on productivity

the single most
valuable
realization
that can be made in
a lifetime is
that none of us,
innately, are
any good at
anything

that is,
until we finally
reconcile
with that notion
for whatever
reason

and that reconciliation
fills us
brimming
with such grief and
self-loathing
that the mirror
shatters veiny

and the dogs
and cats
of this night and the last
scatter

and such self-obsession
and loathing
takes over everything
else, creating its own simple
warp
of our already distorted
reality.

but this new existence (of
sorts) ousts the mirage
of Self,
almost entirely—
making it difficult to
care much
about anything
at all

except maybe
that which would return your
Self [rejuvenated]…

…like Art
or something diluted down to It,

a fiddling job,
to which
every miserable person
can escape

the sanity-bringer.

that is my art.

but we are all still nothings,
and will continue
to be nothing
until the arrival of
that notion.

loathing
ourselves or the world or both
is what will
keep us locked up and tweaking
our respective crafts

provided we are not out
there solely for those
fifteen minutes,
we will bust our asses
and be artsy
and stick our tongues out
at the elderly

and prove to ourselves that
as a race
we can exude more than
piss, cum, vomit, and
shit.

the duck

the sky was
a little smokier
as it is every year
in late November.
most
had left in October
because the creek
and the wind were
too cold.

I had produced nothing
that winter;
most likely still
trying to find myself.
not because I felt out
of place in my skin, more
so I hadn’t found anyone else
with skin for a smooth
enough smelt.

without my thrashing
about and carrying on,
the house was mostly silent,
as it was on that day.
after having starved with
little money and no success,
the hunt came out in me
so I got up to find my pants—

in a flare of down fatigue,
I crashed.

he came out of nowhere,
knocking over my bamboo vase—
I was really too lucky
and several times I slapped
my face;
the thought was that
I might have eaten that day
but by the slow rise
and fall I saw he was
obviously breathing.
so I brought him in;
I had been alone a long
long while
and had been hungry
even longer.

his scent stayed with me;
I had never been close enough
to one to know what they ate
and how it made them smell.

but he was pleasant and cleaned
himself;
slow, unconcerned, and aloof:
so much lower than I was used to.

(I never even began to count
the months he stayed)
we developed a habit of poker
on alternating weeknights;
sometimes weekend bars;
purplegrass hazes every night.
I taught him how to quack only
at the pretty girls
and make the unfortunate lookers
gawk.

those were cold nights—
falling in and out with others,
names blurred overlap;
dust from once-present connections.
we were good for each other,
even without any food.

I am so grateful to have had
such stability in one friend
for as long as I did;
if only to have made it
through the winter.

life felt too tired that day and
I knew this—
condemning myself willingly
in hopes of a simple existence
maybe
something more palatable:

simply,
we were both alone and
would have taken anything in
the world to kill It.

webbed feet—
intent-of-ambiguous-color—
you were an invaluable friend
and in the coldest and
loneliest of nights, delicious
aside a carafe of pinot noir.

this one road

it smells like
sour
cherries and
pomegranates and
opening my eyes
feels like
heavy
weather.
good;
it must be
summer
in these parts.

all over,
trees,
two beams of
light ahead.
it is
clearly
late
and that owl
stares,
its head
backwards;
upside-down
and hooting.

if I had the
fluidity
of real
limbs
perhaps I would
then chase him down.
I instead slog them
under and
past
the tree
and the hooting
owl.

out of the thicket,
I see
I am
several
yards
from headlights;
I take these moments
to imagine how
long
I had been
in there.

the car is old;
a middle-aged
Volvo
already
at the end of its
life.
inside it,
my girlfriend
is driving.
in the back,
I see
a skinhead
with whom
I must have
exchanged
drugs
for cash
in some
terse and
tired routine—
he is blue-
eyed and
just sits there.

when I get in
she hands
me her
gold
flask,
the smell of
whiskey
on her
breath
and elsewhere
howls
like a siren.

I say nothing,
only drinking
saying nothing.

I suck
down
the strange whiskey-
water, half
expecting her
to kill
off the feeling
and the
stooge
in the back.

she turns to me
and reaches
slowly
behind my ear
and locks the
door;
I am sure
that her eyes
are on
fire.

like always,
she throws it
into gear so
that I jerk around
in my seat
but
the music now
is abnormally legato—
too slow for this
late nightmare.

my eyes do not adjust
to the unfamiliar
blare
of sunrise;
it is slowly
washing
over acres
and acres of
grass and
this one
road.

