first christmas

my hands, cold from wondering, hold themselves
little knots of knuckles, worries, december chills
scarves and coats and winter smells
it's never easy, miles apart
it's always lonesome, it's always hard

reasons to have written

when i was not much younger and very far behind
i pretended to be a cat and there was
a ball of yarn, red and unraveling. it wasn't mine.
the echoes of toddlerhood, faint with neglect
clamped into my ears, i played. i pounced.
foreign dreams, foreign things. the staple
did not tear, it poked and sliced. i became small,
whittled with age and you know- there is nothing to do
but regret

and i have never smiled at the color of regret.

silver lining

fourteen by ten, the size of my life
deep brown moulding (but with tonight's
darkness, darker than that)
digital clocks staring up at me, screaming
two! three! four!
by now it is five.
and yet... and yet i am smiling. love does
funny things.

the big dig

i keep carving out niches for my nights
this night, that. like target-brand life organizers
like perfect sympathizers we drink ourselves apart.
i have never loved a needle and thread so much
as when it sewed me back together,
pulled every day and every night in with a string
and said, "it doesn't have to be okay. but it is."

tonight i will stay at home and sing.
tomorrow i will run outside and drink.
sure.
but next week i'll hold my string.

reflection in the dark

the dusty, digital residue of last night sticks on me like spandex and sweat
you will lift the corners of my mouth with a word, my
everything else with a wink. there are things i should
be shrugging off, shirking and sneaking around
deep troughs filled with slick hair and clipped nails
but i am not, and i don't think i ever will. i am not a shirker,
these days. i am not even a slitherer-outer.
i am a grabber-oner and i'll never let go.

the blessed

in the midst of this pulsing guitar, these
acoustic strums, this building harmony, i see you
share a look. i see the corners of your eyes brighten and
i wonder: is that me? is that my naivete that returns
your wink? my lurking destruction in the swing of your voice?
we've still got time. we've got time.
it was your heartbreaking love that turned me to water
years ago, and years ago i could have never known
that your reflection had so much capacity for hurt.
my mirror is soft and boyish, southern and warm
will draw no exclamations of, "i knew it! i saw it!" my mirror is safe
and so am i.
but in the winter, at night,
i will hug my comforter close and think
how hard it is to see one's reflection in the dark.

stars

you put the urban in my decay. seas of stars
all in your eyes, or maybe mine. either way, i'm seeing stars.
the swagger in your shoes, your hips, it is all mine.
your ships are full. you are autumn eyes and summer lips.
i have a feeling we wished the same thing.

one-man show

i called myself a strange soul, and minutes later i
was spilling guts in the neon city. i was too metaphorical,
too lustrous for the lip-glossy director. i was too elusive
even for myself. are these even my words at all? i thought.
but of course. they must be. i wrote them.
i played into your smile, your effervescent skill
and knew just how scared you were to judge me.
sometimes things just go.
i found, in the end, what i was trying to kill.
i coddled it, swathed it in words and beautiful scar tissue,
and brought it back to life.

tatihou

sometimes spray paint, like ire-coated particles,
is just as good as blood. and age old chains, they still retain
their magic where they stood.

our make-pretends
and nikon lenses sifting through the sand,
we walk with heads held high and notebooks stashed
our lightning eyes and toddler masks.
this is what it means to be, the ocean seems to say.
this is what it's like to live for each and every day.
so who am i to prove it wrong? it's vast and blue and deep
deeper than i, a tiny speck, could ever hope to be
so hugging all my rhyming schemes, i jet across the sky
remembering all i long to keep and breathing out a sigh.

sometimes idols, false and true alike,
can shatter on their own. and when they do, and the levee breaks,
remember tatihou.

the underbelly

there is always something
cataclysmic around the corner
always petri dishes filled with fog
we do not divine these days, but
we feel it, like fragmented prose
spidering up our legs
taking root in our tibias and talons
don't think for a moment we don't all have talons.

there is something, unknowable
waiting for us to tear each other to shreds
i know, i've seen it in my present
don't tell me you're a preacher because
i only want a break.

