A Vicious Square

Proof

2018-10-04T00:51:00.001-06:00

Not one picture,
through thick and dark
passage of self-
sabotage, neither candid
nor ordained, a year
obscured, turned blue
bluffing—

and then you,
within minutes,
after laughing
at our broken bodies,
caught me on tape
driving, distracted,
not present in the way
I would have liked
to present myself,
but after all that
time not
seen—

you produced
proof
that we were
enjoying
ourselves.

That we were present.

WHAT is GOOD

2018-10-01T10:45:00.001-06:00

sitting in the morning dark humming all my brilliant ditties
searching for hidden beauties that got left behind in all the hullabaloo
we done with these YOU poems not even got room for these beautiful VIEW poems
it's.... damn it all looks so different all of a sudden i must be barreling toward imminent
crash cause from this vantage point i can't even smell the remnants of a joint or the husk
of my atheist apathy god they called me man of god so often i bet i swallowed the lie
funny how it's COMMON KNOWLEDGE that it's all so complicated but never laid
my life before all mighty all mighty (!) glory it's outrageous i sound to myself like a hack
because i've trained to hack the reverent language to pieces funny how it seemed so NORMAL
to exult some COMMON midwestern free-wheeling bricolage of indecision yet could never
bring myself to say god is good god is good god is good god is good god is good god is good
now i got myself plenty of time and plenty of leftover love to write the manifesto of my glorious
complete self so many legitimately SOUND poems suddenly have their place and i am allowed
all of a sudden and suddenly forever to write EVERYTHING ELSE that don't have your name
slobbered all over it god it's embarrassing god it's so good to see you god you always knew
i was coming home?

why my first kiss will be on my wedding day

2018-07-16T18:22:00.001-06:00

nothing would bring me closer to you. nothing, not even

licking snack dust from your fingers, not washing your feet

at the highest point of the ferris wheel, not even opening

all the presents on christmas eve. you see it's about giving,

and once we're married you better believe i'm giving

our first kiss all that i've got. oh i am so excited

to put my lips against other lips. the sweet briny thrill

of co-mingling fluids. i want to believe

that all this time you were looking at me, except

there is no way. i waited. my lips twitching

for showtime. hearing you ask, how can your face

be so close to another's yet never touch?

this poem as answer. this idle daydreaming

of our first kiss revisited, scratched,

as if it never happened. until it does

sudden tense switch of your favorite song

2018-07-14T14:40:00.000-06:00

what are these things too far away you

cannot caress against your ear (delicate mine)

wonder woe / care proxy / indirect songbird symphony

a couple hours we hold (held)

the ghost-jar of reasonable distance

a logical split memories spat out

like cherry pits

gardening throat soil gone bubonic

give (gave) reasons for sunlight to imitate

sing/sang another verse another verse another verse another verse

waiting on a new vexation

last night for a moment i couldn't see who was hostage

and this thought i have

(had)

can't stop feeding
the starving instrument

makes music

from craters from abrasions

from remnants of february lodged in

delicate mine (your ear)

i am still holding here

& won't forget

(well, haven't yet)

how you make
you make
you made me feel

You Are In My Way

2018-07-08T15:54:00.002-06:00

I woke up in the nation of commercialization, crystals of a careless world still clinging to the corners of my eyes, and took a ragged breath, left my glasses on the table so I could not see, and went to make coffee—

but you were in my way.

I saw postcards of lynchings and a serial abuser elected— reminding me of when you told me about the time his friend pulled your hair in the kitchen, and how he shrugged when confronted, and how you cried yourself to sleep— as circuses, zoos, theaters and schools jack up their tuition. I wanted to teach English in China, or see the town in Mexico where Mama and Ramon were born, or see a single coral reef before they are all bleached off the face of the Earth. I look at the autopsy, and see myself, an atom of sickness, and reached for my only weapon—

but you were in my way.

