the strange thing about phones

mighty opposites, mon frere
situational aphasia
every time i talk it comes out
garbled, fumbled and i want you
so much to understand what i feel
i dreamed of silent minds
everything cracking, not making a sound
until the wire hits the ground
and i jump
i jump at a pin-drop
start at your night-black pupils
staring into mine

not to interrupt, not to domineer your time
it's so hard not to take you up
so i fall off of cliffs waiting
icarus and i, we're tired of waiting

and suddenly i'm always scared

desperate new lives on three kinds of bread
choose your poison, rum, whiskey
killing pasts and opening presents
and beating down doors
to get to more, so damn tired all the time
but i run, run, run because i'm not
i'm not. it's true. placebos can be
beautiful sometimes.

if snails see the benefit then i'm not fit
to listen in, i'm no fly on the wall
i see only fall, spring, winter, autumn again
and man is it beautiful this time around
only i feel collapsed, congealed
like everything happy happens in lumps
and everything good
is almost never me

but sometimes it is, too
so you're a perfect reminder

praise for apollo, god of desk lamps

you make it hard
to see outside
vertical lines, horizontal
lines. the pale shadow of five
four, three, two
zero for effort and ten for hope
i do a lot of hoping.
so when i look at you, finally
really look, i mean
i hope you don't take offense
if i study your eyes
first, and your smile last
it's just habit, and
i guarantee you
i'll be smiling, too.

so far

i've always played with double
entendres, yellow-bricked roads
have swept me away
this night is falling quickly towards
dawn, and oh, honey, your cigarette burns
brighter than your eyes
suddenly i want to see that spark again
cloudy skies, though. stormy lies.

i am a virus, and you are, too. we're a pair
of homewrecking, smiling scripts
and i wouldn't have it any other way

and as much as i don't see you, i miss you
every day, every way. sometimes i sit
behind trees and listen to crows
in the garden of egypt
far off, far off.
and the sky just sits and laughs at me
imitating better painters
better sunsets and different years
there are five windows in my room.

these things feel so abandoned

so forgetting a year or two
around here is like losing a pill
or two in the sofa, they'll show up later
they'll all go stale, they'll change you
hurt you, turn you into a disease-ridden
mirror-image of what is right
the people who could set me right
just fall off the map, left and right
so i write
every fucking day.

another pointless thought

familiar music, iron times
roads going nowhere and i am
on them, twenty-five eight
i always give the extra one
mile, push
i always end up in
between the lines, and the lines
end up on either side of me

there a lot

when i rise with the sun
you show me how to sleep
these veins are open, my heart pours out
when i tire and wither, i'm tired
and i'm withered, and the promise of more
hangs like dew inside my mouth

just to see one simple fleck, i'd have
to run a hundred miles
but i'd do it, yeah, i'd do it in a day
it's not a problem, or a trouble
for a marathon-man like me
i take the bait and do it every time

so i guess here's what i'm asking:
is this blood here real or plastic
i've been victim of synthetics time before
we are frames along a hallway
and it's hard to see things your way
all square and neat and never known before.

shivery silence

well, that's strange

first time in a thousand days

the city of night is the city of lights

waiting up, waiting up for

runner-ups, downtown screamers

uptown streams

i am the great reliever

god, relieve me of everything

not fit for duty, not set for war

a thousand days in the city of night

smog and smoke and breaking light

fitting, fading, reading wrong

my days are short and my nights are long

a thousand smokestacks and a thousand songs

not anymore

lying still, i hold my heart up high
it glints like flecks of gold on a summer night
pink, orange, blue
and i feel it beat and complete its
task in the moist sweat of my hands
and i feel warm, for once
pinks and blues and reds all
hugging me forever

i never knew how much i loved the wind
sensations never bothered me too much
lying still, i hold my heart
and let the wind wash past my hands
and feel the pain, the smiles, more
everything is alive

i met a man of fleeting fancies
his name was me, a strange name indeed
he told me all my world was cracking
he told me, "better get your glue and broom"
i didn't, didn't listen or reply
and now i feel the grass smile on my neck
the sunrise, sunset fall upon my face
lying still, i hold my heart up high
tell all the world
"go on, do what you will."

... processing...

what might i do with today? shiver for the cold
deprive myself of sleep, of love, of grins
(only for the mirror, now, dears)
burrow deep down and sip my tea in
moist earth, swallow a coffin whole
because i'm going to eat my words one day
who knows what i'll digest
god, i don't
i don't know

cansado perro bien

not pretending, not leaving
simply being is a task
i am a hypocrite
i am bile and crime
you are my mirror, you
draw me in dirt. from mt. olympus
from way on high, we weren't meant for this
i know that we weren't meant for this

and heathen saviors, innocent damned
they all screamed for
broken eggshells
but they found no glue.
i found no glue.
this isn't arts and crafts, honey
so put your crayons down
eat them
melt them into torches and pitchforks
they weren't meant for this
but they'll do.

everyone else's college process

i can become you
and it's strange that i can wear your skin
with such ease, inhabit your sinews
and pretend, just for now, that i'm secure in this
i am spreading my success across mountains
and i will let you float out into the ether
become my personal victory
then, when i am alone on the operating table
staring up at my vivisectors and praying
i will have some modicum of hope
that you, at least, will bear my thoughts to the height of your creation.

the last thing you ever wrote

walking home on a tuesday night comes with such doubtful sanity, such strange correlations
if i wonder what you're doing and wander halfway home, if i play my old self if i sing my old song will you come back? i doubt it more than me.
and here i am, rubbing resin into my wounds, lighting fire, bending spoons with
all sorts of doubts and frowns, but most of all i'm angry that you ever pretended to be my north star. you are charybdis. so i'll sail the other way.
this feels so posthumous.
oh, hamlet, would you mourn for the fallen pretender? would you shout, "seems, madam?" even before she quit herself of the innocent robes? no, i think you would have fallen for it as hard as i have. you would have drowned in regrets, but you would have fallen hard.
walking home on a tuesday night, looking forward thinking back, spliced up lives all in my head. i've had my thoughts, my heart has bled.

poems past, years ahead

trailing blood
like pendants on a
chain, dripping water
in my sink. i think i'm
lost, i think i'm scared
i don't think so much
these days
the water's colder
anyway

this is my cave
surrounded by my letters
this is denial, this is
no better
than a whisper of a
doubt, let me in
then push me out
i am dried up on the shelf
in sand and paper, gasoline

like fallen dreams, fallen soldiers
in the grass (in the past)
my new life is
kind of bloody, kind of
faint

the poster child

tonight was fogs and sunsets, emptied plates
wet shirt, wet nails and a couple of suds
comrades in aprons, arthritic spines
tonight was fine, tonight was good
clouds on april years ago. i wish for
good luck, good food
don't ask for much
tonight was higher, higher up