lift the veil over productivity

i summon my strongest wants
and relent to the highest bidder

i am always late to rise
cause i'm a known day-quitter

i must catch my delayed dream
before it sequesters me

and may my fingers dance like dust
floating through an errant sunbeam

North-Western

Riding my horse into the white sun,
I escape the formidable fury
of my still-fresh mistakes.
I tried to game the players,
cheat the clean-shirt sheriff,
play the same stucco'd notes
as every paint-slapped piper
that's ever peered over the drop.

I would bust my head a hundred
times open to spill its goods,
it would be a lifetime of good
done in a tight-breathed second.
The waves are hungry.
The foam floats to witness
me turning away,
riding my horse into the white sun.

Captured

I adore your latest effort.

Such a shame it will be ground

into dust— yeah, too bad for us all.

My mood ring is going disco

as I sift through your stanzas,

seeing what you took for good

from our moth-eaten monarchy,

thinking maybe you’d prove

that you weren't all that bad.

Oh baby you were cool—

the way you wanted it.

Darling you were sweet—

in patches, and like a peach

there were bruises all over.

My queen you were kind—

though I have said before

a thousand kindnesses

is not the same as kindness.

Lighthouse of an old life,

the day my hand was forced

to grasp the ticket in flight,

I buried relief between sobs.

My dear, you knew our reign

had reached its derelict end.

I am sorry we couldn’t be friends.

Yuno, You're Right

A sip from the cup of fantasy
gets me good and gone.
My storyboard smudges
and makes way for the silhouette,
determined that I forget,
and yet—

Time and distance, what of it?
Reality is how you fake it.
I have a psychotic tendency,
my delusions have awakened.

I am not the First,
never meant to be,
but if by some off chance
your universe breaks
from the weight
of losing your best friend,
I will be waiting
to be your new future,
to be your dead end.

the bullet-riddled words of the boston bomber

Now I don't like killing innocent people,
and who doesn't, after all, you only
become what you hate the most,
it's forbidden by Islam and Christianity
both, our own humanity forbids it,
and he knew it. He knew that when
you hurt one you hurt us all, but forgot
that you don't have to believe in Allah
for that to ring true. Now I don't like
to embellish the words of a murderer,
so I'll stop. But if heaven really rests
at the bottom of the barrel,
I don't think ending up in a boat
with a sharpened pencil shedding 
light on your darkest delusions
is the best plan God could devise.
It was lack of planning
that brought him there,
left to scribble out the bullet-riddled,
frightened confession of a hate-addled
brain. How fitting
that the justification for his revenge
was turned to cheesecloth,
because his love was full of holes.

These difficult feelings are just for show

and when the word go flows
out of your mouth like wine
pours from a broken promise,
you'll forget how it feels
to be at fault.

You have built a hammock
between the crosshairs. Refusals
dressed up as invitations keep
landing in your lap. The skyline
flirts with the void, a love story
you know well.

You cherry-pick your pleasures
and burnish the platter with your
tongue. And you are not the only
song to come up dripping from
the slew of those behind you—
that is well tested—

the worst of us shies away
and the best of us gets bested.
When the word go tickles
like a feather on your lips,
at least your compass is
unconditional.

The illusion that you are alone
softly squeezes your shoulders.
Your hands have gone colic,
they cry and cry and who knows why,
you have wrung them all you can.
Listen,

it is not a mandate to pull yourself
from the murky depth, you are allowed
to float, thrash, sink, burn or soar.
But no matter how you move on,
you will never go anywhere without three words:
I was wrong.

The Trajectory of Hate

Nothing I do makes enough money
to hook the ears of the hokey crowd,
who poke the stirring harmless giant
with news of what it's all about.

Handing out reams of bibs and pacifism,
I paddle through the sea of god-fearing
folks, and mark the veneer crumbling,
the bottom line at last exposed.

And it only descends further,
furiously assembling steam,
conning the common interest
with the promise of their furor.

Give me your rabid, your poor
huddled masses of prejudice.
None will be turned around.
I lift my lamp to the golden rule.

daylong dream in the rainy dark

slipping in and out of being

a breed of awake

my surroundings blackening

the farther i slept

i saw the team incomparable

and sought to compare it

with my fear as a flashlight

i descend to the hotel lobby

where to my surprise 

a man held battered wings 

on an ornamental platter

tempting me to proliferate

the madness by grabbing one

and that was what I did

rescinding the rude staircase

brooding as the washing spins

this cannot know how water

once wrapt around my fingertips

this cannot hear how the debt

swallowed our good intentions

rushing to relieve myself

i spot the exotic handbag

of the little one sleeping nearby

and delay the shaking and stirring

till all that was petty turns pretty

and all that was lost is recovered

and to be honest i have lost count

of the days that have lost their way

Underscore

It's not that I'm afraid of going
anywhere — it's just that I prefer

museums, theaters and libraries
and those are all too expensive,

too far away, or too self-aware.
I cannot slip into a seat at the movies

and forget who I am. I have not
driven over the 10th street bridge

this year and it does not look like I will.
Add that to the tab. Pull more weight

than you are used to, and you will
glide with ease the second you are

pruned naked. This is my experience.
My exhibition has grown stuffy and

dangerously familiar with mold.
Who demands my youth to arrange

its end? Is there not enough of it going around,
are there not enough failures fucking around?

