The Decades Disappear Like Sinking Ships

I swear I was just in my twenties

and now here I am,

looking at New Balance sneakers. 

I remember the early months of the pandemic

like it was yesterday—

except it wasn’t yesterday,

it was six years ago

the 2020s are more than halfway done

the century already a quarter gone

my baby isn't a baby anymore

I’m not young

albums and movies I remember arriving

are now anniversaries

athletes I watched get drafted

are retiring

Fugit irreparabile tempus,

time flies, irretrievable

whole blocks of my life pass like that

and I barely notice while they’re happening—

administrations

winter to summer olympics

births, graduations, weddings, funerals

it’s all moving

and it’s only moving one way

I have to pay attention!

The Work of Tzvetan Todorov

give us stories to hold
when meaning leans on meaning,
how a voicemail becomes a bridge.

even in the quiet after,
my sentences keep walking
from one mind into another,
a small light passed hand to hand.

in the grand scheme
we are just things
doing things.

Cucumbers

chunks of you

and chunks of me

will sink in the sea

and we will be connected
for all of eternity.  

the invention of eyes

the beginning of a cell,
the death of a star.
it all happens
in my iris.

to be seen
by the universe—

as if the dark itself
leaned closer, curious,
and made of me
a small opening

through which the light
could enter and ask
its quiet questions.

what is it to bloom,
to burn,
to vanish so completely
and still be held

here,
in this brief wet mirror
of a living thing

that looks back
and does not turn away.

Horn

a poem appears
kind of like a ghost
that you make eye contact with
and hope it doesn’t fly away
or dissolve at any minute.

Had so much fun 'bothering' Hotel Fiction that my face hurts from giggling!

Hopeful Death

I want a hopeful death.

a death where you don’t have to be afraid 

of renewal.

turn me into a turnip.

toss me out the window.

give me a good, growing adventure.

I want to be immortal. 

I want to live forever.

I want to die forever. 

in sage.

in an open kitchen.

in a lover's stomach. 

Find me hopeful at the end.

that this is not the end.

but just the beginning of existence. 

Sitting on This Side of the Matter

a good country song can't cure cancer

but it can give me a welcome respite

from the doldrums of doctors' offices.

with every stab, every vein, 

I try to look forward and up,

at the horizon just sitting there.

I hope to never reach it,

because if you've made it there

it must be the end.

so I keep an eye on it,

make sure it doesn't move any closer,

as I listen to my music and live.

don't let the horizon 

sneak up on ya, kid,

for it might be the end of the world. 

Chemo Brain

I can’t comprehend
Pitchfork’s weekly new music newsletter;
my brain doesn’t compute the content;
it arrives like a language I once knew
now spoken underwater, through glass.

names slip off the edges of thought
like coins dropped into a couch I can’t quite find
and I swear I knew what I was looking for
until I stood in the doorway and forgot the room.

even the small things misbehave
keys become riddles, sentences dissolve mid-step
I start a thought and it wanders off
returns hours later wearing a different coat.

still, there are moments—
a sudden clarity like sunlight through blinds
a song I recognize without trying
a breath that lands where it’s supposed to...

and I learn again,
softly,
that forgetting is not always leaving
sometimes it’s just the mind
resting its eyes for a while.

Poem

I feel small tonight.

Not in stature. 

But in soul.

Despite the trashcan controversy, we had a blast getting musically tattooed by Honeycrush!

 

Clown to Clown Conversations

she sends me poetry 

via text messages at midnight. 

does she know I love her?

Charlie does the same thing,

and I love him, too.

he knows this much is true. 

we all dance and dawdle

on down to death.

together, alone. 

we are just clowns

having conversations.

covering up our fears.

with words,

we hold on to each other. 

Time

we can never

get it back.

any of it. 

I love it here

I am in no hurry to die,

despite what my drunken 20s conveyed.

In the eyes of the universe,

I am but a blip,

but in my eyes,

the universe is mine.

another war,

another me.

time marches on,

and I am lost in the maze,

wearing alligator boots,

dancing to ska music. 

make it last forever,

I ask. 

Why Did the Goose Cross the Road?

there was a goose in the road,

out front of the Target,

and it caused a hilarious 

traffic jam of Subarus. 

it was a little moment

of levity,

in a month of bad news. 

we all had to wait

for the goose to cross the road,

and it made me happy,

because you couldn't do anything but laugh.

even the meathead

in the lifted truck 

gave a good shrugging smile. 

a fuck and a peep

she wore overalls

without a shirt.

her side boob

was giving me the business.

I wore a Black Sabbath t-shirt

for Easter.

she made the coffee,

I made the toast.

I burned it again,

but we made the most. 

she fed me a pink peep,

marshmallow and sugar.

we fucked in the kitchen

before guests arrived.

she then hid eggs

for the kids. 

later, she came downstairs

in my Black Sabbath shirt.

“This is what we became."

Leaning into the joys of daydreamy drift.
“Sometimes you need to be distracted to focus in a different way.”

Spat out into midwinter at short notice.

"Channeling my wrath into the cataclysm."

Together, they definitively answer the question.

"What do we see when we close our eyes at night?

Riis Beach in September

new theater,
falling asleep to philosophy,
trusting God’s plan,
humble about my golden fleece
dyed with shellfish blood,
but I keep my faith hidden
behind my knelt knees.

other ways of wishing

listening to joanna newsome

between seamless dreams,

one hundred of which

were without numbers.

I am a dead man

falling asleep over dandelions,

looking to the past

to scatter the future. 

all my aura 

is assigned to time,

the one resource 

that is irreplaceable. 

meet me every afternoon

for high tea and low blues,

just a dash of me,

and a lot of you. 

Flail Hammer

been practicing my signature again

like it's middle school math class

and I am distracted in the back. 

my handwriting is atrocious,

ironic for a writer,

but not for a serial killer. 

not scared today

which is a rarity,

yet my emotions compete.

the hours spin in a centrifugal minute

and I hit them with a hammer,

fitting so much of myself into loud silence.

Take your medication and return your shopping cart, 

because this episode Five for Fighting is like the perfect high five!

Gimme a Little Peace

Gimme a little Wilson Pickett.

Gimme a little Local Natives.

Gimme the perfect volume

And the windows rolled down

Driving up in the Hollywood Hills

To the Beachwood Cafe.

Gimme a little Harry Styles.

Gimme a little Aldous Harding. 

Gimme the devil’s invitation 

To glimpse heaven

And live to talk about it

Over coffee.

Gimme a little break from death.

Give me many things on the horizon’s hill. 

A Middle Finger to the Moon on a Monday Noon

Led by my spirit
Away from the wound…

No saints on Saturdays
So I wait for something…

I sit in the park, hit the vape,
meet a new lover…

Can’t finish this book,
Can’t finish this puzzle.

My aspect maybe dim,
But I want my two years back!