Than they would be
If they were not
Playing at
The oldest game
May 27, 2021 at 01:44AM
I leaned back
With both hands holding the iron rail
And my bare feet
On the tile
Swinging from side to side
Looking up
Through the thatched roof
At the stars
And the full moon
Pulling the waves
In
And out
In
And out
Down there
Making dry noise
May 27, 2021 at 01:40AM
The leaves on the palm trees
Dance in the wind
Whether I
Am here
On the balcony
To watch them
Or not
They sway to the music
Of the wind
And everything else that either
Moves
Or stays still
They dance
Like a beautiful girl
On the dance floor
Of the night
No matter who watches
May 27, 2021 at 01:35AM
She left
Almost as quickly
As she came
Not more
Than five minutes
Had we been on the balcony
And not more than ten
Had it been
Since we stepped out of the bus
That brought us
From the airport
To the resort
And here came this angel
To welcome us
Climbing
Up onto the thatched roof of the veranda
And jumping the fence
To join us on the balcony
But maybe
Her beauty
Is more fit for prose
Than poetry
So I’ll leave this one be
May 25, 2021 at 03:27PM
The plane bumps
We are safe
I guess
Based on how calm
Everyone is
Sitting
In their seats
Carrying on
With their conversations
As if
Some very clever science
Which hitherto
Has failed
Very few times
Were not the only
Thin
Line
Between our happy cabin
Full of vacationers
And the mountains
Below
May 25, 2021 at 11:50AM
The guy with sunglasses on his head
Leaned back in his chair
To tell the flight attendant
Something nice
I don’t know what
Exactly
But I know it was nice
Because she laughed and said, “Oh, thank you”
And he smiled and nodded his head
I wonder
How happy he is
When he is not
On vacation
At his day job
At the office
With a pile of paperwork
Maybe
He really is
A happy guy
All the time
May 25, 2021 at 11:43AM
We didn’t even use to
Have plumbing
In buildings
On the ground
And now
We have bathrooms
In planes
That flush!
And the water
From the sink
Is hot!
Originally written: May 25, 2021 at 11:37AM
Besides being blue
And besides being wet
And besides being
Anything else
Which it might appear to be
To another
Under different circumstances
One who may even
Speak a different language
Or know more English words
Than I
But even me
Being as I am
If I were
In any other time or place
Than the 25th of May
Up in the sky seated in this plane
I would describe
It differently
Its aspects
Are innumerable
If I look
Long enough
And especially
If I take time and go away from it
And then come back to it
Later on
It will have changed
As all things are
Changing
Not necessarily themselves
I’m sure
They stay the same
For the most part
But we
Yes, we
Are changing
All the time
And so too
Therefore
Does everything around us
Originally written: May 25, 2021 at 11:25AM
While cutting a green pepper
On a wooden cutting board
I saw a little black speck
That I almost just tossed in
With the tacos
But I’m glad I didn’t
Because I slid the point of the knife
Underneath the speck
And brought it
Closer to my eyes
So that I could see
That it had legs
And was a little creature
Dead with
Its legs curled up underneath it
But it must have had its fill
And thought itself lucky
To have made it
Inside of the green pepper
Until it realized
It would be
A coffin
Albeit, a big coffin
One fit for
An Egyptian king
Like a pyramid
So maybe not so bad
All in all
For this little dead bug
Originally written: May 24, 2021 at 05:01PM
I will try to write like Bukowski I
suppose
based just on what I know about him
from
the two of his poetry books
that I’ve read
holding one in front of my face now
looking back and forth
between this
and examples of his work
which I am trying to copy
with the uncapitalized first letter
to begin each line
and the seemingly random line breaks
that somehow work
I don’t think I
can make it all the way as a writer
copying like this
but my editor said that I should try
something different
with my form
other than just my same-sized lines
one after another
my poems run together
after a while
she said
is this any better?
I’ll ask her
Originally written: May 23, 2021 at 06:16PM
I put my hands
On my knees
Bend over
And lean my head
To the side
To stick my nose
Out the window
And breathe
The fresh air
Originally written: May 17, 2021 at 05:22PM
I can never
Get my mind
Out of the way
Fast enough
To get
To the visceral
I’ve already
Abstracted
Clouds to heavens
Blood to war
Food to hunger
Described it
To death
Pondered every
Possibility
Made it
Mental
Originally written: May 17, 2021 at 04:26PM
Well, would that be
The worst thing
You can imagine
Happening?
Or, could there be
Something else
Even worse
Still?
At what point
Would you give up
And say
I’ve had enough
Originally written: May 15, 2021 at 05:50PM
It better be
Bags of beans
You’ve brought
And dropped
On my floor;
I have little use
For much else
Originally written: May 15, 2021 at 05:40PM
I really cared
For a while there
As I thought
This all might
Really matter
Somehow
Or that it all
Might go on
Unchanged
And what I do
Will be forever
But I’ve remembered
That it all changes
Nothing matters
It all passes
I got caught up
For a while there
Thinking that
This all
Might matter
Somehow
But now
I remember
That it doesn’t
So I can
Forgive myself
For my mistakes
Originally written: May 15, 2021 at 01:42PM
I wish for what
Would require me
To read the dictionary
Cover to cover
In order to obtain
To get out of bed
And lift heavy things
And eat
And then lift more
And eat more
And then get back in bed
On a strict schedule
To learn
Whatever others
Have done before me
From various
Secondary sources
And then rinse
Out their individuality
And repeat
With my own
Why can not
Wishing alone
Be enough
To muster the matter
If I were to lie here
Wishing hard
And sincerely
Originally written: May 15, 2021 at 11:47AM
I see something
Which I think
Is one thing
But then
It turns out to be
Something else
I wanted to write
What I thought
It was before
Before it became
What it
Really is
As I realize
It doesn’t really
Make a difference
It’s all
Make-believe
Anyway
Originally written: May 05, 2021 at 06:19PM
I put on the glasses
That I’m supposed to wear
All the time
And see
For what seems
Like the first time
All the finer details
Like leaves
On the trees
Originally written: May 02, 2021 at 11:27AM
I am up now
I am assuredly
Up
And away
Chasing after
Even my faintest
Fancies
Which
When down
I would not
Walking
Away from the desk
Just to breathe
And let out
Some of this energy
I can’t
Contain it all
Breathing
I send it back out
Smiling
Happy to have it
And happy also
To let it go
Originally written: May 01, 2021 at 10:21AM
I get into a moment
And think that this
Will be forever
And start to plan
Accordingly
Setting up expectations
And parameters
For the future to fit into
What I’m experiencing
Right now
But of course
The future
Is an ornery child
Refusing to obey
Its present parent
Originally written: May 01, 2021 at 10:06AM
Lying
On the beach
In the sun
Wearing clothes
Because it’s windy
And a little cold
I squint
At the sun
Through the eyelashes
Of my one
Open eye
At a point
Where the light
Intermingles
With the threads
Of the jacket sleeve
On my forearm
Lain across
My forehead
Protecting
My face
From sunburn
Originally written: April 20, 2021 @ 2:08pm
What’s it like
In that moment
I wonder
When you die
Without any time
To think
About your life
And losing it
All at once
Except
For a split second
I try
To imagine
But can’t possibly
Fathom
What seems to be
Such a loss
To me
Still
Having not yet
Completely
Disidentified
With my ego
April 27, 2021 at 06:28PM
I look at someone
Walking by
On the sidewalk
As we pass
One another
And I wonder
Why
They are looking
Back at me
So funny
Until I remember
I have not showered
Or combed my hair
Do I contradict
Myself too often?
Does the name
That you used to call me
No longer apply?
Did I not stay
In the same place
For long enough
To be someone?
Did the waves
Wash away
What I wrote
In the sand?
Where can I possibly be
If not right where
You say that I am?
How can I possibly
Gain identity
All by myself?
Who will call me
By my true name?
I am searching for You.
I carry with me
Force
When I write
Walking
To the bathroom
For a break
I bump
The door frame
With my hip bone
And almost
Knock
The house down
You have to be loosey-goosey
Let it go
If you’re going to throw it all
Against the wall
And see what sticks
You can’t keep it all
Because it’s not all good
Can’t all be good
Even if only in relation
To the rest
Some will be bad
So don’t grow too attached
To your babies
You’ll only get to keep
A few
You are so you
As I look at you
At the features of your face
Which seem to match
The words that you are saying
It all goes together
Like a character in a movie
Unless you are faking it
Then you are really
Quite a good actress
But I do not
Think that this is possible
For you to pretend
To be someone else
And thereby escape
From being yourself
For even if pretending
To be yourself
Then that would just mean
That you are a pretender
And that’s just what you are
But you are not
You are different
Like everyone else is pretending
They’re all pretenders
And you’re the only one
Who is really yourself
Everything is repeated
Everything is repeated
Everything is repeated
The newspaper headlines
The movie plot lines
The causes of death
The reasons for war
The days and the nights
The sun rising
The sun setting
Falling in love
Falling out of love
Getting hungry
Being satisfied
Succeeding
Failing
Except for dying
That’s the only
New thing left
As much as I worry
There are still worries
That I haven’t worried about
And I worry
About that too
Originally written on: March 9, 2021
A book fallen
From the shelf
Lying there
On the carpet
Looking
Out of place
I think I should
Get off the couch
Pick up the book
And place it back
On the shelf
With the other books
But then I think
I should leave it
Right where it is
Because that is
Where it is
For whatever reason
And the argument
Of order
To be in its supposed place
On the shelf
Does not necessarily
Win out
In my mind
Over the argument
To let things be
Just as they are
Originally written on: February 11, 2021
If I were an automobile
Parked in the garage at night
My brain would be the engine
And my belly would be the gas tank
And they would talk to each other
Through speaker wires
And the tank would say,
“Engine, wake up, I am full”
And the engine would say back
Nothing
Because the automobile is not on
And engines sleep deeply
When not running
So the tank would wake up the ignition
And say,
“Ignition, wake up the engine”
And so the ignition would turn
And the engine would roll over
And wipe the sleep out of its motor oil-crusted eyes
And say,
“Gas tank, what the hell are you doing? Do you have any idea what time it is?”
And the tank would say,
“Yes, I know, I am sorry, but can we please go for a drive?”
And the engine would sigh and, already pulling out of the driveway, say,
“I told you not to drink so much at the station last night.”
Originally written on: February 2, 2021
Moving fast and slow
I move
Without a thought for
What I’m doing
When it’s fast
In the middle of the day
And I’m working
Washing dishes
While my lunch is on the stove
To get back
To the desk
Faster
On weekends
I slow down a little
For my meals
And eat
Without doing anything else
At the same time
Or sleep
Without an alarm
It’s nice
Every once in a while
But I need that go
Fast
Multi-task
Most of the time
I know things now
But I fear to forget
So I write them, recite them
Read them over and over
And carry a head on my shoulders
Full of the past
Like a traveler’s trunk
With too many things from home
On a journey to a place
Where there is no return
Back to how
Things were before
Two come in time
Taking space
Of what would have been third
If I could just keep in
To each for its own sake
Not always looking later
Longing for the next
They would come and come
Countless
Each for itself
As all things are
Eased into being
And nothing
Not so selfishly taking
With respect to what is
Or is not
One’s own
Let it stand there, being itself
Until it must be
Something else
So worded strange
Wrung like rags
Wet with dish water
Saying so much
As a dirty plate
Could show the sink
By crumbs
From a meal now past
That taste
Travels so far to feel
In a conversation
Trying to keep clean
Between
Two non-feeling things
Noontime sun seeps in
Singing of searching
Clouded and loud
For thunder could not
Strike so straight
Turned away by light:
Things, bright things
Searching still
In this dark draped bedroom
Go back now light
From whence you came;
You will find naught
But darkness here
I imagine a knob
I can turn and turn
Down and down
Tighter and tighter
Until it’s flush with the dash
And the system turns off;
Or, up and up
Until it reaches the top,
Falls off the screw,
And is broken
Stepping up the stairs
That I’ve stepped up
A hundred times before
A thousand maybe
To get to the second floor
Unit number five
I look up and see
Something I haven’t seen
Usually looking down
Fumbling with my keys
A bright light
Under an arched doorway
Shining bright
Showing me
There is always something
New to see
No matter how many times
I think I’ve seen it
All before
Bus arms
Latched onto wires
Making a clicking noise
Passing over notches
Conversations
At the bus stop
And in line
For the bakery
Shouts
From transients
Usually at night
Sirens
At first farther off
And then closer
Louder
Sometimes much louder
On our street
Passing by
Quickly
Running the stop light
Honks
From non-emergency vehicles
Just upset about traffic
Or telling a driver ahead
To look up
And go
Through the green light
The garbage man
Picking up cans
From the curb
With his truck arm
And shaking them
Like maracas
The wine bar
Across the street
With live music
On the weekends
The rain
On the fire escape
The cement street
And the glass window
Pattering
Practicing yoga
My shadow practices with me
Doing as I do
In its own way
Black and flat
Against the stone surface
Stretching longer
Myself
Or my shadow
I forget who
Is leading the practice
Unclothed in between the trees out here
Welcoming back the nature
That got poured over in the city
With cement streets and concrete buildings
A few trees remain
In square foot sections of sidewalk
But not enough to stand between
And be surrounded by
Like the thick forest here—
The grass is overgrown, as it should be
Some trees knocked down, but not by man
Most trees still stand, as they should
And I stand with them, unclothed, at peace
Gravel crunches from heel to toe
Counting its own cadence
For the group on the trail
To fall into step, synchronized
As the mind
Follows the body’s lead
Into a consistent rhythm
On the straight path forward
Mountain peaks up ahead
And tall evergreens on other side
Some fallen, long since withered
Crunch, crunch, crunch
Like counting one, two
And then back to one, over and over
With the nice scenery around
To chase away any possible complaint
On the porch
The smell of chicken on the grill
Draws eyes back inward
Through the gut
To pull down a moment of beauty
Watching clouds pass slowly
In the blue sky
Back into very real desires of hunger
More pressing to an untrained mind
Than the allure of pure beauty
To be seen
But not eaten
The deck boards are screwed in
And have been
Ever since the deck was built
The wood is cracking
But the boards are held in place
And the deck will stand
Obsidian stout sipped slowly
Owing both to its belligerence
And the cigarette smoke from the ash tray
Making the air heavy
With a sense of wanting
To be nowhere other than here
The hot sun on the back porch
Bakes into bare legs crossed over
Eyes closed, head leaning back
Exhale
Here is where
Here is where I’ve needed to come
To this moment exactly, I mean
More so than a place
More so a space in time
A moment
Rust flakes on the rail
Cars drive by in the background
The window is dirty and smudged
Pedestrians walk across yellow rectangles
Cars continue to drive by
Not two feet away
Two men drink their coffee under an awning
The branches in the tree bob gently
The man with coffee gestures with his other hand
A man with a dog on a leash
Stops to look inside a shop window
While his dog sniffs at a light pole
Blue and green trash cans stand by the curb
Cars continue to make their noise and avoid crashing
The same man from before
Walks back across the yellow rectangles
You seem to think
You need to think
About something
All the time
Thinking man
Think as you can
You just can’t
Think it all
With a few long leaves
Leaned over
Our house plant
Looks like a woman
With one hand on her hip
Copping an attitude
And the other hand reaching down
As she bends at the waist
To pick something up
Fingers raking
Through my hair
In a sigh
With my eyes closed
Thinking to myself
What can I do
Exhaling
Over and over
Until I’ve got it
And get back to work
I’ve learned which boards
Creak in the floor
When I wake in the night
For a drink of water
But I walk over them anyway
Too tired to care
Noise as it may make
Doesn’t matter much
As long as it doesn’t
Wake baby too
Does it really matter
Who
Exactly
If the shape is the same
I mean
Aren’t our powers
Of perceiving
Those small differences
At the margins
Fairly weak
Anyway?
So rather than one
Why not be
A mass-produced
Mold
Of that one?
There will still be
Some difference
Say ten molds
Total
And the differences
Between
But does each
And every person
Really need
Their own individual mold?
A mold to be
A mold to love
Just one
In the whole wide world
Just one to love
And just one to be
Really?
Or can we fit
More snugly
On the conveyor belt
Than we care
To admit
Lying on my back
Looking at the ceiling
In the late afternoon
I wait for the light
Outside the open window
Above my head
To turn colors
For the next wave of cars
To pass by
And make shadows
Through the tree
Between our window
And the street
On the walls
And on the ceiling
As I gathered
Bowls
From the cupboard
One clinked
Against another
And made a song
Of just one note
In the quiet
Of the kitchen
Non-weather is when
There’s no wind
No rain
You can’t quite tell
If it’s hot or cold
And there’s an eery sense
That it’s about to change
I make these
Small calculations
For my chances
Of survival
Like whether to walk
On this side
Of the sidewalk
Or that side
And wonder whether
The time I take
To make
These calculations
Is greater than
Or equal to
The time I save
Surviving
I watched two
Photographers
At the park today
As they
Took pictures
Of the birds
And the sky
One of them
With the long lens
Stood in the shade
Resting his camera
On his leg
Like a hunter
Holding his gun
Lazy like
Waiting to shoot
A bird in the trees
He waited like this
Still as a cat
In the shade
Only moving
His other arm
Not holding the camera
To take drags
On his cigarette
The second
With a small camera
Stood in the trail
In everyone’s way
Looking up at the sky
At a trail of smoke
Left by a plane
All of the passersby
Stood for a second
And tried to see
What the camera man
Was seeing
He pointed and explained
But some just didn’t see
Or understand
What was the big deal
About a trail of smoke
In the sky
I got a handful of blueberries
Out of the carton
And went to wash them
But I dropped one
So I picked it up
And washed it again
And you wouldn’t believe me
If I told you
I dropped that blueberry
A third time
But I did
And washed it again
Laying down
At the base of a tree
Looking up
Through the branches
At the sun
It is a tall tree
With many branch layers
So only some sections
Of light
Reach the grass
In between
Splotches of shade
The sun twinkles
As the leaves blow
And shift in the wind
I have to shield my eyes
With my hand
When the leaves blow
Just right
To let the sun
Shine through
My heart sings off-key
For the half notes
That never got to whole
My hands beat a doldrum
Into the desk
Checking my watch
Every five minutes
Waiting for this day
To finally finish
So I can escape
To something else
Anything else
I can only whistle one tune
For so long
Until I forget the sound
Of all other tunes
And the hope of music
Becomes just
The senseless noise
Of that one tune
One song
Without sound
And a painting
Without color
Dares you to look deep
Into the void
And press your ear
To the glass ceiling
Where you might hear
A white noise
Which seems at first
To be nothing
Listen long enough
And see
How nothing
Becomes something
The music is loud now
No exclamation points in poetry
Is a rule I once read
But I’m going to break it
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Because wow this moment
The music is loud
Did I already mention that?
Must be on account
Of my having had two beers
And already being buzzed
Because it’s been a while
Since I’ve gotten drunk
And danced around the room like this
The music is loud
And the windows are open
And it’s all alright
I see a point
In the tree
Where two branches
Cross over
And I wonder
If either branch
Longed for the other
Before they crossed
And if they now
Miss each other
Growing
In their own directions
Oh here he goes
With heft again
Heaving as he may
Huffing and puffing
That big chest for something
But still he holds no sway
For strength aside
His muscles try
To make up for his mind
That door would budge
For just a nudge
If the knob were so inclined
I see kids careful
Now that grown ups
Are watching
About what they say
In a circle
Of parked bikes
On a side street
In suburban San Francisco
Covering their mouths
Telling their friends secrets
About what they watched
On television
When their parents
Weren’t home
In meditation there is a principle, that you can focus on your breath forever and never stop learning new things.
In philosophy there is a principle, that you can never know all that there is to know about a fruit fly.
For poetry, I believe that you could sit in the same room and never run out of poems to write.
I breathe easy
In the night
On my back
Four fingers
Rest on my belly
Feeling it rise
And fall
A wrist
Props my head
Looking up
At the ceiling
A slightly
Different shade
Than the day
In the dark
And I just breathe
A bird chirping
In the middle of the night
Singing her heart out
Must be drunk
Coming home
From the bird bath bar
Not to see
It’s pitch black out
And time to sleep
And save the chirping
For the morning
I go out
To get here
Not really knowing
Where I’m going
All the while
But now
Having arrived
Realize
This is surely
Where I was headed
All along
After fog and cold
All morning
The sun breaks through
Cloud cherubs
That flee
Feigning fear
Of a sun god
Now known to be
Quite benign
It’s a blue day
Out by the water
As the clouds move away
And the line between
Ocean and sky
Melts into
The same blue
1. Reading
2. Meditation
3. Dreams
4. Nature
5. Travel
6. Sex
7. Drugs
Now it can be said Of thoughts Passed through my head Blunders They would be In reality Expect For this one That I have done
In the morning
I found
A tree branch
Had grabbed hold
Of the open
Window’s frame
As if to make its way
Inside
And out of the wind
In search
Of different
Travelling
And changing scenery
Smoking
And drinking
To move his body
Or at least his mind
A writer
Must always be
On the move
Lest he find
New ways
Of writing the same
I had a dream last night
That I stained a shirt
With what I stained it
I can’t remember
But the shirt was ruined
And I was worried
About people looking at me
And the stained shirt
I was wearing
I asked her to recite some poetry for me, and she did, easily and brilliantly. She created poems completely on her own and right there on the spot as if she were saving them in her head and waiting for me to ask.
I was a bit taken aback, to be honest. Not by her poems being brilliant—if course they were brilliant. But more so by the ease she displayed when creating them instantaneously, without even appearing to be trying.
This confirmed for me my belief that she holds all the poetry. I dance around her all day and try to make her smile, which is all just another way of kneeling in front of her with my face turned down and my cupped hands held up and open, begging for her poetry.
She does not care to write it because that is not how she lives her life. She is the poetry. This is why she as able to recite a few poems so easily when I asked. It is already within her, and always will be. So why would she go through the trouble of writing it down and giving it away? That is no the way she interacts with the world. She goes about living, and that is her poetry.
As for me, I am a taker. Whether that is because I am a man or I am me or because I live in America, I do not know. But at least I have realized the relationship for what it is. My baby is my poetry, all of it. I am a taker, and I am lucky for what I can get.
I run to the park
To pick a poem
Like a leaf
From a low-hanging
Tree branch
Or a lyric
From a bird’s song
And then run home
To write it down
Edited: I wish the wind Wouldn’t worry For the leaves will surely Shake themselves Free From their branches Before the fall Is over Original:
I wish the wind
Wouldn’t worry
For the leaves
Will surely
Shake themselves
Free from branches
‘Fore the fall
Is over
Prose version:
I was on my way home from the park, still in the park actually, but on the borders of it, almost out, when I saw a white dog digging in the trash for scraps. It looked like someone had taken the trash bin and turned it upside down to empty all its contents on the ground. Or maybe the dog did it. But I doubted that because the trash bins in the park were usually kept inside of a metal container. Come to think of it, that container was usually locked. So maybe the maintenance man had made a mistake by forgetting to lock the container.
Anyway, so this white dog is digging in the trash strewn on the ground. And I already knew there was trouble coming, because it was a very pretty dog with a collar, which led me to believe that the dog had an owner. And that owner was likely close by. After all, we were in a park where people often come with their dogs. So I figured I must have caught this scene in the small amount of time between when a dog gets out of sight from its owner and before the owner realizes.
And sure enough, I heard a voice from the other side of the tall bushes shout, “Winter!” And see, this is where I had to laugh to myself. Because if it had been any other dog’s name, then I couldn’t have known for sure. If it was Milo, or Buddy, or some other generic dog name, then I couldn’t have known that this voice was coming for this dog’s owner. But there was no mistaking, putting two facts together—this dog was lost and it’s owner would probably be calling, and it’s fur coat was white as winter—that this owner shouting their dog’s name from the other side of the tall bushes was the owner of this white dog digging in the trash.
And that’s when I left. I realized I had been standing there just watching the dog dig in the trash. And I don’t like drama. So I didn’t want to be there when the owner found their dog. So I started walked away as fast as I could. And by the time I was out of sight but still just barely within earshot, I head the same owner’s voice shout, “Get out of there!”
Poetry version:
At the park
I walk past
A white dog
Digging in the trash
For scraps
And already know
There’s trouble coming
Before I hear
From a ways off
The dog’s owner,
I’m supposing,
Shout, “Winter!”
As the dog proceeds
To lick a paper plate
That once held pizza
I walk by
Leaving the scene behind
But not before hearing
The owner come closer
And exclaim,
“Get out of there!”