We discussed.... not much, and owed it to the moment which could not be spoiled by the quotidian erosion of our rights. We did not discuss the sound children make as their parents are ripped away from them. We did not sit down to dinner. We didn't talk about the job your father took in Colorado, which refinery he was reviving or which plot of land he was eyeing. I don't know how to talk about our country's abuse with you. Since abuse was all you knew.

I dream of wanting to remember my dreams. I showed you the exit and you would not take it. Once my breath was strong and full of an ocean I had crossed, an eight month voyage without, so that when I became old I could still sing you songs. Now it clips and drags on the one thing I vowed to never again touch. You melted in my mouth like raspberry chocolate, and said this wasn't goodbye— which is a thing people say when it's goodbye. I couldn't be angry. I couldn't even move, so long as you were in my way.

See, at everything else, I give up too easy. In an other-worldly November, I walked until my ankles were bruised, in a state that, honestly, was bound to go blue anyway. But nothing was a given. It actually took so much more than we knew. But since that fall I could not get back up, and looked elsewhere, waiting for somebody, not just any body but that body, to fight for me. Your disappearance proves what I have to do. Doing no wrong doesn't make it right. I know that better. And I want to feel better. I have to fight to make myself better.

And you are in my way.

diamond & the rough

2018-04-16T19:50:00.004-06:00

first let's ask what can i do for you? before balsamic taste
of there's nothing we can do for you permeates the glinting

tile six years and swelling of a workhorse bruise sunk by
& into craters of pennies piling. revolving door: pathetic.

pardon me for involving myself. i pushed you into asking
for what you want. the response: rustling of ecosure audits

& a quick return. guess i thought for certain life sometimes,
occasionally, when met with irrefutable claim, wrapped gentle

with ethic, hard-strung by fibers of refusing refusing refusing
to let transplants pull the plug on our little home by the hospital,

yeah i thought this shit was a given. was given to me with hardly
any effort. all it took was a hint and they emptied their pockets

into my bulging account. enemy so friendly. capital enemy.
every way i look people are standing. with twitching mouths.

expectantly. we expected thirty cents, god help us. and took
our time with the selling points. one, whomever walks away

from the register slightly shimmering. two, fucking infallible
corrections, barely registering. three, the loyalty one does not

see but feels, cold, unmoving, as once again the tiles gleam.
four, you forget who allows you sleep. forge forgiveness

from hands dripping red. i thought better of sudden mutiny.
you handled it well. better than i thought seeing your eyes

as they broke from the meeting. i don't know how to serve
the animal that hoards what you deserve. capital insufferable.

we breathe together. i am beside myself with you failing
to learn that nothing is given first without asking.

confession

2018-04-14T15:08:00.001-06:00

(you are enough. you are enough for me. i am no longer searching. "battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won." and love is found in the same spirit that it is lost. an aching, a bruising, an abjection. i lose myself daily to giving. what i deserve is unfounded. a projection. if ever i deserved it was what i wanted most. to help you. to land in this place and meet you immediately. what troubles you does not trouble me. what scares you does not scare me. not because i am stranger to trouble or fear. but because since meeting you, for the first time in a long time, i look to the future. even as the world collapses. i have found that fear of the future is better than fear of no future at all. i have found. no longer looking. sorry for my public plea. (but you know me.) i am reckoning with a document, full of flawed gestures of love. reckoning this document to forge a music equal to the easy symphony of our being. a document obsessed with the facts of flying. lighter than. sweeter than. so that if something were to happen. and things are happening. no stranger coming across it would ever doubt. that i love you, i love you, i love you, i love you.)

leaving

2018-04-13T11:00:00.000-06:00

that idiot emerged

   from his car locked out of the store

he didn't knock    didn't know    did not think

to ask you    if he could show himself

here my house our castle this fucking place

i buried my face in hair

your    [ ] is here

and I'm    gonna go

back door locked front door watched

nowhere to go but i'm gonna go

you said wait (always

waiting)

