Courage-Teacher

Walt, I am doing my best.
The sun has gone down
and I am still doing
my best. Though my
heart somersaults,
some day I will
proudly present you.
Though my throat
is dry I will sing
your songs. Though
no one around me
understands how
much you mean to
me, I will make them
understand. If I put
your book beneath
my pillow will you
come visit me tonight?
While my bed is empty
you should empty
my head of its contents
and have a chuckle.
Your wink tickles.

I am electric
all the way through.

Delaney

Didn't ya corroborate
your story first before
coming out swinging?

If this is the new mode
of winning I am in want
of new, delectable prizes.

I am eating metals
like ice cream: I dream
you caught me drooling.

Loving school, I trip
on sentences spooled
around my ankles.

I return to you
a fool, eyes sharpened,
a touch, dangerous.

A Lifetime's Work

I want to know who you will be taking home.
The warm night drinks skyfuls of smoke,
our hats collide, our eyes open and close—
we cradle our bodies, ones we used to serve
platters of teeth, our pastimes past, each better
than the last, bloodstreams coursing honey.

Your voice trembles me to honey,
remembering melted days at the home-
stead. Thought I couldn't treat anyone better
than how I treated myself. Environed by smoke
in a body-ache daze. After each lurch I'd serve
up another pallid launch. Nothing else came close.

I am unborn every time you are close
enough to salve me with glowering honey—
after our endless jive of smile and serve,
in your eyes mine call smiling home.
We drew a bath of bubbling smoke.
We couldn't wash ourselves any better.

Nobody builds me up better
for nothing, or keeps me so easy long after close:
scrubbing, lingering, dousing steam and smoke
with vinegar, grease caked on our cheeks like honey,
mopping the floor for you to take me home.
Your company is the establishment I serve.

Our deaths so far evaded, what purpose will they serve?
Are we not our perfect form, is there no better
warmth than our bitter finish? Our home-
bodies shudder, stripped by another day's close.
Our hands comb one another for honey.
Our tongues meet in catacombs of smoke.

If our fate fades into air like ascending smoke,
and we snap in two the sultans we serve,
every memory golden, as if seen through falls of honey,
each moment brought closer, every delicate touch better
than the last, I feel from all sides some close-
ness & echoed tenderness* cleaving too close to home.

I want to know who will serve you better.
We'll smoke raspberry leaf, our eyes won't ever close.
'Till then I hallucinate honey, your voice in my ears, I'm home.

*from Amiri Baraka's "Chamber Music"

looks like i'm lucky

how feeling like not

believing quickly rots

into the real raw deal

not holding breath but

finally able to say what

complications i feel

you curling into my lap

can't wait for another lap

of this whirling earth

before belonging somewhere

it's hard not to care

when i know how much you're worth

process

if that's what this is
let me be the first
to hear the breaking
of the news: let me
be the one who rushes
to the hospital: let me
look without fear of
who's watching: let
letters unfold from
their chests and
augment the timeline:
we seem
in the dreamlike process
of falling under love.

meadow

we reignited,

our incarnation
lined with 

acts of service

and carnations.

i pace the hallway

looking at it 

through a prism,

all the dizzying

ways this could

spin out.

i am clay

in your hands.

you smooth

the bumps of

my back.

and turn away.

this is the actual

arc of colliding:
the insistent 

incision.

it is like i am 

sneaking up to 

a fawn as the sun

is going down,

arrested by 

how beautiful,

terrified 

to send it all 

running.

ya slay me

ya dork
ya wink at me
asking i left something
in your car ya? 
ya silly sneak
ya permutation 
ya incognito señorita
plopping down on the curb
beside the wheel
turning to me so seriously
bright ya lick of sunshine
ya worth the wait
ya resplendence
ya adorably unreal
subject of the poem
stuttering our dreams
into existence

next year

for the first time
in my life
i wanted to say
grace before
shoveling my
mouth before
food

grace for the land
grace for morality
grace for our time left
grace for no more waste
grace for the untapped center
grace for our monopolized eyes
grace for heaven's ashen surprise
grace for uninterrupted troubling
grace for the eradication of ignorance

grace that maybe next year
we'll set out one more plate

love you more

picking up pre-thanksgiving
dinner for the northerners
rolling up my sleeves
to hand out plastic cutlery
on my own time
turning toward you
at the register
it barely registered
in that instance
that you were the thing
i had asked for
insistently sweet
giving me the frowny
face when i leave
so i came back
and asked if you wanted
a little fresh air
we were followed outside
by one of our regulars
who for all their time
in the store had no clue
of the story unfolding here
when i caught up
you were putting on chap-
stick and i nearly died
from giving so much thanks

What I Want For Christmas

This time 'round I won't bother to wait
for good-tiding signals or cheer.
Won't even fill my Thanksgiving plate
'till I've figured what I'm getting this year.

