Joy

When you say a thing that I write too much

I dream myself a thousand-plus

more books I wrote myself

and imagine them in a swinging stack

fainting

and collapsing onto you

as they crush your bones

in the name of art

in the name of american idealism

in the name of the future

because

fuck you and your sleeping wordless criticism

and

that path before me is lit with possibility

and lore

and my cup is not full because it is not a cup

it is a life

it is a heart

and me

I am trying to show you something

about yourself

not me

that a person can do anything

and

that is what hope is

so,

with all due respect,

fuck you if you dismiss this

because it is a process

and

I accept

if you discount what it has to say

but if I draw a line

and say

what have you done today

be prepared

because while you are sleeping

I am with the sunlight

and the life

and joy

joy will rise in the names

Orange-Burst

Orange-Burst knows–

full-tilt knows, bumper car sparks knows

beach bum salty hair in eyes–knows

that I am here

under it.

Made of sunlight

Orange-Burst is

and all “Nun-ya-business-esque”

because it rained

and

I have a thing for lamps.

Lights–lightbulbs–signs with lights–

you name it–

I have a thing.

Not digital or laser though.

Working ones–

Ones where you have to be careful or

DAMN

that small piece comes off the rods

those tiny metal legs

extending up

and the connection is lost forever

I’d cry if they turned off the Chrysler

cry baby tears

but maybe I wouldn’t know

sometimes

sometimes I can’t get out of bed.

I spend almost every waking hour absolutely alone.

Orange-Burst knows.

I love it.

It laughs

out loud with light

as a heaven might

and

a man needs friends at 6 a.m.

and I don’t work anywhere

but here

so

Orange-Burst–

off we go.

Fast As Fuck

Maybe all you meant to say was,

“gosh, what a waste to see a good man lose his faith”

and that is why

when I got lost

and you knew,

you told me to write,

because I was very sad

and a sad man is a sad thing

too sad for words

maybe

but his own

so

While they thumb for a dollar now

and loose change

when the offering plate comes around

silver

and charity-bound

I am dumping collections

entire passages of a life

because

I dug the ditch

I roofed the house

I bagged the groceries

I got fired

I sung a song

I broke myself

I broke others

and now

now I want to be, NO, BEAT that idea

that a man does not change

also

like an athlete

or a machinist

I want to know how much my spirit can lift

how fast a heart can go

and

how slow a world can turn

when frozen by the violent twists

of a dream

gone thuder-tornado-thuNder tornato

even when I misspell

so

Maybe all you meant to say was,

“gosh, what a waste to see a good man lose his faith”

but I heard you

a bunch of ways

now after-while a buncha ways

and

this is the work

and

the work will not change

unlike me

fast as a fucking scene

inside a t.v.

the size of a galaxy.

Pay Up, and Let the Kids Play You Sissy

It looks like the mirror-house was glass

… “fuck”

the rumbles must be low

to be grumbles muttered

because a truth was told

and stomachs were hungry

not yet lunch

and there was a bunch of shit on about war

war

fuck that

go to war, kill others, yourself, whatever

for “safety”

but I have never felt safe around anyone

who wanted to kill me

or whom

I thought might die needlessly

all that blood

and this feeling we have a soul and there might be a God

in fact

that there might be a rather large presentation

scientific

mathematic

ready behind us,

whatever made our parents

and you know

whatever also made them love and then laugh

fuck

take baths and talk

and make us,

it might be a bad idea to forget you did not measure you

and cut you out of a cloth

and seed yourself in a field of flesh

and fill your veins

which spider-hatched

into a nebula

of tangible webs

before you were even given a name

and declare yourself a God

who punishes

because

and if only this

because

if one stands behind you and after you

imagine his legion

and in your slow-ass monday-morning mind

imagine what darkness

falls under that kind of light

and

remember

soon it will be collection day, either way

and you,

you are what you will be using

when that receipt is handed to you

and someone will pay

ok?

good.

How Spirits Sail

Winter is so fucking over

so fucking over

in here

so last year

I don’t have time for you

but love you now

love you still

but removed myself

Intensive care unit typewriter

station on full alert

maybe manic but harmless

and less hurt

Pain can be taken from a place

like in a heart

in its last season

and moved to the knuckles

Hands in the dirt getting way dirty

digging into something

looking for evidence

of life in circles

I stand still and watch me

I revolve perfectly like a planet

inside a system of myself

and release a faction

I gang myself up sort of

because those colors on a dress

and the life under it or outside

is boozy and makes me yucked

Nobody in this place is even aware

of who is borrowing

from where

who is touched and by what

And that whole thing is madness

if you know you are the name

or the other hand connected

to a life inside a desired light

With eyes like yours and a mouth

and ears and arms and legs

and worries and fellowship

raised on shores you did not see

Because, we got here separately

that is how it works

how spirits sail.