I see them day and night, they twist my words,
and shower me with shouts of gaiety.

Locked in the daze of false-bottom days,
I bungle their poise and potential.

Show me some good, honest work,
and I'll show you how it lies.

how we make friends

have you no friends? we'll patch that right up.
open the trunk, make sure you didn't leave

any in there. nothing but secondhand
lamps and fuzzy amps, we're good here.

have you found yr friend? thought we was
just pulling the beard on the grandfather clock

waiting for him to come down. make sure
they know we're coming. we wouldn't want

to let the elevators down. each gilded button
busts a gut when pressured. falling on your ass

does not have to be ugly. we are courting
so many yet-to-be friends with our ass-falling.

how many friends? i can only count em up so fast,
but the wall, he counts, we went over this

last weekend when our locks took stock of their options
and decided it was best to just let anyone in.

bedtime blues

the door creaks as I shuffle off to bed

when my room looking bleak as the day

one year ago when I was hot to start living

in it starts to speak to me: why did you leave

so many things unfinished just look at me

and I would say I am sorry but for what

nothing lives in here there is no buried speech

vibrating off the walls no one wants to listen

and I am not ashamed to sleep in the same dirty

sheets and smell the way I sweated with guilt

after I had pushed away what crowded me close

too close I was to figuring it all out 

what it meant when I opened the door to my room

and saw the discarded laundry in so many piles

and not one but two desks my back hurts to sit at

and the gloom that sticks to my feet 

laying in bed weighing each day of the past year

in the sighing scale of my sharpshooting brain

the crosshairs rest on each moment that changed me

but knowing that despite the labyrinth I labor over

I will wake in the same straightjacket of circumstance

wishing a successful death over another year of half-failures

but I know that the room is dark and daring me to do

what I have always known how to do

it is no longer a matter of getting better or being the best

it is about carving a space that echoes love for my name

disremembering

i live for that smile
soundless and cycling
through the labyrinth
of laughs and loss

i look listless
at the carousel of faces
riveting me in the ribs
stranding me with a glance

i lie undisturbed
and highly appointed
willing my mobile
to spin with abandon

i love erosion
the crust of my eyes
cloying with joy
welcoming tears

acres apart

it would be a shame,
for you to have not
heard the dinner bell

because you were out
so far in the fields.
i told you, i told you,

the harvest is coming
soon but you said
not soon, not soon enough.

those words clanged like
my spoon and pounded
like pistons in my jaw

as I sat looking
out our window
for you to return.

3pm and the day already wasted

the ripping to shreds

of an innocent leaf

is likely the most impact

i will have on this earth today

fence beside me

faint chain-linked fence of faltering
harbors holes of far-fetched disdain
mocking my restlessness wavering
and mimicking my tessellated brain

in memory of an unexpected explosion

a plane roars overhead
and i am grateful

that the explosion
that follows

dwells only in the cave
of my imagination

grateful that explosions
are naught but figments

reminded again that
at any moment without

warning they might become
your present hell

wishing that all explosions
would backtrack into

the innocent materials
before they were wrought

to commit the grisly deed
of blowing apart destinies

the complacent materials
that line the cliffs and caves

and lie twinkling along
the dusty shore

had no intention to harm
and that breaks my heart

i wish that the only roar would
come from the mother ocean

determined to once again be
the loudest thing on this earth

who would be my angel

the years stack like chipped separators,
sheltering what is stuck between:
if ever i was saved it was not enough.

waking up roils the orchestra,
nervous to commit to the overture.
each string trembles a want in me.

the day i wake satisfied
i will scream from the rush of
displacement. i walk my beat

over the aging pavement.
the years i have spent loving
are wilting inside of me.

i pick at and push the usual fears
around my plate: if i whip them
into a mash i might manage.

will i ever weigh myself again?
will i shear what makes me proud
to dissuade the strangers from

dismissing me? every day
another life succeeds me.
i am not bitter, i nod approvingly.

then i head to work. and can't work
out when this will change. or when
i will change. what even changes?

it is likely my angel watches
with sweet curiosity,
blowing kisses down like rain,

spectator to my survival game.
grasping my pain with one hand,
the other stretched out for my sake.