Looking out the window
At a man on the sidewalk
Who speaks
So much with his hands
I wonder
Being unable to hear
If he is using
Any words at all
Poetry is not a practice
Of making time
To sit down in a chair
And write
Rather, poetry,
As I have experienced it,
Is a practice
Of cultivating a life
Like a garden
Where poetry might visit
From time to time
Like flowers might grow
In moments of dream
Amidst a good night’s rest
Or moments of gratitude
Amidst seeing a new light
Or moments of love
Amidst listening to your muse
You cannot go away from life
To sit at your chair
And write of it
You must go to life
To take it as it comes
And write as best you can
In the midst of it
Up, I am up now
As surely as I said
I would sleep
Through the night
I am up now
Having failed
To fight off thoughts
That couldn’t wait
Until the morning
I stopped to ponder
Dangerously a dream
That, if left unconsidered,
Would have passed through
Perfectly in peace
To go on its way
In and out
Through each ear canal
Yet it was something
Shocking enough to stir
And once my woken mind
Got a hold
And seized it
Somewhere in the middle
Still in my mind
The gears start to turn
And the whole factory
Follows suit
Coming to life
In the middle of the night
I must not be greedy
Having already
Gotten two good poems
But I cannot help
Wanting a third
So I lay up in bed
Looking at the dark ceiling
Waiting for the dream muse
Who delivered the first two
To return with the third
I can still hear
The birds chirp
In the park
A baseball
In the grass
As the sun sets
On the skyline
Easier here
To worry less
About the woes
I ran from
It is in between naps
With my hands clasped
In between my legs
Laying on my side
My own
Praying posture
To look out the window
And listen
To the rainy Saturday
Voices and horns
Wet wheels on road
And thudded footsteps
In the apartment above
Make music and art
That I seek to capture
Laying here praying
For another poem
Outside our window
Stretch branches
Bare for months
When we too
Under duress of winter
Couldn’t stand
To sustain much more
Than ourselves
Now blossoming
Bits of green granting
To my bed laying head
Hopes of spring
To get out again
And grow strong
Outside
Under eyes
Of soft storm
Slick tires
Skate across
Wet road
Wafting wind
Carried
Car noise
Shooting by
Slip
Sliding along
A lone slim
Silver nail protrudes
From the white wall
Where a picture frame
Used to hang
The great whale man
Watching
With hook in hand
Waving
At waves gone by
Waiting
For the big one
To come in time
It’s hard to write
so short-sighted
trying to survive
seeing only as far
as my next meal
or night’s sleep knowing
this too shall pass
as all that has before
but wanting it to pass faster
like the impatient child
I’ve always been
The radiator wheezes
Like a weary asthmatic
Wanting for air
Drawing struggled breaths
From heated pipes
And seeming to be in pain;
I myself am thankful
At mid-morning
Having just drawn the drapes
To behold a cold outside
But inside
Feeling warm
From the radiator’s struggle
A shadow
In the corner
Of my eye
Seems a shape
So real
Until I turn
And watch
It disappear
Standing next to the light
That shows shadows
In my rib slants
Shirtless
Knees against the mattress
Staring
At myself in the mirror
With a sideways glance
Observing
Parts of my body
That I hadn’t noticed before
I like to be
Getting going
On my way
After all
There seems to be
Something still ahead
On the horizon
Over yonder
So long as I can
Just keep stepping
In that direction
I’ll be alright
Do you see
These same things
That I see
Anymore
Simple as sure
No more words
Than three
To a line
Are needed
To describe
Something
So simple as sure
That I wonder
If you see
Anymore
Walking swiftly
You must have
Somewhere to be
Whither where
You might ask me
Don’t you see
Where I’m going
Pointing somewhere
Far away
I nod my head
And bow
To pick at the grass blades
Beneath my bare feet
I saw a man
Bring a ball
Inside a backpack
To the court
Fenced all around
By chain link
In the park
On a Thursday
Just before sunset;
I watched him
Bend his knees
And shoot
Sedentary
Starting to stagnate
Sitting inside all day
With the drapes drown
Sulking
So as to further feed
My worries
When an open window
Would do me so good
I sat on the step
And watched ants
For the better part
Of an afternoon
So many ants
On the sidewalk
Made it seem
Like the cement
Was moving
Made me realize
My troubles
Were not so bad
With my elbows
On my knees
And hands folded
Scowling
Despite the sun
What I see once
On my walk home
And exclaim at
As a thing
Which ought be written
Though I can’t
In that moment
Muster the words
So I write nothing
And walk by
For days on end
Until finally
The sight strikes
With the right odds
When I can write
What has escaped me
All the days before
There’s this deep
City river gorge
Filled with yellow
Headlight fish
All swimming upstream
I can see here
On the hilltop
Standing sidewalk
With my hands in my pockets
On a night stroll
Watching the river of light
Pinch off into the distance
Wondering about
All the commuters
Just trying to get home
For all the five faces
Fighting for four
Fear holds most sway
Rapping at the door
Sadness slumps down
From his forlorn armchair
As haste steps forward
To swing wide open
Heedless and headstrong
Anger would surely
Slam the door shut
Though love lets all in
Welcome with open arms
And an enemy even
Cannot remain heathen
Happy in a hearthy home
Often
I do feel fond
Of fancies
As I’ve had
Though
In moments
Of boredom
I’d sacrifice
Them all
For a chance
At change
O’er in my memory
My mind has run
The now worn path
Of fine times past, indeed
So of this place
Where I’ve long stayed
As with all things
Which do arrive
Doth finally come
This time now
To take my somber leave
A thousand ways
In my old age
I’ve lived my younger days
If you could only
Promise me
One last thing
Before I go
To have as much
In memory, your own
When time for you
Doth come as well
To travel on
Lying
On the floor
Looking
At the ceiling
Seems to be
More simple
Than the life
I left outside
Needing
This nothingness
To wash away
My mind
A daytime nap
Marries the motion
And light
Of the waking world
With the wonder
And formlessness
Of dream
Wherein the middle
Poetry lives
Dancing
Back and forth
In wheelbarrows
Full of dream
Dug up in sleep
And delivered
To be re-planted
Here in my bed
Brain tree
Putting down roots
I like to lie
And look a while
At the ordinary
And its layers
Of interesting
Offered only
To eyes
Like rivers
Wearing away
With time
To watch patiently
The stony surface
Which eyes
With less time
Only ever see
On the outside
Unaware
Of the river bed
To be found
Cut beneath
The same section
Of ceiling
Has this shimmer
In the noon time
Which reveals
Its blemish
Of poor plastering
But maybe
On purpose
As an artist
Plastered it this way
Like a scar
That is beautiful
As it appears
To me now
Staring
Long enough
I start to see
The space
In between
Focusing
On each speck
Of dust
In the air
A gradient
Obscures
My vision
Of the original
Object
Of intent
Farther off
Sweet time
Slow enough
Such
Anticipation
Is part
Of the excitement
Building
Like all desire
Blinds us
To the past
And future
While we’re waiting
Impatiently
For something
Immediate
Like hunger
On the hunt
Or lust
On the way home
To bed
With another
And in many
Other
Much smaller
Ways
It’s that immediate
Promise
Of satisfaction
Moving us
Most the time
Clenching my jaw
Unaware until
My bottom teeth
Meet the top row
Mashing
Like corn in a mortar
To dust, powder
Eventually
But not so soon
More slowly wearing
Waking me
In the night
With yet another
Symptom
Of my anxiety
I check the time
At which the bus
Is supposed to arrive
And realize
That I have ten minutes
Left to kill
So I start to go about
Distracting myself
Stretching
Looking up
At the building tops
And people watching
Strangers
Until I run out
Of distractions
And venture a glance
At my watch
To find
I’ve only passed
Three of the ten
Just as I am
For certain
That it is all done
And gone forever
For sure this time
It all comes
Rushing back
Reviving me
Once more
To go on high
And then soon after
Subtly low
When I will again
Be for certain
Even more certain
Than the last low
That the revival
Will not come this time
Until it surely does
And I go back to soaring
Though I know
And of this, I am sure
There is one low
In which
I will lie for good
And not soar again
I come home
From a night walk
To let my dinner settle
And close the door
And put my keys in the basket
And start to take off my shoes
As I realize
I am not yet satisfied
And slip my shoes back on
And grab my keys
And open the door
To go back out
And walk some more
A smiling
Mustached man
Holding hands
With a beautiful girl
He’s telling a joke
One hand in his pocket
She’s laughing
Trying to keep up
As they walk
I go for a walk
At night
Slowly
Strolling
And see
So many things
That I miss
On my walk
To work
Rushing
In the morning
Looking through
A restaurant window
I saw an old man
Using a magnifying glass
To look at a menu
Seeing as a second
Wasn’t long enough
Stretching now
For two or three
So time feels spent
Sufficiently
Whereas waiting
Wouldn’t do it
Doing had to be
Seeing newness
Touching other
Change it had to be
To feel alive
Past idle nigh
Now counting
One, two, three
As soon as a stretch
In that direction
Left me off center
I wasn’t either
Anymore
And after a while
In between
It started to seem
A new center
Comfortable
For the time being
At least until
The inevitable
Next stretch
Soon to come
You can’t go so loosely
Running amuck
As you would in the plains
In any direction
No matter
Flat and far enough
To run with your eyes closed
If you wanted to;
In the city
You must be careful
To obey the signs
And posted placards
Going your own way
Won’t take you far
letting words run as they will
like waking up a mass of clay
as haphazardly as thrown
on a potter’s wheel
just to have a starting point
and at least get something
out into the open
where it can at least be seen
and then shaped and refined
so better to have it out haphazard
just to get a start
rather than nothing at all
and refining thin air
and making the mind sick
by refining itself
for lack of anything else
Sleepy somber sweet time notes
Leaving longer knee-high modes
Making mostly meager half rhymes
Seeking timbre needle thick lines
Needing no more they say lies
Singing one too many times
Dark as night
Except for sun
So when to wake
Is clear as day
Not for nocturnal
Lights at night
Never sleeping
Up early to find
Sleepy nighters
Still stumbling
Soon to bed
In the daylight
Not right
Sleepy man of slumber
I wonder wakey-eyed
Do you step
With extra pep
After many restful nights;
For me I cannot
Sleep at all
As wakeful as I am
Up till dawn
And on and on
I cannot rest
I’ll do my best
To shut my eyes again
I wonder waking
Will I be
The same he sleeping
Dreaming
Of other lives
Living them
So sleepy serious
Feeling their fears
Scared to death even
And excited at their joys
These others
That are not me
But still are
In some way
What keeps me
From waking
As one of them
I do not know
Dreams
Of other worlds
Sometimes better
Sometimes worse
Than my own
Feeding
How much into
My hopes
And fears
Alike
I do not know
Exactly
Outside the window
In the morning
A song bird
Sings soprano
And a car horn
Beeps baritone
Slightly more symphonic
Than the city sounds
I am used to
Sometimes
There is something to be gotten
Just sitting here
Lying in bed late
Waiting or postponing
Whatever was planned for you
Awake and out the door
Against that schedule
Structure
Serendipity strikes
Requiring
A non-staunch demeanor
For once
To lift your head
Off the pillow
Just long enough
To turn off the alarm
And return to a dream
More important than reality
Clouds move slowly
So I can’t tell for sure
If they’ve changed
Without keeping focused
On one point
For some time
If only watching
Weather patterns
Carry cloud wisps
Away carelessly
Unbeknownst
To eyes without
Patience to watch
One point
Long enough to notice
That the clouds
Are actually moving
Albeit slowly
As eyes accustomed
To fast things
Will surely miss
While beach laying
In an effort
To slow down
Rubbing my eyes
I enter into
This outer space
An oxymoron
To go into
What leads out
Like the small door
In the Wonka factory
Or the key
To Wonderland
I chase after
With eyes for legs
Abstract patterns
Like fireflies
In the night
Of my closed eyes
Forgetting everything
Like being a body
In a shower
Noticing only
The bright yellow halo
With a black hole
In the center
Pulsing and blurring
Off into the distance
Of my vision black
I run harder
To intensify this vision
Of my own internal
Solar system
Of dynamic stars
That dance
As I rub my eyes
Accustomed to seeing
The real world
Mixed up
Offering apparitions
In a dark world
Of my own UFOs
Where I can play
Like a child
Chasing after
What I do not yet
Understand
You fall in
Or you fall out
Either way
You are falling
As love does not
Take one
Or let one go
Easily
It is in heat
And then ice cold
By its very nature
An older lady
Crossing the crosswalk
Runs behind her dog
Holding the leash
Trying to keep up
Arm outstretched
Until she can’t
And let’s go
As the leash falls
And the dog is free
To sprint full speed
To meet a friend
—A man outside
Of the coffee shop
Holds out his arms
For the dog
To jump up
And say hello
I am iffy
After a nap
Staring wide eyed
Woken
Too soon
From deep sleep
Jumped up
And almost fell over
Holding
My hands out
As stabilizers
Stumbling
Bumping
My shoulders
Against door frames
And hallway walls
Without my wits
About me
I woke up wobbly
Without my brain
When I realized
All of a sudden
That I was late
For a dinner date
And pulled on jeans
And snatched my coat
And slammed the door
And stumbled
Down the stairs
Shouldering the wall
For support
To catch the bus
And only when
I was finally seated
Did I get the chance
To be confused
About how to fare
In the fast-moving
Bright new scenery
Having been dreaming
Just moments ago
The above is the edited version.
The below is the original.
I woke up
Without my brain
Wobbly
Late
All of a sudden
I realized
For a dinner date
And walked outside
To catch the bus
Confused
And wondering
How to fare
In the new scenery
Having been dreaming
Just moments ago
I lie on a pebble beach
Arms outstretched
Grabbing fistfuls of pebbles
And covering my chest
In vain, as I breathe
And my chest expands
The pebbles fall off
To either side
At the beach
With my friends
I went away
On my own
Over to the cove
And found
A little laying spot
And so I laid
Until I got caught
In a thinking hole
Then I came back
For my friends
To help me find
My lost mind
With my fingers
Interlaced
Over my chest
Lying down
Breathing deeply
Through my nose
I can feel
The rise and fall
Of it all
The sun shines
In between
Stretched clouds
Just in time
For wind-chilled
Skin to warm
Laying on my back
On a hilltop
In the Marin headlands
I focus on my eyelids
With my eyes closed
Squinting to vary
The abstract shades
Of blue I see
Turning corner
On the sidewalk
With a building
In the way
So I can’t see
Who’s coming
Turning wide
To avoid
Another
Coming my way
Turning tight
I cover up
My colored soul
With sheets
To sleep
In the night
Woken
Wanting to
Start the day
But it’s too early
Needing to
Defer to dream
A little longer
I am cold
In bed
So I add a blanket
Then I am not
So I push the blanket
Halfway down
Then I am cold
So I bring it back
Up a quarter
Then am hot
So I get up
To gather
A thermometer
And ruler
To measure exactly
Out in the ocean
I can see
From the hilltop
The water is drawn
With white lines
On a windy day
Not so glassy calm
As most mornings
I’ve climbed atop
This here hill
I think of myself
As if looking
From up above
And the expression
That I would wear
While laying here
How would a painter
Paint this smirk
Of contentment
How wonderful
On a Sunday morning
To sleep in
Baby on my arm
Breathing softly
And white sheets
Perfectly warm
While the wind
Blows outside
I wear this smirk
With my eyes closed
Staying silent
Breathing through my nose
Standing in the bathroom
Putting lotion on my face
Tapping my foot
To the sound of the shower
Water splashing
On the other side of the curtain
I said aloud “I love you”
And from the other side
Of the white curtain
Came a cute hand
Along with the words
“I love you too babe”
Light passing through
Like a shadow lantern
Let on from street light
Between tree branches
And fire escape rails
Tinted by window glass
Cut in eighths by drape
Entering our bedroom
Making a movie for me
Falling asleep watching
The walls come to life
A shadow I don’t
Normally see
Separated in half
At the wall’s height
Halted only by
Intersecting ceiling
So far as candle flame
Keeps light left
And right of lamp shade
The trash truck outside
Sounds like a force
To be reckoned with
Mechanical monster
Clanging the can
Banging it back and forth
Shaking out its contents
Like a culprit for answers
Or a debtor for spare coins
Then crushing it all
It’s trash anyway
But consuming is fun
So the trash truck bangs on
What speed goes so fast
As I head off
Hurtling downhill
Into the afternoon
And straight past 5
With my fingers in my hair
Trying to shampoo out
My thoughts in the shower
And wash them down the pipe
With hot tea to relax
I can’t stop going lately
And part of me loves it
Like an object in motion
Happy to stay moving
Having gotten to this speed
Seeming almost
Not to require energy
To maintain the breakneck
Though I fear the force
That will halt my hurtle
And possible break everything
At some point down
The non-now worry road
Go with what you’ve got
Getting after all or not
Not needing much
To muddle with mundane
So much sometimes
Bordering on the insane
Inane enough to notice
Not twice but thrice
That you were off your rocker
Off indeed and down stream
Drowning at times
If not for the nine cat lives
Keeping you above the surface
Or at least quickly erasing
Your memories of death
Like the lives we live waking
Returning from dreams
Which we’re certain, are not real
Unless something uncanny
Recurs into your reality
Forcing you to remember
When that had happened
Like deja vu, or a past life
Unsure of which and why
You cannot tie or trace
The beginning and end
Of an endless race together
Knowing only that you must run
And never stop
For as long as you are breathing
Heaving after, lurching
Lunging for what you see
Or to stay ahead of others
Everyone has their reasons
Expect for those who stop
And even turn around
Causing perplexion
On the faces of those passing
Who will still not turn themselves
As long as there are still more going
In their direction
Like a school of fish in a current
We are all just passing by
Idle my sigh not for me
No not for me
For I enjoy this race
And run with pleasure
Until my lungs burst
A sliding car door
Opens and shuts
A van must be
Bringing pastries
For the bakery
Downstairs
At 3:53am
A sliding car door
Opens and shuts
A van must be
Bringing pastries
For the bakery
I will smell them
When I open the window
In the morning
Whereas I once
Would have rather
Left it at home
Preferring to be a boy
Ignorant of that number
To which the hand points;
I have since become
A watched man
Watching all the time
I saw a man
On the sidewalk
Laying on his side
Beside
A broken wheelchair
One wheel
Was detached
And he was tinkering
With the part
Of the chair
Where
The wheel connects
One of his feet
In a cast
Was laid out
Far enough
Into the bike lane
That bikers
Had to swerve
To avoid
All considered
He did not seem
As stressed
As I would presume
Of a man
In a wheelchair
That is missing
One of two wheels
Tinkering
With the wheel
With the same disinterest
That one would surf
Channels on the TV
In their own home
I am sick
Sound and central
Swept away
After who knows
How long
Healthy as can be
Forgetting
As I always
Eventually do
After some time
Just after
A period of sickness
That I am grateful
As I should be
For the health
God grants me
I wake up
From a Sunday nap
At 6:49
And for a second
Am not sure
If it is night still
With the drapes drawn
Or morning
I ask the clock
But he will not say
AM or PM
I draw the drapes
And the amount of cars
Looks like
It could be either
Like a skier
In an avalanche
Supposed to spit
To find
Which way is up
I am unsure
A wicker chair
With four legs
Has two legs
Slightly shorter
So the chair
Rocks side to side
In the wind
There are periods of peace
Sitting on the street corner
While cars on both sides
Are waiting
Until the light changes
And engines rev
And some honk
To get the ones
Not paying attention
To go
And peace resumes
Once they’re gone
Until the next light
On a chair I sit
Outside of the cafe
I wonder how many
Have sat here before
Some vagrants
Others, patrons of the cafe
It is sunny today
And this seat
Is a nice place to be
They’ll all find some day
Found things lost time ago
Take a cycle to repeat
Trending up and down
Rearing their headed crest
Above the horizon
So the mainstream can see
And all behind is hidden
When the surfers swam out
Far enough beyond
The crest headed wave
Will have the ocean
Dark blue and deep sky
All to themselves
Until that wave crest crashes
Where the mainstream can see
And a few more will venture out
Where building tops
Meet sky
In a fine line
That defines
The clear distinction
Between our
Complicated world
Balconies, parapets
Window sill, frame
Glass, trim, terrace
Fire escape, chipped paint
And the heavens
Always there
Much simpler
And promising
In my opinion
I wonder
About long lines
If those within
Are more eager
To get to the end
Than they are satisfied
Just to be in line
With others waiting
Across the street
A crowd stands
Huddled together
On a stoop
In the rain
Everyone
Is the same
Seeking dryness
My whites
Aren’t as white
As they would be
If I didn’t wash them
With my colors
Sometimes
the sounds around
harmonize
with the music playing
from the speaker—
the honk outside
matches a high pitch
or the door lock
clicks right when
the cymbal crashes
I stand and watch slowly
As the tea color turns
Hibiscus light pink
To darker blood red
In boiled pot water
In a posture
I thought of moving
Observing each part
Thinking
If I move this
That way
Or bend that
This way
But ended up
Laying still
And falling asleep
Like I was
A little lick
Of lantern light
Leftover from the furnace
Frolicking
With burning branch
Smoldering in earnest
Warm palms rubbed
Cheeks
Covered up
Sitting
By the fire
Laying at home
On a workday
In a suburban
Part of the city
It is loud
In the morning
As everybody
Gets up
To catch the bus
And go downtown
Leaving me here
To lay
Come lunchtime
It grows quiet
as i try to lay
flat and orthodox
looking up
at the ceiling
breathing
through my nose
i lay abstract
and off-center
spine twisted
like a wet rag
ringing out water
with one shin
straight
the other bent
and crossed over
shin bones
crossed over
hand over
half of heart
sloping down
rib cage
pelvis slanting
to the side
forearm slipping
underneath skull
other hand
between thighs
can only sleep
on my side
as hard as i try
to lay flat
i put my ear
to her back
and hear
at night
what i can only describe
as a roaring
going on inside
it seems
all the time
like you would
put your ear
to a sea shell
and hear the ocean
inside
but with her
is the fiery inside
of a furnace
like a train engine
that a brusque man
with his sleeves rolled up
feeds coal
with a shovel
or the white noise
of space
if you were hurtling
very fast forward
and wind was whipping
past your ears
all this energy
inside
of her sweet silent
sleeping small body
a little late up at night feeling light and lifted dreaming dreams of prior scenes i didn’t know existed hoping though that see and sew sad stories still be told since dreams of life from younger years now fearing to get old
walking across
a wide street
weary
the whole way
something soap
subtle sudsy
watching washy
waiting
twenty-four minutes
making excuses
like poetry
to stay and watch
the machine wash
shaking my hands
washed
spattering drops
in the metal basin
making music
rain
all at once
stop
then spatter
and start again
the one with my sweatpants
wasn’t working
two washers going
side by side
one clearly working
wet water splashing
suds bubbling
while the other
its brother to the left
spinning uselessly
waterless
wasting
four dollars
and seventy five cents
on a stool at the coffee shop
sharing a wooden table
with an older man
next to me
drumming my fingers
and bobbing my head to music
he glances sideways
disapprovingly
he cannot take away
my energy
other than
by my becoming
him someday
I hear your name called
at a coffee shop
by the barista
waiting for someone else
that is not you
to pick up their order
though i wish it was
you
can’t possibly be you
I know that
but still can’t resist
turning around in my chair
hopefully
an old light blue slug bug
(and i mean old
like 20 or 30 years)
waits at the lights on sacramento
hoping to cross fillmore
if this light will ever change
moving back and forth
over the thick white line
that is supposed to separate
cars waiting at the light
from pedestrians crossing
the slug bug moves
back and forth like this
i presume because
its transmission is manual
unable to press on the brake
i don’t know
how manual works
owing to this bug
being older than me
having grown up with automatic
and never learned manual
like my dad told me
now far away from that
watching this
through the window
of the coffee shop
where i work on my laptop
more modern than my dad ever imagined
watching the manual transmission slug bug
through the window
v1:
i tongue this tooth
in my top row
touching
its blunted point
worn down
by my crooked bite
v2:
i tongue this tooth
in my top row
blunted by
my crooked bite
tonguing over
its point
sharp previously
now worn
already i feel it fall away on the outside; or, rather, the need to call it outside, other than myself for my skin has melted away joining my true inside with everything else k and i clear away the teardrop tables from the rug in the living room so we can play while we take apple on new year's eve childish things matter less to me than seemingly is so as the adults say starting to see visuals on my phone screen shadows seem to me striking my face feels like a picasso you just can't capture the trip; i wish we could, but i can't i have to get my art and hold it within myself long enough until i can give it to her I used to think I needed fruit for inspiration and creativity. Now, tripping, I realize I have developed a creative system for my sober life. I like apple because it's a fair fruit. On oranges, there's only up, until one big down. On apples, there are ups and downs throughout. I think deeply about the need to spend time with others. How many others? Just one? Just your love. Or more? How many then? Family too? And friends? How many are needed to make a man happy? More than just himself? As I sit here, having chosen to stay inside and trip, on New Year's Eve, instead of going to a concert with my friend Zach. senses that feel the foam edge of pillow where does my hand meet start and stop stretching feet yellow streaks on white paper the distinct drop of water from bath faucet amid classical playing from the speakers streaking all colors clear at once then jumbled eyes closed off into anywhere the pen rolls off of the notepad paper laying on my lap startling me as the pen rap-rap rolled across paper with the clip rap tapping it could be anyone me and you you me playing parts 'parently another stepping in unbeknownst to the other instead of homeless we could say streetmore scribbling i need some inspiration to get started so i just start to scribble and if i keep scribbling words will eventually form all these emotions experienced on apple show to me the heights of what's possible you see some things that are real and others that aren't convincing yourself that it's just because you're tripping i look at things a little more closely when i have the time noticing finer details like small imperfections in white paper or the perforation along the edge sometimes my legs shrug to say 'oh well' just like my shoulders do
