Kapuskasing
Google Analytics tells me
someone in Columbus, Ohio
checks this blog every day.
someone in Columbus, Ohio
checks this blog every day.
How? Why?
I get the New York clicks,
the ones from D.C.,
even Louisville now and then.
Those make sense.
But why the hell
is someone in Kapuskasing
lingering fifteen minutes
over Coyote Blood?
I get the New York clicks,
the ones from D.C.,
even Louisville now and then.
Those make sense.
But why the hell
is someone in Kapuskasing
lingering fifteen minutes
over Coyote Blood?
The hierophant's grimoire
the coyote smoking in the mirror
is one of the strangest and most enigmatic deities,
like no other of the mythical creations of myself.
a primordial and fearsome source,
invisible like the night sun,
it seems to have overwhelmed my spirit
and influenced my feelings and thoughts.
i am a magical instrument,
allowed to observe the world
and command lightning-like flashes
that summoned storms
in the form of written words.
questions are just spells
I ask my fanged reflection
in the morning mirror.
izra eels
anxiety got me shaking like leaves on sugar cane
in the dying days of summer's haze
in forgotten faces of places
where the past reminds and the future hides.
the atoms in my body
are billions of years old.
they have existed as long as life itself;
I'm just the latest assembly.
I love those quiet mornings,
up before the world
and everything is possible,
after the eels.
The day always comes,
everyone else catches up and it slips away,
but it is glorious while it lasts,
before the world takes over.
in the dying days of summer's haze
in forgotten faces of places
where the past reminds and the future hides.
the atoms in my body
are billions of years old.
they have existed as long as life itself;
I'm just the latest assembly.
I love those quiet mornings,
up before the world
and everything is possible,
after the eels.
The day always comes,
everyone else catches up and it slips away,
but it is glorious while it lasts,
before the world takes over.
I work in sixes.
the devil.
all my old apartment #s.
tonight's Halloween sky.
Tegan and Sara soundtrack.
to the supermarket.
aisle 6.
For Kendra, Forever Ago
Wine bar dusk,
Bon Iver soundtrack,
Union Square—
bench lamplight soft as an unkept vow.
I said things that weren’t true,
you laughed anyway,
and for a while the glass between us
was enough.
Love, or the lie of it,
slipped down with last call.
You were too young
and I was too dumb
to notice how fast
hearts tangle
when you let them.
Now the years bend,
folding nights into curious silence.
I keep one hand open
for the warmth I couldn’t hold,
the other clenched around
all I swore and never was.
If time is a bottle,
we broke ours early.
Still, I drink (coffee or club soda) to you—
the way you left me lighter,
and how the lie became
the only truth I kept.
bench lamplight soft as an unkept vow.
I said things that weren’t true,
you laughed anyway,
and for a while the glass between us
was enough.
Love, or the lie of it,
slipped down with last call.
You were too young
and I was too dumb
to notice how fast
hearts tangle
when you let them.
Now the years bend,
folding nights into curious silence.
I keep one hand open
for the warmth I couldn’t hold,
the other clenched around
all I swore and never was.
If time is a bottle,
we broke ours early.
Still, I drink (coffee or club soda) to you—
the way you left me lighter,
and how the lie became
the only truth I kept.
just another sad bastard folk song?
are you in Louisville for Labor Day?
how's Harrison Ford?
are you listening to Eleanor Rigby in the rain?
how's Greenspur Lane?
are you keeping yourself warm?
how's the poetry coming these days?
are you dancing?
how're Dale and Pat doing?
are you happy?
Meet me on Fairfax and Willoughby in September
we won't talk about the past
or even think about the future;
we can just laugh and wander
and party with Local Natives.
You’re fucked no matter what!
Sure this cancer didn’t kill me
but a heart attack could be around the corner,
waiting to clobber me with a crowbar
and rob me of my Beats by Dre headphones.
My life is held together by super glue,
but a heart attack could be around the corner,
waiting to clobber me with a crowbar
and rob me of my Beats by Dre headphones.
My life is held together by super glue,
and not the good kind,
but the dollar store variety
that is anything but super.
So I will be sacred but not scared,
but the dollar store variety
that is anything but super.
So I will be sacred but not scared,
order pancakes for the table,
but pronounce it as panSNAKES
just to see if the server discerns it.
Shoot guns with your best friend
because this is the end of August in America,
just to see if the server discerns it.
Shoot guns with your best friend
because this is the end of August in America,
during the foul year of our lord 2025,
and firing an AK47 for the first time
is like doing a big bump of cocaine
and firing an AK47 for the first time
is like doing a big bump of cocaine
in the bathroom of a winebar I used to work at
Listen to music every day
Listen to music every day
like a lunatic and fall in love
like someone with nothing to lose,
and embellish your stories
with experience rather than whim.
Take away the pressure to be top shelf
and embrace being on the back burner
but don’t settle for second fiddle.
with experience rather than whim.
Take away the pressure to be top shelf
and embrace being on the back burner
but don’t settle for second fiddle.
I need a million dollars.
Now I know some asshole
is going to read this and say
“a million dollars isn’t what it used to be,”
but I am sure I can not only make it last,
I even have a little fun with it.
is going to read this and say
“a million dollars isn’t what it used to be,”
but I am sure I can not only make it last,
I even have a little fun with it.
VHS Soul in a 4K World
Do you wish you could travel back in time
to the sun-drenched, carefree days of your analog childhood?
For the low price of only 305 overpriced coffees,
you can hoverboard back to 1996!