Fuck That Noise, Jimmy Shoetaps

Let’s go up and down

like me

and my moods, or yours and someone else’s too

and see if we can build some rollercoasters

no seagulls ever got to sit on

for the clattering rails

of words and heartbeats

all in perfect time

with the wave

and then the next wave

as it crashes into our beach

where we go

not always together

still

our electric park of thought

and

you know, fuck it

ride ’em all

at least once

or twice

for the laughs.

otherwise

the dust will gather

and on the metal

rust will settle

and I’ll be up here fixing this shit

forever

and

you know,

fuck that noise, Jimmy Shoetaps.

Asshole

What an asshole.

Somebody was born today and you went and built a boxing arena.

What an asshole.

Sure, poetry and art are certainly not charity but if YOU built it

and

it’s your wallet that gets lined with unicorn feathers

or you were in a position to TEACH not LEAD

and you

showed a child it was possible to bleed

then when that First Punch goes out

shouldn’t YOUR FACE be the one?

huh?

Is that how it oughta be,

for the balance to belong to the floor

and to set an example

before you have to even the score … ?

You don’t care, do you?

No.

So you will now be happy and certainly sleep easy and of course

get fucked royally

but if by other royalty

still …

What an asshole.

What an asshole you are,

swallowing yourself in shit.

Garbage Scepter

Sour Crystals form

and the kings

the kings of the alleys and NOT the streets

the streets outside them

hold their staffs

their scepters

and loot

in sack cloth

to reckon what is theirs

and by their staff

they draw a day

and they draw a night

and we know

we who are not of the living in those boxes of garbage cans

we know

this is their kingdom.

Old Flowers

Old flowers

Break like eggs

in a rented room

with a slow bed

This church rising up

like old men

surrounded by houses

all new like children

With a rain-blasted steeple

fit for vampires

Christ

it makes me sick

and my stomach screams

because it isn’t working anymore

like my skin was crawling with bugs

I cannot see

interrupting me

and my shitty dreams

Apples, bananas, and pears in my green glass heart

rot quietly along to a beat

my legs crossed

my typing foot

banging inside the desk

from my wild typing foot–feet–

tired from over-sleep

with a mouth full of smoke and rose petal

tea and eyes following an electric tower

someplace over the water

the car swings back and forth wildly

minus driver

or a road to guide her

I tell lies to get inside her

if only to turn the key

to an off position

and let it happen–sparing somebody

Ten days ago the water went

into the hole where it sits

like an entire city arranged

on a dirty dinner plate

on a tray made of clay turning dirt

from humidity and hurt

for broken men who hurl with knotted shirts

stinging themselves like bees

looking into mirrors

the image of an enemy

someplace in the middle millionties

with their legs tied

and wasted lipstick girls laughing their wallets off

turning money into bags

barely between the cars,

rushing,

glassy like the sun was coming out on repeat inside

but not really

with electric wombs

those rooms were made for sleeping

not research for alibis not worth keeping

star-lined and straight

like a military bed

at 8 a.m.

there are no coincidences, said my friend

who bathes in light

but joined a cult by accident one night

outside

streets on streets on streets

like orgies

for starving feet

a picture of what is mine wrapped up in her mother’s arms

above the light

which happily

descended from me

as I too dwelt

lower

before it rose

and it is now always turned on

All-Fucking*night

and me

I break like eggs in a rented room

with a slow bed

I break like eggs

or old flowers

damn

fuck

pity

shame

I will never be mine

for the never being yours

or ours.

Summer

summer is a state of mind

a smelly fish

no meat

all scales

that television of yours

has harpoons

and they breach the whale

your sea

an angry field of static

disconnected from the door

I see the outside

from the inside

but go noplace

near there anymore

landfill is a sky

sky is full of swallows

filling your cup

poison

how do you even spell that

cleaning your plate

thoroughly

everything you do, so perfect and pretty

and never showing up

for the always being late

this place is empty kind of

sans love–home-esqueness pose

without you

I look at the lights I hung

I see the outside of my apartment

but from below

not above

and I see traffic way too heavy

from mistakes

and words used

turned like iron weights on ankles

and me

inside like too many bodies in the trunk

to hide

us living

but summer is a state of mind

and I am going

and willingly

forever

so say goodbye to this me

while I am still yours

before the dirt comes out from under my nails

and I no longer feel shitty

or

beyond the reach of God.