instead
of the radio
i prefer
a little wind
whipping through
the car window
barely cracked
a beautiful sky
passed through
all colors
of the unspeakable palette
unwriteable red
right there
on the window
phosphorescent
between white clouds
and unseen upward
blue sky
that meld in the middle
neon orange
yellow in the center
glowing
gets me
shimmering golden
like it can’t be
at a time
when i am most glad
not to be blind
cut at odd
perfect angles
by cloud coverage
red ready
to wage light war
on the white
purple battleground
some turquoise even
i think it’s turquoise
made by what two colors
i don’t know
like a life giving light
all colors i swear
that i’ve ever seen
a poem i write
while sitting next to
a lady on the plane
as her and i both
admire the sunset
at six in the evening
landing in san francisco
i think of showing
the poem to her
but decide not to
above the clouds
the sky
opens upward
like a dome
large enough
to see only one side
and no top
but a dome
certainly
for the fact that i
can look all around
and up
and still see
calm
palms resting
hands folded
on my
belly breathing
reclined
in my chair
relaxing
i start in the night
wondering
if i wrote it that way
repeating
the write way
in my mind
out of bed
leafing through pages
looking
for the one
to scribble out
and write correctly
what came to me
in a dream
only to find
the one already
written correctly
like my future self
traveled back
before
or my present self
now past
was right
from the start
the airplane shakes
and the woman in front of me
lifts up the window cover
hoping to see land close below
then shuts the cover quickly
—i presume because …
with my own cover closed
i cannot know for sure,
but i presume because
she did not see land
as close as she had hoped
and i feel some fear too
for her and i both
as the plane
continues to shake
a nice man
from colorado
sits next to me
on the plane
says he can’t
stand the broncos
but can’t root
for his chiefs
on account of
his denver friends
a little readsy
gets me wordsy
and back into
the note-taking mood
many more
mind’s eye
fleeting thoughts
fly by
paper birds
with words written
of where they’ve been
caught
by the tail feather
with branch fingers
grown
from readsy roots
opening the window cover
on the plane
to see
what shakes us so
you change
you don’t think so
but you do
a thin string
ties it all together
loosely
loose enough
that new you
might mistake
a stranger
in a lineup
for old you
Moments of nervousness
Interspersed with joys
Enjoyed briefly
Forgetting so soon
The non-joy that came before
Until thrust back into it
Forgetting to remember
Forced near-sighted
by emotion
relax where you go
watch what comes with
wait and see what happens
hear for wind gone by
sigh for scenes past
on the road going somewhere
in the back seat no matter
let the driver drive
lean back and relax
you’ll get there
there is a feedback loop
between what you say about me
and what i want you to say
so i adjust my internal switches and levers
to get you to say
and when it is not
what i would prefer
i will twist a dial
and pull a lever
then look back out through
my windshield eyes
and listen
going back to adjusting
until what you say
is what i’d like to hear said about me
and then i stay
mostly the same
until someone says something else
(sometimes myself)
that i don’t like to hear
coming into myself
like an icicle
freezing into form
once fluid
and dripping along itself
now believing
what others think of me
and agreeing
to go in this direction
settling into the mold
like sculpture clay
hardening in the oven
formed by the artist’s
left nurturing hand
and right natural hand
then set into stone
by the fires of time
now staying the same
as what others walk by
in the museum and say
reading the placard
and seeing other
statues nearby
this is a statue
of such time and place
you can see clearly
because of this and that
sometimes i look at something
not really paying attention
and accidentally start to see
the space in between
sparkling in broken fractals
going off into gradient corner
abstract offering to me
all sights other than
what makes sense
giving my mind a break
to see without thinking
i am anxious
and incapable
of anything else
other than worry
wasting what energy
would be spent
pointed, purposed
let out listlessly
in all directions
watching
the microwave
count down
in neon green
analog numbers
the space in time
between seconds
seems longer
waiting
for my coffee
to warm up
i rung here
a chord that
resounded
ringing
my ears
out clean
hoping to glean
at least some
satisfaction
from a choir
of voices
but quickly
found myself
one of many
and so
went back
to singing shrill
all alone
i try to read
right before bed
ready with words
waiting
in my head
mixing and matching
meeting each other
making magic
in the midnight
like a media room
rushing
to go to press
in the morning
sitting
at my desk
i lean back
and look up
at the fire detector
on the ceiling
alone there,
alone all day
flashing
that one light
every five seconds
i talk to myself
until i’m hoarse
at night
and wonder
in the morning
if it was worth it
because
i can’t remember
a thing i said
i don’t think
you ever
get around to
liking
the fact of dying
but it appears
normal,
a known fact,
which is the key
to accepting
anything—
that it appears
to be normal
a transient sits
on a brick bench
elbows on his knees
leaned forward
rocking
back and forth
with a hat held
by the brim
in both hands
upturned
shaking it
for money
a young man
downtown
in the morning
leaned against
a fire hydrant
curbside
with feet
on the street
and right hand
holding left forearm
and left forearm
holding a cigarette
chewing gum
looking up
at the building tops
the tip
of a tooth
worn down
i tongue
obsessively
wondering
if the wear
has come from
chewing
or grinding
my teeth
at night
sitting in the car
thinking
of my own problems
realizing
the driver
is patting his knee
and must also
have things to do
other than drive
and another rider
gets in
out of breath
and must have
been rushed
this morning
soothing
to think of others
and take a break
from myself
young
you bounce
from thing
to thing
like a pinball
bouncing
in between
believing
it must be this
no, then this
bouncing
back and forth
until old
realizing
it is none of it;
but rather,
something learned
from the bouncing
in between
it all appears
to me now
getting in
through my senses
inside of me
somehow
making me feel
as part of it
pouring in
and back out
as i stand
in the doorway
and stretch
to the right
leaning over,
our plant reaches
for the light
kitchen window
to the left
a profound sadness
comes over me
remembering
what it was like
to be alone
as i now
fear dying
slightly less
having someone
to miss me
i didn’t
roll my dice
right, waiting
to check and see
what could
have happened
easily
managing
the emotions
of making
your own work
falling
into love
and back out
easily
but having
to stay
committed
if anything
is ever
to get done
linen closet
laying sheets
stacked
side by side
on shelves
of order
and cleanliness
if just to avoid
being done upon
myself—
sounds vaguely
sexual—
as does
any doing;
creativity
is a sexual thing
i swear
i took off
these socks
that i see
still on
my feet
just a moment
ago
undressing
after
getting home
standing
in the kitchen
looking down
expecting
to see toes
seeing
cotton socks
instead
i stop anywhere
to write
on the street corner
in the rain
on my phone
on the bus
in conversation
on the move
anytime
i’m in the mood
coming to me
only so often
i can’t afford
to let it go
an old man
with a gray mustache
and glasses
eats a biscuit
and drinks a coffee
by the window
picking up crumbs
delicately, slowly
between his fingers
holding
a cup still steaming
the mouth
of the trash can
stays open
a little longer
than usual
after i have
thrown something away;
stuck
at the hinge
i’m sure
but seeming
for the second
staying open
to take on
a life of its own
and decide for itself
when to open
and when to close
a tree branch
fighting back
against
the windy way
things are
i start a poem
walking
trying to remember
the first few lines
repeating them
over and over
still walking
to where i can find
a place to stop
and write
and another line
so now four
repeating them
and five
still a ways away
at risk of forgetting
the beginning
to remember the end
we bend ourselves
into places
shapes
i wonder
what a human
can do
with some space
it becomes
a body of work
gaining value
and creating fear
of loss
like a notebook
filled with notes
just a notebook
before
but now the result
of hours of work
on its face cover
just the same
as any other
but flipped through
and read
like hemingway’s
lost manuscript
my
what a notebook
could be
all these people
waiting in line
for their $5
cup of coffee
when down the street
a half block
is a deli
that will sell you
a cup of coffee
for 50%
of the price
albeit 80%
of the quality;
but math is hard
in the morning,
i understand
i talk in twos
making it simple
as if this
is not that
and that’s the end
only ours
and other
without parsing
the other
just not ours
easier to see
binary
and easier
to decide
but really
many more
than just two
most often
in the daylight
wide-eyed
and seen
what most
assume to be
all there is
sleeping
deeply
leaving black
to be just that
unaware
that if
you open your eyes
with your eyes
still closed
lights will flash
and a movie plays
on that
black backdrop
and you can play
whatever movie
you want
lately
i’ve been
going to sleep
early
just to dream
a little longer
let it be there
push it as you will
into was
but let it be
short of memory
presently perceived
even then
when is it real
synapses firing
when is it real
i wonder
what makes it
what we’re after
what substitute
will suffice
like a dream
or a drug
lying to oneself
going insane
are just as well
in some cases
who’s to say
otherwise
supplanting
their reality
for another’s
who’s to say
when it’s real
a car radio plays
at the stoplight
outside our apartment
at 3 a.m.
and i wonder
if the driver
is a late traveler
trying to stay awake
or an early worker
trying to stay awake
a vivid dream
reminds me
of something i did
a while back
even though
i never did
actually do it,
it might as well
be the same
—a memory
misremembered
and a reality
recently forgotten
turn up
the trance
in my AirPods
to drown out
the radio
that plays
in the car
i share
with strangers
that could be
nice people;
i’ll never know
an argument
to exist,
to take up space,
to even be there
for you to read;
and numbers
and other symbols
like on a clock
or the brand names
on clothing
or equipment
constantly telling you
what is what
and this is that;
people
have them too
on placards
outside
their office door,
not to mention
their names
and the acronyms after
all this information
looking around
which is why
i think i like
so much
to be in nature
where nothing is named
except
the occasional trailhead
stopping under
a stranger’s roof
in the rain writing
needing to get home
but cannot
get more
than a half block
without a drop
of rain poetry
falling
on my head
the poetry
is there
latent
laying
waiting for me
worrying
as i have
that it had gone
as the lifestyle
i’ve been living
working
focusing
staying sober
had snuffed it out
leaning
with my shoulder
against the brick wall
in the rain
typing
on my phone
drops collecting
on the scene
blurring
the words
so i cannot read
what i’ve typed
i know
there are others
i wish
i could meet them
browsing
my options
perusing
the aisles
like a grocery store
going
to my section
and having
four shelves
ten across
and twenty deep
to choose from
people
like paper boxes
with labels
listing
their ingredients
and health facts
walking
as i normally do
slowly
and looking around
as it starts to rain
and i must speed up
if i hope
to reach home
dry enough
to go indoors
without undressing
just love
for everything
i think
of one person
to show it to
but can’t stay focused
and remember
what a girl
i once loved
once told me
about there being
no limit to love
when what she
really meant
was she
just didn’t love me
and now
i understand
feeling
this feminine love
to just nurture
and give good
to everything
i was doing all this
to appear
to be
one of these
and at some point
ended up
becoming one
the blinds
on a lazy sunday
even if only
barely open
must be pulled tight
so the world
cannot get in
i like to get
onto my belly
and observe
underneath the couch
such a simple world
of unused space,
dust bunnies
and lost items
laying there
minding their business
welcoming
newcomers
warmly
like my lost watch
or a coin
dropped and rolled under
escaping the worlds
of time and money
to lay gently
under the couch
a young man
helping an old man
to put the lid
on his coffee cup
—they
exchange a smile
what is
already here
what more
need we make
look
and this too
all this
here for us
without us
why can we not
just watch
sometimes
rather than
always make
to claim
for ourselves
the beauty
marvel, wonder
whether we are
i wonder
creatures
to create
or just
appreciate
an inferior
i have to
let go
for something
else superior
—but then
also risk
something worse
than the first
inferior
i wasn’t sure
i would make it
up that hill
in fact, halfway
i thought
of tucking myself
into a ball
and rolling
back down
walking on
the same sidewalk
as this morning
when everything
was completely covered
in fog
now midday
and bright out
i can see the sights
i missed
this morning
i wonder if
a machine
could make the art
that i do
i think as far
as appearance
it would look the same
or better
but the point of art
is not that
it merely
be produced
but rather,
that it be born
from a genuine
human experience
otherwise,
what’s the point
a transient
sitting against
the store wall
flicks
a cigarette butt
still smoking
impressively far
—a futile display
of rage
against everything
there is a moment
where this said
would ring true
in your ears
with eyes
seeing the same
as the eyes
of these lips
that said so
how a cigarette
hangs
not yet lit
stuck
to the upper lip
resting
on the bottom
pointed down
looking cool
i feel like
an impostor
with
the up-for-work crowd
like i slept
last night
though i was
in the warehouse
eyes closed
trying to keep
my balance
in a different
kind of crowd
the trash truck
raises its arm
shaking the bin
like a drinker
leaning back
with a glass
for the last drop
i pull
a fuzzball
apart
then roll it
back together
and pull it
apart
again
i see how
these things
would happen
now
having seen
what i hadn’t
when i wondered
how
these things
could
the one cup
measurement
is all i use
filling it halfway
instead of using
the half cup
i wait all week
for this one moment
on saturday morning
when the drone
of dribble from work
dies down
in my latent mind
cleansed by
a friday sleep
knowing there is no
office tomorrow
sitting down now
at a desk wherever
a coffee shop
to open my writing
and have all
flow forth
what was pent up
and refining itself
like a diamond under pressure
myself mining above
now descended
to the depths
to collect
a cute girl
a stranger
sitting next to me
in the backseat
gets out of the car
and closes the door
but not before
letting the cold in
to take her seat
traffic is often
dressed in
the red hue
of brake lights
glaring through
the windshield
into the backseat
where i
lay my head back
against the headrest
and exhale
sitting in an Uber
trance music
turns on
unexpectedly
in my AirPods
as my LTE
reconnects
transporting me
to another
fast-paced world
zooming
out of traffic
and along
neon highways
i keep thinking
this is it
like the end is near
or the sickness
won’t cure
this time around
making a promise
to god
if only just
a little longer
i look back
and realize
i’ve made many
of these promises
and god
has let me live
all this time
i don’t understand
how space works
right now
falling over
leaning on a wall
feeling for
a center of gravity
forgetting
how to stand
i love someone
stifling
a smile
trying not
to laugh out loud
inappropriate
in a public place
covering their mouth
and shrugging their shoulders
turning away
from the crowd
to have a private joy
with a merry thought
that popped up
unexpected
wind
whistling
in my ears
waiting
with
my hands
in
my pockets
underneath
an awning
where
the rain
does not
fall
sometimes we say
about ourselves
what others once
said about us
thinking we
are now
as they say
as i lay in bed
on a sunday
an oblong shape
of light moves
across the wall
through a small slit
in the shades
at first nearer
the arched doorway
and yellow
each time i stir
more golden, warm
closer to
the west wall
like a sun dial
an object
in motion
needs to stay
in motion
a machine
revving
for so long
might even
rev longer
if left to rev
rather than
stopped to rest
a fire
must burn
its fuel
to survive
it cannot
stop consuming
more fuel
nor can it
conserve the fuel
it already has
it must burn
until all
is burnt
because that is
what it is
for a fire
to be
it all is
what it is
and will go
as it will
lying here
not there
trying to wonder
what i can do
while resting
there is nothing
and must rest
sometimes
and let go
like a flame laying dormant unmoving needing to take in to burn and grow larger and larger given more fuel burning until all burnt and receding unable to stop even for self preservation to burn is to live for a flame no other way of going on so burning all the way to ember and eventually ashes once all is consumed
how deep
dare you go
into the alley
deeper
into the middle
the way out
is farthest
from either side
ten minutes
seems like
an eternity
drinking coffee
and listening
to trance
reading
getting lost
checking my watch
to see
when i should
leave
for work
realizing then
it’s only been
ten minutes
when it’s so hot there’s a yellow shimmer like the sun has bled into the air come nighttime that shimmer softens turning orange and utterly harmless
something as
abstract as
destiny
you will understand
only when
it occurs to you
and exclaim then
to one of those
whom you confide in
confused
asking why
can’t they understand
until realizing
you are more often
the one confided in
misunderstanding
listening to the rain
in a sheet metal gutter
on the side of the building
making a hollow sound
dropping from the top
to the bottom
then flowing
like a city stream
over sidewalk
and to sewer eventually
(turns out
this poem i wrote
laying, hearing, imagining
was a lie
or a fiction at least
as i discovered
getting out of bed
for a glass of water
that the sound
which i thought was rain
was actually the radiator)
i check things
that have been checked
two or three times
already
sometimes
just moments before
zipping up my bag
just moments before
boarding my flight
and unzipping it
to check once more
that my laptop is there
or the front door at night
turning the knob
and pulling
to make sure
the bolt is latched
before bed
or opening and closing
my wallet
counting cards and ID
putting it in my pocket
then taking it back out
to open
and check again
opening the alarm app
on my phone
to ensure the alarm is set
for my early shift tomorrow
checking my schedule
over and over
to confirm the flight
is this week not next
sometimes
just laying here
there’s no art
to be gotten from it
necessarily
with a forearm
behind my head
laying on the couch
looking out the window
wishing i had a typewriter
on my lap
to write what i am feeling now
suddenly
not expecting to
or looking for
this tree that i can see
through the window screen
moving so slowly
in an imperceptibly
soft breeze
that catches me
here laying
not expecting anything
from this moment
that has become so beautiful
all of a sudden
that i am forced
to get up and grab my phone
and come back quickly
to the couch
back under the covers
to resume right into
what struck me suddenly
and tried to enjoy
alone and unwritten
but couldn’t
just too beautiful
and had to
start writing
robbing me
of these moments
just to be enjoyed
silently, wordlessly
i can’t
have to capture
something in me
can’t let the beauty go
and can’t see the value
in keeping it for myself
from a distance
the hills look soft
until the hike
takes you there
in the thick of it
slipping on
jagged rocks
stepping over
spiny brush
things are passive
before you know
passing by
eyes unprepared
to appreciate
a sight gone by
this mountain sky
laying here
in the lawn
fingers laced
behind my head
just watching
what passes
a little off lately
after two
earthquakes
in san francisco
in the same week
now
taking off
and that moment
on a plane ride
when you float
just briefly
i pick up one foot
for a step
and set it down
just an
inch or two
below where i’d except
my world
shaking and flying
just a little
off lately
like i said
a fly
flies around
my face
i swat at it
trying to
stay focused
on my phone
but it
easily evades
having avoided
a thousand swats
to have lived
this long
as a fly
when i realize
these things
must be handled
deliberately
i stop looking
at my phone
long enough
to get up
and grab a shoe
and that
was the end
for the poor fly
like a loud scream from far away
whistling between gusts of wind
like you’ve stuck your head inside
a jet engine
coming audibly through
the half cracked bathroom window
that shows light from the neighbor’s
open window next door
and in the mirror
half torsos hanging from the shower rod
that are really just shirts hanging to dry after being washed
baby playing
a dangerous game
with a cup
of black coffee
in bed
with white sheets
i used to run
when i was young
to get out my energy
my mom would say
run around the house
but now
with bad knees
i have to find
new ways of tiring
enough in the day time
in order to sleep
come bed time
the same old lady
in the pink robe
crouches every morning
in front of the yellow
metal newsstand
reading front page headlines
through the glass door
that you must pay a quarter
in order to open
crouching there reading
for a few minutes
the full front page
and then walking away
maybe to find a quarter
i stood here
and dripped
in my shower towel
writing
my wet hair
on my forehead
seeing as
i sprung from
the still spitting shower
with a thought in mind
and only now
with it down
realize i am standing
in a puddle
and the shower
still going
poetry i can write only
once
not before or after
that very moment
which gives birth
like a stubborn
truth-telling muse
refusing to repeat herself
and shaking her finger
for the ones i can’t remember
seeing a dead bird
on the sidewalk
reminding me
that life-filled things
like this one
once flying
can suddenly
become lifeless
laying here
now dead
very dead
standing
at the back
of the bus
looking through
the security latch
left open
getting a 6-inch view
of the city
(building tops
mostly)
fighting the crowd
walking out of downtown
on the sidewalk
on the side of montgomery
making me wonder
if it is after work hours
like i thought
not used to
swimming upstream
when i thought everyone
was supposed to be
heading home
and making me think now
that i might have
mixed up the afternoon
with the morning
watching the face
of one experiencing joy
as their eyes open
and a smile creeps
at the corners of their mouth
and their cheek muscles relax
when at first
immersed completely
in the joy
until the eyebrow creases
and the nostrils flare
now wondering
how long will this joy last
shadow shapes
speed
across the ceiling
i see
laying in bed
as cars cast
their light
through the window
passing by
if i can forget
quickly
that i am a writer
reading
my own work
i can almost
offer criticism
outside of
my fragile ego
pushing up
my sleeve cuff
to check the time
only to find
a bare wrist
telling me nothing
realizing both
that i forgot to wear
my watch today
and i didn’t really
need to know
the time anyway
going back
to what i was doing before
thinking i might
leave my watch at home
more often
night
rhymes with
light
which rhymes
with right
—such
is the profound
rhyme scheme
around which
all my poetry
revolves
standing
on the corner
when you have to
cross both ways
to get to
the corner
diagonal
and don’t
really care
if it is the left
or right light
that turns first
glare really gets me
gotten out of the bulb
and onto
something shiny
stinging
like the first light
in the morning
as demon hands
grab hold
of the pupil rim
and pull it tight
to shut out the light
walking
a city block
you’ll see a red hand
come into view
at the intersection
up ahead
and maybe a number
beside it
counting down
or
if you’re lucky
a white man
telling you to walk
but the trick
is to time your steps
depending on when
you see the signal
slowing
if the red hand
is already counting down
and there’s no way
for you to make it
so as to reduce
your time
waiting at the corner
if arriving
just as the red hand
turns solid
or speeding up
if you see the white man
to catch it in time
and cross
playing this game
on mornings
you’ve decided to walk
instead of
taking a car or bus
sometimes
getting lucky
and catching the white man
for blocks in a row
it feels like a hotel
to leave the room
in my socks
and close the door quietly
so as not to wake baby
and creep downstairs
to look out the window
at the dialog box
checking the times
to see if the bus
runs this early
i want to jump up
and hang from that bus wire there,
holding on
just barely above traffic,
not so far away from the city,
but still safe for sure,
looking up from the sidewalk
corner at night,
waiting for the light to change
after a while
wondering
what your hand
has been held by
hanging
off the wrist
waiting
weightless
for forearm
to strengthen
and grab hold
i wonder about
optimizing
in the opposite direction,
for less
instead of more.
i wonder about
getting out of the city
and into the mountains.
i wonder about
tending to a garden
instead of
going to the grocery store.
i wonder about
spending my time
instead of
saving my money.
i wonder about
calculating how
to make a little last
instead of
how to make more.
i wonder if
i would get to the mountains,
and after a short period
of reprieve with less,
begin quickly again
to wonder about
having more.