beauty

all of the roses in my room are dry.
why is that?

all of these petals falling harshly
like autumn too soon
my room will fill with the
amorous dropping of dried-up beautiful things
and i will gasp, unready, waiting to
see what it smells like when i finally go under

give me your leaden shoes
i will fill them with soil and grow
peonies, mountain laurels and roots

i will not try to grow roses. they
never seem to listen.

the ergathon

as a boy, i would draw oars
on paperboard cut-outs of kings and queens
deep, swinging oars made from oak
and ash
and dogwood
they are folded over, now
crushed into shards of paper
cutting memories into my ribs
steering my heart, heaving me
towards a final
realization
i am not like you
i am small
i am frail
but i am new
i am an unborn thing.

head in the clouds

they tell me i've got places to go.
i listen to acoustic covers of
over-sexualized eighties gods and
wondering if beethoven ever wanted lyrics
for his lyricism
there are rocks in my shoes
and pits in my chest. i have been eaten away.
i would like to recycle, to save the earth
but it's hard to have more than
one dream. there are electric trains
round-trip flights, automobiles
but they are all wrong.
why do they tell me i've got places to go?
all i have are places to be.

we interrupt the daily broadcast...

...To direct you towards places where you can buy my short story, "Number Theory", which has recently been published in eBook form by Untreed Reads:

The best place to buy from (i.e. the place that gives me the most money):
Straight from the publisher!

These places are cool, too:
Smashwords
1romanceEbooks. Yeah. (please appreciate that it's listed under "ManLove")
AllRomanceEbooks
OmniLit!
Scribd

If you insist on buying from the Apple iBookstore or the Amazon eBookstore (or some other esoteric webstore), you can wait a bit.

and now back to other, cooler stuff.

miles from nowhere

my feet were broken, hot
two lights, your eyes, spun in
place and returned my gaze
your dare was more than literary
my solar plexus more than empty
you ask, "why are you so destroyed?"
but only hurricanes destroy. water erodes.

the slight push against the door
sent me someplace erotic as you
unburdened me, pulled out my vitals and
said, "here, this is what you're looking for."
and you wouldn't have been wrong
but i get the feeling
you weren't exactly right.

your shoulders will peel next week
like scabs on fifth-graders' knees

oh, dana

sitting on a window-ledge
a shadow told me of my past
and i, i listened rapt with wonder
as shadow dear my life uncovered
"who are you to kill your foes?"
"who are you to think you know?"
the shadow stared and left me blind
i took his light, he took my eyes

why do we hide on windowsills?
the shadow laughed and held my neck
his voice was coarse, i held my breath
"i have no answers, little friend
your eyes are yours, your eyes are new.
why would i, a shadow old, corrupt a thing so bold and true?"
i had no answer, i was dumb
i sat and wondered, sipped some rum.

not so old

i'm burying treasure, i'm going
away. i'm building you houses
in exotic locales. there are shrines
to your honor, grass at your feet
and i'm meters away, no, miles
from the point you all meet.

and i wonder why i

--and on the subject of
touching oneself (on foreheads
with ashes and other places)
i find it repulsive that the
deep greens of your best days are
so muddled by the bright reds of your
worst vulgarities. your verisimilarities.
do you get the feeling that
there's too much pressure
in your head?
have you tried to open your mouth
(let some of the pressure out?)

when you were younger
-- that phrase seems out of
place, you were still an adult,
dead flies would find their way
onto your thighs, into your
wide-open, silent-screaming mouth
every time you fell asleep.
or maybe i put them there.
i'll never know. some things
are so mutable.

but deep below (in all the places
that might be touched)
i can hear the rumbling of
a life discontented, a residing
belief that my platitudes and attitude
are all coming full-circle.
with this frown, i'll have wrinkles at twenty-five.

fragile

in the last days of the journey
of white through water,
over the sulfuric acid mountains
and deep forest clouds
beneath eons of frustration and guilt
a deep black pall of silt covered the dreamer
like a blanket for a baby
or a cocoon for a full-grown boy.

