COYOTE BLOOD

My Verrazano Bridge

This is the first year
in a very long time
I haven't watched the clocks
change on Staten Island.

Because of cancer,
and because the marathon
landed the day after Halloween,
I didn't work the NYC Marathon
this year.

And I miss the hell out of it.

I miss the early morning cold.
The city waking up.
The crowds, the noise,
the whole beautiful circus
of New York on its feet.

I miss the runners
giving that energy right back
as they make their way
onto my Verrazano Bridge.

Thousands of people
running toward something.
Thousands more
cheering them on.

And me, somewhere in the middle of it,
doing my little part
to keep the whole thing moving.

Funny what you miss
when life takes you out of the game.

This year, I watched from somewhere else.

But come marathon morning,
a part of me was still there,
standing under that bridge,
with the city,
with the runners,
with all that beautiful noise.

"Formerly he had feared the end.
He had twice experienced that terribly tormenting fear
of death—the end—but now he no longer
understood that fear."
- War and Peace (Book Twelve, Chapter XVI) by Leo Tolstoy

Then I will plant a garden
where the barricades once stood,
and feed the earth with what remains
of all that called itself good.

I’ll leave a candle in the window,
a little bread beside the door,
and ask the ones who lost the most
what we were burning for.

For every rose they tried to sever,
a thousand roots will twist below.
For every seed they buried under,
a thousand more will learn to grow.

Let the gilded towers tremble,
let the painted kingdoms fall.
No crown can hold the morning,
no wall can keep it all.

And if the fire takes the orchard,
if the smoke obscures the sky,
we’ll be the hands that shelter seedlings,
we’ll be the reason they survive.

No more kneeling to the vultures,
no more feeding what devours.
We’ll take the weapons from the wicked
and give the wounded back their flowers.

For the snake, we’ll leave no kingdom.
For the pig, no sacred throne.
For the monkey dressed in silver,
we’ll remind him flesh is bone.

But when the flames have lost their hunger,
when the embers turn to rain,
we must build something worth the ashes,
or we’ll light the match again.

So let it burn — the greed, the fear,
the lies that kept us small.
But save the hands that plant tomorrow,
and leave a place for all.

And when the last red coal goes dark,
when the smoke gives way to blue,
may we find the world worth saving
is the one we make anew.

Redetermine

appreciate a window
while you can.

most people don't.
they're too busy
wanting something green
on the other side of it.

but sit still long enough
and maybe the window
will thank you.

you look good today,
it might say.
you look like somebody
who's survived a few things.

I know something about windows.
I used to be one.

I looked out at a hill
and a row of cypress trees
and watched the sun
come down hard
through a chain-link fence.

there wasn't much to it.

the hill stayed a hill.
the trees stayed trees.
the sun kept shining
on everything
that couldn't get away.

and for a while,
that was enough.

ofc

I am the worst person I know.

Besides my mom, and maybe Mike Soviero.

I don't personally know Trump.

I made myself known.

I tasted blood in my mouth.

all that old baggage,

the bloody bric-a-brac, the bad, the gothic,

the coyote scruff, retrograde,

obscurantist hum and drum of it

needs to be swept away.

Impatient—

to make such powerful contact with pleasure

that they will toss back the entire cover of earth,

a symptom of the same infection that was out there,

a mild one, but a symptom nonetheless.

Post Crazy Day Ugly Cry

Just worked a real ten hour day.

three jobs.

and recorded a special episode.

of the podcast.

Didn't think this was possible.

A glimpse.

A blur.

of normalcy.

Had you asked me.

Last week.
If any of this were conceivable.

I would've thrown up.

on your Hey Due shoes.

Now my back is burning.

I am reminded I have cancer.

But I am cheersing chocolate milk.

with Abigail.

Insane Blue Star Hope

Before the cat scared me

through the tv,

I got potatoes and eggs

with a beauty,

and made friends with ducks

by the door.

I wanted to march

them through the kitchen,

like a British breakfast brigade,

show the kook in the Jeff Conine jersey

under the Goo Goo Dolls soundtrack.

Hell yeah, dawg,

it is pretty much

already Thursday,

and my anxiety

hasn't eaten me alive!

Writing this poem

while on a work call

makes me feel alive,

especially when playing

it by pain.

After I call Joe,

I will break my back

to be present

when life does its iniquitous

roll call before class

inevitably ends in an AI explosion

by Indigenous Peoples Day.

great gifts from great people with great timing.

I Don’t Know What I’m Doing, But Here I Am...

Like the main character
in Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer,
I am engaged in the search.

The search for what?

Truth. Meaning.
Some practical wisdom
for navigating this confusing thing
called cancer.

In his letters to Lucilius,
Seneca suggested that a good life
might be built by acquiring
one small piece of wisdom each day.

So I search every damn day.

I keep myself open to the universe,
to its strange logic,
its little revelations,
its occasional gifts.

I am willing to learn
whatever life is trying to teach me.

I just haven't learned
how to make peace with the possibility
that one day
I won't be here to learn anything else.

Poem

Every day is yesterday

& I have always

Existed…

like the loneliness

of rivers

that don't tribute.

“I” is forever

insatiable.

Don’t Meet Your Villains Without Their Wigs

[Verse 1]
Fear.
This is my midlife crisis.
Writing poems about pain
at midnight
while reruns of Seinfeld
play on Netflix.

I stare into the ceiling
like it owes me an answer.
I count all the things
I thought I'd have figured out
by now.

[Chorus]
I don't want to meet my villains
without their wigs.
I don't want to know
what they look like underneath.
I've spent my whole life
running from the monsters
only to find out
some of them look like me.

