COYOTE BLOOD

Soupy Sheets & Lake Street Dreams

We were thinking lowkey bar

for fun convo to create

long lasting inside jokes.

After Sam makes Jell-O shots,

we meet other magicians

on the border of Willytowne

and G. Point.

"No one calls it that," she says.

"You are the man of my mother's dreams," she continues.

"As well as the independence needed

to reconquer these streets?" I ask.

There is a guy at the loud bar

reading a book,

and we all wonder

if he is actually reading

or is he just doing it

to pick up chicks.

And this becomes our best inside joke,

until we end up back at my rented room,

and spill dumplings on my sheets

that I just got at Target.

Guernsey & Oak

Attacking my anxiety

until it stops raining,

I am the spider writer

of my boyhood dreams,

only worrying (too much)

my way through Greenpoint.

Umbrellas are for suckers,

and I am soaked

on Guernsey and Oak,

in my helpless existence.

This is the sweet spot,

right before the decline,

in which I need to remember

to not forget to slow time,

and take it in street stride,

because we're all going to...

Burn Me

I battle my way

from breakfast to death,

every damn day.

So when you

set me on fire,

I sigh relief.

Pretty, Wet Flowers

It's not about walking fast

in New York,

it's about walking

with purpose.

Past the Sunday softballers,

the first wave brunchers,

the ones without hangovers,

past pretty, wet flowers.

Past the hawk of McCarren Park,

panhandlers with pitbulls,

and other autumn animals

hiding in the red concrete forest.

It's hot under this heart,

I have to earn my NYC back,

or it has to accept me,

and I start anew with her.

The stench of Los Angeles

lingers on me like a dog;

even the chick singing Mazzy Star

in the subway station smells it.

She makes $200 a day,

moonlights at the cafe,

and slicing up Brooklyn like pizza

makes me happy.

Love?

Scooting across the Pulaski Bridge,

on an e-bike under a perfect Autumn night,

going to find what it is

that makes us exist.

I write the letter G backwards

I read Jenna Putnam’s essay
About her early years in New York
And wonder on the pastel gray days
Of nostalgia time travel…

And how my poems are just me
Trying to working out the past
While navigating the now…

And I remember her book of poems
And I remember meeting her
While bartending backstage
At some music fest down near the piers…

And I remember in high school,
Having to go to the board
To write something about The Great Gatsby
And how back then I believed that story
To be nothing but rich people
And rich people’s problems
But then the Puerto Rican girls
Snickered in the back
And when I asked them what’s up
They told me I write my Gs backward
Like the way I draw out the actual letter...

Years later I would type out
The Great Gatsby word for word,

transcribing it to find Fitzgerald’s cadence,

conscious of the Gs…

My eyes are growing heavy

with memory on mind,
So maybe I will finish this “poem” tomorrow
But then even this shit is time travel,
Started one day, continued the next,
Like life and some person you met
A million years ago in another life
who can still inspire today
Which inspires tomorrow...

Arguing in Missionary

My day,
Gone
Like egg yolk over easy
Spilling over into blackness
Where I lay spread-eagle
On my mattress
And dream of a city
Seeped in human shit
Where flies swarm around your head
And the night screams of the undead
But the street signs are plastered in posters
And I take pictures of future plans
Like “Insects! A Pleasure Factory”
and “Ana’s Merry Meadow Land.”

I land
In this cinder block city
Calling out for a home across the garbage cans.

Her day,
Trauma and autism,
canceling plans,
circling back,
her nerdy boyfriend
listens to my podcast
in a kiddie pool
in the attic
after microwaving pork
and pulling up naked Josh Brolin
with cookies in the oven.

I've never known what boredom feels like.

touching grass is never enough;
I need to smell the hot urine
of the 14th Street-Union Square L train platform,
a place that has seen some sorrows
(I have left some there; so has she),
I am compelled to chaos,
and keeping the current flowing
like fire.

sweet

I needed a little relief.

Something sweet.

*Lauren Grace.

You never have to apologize to me.

Give me a chance.

I'll be your Christian Grey.

Let's dance.

You'll be my Dorian Gray.

I ain't like other boys.

*Takes a long drag off a cigarette.

Unbroken eye contact.

Let's do this.

To kick off the NBA season, we have a very special episode with our pal Conzo of the Indie Basketball podcast!

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...