this blue, this door

pyrimidine, purine
my genetic code is stuck to the floor
in deep, welling puddles
i am shin-deep in despedidas, hispanic farewells
full of brownness and fire
ankle-up in american yearnings and sartorial dreams
i don't know who i am trying to be.

i have a father with round, titanium glasses
my mother's are plastic and like a bug
my eyes are open, squinted
my fists are full of scorn and seaweed

deep-fretted guitars
every beautiful moment might be
summed up in a song, condensed or
re-created for watery, museum-going eyes
i find myself behind friendly plexiglass
almost every day, almost every night
the time just seems to go
this place will soon be gone.

i have a life filled to the brim with questions
a mind made up of starlight suppositions
my heart is open, contracted
my veins are filled with fire and salt

the multifacet

one day your pain will be my muse
and we, we'll laugh on beer and booze
remembering freedom in a hand-grenade
bedtime stories and long-gone serenades.
deep within this chest of mine
i know there is a clock and time
they tell me when to loose myself
to cut the rope and flood the well
and houses have no meaning now
they've left us with a field new-plowed
although i'm grateful, i confess
in all this newness lies a mess.

these are good books

so some men never age, cooped up in oils
and pressed in pages while seeping
strains, strings, similes start to take their toll
and some men never think, they only move
these wrinkles, these eyes, these grooves in
twisted metals made to look like mouths
others yet are tired, swallowed whole and stripped
naked on the plexiglass of tangled minds and wits
as for me, i'm falling
and it's purposeful, it's true
there were rainbows on thursday
though i'm still content with blue.

abandoned mont sainte michel

when cavern walls and sandpaper jetties
lose mass and weight, and july fourth
has less value than before, when the graves
of thirty-thousand are just
memories of a hopeful time
i hoped you would write to me
a letter, a single word. crass, unedited
but existent.
when the values we created and the
morals we share disappear i will know
even if you shove it down again

you lied to me
you all lied to me

no me olvides

antes de salir, mirame
por encimo del hombro
debajo de la mesa
en el jardín jugamos, salí y
nunca llamaste, nunca gritaste mi nombre
salvo cuando gritaste a todo
salvo cuando buscaste ayuda
y no tengo ayuda hoy. no tengo nada actualmente.
soy un hombre sin causo, sin dirección
y eres más elegante y profunda para
personas como yo.
ni la literatura ni la muerte
puede conmoverme. para nunca y jamas
para nunca y jamas.
no olvides el jardín.

my hours

i woke up exhausted, after eighteen years
deep frozen and craving deep fried... anything,
it didn't matter. i wanted to fill myself
with culture and couture and savoir-faire but
i am vast and cavernous and this fluff just falls apart in my intestines
grows eery and digested and not at all whole.
at night, all kinds of things happen
but i've never been very good at figuring out what
i mean, what works and what doesn't
what feels good and what hurts
what injures and what heals
what seals and what tears

what floats
and what doesn't?

modest ring

like rain on the window, your flaws
are all slipping down
and leaving prints.
the daffodil sunlight makes them clear,
smudges from a well-worn year.

i felt tremors before the fault
was assigned, before
plato said a word.
the earthquake was just an aftershock,
a secret key to a rusty lock.

without you

sour grapes. these droopy days are like
guarantors for my insecurity, my insurance.
they'll pay me back, slowly, in red eyes
goose-pimples, unnamed medications
they'll bail me out even as i cling to that
last hope, that inside kind of peace
i want to win, i do. i want to be the king and the court jester.

"try looking underneath this printer."
this room has been left unstaffed, unstocked
since time immemorial and all i want
is to plant a seed, watch roots crack through
the computers, desks, people. i wish
this room would yield something, for once.
wrong numbers, wrong names. i want to feel all of this beautiful numbness.