rolling on

when you asked me how i was doing, was that some kind of joke?

if you are asking

of your own volition

with more than a

honeycomb of intrigue

i suppose i could

give you the top ten

reasons for why

i've been feeling this way

and let the other thirty

stir in dirty bath water

'till the towel's been 

handed to me

as i step out pruned 

and shivering

if you are wondering

why i refuse to meet

you in the eyes

just look up at the sky

catching a flash of lightning

is the only way to be struck

by the promise of thunder

dirty lament

let me be clear
so i can sling mud
bravely

all over the face
quite over the fence
concerning concerts

and royal tents
and all the hullabaloo
i'm running out of

bits to chomp
and circling
the petting zoo

too nervous
to touch
too breakable

you must have known
that my spirit
is continually crushed

so it didn't hit too hard
when my day started great
till i remembered who i was

grainy days

the first sip of coffee
   drags out the ladder
           with a sigh

the lowest rung
    has me once again
           ascending, ascending

my penchant for clouds
       drapes me
   in a kaleidoscope of smiles

below the murky lake
       is being drained
 and there is a large shadow

lying in the bed
       the corpse
       of my conscience

ennui

The umber path unravels as I go.
Crippling payment of crippling loan.
This obsession to dismantle obsession.
This crave to carry my nation.

The wrong impression made permanent.
The past-dreams drained of pigment.
The smoke curling off my synapses.
The savage verdict of the committee.

Casting a line then taking a swim.
Refusing to play, yet hell-bent to win.
To hear laughter and take cover.
To take the idea as your lover.

This is writing off the introduction.
These are my bruises from wrestling with fiction.
It's the psycho in me that wants a wife.
It's the father in me that wants a good life.

how lucky

to be a genius
in the 21st century
who can't do anything

but earn his keep
as a nightmare
playing the other side

staving off sleep
with anything
money can buy

My Lonesome Agenda

Genetic arthritis and arithmetic,

I am keeping tabs on my weaknesses.

Calculating the odds of getting even.

This cloven crush diving, driving me.

Dear me, make a stew out of all you’ve failed

to do, serve it next to the steaming heap of excuses.

How lucky to be alone, while you have so many

chances to get it right. Get it?

The space between us: warm. Getting warmer.

Step away from where the gestation takes place:

it is too much for one person to come in contact with,

it will sweep you into the creation.

The borrowed bits of you, will they make their way back?

Does I will give them back comfort one standing nude

in the middle of the avenue, searching north west south

and east without the least clue of who robbed you?

Dear me, that was you. Not quite naked, but sparse.

I wrote small reminders on even smaller bits of paper:

Get it. I wear a patch that pumps me with lovely images,

curbing the hunger. I sweat beads of overcompensation.

This life is labor, so I am told. Still I hunger.

My frozen instincts are wiggling their big toe.

The vertebrae that goes against the grain,

like the lone bat who veered right,

is calling out for a long, err, longer-term solution.

My smile is taut. Strangers and I weave parables,

we exchange warmth and make each other’s day,

though my days have all been made.

I gestate their stories, chisel their name into the monument,

and walk the other way. In the disparate cloud of voices

I hear the inkling of an answer. Get going, cries the sparks.

Get busy, cries the business.

Dear me, your face flushes for anything.

You may not be all you wish to be.

What matters now are your own two feet.

You’ve forgotten what it’s like to be scraping

the gutter for a chance at peace.

In such a rush to repeat this track?

You know the words, sing it yourself.

The shadows on the burning barn,

that’s where it’s at. Not in this life, sparks.

Not on my time, business.

Standing in the middle of the avenue,

I see all the beautiful faces, perpetually turning.

A shot in the dark is not wasted

if you aim for the dark.

Skipping stones may one day

make a bridge. Dear me, by now do you get it?

subjectivity

some like to see the cracks
others don't

thirsting for the win like a true loser

somewhere on the cosmic circuit
i misjudged my momentum

and my shadow overtook me

prologue under pressure

back from job
done a good job

got a ride home
soaked to the bone

black matte polyester
comes off in an instant

the grub slapped on a plate
riding round in the wave

the mirror check
yep i am still there

still lookin like me
today was not the day

of my metamorphosis
rather expected

grab the first soda of the day
from the fridge with

undue excitement
munch on a lil weenie

ok call off the meal
look out for number one

number one has a problem
the room is blank as a page

it looms like an unwanted lover
what else is there for you to do?

Watchdog

This is the touch of an untried pencil,
This is the preamble to my life's new constitution:

I will never again slight a stranger for being needy and hungry,
for I am needy and hungry.
I will no longer take the absence of kindness as a token of malice,
for kindness waits in everyone.
I will no longer string the yarn of my sadness in hopes that it bats
the eye of a passerby.
I will no longer dilate my eyes to speed the passing of light
through my body.