& came around the corner
   with a sudden wetness
in your eyes

which i can only translate through body

through kisses through spit and melancholy

you thought i could just leave

you just don't know

he doesn't even deserve the title of    [ ]

no

but i know someone who does

murmurations

2018-04-12T18:58:00.004-06:00

you over there

   i right here

   working    through unthinking

   belonging if only for a brief moment

   to a shared uncertainty

   that is certainly a miracle of faith

   one i can't pray to

one i can't unspool

can't reverberate but through murmurations of your eyes

   anointing me

   with the sweet song of staying

i am leveraging this limitation into a prayer of please
i am unwriting all the anthems that landed in your disbelief
i am becoming the sort of man that knows success before it blooms
i am unstoppably glad to be any sort of sun in your feathered orbit

(the wound)

2018-04-11T18:53:00.002-06:00

I fall back

beside your memory, a rippling wave of smoke, insatiably rich

& feeble. Ungluttoning.

   Running tongue splits into two concrete paths. The wind is like
   lightning,

not yet storm-worthy.

   What's it matter

   which eyes hold us in tandem    and which see us spilt?

Yr embarrassment.

My, my, my possession.    Going that way.

How durable our fact.

How plausible February seemed.

   Manic grace: this eventuality.

& SO IT GROWS

2018-04-10T19:13:00.001-06:00

woof. we carried our fragmented plans this far

without much hullaballoo. the intentional delay of perfect...

don't even think about it! much less touch yourself. touch yourself

more. don't translate. the machine gurgles and doesn't want to bear the weight

of this inevitability. god, yeah, it gets heavy,

& that's why i'm the carry.

this is the new fiction, fact.

if you're new here? tell us what it is that you see.

did you see when i had her back? just by breathing

i am sure
of an ecstasy barely broached
of a you of a me

of striking lines through the piling up of our eventual list of living
i am absurdly sure and kinda shaking for the two or three milliseconds i allow myself to doubt
doubt cannot allow the space choked of its needed talk so we say what we can say in ellipses
and arms around necks and brief honorifics and well who cares just come by sometime

& you will see how much i mean what i mean

There you go!

2017-12-31T13:48:00.001-07:00

How could I have known
when I walked into this place,
that the gorgeous person leaving
would become my honest living?

How could I perceive
in the milky cosmos of your face
that your lips and teeth could rip
my hopelessness into pieces?

How could I have guessed
that we were engineered for this,
this incision, our slow collision,
unalterable by indecision?

Here I leave all words behind.
They were useful, I loved them to bits.
Three words remain, your signature, melting snow,
beckoning, lifting even as life wilts: there you go!

with eyes glazed over

2017-12-30T23:14:00.002-07:00

brazenly
i pour bleach over the desk

write brocclie
on the prep list

take a box cutter to the hairs
guttering up the vacuum

polish the perpetual silver
bark up some trees

let my hat fly at close
let my throat lacerate itself on a song

never mentioning your name
though it lingers behind every word

another year and i feel just the same
sweating and stinking and hissing

but loving it
and that's a preposterous claim

in every move i embody you
every face makes me shake my head

i'm too exhausted to finish this thought
so i'll just end with a rhyme instead

not for long

2017-12-29T14:40:00.001-07:00

you over there,
beneath the coniferous
canopies of Missouri,
soaking up silence,
in the midst of a shift,

a spoken subtlety

grooms this puppy
for rescue mission,

untangling hair,

effortless & effervescent,
drinking coffee
resplendently,

turning away from

one who could not

even afford oil, or pay
the easy price

of wanting you
happy, I am boiling
in the wings,
unperturbed, confident,
won't dare to disrupt

the chrysalis, window
shopping far outside
of my price range,

keeping hand stuffed

in a pocket until you reach
for it again, sniffling,
thinking of all the times
I said I would eat your snot,
and it's not just me
being funny, it's that

your boogers are the best
I've ever tasted,

and the inflection
of your voice when you
say front, or soup,

why, half the alphabet

sounds cute comin' from you,

so your words aren't ever

wasted, your efforts not

unnoticed, for as long

as you are near me
it is impossible to quit

lifting you up, so hear

me out, this mess we're in
ain't so bad, all it takes

are a couple moves,

then, if it pleases you,

I am around whenever
you want, disappearing
when you say.