fast such
that it does not
gain much
going that way
quickly
even quicker than
what is required
of any
possible
on-time arrival
baby sleeping in
on saturday morning
says she
likes my cold hands
having returned from
a morning shift
on her warm body
under covers
you can’t think like that
when you’re in it
wondering why
you’re not out
because before
entering in
from the outside
you decided
of your own free will
to do so
and must remember
not to think
like an outsider
once you’re in
i feel that everything
is progressing
moving forward
as it must
in order for
space
that would be
stagnant
to churn
and turn over
turning into
something else
which
in this case
is so good
that I try
to churn faster
i expect the world
to develop faster
for me
having had
my coffee
and expecting time
to move faster
to match my perception
of space
coming sooner
I wonder if he is like me
I wonder as he walks by
looking me in the eyes
and then wondering
from his perspective
if he knows I am like him
having to find
a bathroom
to go humanely
when any bin,
bucket, basin,
or brick wall
of any kind
would suit me
just fine
i saw
across the street
in an apartment
which normally
has its shades drawn
two friends
sitting at a table
talking
then two more friends
opened the front door
and came in through
the long hallway
and the friends
at the table
raised their arms
and the friends
coming in
raised their arms too
and all embraced
and it made me happy
as i had just gotten home
and stood
in my own apartment
alone
there are more
things with names
walking down
the city street
than there are
walking on a trail
in the woods
—or at least more
of the names
that i know
—being that i know
the makes
and models of cars
and names for
certain types of people
better than
the species of trees
or types of stone
—so when in the city
i can say about
the businessman
and the BMW
or the gas prices
at $3.95
but in the forest
i can only say
there are trees,
rivers and rocks
and lots of them
a sagging
metal clothes rod
in the closet
where
the hangers hang
with heavy sweaters
too often
in the middle
—still the rod
serves its purpose
just as well
as a straight rod
holding clothes
hanging
above the floor
—until the day
it finally snaps
and we’ll have to
buy a new one
in the aisle seat
of row eighteen
on the airplane
bound for oakland
another passenger
i watch
from the window seat
holds out her hand
for the flight attendant
with spread fingers
as if her arm
were a tree branch
and the stewardess
coming by with her cart
rather than
pour water in a cup
and hand it to her
would walk by
with a spray bottle
and spray her
humanoid
branch hand
for sustenance
i think of that painting
we passed on
that i liked
and stood there
looking at
for some time
on the second floor
of an eclectic gallery
until baby asked
if we should get it
and i asked the attendant
the price
which is when
we passed
and left
—thinking back now
i haven’t spent
that money
on anything else
i’ve liked
nearly that much
the feeling
of exacticity
you get
observing
something
multi-colored
against
a monochrome
surface
like a handful
of sunflower seeds
in a peachy palm
i appreciate
the preparedness
of plane stewards
making flight
seem safe
head rested against
the rained on window
watching
the wet white line
at road’s edge
trucks passing
shocking
so close
coming the other way
on the other side
of the middle
yellow line
the water vapor
rising
between trees
from hot springs
confuses me
wondering why
the clouds
are so low
not this one
painted on my eyes
a realist landscape
passed through
a watercolor filter
behind closed eyelids
maintained by some
abstract light
getting through
and some memory
refining the edges
a short trip napped out
with clear tucked in
points of entry
and untucked exits
while all else
dreamed between
remains unchartered
water droplets
on the outside
of the car window
making a light
pitter patter
each
its own shape
some thin
and long
others small
and circular
each growing larger
as another
lands on top
gaining
enough weight
to slide
slightly down
like a snowball
absorbing mass
from other droplets
on the descent
streaking
faster
until joining
the fallen ‘fore
in a small stream
at the base
of the window
only so much
to write about
in the absence out here
quiet
and mostly
staying the same
other than
trees growing
and clouds moving
surely
but so slowly
imperceptibly
nature taking its time
refusing demands
of the human world
to grow faster
unnaturally
needing
an occasional trip
like this
to step off
the giant wheel
that spins
faster than most
thought it would
they call this place
big sky
i know now
on the back deck
in a rocking chair
looking out
at the expanse
covered in complete
white cloud
without obstruction
other than
the pine trees
that form
the bottom border
of the big sky
water drops
along the bottom edge
of the wood railing
forty or fifty
along the length
each holding on
out of the corner of my eye
one drops
to splash
on the already wet deck
glancing back
and forth
along the length
trying to catch the moment
when a drop becomes
big and sagging
near the end
and loses its grip
suppose that some times
were better than others
remembering
and wishing to be back there
something now
reminding you
of what was then
to go off into this other place
and time
lived only on after
in a blurring
and erring optimistic
memory
all throughout the house
each in its own corner
a book at shelf’s end
an outlet above the baseboard
a stool underneath the desk
cushions on couch
handles and hinges on doors
glass in window panes
lived in sometimes
opened, walked through
twisted, turned on
heated, cooked, cleaned
but often left
just to be a house
out here
alone in the woods
raining outside
of the window
ripples
in each puddle
interrupted
by the ripples
of new drops
at some points
of the roof
where the flow
is frequent
there are streams
falling
from the shingle ends
at others points
there are
less frequent drops
making noise
muted
by the window glass
i get into
one thing
and find out
there is another
that has come
of the one
so have to
decide whether
to finish the one
and be done with it
or press on
with the other
unplanned for
i get more and more
up and outside
realizing
there is a mind
that decides
and sets the body
in motion
and the body then
runs along
until the mind
thinks up
something different
the realization
being that
the mind and body
though supposed
to belong
to the same
are often different
for the mind
that would decide
often does
at first at least
but then becomes
affected
by what the body does
and begins
to think a little differently
it makes me nervous
to fly
when i’ve work
unfinished
i tell baby
before i go
just in case
to publish everything
i’d honestly
rather stay
and not even sleep
until i finish
but i must relax
both because
there will be
what there will
and i have
no control
a puzzle piece
i found
fitting perfectly
between
what i had before
beginning and end
but not much more
than muddle
without that middle
bringing it all
together
tried to rise
but in that time
that i decided to wake
after i’d gotten
my head off the pillow
but sometime before
i could get my feet
on the floor
my body pushed out
of my tired mind
that waking thought
and here i am now
finally waking
but sometime after
when i first
tried to rise
the sun hits
the windshields
of cars passing
by
on california
just right
to shoot up
through our window
and into my eye
baby modeling for me
taking photos
she gets this
glassy look in her eyes
like she’s forgotten
who she is
and can relax
in front of the camera
i try to get the coffee high
with the weed don’t worry
and baby pushing me forward
while meditation holds me present
so ending up in the middle
of a four-direction compass
staying steady on the first dimension
while riding all the time
on the second
there is a line created
by baby’s body
when she lays
on her left side
facing me
facing the window
from which the morning light
comes over my shoulder
and onto her chest
making a shadow
where her breast
has its fullness
creating a dark line
like a fish hook
that any human
can recognize
as the outline
of one side
of a woman’s chest
i wonder if
feeling is the same
as being felt
i wonder if
movie actors have time
to be themselves
i wonder if
those who run the world
know that they do
i wonder if
work will go by
fast or slow
i wonder if
our landlord will finally
fix our fridge today
i wonder if
baby
really loves me
i wonder if
the company
will make it
i wonder if
my brother
will be alright
i wonder if
sleeping with baby
makes my back
better or worse
i wonder if
or when
my body will start to fail
like my dad’s
i wonder if
my dad was like me
when he was young
i wonder if
my mom
still has hope
i wonder if
i’m doing the right thing
i wonder if
i’ll feel the same way
when i’m older
big concrete blocks
from construction
clanging in the lift
mixing with the idle motor
making street noise
in the early morning
marking a new city day
with the spirit of building
and “must be done”
settling into their new
truck bucket home
before being transported
to be blocks elsewhere
there are three
thing i need
phone, wallet,
and keys
—so long as
i have
these three
there is nothing
bothering me
nettles nay say
no regard
sounds like
violet beauregarde
a movie character
fictional
who i mentioned
to baby last night
about eating
too many blueberries
and turning blue
now creeping
this morning
into my
writing rhyming
subconscious
a light
above the front door
reaches out
down the steps
like an open hand
for the traveler
that might have
otherwise
walked on past
needing to get into
this particular place
where no one need
overwhelms my
motivation
making it easier
to step off
of the curb
and not land
on the street
but rise up
even above
the building tops
even on
a wednesday
when i worked today
and will work tomorrow
but can
still stay lifted
in a midweek
of moments like this
leaving
and not coming back
seeing up
at night
dressed in
a soft light
not quite
dark as
it will be
soon enough
on a warm
summer evening
i miss the bus
and care not
because
it is
a warm
summer evening
walking
on the sidewalk
looking up
seeing a spire
in the skyline
holding up
my phone
trying
to catch it
but not
without zoom
so i walk
further
up montgomery
holding my phone
watching the spire
grow nearer
until pine
i realize
the angle
is impossible
with another building
in the way
my brain is always
trying to write
but i have to
hold it back
and only write
when it’s right
when it gets to me
in a moment
all at once
so i don’t start in
and end up
with just
half a poem
hanging off
that glare
creeps crawls
shining sneaking
from the ceiling light
through open space
and onto the phone screen
that makes a cutting
bright white light
like a knife
getting into my eye
and cutting past
my cornea
into my brain
confusing everything
like a shock
all of a sudden
i can’t see
and have to turn
the phone screen
back over
i look at the clock
above the stove
afraid to see
the time
but see instead
the oven timer
counting down
at about
three and a half
minutes left
—i am thankful
to see a time
with no consequence
for my life
other than
there are two-hundred
and ten seconds
remaining
until i need to take
the hard boiled eggs
off the burner
there are twenty
or so seats filled
when i step on
the one bus
at six in the morning
—i take my seat
toward the back
and close my eyes
like i usually do
to get some extra rest
on the way to work
—i listen for the beeps
which are each
another passenger
scanning their card
and stepping on
—i can imagine
how full
the bus has become
but i can not see
until, listening
for my stop,
the announcer says
“montgomery”
and i open my eyes
to see forty
or fifty people now
standing in the aisles
holding the hand rails
shoulder to shoulder
—standing up
i have to say
“excuse me”
and fight through
a maze
to get off
what comes from
the candle flame
dancing through
its glass holder
and mixing with
the shelf light
together
make quite a show
on the outside
of the white
shower curtain
so standing
under the water
watching
i forget
how long it’s been
i look at myself
in the mirror
in the dark
for long enough
that i wonder
if it is really me
or just another
dark object
in the room
—i stand still
for as long
as i can bear
thinking
i may no longer
be myself
but have become
something else
—until i can’t
take it any longer
and raise my arms
to see
in the mirror
the almost unidentified
dark object
do the same
—and so can
crawl back into bed
with less fear
of waking up
as something else
a massive TV
at the neighbor’s
so big
i can see
through the window
all the way
across the street
—i think of
getting out
my binoculars
to watch
what they’re watching
less as a thing itself
more as its parts
that which is becoming
resulting from
what happens naturally
just as it would
without a forethought
for what is made
from constituent parts
more attention on each part
as if it were
a whole itself
making one by one
giving each no title
no summary
until after the fact
when it’s all said and done
and can be seen
for what it is
then can finally
be called
a thing itself
a steady stream
of honey
from the bottle
held
unnecessarily high
above the plate
forming at first
globbed tiers
like stalagmites
holding their form
only briefly
before melting
into an undistinguished
larger glob
making sense to me
as an individual
at first unique
then born into
a uniform mass
baby scares me
sometimes
like she’d leave
her hand
on the stove
if i wasn’t there
to pull it away
i know a man
under the highway
on second street;
he paints all day
on scraps of cardboard
—i noticed today
that he paints white
over the cardboard
that he has already painted
with multi-colored lines
in broad strokes
and then paces along the curb
with his hands behind his back
waiting for
the white paint to dry
so he can paint again
i thought our tree,
less yellow leaves
and branches perky,
seeming to respond well
being nearer the window,
was looking better
—but now i’m not sure
it depending on the day
and my mood
how things appear
as i look at them
at once sad and drooping
and then not long after
joyous and upright
this being the same tree
that we’re talking about
which, in reality,
is just the same, all along
her kisses are loud in my ear
like you wouldn’t expect
from such a soft thing
supposed to be sweet
but crashing loud, hurting even
so close to the drum
take the most
exacting and useful
appendages
of the human body
—usually
always working
doing something
un-idle—
and make one
do nothing,
for a change,
other than hold
another
of its own kind
here i am at the top
of this great peak
having come for myself
and found everything else
i get exhausted
checking the distance between
what needs to be done
and what could be,
thinking of all the possibilities
in between
here i am at the top
of this great peak
having come for myself
and found everything else
baby brought onto me
a distracting feeling
for her and nothing
else, even the road
driving, trying to
steer straight
or the hotel, trying
to drop my bags
and take off my jacket
but can’t even
baby pulling me
through the open door
shutting out behind us
the attendant and
any other distractions
there are objects
you can throw
soft enough
to be caught
like a pillow
letting fly
plumes of feathers
and other
soft things
thrown
alright
until
a night lamp
in the corner
gets knocked over
or someone
grabs a tea kettle
or something else
heavy instead
a newsstand
turned over
onto its side
turned into
a park bench
for those
waiting
for the bus
driving
in the backseat
(so riding
i suppose)
watching
out the window
i treat
like a movie
with the frame
of the window
as the borders
of the screen
—or a gallery
sitting in
the same chair
staring at
the same picture
that changes
expect that
the picture
is really real
and if you opened
the car door
(once the car
has stopped,
of course)
you could step out
and be born
all of a sudden
into any picture
that just moments
was only painted
on your window
the city is an ambiguous thing
a mass
a place to be gotten to
but not necessarily understood
or remembered
intimately
like a person living there
able to sit in their apartment
with their eyes closed
and imagine walking on the sidewalk
in any direction
and seeing the storefronts
and usual coffee shop
and even the imagining the worn chair
on the second level
where one usually sits
—the city becomes
a place lived in and known
rather than a general black mass
holding a spot on the map
that one reads
for places imagined
rather than places traveled
and even if you have visited
once or twice
and remember specific places
like what a specific room feels like
the sense of knowing the whole city
and the places you can possibly go
and how to give directions
and where to lead newcomers when they ask
only comes with time
when i write poetry i don’t sit down and employ a creative strategy or exercise to first get an idea and then open a dictionary or other index of words to figure out what will fit the rhyme scheme and meter—going along like this slowly spending time to think between words and building slowly brick by brick like a house. when i write poetry i’m often standing up in an experience that is making me feel or think something and start my fingers typing on my phone with what i can only identify as the energy of the experience itself that comes so fast my fingers can barely keep up and sometimes i don’t recognize what i’ve written until after it’s done
the world is shaking moving
making faces at me
in the candle light
the tile floor gyrates
beneath my feet
the little white
hexagon tiles
each bordered
by gray grout
pulse back and forth
confusing my sense
of where my feet bottoms
meet the ground
mocking my
impaired mental state
going to the light
to the beam under the shade
brining what needs to be seen
like the page of a book
or a pill bottle label
in the middle of the night
rather than flipping the switch
and blasting the whole room
like a grenade
for a bullet’s job
a pill bottle in this case
so i can see the label
and cure a hangover
in the middle of the night
and make sure i don’t poison myself
with the wrong bottle
there was a time
when i was
in front of it
lately
i mostly
just try
and keep up
one person
steps off of the sidewalk
and the rest of the morning
pedestrian crowd, follows suit
without looking up at the light
when the sun blasts and blasts
in the early morning rising
so you wonder how
can it be so bright already
so much your sleepy eyes
can’t stay open looking at it
watching homeless men
sleep next to
sewer gates
breathing steam
sometimes
in the middle of the street
to stay warm at night
it’s loud
with the window
open
it’s hot
with the window
closed
simplifying
everything
eyes closed
no matter how
complicated
seen things
can get
remember
you can
close your eyes
wanting to do
everything
going from
one thing
to another
and end up
all the time
in between
doing nothing
one going so deep
for the multitude to see
but that one
not being able
to see back out
even one person
propped up
isn’t the one
with so many
to support him
the same many
who in idle hours
taking short breaks
from supporting
wish to be
the one
they support
the yellow rectangles
painted proportionately
across the street
between the parts
of either sidewalk
where the curb
slopes down slightly
to meet the street
for pedestrians
to step off safely
and cross
in the dead quiet
of the night
i feel so awake
and out of place
while everything else
is so dead
and there’s nothing
not even
the neighbors
to talk
or the cars outside
to go by
my hands
often hold
the reminder
that we are real
as i stare at
my open palm
and fingers
stretched wide
turning my hand
over in the light
exclaiming silently
at space
in general
to even exist
and more specifically
as something
i can see
and even more
as something
i am part of
and can affect
with a body
to which
these hands belong
even passersby
stepping on packets
not noticing
a ketchup packet
SPLAT!
on the sidewalk
someone must’ve
stepped on
making art
all the time
i know here
what there is
and can expect
what comes next
after changes
and subtle shifts
in expectations
only when
what has happened
previously
continues to recur
at the front
of the bus
between
the handrail
and the rest
of the pass-
engers
holding on
i don’t get out
near the water
enough
where i can
breathe easy
in the open
ocean air
outside
of the buildings
all the way
down the road
dotted
with headlights
crossing
the intersection
watching
for drivers
not
paying attention
standing
with my back
to the wind
pant legs
flapping
leaning back
just a little
hands
in my pockets
sound
wooshing by
my ears
waiting
to warm up
between gusts
each line is shorter, forcing the reader to pause and think deeper into simple subject matter that doesn’t require any deep thought in its face
always trying
to advance
and move forward
with no time
to settle down
and pay attention
to what now
is quite wonderful
and in
a circular
way
is that which
you chase after
all the time
right here
watching
tea steep
leaves infect
with color
the rest
of the clear
water
everything rendered
into this form
at one point
or another
needing a base
to return to
after such varied
newness
and shape shifting
needing now
to return again
wanting
immediately
for the three dots
on the bubble
to pop up
needing
the conversation
to continue
as if
in person
—this being
our only
substitute
forgot how
to be alone
being so much
with baby
my two
favorite coats
on the
two-pronged
coat hanger
next to
the closet door
art
being all
and needing
to press on
into
after
overwhelmed
with
the rush
coming on
all at once
seeing
exclaiming
wanting it all
to stay
this way
knowing
it won’t
so trying
to stay focused
while it does
days
when i should
have stayed
and did
in fact
but wondering
frightfully
if i hadn’t
and quit
up and left
and couldn’t
have ended up
here
where
i like it so
and would have
certainly
pressed on
had i known
but could have
just as easily
not
not knowing
what
was at stake
looking at
what was
a mirror image
of myself
that now
looking too long
has become
un-
identified
and broken into
constituent
crooked teeth
and an un-
recognizable
smile
the floor creaks
clearly
when no one
else
is home
to hear
lines of power
across the sky
that would be
perfect borders
for buildings
only that
depending
on which corner
of the street
you stand on
looking up
at the lines
that most often
cut right through
laying
in the apartment
on the floor
during an odd
off hour
having left
work early
and waiting
for baby
to come home
green leaves
outside
the window
showing signs
of stress
blowing
on branches
flexing
in the wind
not
so calm
as it is
inside
watching
laying back
looking up
at the ceiling
realizing
it’s not quite
as white
as i thought
a mind
behind
closed eyes
wondering
where
in the world
the body
has gone
i used
to do nothing
all the time
now
just a chance
to lay on the rug
alone
is a novelty
sitting backward
on the bus
is quite odd
moving
with your back
to the progress
having to turn
to see the signs
for your stop
looking back
on the bus
watching the inside
bend
like a snake
as the wheels
crawl
over hills
and the passengers
rise up
and down
in their seats
like kelp
on wave crests
sometimes
there is
what’s wordless
to carry
a moment
and relieve me
of the need
to write
commuting
all hours
moving
to get somewhere
maybe
just making time
seem not so spent
still
and stretching out
by step
or wheels turning
often with others
never going to
exactly
the same place
everyone
in south park
on their phones
walking
in circles
with one hand
in a pocket
and the other
holding
the phone
to one ear
talking
supposedly
to someone
somewhere else
putting away
trying
to sleep
my phone
into the drawer
of the nightstand
then thinking
of another
poem
and having
to pull my phone
back out
dynamic
and creatively
together
in new ways
combining
bodies, novel
new senses
of touch
it’s a noisy night
with the news
from the open window
in the bathroom
and the traffic
always the traffic
and the neighbors’
conversation
through the wall
behind us
the blinds open
just barely
so a slim
stretch of light
creeps through
keeping
me awake
a bend
of light
stretched up
and around
the ceiling fixture
like
a boomerang
i want for
the little square
of green light
on the wall
to turn yellow;
i don’t know
why exactly
but i do, maybe
just for something
to change
or because
i know
what comes next
so well
that i just
want it to happen
already
so when it does
the satisfaction
is short-lived
and soon after
turns to red
so soon after
does the signal
send up smoke
that you wonder
who signaled
and how
did they know
think of all
the cars coming
and if you were
for the first time
in the city
unaware that
cars are not
supposed to
cross over curbs
or run red lights
and so not even
wanting to walk
on the sidewalk
or crosswalk
or other walk-y thing
that seems
to be safe
based on norms
and probabilities
but really
isn’t safe at all
if the whole world
didn’t exist
i’d still do this
but if i had to choose
between this
and the whole world
i’d still
choose the world
commute
like clockwork
works so well
that you can
close your eyes
and not need
to worry
about
getting there
scary shape seeing
in the dark
groggy
and scared easily
in the dark
early morning
pant legs
on the hanger
and a shadow body
moving toward me
i put on
the glasses that
i’m supposed to wear
all the time
but usually don’t
and feel overwhelmed
in the grocery store
from all the
extra information
on the labels
that i can’t
usually read
i turn the key
in my front door
and it doesn’t
give
right away
reminding me
not everything
is supposed to be
so easy
like the fan blades going
and the wire
inside of the light bulb
hanging by a cord
from the ceiling
and the sound from
the speaker in the corner
just slightly louder
than the headphones
in my ears
a sliver
of morning light
shows itself
on the left side
of the square
wooden table
where i work
in the cafe
casting a shadow
beyond
the cup of tea
still steaming
—the same
table
on which
there was
only darkness
an hour before
everything
is done for me
because i’ve lived
the same life
the same day
many times before
—so my shirts
are form fitted
from having been
washed and worn
on the same body
and the same people
i already know
just say hello
and less
nice to meet you’s
and i still
remember
the way to where
i usually go
so less looking
at a map
and trying
to figure it out
and i know
what i like to eat
so i push my cart
in the same path
at the store
and only stop
when something
is out of stock
oh the morning
yes it is
what i thought of
last night
when the day
had become too much
and in need
of something new
when wonder weighs
what won’t be held
it’s hard to keep it quiet
though sudden sways
in ocean waves
and wind outside the window
make it so
that even though
breaths are held
just waiting
it all will come
from a summer’s sun
that shines so all can see
why crunched so much into a form that has passed for fear mostly of being formless so holding on without realizing that it is all still there and a brief detour won’t erase the whole map as long as the journeys traced with your finger are taken at some point or another or even that tracing itself is a location or event on a higher order of maps
why crunched so much
into a form that has passed
for fear mostly
of being formless
so holding on without realizing
that it is all still there
and a brief detour won’t erase
the whole map
as long as the journeys traced
with your finger
are taken at some point or another
or even that tracing itself
is a location or event
on a higher order of maps
reaching into a thoughtless mind wondering again if the poetry has gone like i know i have thought before and without fail the poems return but for some reason like before i think again that this time is different—that it has really gone for good this time.
three quarters cracked
passenger side car window
blowing past an empty seat
through my hair in back
a plastic bag
on the sidewalk
under the bridge
in the dark
blowing slowly
looking like
a raccoon
sleuthing around
building tops
and walls
downtown
against the sky
like my girl’s shoulder
against the mirror
in the apartment
—simple things
made even more
simple
and clear
outlined against
other
simple things
contrasted
by difference
so the line
is clear
suppose i said
what i should have
all along—
would it matter
now, after
all that’s
already happened
i feel myself
wasting away
when all
the attention I’ve paid
is to the out and out
on going out side
of myself
where most
meaning is made
and drives me on
but a body can only
be driven so far
by meaning alone
until physical matter
must be upkept
so only sometimes
several waking hours
when spent as if
time won’t pass so fast
and really left
to look deep down
into what’s always there
but often glossed over
in favor of other space
made important
by limited time
i raise my head
from the pillow in bed
as a brief flash of light
comes under the curtain
and catches my eye
just enough
to wake me up
i talked to cloud
and sun could not say
whether we are waiting on
high, risen, or setting
today
so that
a sideways glance
means less harm
left so long
that the offender
looks like
a statue
wind open
window
rolling in
cooler than
closed
a traffic light
against the sky
speaking
so clearly
with colors
cement split
like a natural crack
only that this one
goes so deep
as man has made it
while a crevice
may run to the core
tip toe tag along
prancing praying
you don’t get caught
doing exactly what
everyone else does
words make you feel because you use them. if you heard a word, but had never used words to mean anything yourself, i wonder if you would hear anything. words are fat with the weight of past experience. different words are more important to different people. the reason that writing can be so emotional for me is that when i write a poem or make up a story, the words i use are inevitably defined by how i’ve used them in my personal life.
when you realize
looking last
that nothing
in the past
kept same enough
for an identity
that holds together
but instead
rubbed off
and ran through
all other parts
of the big whole
i find myself
all the time
looking up
at building tops
that outline
the sky
it’s actually the work in the office all day focused on what has answers that crams my art into small pockets of time so it becomes less like a drip which spread out doesn’t pack a punch and so means nothing much in a concise enough form that can be read and impressed upon like a flood where if you let the good build up behind a dam and mingle together creating in your subconscious what comes forth all at once after work on the bus ride home scrambling to hold onto the rail with one hand and type the poem that’s been waiting all day on your phone with the other hand
there are two ways to write poetry. one is to write words as they come to you, somewhat randomly. the other is to try to think of what makes sense or what is true or what people will like—and then write that. even when i use the second method, however, i find that sometimes it will doesn’t work anyway. and on the contrary, with the first method, i can write something random, in a sort of stream of consciousness, and it turns out great. so with my poetry at least, i’ve given up control, and resolved to just keep writing.
how making
remember
when tired
that the morning
need is there
for you
to wake
sometimes
on time
i used to sit so
things felt
only contacted
out of place
like one leg
slung over
the other
sitting in a chair
looking cool
but only feeling
the leg pit
or the knee cap
of either leg
at once
and so worrying
that one leg
isn’t working
so not even
sitting cool
do i get a break
from my mania
open free
feeling
quite alright
after some time
in unconscious flight
woken with
a bounce
or a bump
and nothing at all
feeling closed
or impossible
quite yet
at night
not knowing
stumbling
in the dark
preferred
still
to knowing
to avoid
the fear
more than
the object of
at night
keeping lights
turned off
to avoid
a return
prematurely
to
the waking
world
lights
turned on
returning
to a seen world
that eyes
were grown
to survive in
little light
left over
long for
shadows
to recede
showing
more of
what there
is
to be seen
at first
thinking
being creative
to do
something new
then
notched down
and in
to a groove
having worn
the same path
ceasing to think
and feeling less
human
more machine
if the writers
keep writing
on the other side
of the muffled voices
apartment wall
and late afternoon
brunchers
and bakery
line waiters
all saying
some words
that spill into
my dreams
i shared a moment
with a woman
i didn’t know
at the bookstore
her and i
both browsing
as jazz music
played (no joke)
a little fast
and her and i
in this tight
little alley
between bookshelves
i wondering
if she’s interested
in the same stuff
and her wondering
i wish i knew what
and i stepped out
to write this
and she left
and it was over
my phone
is on the desk
across the street
haha she laughs
you know
what i mean
(on the night stand
right next
to the bed
in the apartment,
she meant)
i see it so simple
what i can’t capture
with a camera
or painting
so try to capture
with a simple world
like simple
which crams
a castle
into a shoe box
filled into
these forms
that have been
filled out
enough times
to becomes forms
i write it
again and again
learning
nothing new
shaking
my head
like a cocktail shaker
with the same
few ingredients
in the meantime
meeting moments
that come and go
casually, often
enough so that
most space
has a great indifference
to the time
that washes over
such
seen before
in fact
exactly
like this
before
in fact
wait a minute
has anything …
where am i?