"Why are we here? Why am I hungry?
Did I make eye contact with that stranger?"
Ponder these existential questions
and more while standing at the door
of your childhood bedroom.
I don't want to revisit my childhood,
but I would like to spend a week in 1996.
When crazy time-travel opportunities
present themselves at your local convenience store,
trust me, you better jump on them
and gun it to 88mph.
Next week, I am going back
to Los Angeles circa 2018,
so I can read some poetry
just a little differently.
Maybe one day,
I will go back to 2008 and 2012, respectively,
just to witness what it's like
to fall dangerously in love again.
I was so focused on the future
that I missed the present
and it turned into the past.
to the sun-drenched, carefree days of your analog childhood?
For the low price of only 305 overpriced coffees,
you can hoverboard back to 1996!
"Why are we here? Why am I hungry?
Did I make eye contact with that stranger?"
Ponder these existential questions
and more while standing at the door
of your childhood bedroom.
I don't want to revisit my childhood,
but I would like to spend a week in 1996.
When crazy time-travel opportunities
present themselves at your local convenience store,
trust me, you better jump on them
and gun it to 88mph.
Next week, I am going back
to Los Angeles circa 2018,
so I can read some poetry
just a little differently.
Maybe one day,
I will go back to 2008 and 2012, respectively,
just to witness what it's like
to fall dangerously in love again.
I was so focused on the future
that I missed the present
and it turned into the past.
I'll pay you Tuesday,
but make today last.
Prosaic Dangers
Be careful what you wish for, kid,
The garden says to the good night.
I am the most selfish person I know
But I love giving.
So you can keep your fancy metaphors
And your grad school grammar.
Because I matter on Saturdays
And some Monday mornings.
I sip my tea and bid you farewell,
Have a nice upcoming autumn.
Back to buying a bike helmet
Before tomorrow kills me.
The garden says to the good night.
I am the most selfish person I know
But I love giving.
So you can keep your fancy metaphors
And your grad school grammar.
Because I matter on Saturdays
And some Monday mornings.
I sip my tea and bid you farewell,
Have a nice upcoming autumn.
Back to buying a bike helmet
Before tomorrow kills me.
dumping all these NYC poems to move the fuck on
went on a late night CitiBike ride
across the Willytown Bridge
in hopes of sorting my life out
in dramatic middle-finger fashion,
but ended up getting a burrito
(spilling it on my shirt)
and listening to Phoebe Bridgers.
the weight of circles closing
to me,
a poem is
just an upside
down song
I haven't
figured out
Lauren's grace
or why
some days
are good
and some days
are bad
while others
are just days
yesterday I was confident
January I was shitting blood
and today I am missing my sister
but I didn't
think about
death once
this week
refuse the past
be patient
with the future
I only vocalize
a fraction
of what I internalize.
Song: Grocery Store Sushi
it's been the busiest fucking week.
it's been the scariest fucking year.
the easy things in life.
keep getting harder every day.
are you in DC or Harlem?
I went through hell.
abundant things in life.
keep getting fewer evеry day.
somehow just realized I make $208,000 a year.
still, I buy grocery store sushi and write poetry.
this time last year.
I was about to find out I had cancer.
and the sweetest parts of life.
keep getting better every day.
today's violent word is...PATIENCE!
between shanghai’d treason
and the god hiding behind my knees,
I fight the fiercest weeks
armed with cookies, caffeine, and Instagram dopamine.
mornings strike unmerciful,
little dramas wail like sirens in a siege,
and my courage crests too early—
Tuesdays only, before Wednesday's fall.
I wash my hands like surrender,
water dripping like blood down my sleeves,
face to the sink, scarred soldier
splashing myself back to life.
some Saturdays hold the line,
while Sundays ambush me from the dark,
so I swing a hammer at the wreckage,
obliterating before rebuilding again.
each week, a wayward war.
I count the casualties—
hope, sleep, faith—
yet claim victory, only
because I am still standing.
on Fridays, I stitch my wounds
into words,
a battlefield report no one asked for,
but one I must deliver.
breathe with natural light
I am not a hero or a villain.
just a man wrestling.
with failure and success and alligators.
trying to hold onto something meaningful.
me, the edge
mostly
the problem with poetry
is the people who write it.
but here i am
sending this mess anyway—
cigarette-smudged and
smelling like the last bar stool i sat on.
i figured
if i was gonna make an ass of myself,
i’d do it in poetics.
going from skeletons to sleighbells
it was last halloween a second ago
and now it is already next christmas!
where does the time go?
into a song that fades over the horizon
behind your life which keeps leaving.
we should run from birthdays like bulls.
time flies like a veteran vulture,
while I die like a dumb duckling.
another season, another stanza.
happy forever,
merry never.
ya gotta crawl before you can perform open heart surgery
In the doldrums of summer,
I often feel like a bug trapped in amber
trying to claw my way towards a life worthy
of the grandiose expectations that the season carries.
The closest I’ve gotten
to finding a sense of direction
during these hot, neverending days
has been the Zen musings of self-misandry
with a Sabrina Carpenter soundtrack.
Axes have said I'm the
"funniest person they've evet met"
and exes have chopped my fucking heart in half,
but I have tons of super glue for the soul...
Accepting pain and discomfort
as inexplicably tied to joy,
is about seeing the ordinary as sublime,
all about recognizing that any one moment
in your life is as significant as another.
No one is coming to save me from my own ennui,
but I can always take one small step—
putting on my headphones and playing my favorite song—
and make it my whole vibe.
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