if you are reading this it's time to say hello

2017-12-28T12:03:00.000-07:00

after the foliage-text
parts, after the falling
waters and partly
digested dream
sequence, what
is left lives out
another fantasy:
living

my possession-poems
have poisoned me,
their potential spoiled
by jealousy

wishes
splish-splash
on the page,
taking their toll:
how droll

if you are reading this
perhaps you've kept up,
as the visceral sediments
of my existence keep
building up

if you look my way
i pray it's when i'm smiling

well-spring
of tender offerings,
i put myself on the square

no matter how i tilt
the text it's not enough
to make you care

ain't it time to give up rhyme?
clearly i don't agree

my methods are lacking,
my meter atrocious,
this collection embarrassing,
this season inglorious

if you are reading this now
it's the last bit of me breaking
the surface tension

it's the hundredth time
diving to find a moss-sopped
way of saying
do you love me yet

it's the spinning shadow
of a music-box playing
only the necessary notes

do you take all this
as necessary?

i am eager to buy it,
but not necessarily

this is the way our year ends

you who i feel so close to me
even farther away than before

daywaster

2017-12-27T21:42:00.002-07:00

namaste
brethren,
o comfit
comrades,
striking the
quivering heart
of the matter
with deft craft,
clutching it
out of nothing,
our jumpstarts
quickened
to ash, a fatality-
taste of debris,
running out
whatever's left
of me, scraping
barely by,
remembering.
i'm definitively
fading while
you are away.
i hold the picture-
memory of your
face so close
my eyes lose
focus. focus.
the word
like a locust
swarming my
skeleton.
plaguing
the cage
until you
shoo them
away.

Journeyer

2017-12-26T13:51:00.000-07:00

In the early-setting sun,
across rivers of melt,
through vast fields

of snow-corn,
an acme of adoration

sleeps soundlessly.

My morning cup,

the afternoon's puff,
up to midnight's scoff
at another day wading
through the monsoon
of delusion.

Whispering,
you are coming home
soon. Forging where
home throws its coat
toward, where fingers
wrap around a red-

hot mantle.

My hand quivers.
Maestro of making-

the-most-out-of-it,

discomfited by

what-you-seem-

to-get-out-of-it.

Journeyer
through the hushed tale,
cresting over a rural hill.
Following smoke
into burning bales,
choking on the perfumes
trailing behind someone

you thought you knew well.

on snowdrifts & gratitude

2017-12-25T10:17:00.002-07:00

the colorado sun
gets to melting
the season fast:
miraculous,
accepting the day
as what it is
before sunrise,
this year suspended
of surprise.
yet,
reflecting the muddy
intentions of a year
bent to the wheel
and peeling,
it seems i have
come much farther
than intended.
the stoic warnings
rarely heeded,
my style-of-ease
sorely needed,
all these ridiculous
self-possessed poems
marking my way
through each and
every day, whether
uphill or down,
weather not pending,
my disposition
depending largely
on faith, on the bright
things you say,
i shield myself
from the festering rays,
i protect myself
from excess of myself,
disintegrating into
copies, carefully
raised duplicates,
an insatiable unit,
my lesser debonaire,
a delectable idiot.
not yet visible from space,
this crossroads expands,
becoming the holy site
for another wishing-well
town. i place the star
atop your smile.
unwrapping my destiny's
drift. squinting
into the sun.