less colors
with the lights down
so everything
is closer to black
conforming
and becoming one
until
a revolutionary
non-socialist
morning
when individual
color rights
will have
their day
time rich skin sheets
a little hot under covers
crowded to the edge
baby hogging more
than her half
so side leaning
to make space
and leaving a leg out
to cool off
a moderate
amount of pain
just
to make time
last
a little
longer
i think
in terms
of words
that sometimes
sound poetic
looking up
seeing art
or head down
walking past
what’s there
either way
a lot of the time
it’s just how
the words sound
and not
what they mean
just like
it’s the light
and not
the object
the evidence
is quite
consistent now
that this man
is crazy
and needs to be
treated
every time
i walk by
another
on the other side
just like me
going
the opposite direction
jumping up
to avoid
a chip bag
blowing
in the wind
you might die
tomorrow
but what happens
if you act
as if you will
and then you don’t
give some of my
energy and love
to baby
and some
to my work
and even some
to strangers
remembering that
none of it
is mine to give
—i am returning it
to where
it came from
window drapes
like a dam
after a flood
in the morning
holding back
all that light
wanting in
to wake up
and start the day
thinking
if i can just
put out
this much
and then
i don’t know
but at least
i’ll have
put out
that much
until now
i’m realizing
there’s no end
and you have
to keep
putting out
meditation and poetry contradict because they both take you to the same place but with meditation you get there and keep going further whereas with poetry you get there and exclaim then try to take the meteorite flight back down to earth with the wonder in tow
with meditation
you get there
and keep going
whereas with poetry
you get there
and exclaim
then try to take
the meteorite flight
back down to earth
with the wonder in tow
don’t always
close your eyes
and go so
cerebral
open them
and find what
our primal senses
are more familiar
with understanding
sometimes
they are smooth
like the ocean
sounds
of cars going by
so i sit
on our rug
in the apartment
as if
i was on the beach
in the morning
meditating
listening
to mechanical waves
before
you know it
you’re moved
like driftwood
downstream
with all
the other
debris
that moves
with the river
to the same end
regardless
of where
you started
you rush ahead
wanting more
and more
until you get sick
then you just
want your health
and nothing else
at once i think
of future possibilities
and hope forward
for the next thing
working myself up
to be let down
which is when
i try to find
a real specific thing
right now
like the crystal knob
on the bathroom door
or the semicircle
archway
over the hall
and the morning light
or even just gratitude
to see another morning
i woke up this morning
because i kept hearing
the dump truck outside;
it must be garbage day
really sending
it strong now
feeling fast
and flowing
for the force
of momentum
that drives
an artist when
he appreciates
his own work
this is where
i can write
albeit
uncomfortable
it is the
discomfort
in fact
that picks up
the pen
walking home
with groceries
so i have to stop
every half block
and put down
the bags
to write
some poetry
walking
with a brown
grocery bag
in my right hand
i see another
of about
similar
height and build
and a grocery bag
also brown
in their right
i wonder
is there a mirror
up there
at the intersection
suppose a centrifuge
of square shaped
triangle patterns
filled your sight
long enough
to render regular
seeing things
obsolete as
gills for dry land
a blue
sky canvas
makes things
simple
and clear
what we have
down here
compared to
the simple sky
so you would say
a night’s day
never left from
no time before
still needs some
surety sent soon
in order to even
consider a noon
before a dusk
when it will end
as it does daily
then lately
those waits
have lasted
longer
meanwhile
waiting for
what wasn’t
there before
seeing
my reflection
walking by
glass
storefront
windows
wondering
who is that
it seems to be
all coming
so you almost
want to sprint
even to death
because
this is it
but must balance
with the possibility
there is more
still to come
after a rest
and a meal
so still sprinting
to get somewhere
but not so fast
knowing
there will be more
a beautiful city
even more beautiful
after you’ve been
away for a while
like the cathedral
unassuming
among victorians
stop
and go
stop
and go
at stop lights
in the morning
when
the stops
are almost
unnecessary
given
the few cars
up this early
except
for the speedster
that might
blow through
and ruin it
clear cold
misty morning
white white sky
seeming all to be
the same white
from a barely
risen sun
that shows some
of its light
but none
of its color
being in
whatever
you’re writing
so when
you forget
what to say
you can
look up
and listen
to what
it’s telling you
something about
having your head
under the faucet
and shower water
rinsing out
the shampoo
brings every thought
you’ve ever had
rushing forth
at once
fog clouds
over the city
like a pillow
with all
the feathers
pulled out
writing what i’ve
written before
because it’s safe
like a freestyle rapper
using old lines
without courage
to risk a mistake
and let everything
come out, as it will
saved by routine
back in the city
settling into
what i know
not so chaotic
as vacation
waking up
each morning
with the full set
of possibilities
—refreshing
for the first
few days
then exhausting
and wanting
to get back
to what you know
on there
open wise
there’s not
much more
than
a closed mind
you’d be
surprised
contrary
to
the wide claim
in a dark room
noting the moonlight
through the blinds
that is normally
drowned out
by the ceiling light
some time ago
seemed like
things wouldn’t
ever change
like knowing someone
that looks different
over time
but you knew them
all along
so they look the same
went
all the way
out here
just
to come back
and see
what i was
seeing before
now
just a little
bit different
seeing
an old world
with new eyes
waiting
for the plane
to board
back
to the city
and take
a car
to the office
and resume
the life
i was living
before
like sleep
is the drug
that does it
between dreams
needing
to forget
one world
to see others
if expecting
to write
not being
able to
because trying
to prepare
like making
the bed
for a child
that will sleep
on the floor
anyways
and so needing
to look away
and act
surprised
when another
comes
so long
say goer
sent from
the dream
cherubs
that whisper
so softly
only sleepers
can hear them
working
in the night
as long as
i am
breathing
working
creating
is what
it is
for me
to be
keeping
(or at least
trying to)
a certain
rationality
so even if
a poem doesn’t
sound good
it will
at least
make sense
like roots
grab soil
her hand
grabs mine
the space that i’m in
seems more open
like i’ve only just realized
the bubble outside of
what is sometimes
called “personal space”
and am now
in this moment
a little more aware of
space at large
sunburned
on the first day
of a beach vacation
like tourists
the scruff of beard
rough on my fingers
chin scratching
writing best
between naps
like fishing
going under
to dream
and reeling
one in
above the surface
to unhook
and place
in the boat
then drop
the line
and re-enter
into
dream waters
and wake
with another
on the line
hearing
my heartbeat
clearly
in each ear
my left pinky toe
scratching behind my right heel
my right instep
flat against the fitted sheet
covering the mattress
my left ribs and shoulder and tricep flat too
lying on my side
my ear and jaw and part of my cheek
against the pillow
a slight strain in my neck
inclining to reach the pillow
baby’s forearms
pressed into my back
the second sheet against my right knee like a teepee
and against my right pinky toe too
like a second post
the back of my left hand outside and on top of the covers
folded with my other hand like prayer
holding my phone
typing this
my right index finger on the power button
on the right side of the phone
and my left index finger
on the volume buttons
and my two thumbs on the lighted keys
that i see with only my right eye open
and my left closed
submerged in pillow case
and the inside of my right bicep
slightly sticky against
my right pectoral
and thighs laid flat
like books stacked
not top of one another
dry tongue in mouth
feeling breath roll over
like ocean breeze over
a sandy beach
and slightly chapped lips
a half inch apart
eyeballs behind eyelids
closed while i think
and nose just being there
not particularly felt
other than a slight blockage
in the right nostril
and other parts felt
just being there
like eyebrows and forehead
center of my chest
and insides
and second and third layers of skin and muscles and bones
all being there
mostly unnoticed
expect for the occasional practice
of laying physical attention
fingertips enhanced
with eyes closed
like ears hawkish
with lips pursed
and mind sharpened
with none of the senses
any sense strengthened
without others
to crutch for
its shortcomings
she holds my hand
and i can’t tell
if the rings
are on her fingers
or mine
hands shaking
like businessmen
under sheets
juxtaposed
with bodies
interlaced
having a pleasure
doing business
sunburn sends
and peels away
part of an outside edge
that needs to be red
and let go
to reveal
a new shade of skin
showing summer warmth
generally safe
on a two-way
if between the lines
on our side
dependent of course
on the same
coming from
the other side
and nothing
over the middle line
which we can’t control
anyhow
so resorting
to a more relaxed
focus on our lane
and what will destroy us
coming the other way
is out of our hands
looking up
from under sheets
longing for light
that won’t come
until the morning
at night not mattering
anything except
i can feel baby
and her and i both
exist completely
in the feeling
(muddled by
no other sense
in the noiseless dark)
of her fingertips
tracing the same path
on my bicep,
over and over
until she falls asleep
looking this
and that way
for a piece willing
and confident enough
to present itself
all at once
and completely naked
so there is nothing
left to invent
as long as i can
keep my eyes open
and write quickly
before
the moment redresses
writing at night
on my phone
with baby
in my arms
and only
the light
of the screen
in the dark
and my fingers
noiselessly
tapping
baby breathes
and i can focus
comfortably
lights wired
alongside
pipes with
water running
and rafters
barely sagging
a little more
each year
in a house
built to be
torn down
baby and i
trying to hold
each other closer
pressing harder
trying to twist
our legs together
and wrap my skin
over her bones
pressing so hard
it almost hurts
a phone in bed
is a complex thing
among simple sheets
but the human in bed
is complex too
like a bright light
that you look at suddenly
from darkness
and close your eyes
and look away
waiting for your eyes
to adjust
but still seeing
that scar of light
on the back of your eyelids
that is a symbol
of the actual light
you saw
but it is not
the actual light
it is just
the scarred memory
of your eyes
telling you what
you supposedly saw
and more
and more abstract
if you watch it
off in the one corner
of your vision
the edges softening
more and more
until what resembled
a lightbulb
in the ceiling
and then a circle
of light melts
into the general bright
of your vision
at large
as your eyes adjust
you get caught up
in thinking
what is worth it
with a working life
so on vacation
you’re thinking about
how much time
do i have to spend
back in the office
in order to make
as much
as this is worth
until you wonder
if you should
just spend
all your time
in the office
because nothing
is worth what
is required of you
to get it
i make a bunch
just so there’s some
to pick from.
it’s all there anyhow
in one form or another
and you can experience it all at once
if you spend enough time alone
but have to labor getting it down
one by one
and picking the right ones
if you’re going to share it
with anyone else
back there, i’m building
out here, i look back
and see, what it is which
i can’t do while in it
like being unable
to figure out the width
of a river
while underwater
seeing flashes and feeling
movements in gravity
or the ground beneath my feet
so i almost say woah
and topple over
unless i’m seated
then
i just get a weird feeling
supposedly
just saying it
isn’t enough
when action
takes more
than an inhale
and curve
of your tongue
but rather
to spend time
that you only have
so much of
especially for
the sake
of another
is much more
than a few
uttered words
just needing a good sun nap
to forget everything i know
and fry my brain like an egg
so the art comes back into the void
from all around where it lies
in wait even when i think
it’s all gone but it’s really just
because i’ve been hard boiled
and in need of a scramble
letting salt
frothy foam
rip a green tide
brown in between
white capped
blue waves
so shallow
so far out
where the waves
can’t decide
how tall
to stand
one thing
after the other
pushed along
into the next
and the next
needing
more
and more
freeways are
too fast for me
flinging forward
hunks of metal
kept from
killing you
just by
painted on
white lines
there will be
one night
when i get up
to use the bathroom
at 2:21am
or some other
middle of
the night time
and check
the front door
to find
it is unlocked
having forgotten
to lock it
before bed;
i just hope
it is not
the same night
that the burglar
finds it
two bodies
getting comfortable
together
like one body
i think about
screwy things
like nails
nailed into
the insides
of pipes
that touch
whatever
the insides
of the pipes
touch
like drinking
water and
anything else
that shouldn’t
get rusted
in the night
my poetic mind
is greased
without the corners
of the lighted world
to catch it
i wake up
with a knot
in my stomach
that needs to be
untied
with some
deep breaths
i’ll put my hand on baby
in the middle of the night
and she won’t wake
until i take it back
even though
it wasn’t there before
an abstract painting
painted right side up
turned left
and upside down
still right side up
the paint
on my fingers
juxtaposes
the mono-peachy
skin
quite nicely
feeling feet
one foot
on top of the other
seeing bookshelf
black against
white wall
hearing motorcycle
outside and
baby sniffling
in the kitchen
and water running
feeling seeing
hearing feeling
seeing hearing
feeling pajamas
on legs under covers
seeing paper
and pen in hand
hearing cars
and bus
whooshing by outside
tasting nothing
dry tongue until
i close my mouth
and salivate
smelling nothing
the bastard sense
along with taste
lying dormant
and ignored
until dinner
Baby sniffling
sniff one Mississippi
sniff two Mississippi
snort snort snort
a building
in open sky
with itself
and no other
buildings
on its edges
allowed
to be like
an object
painted alone
on wide
open white
canvas
several times it went
round and round
returning only to see
if the philosophy
was still true
it is
what it is
what it is
what it is
blurred colors come into vision
like the sliver on rings on fingers
and the green on leaves on trees
spinning around in the park
and the peach of fingers typing
on phone screens and blurry streaks
all of it like paint strokes with colors
that run and melt together
i see simple things
like a hand
grabbing a yellow rail
and a button
that says stop
on the bus
in the morning
packed with people
trying to relax
before work
one thing gets
just slightly off
and i wonder if
the whole world
has changed
and everything
i knew, was a lie
a tree branch
with leaves
through the grate
through the window
bobbing
in the wind
at night
the light hits
the window frame
just right
so the red and green
guide traffic
in my dream
the world is wide
and possible
placing parts
where new wholes
change your view
from few
to many
like a man used to
the chore
of having multiple people
need his attention
he deals with each
in turn
buchanan slow down vrooom
webster slow down ch-kkkk
please hold on beep vroom
fillmore slow down stop go
ch-kkkk beep beep click click
doors are opening ch-kkkk
please hold on beep beep
steiner and california click
click-click click-click (turn
signal) click-click click-click
doors are opening stop go
please hold on vroom
vrooooom (speeding up)
pierce click ch-kkk beep
please hold on vrooom
stop (stop light) go divisadero
(my stop) doors are opening
the whole bus shakes
riding over construction
unpatched bumps and
potholes in the road
rattling squeaking
like an earthquake
really more than
you would expect
like the whole thing
could fall apart
my outward appearance
isn’t my art right now
while my aesthetic attention
is placed in painting
and moving words on pages
so i look like a bum
with my hair disheveled
and my baggy shirt untucked
nothing slows down
like you expect it to
when things get out of hand
and you can’t keep up
but you don’t worry about it
because sometime soon
you’ll have a hold of it
to put things in their places
and make sense of what
comes so fast
you can’t hardly tell
what to do or who you are
but it’s still not worth
sacrificing the newness
to stop and piece
together the oldness
wives get weird names
when they grow up
and marry lasts
that weren’t meant
for their firsts
a little drunk
so normal things
let me lean in
past sober rules
like good posture
cars whoosh
by outside
the stop light
changes colors
in the window
the hardwood
stays put
for the most past
so one thing
in the world
stays the same
peaceful placed
where restful minds
look no farther
than what might
disturb a peace
meant for this
drunk a little
left in line
waiting for
i’m not sure
what just
comfortable
to stand here
otherwise
inappropriately
drunk, but
here in line
perfectly
in place
eyes closed
on the bus
feeling the inclines
and turns
stopping
counting stop lights
trying to guess
how far
and which stop
i need to open my eyes
and stand up
to get off
i write something
when i feel bad
even though
it might be
the same thing
i would have written
feeling good
i’ll throw it out
and only if
my good feeling self
digs in the trash
uncrumpling and
exclaiming, framing
everything that my
bad feeling self
threw out
but the point is
the lens is more
for both reader
and writer
than the writing
itself
an idea starts as a word
which then multiplies
further describing
its original self
with more words
looking from one angle
and seeing no more beauty
so thinking of leaving
to find more elsewhere
then seeing from another angle
and finding abundant beauty
right where you found it
from the beginning
and so feeling foolish
like a boy with no loyalty
who can’t remember his promises
two words
and a new line
read silently
to oneself
and spaced
with a rhythm
a frown at face value
for sadness not looked past
facial tissue merely masked
over a technicolor soul
an itch
turns into
something else
when left
and watched
with eyes closed
an annoyance
then a pain
that calls
for attention
a bug
perhaps
that has landed
beneath
the eyebrow
asking
to be scratched
i dance around the room and lift up the rug and make some food and leave it in the pot to take a shower and rub my eyes to see abstract shapes until my skin prunes and turn on music genre after genre until i’d rather have the silence and then eat the food cold and go stand outside and look at people funny and walk with my hands in my pockets and worry about how i look and sit on the bench just to find one lousy poem that starts out like this …
anything i’ve seen
or heard before
makes me
want to jump
out of my skin
and into
something
anything
new
it’s marginal
what makes
the whole
such that
a fingernail
claws the body
over the edge
sometimes
when i’m happy
i wonder why
have i not
written any
when i’m sad
now that i’m sad
i know i can’t
write like this
several separate times
tend to show space past
premature dreams
really can’t
forcing myself
to write this poetry
can only paint i guess
while depressed
be what it is
say what you feel
stand while you can
look and see
leave what’s behind
there’s no way to describe
with exacticity the melting feeling
of depression other than
the paint that i drop in globs
on the canvas and let run
by titling the canvas side to side
wasting my time
and dreading the morning
crowded on the bus
germy yellow hand railing
everyone looking down
at either book or phone
phones mostly
a few looking out
of the windows
the whole bus creaking
and parts shaking
crawling up
and down
san francisco hills
cars passing by our sides
stand clear of the doors
says the recorded lady
but the doors don’t open
and we keep moving
stopping and starting cars
on either side
so you can’t tell who’s
moving and who’s not
so quiet on the bus
just the ventilation
the bus stopping in traffic
and then starting
with a jolt
a dog bark
on the sidewalk
two motorcycles pass by
the fare prices posted
three dollars
for an adult single ride fare
and other ads
some peeling off
of the diagonal sections
between the windows
and the off white roof
out of downtown making
some progress now
my hand getting sore
from holding on
a beep, then two more
please give seats to seniors
and people with disabilities
says a recorded voice
a man this time
and then in other languages
the same message
presumably
doors are opening
says the woman’s voice
almost forgot
to pay attention
to whether
this is my stop
it’s not
but i better pay attention
getting off
at divisadero
everyone looking smug
to live in this neighborhood
trying to see too much art
and your lens gets muddled
looking at a tree stuck between
being painted and written
same as between a world
being worked or recreated
a light open lunchtime world
outside at high noon
with everything bright
and seeing for distance
other people around
and voices can be heard
and everyone awake
unlike last night
in a dark room
close down under covers
hiding from the abstract
dark monster peeking
through the bathroom door
from the top corner
of the mirror
giving me terrors
in the delusion of having
woken up
in the middle of the night
and being scared as hell
without even knowing
what i’m scared of
but certainly made possible
by it being dark and nighttime
inside a small room
with nobody else around
a little cheap art
that doesn’t mean much
but is still pleasant
enough to make
an economic invalid
worthwhile
i don’t have the energy
to pour out like that
leaving nothing behind
while all i’ve got
is just enough to get on
nothing extra for art
that requires survival
and then some
i have to get
my worldview right
before i can make
art out of it
you can’t always hit hot spots
hoping beyond canyons walls
when crevices down deep enough
that the sun could set across the whole sky
and you’d only see for one second
at high noon and even that would
be enough to notch
one more step in the rock wall
and reach up
what shadows appear
when the lights are turned off
hidden before in a general bright
appearing now from
a more focused light
framing the doorway
from the streetlight
beneath the drape
ceiling showing light
passed through from
the bottom eighth
of the kitchen window
uncovered by drape
showing a triangular
section almost white
like a car headlight
shining at night
a pocket
opens up in time
like waiting in line
at the laundromat
watching the whites spin
hearing the machine hum
i wonder about
where the socks go
i get lifted
off into where
there is no
balance sheet
or rulebook
to tell me “no”
or slap my hand
which i need
sometimes
to stay grounded
i dip in and out
dancing over lines
that separate
trying to be
two people at once
one california
to gough
and clay
i hear
the same
bus stop
outside
all day
writing
what i feel
sometimes
results in
not understanding
what i wrote
when i read it
later on
delicate enough
to take
the right amount
and not more
and exacting
enough, to take
no less
i love art
so much
on the weekends
that some
sunday nights
i think i won’t
go to work
when i wake up
on monday
but then
soon remember
the yin
and the yang
the day
and the night
the dance
and the sleep
art is the leap
but there still
must be
the landing
and the takeoff
which must
go well
before
and after
the air time
that is art
and can go
just as it will
but money
and survival
and physics
and rules
and relationships
are still there
when you land
you read into words
too much
which is when
they mean more
than they were
meant to
limited as they are
they can only
be trusted
so far
to convey
what is trying
to be said
when dissatisfied
with the present
i look to the future
mistakenly
as the future
has no cure
for present ails
other than
to surely spend
presents
and shortly after
spend presents
that were
futures before
i write poems
between bus stops
because i know
there is nothing
else to do
during that time
i was born a goldfish
as much as i could
have been
born an octopus
i try to return
to the consciousness
i was before
i was born anything
taking the muni bus
5 westbound on fulton
toward ocean beach
on sunday morning
to play soccer
i watched an encounter earlier
when i switched from
the twenty-four to the five
where a woman wanted
to bring on a trolley full of
recycled cans and bottles
two trash bags full
but the bus driver said no more
there were already some
folks on the bus with trash bags
full of recyclables
i figures the lady would just
wait for the next bus
but she was shouting
in a language i didn’t know
and then another woman
that was coming onto the bus
aided the bus driver
in pushing the woman
with the bags, off the bus
i felt bad about it
watching from the bus stop
at the other side of the street
but didn’t know
what i could do
the pick-up game
is normally in north beach
by the ghirardelli factory
but the pitch is different today
on account of it being
july 4th weekend
we’ve gotten to 8th avenue
in the time it’s taken me
to write this
i’m looking forward
to playing
and not thinking
about anything
i check my bag compulsively
to make sure
i brought both cleats
not that i’ve ever brought
only one before
but just to make sure
i get overwhelmed
on both sides
thinking it bad
sometimes
and other times
thinking it good
as long as i don’t
go too far
in either direction
things get done
around the house
and i can’t remember
whether it was
me or baby
i feel things
and can’t decide
if their baby’s
feelings, or mine
i know i can
do something
but am probably
accounting for
baby’s abilities
rolling over in bed
and feeling with
my one leg
another leg
and not knowing
if it is my second
or baby’s
making dinner
i worry about
making for baby
what i wouldn’t
make for myself
deciding and
considering now
baby’s desires too
looking for cars
with two seats
and maybe three
one day
my lips are faster
than my hands
as a medium
between my mind
and my words,
so i started
to speak my poetry
baby and i bought art today
and argued about how to hang them
without any objective correct placement
to act as a third mediator
so left the arguments be
and all the paintings on the floor
i think baby will probably
hang them herself while i’m gone
better that way
she’s probably right
about the placement anyway
i was as productive
as a poet can be
those months in san francisco
with baby supporting me
in her apartment
on the corner
of california and divis
on top of the wild hare
a bar that shut down
and the bakery with
a constant twenty person line
i say months because
it has only been five
or maybe a few days more
but not even a half-year
and i talk in the past tense
from the perspective of
an old poet
in another city
having lost baby
because i see that to be
the probable outcome
by no will of my own
but the will of the world
that has moved my life
up to this point
for the most part
at the gallery
wanting to buy
expensive art
but having to
compromise
our artistic
preferences
for what we
can afford
for long last
does time pass
tentatively
taking on more
space spread
out over what
came before
walking around the mission
with a backpack full of books
selling for 50% consignment
which is about four dollars
expect for the store that
told me to sell for more
so i got five dollars there
and not counting the copies
that got damaged either
in my backpack
or from baby thumbing
through the copies at home
—those copies i gave
away for free
sometimes i step
up onto a chair
just to get into
a new headspace
a little higher
you did a hard thing
which is getting
your first step
out there
and so now set
a course to continue
keeping on stepped
in the same
general direction
as progress
of some sort
is all that really matters
just to keep from
getting stale
and stagnant
i expected
to be met
with resistance
but passed
easily through
that point
and even
overshot
my mark
with extra
force saved
for a greater
adversary
time is so full
and passes
quickly which
seems to me
an oxymoron
as i look back
and see not
so long ago
on the calendar
a moment
which marks
the starting line
of a race
which seemed long
yet not so
strenuous
even though
much was seen
and great
distance covered
so i wonder
which is best
to pass life
full and fast
or slow and
more empty
maybe it evens
either way
bones crack
like gears turn
without grease
to creak on
playing the music
of age
nascent never tells me
about itself until it’s already
halfway down the road
and surely a good one
i can see clearly now
but now so far past
i wonder whether to
run on after
or wait here patiently
watching cars counting
drops from the faucet
seeing when the next nascent
will rear its head
and hopefully catch on
early enough this time
to hop on like a train bum
making the leap
just to get on board
then laying back and
lacing my fingers
behind my head
as the right nascent ripens
and i’m just
along for the ride
when to stay
and when to
float away
to some-
thing new
how to tell
if it is written
and dug out
deep down
so fully explained
and all told
so there is nothing
more here
like an empty
gold mine
for a miner
or a dry glass
for a drinker
but wondering if
it is ever this way
for a writer
or if one thing
can really be written
over and over
and never
running out
of things to say
if you write
deep enough
creeping morning light
between the drapes
into the living room
brightening the edge
of the white rug
and putting a shimmer
on the hardwood floor
giving to my eyes
information for what
in the apartment
needs to be done
and pulling me out
from under-
neath the sheets
when it gets too hot
in the apartment
you have to choose
between sweating
and opening a window
to let the city in
with the cars and
the voices along
with the cool breeze
sleepy time tea
hot enough to
force a window
open to cool
the room from
hard to breathe
to open nose
inhale clear and
crisp enough to
stay under the
sheets silked over
with too much
i tell baby that
we should have
gotten the cotton
gone in
to genuflect
for tears jerk
against my
better
judgment
after only hours
empty hearts are stored
with mind’s memories
racing past
logical parapets
to an emotional core
keeping sacred
time spent with those
two and many
almost becoming one
for the times that
walls and moats recede
for hearthy warm
merriment
remembered fondly
a pillow case
soft as skin
for its belly feathers
to deliver their
plush softness
without being exposed
to contact with
the rest of the bed
and baby’s hair
especially
a cord hanging
from the shelf
unplugged
like a fishing line
looking to hook
an empty outlet
what a window
wide open
letting light
like a painting
framed from
outside into
the dark attic
so that
the window
and the shadows
it casts
are the focus
in a diagonal
wood rafter
attic otherwise
dark and musty
if not for
this window
breathing air
and light in
i follow my train of thought
so aggressively that i forgot
i have a body; i come out of it
like a dream and say something
that doesn’t make sense
perfectly placed
parentheses punctuate
a thought within
another thought
impregnated
and unable to live
on its own
abstract rubbing
closed eye patterns
seeing shapes and colors
that remind and then melt
into memories and draw
the attention away
from eyelid backs
and drift off
opposite of
the comma
is the word “so”
letting reader eyes
pass on like
a green light
you’re not really living
left to the devices of systems
that move without you or not
and take your humanity
and cram it into inanimate processes
of production and eventually calcify
your joints to move in certain
mechanical ways you get out
and stretch and remember
what a human can do with
some open space and time
and now on the weekend wishing this
would remain and the week
and its system wouldn’t come again
where bone
raises skin
giving structure
to outward beauty
like fingers pressed
from the far side
of a bed sheet
little foot marks
on the stool
where she stood
higher
last night
framed by
the storefront light
coming in
through the window
holding the drape
pull string
twirling and
dancing
smiling at me
A nice car gets out to drive early in the morning when it has room to run
A night owl opens it eyes in the dark to keep from being seen
A tree grows at mid day when the sun is mostly there
A man eats in the afternoon after work is done
still connected
until off
and out of touch
then disconnected
until touched
back down
spread out
in open air
while up
and away
until tunneled
and dug deep down
upon a return
earthward
left in all
directions
with wings
while met with
the resistance
of mass
that requires strength
to push away
what has taken
the space already
so needing the light
lifted wing nature
of a bird
to live a life up
and out of it only
to return and find
your wings useless
for pushing aside dirt
and debris, needing
to eat and weigh
yourself down to life
in a world of mass
heavier than air
bus whirs outside
arms catch on wires
brakes let out a breath
rest at the stop for a second
eat a few passengers
regurgitate a few others
some stops are a big meal
swelling with a stomach full
until the stops downtown
provide some offloading relief
crawling all over the city
always demanded
and even chased after
until broken and then fixed
and put back on the schedule
born into a purpose
of making the city run on time
right after thinking
of nothing
then something
pops up
so thinking of it
for a while
until gradually
thinking one
after the other
before remembering
to think of nothing
back and forth
like this
until the somethings
grow shorter
and the nothing
takes over
keep with what exists already
wanting after not so many other
derivatives and replicas and slight variations
that may seem to please marginally for a second
but really just bleed a strong self into boundless life
either of which works well enough
unless you planned to do something by way of “I”
and risk forgetting you are part
of everything like a colony ant
while having a higher chance
of accolades for being something like a lion king
in the dark world
nothing scary
if remaining dark
only scare
for what comes
out of it
so dark forever
is not so bad
save what
the light might show
in the dark
sensing
by touch
i realize
it is the cause
of light
that i have
been writing
with my eyes
in the dark nights
open mouthed yawning
dreamed upon
days not yet
woken
i leaned back
and sighed
i felt so good
i forgot
i was standing
and almost
fell over
hair like a mop
for shower water
wet in bed
towel covered
pillow case
for a fifth of the time with which was spent watching clocks counting the first four so much that when the fifth started all the time was spent remembering the four anyway a shame for the four were spent expecting the first so the only time they’re really wise when they handed some small point crossed over the four
come on over as it wanted to be my poetry dries up work having been so much recently and wanting really only to write but knowing money is needed for everything I have and so feeling this conflict at times honestly but not wanting to speak so honestly is this when trying to write poetry knowing that world is different but not being able to write anything else because this is what I am thinking ofAnd just hoping it will only take a night to get into the artistic flow of the weekend especially this weekend on the eve of the Fourth of July when we have a long weekend to really get into life outside of work which is the reason why we work now baby going to bed
It is interesting when the line breaks are set by a poet in a certain way, but then one or two lines are too long when put into type, and they spill over onto the next line—such that you wonder if the poet was correct in his line placements in the first place, or if it’s even better with the words accidentally forced onto the next line by the formatting.