I turn to
offer
the skinhead
another drink,
but he is
sprawled
out
on the seat
unmoving
in a cold-blue.

something told me
I was very
far
from those southern
palisade beaches.

rolling

When the 5 a.m. birds begin
I think of the previous spring,
and the failed story it brought.

but this is only three seasons of the year.
each season of rebirth I am far too busy
creating tales with some damnable rat

dressed up fine with groomed composure.
I wish I could say I had never spent at least
one night with each, but I cannot.

Most of them I take to my favorite frog
bar , The Swamp. And it is that.
a few of them I take to waterside cafés;

(That’s how you know I really like them.)
and even fewer I will take on day picnics
with a basket of food by yours truly.

(Each of those few picnic dates, I married.)
but they come and go, and it seems like
I wait longer every time for the next one.

Spring always brings them crazier than
the last—I once felt relief by my charred
apartment, grateful for my mind intact.

all these experience have equated to nothing;
I have had them and wasted them equally.
the stars have already orchestrated my end.

even so, I have learned that the way to
the heart is the empty stomach.

there always remains the chance
of a dying veggie agreeing to a
strangely soggy roast beef au jus.

I never speculate on the future, and
no one means to bring up the past,
but between all that grassmoke

and those Lilly pad picnics, I know
all I need to know of such
silly love.

alternate encounter in the rose garden

[I have dreamt of a half-rose garden in
Three-sided walls perched with ivy.]
This was the second time I had been there.

Over the discernable thorn and bush
Light broke through the only canopy,
Whose consistency returned me
To all-angles of stained glass from
Barcelona.

Something coined familiar
Gently tugged me to the tree
Until my face was pressed against
A beehive tenant
Tired, too, with it all.

Four stings later I started to feel,
Like venom to the spine when it bites—
Green, like a damned fool, probably
Drowning in the eye-pools of my self.

That is when Time slips around my neck
And I try to suck in what is left,
Only to be saved—in every sense—
By the Familiar. It spun delerium.

* * *

I don’t feel the stings anymore, and assume
They are gone. Translucents run all over
And I think I hear someone else’s breathing.
I think of honey dripping from lips and then

I feel yours; they are everything I had dreamed
While awake.

* * *

It ends with magpies and the customary dove.
My vision is colored so. It melts into the light
Carved by shadows under the bottlebrush—
Softly hushed in the glow behind the curtains.

interstate love poem

This is not about
the styled
walk and hair.
It’s wet, isn’t it?
Yeah, I knew
Before it rang.
But listen,
Slam
That door again,
Rap your nails,
Post any sign
Sensibly,
And please—
Don’t go
So far
As to try;
It is still something
On the periphery,
From
down here
The plane exists
As a glass ceiling.
But your
anything
Feels like
everything
And obscures me
That much more
From the big Inevitable.

My fingers are cold and I felt them tingle a little when I stopped moving. I’m typing now so I can only feel the tingling in the rest of my body. My torso, legs (my right knee hurts a little), feet, and cold toes tumble around in tightly-phrased syncopation. Tendons, ligaments hum grossly against muscle and bone, surprisingly in-key. Gradually, I feel my stomach tendons tear into tenor, harmonized with a bass-heavy backside. I feel it at the peak of my spine. The noise is barely louder than my shallow breaths while my heart chugs along at a steady -- BPM. Intensity of tension, release, dissonant Irish pub tunes brought the sensation to the forefront. What‘s with his head? I hear a tear, like celery, in my ankle that blurs my vision. Through the haze of beautiful pain I hear it wailing through like gold. The molten sound, so familiar to me and yet it never retains its shape for more than one beat. My heart doesn’t skip, it keeps on in swung 8ths that could fling a child face-first into the sand or buffalo chips or whatever the fuck they’re called. The sensation doesn’t stop, relentless in its quest to break me---dilute me---down to little organic molecules. Tiny nothings, devoid of any self-sense of God Almighty. By this point I am beginning to shake noticeably and can no longer keep my eyes open. The feeling below my waist is gone, the sound it emanates reminds me of what it used to feel like. But I haven’t stopped yet, my heart at -- BPM. I feel it sweeping over me, ticking slowly, nearer to my forehead. I know that once it hits my eyes the show is over. The sound, oh I forgot the sound, how great it really is. I still feel a few tendons, still intact, plucked by ghostly fingers thick with scars. I am sure I am seizing by now, the smoke alarm went off long ago, but I still have a minute left. If my eyes could open I would look down at myself. But I feel dismembered. I felt nothing. I still feel nothing. But something’s missing, like my leg. Downtown I’d be considered a poet, speaking for the lost art of artistry to people peering through glazed donuts at the milk carton I stand on. But here I’m just a nut in his bedroom, getting worked up over nothing. Nobody else must hear the sound, or else they’d know it too. Is it almost over? Still shaking? Yes, still shaking. The sound of my head batted against the wood floor is muffled gibberish to the harmony that sputters from every other angle. I clench my teeth but keep typing; the keys are rested in the crater that formerly held my bowels. The sensation rounds out and drapes over my eyes. I feel a click in my spine, like one of those jukeboxes clicks when you pick a song. Eyes opened, I blink fat tears into oblivion, and breathe. They are all staring at me. Hey, it’s nice to have you back.