starve the hatred in your heart

2017-12-24T14:04:00.005-07:00

it does you no good,
feeding the thoughts
that bite you—

rage, rage,
violent & violet
scars across your sky—

the puffed-up face,
that bowl-o-jelly
belly spilling its bowels—

wish no harm, no harm,
but wishes disintegrate
seeing you in his arms—

puff, puff, & pass
through the tortur'd gate—
where fortunes graze

on the hopes you planted
beneath broken starlight
on a plain & private night—

& what you are becoming
is not a step away or into
body-numbing jealousy—

you are growing skin
where organs once laid bare,
you are growing facial hair—

becoming an animal prone
to silence, shining in the reeds,
expecting you to come feed me.

talk nerdy to me

2017-12-23T14:39:00.001-07:00

sweet stratagems
and bending will
toward impropriety
my virtual notoriety
worthless in the world
yet abounding in ecstatic
retelling of reverberating plays
honey you say you love it when i talk
geek it's like another language it's like there's
something i'm alive for even if i am a poor citizen
or an unlucky denizen of your shadow i'm never so rich
as when i'm filling your ear with tales of my perpetual quidditch

waking up

2017-12-22T12:31:00.000-07:00

oh what a way
to start a subliminal
day your voice
crinkling in my ear
asking if i was sleeping
then if i was lying
which i was of course
a couple administrative
tasks self-explanatory
and the disbelief when
you said is this really
all i called you for
i long to wake up
laughing and this
morning's premonition
motions to me
the way it could be
if that's the sort of
rise our sunrise may
bring i'll wait 'till
may and beyond
for you to wake up
beside me smiling

empty house

2017-12-21T20:07:00.002-07:00

dropping the fam
at the port of airs
stopped by a poor
excuse for a 7-11
thought about
getting even with
god decided he
wins go figure
eightin through
the stacks lookin
for what i'm eatin
some hot pocket
throwback will
do and a pack
cashier couldn't
believe it i can't
believe it's taking
me this long to
grow up the house
is quiet now
i turn to thoughtless
wreck it won't
be like this
all the time
there's no way
i can miss you
this badly for
very long
even when
you haven't
left yet even
though you
are my elven
fairytale i am
keeping my chin
up thru hell
but god get back
here soon my hot
pocket is ungodly
stale

sparkles

2017-12-20T15:50:00.001-07:00

swirling my coffee
outside of the store,
waiting on the sea
to crash on my shore.

your cheeks glimmer
in the december light.
i can barely even remember
yesterday's ominous slight.

some close to me are happy
and some far away are sad.
i've found when you are near me,
it's like you're all i've ever had.

i'm restless, vigilant, looking west,
keeping all cards on the table.
we may never know what's best,
but our smiles are insatiable.

sixth floor

2017-12-19T19:35:00.003-07:00

on the phone,

a mother, exhausted,

returned to her hospital

room to find her food

incomplete.

couldn't leave

her son's side.

all at once

i felt the weight

of my family,

my father's debt,

my mother's doubt,

your still-silent line.

it was too much

for me to just say

i'm sorry.

so i told her i'd be there.

and twenty minutes later,

i was.

for a mother whose face

i saw only for a second,

wandering the sixth floor

in search of their intermittent
room.

i know that it's hard,
but for me, there is no choice—
can you hear the disappointment
in my voice?— just do
what you said you would do.

As Taurus Kisses The Hand of Aries

2017-12-18T21:21:00.002-07:00

Once,
your red hands
were my excuse
to look the other way:
as in, she's perfect,
except for those hands,
so forget it.

Then,
your turquoise eyes
disturbed the lie,
inverting my logic:
as in, out of everything
that you are— bright,
bold, rough, darling—
you are so far
out of my trajectory.

Now,
your familiar hand,
your starling eyes,
every inch of your
existence amuses me:
as in, it is never so easy
to be what I am
as when I am blessed
to be kissing your hand.