parking meters
poke between
parked cars
staircases
up into
slanted homes
lights inside
restaurants that
make their money
on friday nights
trying to
write the city
but mostly seeing
and so thinking
setting sun
on buildings
and faces of
people sidewalking
would be better
painted
store windows
show through
and out of
store windows
on the other side
so you can see
who’s coming
around the corner
simply seated
so enough
passes by
to keep me here
paying attention
You get taken a little too much
by the world that wants and wants
and never stops.
Without waiting to see
what will come to you anyway
and only going after it all the time
trying to grab what is there.
Some still to start
until less and then
eventually nothing
because you were only grabbing
and not putting any back.
So learning I get to stay still
and listen for the world
to be something again.
And then really realizing when
it is yourself that must
make the world what it is.
the light
from between
a barely
open door
and its frame
cast upon
a carpet floor
in an empty
dark room
abstract yet
so defined
and clear
Walls of leaves shades of green
like what is inside there
must be teeming with life.
Adjacent skyscrapers
bursting into the sky
like what built these
must have been godly.
Commotion uncontrolled
in the streets of the city
like what lives here
instigates itself.
Cars constantly revving
until waiting at lights
like mufflers are talking
to one another.
Signs glowing prices
even without buyers
as if the glow itself
is commercial.
Graffiti art started
sidewalk parted
like the leaves grown
over the half of it
were on purpose.
Steps of so many
pedestrian walkers walking
like the place to be gotten to
is always moving.
Construction noise
in a new foundation
unveiling dirt a rare sight
that will soon return
to being underneath cement.
Pigeons pecking together at scraps
like city trash vultures.
i get out and into
a slow mind
before returning
to a fast body
with feet
moving somewhere
that a slow mind
has forgotten
just so they
can put their finger on you
is part of being remembered
or commended
otherwise they see once what they like
and then go back looking
but even when they find you there
standing in the same place
if you’re saying something different
it’s not the same to them
and you might say well look
a new crowd has gathered
but for them too
it will not be the same
when they return
so part of being remembered
or commended
is just staying the same
a light tea
actually quite bodied
pleasantly tasting
like more
than just water
and hot to boot
something so
universal
so well
explained
what so many
have experienced
many times
without words
to recall
and name
or otherwise
classify what
ceases to be
experienced
once it’s
been worded
the prize winner
for popular demand
and sacrifice of
everything sacred
about the self
a spooky order
made out of chaos
that would have
been better left
misunderstood
i remember that
my parents said
to be careful of
sharps in the ball pit
i’m still cared
of ball pits
even though
i didn’t know
what sharps were
at the time
the time intervals
with which
you measure things
grow longer
as you grow older
by the time i get enough
knowledge to be useful
by then i’ll be dead or senile
modern poetry is something different; it is not like Shakespeare and rhyme scheme. it is literature more well suited for modern thought processes that have become brief. it is micro fiction without the necessity of plot or character.
in my finest
moments
i’m good as ever
in my darkest
moments
i wonder if
i ever was
so great
to come into
a warm place
from the wind
leaned over
washing
my hands
in the sink
glancing up
through my
eyelashes
to see baby
in the corner
of the mirror
framed by
the doorway
sitting on
the couch
in her grey
morning gown
looking beautiful
as ever
say what works whether it’s a word or not working only by the music and finding accidentally that some words both sound right and end up meaning something that fits the context or at least makes you think of something that you mostly would have said but now it sounds more harmonious and adds a a dimension which brings along a new perspective
poetry, for me, is more of a lifestyle. it wouldn’t work as a job. i need my life to gather inspiration. it is a commentary on everything else more than a thing itself. it is a lens through which to record things and express myself. i am not so much a poet first off as “i am” and then that is defined in terms of poetry – whether that makes me a poet after the fact, i don’t know.
touching and thinking
something I would have
thought on my own
baby says to me
and i am confused
about whether my mind
talks like a girl
chase on after
hold on tight
know no master
need not quite
going into a
sing-songy seven
which may interlude
waiting for the pause
to pass pick up
per usual places
standing out from
the stars said
the universal bound
press on dear space
keep carefully creeping
so that after some time
having crept inches ‘come miles
been back in blasted
corduroy off-season class
come conflict with hot
days threatened sweat
soft and plush palace
put aside per usual
malice for miles
at no comfort’s refusal
so sense
turned over
and time
turned back
so truth
got twisted
like a
bottle cap
given size
and so few
focus deep
down low
might make
the far
my muse
reaching out
expecting to have
touched something
touching nothing
stretching farther
and still nothing
wondering if
there is anything
anymore
but really
just grasping
for the wall
in the dark
it’s weird to talk about
a valued thing
in terms of its value
in a valueless world
falling in love
with everyone
and everything
for the time being
while the world is grand
and clear
and nothing hurts
and everyone smiles
or are at least not suffering
not visibly
now i wonder
oh hell
there i go again
making a good
thing bad
birds fly
in the apartment
blue door
window frame
between buildings
like a picture
the closest you get
to silence in the city
is sitting alone
in your apartment
and you can still hear
the air moving through
the ventilation system
walking on the streets
i’d wondered when
it would happen
without noticing
the headlights
maybe at night
and the pain
probably none
if hard and
fast enough
and nothing
but curb
keeping me
and all these
other innocents
from meeting
the machine
at some points
i scratch my head
and wonder
how things have
ended up like this
and other times
clear as day
it makes
abounding sense
that things are
the way they are
“Poetry is the closest language gets to feeling” – a statement like this is banal because the person stating it is claiming a truth which barely belongs to him. An eight-word statement comprised of common words could almost be said accidentally, such that there seems obviously to be little skill involved in crafting it, and by extension, little mark of the crafter’s identity. It takes something wider and longer to truly test a statement so there is more room to make a mistake.
i was rushing
to make it
to soccer
on time
the first game
starts at 8:50
and it was 8:20
but i had just
made oatmeal
and tried to eat
but it was too hot
so i forced
a couple bites
and burned my tongue
then packed it up
to take it with me
to the pitch
with poetry
i throw out less
than i would
with a novel
strictly because
each and
every poem
doesn’t
have to fit
on sunday morning
the roads are empty
and all the lights
turn green for us
as if i needed
to get where i’m going
any faster
i look around for data
for something to process
to let me know i am
where i should be
catching a glimpse
of the driver’s clock
on the dashboard
and looking out the window
at street signs
to make sure i’ll get to
where i’m going
or putting
my hands together
for one to tell the other
that they’re both
still there
or waking up
and looking around
to make sure
i’m in the same bed
i went to sleep in
or answering a question
with another question
to make sure my friend
is still here with me
wonder what day it is
and how old i am
to make sure that i am
behaving appropriately
looking at my
business cards
(that i never use)
to check my title
and see if i am
in the right office
trying to remember
a memory to see
if it was mine
or just a dream
or something else entirely
all that time
i could have been
a little more productive
if i could have
channeled the flood
between river banks
a little square
of light
on the wall
above the bed
from the
rectangle
between
the bottom
of the window
in the kitchen
and the shade
that covers
the rest
shined through
the doorway
to the living room
split in half
to become
a square
by the plant
leaf hanging
in the doorway
changing from
green then
quickly yellow
then red
a pleasant
light show
on the bedroom
wall above
the bed
at 5:13am
all the way
from the stop light
at the intersection
of california
and divisadero
So the shower is novel
Like I’ve never felt water
On my body before
We’re just in it right now, I say out loud, sitting on the couch, next to her in bed. This is the moment for sure, I say. This, right now? She asks. Certainly, I say. Thinking of what all will come and wondering if we’ve really reached the peak.
feeling high
my breath comes
smooth through my nostrils
my skin feels warm
from the sun
my eyelids make shapes
for the entertainment of
my closed eyes
like a movie if you
really pay attention
to everything that
is always going on at once
if you really pay attention
at 2:53pm the patio
is covered in shade
on the far side
of the cafe
so we take our chairs
closer to the curb
to sit in the sun
that barely peeks over
the building top
loose laces left hanging
outside white shoes
at the bottom of jeans
white washed and baggy
cover legs crossed over
one on top of the other
so the left shoe protrudes
two chairs pulled aside
from the coffee shop sidewalk
to sit in the June soon
as a car sits engine idling
and older men compliment
each other on their clothes
while young men walk by
holding their chins up
and their shoulders back
so i take off my long sleeves
with my baby sitting next to me
and the engine still idling
until the brakes let off
and screech for the car
to pull away and no more idling
replaced by a garbage truck
stopped at the light revving
hot almost sweating now
and leave pieces blowing
in circle together with trash
bottle clinking on the cement
that trash man dropped
golden dog with owner
waiting to pass until after
trash man is done digging
out the bottom of the bin
and baby sitting here
being patient with me
trying to write listening
to what i read in the bookstore
on the back of a book
by a critic who said that
this man did well to write
not about the man that writes
but about what he sees, hears
so i try the same outside
of myself for once
in a bookstore
getting inspired
and feeling worthless
myself as a writer
picking up books
and thinking about
how much
there is to learn
god there is so much good
all over and i wonder
how do i go for so long
doing the same drudging thing
while there’s all
this good around
out ahead of me is open air and possibility leaving
behind a railroad track bolted down
and pointed between parallel rails
a train from the past shoots off a cliff
in the present and becomes a bird
that can fly in any direction for the future
up and down over and sideways
or hovering flapping its wing
just looking down at everything below
this saturday seems sent
to hold its place before sunday
and after every other day
from last week
though i know a day
only lasts so long
saturday is the one
i would choose
left alone by itself
just to be a normal day
where anything can be done
because that’s what
a normal day should be
not like friday
which is the end of the week
or sunday
which is the beginning
or any other day
which is just the week itself
and the week is boring
but necessary
but if i didn’t have to
eat to survive and make money,
i’d want everyday to be saturday
Somewhere between novel and song is where you’ll find it most often. But beware of anyone who reads anything and says this is or is not poetry. I found some poetry right in the middle of a Hemingway novel once.
Honestly, I tried writing a novel. Tried a couple times actually. But I was too young and impatient. Even now that I’m a little older I’m still impatient.
I kept trying to write scenes and character descriptions in short amounts of time. When I was out at a bar in between conversations, on the bus on the way home, in the middle of cooking dinner. And then I’d sit down on a Saturday and try to put all the puzzle pieces together into a novel. But it wasn’t working.
Until I realized the puzzle pieces were actually pretty good on their own. So instead of trying to cram them together into a novel, I just left them alone and started calling them poems.
you see all skylines
and they’re all the same
you see one skyline
a hundred times
and it’s different every time
i’m just awash in it
torn in every direction
my heart tugs
through my eyes
at the same time
my mind pulls
through my eyes
and everything
makes me want to
laugh or cry or
i don’t know
just overwhelm
good god words fail
common enough
to be just barely beyond
possibly accidental
or universally replicable
but not so esoteric
as to be inevitably alone
or impossibly accessible
so picking words
with six or seven letters
right in the middle
for the masses
to know just enough
continuing on after
lagging barely behind
satisfied enough to stay
but still wonder about
what one doesn’t know
as if history
would repeat
when things
are never really
the same
so long goes
what lasts largely
as shorter still
matters mostly
in the near life
that only ever
perceives at once
curbed corners
crack carefully
so cement
can breathe
sewer gates stay
open all day
without any trust
for weathermen
razor wire works
around the clock
protecting empty
fenced in car lots
highway bridges
criss crossed
in all directions
sending riders
all over the world
trees planted
right in the middle
of cement sidewalks
reaching some soil
beneath the city
i spend all my time
trying to keep everything
moving in the right direction
when all along i could’ve
let go and watched it all
move along just fine
all by itself
only if an ornery edge
dares to extend so
the original can grow
will a wider world
worry less about
over stepping
artificial bounds
an invisible night light
in the apartment dark
shadow stretching
straight across
the floor rug run
with floorboards
and resting underneath
the living room table
an open window
in the dark
shining moonlight
into the apartment
like a rectangular
entrance into
another world
an escape
out of space
an accidental opening
of the day in the night
oddly geometrical
just the light
of the window
with all else
to the sides
and behind
black nothing
and the light itself
also nothing
except being
other than the dark
and therefore
the clear choice
i step through
some of her
freckles
fall off
and onto me
rub off
of her cheeks
and onto
my forearms
when walls close in
on art subjected
to a real world
sitting thinking
drumming up
something
or trying to
words a while
waiting for
wit to hit
yellow light
passing through
peachy eyelids
makes a pink
passed out
paradise
sitting alone
at a table for two
with my eyes closed
and hands folded
listening to
the noisy restaurant
looking like
an old man
fallen asleep
but truly a young man
listening intently
in a place meant
for seeing
and tasting especially
but so much noise
when you really listen
so slowly says
solemn west
for fast setting
eastern folly
no more north
than southern
shores stretch
so deep down
or high up
was all that
was left
there are three sources of my poetry: my surroundings and what my senses are telling me about them. myself and what my mind is telling me. or nonsense that comes from my subconscious or somewhere else.
in the night
light coming
out of the dark
is alright
shapes coming
out of the dark
are not okay
moving from
one place
to another
all your things
are neither
here nor there
sitting outside for lunch
the cold motivates me
to stand up and get going
until the sun comes out
and i sit back down
to fold my hands and smile
enjoying the warmth
haver havermore
having more
than most
already
wanting
more still
to have at least
more than three
times he who
has least
v2:
haver havermore
having already
more than most
having more still
until he has most
or at least much
more than three
times he who
has least
wondered if life
would split
down the middle
for two born one
thinking with mind’s
crossed eyes
between worlds
that see and
worlds that think
not knowing what
separates a dream
misremembered
from a reality
recently forgotten
so much goes
into the non-night never
knocking over naysayers
lying in the short run
letting out times
meant to be finite
moved past the black hole threshold
where light no longer escapes
somewhere left alone
to die spaceless
and sucking oxygen
she is
constantly
running hot
like a furnace
taking in
and burning
everything
for fuel
wondering whether
which trail
will wind inland
and switch
back to the beach
where we started
low fog over
headless hills
hunkered
down and into
the valley
dirt trails
like scars
where
humanity
cut into
nature
natural stone
stair steps
in the trail
that refused
to grade
in some
pleasant
purgatory
between
dirt trail
blue sky
up high enough
into the fog
white nothing
lifted off away
from it all
wind in the thicket
green and gold hills
contrasted with white fog,
locking the world down
inside of itself,
making our steps matter
with attention,
normally drawn upward
had to beat
that bad habit
holding on to me
like a leach
leaking out all
my muster why
wherewithal
stepping
like a beat
downhill
quickened
to a natural
double time
skip
being myself
staying
more or less
the same
so pitted down
and normalized
so small steps
make pivotal sense
in place of
large leaps
up and
creative
higher
ascending
peaking
pushing
never more
than this
holding on
trying
to stay
though now
sliding
down going
losing
left over
let down
down down
let it go
too old
to be new
not old enough
to be classic
fog clouds
cold dark
locks you
down
looking
inward
keeping
together
while
the sun
lets out
and melts
what would
otherwise
remain
the same
building up
and tearing down
are two
sides of life
to construct
an ego
or destroy
a construction
to build and build
or let it all go
what else
mr. moon
what else
is there
so soon
so night
you are
tonight
so far
bright night
soft light
so slow
moon’s glow
so say
to the day
where’s my
quiet time
i feel defeated
when i’ve eaten
and know i’ll have
to eat again
going
even past
when you
should have
stopped
i’m spent right now
emptied and over
unable to push
no strength to create
head down
shoulders slumped
scowling
trudging
neither energy
not creativity
visit me
stranded
waiting
to start
again
only
a matter
of time
all i can do
is rest and wait
energy of
a summer
sun that
fills the
room with
light
making it
impossible
to stay
in bed
in the morning
sitting at my desk
in the office
after a long
weekend
out of town
is is difficult
to remember
who i am
and what i do
i pull fragments
of my travel self
left in chicago
to reconstitute
my working self
in san francisco
a banal
blue gray
foggy sky
lit by
your eyes
wild nights
wield signs
of slumber
saying
sleep
is for
the weak
hold on
to wait to say i love you
until knowing what it means
balanced with the tragedy
of never having said it
on a quarter tab
laying on the beach
the ocean called me
taking off my jeans,
flannel, shirt, socks,
and shoes
there were other people
on the beach;
lots of people actually.
it was a nice day.
i took off my clothes
and walked toward the water.
tripping, not conscious
of other people
watching me.
in the water, freezing,
didn’t bother me.
out to waist high
a wave came
i dove in and
under the water
everything ceased to exist. the ego already disassociates on acid. the body can still remain lightly with a subdued awareness of the senses. under freezing water, however, that awareness is obliterated.
there is only the freezing all over. and the roar of water forever. waves crashing above like the world is falling apart.
forgetting to breathe because the art of being underwater takes precedence for my attention. even when my lungs shout, return to the surface, i cannot hear them.
the art of nature at large overwhelming my individual need to survive. it making no difference whether my body, a small part of all this, will rise to the surface and swim back to the beach, or drown here and sink and become one with the ocean that i am part of in one way alive or dead in another.