[Verse 2]
I battled a bad childhood.
Battled booze into my thirties.
And now I am battling
for my life
in my forties.

Different war.
Same dumb soldier.
Still dragging my body
through the smoke,
still trying to figure out
what the hell I'm fighting for.

[Bridge]
I relive my sins
like a half-drunk detective
solving a cold case.

Every clue
leads back to me.

Every dead end
has my fingerprints on it.

And somewhere in the wreckage
I am still looking
for a reason
to keep going.

[Final Chorus]
So let me meet my villains
with their wigs still on.
Let me believe
the worst is already gone.
I've spent my whole life
running from the monsters.

Maybe that's the trick.

Maybe the monster
was never the ending.

Maybe it's the part of me
that still wants
to see tomorrow.

It's Pecan Pie time of year!

Olives & Football

Fall is officially upon us.
Texas takes on Tennessee at noon tomorrow.
Then Ole Miss and Florida kick off at 3:30.

But I hate football.

Like olives,
I try to like football.
Every year I watch one game
to see if it sticks.

It never does.

I watch the men collide.
I watch the flags fly.
I watch a grown man
get extremely excited
about a ball moving
approximately twelve feet.

Maybe this is the year
I will like olives.

Maybe this is the fall
when I finally understand
what everyone is talking about.

Please Let Me Get Old.

This year I am turning 22.
For the second time.

When I was actually 22,
getting old felt like a threat.
Thirty.
Forty.
Jesus Christ.

Now I am grappling
with a future
that is coming on too fast
for anyone to comprehend,
let alone my dumbass.

How do we take control
of our future
instead of merely letting it
happen to us?

Maybe the great privilege
is simply getting to be there
when it happens.

My daughter turns 13
in 300 days.

I would like to see 14.
Then 15.
Then 22.

I would like to become
the old man
I was once so afraid of becoming.

State Your Wounds

If you show me

where it hurts,

I will show you

where it hurts.

Written by the actress who played Jerry's mom on Seinfeld

about her young romance with James Dean!

Please Bleed

Barry always puts on the movie La Bamba
when he gets drunk and depressed.
His garbage Barbie chick
says she is tired of being “punk.”

The drugs don’t work,
they just make it all worse,

and I wonder if I will
ever see her face again.

“Haven’t had a a serving dream in a long time,”

I say, as if they are listening
“Maybe I’ll pick up a shift to bring back the fear.”

"Let’s be Proust," Charles says
with the smile of a drunkard
though he is sober and serious
about wanting to publish 100 books of poetry.

I leave to get a break

and get a pack of smokes,

say hi to the bodega guy,

and visit Moondog on the corner of
51st and 6th.

He recites me a viking poem,

I give him a smoke a a buck,

and we discuss the gang upstairs,

all folly and flare, as if our 20s were for wasting.

He asks me how I am holding up

in all his hobo wisdom,

and I say I would rather worry

about getting old.

Like a cat in a bag, waiting to drown,

I am just as weighed down by the present

as I am the forgotten future

and my unforgivable past.

Back up in the apartment,

Ritchie Valens sings on a VHS

and everyone has disappeared,

probably writing poetry about me dying.

washing your car in the rain

listening low to Olivia Rodrigo's honeybee,

and thinking about not thinking about

death.

but then again it is raining

on Yom Kippur.

Ay Diablo Mio

I deleted all my old voicemails
including hers.

That felt important.

Not because I am angry.
Not because I am healed.
Mostly because I am dying.

I deleted the photographs too.
The screenshots.
The little digital archaeology
of a relationship
that should probably
be left undiscovered.

Kendra Jean,
you were a beautiful mistake
with excellent timing
and terrible timing.

I will always give you

your flowers, but
I wish us both
the strange luxury
of becoming people
who no longer check
if the other one
is online.

And honestly,
I have other things
to worry about now.

Like where I put my keys.

Temptation Redeem?

the split in the timeline
came two Septembers ago

with a dagger deep

in Adam's rib.

I wade in the day

of that crevace,

an undecided railworker

at a boney crossroads

is this heaven, the future
or a Publix parking lot
at night
after a thunderstorm?

the little pieces of sky
caught in every puddle

like some cheap portal

to another dimension.

but I refuse
the blonde ghosts
who beckon me
from the light.

Poem

Outside,

autumn is arriving
with no idea
what is happening to me.

Thanks again to Backcove books in Portland, ME!

verecund

I went back in time
and found a younger me
leaving poems behind,

unpublished,
unread,
waiting in the dark.

I brought them forward
one by one,

like messages
from a life
I had forgotten living.

Different years.
Different loves.
Different wounds.

But somehow
the same voice
was waiting there.

So this book
is not new.

It is a door
I finally remembered
how to open.

I sat right in front of Brad Pitt at the US Open and I was self conscious the entire time

Every time I shifted
in my seat
I became aware
of my entire physical presence.

Was I sweating?
Was I sitting weird?
Was I taking up too much space?
Was I clapping too loud?

Ben Shelton was serving
like his life depended on it
and I was worried
about farting on an Oscar winner.

Did Brad Pitt hear that?
Did Brad Pitt smell that?
Is Brad Pitt looking at my back
or is he watching Ben Shelton?

Do I look like a man with cancer
or just a man who ate too much?
I wonder if Brad Pitt knows
I’m thinking about farting in front of him.

I wonder if this is what being alive is.
Watching tennis.
Having cancer.
Trying not to fart on Brad Pitt.

The News

The scan showed
more of it.

A few new places
where the cancer
had decided to live.

The doctor talked
about lungs
and treatment
and next steps.

I nodded.

Then I went home
and watched baseball.

Funny thing
about the body.

It can betray you
and still expect you
to get up tomorrow.