A Poetry Reading on a Rooftop on the Eve to New Year's Eve

with hands reversed,
I hit a shirt and Picked the words out
of a bale of hay.

leave like leaving is me.
brunch was a possibility,
but it ended just in time.
ice on the stoop steps
and I almost eat shit.

took a cab
which took the goddamn FDR.

all the way there.

all the criminals were there,
shivering and pretending
in the Brooklyn Wind.

I could see the steeples of the city
over ugly brown Bushwick crests.
I wanted just to die.
or somewhere else to hide.

bad red wine and of course PBRs
and bad breath Bobs
reading bad poems about bad sex
and a bad ska band
cut short by spitvalves.

I straighten out my shoulders
and simply look up at winter stars
while reading my own bad poems
about chocolate chip cookies
and rivers
and sharp hips
and sweet dreams.

I feel useless up here.

I finish.
The applause lets me down.
I look over the roof's edge
and apologize to the ground,
six stories down.

I'm wearing two pairs of socks
and I wish you were here.
Listen to confusion.
Shy Shy misses the set,
shows up late with Renee.

My legs are freezing.
No whiskey.

You are my favourite colour.
The yellow harp on the edge of the told world,
untold to be me and my saints,
and two days from now
the fine gone world will be different.

Parachute Kings

we fall to the sad candle Earth
like songs with seats
and handkerchiefs
on better days
before noons
holding autographs as our only souvenirs.

clouds pass us by
like tourists refusing to enjoy our danger.

this old dark machine
has been here making dogs
since the beginning of time.

made my own town
to explore.
orchards and all.

we can't go back up
to shirts and years
with open beers while riding shotgun
to lessons listened to
with tearing ears.

glad to hear it
the escape while winter comes
and forgets me
catch me if you can.

protect us from the madness of the future.
I wear a hat
and land in a market
with smells and planets.

we start making sense.

I Have Never Won a Coin Toss

It's snowing.

It's really coming down.

It is yesterday.

In my hard heart.

wind is free for my bones.

and I lose my wish to drown.

I walk alone and write/carve on a bench.

for fear of silence.

whenever it snows sideways like this.

I listen to The Tallest Man on Earth.

and walk around Union Square.

winter will always be ours. 

movies and chinese food

police precinct.
Django and General Tso's.
figured?
I'm not a Les Mis type of man.

hot and sour soup.
Blue Point Black IPA.
thanks, Shy Shy.
sorry about your wallet.

I'm trying to stab someone tonight.
interesting.
The North Star.
New Jersey is gross.

don't forget.
what's to come.
hasn't come yet.
my dearest friend, believe in me.

check out my boy, Bhi!

I Have Sixteen Hundred Tigers

 reinvent your name.

I never meant to say these words:

a thousand ways to try.

tinkering, poetic.

there is smoke in the sky.

I am catching a train

and that train is heading to you.

we weird hearts

from the tumbling start.

can you still not remember who is hiding up there?

one day as a bicycle.

one day as a lion.

one day as a winter river yet.

one day as a bottle of ketchup with a little mayonnaise in it. 

meet me in the fields after morning of desire.

there is no real goodbye if you mean it.

Green Gloves

darling, time is a construct.
 I just purchased green gloves
and an hour later
they are already ripping.

say hello to the story.

find what we find.

it's cold in these hours.

no snow, not yet.

blue silk dress,
instead of purple silk dress.
be a part of my broken heart.
what's it like getting a haircut in Kentucky?

my brown eyes wait around.
I'm writing this poem from inside a Christmas gift.
with lyrics that conjure long drives, and tall pines.
you're smiling from my sleep.

we whisper dark farms.
like similar sirens of grace hill.
we evoke folk songs.
and we try to sing along.

Burn 'Em, Jonathan!

with an axe
and a match,
forever,
Jono be searchin',
just a guttersnipe,
feeling fine, w/ pieces of his mind.

He
agrees with me,
Brooklyn is dangerous.

I live to see the light of dawn,
trade beats with the river.
not with heroes, knuckles are cracked.

like backs and boulevards.
mere witnesses.

good friends.
beyond fingers.
Jono be of them.
while
I've been all over.
I spend my time just like I do.
I stay out of trouble.
but it has a way of finding you.
and me.

this is the life I've always wanted
(to witness),
something on which not to be counted.

the pats on the back
that the Devil gives you every so often,
when you've done something good.
taverns, dirty ones.

all we have is time.
and bridges to...burn.