I go to write in the field, and plant my feet where the ice once started.
I step to the plate and hear the cheers of forked leaves and knives of grass.
I step onto home. Anywhere I step I step onto home.

I walk the one minute walk back to my door, take a shower, losing myself,
mess up my hair precisely so, and walk towards the coffee shop.
Oh the trepidations of affording the cocoon!
Would you not welcome steam in your face if it was offered?
If it was offered would you take the nearest exit?

I am not making this about me — this was made for me.
I am lucky to be awake 'cause I routinely resist the resetting of the day.

My ankles and shoulders are weary and wellish
but I betcha can't tell just by lookin'.

I am sitting on a bench now made for watching,
no longer the bench for those sitting waiting to play the game.

I walked straight past the coffee shop.
I cannot afford to sit where the delicious sun does not embalm me.
This wind is the best hug I've had all year.

Was this the truth of me that you were after?
Truth be told I am glad I passed the coffee shop:
I saw a baby reach to touch a flower.
And if I could contain myself,
nothing would be lost except you reading this.

Friends that are firm, and friends that are forgotten!
From this moment forward I suffer no distinction!
I invite you all to reacquaint yourself
with the one you once loved.
I am told love is a cuckold in him.
And if being insatiate sounds savory,
quit wasting the limelight of your life
before it puckers in on itself.

(That same old thought! My god,
how did you get in— how did you know
where I have been all these years?)

That here a patch of sunlight descends
upon this patch of my life
and I must make of it what I can—
will I when the darkness advances
realize my whole life was made of sunlight?

And that I at every corner fussed and grieved
over every inch of shade I happened upon?
Rapidly aging relentless fool.

I know I am meant to arrest my idleness,
to prolong my purpose until I have
achieved a completion, but what for?

The farther I push myself,
the heavier all things unsaid weighs on me.

I push myself to stay awake some hours longer,
waiting on a completion. Will I strike out in search of it:
a sharp purchase, a calculated meeting by chance,
a journey where every step presses pins to my back
and my limp learns its language word for word?

The filling of my lungs with air,
The filling of my heart with the reasons I want to live—
They are useful, I have had their services contractually employed.

Never again will I be convinced by the word never out of my mouth.

Are these not the thoughts I have thought before?
Are these the same thoughts of my father, my mother,
my brother, thoughts my sisters will someday find?
What are these but the thoughts of my friends codified,
the thoughts furrowed into strangers' brows articulated?

In the blank spaces, as I try to pull lines
like pulling teeth without anesthesia,
I hear the milling of my teeth gently grinding.
I return at once to my body to scold myself.

You may notice for all my talk of the light and dark,
that I keep at the fence of tragedy.
My life has been my own, I have known no other like it,
yet it is far, far removed from tragedy.

I do not avoid discussing tragedy because of that distance...
Or because it has no place here, because of course it has a place here,
I just have not found it. Perhaps it is because tragedy
is best felt, heard, held and known from within.
What is expressed more than the smile of that man or woman suffering?

sum drugs

i do not know the sum of these casualties
i never heard a guarantee except this ends
the days they all look so pretty
when you're forever on the mend

plucking penitence

this is the partitioning of my well-practiced smile

i recruit recognition of me tooth by tooth

these are the particles of my problems

inhaled at my leisure

the limitless windows of beautiful pictures

i am sure somewhere their story continues

who brings the eyes that burn a lesson in me?

who knows but i am meant to die unlearned?

