in complete sentences
that don’t exist
outside of binary shorts!
just ideas! just thoughts!
diehard glass shattered
by bullets and bad accents
god damn! what I wouldn’t
give for just straight
talk about anything
without the snuff
and the calling card
and all this damn
white space!
(and how about
listening to your
own pointless
advice, huh?)
flapping in the wind
outside old boxer shorts
on the street corner -
please, noble passer by
looking away for the sake
of our collective dignity
pick up a blunt object
and strike me with it
in the area of offense
so that I may stop looking
away as well
and begin the arduous task
of keeping my boys
in line.
is what I should eat
and haven’t eaten
for nearly two weeks
because my haunches hunger
for the sound of butter sparks
slapping on hot black steel
in lieu of breathing room
within pleatless cotton slacks
and form-fitting boxers
makes me shit
but, then, what
doesn’t?
I could fill
a Hollywood Bowl
full of diuretics
great and small,
from traffic jams
to jellybeans,
and I would still
have to take a dump.
(NOTE TO SELF: diuretics are for peeeeeee!)
I hate it
when attractive people
make bad decisions
because it reflects
poorly on all of us,
and we must stand
tall and upright
as proxies for little
folk that will never
be in a position
to make a poor
decision and get away
with it.
BUSH CHENEY ‘04
Behind an idle bus
blinking hazard lights
I see my car
framed in skyscraper
windows the color
of new pennies
I move my arm
and a swath of light
arcs through the void
where I sit
waiting for this bus
to close its doors
and when the light
changes I retreat
into shadow and drive
beyond my reflection
towards the bubbling
mass of traffic
and now everywhere
there is my car
coming towards me
and past, tracing a vector
to the point where the road
meets itself.
I will throw away
all my comfortable
old socks
even if just one thread
is askance
I will iron my
supposedly wrinkle
free slacks
and all shirts
I will try my best
to shave all possible
stubble
You will never see me
with my shirt off
polishing my belly
or sliding a hand
down my pants
I will do my best
to not treat you
like beer commercial
chattle
even if you’d look
so good
stroking a pool cue
in beat-up blue jeans
kissing another girl
- polish all awkwardness
- man / woman roles?
we treat the minutes
as distance, sequester
ourselves in these
white collars,
do our time,
and then run like hell.
the ceiling tiles stretch
endlessly past the lines set
by cubicle partitions
and drywall
and the grid fluoresces
above and around all,
neutral benevolence,
segmented, symmetrical,
gray lines crossing gray lines
endlessly finite.
Let’s all look
to the right
to admire the car
out of context
this 4-wheeled
Jersey barrier
on the 95 North
on-ramp
Let’s halt this
grand train of progress
to watch the car
interact with its new
habitat, its new
station as a sedentary
object amongst
hundreds of idling horses
Let’s stop and
smell the bouquet
exhaled by generous
combustion mouths
Let us luxuriate
in the largess
of our filth
like diapered babies
because we have never
seen a 1984 Toyota
Camry with a donut
and slashed leather
interior waiting
for its owner
to drive back
and take it home
This deserted rose
deserves our attention
planted in the fertile loam
of sparkling pavement
I allowed the bottle
to roll off the ledge
onto the train car floor,
because it wasn’t mine.
Yet it clung to my foot,
gently nuzzling my ankle.
I lifted my foot
and let it go. The bottle
walked down the aisle,
like a miniature drum roll,
the sound fading faster,
the roll quickening
and then a clear break,
a small twinkle of glass
and quiet.
A friend -
former Jew,
now born-again
billboard,
GOT JESUS?
across his chest
embossed in shadowed
sans serif,
a fresh splash
of blood across
the question.
Not his.
He said to me,
“You’re going to Hell
when you die.”
That’s right,
He said
I’m going to Hell,
and when he said
that he smiled -
smiled like a snitch
sending a pal
down the river.
I mean, goddamn,
at least show
a little shame
when you burn
me like that.
Two years later,
and I still
stare straight
through the prick,
wondering if his
smug caveat
preempted any
actual concern.
Playing basketball.
He circles the court
in concentric circuits,
perpetual child,
a snake-oil shill
parting paved seas
on his way to
the promised land.
Shake and bake,
between the legs,
around the back -
a true showman.
I make sure
to shake his hand
as he swoops towards
my knee,
and as the ball rolls
away, I help him up,
because that’s the way
I was raised.
The guitar murmurs
each time it moves –
the excited glitter
of stilled strings,
the hollowed wood
echoing ghosts of notes
But the dust nestles
into the body
comfortably, each thin
pixel set to swallow
any instance of inadvertent
motion (synaesthetic?
movement into sound?
threnody?)
A stumble against
the door of the closet
releases a thick knock
and the dying chime
of a grandfather clock
moving past the hour
towards
a stilted
ticking
silence.
This is just to say
I’m just dropping you a line
meaning I dropped the line
too long ago & am hoping
you pick up
And this has nothing to do
with this crush I can’t
get a grip on
Which doesn’t mean I fell
in so much as towards
or against
and I’m being held up
by some rash concern
about you & me & us
which is actually a gulf
as wide as the end
of a letter
so how’re you?
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