pothead

Most times
I avoid,
labeling myself
if at all possible.
But there is
not much to argue
when someone
says, ‘You smoke
too much.’

I think,
‘Too much’
is entirely
relative.

Nevertheless,
I do smoke
a whole lot
of marijuana.
Denying it
would be akin to
something like
declaring a crusade
or wearing a tunic.

Antiquated bullshit,
all of it.

I do not fashion myself
anything
or nothing
because my skills:
rolling a joint,
lighting it
and engaging
every
mundane
simulus---
they all
equate to one
finality:
It’s better than being
on the funny farm.

swell and break

There was a man on the beach
the morning I arrived in town.
Motionless;
from the neck up
he was eating sand.
A naked blister-puff—
I immediately thought,
‘Only his wife could have done this.’

I kicked him and he didn’t move.
I tried to touch him,
but was afraid to,
of the texture—
the swell and the break,
tugging him seaward
with strands of froth.

Nobody wanted him,
which is why they had left him.
Even his wife seemed disgusted, I knew
more than any other emotion.
So the seagulls came down
and peck-pecked;
we stood around, watching
the swell and break.

I decided to take her home,
His wife,
His Elle,
and loved her in waves
while he ate sand
kicked up by the broken swell.

the inexplicable cold of july

When light breaks the fixation
I will see in living, breathing color
what I could never touch: Pink-haze
cheeks through the lying frost.

Will your kindness greet me then,
my weathered arms and legs,
in a tangled web that would take
ones longer than ours’ to undo?

The birds told me you would,
and I believe them.
But even they follow the same
twisted pattern of shades and seasons.

I would bring them home as gifts
if we all spoke the same tongue—
I still recall the tiny undulations
when you teased with the dexterity
of yours.

The infinite tastes that came from it
left me dumb—staring ridiculous.
Now, standing here, still, the fixed light,
with my mouth frozen to the sheet.

I think of tearing off my icy tongue,
as I would you, from my memory—
It kills me, and I won’t do it;

If that shade of cheek
could find such heat
on any arctic coast.

what can change, will

I sit here on nights similar to this
catching angles of moonlight
into my black ruled notebook.
most nights, the moon is weak
and does little to help my weak
eyes.

These fingers stay firm around
the shaft of my pen and I grope
around for things to give you,

some token from my life here;
the little left of me—after the
year grinds me simpler; duller.

You asked me what I had done
with myself. “Been 2 years,”
You said it with irresistible sparks.

My answers never satisfy.
the iterations are all here—my mind:
The wild, untamed bliss of ignorance.

Now, during peak hours for drunks,
hookers, their pimps, and their pushers,
I can give myself to you, purely;

the down-on-their-lucks ease
the avoidance of what could-have-been.
because where-it’s-at, really isn’t.

I could be something more for you,
but what good is life-normalized?
We shouldn’t fear thunder or pain.

My face is not red, my nose not bulbous,
but I have my share of charred blackness.
And oh, what I would unmake for you.

For now, scratch another line
in the sharply angled moonlight—
I hope you notice the care
finally put into it all.

emmy's room

Things fall apart,
So glue them back together.
Open to what’s there
If it shatters you.
Glue it back a different way,
And forget where you were.
Run the hall barefoot,
When the rock tears at you.
Send your tears as payment;
Your blood will forgive you.

Pomodero's on Spring Street

So late in the day as
I sit to my first meal.
The nail shop, tucked above some
obscure, self-righteous boutique
is a snug fit for distraction
from the pie I slowly shovel
like some manner of automaton
between my tongue
and palatable joys.
They bustle outside—
inter-alley sketches—
the ground between them
belches out steam
on various freaks, geeks, & the occasional
pompous asshole.