Whatever Makes Her Happy

I sat with her in a movie theater

midday

friday

falling asleep

someplace between my seat

and her shoulder

with clouds passing in the frame

since that day

things have never been anything worse

but not the same

days are born

they revolve

but they do not change

–eternity is here–

–and here–

Our soda is too big for us

Our popcorn might as well be on fire

because it is anywhere but in her mouth

my mouth

christ my mouth

or anyone else’s inside this place

inside them

she or I

replaced by another shadow

or shadowy face

and

My clothes are dirty

My mind is not in charge

I had a few reservations

in several areas of interest

but I am the ticket

and I turned the plane around

I didn’t show

I just didn’t.

Inside you I have every one of you,

demonic assholes tearing and screaming

the housing projects come down

like a video

no posse

no cars

and the women in the lower districts laugh

and taunt us as we go

because the way I talk is like gunfire

and I am fractured with loud parts

army clothes

and my face is loud

violent crowd sound loud

and spitting vowels

this is all a bit much

and confusing

and

well

whatever, man, whatever it takes

whatever makes her happy.

We’re the Worst

the wrong side of worst

is

I draw lines

between my enemies

and my friends

and

they intersect so much

I can’t see their faces

for the bends

in the book

and what a bath break

took

because you’re all way too much

and lovely

but also

just yuck

yuck

gross

the moon plays with a ball of yarn

it tells me jokes

tells jokes also to the yard

dogs go ape-shit

and in the pile of garbage

they roll

snort

and then get up begrudgingly

and go settle down

in a lie

under a tree shadow

fuckers

lucky and pure

in their madness and devotion

and without doubt

so noble a thing

but when living

so pure

minus all that second-guessing

and congestion.

I do not talk about how I feel

so much as I talk about

that I am feeling–“something”

but I dunno what fucking what

really

it’s so nonspecific

it talks a lot of shit but doesn’t back it up

if I planted something

not the evidence in a coat

but a tree

maybe it might slow something else

everything being perfectly balanced

still I blush

when I get the feeling

a woman is thinking of a saddle-up

forgive me but

I mean,

I got the ticket for me

for us

For Charles

Today is Thursday, Charles,

and I had that old dream again.

I bet it was something like your drinking problem.

You can never admit it

or let it go

so you glorified it

until it wasted you

and your possibility

and you died

right after people started looking like horticulture

and whatever.

I bet God made you join a rollerskating league

I bet you hate it

I bet it’s all men too

an all-men rollerskating league

so you don’t get any ideas

and besides

rollerskating is a bag of funballs, Charles

and you

they put you in the movie store on the day you passed

in all your drunken glory

and you

you were a good writer

and you saw things

and they were messed up

but they didn’t have to be

and those docks

by the swampy pier

they aren’t meant for learning

but for ships

cargo

and

the sea.

Today is Thursday, Charles,

and I had that old dream again.

But you are still asleep

and will be forever

and I wish

I wish you could wake me up one more day

to cry

and write a brief note

and leave it on the refrigerator of the world

that you were sorry

and that you really were just scared

and loved too much.

Goodnight, Charles.

No Movie Tonight

Just tonight, walking home I thought,

Maybe I will treat myself to dinner and a movie

but I got cold feet

and I just couldn’t

For all that walking down the aisle alone again

For all that unnecessary static I feel

watching grouped shadows before me

side by side

taking it all in together

it does not remind me of her anymore

but it does remind me of me

desperately alone

and

there is just no one

no one

not a soul with a match to relight that fire

and I’m terribly afraid it is in no way an over-exaggeration

but a fact.

You can feel that stuff from this altitude of 33.

I can see the fast-action valley below of youth.

How merciless and warring always

teeth-gnashing war machines, but all pretty and dumb

colliding

and at this height

well

one must saunter on toward the summit

or what point was it anyway

if for stopping now

to find the peak

and know a measurement of a single light

inside this machine of mine

which keeps growing hair

breaking down

and

capable of the longest of sighs

as darkness surrounds.