when i rise long before my time is required

i strike out to make the aching worth something

to turn tribulations into well-intended tribute

but i forget in the forgery of my character

that i am quite simple, unforgiving, a brute

go die! and other lies my fingers seize upon

frighten and affront my humanity

the charges levied against me each one 

trumped up to be my final say

and i say it is easy to lapse into the lap 

of one itching to scratch your head

but licentious and mangled memory

does no justice to the decision

does nothing except lapse recovery

resisting resentment one finds an existence

so rooted in failure it cannot fail

i accept that i have made an exception

that there must be no other way

by now the aching has turned chronic

would my words behave and settle

into neat rows of pleasure

i would have always been cured

but imitating the life breathed into them

they fester and ooze contradiction

making me wish i wrote fiction

clutch sentry mission log #2

i am bracing the slope
of the seesaw at the top

of the ferris wheel
disassembling my fear

for the acrophobia of others
there's a sunrise in their eyes

but they haven't noticed
there's a way they've heard

to hasten the sickening orbit
it's there the longer you look at it

i haven't got a clue how to lookout
my telescopes are all full of mirrors

and i'm going rogue on the outlook
i once carried in my chest pocket

dropping my hankerchief
so that i may recover it later

running out of lines waiting
for the scene change

for all the distance

you make me want to win

but i am sure that i will lose

this game if i keep placing

all of my x's before your

oh
those sky bright eyes

as you pass me by

so this is what it's like

being nudged by reasons

to do it over and better

so this is the madness

of getting glad

and this is the lens 

that imposes possibilities

dusk clears off the runway

of your shoulders

and the twinkling skyline
of your smile

do you see how i am

when i wrap myself 

in how i feel about you
i shiver with the best

of them and wonder
how i can keep quiet

when all of my bones
rattle a requiem for

the handful of seasons
i watched you pass by

what can you call it except a comeback

only the winners catch wind of it

it unfolds only for those with gusto

genius gets born in the thick of it

and the victors are the ones who let go

no thing like nothing

my gut tells me quit killing yourself
i say gut you can take more than
you give yourself credit for
after all you survived all those years
compacting honey bunches of oats
drowned in sweet cold milk every morning
and like clockwork you'd go boombastic
once i was on the bus
and the only way i'd make it
was by keeping my eyes shut,
as if i were asleep, as if i didn't notice

my wrists are like dude, what the fuck

my elbows cry out for elbow pads
where can i even get elbow pads
my bones have sounded the horn
that started the war between skin
and bone let's see who will win

i consume another 2000 calories

something's telling me quit killing yourself
what's it to me, i ask myself,
and i take my questions quite seriously

what's it to me

Captured

I adore your new life-crutch.
Such a shame it will be ground
into dust, too bad for us all.
My mood ring is going disco
as I sift through the slideshow,
jogging my memory
toward the flood of light,
hoping to find some truth
in the idea that maybe
you weren't all that bad.

Oh baby you were cool—
the way you wanted it.
Darling you were sweet—
in patches, and like a peach
there were bruises all over.
My queen you were kind—
when your curiosity slept,
or when you had the grace
to accept what was already lost.

Lighthouse of an old life,
every day that has dragged
me backward puts you
farther and farther away.
I feel close to myself,
aware of the angle
of my projection.
Whatever you were,
you had me—
and for that capture
I must take the blame.

I am free to be miserly
and miserable at my tempo.
It may take a while
to reach another shore.
I smother the flutters
in my stomach and beat
still my beating heart.
Whatever you did,
thank you—
and don't worry I'll fix it.

excess story

gluttony the forgotten sin
looks longingly out the window

at our diffuse anemic litter
the state school budget bulges

i pull my belt another notch
tighter who has a lighter

(what it means to be held
back at the breaking point)

why don't we all jump
give the abyss a big sloppy

kiss and forget about it
well forget about it

there are faculties at work
carrying you when you

can't even face the facade
or when the academic filing squad

at the ready watches you
when you are eating breakfast

there's a notion of living
that your feet are the messiah

delivering you from back there
bringing ever forth

your body glass-blown
by the flames of your soul

is that an hourglass in your eye
or has the clutch flown off

your irrigated ducts
i never struggled in the sand pit

i learned how to eat sand
and spit out the bad parts

you must pay attention
to the whispering

of those familiar faculties
they have not fallen

they are not frightening
they are your friends

following their own feet
battling the same shade

brothers of bad decisions
and keepers of the keys

to the same home
i hereby decree

that this perpetual emergency
be flushed with a hug

and that nothing
nothing

will fill the empty
like the nothing we do

only minding my own business

i'm out to make my hygienist jealous

the next time i'm staring at a bunch
of dolphins wearing shades i'll regale
her with my many tales of bravery
before she finds my next cavity

i want banana silk on my gums
and i am going to want more of it

i want to hang out with the dolphins

do i even have an appointment?
with the dentist i mean
i'm sure the dolphins will accept me
as who i am, whenever i am

but are they waiting for me

the dentist, the hygienist,
bent over the reclining chair
little silver tools in hand
ready to fix me up again

i think not
they probably fix a lot of teeth
and unless i give them a ring
i might not get the chance
to see her rosy cheeks turn redder

i forgot red is not the color of envy
it is the color of outrage
i want to make my hygienist wonder
what the hell happened all this time

it could be that by the time
i make the call
my mouth will have torn asunder

and i will have to ask my dentist
to call 9-1-1

Pine Trees And Vertices

Now that the way ahead
has been placed upon my head,
my wandering eyes have turned
towards this thicket of thorns.

I may not be gone for long,
but until I have found my song
this adventure will not adjourn.
It may be the reason I was born.