chicago skyline
scattered sprinkled
with shapes
stretching high
to reach cranes
that then stretch higher
a city stretches
like its habitants
higher longer
more here more
in a new place
seeing new
everyone old
doesn’t see new
not old
like wrinkles
old like
here for a while
having seen
again until
not seeing
new anymore
a tourist
like me
can see
everything
four men
three and me
walking nowhere
meatpacking
chicago brick
rusted steel
lazy walk
looking up
wonder walk
glossy eyes
deep sighs
feeling high
everything
is art
right now
a girl
wearing a white top
and pink pants
a gold watch
two inch heels
leaning back
with her coffee
on a bench
she smiles
at me
i hope
i smile back
she looks away
beautiful
banal i know
but god
so beautiful
sometimes i walk
behind a smoker
to catch the secondhand
and feel less guilty
walking across
a wide open road
feels less like
your pinched down
between buildings
like a narrow street
or a trash can alley
in a jungle concrete
brick and metal and wires
and chipping paint
feels like cuba or spain
cobblestone sidewalk and steps
rust on marble tabletop
in the meatpacking district
now made vintage and hip
voices in the distance
surrounded by restaurants
and light music
folded hands in conversation
heads back laughs
barely brisk enough for jackets
joy that needs cigar smoke
brick walls
stove pipes crawling up
weeds between cobble stones
old packing labels
newer graffiti
on warehouse doors
years of paint
painted over
steel bars on windows
writing is best done
when doing
whatever it is
that you’re writing about
only that
stopping to write
about the thing
would stop the thing
from being done
pastel painted houses
shoulder to shoulder
on up the hill
bordering 280
headed out of the city
an overpass
hills and trees
to the left and right
now the wide open
ocean on the left
and rolling foothills
on the right
white frothy specks
are all that keep
the dark blue black
stoney surface
from smoothness
now buildings
ugly, compared
280 turns inland
into hotels
and complexes
windy today
the trees blowing
even the car
blowing
dirt and construction
under a graffitied
overpass
power lines
connecting
metal frame
skeleton towers
a plane overhead
we must be
getting close
a billboard
for enterprise
something
the cars into
the city
more congested
than the cars
like mine
going out
to the airport
or further south
a missing wallet
sitting on the steps
where i eat lunch
like all the other
unsolved problems
in the world
in a pinch
i am nothing
in a spread
i am all
in a bed
i’ll sleep
in a desk
i’ll learn
in a field
i’ll run
for you
i love
for them
i fight
for ours
i sacrifice
for now
is enough
for when
it’s over
for this
i pray
the clack clack
of the tin can man
transporting cans
from one black
trash bag
to the other white
mesh bag
poetry
is sensual
in the dark
and quiet
i am nothing
in the city
i have
something
to write
always
movement
and noise
from
life forms
both
organic
and
mechanical
all
crammed
together
bodies in
buildings
buildings
on streets
streets
with cars
cars with
bodies
apartments
with beds
bodies
in beds
and on
and on
in the city
walking home
i try to talk
with the sidewalk
and take a break
from myself
watching
my feet
orange paint
marking
electrical wires
underneath
so that
jackhammer man
won’t knock out
power
for the whole block
like last week
shadows
from the black
wire fence
that borders
the ball field
where young
players play
most days
not today
in june
weeds in the cracks
surviving
somehow
giving the city
some life
like the fallen leaves
half of
a ripped ticket
a pink slip
turned over
so i can’t see
what it says
old chewed
bubble gum
black now
stepped on
unchewable
or maybe
you could
black rocks
ran away from
the asphalt mass
covering
the hole
in the sidewalk
surrounded by
orange cones
other foot steps
in cement
that hadn’t dried
now dry forever
pink paint
and white paint
cigarette butts
feces
plastic bag
mayo packet
splattered
beige paint
that missed
the fire hydrant
gum wrappers
broken zip ties
water bottle cap
rustic metal
sewer gate
dirty napkin
crushed
water bottle
navy canvas belt
with metal buckle
looks to be
in good shape
crushed
cardboard
beer case
sidewalks
are alive
scarred
cracked
stepped on
supporting
without asking
for much
just to be
useful
is enough
there are many
unknowns
changing one
will offset the other
stepping carefully
trying to step right
holding one
to let the other go
balancing
like a teeter totter
still one fulcrum
but many beams
everything
in motion
always
moving
other things
that move
other things
and us being
part of it
trying to be the same
or at least
have a name
amidst change
allowing change
when it is right
or good
or perceived that way
so really not minding
the change
and new names
as long as they
are good and right
so floating
and touching lightly
pieces
that touch others
and make up
ourselves
looking into the dark discerning something out of nothing hearing the ahh of silence
standing on the balcony listening to the city at 9:21pm the security man saying something to someone indiscernible a small truck that sounds like a car if not for the tarp hanging, flapping from the back a dog’s nails on the sidewalk leashed to a late night walker the swinging of an ungreased hinge down at the lobby of my apartment building a scooter to weak to be a motorcycle maybe a moped a skateboard’s wheels that rap-rap on sidewalk cracks a semi, sirens farther off the clink of metal on a collar another dog walker swinging, a heavier exterior metal gate more well greased woosh, woosh more cars go by mostly cars cars and people vroom-vroom a rice burner farther off and the sirens still going and a motorcycle this time for sure stronger than the scooter the keys of the security man thrown and caught on a lanyard clink, clink, clink the squeak of his sneakers pacing back and forth a plane, like a propeller not like a car but maybe a car a big semi this one closer brakes squeaking it is early june and brisk my screen sliding shut as i step back inside
what bleeds from poetry when meaningless, rhymeless for what do you read other than newspaper, novel the same that is drunk and wordless yet brilliant a light show in the dark incomprehensibly telling how does a word read without pages how does a lyric sing without song in the night’s light knowing what you can’t see or touch in the dream’s dark hoping after such ethereal much it is all here saying what you swore was said before in wordless ways soft spoken like light knocks at your door
say it so softly says the nay gone night leave it for the day whose job it is by light leave what livened mind’s sparks forth flow from not here, tired eyes need know doldrum
i close my eyes and my mind goes to a cubicle office full of penguins
you must give and let it grow commit and stay put care enough to stick around even when what you planned has changed hold on double down breathe deeply lean forward a little longer not just for yourself commit and risk long term loss for short term gain trust after trust is broken work without longing for future gain commit and stay steady growing older is committing standing when you want to run work and love work and love give what you can all that you can while you still can work and love work and love
my ideas begin and don’t finish like this one
hardwood stretched on lawns like leapt floors for fed well hungry mouths still leave long lights on after hours slept in beds made for dreams return only after days lived enough to tire finally sleep here rest now
get off track get wayward for a second
go go while you are still young and driven beat after beat on hunger forward hope haughty lean into the never ending see past no near desire open after all of it my god the youth that we jeer on only after past that yoke of possibility burns on the inside driving on the outside with elders expecting inching forward after all of it enlivening suicidally overwhelming its newborn bounds god that youth sings and bangs and births god that youth sings
a cloud shadow came up to me today, wordless and dark, and covered me completely. it was bright out at midday and i welcomed the shade. i breathed deeply and we had our moment together and then the cloud shadow was gone.
in a night war knowing that the enemy defeats anything unlike itself
it is a light like this that keeps me lifted, lazy and floating, hoping after songs and young hearts, flying low below the dark sky
i can feel the change at first but then i completely forget what my life was like before the change occurred
a bird may feel more grounded in a ground-like nest
a fish may be better able to breathe in aquatic air
a man may survive in a city constructed like nature
you don’t see old people here you don’t see beer bellies you don’t see kids you don’t see dogs you don’t see people walking slowly you see perfectly slicked hair you see people walking with their headphones in you see jaded, determined faces you see backpacks and handbags, probably containing laptops looking out the window of a coffee shop, watching people walk by on the sidewalk of second street at 8 a.m.
the day belongs to everyone the early mornings and late nights belong to a few
They are subtle the things that make a poem good. So when you edit for something like grammar, you can take away the good thing by accident. Like when someone is healthy according to all physical standards, but their mind or soul aren’t in it—so they really aren’t healthy at all.
The rules of poetry cannot contain the idiosyncrasies of human taste for interplay between words and rhythm; this interplay, at its most subtle depths, can only be felt. You can hear it in the crowd at a poetry reading when everyone says “ah” or lets out a sigh at the same time. Words said differently—slower, choked, quietly—mean something different. This is why, when I try to edit a poem that has come to me in a dream, by applying rules of grammar, it loses the beauty that I don’t completely understand, which has come from my subconscious.
A poem is like a complex math problem—instead of two variables, an independent and a dependent (like all the two-dimensional graphs that we learned in grade school algebra)—there are hundreds of dependent variables: the complexity of a thought, the amount of syllables in a stanza, a natural pause denoted by a comma in the middle of a line, the formatting and how it looks on a page. All these, if independent, might be solvable. But they’re dependent, and changing one changes the other.
If you were a very smart mathematician, you could figure it out. Or you could take the musician’s approach and get blasted drunk and feel your way, stumbling to the solution. These are two separate ways to arrive at the same place. I believe the musician is doing the exact same thing as the mathematician by different means. I also believe that this is a duality which applies to more than just poetry.
I have an urge to write something bad just to prove that all language is good.
THE NEXT SCARE I don’t suppose there was anything really like that where we came from so when we saw it we were scared but not just two minutes later we were looking past it and not even noticing anything other than the next thing to scare us.
put words in some ways and leave silences where they’re due
the dryer stops running having done its job and lets go a click which is the door unlocking —this is my cue to get up and fold the dry clothes. i don’t, however, or at least, not right away. instead, i sit and enjoy the silence in the apartment now that the load has run. but then i hear, another click which is when, i look up confused; because there is only supposed to be one click and it is always the same after the load has run for thirty-six minutes on the “Mixed Loads” setting —I don’t separate darks and lights like I should— so that now, upon hearing the second click, i am perplexed. a dryer is a mechanical thing and can only click as it is made to, and just then, as i had this thought, there was a third click! as if the dryer not only had developed the ability to speak, but now also the ability to read minds, and could hear me degrading it as just a mechanical thing i listened closer and heard now not only the clicks but also the subtle rgg’s and prrt’s that are the same as an athlete saying ahhh after a race or a lawyer saying phew after a case. so i said alright alright and got up off the couch to open its lid smiling smugly and then see its happy belly lit by a dim yellow and displaying for me a perfectly dry mound of clothes. thank you, i said. and just then, two clicks in quick succession, i swear it.
Once you have seen the trick, it is only by great effort that you fool yourself again. trick yourself and get going, then forget the trick; that’s how to get on.
i turn on a dim light; dim at first, then bright once my eyes have adjusted. so i look up at the bright light and say, “who are you?” and he says in reply, “i am the same. it is you who has changed.” i search for a dimmer light to achieve actual dimness. finding none, I settle with the bright light aforementioned.
cooking up some good mind adding in quality ingredients shaking, mixing, stirring heating, cooling, letting sit tasting, testing, adding
cooking up some good mind like stirring a pot full of thoughts that mix and change each other and make a whole thing that’s different than any of its parts, turning up the heat and then turning it down, melting to allow joining together, cooling to solidify that joining, waiting with the oven light on watching a thought arise and probably satisfaction for you and your friends and many more if it’s really good and big enough. waiting to see what it will be, like what you picked out of the cookbook or something different with your secret sauce.
things lose their color as they tend to, all depending on your memory of what came before, specifics combining into unnoticed generalities.
the feeling of need for something new, the feeling of having been here too many times before, eyes narrowed and blocking out the periphery, focusing only on what is expected.
I wish we could have come and gone without the kite strings higher with the wind and higher until there wasn’t any turning back and we were closer to another planet than we were to the earth that we left from and so began a weird alien life where, as we got farther away from ten fingers and oxygen, we got closer to another life we didn’t recognize, but this was the risk we ran when we cut our kite strings and we knew that before so we swallowed our situation and put on alien suits to play along.
how much do you get out for what you put in especially when homeward arrows beckon stronger bows for a target that exceeds in space the hunger of the archer's quiver
what goes in these nights fighting age the malaise of youths eldered and all the seeing of light day consumed by nothing dark night fight these nights dark going elding youths no malaise not yet not while hope of the days light’s seen still beyond night’s appetite for nothing still beyond gnashing dark teeth like shadows inching elding into the day’s light at dawn these nights that fight the dread dark coming fight while youthful hope still lingers fight the night bring light here lighter hope the hope that brings near wishers dream a dream beyond night’s nothing young dear sweet bedmate keep beauty in these nights whence light once rushed hoped in hearts as youths tend to kept in sight of the day’s touch hold me hear dear sweet young beauty tell me what goes in these nights fighting
most of the time, we do the same thing as everyone else, completely unoriginal, if not our contemporaries, then someone’s done it before, but sometimes we break through, and really get into it, and hoot and holler and say, i’ve done it, and revel in the sense of pushing the frontier, all on our own, until we look around and realize that we’re all on our own
a light switch in the dark after sleeping two light switches actually one on top of the other lighted barely in the dark not by themselves of course but also, not even by the light they control in the bedroom but from the light in the bathroom controlled by another switch that I now see when I wash my hands after sleeping which drives me to write about a light switch after some time unproductive
such silence after the noise of the refrigerator working to freeze water or whatever a refrigerator does whirring in the night making noise that you don’t realize is noise until the click that turns it off and then real silence at 3:25 a.m, no cars outside oh, there went one on California street outside but now silence again just the low hum of nothingness that makes me wonder if silence has a sound oh, there went a plane I think, something above it is gone now and the hum again no, her breathing against my chest always a noise to fill the silence if you really listen
pushing over boxes to sit with my back against the couch in the morning light that comes in through the window something changed last night i feel better now noticing things i didn’t before appreciative for small things for no reason this is what i forget when i feel sad and lost
funny how many times i’ve deleted a much edited poem and just supplanted the original messy as it was; after much editing you end up removing its idiosyncrasies that make it what it was
Raindrops are tears from heaven that cry for another day that passes as your divine beauty remains mortal.
Forest fires are blazes of passion from trees that do not share your form and can’t love you even for all the desire in the world.
Avalanches are the strength of mountains that rush down their slopes to reach you but always in vain.
Sunny days are most akin to your beautiful face that I can’t wait to kiss again.
how much goes
in between cars
as we sit on
the overpass
dangling our legs
over the highway
counting
the seconds
sometimes much
sometimes little
until the traffic jam
during rush hour
when our work day
is done too
and we get up
off the overpass
to walk on the
sidewalk home
she makes me write poetry
that the world can read,
so she can see
what they think of me;
otherwise i would write
only for myself,
and go off alone.
i wish she would
see it one her own,
what only i see;
but this is expecting
too much of her;
she will see it
through them,
so i write
for them.
i only late became an artist,
once i got to a world where i could;
if i could have started earlier,
how far i would have gotten
sometimes i check my notepad,
in hopes that some poetry
has written itself for once
in a hungover life
of fragmented realities
which is real if any?
even the the one world
where you create your noose
out of thin air doesn’t
end up hanging
Some genius and mysticism
is just the common folk
not understanding and
not admitting it.
Why worry about war
if not to sit in
the peace between?
I spend my time
working, just
to rest again.
I wait in
between meals
to get hungry.
i came about it backwards,
rather than one being one,
and the next to be next,
i picked up arbitrarily
a random piece of the whole
and asked, what could
this otherwise be
sure you save some now,
but how much have you
wasted before?
i wish to treat
serious matters seriously,
and have the power to do so,
though i was born
into trivial circumstances,
while my understanding
of both “serious” and “trivial”
are relative and perhaps misguided,
so that acting
is a precarious notion
fall leaves
on a winter tree
across the road
in colorado
wave goodbye
all teary-eyed
in lieu of what
you promised
to whimper when
it was then
that everything
went awry
it is in the passing from one moment to the next each of which i fill with the results of my desires. the desires themselves, however, i can never remember; only the results of them. so when i end up in a mess and feel the desire to change it i can’t remember if it was that same desire for change that got me here in the first place.
All around me are traps and snares and only one way is the right one and it’s not straight so always I must keep my eyes wide open and awake or I’ll move when I’m supposed to stay put or turn left when it’s the other way and just stopping or not going forward aren’t options until that’s what the right way tells me.
i seem to have all these needs; but i don’t really, have any of them. so when i get a start and move on in the general direction i’m happy enough watching the scenes go by but soon enough i’ve no idea where i’m from or where i’m going and no real actual driving needs to really force me to keep going so then i get all confused and look around and ask some bystanders where the heck am i and they shrug me off and pick up their things to keep going in their own direction; they seem to have needs at least, they walk so serious with their heads down, they must. but me no not me, so i pick up the things i don’t have and head off in all directions at once.
Go ahead and bomb off you’re gonna be alright, everything is safe and okay here, you needn’t worry, what you need you have: there is food in the fridge and tea in your cup, you have a safe bed right there and the door is locked and nobody’s around.
Go ahead and bomb off, just don’t think of anything outside this room and if you start then remember to breathe, you’ll be alright, you great big baby you’ll be fine
Go ahead and bomb off, cover up the clocks and don’t think about time and just act thankful as hell and hang out in the apartment like your own world apart from everything else.
Go ahead and bomb off, today is your day, bomb off, it’s alright, read this if you get worried, everything is okay, breathe if you start to think, don’t think about your identity or your conception of yourself; just think of what your senses are taking in
Go ahead and bomb off you’ll be alright, when you come back you’ll still be yourself and pick up right where you left off and might not even remember but the thing is you’ll remember it now and it’ll be you for as long as it lasts.
All around us sharp edges were breaking down our motivations to be anything that might bleed past the cuts. Most of us didn’t have the guts to try but if we would’ve we’d have known that the edges weren’t real, or at least not permanent in their places. They weren’t like normal kitchen knives that would cut you for sure but instead more like prickles on a pineapple or the needles on a porcupine—full of dynamic life and happy to have a conversation with you about their place in the world if you’d only ask. But we never ask most of the time because each of us has had our slip with a kitchen knife and shudders not only to remember the cut and the pain but moreso the drop of blood in the stew that the whole family was counting on so that our pain is twofold and only the first is selfish whereas the second has to do with our place in society and even if we were to brave the pain we wouldn’t want to be outcasted beyond the edges.
I forget what I can’t do nothing with until I catch myself in the double negative and remember it’s good for something and scramble in my sieve brain for a trace just to get on the right track or it’ll really eat me up for having tossed out such a sweet save.
Now I know I always come back. Nothing seems so bad anymore knowing there’s always a bounce instead of a crash at the end of these falls. Like I imagine it is to jump out of a plane that’s very high up. Terror in the beginning, yes. But then boredom. And after boredom, interest in the air around you and what you can see and what it is like to fall now that the fear and pain of it is commonplace. So I’m sick with dread and a split head but really just thinking what is it for a head to split while I wait for everything to put itself back together and redeliver me to the paradise I can only stand for some time until the same effect takes over and it’s no longer a paradise but just a place where I think of what it is for a para to dice. Nothing is anything really, at least to you, until you make of what it isn’t.
I don’t suppose there was anything really like that where we came from so when we saw it we were scared but not just two minutes later we were looking past it and not even noticing anything other than the next thing to scare us.
I wish we could have come and gone with the wind without the kite strings higher and higher until there wasn’t any turning back and we were lower to another planet than we were high from earth and so began a weird alien life where as we got farther away from five fingers and oxygen we got closer to another life we didn’t recognize but this was the risk we ran when we cut our kite strings so we swallowed our situation and put on our aliens suits to play along.
At the height of it I wish you could have seen what wasn’t ever less than the bright flashing that we couldn’t close our eyes from when we were kids and thought to ourselves that someday we would get there to what the adults do in their private hours and against the rules that are seemingly only to protect us young ones that can’t protect ourselves until we grow up and it’s all there laid out and some take too much all at once and don’t make it but others can balance and come back again and again.
Such a delicate system of glass trusses sure shimmers but holds for not much more than the light. Even if you build softly and slowly the higher you go there is a risk run of breaking before you reach the sun.
My greedy heart hopes haughty Hunkered stars reach out For the first time in a million years Beating blood meets far away light Through eyes that shimmer Stained-glass windows In between A high-ceilinged church And a jungle of primal life At first my beating heart complains And wants to go back to the wild Once I manage to wrestle it down I read a missal and hymn-listen It beats slower and learns There’s more than one god to beat for
This whole day I’m watching a flower, with its outer petals spread wide open, like a father crouched down to receive his child leaping into his arms. The inner petals, however, are still closed like a bulb. They remain this way for as long as I look, shutting out the world the from the flower’s nectar. Open, only so far, receiving some. The deeper parts, the heart of it, closed still. I wonder to myself, who hurt this flower? Who drank selfishly from the nectar before its inner walls closed? And how much courage did this little flower muster? Just to re-open its outer petals. I am the sun, watching this flower. I will watch and ray down and tell my cloud friends to rain but never storm, to let the little flower drink without drowning. Hope, I do, that the little flower opens. Watch, I will, and even if she doesn’t, love, will ray down.
The homeless man says, “The first part is you have to go somewhere that knows.” That’s all he said, to nobody, as people passed by on the street, nobody listening. I think to myself, is there any difference between my poetry and the ramblings of this homeless man? I don’t think there is, really.
The homeless man speaking poetry all day and nobody listens. Maybe he was a poet with a home at one point. Still a poet now but without a home. Maybe one of the best ever. Maybe he was too good and his poetry consumed him along with the drugs. No one will ever know, because nobody listens.
Roundabout the lights Through the speckled streets Air and eyes and simple lies Here we are in Harlem
Poetry does something to you. It changes your mind and makes you consider more.
I go out to get a poem. I meet people and shake hands and dance. I look at things and tilt my head to change my perspective. I lean off the edge and feel danger and see if new words pop into my head to describe the feeling. I let myself dabble in love if only to get a poem of pain out of it in the end. I hold a leaf and let it scratch down some words on my palm. I get home and go to sleep, too drunk to think of poetry, then wake up with a mind full of it at four in the morning. There are no poems I won’t consider. There are many parts of the world I haven’t seen.
I feed contents into my mind like ingredients into a pot of stew. They mix and mingle and seep into one another. As long as the ingredients are each individually appetizing, the whole stew will turn out.
Similarly, poetry that visits me in the night or whole stories that tell themselves in a daydream or bits of arguments in philosophy that make sense all of a sudden—these are composites of my readings, experiences, and thoughts.
The order in which these regurgitate in my writings doesn’t so much matter as does the quality of each individual mental input so that no matter what combination, my writings are composites of ingredients that are high-quality individually.
About a hundred dollar halfway, not even a head start, if I haven’t dug my toes into the cliff face notching my progress on the way up.
My economic ego tries to squeeze out and run dry every other part of me. I stop, shocked, and question myself, who is who here? Who is sacrificing what to whom, and why? I have an idea that the mob has caught me and fitted me into a cog, albeit with handsome reward, but this is not the Self at work here; this is a social trick born of a mass of animals, no single one of which knows why he participates, other than that he is satisfied in some way by it.
I breathe in through my nose and engage a mechanism whereby my mind is emptied.
I don’t know enough words to write a novel. That’s why I write the same words over and over, just in different orders. I call them poems.
So it leaves me like this So it goes they say So and sew it lightly Duck darkness into grey
Here alone it hurts me herald hairpin lies hoping during the worst we hold on for goodbye.
Melancholy whispers silence shouts somehow I listen closely for the silence if only I'd bask in the quiet noise.
Beats faster, my heart. Melts in the rain, my art.
Everything is out of sorts, says my control. Everything is alright, says my peace.
Split down the center of a formerly indivisible line, these become two sides of your wonder wall. Not too far apart, as their magnetism still draws the two sides together, you nestle yourself deep inside like a child in between couch cushions. It’s not long until, something from the outside world, catches your attention. You look up to see, a symphony, for you and the other split cushion dwellers. So you start to say, with less dismay, this really isn’t that bad. And the same magnetism that sucked you down and in, spits you back out, into the world that welcomes you home.
Whether it was or wasn’t, doesn’t matter now. When the past is gone, it’s gone. When the ships have sailed, they’ve sailed. When the meadowlark moans you must crane your neck and look up into the tree and see. Your mind and memory have failed you with facades you’ll never fully realize. Your eyes can only show you what there is. Drink this and only this. Lean in after the sight of it and let it swallow you whole, until you can no longer tell the difference between yourself and what you see. When the past is gone, it’s gone. Let it go. Open your eyes and see what you have left.
Spatial things are hard to grab at when their essence slips and melts together so you end with a primordial soup running through your fingers and you’re asking yourself, what’s the difference? Between this and that. What option do we have anyway? So choosing generally between a positive bright hue versus a dark trudging and dwelling upon weakness or misfortune or whatever else.
Somewhere from the night she visits me. Lady love and poetry when I need her most comes in through my cracked door and sleeps at my feet and waits for me to wake. Sometimes she’s not so patient and tickles my toes in the middle of the night. I wake and smile to see her like Wendy would smile at Pan. Oh lady, I’ve missed you, I’ll say. It’s been so long here in this factory world with its gears and mechanics, can we please please go off to your world tonight? Without saying a word she grabs my hand and holds back time like a bedsheet. Space and the mechanical world still seem to be there but the light is so bright that I can’t tell. We fly in the timeless night until I’m all empty. When lady love and poetry places me back in the mechanical world to charge my primitive batteries. And I wait for her to return.
Just when I think the poetry has dried up, and all I’ve left in my forlorn life is a trudging forward, just then I’m up in the night with flowers bursting from my chest. No soil beneath my rib cage and no sunlight in my room, but nevertheless here are these flowers brightening my midnight life and making smile a face that hasn’t in a while.
God, life is good and everything is alright, I tell myself. You just have to go through the bad times, I guess. Necessary lows for the highs. And as I’ve gotten older I get better at remembering this. A paradox where I can still enjoy the high knowing there will be a low coming, and paying my dues in the lows without hoping too much for the highs.
It’s only sometimes when I’m like a kid again and I get so silly high that I forget about anything and blow so much hot air into my own ballon that when I’ve run out of breath the fall back to earth has a hard crash landing. And when I meteor here, my impact drives me so deep that at first I know it is temporary but at some point so far beneath the surface I start to wonder whether I’ll ever rise again. So much time in the dark, cold cavern, and deeper, darker all the while, I can’t really help it. But boy, when I’m high up there, I don’t know if I’d change it for the world.
Let’s go through it, unsure of how we’ll come out, this is all we’ve got. One direction being no different than another, the only real difference is our speed, if we are to control how much ground we cover. So that the only choice we ever really had was to hurtle headlong into the furnace. The sun mooning up at any distance we charge into. And the moon sunning from the source. Your heart’s center was really the only thing that ever beat for me. No matter how much sense school ever made to me as a boy, I was always bound to chase after your heart.