I want flannels & chap-stick & floss.
Or a photo album aching to be filled.
Or a vial of salt from the ocean we can't cross.
A stunning snow-castle the two of us build.

Have you struck me off your list?
Blushing you confess, I have everything.
Behind your eyes, a glint of something missed.
Smiles foreshadow an early spring.

I want to give you mittens & silks & socks,
and if all those fail, you have my heart.
Wouldn't hesitate to trade a sparkling rock
for some of your mother's psychedelic art.

Some days we feel completely hopeless.
I grow restless, anticipating what's in store.
So for now, I'll think about it less.
And you think about it some more.

overthink

nauseating
body-warming
exercise
of the morning
wrung me out

then i got a
little warmth
in me

& through
out the rest
of the day

kept
getting
warmer

Jail

These hands
won't come apart.
I'm strapped to the altar.
Your laughter casts a long
shadow over the sentence.
This time, our tying
together, let's call it
enough.
Weren't you put here
to make music?
If there is some ending
excepting me,
let it be your way out.
Through the bars
our hands come apart,

before you slide back
into the jealous dark—
how it always was.

gimmee your honesty

i'm sedating myself.
not worrying for once.
you thought about it.
told me what you thought.
it's unsettling.
our switched places.
delay diminishing.
no more need for wishing.
neck hairs bristling.
omnipresent blessings askew.
i'm full of color.
collecting my composure.
where to go i'm never sure.
but i'm going with you.

I WAS WRONG

about what i don't know but
damn it feels good to be fooled
bamboozled by your entrance
and despite that shadow that
followed you in after i swallowed
my boiling jealousy and let it
cook my nerves till they swerved
out my mouth into yours our hands
touching your eyes darting round
the lot to see if the shadow lingered
but again i don't care and again
i had it wrong all these silly songs
i've been stacking up must amount
to something you told me i want
to hold you all day and wish it
could be that way

calming myself down

it's clear how crazy

outta control clenching

my jaw waiting on you

to kiss just underneath

my chin i'm just beginning

my descent into decency

relinquishing control 

to you what a plan 

it's so damn unbalanced

i can't even begin to 

recalibrate so i think

i can handle this distance

helps me remember how 

little you probably

think of me
and how okay with that
i'm trying to be

Inseparable

the word snakes 'round my tongue.
a strict confection. a bruised band
just below my shoulders. in my arms

the nothing i hold now tightens itself
to my chest. the labyrinth of how to
get back to you disintegrates. i'm a

taurus with a stiff neck. can't look up
at the stars. can't waste in silence. since
splitting me open you went back to

the way it was. never asked how i was.
was it different, for you? could you tell
who i was? could you spell it out, why-

oh-you? the piano pounds my lungs.
my fingers trace outlines of once-
perfected space. see, where i'm from,

we breathe through the aberration,
grew used to switching hot and cold.
i can't use your excuse. fidgety fingers

extract a pulse. like so much crime,
it's on the rise. i better quit. were you
hoping you had nothing to do with it?

ready or not

here i, the sum
of my advances,
in my coat of
arms barely
reaching, breath-
ing irregularly,
articulating
the recipe
for equilibrium
using: honey,
the tips of your
fingers & a
selective memory.
i'm cooking
up something:
it's barely
edible, yet
my mouth
glistens
like blades
of grass
after a day-
long rain.

