(shhhhhhhhhhhhhh)

between you and me, ive long been proud of my ability
to present an exterior of normalcy while stewing
in an internal world full of half rotting carcasses,
bug eyed fire flies, and the ashes of cities. i have
nights where i secretly patted myself on the back for how
close to craziness i felt. maybe i actually enjoyed the insomnia,
the self medication, the revolving door of revalations and excesses,
the dead artist club that follows me with a broom to sweep up
my mess. its oddly neat i can read psychiatric disorder books and point
out fun ones i have. and here i am going in for more meds tomorrow.
oh im such a bitter wreck of a sage
but every then and now i stop. realize how "been done"
it is. all are victims, all know tragedy, the
stirred air that follows the experience of weightlessness.
(ok, a LITTLE therapy wouldn't hurt)

but who wants to be one of THOSE?
those who talk of how much more persuasive
their demons are than everyone elses. those
who look at their watch too much or
lie about watching a sunrise they slept through.

so i made a wager

to keep the names to myself.

to face what needed facing.
and never take pride in
the coffee collapsing
a piano into a window.

im just gonna keep
looking
for paint cans to salvage the answers
i bought
from the trash bins.

cuz lets be honest.

i could be phillip seymour hoffman with
just a little practice, a few deep breaths,
and some dance class.

In a colorful equation of long standing

you arose from some
where hidden inside.
a universe that was
definite and dead. a
journey drenched in
the whole earth
because you know
in the fog, it
escaped me. and
sugar palmed, the
way you liked it.
a little girl wearing
red suspenders,
sat high and
upended.
in any case,
a hesitant nest,
a slow purpose,
the perturbed
cannot help here.
it doesn’t fit.
it cant fit.
in any case.
I made you in
my image

(un)divine election

In the campaign office I throw
Myself into things just to see
What I may hit. We don’t know
What we are doing but we
Are somehow neck and neck
And there are four thousand things
To do and I am overwhelmed to a
Point of smiling but I look around
The tornado desk at checks and futures
Trading and a civics class of information and
The only politics I can think of is
Her hips and how the election with her
Is already over

Of Bluster and Breakups

it just sort of happens.

not that thers any map
almost
better that there isn't.

like reading
the back of cereal boxes

a day
comes when you don't.

was it
a conscious decision?

a sort of
definitive flag you plucked
in the ground claiming new
land?

a pile of circles that
didn't resolve?

a shadow
spreads across
the trees with
names i
dont know

turning yellow

like a photograph
at the edges.

you knew at a
very young age

it was a spoken
word. seen and unseen
that your mother struggled
with. a hatred born
from freedom.

kind of like
you know, throwing the football
around in the snow. or for me,
shutting down, the normal

the routine of
winters passing.

a sympony
of dispositions and late
days.

its taken this long
to hit my stride.

and i read something today on
the bus by a favorite poet
that made me
stay up all night.

certain clues, certain hints
about the way you put
on your tire chains

a mailbox, frozen.

when you
think about describing us.
a piece of paper picked up
by an old friend, backwards.

a bottle rocket
of chess and some soldiers.

way down.

its cool, you said, im
not the rebound girl.

Spontaneous 10:23 love poem about nothing

It is tiresome many days
Just to find the
Courage to
Flick a piece of dead skin
From your hand
to the ground

It seems the walk from the bathroom
To the kitchen is to travel through a
Desert of vacant wars and last place
Gods

The newspapers are written in
incomprehensible tongues

The cars are rolling by on
turpentine

And you regurgitate the same line
over and over and over again

Dreaming of far off lands
and bi-polar pets

There are always good things
I tell myself
It just takes more looking around
More doorstops, more patience

Everyone is a victim of something
Of someone
We've all been brutalized
We've all seen the ugliness
Of loves gatekeeper

We have all raked the calanders
Off the walls
And cursed the stockings of time

Every day is a choice to say
Yes to this thing

To kick something in the balls
To stroke the fur of an
Amazing beauty, a mountain

To forestall
The Ink from draining your
Veins dry

To take all these cliches
And do something about
Them

"Do not worry
about tomorrow
for tomorrow
will worry about itself.
Each day has enough
trouble of its own"

Sayeth the good book
They really oughta teach
That thing in counseling class

Theres something to it
Even if theres nothing

To this.

seoull mufflings

she lied and it was.
dusk. we knew
there would be
a few of these,
but
i wasn't told
the lights
would slip in shallow puddles
when the rooms became
empty.

our acts were honest
the seam split across
your face and i used
the fire extinguisher

to put out flames that
were north of us.

i gambled beirut
and pissed myself.

you took my broken hand

spoke something about
my performance to
the GI's

a stage dive

and the night. . .
a canvass
of winter moving

resolved in uncertain
words.

now the distance
of half crumpled papers

from the birds eye
gimlet

a wilted refinery of
merely being.

just a . . .

i was . . .

haven't you . . . . ?

and a
request:

if you see me
puffing my chest out

keeping my own
counsel

with lamps around

run for
your
life.

plundered saturday

a tin life
without much
wire or smut.

i needed you to
smile or save that
last part of me

from recycling itself
in the gutter of misprints.