What If

slice it any way you like

be it a loaf of homemade bread

or a block of cheese

I like it when the mail comes

I open the box one-armed

with a string I keep tied to my belt loop

on its end a gaggle of keys

and there

there is your magazine

we don’t finish them

but we try

us youngins or under 40

but as instructed by our elders

we stack them neatly

in our bathrooms or our sitting rooms

or wherever a window is

that gets the most light

for reading them later

under the reflected brick thrown

unnatural light

and

EVEN when you make a funny cover

about politics

some of us don’t mind

or even understand

because

in the front pages our poets speak

simple and condensed into phrase

and it is as if at once

I learn each time

to understand a world of hearts

one must focus on a single beat

its flow

and be silent and in the know

what courage it must take

to be at ease enough to expose a truth

single and fit for a feast

of your offices

overstacked with the words of us dreamers

trying our best

to be clever

in the way we use words

when they rhyme and repeat

or not

but

slice it any way you like

if it made it in,

there is a bit of dancing standing fits

when you open the box

and your submission

somehow

against all odds

made it in.

Electric Nothings

Am I still a country mouse

If forever now

I boxed me up

and shipped me up north

and

gave my heart to a city-style dream?

or

am I not a geographical thing?

Am I still a Southern pie

If long past baked

I boxed me up

and was overlooked

for

people here eat mostly cake

and

remember when Johnny Carson used to do that thing

that thing

where you playfully end up

riddled with the whipping cream

interrupting a blush

as it fell onto a suit

from a smiling face?

Am I still?

Because I feel like electric nothings

most days

and find myself engulfed in measurements

my soul fastened to my shoes

my shoes the counterweights

and

I don’t feel like I belong much here

or there or not

any more than anything flickering

digital

that a spilled glass of something

could make forgot

gone too

like a season well spent.

This is how we go about it now

now that the curtain and the cast

are simulcast

before and after intermission

with all of us mid-bow

to empty house crowds

and

my body tells me something LOUD

“hey, mister,” it says

you are yours

so

I let the words take me where they will

and marry each morning

that clicking sound

far from electric nothings

and south.

War Is Awful

That gun,

That suit,

That thought,

“aim … then shoot”

How’d you do it?

What’d I miss?

I kill cockroaches

sure thing, man

I never miss

Well, that’s a lie

But what the hell

They invaded

So why not try?

Why not?

Is that how it goes?

That gun,

That suit,

That thought,

“aim … then shoot”

Someone made that thing

lust or love

directed by the hands

and silence above

below a floor

not sheets and bed

but rapid miracles

reproducing

like light orb circles

dropping from words

meant only once

for ears now yours

once your mother’s

surrounded perhaps

by careful doctors

and a nurse

plus plenty of hot water

and your tears,

all miracles

considering the lists

everywhere

talking “End Is Near”

take this, take that

to calm your fears,

fix you, not IT

like you were a world

funny, but not cute

you’re not

so

That gun,

That suit,

That thought,

“aim … then shoot”

How’d you do it?

Fuck You, Mister Know-It-All

Sometimes I tell myself,

“Fuck you, mister know-it-all”

but I know I’m right anyway

so I don’t talk to myself

for like, seven days

because

I am an asshole

an asshole with a big fucking mouth and also

I am trapped by multicorns

several of them

not to be confused with unicorns

who are also assholish, like swans

beautiful but will fuck with you,

NO multi-fucking-corns,

which are just downright,

um,

nasty, yeah, nasty and awful mean

so you know,

next time you get mad at yourself

think about this

or me

and feel free to keep smiling

and walking on through it

because,

well, what am I even saying here

who am I to tell anybody anything

I dunno shit about anything

my life is a fucking mess

“fuck you, mister know-it-all”

I would tell myself right now

but I’m busy

I’m busy being a poet

or whatever

infinity

plus

whatever makes it impossible to retort

I get the last word here

always.

Sand Sea Tide

I wish it were sea spirits–joining me to the ocean of sadness

or static tides filled with anger and depression–my own faults

sea spirits, green sun-glinting eyes

skin like scales, every color in them

when they moved ever so, standing upon

the beach, with merlin’s staff

but I am simply crazy

and me

my loneliness, which I spell so well

is killing me

off

like a crushed bug under a nice set of heels

I am surrounded by misery

and my boat sets sail

and we drift

into that fog

where I shall never see your face again.