Bugs Crawl Back

glass ligaments in hands,
stars upon shoulders,
and glass sinew in hearts.

do you know this hurt?
do you know this dirt?
bird bones are hollow and heavens forget.

Kentucky now has a face:
beautiful and woebegone.
I wrote this poem on lastnight's rumbler.

you tell me stories of the future
while roses form on your cheeks.
words are left. you are somewhere.

you are in the air.
I am on the ground.
with bugs.

rollie pollies
and a ladybug
and any lion.

glass ligaments, plastic veins.
I am here.
near a telephone and a river.

the backyard is big
and it says goodbye to the seamless dream.
anger is contagious and I am an addicted idiot.

I could order a pizza
and sing songs about the past,
but tomorrow keeps calling me in the middle of the night and waking me up.

paper presentation

ham and cheese
and a PBR
and foggy taxicab windows
at 4:35 am.

this is what it's like.

tomorrow will be dreary
with chance of snow
but tonight is riding
the dusty wings of yardsale love.

get big.

the city is yawning,
and the daily newspapers
are being presented to eyes,
while my eyes need to shut.

the past is checkered.

the holy cab driver and I smile.
he too must've had a fine gone evening.
and no matter what tomorrow loans,
tonight was sexy and swell.

the same time.

Poem

you are a good song.
with good lyrics.

be one of my favorites.
be the river that the townheart needs.

something is wrong.
with werds and into the beach.

needed so far.
the first to fall.

cut off my arms.
instead of gardening decisions.

meet me in the west.
we will experience new soups and revolutions.

let me give you these scars called songs.
there is no need for suspicion.

it's in eyes, not in stately violas.
it's not like knives bury me under dandelions.

some thing is written right.
by a bastard morning without silence where it sings.

skinny love circles around hope.
becomes a disease.

poems and jokes are better.
when spelled correctly.

Any Time Soon

are you performing

any
where
in NYC
any
time
soon?

or on earth?

so I can send my friends
to be eyes for me.
some times our friends are good at being our eyes.

Run Your Wrists Under Cold Water

I always want to bring you something...

quote the sun,
as it speaks in remedies,
just for me and you,
and our little window world.

maybe
move mountains.
kill hills.
get sick.
get better.

I am never worried.
now
that is a little lie.
like years.
like wood.
and ducks.
honestly, 
I live in a tiny kingdom at the bottom of the trees.

it began to rain
the moment we took shelter.
I feel flowers.
thank you for the fire.
I can see your hands dancing in the air.

...so I bring you this.

(put my pants on backwards)

stunned
by animal legs
and animal eyes.

shocked
by jumper cable lips
and razor sharp hips.

caught
by wrists and collar bones
and December stars.

built by a butcher,
I guess I am easily forgotten.

the short answer is
yes.
the long answer is
when.

saved
by a solid symphony
and winter, always.

Vans Mural by Chris Dyer at Projet 45 from Vans Canada on Vimeo.

Four Chambers (of my heart now live on the Lower East Side)

four nickels,
an expired metro card,
a dead friend,
zero regrets.

a peacock,
a palace,
a song,
and a good goddamn grin that stretches farther than my silly eyes can see.

a cottage door,
a fire behind,
a boulevard of five nights,
and a hatchet with blood on it.

the blood has been there for three decades
and a day.
I threw the nickels into the East River,
along with some Nikes,
and a microwave.

my latest calm is so strange.
no longer sleepwalking through life's porch.
four fences,
and a new book
that is old but I have never read it,
even in high school when I was
supposed to read it.

our bodies aren't big enough for our
hearts.

brick windows

as big as a birthday,
better than before...

one of these mornings
will be the loudest you hear.

gonna get the hell up to heaven.

and see for myself.

these wrists are slow
around my dreams.
these dreams are fast
around my wrists.

passion makes me well.
windows make me riot.
bricks make me grateful.
love tells me not to speak.

I owe you.
more than words
or intentions
or windows.

my eyes are broken.

gonna get the hell up to heaven.