I Won't Call It Progress

Some other word will do—
an extant offering, plot ex-
plosion/erosion. Shifting
comfort zones. Barely
brave enough to utter
your name.
I'm ready— & sorry
you're not. It's amusing,
if you're looking at it
from over there.
Wind electrifies
my hair and I stare
at the mountains
in the rear-view mirror.
Then look toward you.
It's not even close.

follow what feels good

holy crud you have sunk your mandibles
into the flesh of my touchy existence you
feather plucked from the pore of an extra-
vagant bird you creepy-crawling light-loving
well-meaning winged wonder i'm so got damn
over-the-wall wasting away in your garden
smelling my breath or is that all just a spectre
hanging 'round my hopefulness the shape
of your legs draped over mine the dips
and bone-hooks of your back i am building
a map in my sleep ripping this spell out of me
sinking my feet into whatever wheels turn
furiously for aching six months pent up
and resisting onslaught of bitter thoughts
i lost my touch but you were there & found
it tearing pages from the far-within sigh
folding into close-held vehemence before
relenting to the stand-still of our mobius strip
kiss god i cannot say this any other way
you beckoned me then went & wrecked me
this childish limerence spins the worst
lullabies & every window is a mirror
without you softly sleepily laying across
my lap lasting for once i said to you
i wish that i could kiss you everywhere
and always the sorrowful bridge of fingers
collapsing as you pull away & glasses
getting stuck in your hair i am memory-sick
gluing the mosaic of our evening onto
dark-sky murals rippling with love-score
& maybe i am completely unchanged
but i will never forget who i was before
you said that can be arranged

nervous

in the course

of several hours:

hair-feathers
akimbo, a blimp

stuck in the throat

as you stay in 

the vicinity,

an unusual gift.

uninterrupted.

barely etching 

out the words 

to stretch my 

excitement. 

what's expected

i defer: what's

reflected i demur.

fold into my arms.

this hide-and-seek

slick story shit

is gonna be worth it

even if it's the last

memory we share.

close quarters

fleshy, unthinkable
& sun setting red
the ebb and flow

of our story
finds its root
in the pierce'd
kiss plausible
yet impossible

i am twelve
and what is this
feeling

forever i'm
in love with
forever

wish it was
always this
easy to smile

wish you
could hear
me better

my (o)mission

to get tipsy
without falling

to sing songs
weep-less

to catch yr eye
floundering

to take ya home
sobering

we make good
on our promises

& we look good
in the darkness

rapid battery suspense auction

freezer burnt

creme brulee

paper towel

empinada

ice floe
fur skin

red forge

prognosis

artificial

fire paralysis

throat lump

worming my way
through candle wax
afternoon with bitter
taste of twin cups
of coffee lingering
my logistical chances
at making it dwindling
disrobing my doubts
over whether or not
we will feint our hands
into catching a rash
feeling in our knees
and toes that one
of these roads
leads us further
into the mountains

slipping

reverts to comfort-
able state of being
that being waylaid
or way-too-laid-
back whichever
state makes persist-
ent failure okay
i'm complacently
adjacent to an
enviable life
watching it through
the would-be-glass
brings me no closer
to the other side
i'm reeling and
kneeling darling
if they ask where
i was only silence
can describe

terrorist

it is unacceptable
to call him anything
else

maybe murderer

maybe rotten
degenerate
undeserving

it doesn't deserve
a poem

he's a terrorist

who looks like me

how skin
and bones bear
with such
garbage

i don't even know

let me down again

wise angel, where did you go?

i'm doing things i don't wanna.

was this what they meant by

following your passion? who

pitted these bananas inadvertently
against each other? my tongue
blooms fuzzy. forlorning. fast

afraid of what it might take

to unspool someone else's

song. what privacy waits

gathered in someone else's

arms? uncomfortable offering

and reimagining of second
& third senses. relentless
milling of teeth and slack
jaw jutting inward. second

cup of coffee. caring,
as in capitulating.

twelfth hour turbulence

nauseating
surrounded by
balloon-folk
mopping the
floor mopping
up my frustration
recalibrating
the trajectory
of my career
piling up the
money touching
elbows insisting
on a full-fledged
effort towards
success-ion

as the drones do their contractual bidding

I meander

meaning, I
am full of wonder
as if these were
not the same walls
between which
I have
wallowed

I am asunder

hardly cogent
or breathing
assembling scene
decoys - return
of the day-draining
dream - oh honey
you used to say
jubilenne

and I laughed
like it was some
kinda beautiful

the poem welts
in my periphery

seasoned
with sharp
glass

trepidation
of the good
god grind

rest

sweet sleep
you never
knew
how long
i waited
to climb
inside you

how lasting
my wasting
and how
bruising
makes
a pillow
out of me