Melody

Spring delivers another dousing of pollen.
A trickle of blood through cob-webbed canals.
A tattoo: I Don't Deal In Absolutes.
The drift of possibility, which is hope's gift.
The song has woken. Silk voices and brass
of pearl ascend from my shadow,

matching my every move with splendor.
The pressure of it is immense. In my ribs
a mallet reanimated is letting loose, striking
every various note of wake up, don't let go,
get going, nice try, time to go, and don't cry, 
playing the music of being alive.

Vanish

Behind the curtain, dust from various evenings are mingling,
and the bright sails are flanked by three promised words:
Special Export Beer. On the rug a cocoon swathed in
a yellowjacket-yellow blanket grunts, turns over.
An electric flower burns blue over by the corner.
The lights have little voices, they remember everything
from the moment you flick the switch. Whatever is left
of a candle won't let go of the air. Who goes there— 

I used to wish that no one would ever disturb me.
Now I want nothing except I stop disturbing people.
What can I be without disturbing people.

The jar beside the back door has refilled quickly.
Seems the days have not been getting any easier;
the day to quit does not seem any closer.
Though I note a certain levity behind locked doors,
I am crooked to comfort, and have a certain itch.
The content ones sleeping may stir or dream
but if I unbolt the door they will not object,
even if I am leaving and returning all night,
refilling, replaying, awakening, disturbing no one.
Who says I'm not the happiest ghost of my household?

whatever is missing

Make sure you're clocked— 

nevermind. wrong mode 

again. i wake to a knock

on my door and it's a driver

asking why the store is 

locked and dark. i said

i have no idea and please

leave, i have work at 6

and fell back asleep,

imagining the empty

store and the board,

filling up with orders

that no one will see

or receive.

Before you go home,

gather up the trash.

hey, here's a spatula.
the butter is looking lean.

i will be the one to retrieve

whatever is missing.

the gab of corporate apology,

i have become fluent.

if you want to get short with me,

i will find myself a stool.

sad to say it 

but anything you throw at me

will be caught in the soapy net

of my burst bubble.

Thank you for all of your hard

rights when the way ahead

looks downright impenetrable,

thank you for showing up

and not throwing up.

thanks to the disappeared,

who know little of the showers

cast down on me. like hell

i'll quit. each day to myself

creates an irreparable distance.

the hum of greasy machines

are the only company

on nights i am summoned

to clear the board alone.

Toy Soldier

Toy soldier, hand over your nuts
and bolts. You have been pacing

and making everyone nervous.
Here's a beanbag chair.

I'll be working on my posture.
No you don't have to watch

but it would be nice if you could
STOP with your moaning.

Let me have a turn at the watch,
it's my turn to make everyone nervous.

Toy soldier, assistance please.
My doctor has advised me

not to reach too far behind me.
Wind up this key stuck in my back,

and make sure you twist hard enough
to march me into tomorrow.

love has cold hands

and I— 
the slightest
bit surprised— 

felt them
on my neck
when i lied

My Lonesome Agenda

Though my weaknesses include numbers and laziness, I have kept myself busy calculating the evens and odds of this quandary. My arms are bruised by boxes, my poor ox bones, folding over each other into an inward hug. This cloven crush (it is so stubborn) keeps driving deeper and deeper into my chest. I make a stew out of the hundred things I have failed to do. Serve it in little sauce cups next to the steaming heap of excuses, freshly cooked up. Did you suppose yourself lucky to be with someone? It is as lucky to be still alone, when you have so many chances to get it right. Get it? This space between us, it's warm. Getting warmer. Step away from where the gestation takes place: it is too much for one person to come in contact with; it will sweep you into the creation. The parts of you that are borrowed, did you ever think they would make their way back to you? Has I will give them back ever quelled the misery of standing naked in the middle of the street, turning: east, north, south, west in search of the hands that tore the cloths from your body? I have been like that before, in lecture halls and between walls that I swear were closing in on me. Not naked of course, but sparse. I wrote small reminders on even smaller bits of paper: Get it. Today I wear a patch just above my left hipbone that pumps me full of lovely images throughout the day, curbing the hunger. My elders all warn me to stop smoking the burning bush, because they are deadpan serious He will have business again with us someday. Business sags— business booms— business it stays either way. This life is labor. Still I hunger. My frozen instincts have been wiggling their big toe. The vertebra that goes against the grain, like the lone bat who veered right while the colony flew left, calls out for a solution. Something living grazes behind the dilapidated barn of my back, and should it ever spark, there will be not one moon—but four. Get going, cries the sparks. Get busy, cries the business. My smile is taut. Got a light? Strangers and I weave parables, we make each other's day (though my days have all been made). I gestate their stories, chisel their name into the monument, and walk the opposite direction. In the mass, disparate cloud of voices, I hear the inklings of an answer. Get started on the grand invention before you find it's been invented already. Get lazy with your conversations, false with your kindness, or careless with your brain, and you'll find that you're not so different. Your face flushes for anything. Dear me, (I'm afraid) you're not all that you think you are. The only thing that matters now is that you are moving on your own two feet. Box this quandary up and stick it in the warmer for a while. Better to be forgotten than to go cold or bad (trust me). You've forgotten what it's like to be scraping the gutter for a chance at peace. In such a rush to repeat this track? You know the words (sing it yourself). The shadow across the moon when the sun starts to rise, that's where it's at. Not in this life, sparks. Not on my time, business. Standing in the middle of the street, I see all of the beautiful faces, perpetually turning away. A shot in the dark is not wasted if you aim for the dark. A drop in the bucket will fill the bucket eventually. Skipping stones may one day make a bridge.  Dear me, by now do you get it?