I am now out of water. I am,
however,
not out of pizza-pie but
I thirst so bad to run the alleys—
as if reading it all vicariously
on the back of a Skyline postcard.

an unfurling

There is a strange
buzzing in
the back of
my head.
For a good part
of every day
it zips around
back there
and inaudibly
screeches
in private
dog-frequencies.

I feel
nothing
for explanation.
Which is why
I am not surprised
at the stares
and oddities,
gestures,
given to me
as I run to the bathroom
suddenly
leaving punch-
lines suspended
overhead.

They will fall
hard
once I leave.

How
unfortunate
for them,
but I
believe
in something:
In a means-to-an-end.

Whatever means
to whatever end.
Here, I notice
certain freedoms.

Yes,
that’s it.
Anarchy
is not freedom.
Marxism
certainly
is not.
Nor is democracy.
Because there is,
in the first place,
no confinement;
thus,
no escape.

But they insist
that I am wrong
and remain
sitting around
the sticky
coffee table,
talking
on and on
about nothing
and prodding
the glass
with amazingly
opposable
thumbs.

Never going anywhere
unless
circles
are somewhere.

This is why;
I have to leave:
over-exposure
to people:
faceless,
crying,
pointing,
vomiting,
ass-backwards,
and intrusive
people.

Flung into life
without any warning
to any of us—
ass-backwards,
vomiting
crying
since their very
first breath.

How am I supposed
to take that kind
of shit
seriously?

To make sense
of the various quirks
of others
is a task better left
to something
natural.
Like diffusion.

Why can’t everything
be more
like that?
Why can’t it
eventually
osmose
to someplace
far, far away
from me?

It is so automatic
and so dependable.
It is something
ingrained.
If only it was
omnipresent.

What a thought.
My thought.

I should name it:

[nothingfromsomething]

What a pretty name.

art of dance

I.

Spring was the season
I chose to give up
my hermit-habit,
so I decided to
hit the fairgrounds.

There were four
of us guys
and everywhere
girls looked like
Thanksgiving
hams, tip-
toe-ing over the
sleeping squirrels.

Nothing
but stares
as we passed,
noting to myself
how good
a nut
would have tasted
then.

All those bodies
hips, arms, and lips
and countless
strands
of multicolored
hair
set on silver
trays
or
what I perceived
to be
platters.

The heat that morning
broke the ice
that had settled
during winter.
It tore the shirts
off the bodies
and if
you were still
wearing one,
it would
stick it firmly
to your
back with
salty-goo.

So many
bodies
there.
We smoked
ourselves
and watched them.


II.

Some young
Jazz-heads were
grooving nearby.
Infectious
like TB.
And the crowd
dancing--
wholly exposed.

Six white guys
on stage;
one black;
they were playing this
Latin number.
It sounded so much
like that Rastafarian
singing Rhythm & Blues
next to the newsstand
where I read
Dewey Defeats Truman!
endlessly to
myself.

The crowd was still
drunk and
obnoxious
and they were still
grinding bodies
on top
of bodies.

There was this
one guy,
right-and-front,
dancing with
his old
brunette.
He must have
somehow
grasped the
point of
dancing
or knew something
I didn't
because he was
flailing about,
jerking, actually,
like an idiot.

"Is that supposed
to be dancing?"
I asked my friend.

"Maybe he's
slow."
was the reply.

"He has to be,"
they went on,
"look at him dance."

In retrospect,
he probably was
but I found it
hard to
hold that
against him;
he looked so damned happy there,
punching at the air
and
kicking the grass.

His brunette
must have
tired out,
so she stopped
dancing
and he kept going,
except now,
he was planting
spins
and a wicked
two-step.

I turned back
to my friend,
"Look at him now."

We both laughed.

I stared at them
a little longer
after that.
He was on fire,
and she was
about the band,
occasionally
checking him
from the corner
of her eye.

"She must
really love that
guy,"
I said
and laughed.

But by then,
the novelty had
passed and
nobody cared
anymore.


III.

Around us,
shadows
were leaning
precariously
and we were all
hungry as hell.

I remembered
how much
I wanted
a nut.

We rounded up and
left,
running into more
people
as we did.
This time,
a caravan of girls--
punked out--
fresh from high-school.

The sun had weary eyes
and we lost ourselves
among
those beautiful
spiny
rainbows.