I can’t look at a tapestry, too much, so I look at a nailhead, but even that starts to break itself apart after I’ve stared for a while. Things hold together only if you glance and shortly go on glancing at something else. Otherwise you see that nothing stays the same, and everything is entangled; hard to tell where one thing stops and the thing next to it begins, like a child’s watercolor that melts at the edges of each brushstroke.
Iced stuff over the fires that could have burnt anything but this. The contrast, miraculous. To see her fight to not fall into this love. No, any one but this one. For though surely it’s flames would melt her away into ecstasy if she gave into it. There would be nothing left of her—or him, for that matter. A love that destroys, and means to destroy. A building up that tears down. A creative destruction. A melting burning.
Tell me things, about when they weren’t like this, when you had to dress a dandelion just to hold down the fort for a night’s cabin. Man, I miss those nights, even the ones that have yet to dusk, that might resemble nights passed, in which case I can’t wait. Nights are like dying, which means they are also like living. I am always torn like a sunset. I want it to start but I don’t want it to be over.
Trails cut into the hillside like scars; looking out at the open ocean I’m not sure which side is the sky.
Woken on walked up whimple washed waves these double yous keep coming back to me.
We made it and forgot that we made it so we got caught up in chasing something new until we chased that down too, so now we wake up every morning not knowing what day it is.
I need a life where I can share.
I need open space for my deep breaths and soil for my roots.
I need pages for my words, the ones I write and the ones I read.
I need human bodies to animate the hearts and souls I long for, both mine and others.
I need canvas for what I paint and what I see.
I need stage for when I perform and for when I’m in the audience.
I need a pillow and a dream world to rest and let my tired mind roam.
I need a plot of land to rest forever, eventually.
Swallow the silent words you will. Whisper softly foregone fables.
Seems quite open, everything does. In a way that heralds a hue of austerity outside of what you’d normally expect from the cool night air rolling in through your quarter-cracked door. ]The openness wouldn’t tell of itself other than the secondary qualities like air passing through and the absence of any closedness tattling. With a flow like that pouring into my nostrils it was too hard to stay awake and once the openness crept into my dreams I didn’t know anything anymore.
Mindful on a morsel when you’re starving, but what about on a mouthful when your stomach is full? Can the fortunate glutton be mindful as an ascetic monk?
Woah it’s like a wonder world where the edges melt and all the exacticity of a normal woken up walk along isn’t so straight and narrow with no room to even barely breathe, no, not like that. Here is what we need and what we were meant to have until the order that was meant to give frame for the beauty ended up corrupting what it was supposed to protected by rounding its soft corners into edges for the advancement of a mission that we thought was in line with our needs but really just served to trade short-term pleasures for an eternal happiness that we were meant to have all along.
When it really doesn’t want to be that way, so much I push off and forgot to relent even when my sanity is shouting no. At the margins of what keeps me together even though I want to fall apart all the time; it has to be in the right way where I beak open into everything else and not just out into a non-discernible oblivion.
Looking back at where I was to where I am now makes me believe in really how far we can progress; even with all my stumbles and detours I’m so much further now than before.
It’s nothing except for what it is right there in front of your face no tomfoolery or window dressings just an open door straight into heaven so good it kills you.
I try to memorize her freckles like a sky of stars so when I’m not with her I can close me eyes and place the constellations —two on the upper inside of her left breast, one also on the inside but slightly higher on her right, and a trio in the center of her collarbone; like they were placed there by design.
So sober was a winter want of deluge and decay over off and oblong waffs so cigarette smoke’nt breathe. Behind closed doors and smoggy pours my good girl braids her hair.
I write poetry on my iPhone and everything is great; I wait for a time when it won’t be when I won’t be as creative and in love when the same lights will seem darker and the same routine won’t be as happily productive. I try to breathe deep and drink it in now; God, the sunlight looks good coming in through the window and reflecting off the walls and my tanned skin. It’s because everything has made upward progress, I think; not so much up and down over time more up and up and up lately.
Some of the time a small slice of pie is enough. Some of the time the whole pie isn’t enough.
I try to make it last eating slow and taking my time but then my food gets cold and I realize you just have to take it as it comes all you can change is the depth of your focus.
A hat is a halfway open opportunity to cover up upside down or fill up right side up a head of brains or a bucket of rain a top for a party or a little garden.
Holy half a bowl of soup chicken noodle doopdy doop warmthy well and woken up thank God I have some in my cup.
Walking ways where no trails tread early up and off to bed so long as the dream doe dances man oh man God I miss Kansas.
When the window talks and the raindrops knock curled up under covers wearing my brother’s socks the sheets are made of silk —not really; they’re cotton, I think— but they might as well be silk and everything else that’s perfect because that’s how everything feels on a rainy Sunday morning like this.
In my eyes in my mirror are my selves.
When it wasn’t what was wanted by the violent crowd my knees began to tremble and wonder who I was. For if not love does garner, what I wish to say, where my words fall on fertile ears, an alien home I do not know.
Sickle topple lophagus let it swallow loud sopple so that words can sing from my tired mouth. Windows washing waffle woes whence where theirs have worn there rips rife like twilight nights what queer clowns waved asorn.
Poems have filled my head ever since my trip by the river with Ford. Like all the words in the world were held in a jar and that jar were turned upside down into my sleeping mind, so I wake up in the middle of the night with all this out-of-order nonsense that I can’t help but think sounds important so I have to get out of bed and write it down.
This is the third night this has happened. I hope it doesn’t stop for another week or so, until the whole jar is emptied, even though my mind spills over already and what’s in my mind tonight displaces what was there the night before. I like to have this non-stagnant flow. It gives me a sense of freedom and creation.
I wanted to wait and watch and see what would change. I’d hoped that more would’ve by now.
I’ve seldom time to look deep down. I’ve cared about what I can.
I stepped low and let the bass in my feet rumble. I looked into a like face and loved again. I wanted what was taken for the last time. I’ve cared about my queen as I could.
Sometimes I think to myself, what if this is it? Then I’m hit with such a gust of moreness that first I try to catch my breath and second I feel foolish for thinking before that there might be nothing more.
Don’t carry it all on your shoulders, welcome the world into you. Let the earth and wind be your strength, books and sages your mind, children and lovers your heart, stars and mushrooms your soul, beauty your eyes, fir trees your feel, stories your memory.
Let it all grow and change outside of yourself. Hold only what is given to you, only long enough to give it away. You are a sieve that must occasionally be turned upside down and emptied even of what you’ve caught. Let everything else flow through and do not long for it to come again. More will come.
Spending time with a wasting whine that waxes off not on; until there clears some subtle fear that what was wasn’t there. Only then where compass spins and map men know no longer, does truth reveal what hearts can't feel and only moon minds ponder.
When you don’t really know what you want to say about dragging out a paramount, keep it consistent and nag a lake for the fishes on bottom to bubble up a complaint that makes enough sense to rally the lily pads against the dam.
It seemed that we weren’t really going anywhere except for what was moving all around us such that a certain light danced in between the cracks in space that we were constantly falling into, laughing all the way.
It felt to me like we were on a trajectory that started and ended with confusion and chaos no matter how many times the sun rose consistently in the morning and the river flowed the same direction, the order in the universe still wasn’t enough to sustain a sense of meaning that we could wrap our heads around and get on living in the same direction of hope for a future that wouldn’t let us down like all the times when we thought we had something but it turned out to be proven wrong by science or just simply forgotten so that where we’ve ended up is a group of individuals trying to figure out for themselves and I can’t help but think there are a special few who are getting close.
Well thank God you’re here because the stool just wouldn’t take no for an answer and if I had to sit down then I might as well have a conversation and the stool wasn’t telling me anything other than “sit down, sit down” over and over. Even when I prodded I only heard a little about the wood he was made of and that was it so after that I really needed a human conversation.
Went a while away from here just to see what I couldn’t before, so mucked up with soot in my eyes and the chimney unswept so that all the once new cheer of a morning fire got bogged down in normalcy like a leftover icy night.
Little did I know that the walk wouldn’t be so long if the glass hadn’t shattered all over the desert sand so that you couldn’t step anywhere barefoot without knowing what might cut you, so floating down the river was our only choice.
The whole travel home I feel like my body knew the way and carried itself while my mind traveled elsewhere—home with other travelers leaving the airport, into empty crumpled snack bags on the plane, in the silence in between jet engines, hoping there was water still in my cup. Now I’m home and wonder how I got here, my body sitting on my bed that it missed and my mind in so many other places.
So it’s like there was a time when it couldn’t be said in so many words even though that wasn’t what you wanted to think about the flowers that grew outside your window despite the lack of sun. Grow they did and learned to talk in ways the sun never taught them, supposedly from what they saw inside the window.
I saw another hand holding a phone in the car window; I thought it was mine. My ego dissolution remains, like my mind could use another body just the same.
On his phone, he’s reading something. I read sometimes too. Maybe it is me, I’m not sure.
Waxed wheels on lighted asphalt just waiting to rip a tread in the dashed lines off to a point in the dark pinched distance where other racers wait saying, “Come on, catch up.”
Grip the steering wheel, but not too tight. You can’t let them know you’re trying. Lean back and careen into the dark night.
Advertising billboards and nightlight street signs. A return to the city and all the buildings that look like new. A shower and a clean return to routine. Slipping back into what I’ve done to figure out what I haven’t still, then I’ll take a car back to the airport again and the billboards will say something new.
Sneaky regal remedies for slum-born sickness hoping it will go away if the shacks and lean-tos are far enough from the palace. It’s a forgotten thing about kings and queens that they forgot themselves that you and I and prying eyes will seed a thought of destruction.
Whimper whistle wash simple supply squash midnight raves and lunes mutter mistletunes so that the kids can’t say when parents went away and bedtime stories stopped.
Epic animal sights after four beer flights seeing eyes their whites crying flies and mites only simple slow powder soft as snow and I would say there are fewer marble jars.
Suppose it weren’t a sort of trick they played and all was meant to help you where what seemed so terrible in the moment would turn out good if you’d let it but you’re so focused on seeing things as two that are really only one and that one is good just for the sake of being a teacup tootsie in the dark dreary space that conspired but failed to keep out the all-prevailing one good that grew from deep inside it in the beginning.
On top of tickle topple knots dreamed of dropping dribble clots hoped it wouldn’t play this way and lived to fight another day last and lest the sun does shine for you and I and bubble wine drink and choke and sober up slit and cut and burble slurp dripple dropple durble durp.
Holy how long have you been listening, glistening from the tree tops above, where my musical notes don’t reach, and your ears are shut out from what everyone hears, here where there’s a community of like-minded individuals, powerful like the mob, or there where it’s all one all you, lonely if not for the unique magic that you create for yourself.
Come back to us dear, we miss you so badly as we miss anyone else, come back and hear the headless harken, the waves that don’t break, save the lack for a beach, the slack for a rope that hangs itself, the self same love that hands its own shoulders, and all for what you wanted but never found out there alone, come back to us dear, you’ll be safe here.
I feel full in the sense that I am empty. I’ve let it all go and it’s out there. More than I could've held within myself. And now there's more space to let more in.
When I want a remedy Sip and sweet and see Like a bumble bee There’s no relief
Up along the water skies I left a little letter. It said that so was what you know and nothing would get better. So I was scared without you there and and started to expect. That what was next would carry less but keep us light and lifted.
White roofed in green tall trees I wonder about who lives there. So when wonder weighs what won’t be held it’s hard to keep it quiet. Why don’t you lead with what you see and just let me follow. The grass is here the water too so nature's sights will wile.
Apple whites in starry night that fickle fights do fumble. Up and all the leaves do fall that tear my heart asunder. So please do pray that all these days have meaning. Other wise my solemn eyes might find a reason not to.
Keep me up all night alright I get it but you don’t have to be such a door about letting people pass through and just get to where they’re going when they might even give you a nice wave if you’d let ‘em but you’re so stuck on being closed all the time and forcing people to pay tribute to your function when you could just do what you’re supposed to and pay it no mind and save your energy for staying open as long as possible.
When I just start a sentence and it makes at least some sort of sense it’s like rolling a ball down a hill where I really only need that first push and then the momentum takes over where I’m not even thinking of the real world anymore and I’ve lifted off into this elevated plane where the words all still exist but they don’t have to be used like usual anymore.
They’re free to relate to one another like they’re all meeting for the first time and being polite and not trying to make assumptions where each of them belongs so you end up with run-on sentences and too many conjunctions and in a sense you’ve wasted all your time up there on the elevated plane but in another sense it’s the only time worth spending, where you’re saying everything for the first time and actually experiencing whatever it is before you say it instead of the other way around.
Hear and ear, see and eye, feel and feet —these are similar words.
In suckle nights In fickle fights A tooth, a ring, A beating
When it comes to pass that all the mass was really just a wobble.
I lay awake and suppose there isn’t anything I could have done differently with a day like this one which happened to be full of all the things with which a day is usually filled except for the feeling that anything was really done that hadn’t been done before.
That feeling irks the god in me. I let it go; content to lay here in my bed at night and breathe it all away. Tomorrow is a new day and my memory has gotten so bad recently that I rarely remember what I was worrying about the day before. I was worried about this until I realized that most of my problems aren’t really worth solving. They’ll sort themselves out or come up again slightly more dire further down the road and I’ll have to deal with them then but there are only a few of these that come up again.
Most of my problems don’t need dealing with right away. It’s only that other people don’t have it so good that irks me about this. Not everyone can lay up in their bed and just breathe and be safe and fed. So sometimes I think I’ve worked out a good system for dealing with my own problems but then I think I better get started on everyone else’s.
It gets messy when you consider some people create their own problems. It’s the ones that really had no choice that I want to help first. But then again I consider maybe the people who create their own problems don’t have a choice either.
It’s much easier to get excited about poetry on the drug high. Working on the novel requires more precision like an exact science.
I go to this other world, I’m addicted to it. So that the real journey and true test of my life is making the journey back. The other world is toxic in the most sweet way. It is entropy and chaos. It is also creativity and love. I know it will kill me someday. The length of my lifetime will be determined by how many return journeys I can make.
When I return back to reality, the real reality that I have learned to stop calling “real,” or at least not any more “real” than my beloved other world. But this reality, of names and concepts, is what sustains my physical body. The principal commodity in this reality is a very certain kind of glue that keeps all my molecules together and maintains the cohesion of my sense of self. I huff on this glue, walking in straight lines on the sidewalk, learning and obeying the laws of nature, being careful and avoiding danger, eating and sleeping enough. I huff and huff until I’m strong and together enough to travel. At which point I step off the sidewalk and the earth tips upside down so I fall through gravity into outer space.
Out here, in my beloved other world, which I should stop calling “other” if I have stopped calling reality “real,” a new creative force pulls me in all directions. It is only the glue that keeps me together. I revel in being stretched, and right before my molecules are spread over the entire universe, right before I achieve omnipresence and thus make permanently impossible the return journey to the reality of sidewalks and safety. That is when, with all my strength, I pull myself together and return.
I go through stages. If I can keep from killing myself in the dark, I’m a god when the light hits.
You were fire when you were born, you must relax when you let go.
The sound of sprinklers The smell of fresh-cut grass The feel of humid air Seeing the distant horizon over flat plains Remembering what it was like to grow up here And how much has changed Listening to the priest’s homily and not believing a word of it So different from a liberal San Francisco The bedrooms are dark and quiet My sister is so young and excited My parents are getting old My brother can beat my dad in a wrestling match now My mom wants me to get married
I went to walk along but when I did it wasn’t enough just to come and go as I pleased so when it broke down and the rough and tumble cut my teeth then I knew it was time to go like before all the nonsense of the flood that overtook my life in those days and left out all the parts of me that I thought mattered so I didn’t know anymore what to do with all the purpose-driven decisions now broken open by the emotional feelings and art that I didn’t understand but loved so much; I guess the true problem was that I wanted so badly to be God or at least not to die so that anytime I was confronted with my weaknesses or evidence of my mortality then I started to run in the opposite directions and away from my problems where I could at least get some satisfaction from my pursuit of the meta and existential Truth that I wouldn’t ever get and really only ever landed and dressed it in a worldly motivation for girls to love me and read my poetry and fuck away my fear of dying.
I remember the times that a name was “on the tip of my tongue,” as they say. I remember ideas that I had in the shower but forgot to write down after I got out and dried off. I remember what it’s like to be in bed and in love, but not really. I really only remember the generals, and not nearly everything. I really only remember that I have forgotten.
For a while I ran from it, across space and time. When I realized it would be the same, everywhere and everywhen, then I started to make progress.
When it came time to decide what to do, I realized that everything I had already done had led to where I was and I liked where I was. So I kept on going, and here I am, having decided that what I'll do is what I've done.
In the fatigue of our own minds, we saunter and falter.
I got to a point where what I already knew was enough and I wanted to leave what was left about which to still be curious.
I wonder about when to stay and when to go when to reap and when to sew. When to laugh up a daffodil and when to cry down an ocean sky. For me it seems that all is two save what is one save me and you.
When I walk away the things you tend to say make me feel alright enough to stay the night. But when the morning comes as it always does my heart grows light and again begins our plight.
I just hope it was the freedom you first mentioned which we were after all this time. Otherwise it seems we may have slipped into an accidental bondage whilst chasing after a breakage thereof.
Dreams are like poems insofar as I do not know where they come from, only that they resemble places I've been and things I seem to've known at one point or another.
I wake up to nearly the same day as yesterday and wonder about what we could do in one day if we really wanted to.
i like to find i've opened time and made it big so it doesn't matter anymore i like to hear the clamor clear and really start to listen i like to hope beyond hope that after this there is a this still to be but then again i start to sin and stumble which is when i like to find i've opened time and made it big so it doesn't matter anymore
as well as it was with you here i'm just as good without you near
Poetry is best read with courage and a bit of coffee. Not only must it be studied and require a certain amount of intellectual work form the reader (hence, the coffee). But it must also be emotionally invested in, and allowed to play in one’s own past experiences, and so the courage. It is not like an entertaining novel, easily lighted through before bed; nor is it like a thesis, requiring only the powers of the mind.
That people go through their lives this way or that way without ever these other this's and that's.
These are the arts I created for some times, and these are those for the others.
I want to experience it like it's my first and last; first, with all the curiosity of a newborn baby, and last, with all the gratitude of an old dying man.
I consider that it is only myself that is hindering myself; so my latter self says to my former self: come on, let's get going.
It can't be what it is if you're still scared of what it might become.
How we will do things with another that we would never do on our own, like running along in the forest and getting into the ice cold river when we get there.
How to enjoy the time that is without worrying about what will be, when the time that is, is only so, relative to what will be. I lay here on a beautiful Saturday afternoon smelling eucalyptus and seeing light come in through the shades. I want this to last forever but think about Monday. I wonder about when to go and when to stay. I think it’s about time I rest; and that’s the scariest thought I’ve ever had.
She leaves. I eat. I watch a movie. I wonder. What to do now? What could be better? How can I ever go higher? After laying there perfectly lazy all morning with her. I couldn't care about my work or to wake up and make coffee. Smelling eucalyptus and seeing light come in through the shades. How ever to go higher.
When you think you would not mind dying if you could only ... once more.
There's a period of life, in between coming of age, and getting old; when young enough to see, hear, and feel; and old enough to cherish and understand; and if you blink, you'll miss it; with healthy body and wise mind, you can keep your eyes open.
I didn't just get moved into this; I got up above and picked it. But I wonder if my having gotten up above in the first place, was moved so by something else. I want to say it's all me but I'm starting to believe it's everything else of which I'm thankful to be part.
I need the newness. I can't stand to settle down and sit still. I need the first night she sleeps over, and the adventure to a new part of the world, and a skill not yet mastered. Thank god there is enough, so I'll never have to face my fear of there being nothing more.
Move with the momentum; and if there is none, create a mass, too large, to be ignored by gravity, and start it to roll, and pick up momentum, leveraging the powers already at play, all around.
I don't even think of tomorrow. What for? It is just another today.
On the 6th floor, which happens to be the roof, in the open air, on a sunny day, somewhere in San Francisco, I scratch my head and sigh; what of the world haven’t I seen? And when will I get there?
We needn’t have it all so much and so fast. You can slow down the things that matter without losing their attention. There is more there so it doesn’t thin when spread out.
It's on a good day, the whole world seems like art, and I want to photograph everything. It's on a bad day, I constantly say, what else? And miss all of it in front of my face.
I have a little more free time than I need; but if I had to pay for it, or saw what I was missing, then I wouldn't have enough.
I'm wary of the whole thing like it could all at once jump alive and grab me.
Here I am there I was where will I go
Lily locked into the level prince and prance about the petal
And we knew it would happen, but it didn't matter, we had to do what we came to.
Woken on walked up waves never I've seen better days.
We'll never understand each other fully; we'll never even understand ourselves fully.
Your brow is furrowed, she says, it's been like that all day.
Sip tree Blurred soul
When all of it falls apart and you seem as you are here I am always.
When we speak in our own odd unknown language so that each word stays up and out all alone unaveraged into common words that are expected undrowned by what is supposedly already known.
I lay along the lily layered walls I begin to see and touch and fall
I get up and out of it and see the moving pieces and switch back and forth between focusing and not focusing on the pieces that constitute my Self.
The city makes you; you just gotta get there.
It doesn’t matter what I say or what the critics say; because what goes down in history is what does.
Lately has been so much I just sit here wide-eyed, shocked by the excitement.
I have some capitalist values, like the inclination to break things because I can get more of them.
It was all of it still as it was from the start; alas, here I lay, dead, buried with my art, never having gotten hold of it.
A utopia is subjective, of course. This is mine. Not necessarily my mind’s nor my soul’s, but at least my time and place’s.
I only want it to spread if it does; I only want it to be good if it is; I only need what I already have —what is, is.
I close my eyes and they make this little click at 4:29 in the afternoon.
Let go of the need to sound right.
deconstructing prose and using line breaks for emphasis and pacing
Already so much that seemed certain is uncertain.
I try to avoid clocks and mirrors; I try not to check myself with time and space.
Simply as it was left all alone like that wasn’t enough just to be.
It gets to be like a sickness at the end; you eat yourself from the inside and must get out.
I can feel it fail, see where it breaks down, and invent up the tool to fix it.
Every minute I'm not with you I'm thinking of it and resisting only because I know it'll be better when we're back.
Keeping in it like we got to until we can't anymore.
Next to the little gold buddha statue on top of the Chameleon's bookshelf there's some snow.
I lay up late the night before travel and can't sleep. I pack my bags and find among my things the habits I haven't even realized have formed since the last time I left.
Less often can I tell the difference between the two: So that I'm always asking, did that happen? Is it happening now? Or has it already, and always will?
I've written on my apartment window so that when cars drive by with their lights on just for a moment I can see the writing flash its shadow on my ceiling.
I stand in a hot shower turn it to cold and wonder: Can you imagine if you took a drug and the come up was like an ice bath that you didn't expect but had no choice other than to persist through a painful cold that would kill any human but keeps you alive because it's only in your mind? And then after the cold comes the greatest high of your life and you are enjoying it so much and think without a doubt the cold was so worth it. But what you are now experiencing is being sober and warm, born again out of the drugged ice bath. So that what you are enjoying so much as the greatest high of your life is really just normal lukewarm life that seems so pleasantly warm after such an awful cold.
Even those with social mobility don't move side to side; instead, they go up and to the right, where instincts and social pressures guide them.
I dream about these things I would never do in real life, but they help me to think about what would happen if I did.
I dreamt the dreams of so many and walked the blurry lines between them all.
You really have to learn to leave it alone when it's time and to keep going even when you don't want to.
I look up on a wall of windows and wonder about the lights on and the lights that aren't
The only way to lose Is to not play the game
I try not to worry too much about choosing a road and instead focus on the fork itself, so that I find myself all of a sudden at another fork and so start to focus on this fork just the same as the last.
On the way home, I walk on the sidewalk behind an old man and go at his pace to see what it'll be like.
I'm really starting to believe in it, and have so much anxiety about losing it.
Do oranges have emotions about which slice has the most seeds? I feel that they're egalitarian. And bet on the slice with the highest odds.
If we're gonna talk, let's be clear; if we're gonna feel, let's not.
Up and out of it all, through a vertical, to grab onto something original and then endure a great anxiety to pull it back down and spread it out, horizontally, where it can be shared.
I get up and out of it, focus on something else, live another life; then return like a tourist and find it anew —to read a different writer, my past self.
it's times like these i'm nervous about dying when i have so much to lose
after beginning what is middle without end
I know I'm no longer thirsty When I've forgotten my cup And picked it up by accident To find there is still some water left
In San Francisco, the homeless people are like pigeons, eating out of the garbage and shitting everywhere.
We are god minds playing in caveman bodies; futuristic abilities satisfying primal needs.
I write well When I'm sleepy as hell And really not here at all
I think of hunger And feel my palette Chase down Toward my teeth
Living and dying are the ground standing up and the sky falling down. Living and dying are the same thing; sometimes one shows its face more than the other. Sometimes you feel light and sometimes you feel heavy.