Somebody's Son

Evening falls through my fingers
and shadows spill like liquid
behind my reflection.

This night I allow no more
whimpering for what else,
extending toward answer.

As mother always says,
you can do anything so
long as it's not forever.

The trains rumble,
spirited by the crazy notion
that love is locomotion.

I refuse to acknowledge
the outcry of my own
reflection. This face,

stowing my Father away,
sticks out a stitched tongue
and returns a smile.

I know whose eyes those are.
I must be loco to hope
that one day, on the coast,

I will dash over hard, wet sand,
and scream what I am—
a drop from the ocean's eye.

My love has taken me everywhere,
you knew all along you were even there,
I have done my best to be a good one.

If I should trip just before
the moment, violently
shattering all of my teeth

and shearing the tip of my tongue—
well, you guessed it. I will get back up,
because I am somebody's son.

Observation Wheel

Though I am stuck on this ferris wheel

of trodden fortune, my jolly roger

still flies with the gusto I'm after.

The last thing I need is an emergency.

A jump from car to car, brains below

on the pavement, which I admit

from here look a lot like art.

I'm gonna be king of the ingrates!

Brand me with the company spoon,

see how tricky it is, like wearing a suit.

Treading water's good where there's water.

Where we're going, we don't need lies,

not even the ones for ourselves.

Resignation

First hearing the news
of the captain's reassignment,
I felt brushed by the ever-nearby
ghoul of the future,
before I could even stop working
to consider the implications
of such a transfer in angry seas.

Vines of seaweed
have made their way up the hull.
I cross the deck, pretending
that the wood struck with sunlight
is magma, and skip across shadows.
The captain is loud and livid,
an angry sheep out to get the wool
back, having been shorn enough.
The captain expects
another star in the sky each night
he lays his head to rest on deck.

Without falling out of line,
I've looked farther ahead than I'd like.
There the waves of faces grew taller
than the mast's shadow,
and the captain was captive and quiet,
and I crossed the deck feeling
a splintering warmth in my feet,
shrugging as the water rises.

Familiar Poem

Pull of my orbiting life,
though I've had my doubts,
you sometimes pull through.
My heart has a critical debt.

The rippling fabric of embrace,
more abiding than the fans
that have long cooled me.
The hesitation of hands

as they are told not to do
what they wish to do.
My defect burns brightly,
my blood in full monsoon.

I could make it to anywhere,
my feet will have to suffice.
To be looked on again
I would riddle any sacrifice.

Orbit, you are as you are.
Pull me further for any number
of years. I will pay so many debts
while our murmuring vows slumber.

Mickey Drama's

I saddle myself with thoughts
of not thinking about it,
before I bundle in last season's
uniform, take a few last swigs
of the dawn's dense aroma,
and absently use the back stairs,
forgetting my destination.

My palms part the air
as I depart down the avenue,
beckoning purpose out of graffiti,
conditioning the sidewalk
to carry the weight of my shame.
I check over my shoulder
to make sure I was just there.

I bound along with haste
until I arrive at the cathedral
of the morning, before the floors
have been scuffed and muddied,
and the lobby holds silence dear,
except those at the judicial counter,
listing off the articles of the feast.
I limp home on nail-board feet,

reconvening with my darling thoughts.
They flock to me, watching with
pearly eyes as steam ascends
from a paper bag, seeing what
I am too thoughtless to see,
which is that once again my treasure,
where I would go anywhere for,
by morning will have turned to shit.

The Good Old Flight

The ninth night is nigh,

panting at the doorway

with the tongue of a mammoth.

The bearer of bad news

lives in a hole in the wall.

His aura erodes.

The thrill of things melting

is melting into a paste

with no decipherable purpose.

The living room looks so empty

in daylight. I have been living

on an edible rubber-band.

Man, to think I am out there,

learning to spell my name

across the redwood pages

of whatever's silent, 

of whatever's ancient.