radioscopy

up here in the north, the rains sweep us down
"don't go downhill
in this weather," caution four angry parents
the basement is flooded and the food has gone bad.
we're used to burrowing in, but
the ruptured light of december is far gone, far off.
i used to drive a volkswagon.
empty leather seats, wide-open plains
down south, the storms are like caesar,
the skies aphrodite.
scaramouche (the car) died in kansas
and i pushed him all the way to the carribbean
before realizing that all i held was a ghost.
there are more important things than cars, but i
can't name many of them.
i have left my singing rains and my sea-sky south
the center of the u.s. of a
and in the west i have found liquor and love to my heart's content.
but every once in a while, i think of you
and every day i wonder when i will wake up
safe in new england
safe in tennessee
safe in bed, and safe from you.

kickflip

the vagaries of time, of me
falling into place one by three
piano keys and broken meters
alone on a dance floor
drowned in a theater
silhouetted prose all clinging to my face
this underground raucous
these worn-out clothes
a place in time, a time in place

we were talking about parapets and guns
when the world changed
deep greens and shallow puns
but we never really knew.

climb on board

do you know what it's like to see yourself
standing in line at the County Community Kitchen
knobs for elbows, hopeful eyes, all dreams
wisps of disillusion hanging so close to your pupils
that they blur out entirely, become
background oppression, the kind that sticks
itself into your best dreams and gives clues to
psychiatrists and mind readers alike
and all the while, you walk and walk and walk
until suddenly you understand
this is the desert, there is no point b.
this is your future.

no, i didn't think you knew.

anywhere

i dreamt of rolling waters, unbelievable
glances of bright white. diamonds in the sea.
summer held its sinewy hand to my forehead
and i was feverish, fake
condemned to fantasies and failures
autumn left me wishing for evergreens,
people that did not shed their skin
or their minds.

one day a year ago will be today.
will i still see clocks?
once, i was frozen in time.

fake tales of the monarchical restructuring of wonderland

sidelined mutinies do not stop seething.
feet pressed against the floor
hands in pockets
deep breaths, meditative rage all
balled up in backs and shoulders
waiting for a flight to come
wishing to the absent ether
that someday i might board.
i am immutable in my ways, as poison is in its purpose.
shell-shocked protesters,
didn't know what they were doing
you can stumble into a corner
and still have no clue
what the walls are made of.
my walls are of concrete and sanskrit
very few can discern
just how dead the writing on the wall is
how impenetrable they might seem.
it takes two windows to force a draft.

how to be an atheist

ask something of the great beyond

bivouac

i landed on my teeth
splintered greys and the tattered cover
of a textbook, one last epitaph
to a job well tried
these angles are almost too much to bear.
the coiling frame of an empty cup
so much is hidden
i'm practically schrodinger's cat
the brief accent of a wistful memory
leaps up, latches on. it's too late, herr memory
it's too late.

seeing stars

these peregrine eyes
staring calmly, lightening the
deep haze from which i roll
they are syringes and syrups
from every wall and every window
anesthetizing, aesthetic
prodding me on.
these unbound eyes.
these soulful eyes.
i've never been so in love with a stranger.

this musculature
the pulsing heat of living,
a breathing home and celibate arms
they could drag me to the
precipice and i would do the rest
the light looks more like shadows
the shadows like light.
this simple body.
this dangerous body.
who is it that keeps me up at night?

you are not my enemy. you are also not my friend.
you are a chapter, blank and full.

sway

in the woods, trees are bending
narrow waters siphon tales
captured secrets, cities burned
some things cannot be reforged.
in the deep yellow of spring
the leaves are still falling
everything falls if given the chance
in the summer, you never really know
shallow blues all litter the street
swallowed news in the summer heat
and then, a year from now
dry reds and humming browns

but there is no foresight
just patterns in the dark.

wonderer

don't fight.

sudden slowdown and we're moving at
half-speed, half-mast
even the coroner looks scared this time

oh, ophelia. we meet again.

so every silent heartbeat
ranks on the richter scale these days
every saline plea puts me back a year
sometimes i get the sense of a
frictionless universe

punching bags were made for punching.
ironically.

the estranged life

absalom blew smoke in my face.

i woke up cold, sweaty and weak
where am i? gulf coast waves
wash guilt from the ground below
a cup of mile-high miracle slides my way
i push it away
no dreams in wonderland tonight.

the red queen kissed my hand.

