The Winds May Howl But…

No election,
no crisis,
no cancer,
no fear,
no fleeting outrage

will push me from my merits.

The world is far stranger than I could have imagined.
 
All I can do is surrender.

...Sometimes the moon dips down low enough 
for me to think about jumping up and touching it.


Do You Speak Your Fear Or Not?

"An ounce of behavior
is worth a pound of words."
- Sanford Meisner

Does saying it aloud give it power
or take its power away?

Caught myself pretending
this was a very different decision. 

I will take my temple with me
when I go. 


Cheers from a Pop Culture Casualty #162

I don't care 
what anybody else 
is watching.

Of course, I've heard
of Yellowstone
or whatever basic bro show
you watch. 


Poem

I want an Eames chair,

Next to a record player

In a sunset house,

Where laughter lasts forever. 




 

Hands Down!

I was meant to be born
in another time,
where simplicity meets secrets,
and a moment lasts
longer than an Instagram minute.

At what point
do we separate the tock
from the clock,
and hands down heal?

Delight and duress
seem to simultaneously
put us at our best, respectively.

Existence is curious,
because we can 
only look back,
leaning forward
like anxious fools
with Taurus fortune
and bad eyesight. 


New Music Genre: Post Nap

I invented it yesterday
around 4pm PST,
when I woke from another dream
without numbers. 

Marty was mixing music,
and landed on some mellow piano beat
that just spoke to my post-slumber sensibilities.

I could hear the yawning world
in the background,
Los Angeles laying low
in the yellow afternoon.

It was right then,
that I realized
I need to go back. 

Between the boat rocking,
and the dusty loops 
of the fast but seemingly sad song,
I vanished east. 


Swendeldon

Pernille's voice is very calming.
I hear it in my head
when I read her new poems.

Part of me wants to run away
and surprise her in Paris, 
fall in love, etc. 

Part of me wants to live forever
in inside jokes and poems,
the flirtatious beginnings. 

We'll go to Clippery for coffee,
meet her friends in Frunch, 
and have dinner in Clody.

My thunderstorm mornings
are better because of her,
weather she knows it or not. 

I got to bother Creed from The Office!


Poem

I have used the word "Anywho"
in three separate emails today,
but I am not an "Anywho" kind of dude,
so unsure if this is good or ill. 


armchair travel

when it rains in Guadalajara,
they say it’s a “tequila day.”

when it rains in LA
they say the world is ending.

it always rains
when I am in LA.

what does that say
about my existence?

no tequila for me,
only chilaquiles and stories.

they don't know 
the kitchens I come from. 

I wonder what kitchens
I am going back to...


Sorry I'm Late, I Was Jorkin' My Dork

as the undisputed poet laureate 
of music podcasts,
I've used comedy 
as a defense mechanism
since I was just a boy...

this middle is more
confusing than I expected,
what with all the adulting,
and now stairwells turn me on...

trying to picture my life 
a year from now,
but I can't see it
so that is what makes me 
the most scared...

and so I joke 
about the unknown,
because there aren’t a lot of books
about cancer for men like me.


Poem

from LA
to NYC
to SoFlo,
I find myself
thinking about
Lauren Grace
a lot, but
don't know
what that means.


Seasons

Her legs akimbo.

Salty fall.

From grace.

Lies and fantasy.

Revenge river nights of gold.

This is what I am told. 






A.M. Echoes, Midnight Organ Fight

Alexa is just a creepy jukebox,
and I am just a shitty poet,
listening to David Bowie,
and farting while editing
before the sun gets rich,
effectively destroying this poor,
beatific Saturday forever. 

It's a fit day for western ghosts,
nothing going on, nothing going down.

After the afternoon,
meet me at The Gin Rummy bar
on Washington Blvd, 
near Marina Del Ray;
my friend Mark is DJing,
so we can dance 
our tail feathers off
and forget for a while. 

It's a midnight organ fight.

Always down for a dance party,
you pick Stevie Wonder,
I'll pick Taylor Swift,
we will agree on The Right Stuff
by New Kids on the Block,
you can have my drink tickets,
and I will buy us dinner after.


assiduously

Hemingway wrote about how we can become stronger in broken places. 
Taylor Swift sings in a song thanking someone who bullied her, 
“I can't forget the way you made me heal.” 

If we choose to learn from what happened, 
if we choose to grow from what happened, 
if we choose not to be made bitter and awful 
(choose “not be like our enemies,” as Marcus Aurelius wrote), 
then maybe someday we can be grateful for this experience.

Someday we can understand that we wouldn’t have all of this 
without any of that. 
We can understand that they gave us something 
when they took from us, 
that they healed us when they hurt us.


Bet On It!

Someday—perhaps very soon—
we would give anything for today. 

It will be too late then though, 
to appreciate what we had. 

We can only do it now. 
We have it now.

As loud and messy and exhausting as life currently is... 
Enjoy it. Love it. Appreciate it.


Why Do People Always Want to Get Together?

I have been called a luddite for years 

because I’ve ruined so many dinner parties 

saying, “We’re all anxious, depressed. 

We all have ADHD because we are constantly 

connected to our devices.”


I am in an existential crisis: 

“Am I 25? Or am I 41?"

What should I work on that hasn’t changed

between those ages, 

between those me's.


I take out my phone,

and take a picture of cheese,

which I post on Instagram,

along with all my hopes and dreams,

only to be distracted by skate videos. 



Seagulls or Eagles

Joyriding jewelry through the sea of daydreams…


October pulls up a

   Chair

    in a vacant room


Being alone

  Requires

    emptiness


On the table

    Papers

with coffee rings

Strewn to the side

of me

And left


Ocean in you


Fire in the hearth

No 

one

    to watch it


Amply furnished

   Ticking clock

anyone

To listen?



Left Coast Liars

Rolling around in a rented Chevy Malibu
in this city of contrasts
with endless exciting and terrifying things
around every lying corner to the left
where everyone will tell you with a wink
that the moon never sets in LA
but I've burnt my tongue on this journey, too. 

The tops of the palm trees spin
mixing the fog with nostalgia 
while ignoring the future 
or at least lying to ourselves about it. 

Los Angeles has the bumpiest roads
and I am practicing my coffin pose
in the shotgun seat while searching the horizon
which is entertaining and terrifying,
the end and the beginning. 

Los Angeles is a lady that always 
leaves me wanting more;
ghosted by a city
full of funky blues
for all squares, creeps, 
and cornballs.

They torture themselves 
with shame and pride,
and me with time clocks
and unattainable ambition.

They get so they believe the lies
of their own hired liars,
bug themselves with their own slogans,
drag themselves over miles of broken iPhones.

I have never found this place's heart
but it is not for lack of looking
for lying is a listener's issue
so open your eyes 
to the new pollution
that is wasting precious time
while telling yourself you're special. 


Playlist, 10424

1. Giving Up by Michigander

From the lauded Los Angeles venue Hotel Cafe to guests Dolo Tonight, Billy Wayne Davis, and Leighton Gray, Joe Wong, and Joe Plummer, to the wonderful Ellory Smith who helped jumpstart the fun, our live show in LA turned out freaking great 🐴 Thanks to everyone involved!


Butt Dial

I believe I may have butt dialed you,
and left a long nothing voicemail.

Did you hear me writing?
The sound of these typer keys
get loud as I hammer away at perches of poems. 

I hope you heard me singing Sam Cooke,
as I made cookies in a slight respite from death. 

Were you with me watching Nobody Wants This on Netflix
and having all the nostalgic feels 
about falling in love?

I hope you heard my heart beating.
I hope you know I am real. 


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