COYOTE BLOOD

June Initiative

June arrives like a soft decision,
light leaning longer into the day,
heat learning the shape of the world again.

I meet it there,
in the slow return of sun on skin,
in mornings that feel almost ordinary.

The body keeps its private negotiations,
quiet wars I did not choose,
but still I get up,
still I open the window
and let summer in anyway.

There is something stubborn in that,
this reaching for warmth
while carrying what I carry.

June does not ask for certainty.
Only presence.
Only the next small yes.

Poem

my past is as polluted

as a river in Pennsylvania.

my present is perfect

aside from cancer.

my future is...

found in a forgotten forest.

the silkworm notion of existence

interrogating what it means
to “choose life,"
for it is not the rejection
of fear, but
I am just not ready
to face the sonic extreme
of my own death.

I am not ashamed of searching
my mother's ghost
to see if my sadness thickens,
if my face colors her gone ground,
no one is safe from death.

radical surrender to presence in expression

the bills still come.
the cancer still grows.
the sink fills with dishes
and somebody downstairs
won’t stop fucking at 2 a.m.

meanwhile
the moon hangs there
like it knows something.

I quit trying to transcend it.
quit trying to become
some glowing wise man
floating above the wreckage.

this is it.

the bad back.
the cheap coffee.
the blood test.
the woman leaving.
the dog barking at nothing.

I light a cigarette
I probably shouldn’t smoke
and watch the morning arrive anyway.

that’s all holiness ever was.

LoFi Nights

lofi beats at 2 a.m.
the city doing its quiet bleeding
through cheap speakers

I don’t know her
not really

just messages
just timing
just the way she disappears
and comes back like nothing happened

I sit in the dark
pretending this is connection
and not just two lonely signals
passing in the same frequency

the song loops again
soft static, soft lies

and I think
maybe love is just this

waiting for someone
who never fully arrives
and calling it enough anyway

Interlude in D Minor in a Diner

Eating pancakes today

after getting stabbed

in the liver yesterday.

Let 'er R.I.P.

watching Marc Johnson skate video clips

remembering I used to be able to 180 anything.

I still have a board

and push around from time to time,

but no more olleying down stairs for me.

life kickflips right past you,

and if you wince

you miss it.

With a voice like a choir of angels, we welcome Tyler Ballgame to discuss really "important" matters!

Slam Poem

I'm a Buddhist existentialist.

I'm a democratic socialist.

I'm a Seinfeldian comedy fan.

I'm a Floridian by birth.

I'm a New Yorker at heart.

I'm a funny philosophical poet.

I'm a patient punk rocker per fatherhood.

I'm a busy cancer patient.

I'm an introspective extrovert.

I'm a late anxious bastard without saints,

I'm a well-read idiot.

I'm late to my own generation.

I'm never as good as I want to be.

I'm always with hope.

My Crowded Hour

everyday we spend

in this jungle

is another day

closer to death.

I am so busy,

so overwhelmed

by life that

I welcome a break.

I keep thinking

it's Friday;

I keep wishing

for forever.

I get really anxious

if I stop moving,

which makes the days

feel longer.

Death is Not Defeat

my fear leads me to read

the Tennessee Williams poem,

We Have Not Long to Love

the stakes are

as high

as Heaven

every poem,

every moment

counts

though death is not defeat

and I am not budging,

we carry these things with us

into whatever's next.

Blabber Giraffe

my eyes are set

deeper in my skull.

my imagination

sees everything.

the car seat

burns my butt.

I am a simple man,

wishing for more wishes.

Poem About a Poem

Her island poem

shook my all night long,

like an AC/DC song.

I am reluctanly

in South Florida,

but I can see her

in Brooklyn.

We both walk

with leftovers

in our back pockets.

And the dogs

of the past

chase us

like rabid rabbits.

One day,

I will tell my daughter

about lost love.

Hung loose and watched Shrek 2 with Ok Cowgirl!

A Cup of Tea & Sympathy for Me

I think I always

wanted to be a musician,

but I never learned to play music,

so I became a writer.

We were too poor

or my mother prioritized

drugs and booze and men

over her son's activities.

When I beat cancer,

maybe I will take piano lessons,

learn one of Chopin's Nocturnes

and impress myself.

everything is death

no matter what I am doing,

I cannot wait until it is over.

wet willies were a thing.

I have never known anyone

who has benefited from a charity.

the service in South Florida sucks.

I have cancer,

every minute of every moment.

Playlist 5526

1. 7:30 by Uncle Strut

2. woah by Hillsboro

3. Dance Wimme by Spins

4. Tiny Raisin by Suki Waterhouse

5. Pepperina by Gus Englehorn

Furtive as a Flame

I am thousands of pages of poetry.

I am currently 11,752 liked songs on Spotify.

I am hands hands hands.

I am a walkable city in which you are lost.

I am blue sky and cold weather.

I am fast sad.

I am justified and ancient.

I am a silver dagger dancing before your eyes.

I am leftovers.

I am death and life.

Calling all Panda Heads and thieves, join us as we bother Mo Lowda & The Humble!

this is for the snakes and the people they bite...

watching kids land their first kickflip,
drinking coke from a glass bottle,
or watching Bon Iver
sing Heavenly Father live
at the Sydney Opera House.

a reminder:
the world is still capable of soft things

like falling asleep on a couch
that finally forgives your weight

or a fragile person
curling into your arms
like safety was always a language you spoke

you are someone’s sanctuary
even when you forget how to live in your own skin

dipping hot fries into a Wendy’s Frosty
in the passenger seat
on the way home from the beach

sun-drunk, salt-sticky, alive
feeling the heat on your skin
arguing with the wind

pull up to the function late
a minute and a half left
and still sing the chorus
like it’s the only proof you exist

loud. wrong. honest.

and maybe that’s the thing—

you still might see tomorrow
if you stay.

BYOCP (Bring Your Own Chicken Parm)

The aqua green and dirty white tiles
in the handicap stall with the carved up walls
of the nondescript south Florida cinema…

I’m used to this view as I peed three times
during a showing of One Battle After Another
on the evening of Indigenous Peoples Day.

I used to do coke in bathrooms like this
but now I make sure to wash my hands
and hold my breath back to the theater.

Luck lingers like popcorn fingers,

but I go about this a bit different,

and instantly the place smells of garlic.

I once snuck in a shrimp cocktail,
a forty and a gram of blow,
but today I just bring my own chick parm sub.

It's a double feature:
The sheep detectives was a surprise
Devil Wears Prada 2 was decent.

I still have cancer

and I could've used

more Hugh Jackman.