sand

sea

tide

when I ask you to take my breath away

what I mean is,

forever

for-fucking-ever

My Watch Hates You

Dear Time,

Fuck You,

I used to get wasted and stand at the edges of buildings

not for show, there would be no one anywhere

not fried style

not even a stranger

and I would know I was wasted when I hung over the side

because naturally I am afraid of heights

that’s when

when I would snort a speedball off my hand

you know that place

between your first finger and thumb

that’s where you snort them from

I would buy coke

and buy heroin

both powders

and premix

and put them into little pieces of paper

which I would hide in my jean jacket pocket

very small

and I was like a magician

I would pretend to wipe my nose

the way anyone would with allergies

mid-lunch with someone

and I would drop the line into a linen napkin

or just a plain one

and I would snort them

all day

all day and night

but at night eat at least two sedatives

and one painkiller

then get wasted

wasted as fuck

and when the darkness filled me up all the way

I’d find a quiet ledge

and I would try to accidentally fall off

I did this for at least 6 years

I miss it

not the drugs

but whatever else that was, but I don’t do that anymore

now I work myself to death

that is my new punishment for myself

and because

during that time at the end

I lost you

I lost you there, I guess

I lost you.

so

Dear Time,

Fuck You

and

watch this watch this watch this watch this and watch this watch this

watch this and watch this

Asshole.

Forget It

slowing hands at ends of stems

pedals

arranged white, purple.

cornrows like directing orbs

of orange/tangerine blast

over a silent

waterfall that is you

and

forget it.

marsh lands toxic dump radioactive

semi-truck

spills toxins, fire, a wreck

fire explosives and up and

down and up and down

so afraid and insanity-bound

glacier

that is me

so

forget it.

Fruit Gets a Lot of Still-Life Action

sit still,

no,

you fucking sit still,

dialogue

between a camera

and

a bowl of fruit

it’s tired

it’s been there forever

and the set is exhausting

it’s tiring work

getting too much love

isn’t it?

so it starts to give

the lights are too much

the hours are too long

and the orange is more brown

now than yellow and red

mixed

and the green of the apricot

has softly fizzled out

nodded off in its chair

a sitting bed

in a green bowl

on a table

with large hands moving the pieces

round and round

a race against the clock

time always wins

the cameraman just forgot

for they are driven

driven by madness

against a time

and

the world stops

they think

when you isolate it

small enough

it fits into a frame

but it is a trick

to make you think

that fruit gets all the action

it does not

it dies behind the colors

in the darkroom

and

is nothing,

zero

so move, soldier, move

winter is coming

Aplomb

since nobody is listening,

I will sing this

aplomb

aplomb

I’m singing that song

but I am not dignified

without dignity

I am alone

and no one is listening

this is MY hillside,

my right and left

sky and tree line barren

white canvas

north and south

devoid of color

listless

totally shut-mouth

since nobody is listening

I will sing this

over myself

over myself

and the thump of my own heart

kicking my chest

beating it

with its blood-fist

aplomb

aplomb

aplomb

aplomb

aplomb

I am alone

I am alone

and

no one is listening

Do Not Loan Your Heart to Women

if you raced me home

you would end up

in the woods

woods–white

silent

and

scary

but you know that now,

you know

as we watched the clouds break

into a single hole

like an eye

over the hudson those lines

light beams

they shot the blue to hell

and shrapnel fell

in puddle swallows

every-fucking-where

and you knew,

you knew I was lost as a ghost is

but fully here

body, soul, and bone-whole lost

that’s why you told me about the boys

the boys you have on a line

and that problem with collecting them

like I would agree

and say,

“oh, me too, I have a list”

but I do not

my legacy is just ruin

and a rot

someplace in my throat

my heart couldn’t find

so the words forgot

so I asked you something easy

and said,

“shall we make our way back into the city?”

of course, you said, and then

we went

If you could race me home

up those beams

you’d have to go

made of light

but changing so fast

they forget where they go

and dissolve

like a crypt

of tombs

into a past

where we are not

because

and I am saying this loosely,

I will not love again,

for I have learned

Dreams, God, Albert, and Disappointment

Albert wakes God up (again) and God is pissed,

but then laughs

and makes tea

tea for two

and they sit by the bay window

and God speaks

and Albert, grinning, says, “hmm”

and not much else

and when he talks

it isn’t in a germanic drawl

no

they speak one language

Angelica

which sounds like a puppy barking

about nothing in particular

like an animal sigh

and

eventually

Mrs. Claus comes round too

and says, “hello, Albert,” like he was a kid

because he is just a kid

always was

always is

punk as funk

and they all listen to the story of how

and why

and Albert tries very hard

very hard

not to ask too many questions

and

eventually

goes back to the dormitory

and writes stuff down

the ink disappears

into a cloud

and I wake up

in the middle of this firing range

where the bullets

are still the curse of days

and the worry

that my heart will explode

from love

and

disappointment