there are lipstick stains on my collar
i wonder where i've been? ten-thousand
years is not enough, i'm searching
for words that you don't know

we're so, so late.

you taught me to read.
how could anything i say make sense?

piers and polyphony

i'm hoarding erasers, rubbing away the
days that didn't fit. questions
like needles sliding down my knees
stick to the floor at my feet
the rain on the roof sounds like
marbles on concrete
i feel like washing every headstone twice
before i drive and drive away

in this new world
there are no men, there are no ghosts
the peaceful empty cities
los angeles, you look so beautiful without your face

as i was

enjoy your day, you've earned it
coast to coast i always lose
my summer earnings are slipping through
since you left my side, i've only
just begun to feel awake and alone.
this fucking four-year dream is almost done.

every poem, every song, an altar to your name
i wish i could change the world
i'll change my name instead
birth certificates were made to be burned
bank accounts emptied
and minds put to waste
i hope you enjoy your fucking day.

sinking

he was arabian, they said.
cut-off shirts and leather eyes
and god, he tried to tone it down
somehow the heat of life
always caught him off-guard
the silvery blues kept dragging him
back with the tide.

he has no religion, no friends.
he has no parents.
no worries.
every night, his pores gasp
to take in the night, to let out the acid
some days he can't see a thing until midnight.
some days he sees too much
(but it's not a problem, just a fact
another wink or another thumbtack)
everyone always knows when he's mad
but not when he's not

on the day that he found out
trees were their normal green, for once.

sometimes spring is when you fall in.

this country, this hotter than hot
this world, these dreams
this sinking feeling keeps keeping me up all night
and every day is another spring.

apropos

i pushed you too hard.
the wind pushed me
and i let myself leave, fall
from my tree and do whatever.
i guess i learned my lesson.

five a.m. notoriety
clings to my forehead like sweat
and collateral
i would sleep but there
is too much footage to edit
not enough to use.

metal grows hot in my hands.
i'll try to shave away
the pain in my sinus, the flame
in my gut. they say the
cliffs of silence loom large,
facades of peace are advantageous.

and suddenly i'm caught.
i use mirrors like plates.
i eat myself every day.

where is my mind?

these sorts of montages, these losses
life support
oh brother, don't die
don't die

you collapsed in the heat
the strange beginnings and god i
i wish you were here
seattle, bring me there
i'm so far out i'm drowning in
playthings and ghost calls

oh kid, we did good
we did bad
this city is filled with broken, better men.
where is my mind?

the future takes time to buffer

all these secret books and special codes
i want to run in alleys
deep, gravelly nights, wet lights
we all have a secret future, every
day. mine stays hidden most of the time.

rare snowfall paralyzes deep south

the men cast their papers
strangely to the side
waited for ice to crack, all this salt
seems bound to make a difference.
the looks on their faces
told the women otherwise and so
it was this, a standoff and a museum.
see the ice queen and her collection
see the dreamworlds she creates.
the men want in, the women too.

there are patterns in the snow
deep fissures, fault lines
much blame to spread
each rabbit jumps in time to the
beating of the sun
on cloudy days, they run

some of them are teachers
they too will fight.

the men cast their pencils
down and out. when they mention
kingdoms and thrones, chessboards
know that monarchs hide in gravel
wars are fought at home
the men all fight for honor
but the war's already won.

worlds

scattered memories, fragments, mysteries
every single life i've ever led
and there are thousands
i know that there are millions
every moment
behind my back
in the morning, when the sun rises
and there is fresh snow
i will be dreaming
and sometimes i wish i could
just keep on.