The rough new prizes

handed to me, I keep

losing them among

glass and receipts.

If you asked me 

for a mid-year review,

I would hold firm

to the rippling dream

that is progress:

I ache, I falter,

I am a poet,

hear me groan

and roll over.

Filter

Thrice-used filter,

I think I am abusing you.

You have tried your best,

but this coffee sucks.

I find it productive,

placing the blame.

The streaks of red

resentment overhead

are settling on my shoulders.

Failure is unstoppable.

Even though you are battered,

soaked to the paper-bone,

and sick of these mornings,

you strain to fill my cup.

Thrice-forced fulfillment,

when will you up and collapse?

Caravel

Today is a good day
to tie a mast to my spine.
A distant light clears the fog.
I promise to make it mine.

Time Trial

My bed is a dust bowl

of cereal crumbs.

Past closed doors,

I allow myself 

to be a monster.

I stretch my sleep

as far into the day

as the surface tension

allows. The gallows

of sudden return

to limp consciousness

yawn and stretch

with the rest of us.

I stole an apple,

the crispest one,

when the world

was sleeping.

In my guilt,

I had the delusion

that the only way 

to correct the wrong

was to eat it whole:

stem, skin, seeds
and core.

The hour 

of indulgence

is running out,

soon comes the 

long, trodden age

of the working man.

I am in a rush 

to start having

fun forever.

For as far as I can see,

there is a train of hurdles,

each one in the shape

of a smiling moon.

I bend to the challenge,

vaulting lazily past

my stumbling ghost,

fixing the race.

Emergence In E Minor

A born-again hornet gets saved

in the walls of your skin,

infesting you with its fate.

It's not enough to flush

your system with repellant,

to preserve it in amber,

to drown out the buzzing

by storming your muscles

with aches and expectations.

You must listen

for the distant rally,

for the acoustic theremin, 

for the trembling 

falsetto of your pillow.

It's not enough to lie

with the deeds of the day.

The deeds of days drifting

like clouds through your

big blue existence,

you must lie with them also.

A swaying branch,

determined to poke out

the eye of the storm,

holds on for its life.

Nestled between teeth

of raging timber,

holding dear to the dream

of becoming a nest.

We rage and pray

toward our best existence.

It is enough

to tuck a smile in the shade

when the north star drifts astray.

The appointments

that just can't be made,

the milestones unshatterable,

the tremors in your blood

when the hornet first pierces

the skin you could've sworn

was bulletproof.

Graduation

Make way for the alma mater,

whose warbled notes cling

and clang off the warped 

metal chairs of the auditorium.

The procession of bookworms

and widows and snugglebugs 

funnel into the open mouth

of the sparrow, full-song.

Mark this moment a success,

a catalyst of ruinous dreams.

The list rattles under the weight

of so many boundless names.

And my father on the sad height,

fiddling with his loose connection,

watching the grains of my face

disappear behind the velvet curtain.

Prayer That I Don't Get Carried Away

Though I have not had a drink
for something like 3 weeks,
Josh and I came from the bar
ecstatic and in good form.

The neon quilt of faces
were pulling their finest moves.
It's downright royal,
having a home such as this.

They do seem a little stupid
now, auto-nice-to-meet-you's.
From now on I will be
more vigilant, so very vigilant,

when stumbling across
an affable stranger,
who could as well be a thief,
or a clown, or a downer.

And for this, I thank
God, el sol, good ol' Ra,
whoever gave the signal
to carry my voice away.

Thankful for my key,
for the properties of growth.
Lucky to live among friends,
and for the smile in the doorway.

My ancestors!

There comes a time once a year
When a gentle thought appears,
Oh, what ever would I do?
How could I be without my Lou?

Waylaid

You could not imagine,
is how the book of terror
begins its dusky reign.

Such a slippery start.
Whose sad hand
penned this farce?

The waylaid dream,
so it continues,
giving me inner-cheek

paper-cuts. Perhaps
there is a story here
after all. The fall

of solitary pride,
the holy hustling
of goose-flesh.

My hands tremble
too wildly
for any excavation

of this immaterial
tome. I take the
slippery route home.

Defendant

When we wake
in flux
and yawn
shedding
the prism
from our eyes
in droplets
we are
discarding
the prizes
of our
conquest.

The hallways
are sharp
and malleable.
Pay no
attention to the
trembling
beneath the sheet.
I find it so
curiously sad
how quickly
our loathing
adapts.

Am I building
a weapon for war?
Will I stand in court
and protest, no,
not possible, 
I was asleep
the whole time?

None
have seen
the destruction
of this
arcane memory.
When I wake,
the lonely legions
disintegrate
to the light of day,
and the halls
still ring
with the battle cry
of Om Nashi Me.