123

excitement! adventure!

just seems to get me going.

all of a sudden i'm punching you
for good reasons in hypothetical cities
with glass wills and iron laws
mosquito nets line every street sign
your nose bleeds every time.
sometimes i give you money
(not enough for medical bills)
sometimes you're sleeping with other men
at the end of the day i'm always
lying to pay the bills
or keep my title
or keep my home

fires can be extinguished, you know.
they can also burn forever.

children dream

the sort of expressionist crap i write
it's all for you
green blazes and smoldering corners
it's all for you
who are you, marble eye
the wings on my final epitaph are weak
faint, traced and untraced
erasers are rarely ever permanent
in the household in my head
there are down quilts on all my beds
there are ashes in our urns
and each great stanza
every powdered face and chorus line
it's all for you
the pirouettes and vital signs
it's all for you
but who are you, distant cry
i've never wanted answers
only smiles, but these days i want
diagrams and blueprints and
exactitude. it's a phase.
it's all a phase.

something i really need to learn

it was the first fire in what seemed like
years, and suddenly
embers, ashes and hydrants
all burst, all bloomed
no escape no exit no need
nobody no names no
and yet yes
there are so many chain reactions these days
it's hard to keep track
sometimes i think i'm having a gut reaction
but other times i know
and when i am boiled down to
bones and dumped into
some metaphorical stew in some
metaphorical kitchen
to feed some metaphorical
child that has fallen metaphorically
ill
when all that happens
it's hard not to see the truth
through all these eyes

signs in the sand

i would like my life to be cinematic
we all would
hints, closure, white-hot
teeth upon teeth and skin and bones
and reality closing in
but never stopping
not now. not ever.

i would like for you to win
that sounds generous
that sounds wrong.
sometimes all i need is a god
and to be seventeen again
or twenty-five and walking on a windmill.

i would like to leave this town behind.
but houses cannot move and
i've never been great at real-estate.

suffocation (marshmallows)

good luck, kid.

more accepted

at last, free from this pesky bloggerface.

sonnet 148

tomorrow the temperature is supposed to rise
and you are bronzing, rusting
beneath my eyes. next to diamonds
you are dust. and believe me
all the sweat and sulfur and noise
doesn't hide you
from my 20/20 hindsight.
cheap boxed chardonnay, left
behind from last night's
smiles. down in the cellar
the real thing sits
and smiles
and gets better
and better
and older.

gridlocked

we were welding semaphores and seasons
entire wardrobes dancing to the blues
haiti sank beneath the rubble
these days, i don't know what to do

adam pointed me towards the serpent.
and i, i vomited up
every last bit of that apple
but i still tasted metal between my
fillings and i still felt
blood beneath my nails.
adam pointed me towards the serpent
and the serpent, he gave me
one hell of a shit-eating grin
and nothing else.

there is a pitch for every kind of tear.

28 cop cars, and i am amazed

it did not rain in new york city.
sometimes i want to stuff you into
my sleeves, ball you up and store you
with mothballs, craters in your
eyes. sometimes i want to
shove you down my throat. sometimes
i think i have. there's a lump there.
i have landmarks, now, big and glass
strangled in scar-tissue
(but healing fast)
and i have fingernails, too.
that's important as well.
the world is this strange, phallic
disgrace but i can't help
it if i am not disturbed.
inkwells gather in my eyes
it's like my irises want to well up
well out, turn large and scared and victorious
all at once
because i know
i know.
for once the trees are made of solid wood
no more of these ceramic visions
terracotta dreams
i am seeing in nine dimensions
and i don't even know it.
today the sun peeked out,
if only for a minute.
today, you slunk inside your
ten-billion-watt home and watched
your childhood slip into
"kleenex! windex! condoms!"
oh, what a world.
today, it did not rain.

pen

my throat is trying to strangle me
literally, i mean my throat
is closing up, seizing up
sucking me dry
and all i do these days
is lose water, words and
friends. so now i'm stuck
in a river, wading
and there are plays
and novels
short stories and
saltwater fish all sticking
to the soles of my feet
drenching me in me
i am no ice-like monarch
but i melt, i freeze
and you, you're all saline.

strung out/afraid of the end

somehow it all comes back
after days of knowing how
and these purples fade in sunsets
on interstates and runways, i'm just
a kid. these shells were made for bigger snails.

and weeks of wondering will seem
like flecks of desperation, thousand-mile
trees but now, now, now.
i wonder how i seem?

sometimes snakes just die
or curl up inside and shed their skin.
the seas are still alive
filled with empty men and empty skin
and now and now and now
reflecting, returning
sometimes men just lose.