laying sprawled in sun-shapes
off the window on my dirty sheets,
a reconcilable form of relaxation,
I name myself "Lesser Than"
still imagining your horizons,
your hips, and the cliffs in your eyes.
I'm sure your face, a desert
where lotion and the hands
of former lovers have smoothed the rocks
swallowing the sands of youth there,
smiles someplace as warm as this
bed with me near sleep across it.

strolling

she strolls alone
bundled in a fraying peacoat,
eyes scattered toward the ground,

hovering above knitted scarf folds
dangled down past her knees,
she strolls alone,

(the city night a familiar hallway
morphing tenants' portraits with each block)

legs scratching at sidewalk cement,
she stops, draughting at red
lights and cross walks

(the traffic a conveyor belt
of whitewater crash orchestral hits)

she strolls alone
arms cinched in pocets,
no purse around her shoulder,

the thin slopes sharp into the empty
swallowing the around-her.

the singing black birds
melt thick snow-dusts with flash songs-
stirring deaf watchers.

Dogs

When does a dog, struck by a speeding car
border over into suffering, dying,
and finally encore into roadkill?
There must be stages, segments in the
process of wandering the highway
lanes lost or left behind.

When does the green collar stop signalling
home-broken and start reminding
rubberneckers of the special sting of dog
tragedy in people? Thank god for closed eyes,
the entrails are easier to pass then.

But when was the dog only injured,
only still searching, only owned?
There must be a decomposing
logic to the decomposing;
even death must makes sense in scenes.

the Übermensch, now a cockhold,
lay sulking in a three day drunk
singing old Elton John songs, fat
with the comfort of calories, sobbing.

(Mona Lisa must be laughing; the same
berserk stare in Goya's Saturn's eyes,
gorily devouring a man top down,
plastered in her waxing cackle-gaze.)

With bile usurpation in his throat,
the Übermensch trundles to his side, gazing
out the Cambridge blue beck of the window,
all Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and cookie dough.

Misogynist Love Song

“Because there is very little honor left in American life, there is a certain built-in tendency to destroy masculinity in American men.” – Norman Mailer

I. Context

1.
Out of the corpse-mud,
the feting soup of rank flesh,
flashes of dogwood.

2.
Ivan, a rebel,
arguing drunk with brothers,
explains away God.

3.
Wolfmen curse the moon,
baying lunacy towards their
dirty Diana.

4.
Mashed against the door,
her face throbs beneath my hand,
cheeks bruising in palm.

5.
Moss grown and jagged,
the boulder of Sisyphus
descends from apex.

II. Romance

1.
Mr. Rochester,
blind lust hands your heart warm blood,
but Jane flies distant

2.
Black nips friendly smoke;
(epic lines tied to dead chords)
Black breathes night's music.

3.
Drifter: shanked, bleeding.
Hemingway's manly courage
preserving the Good.

4.
Dancing too close, we
two-step off beat without pause
over dirt dance floors.

5.
Virtue rewarded:
Pamela, half-raped virgin,
weds her assailant.

6.
Nursing the cooing
bastard, we grate past soft grins
like we gave a fuck.

7.
James Stewart lassoed
the moon for a Christmas bitch,
drowning ambition.

III. Reflection

1.
Two arid flirters,
hearts deep inside tumble weeds,
tangle in sand-dust.

2.
High now, my lichen
fists thirst for your lush neckline,
writhing in gravel.

3.
Hulk Hogan's gold cross
torn from his neck, kids mourn their
hero's defacement.

4.
Bertha Mason falls
guilty from a burning roof:
demonic, lovely.

5.
Numb fraternity
stoked around maypole ribbons
and blooming dogwoods

For Norman Mailer

Finally, you are stabbed
and an honest silence

stuffs the room full.
I am as much a bastard

as you are a bitch.
I am sorry.

I call the police
in the rusting seconds after,

there is no reason to deny
this horrible affirmation;

this manly affirmation.

What?
These fog eyes?
These mist eyes?
These steel curtains
falling slowly, drifting
through to sleep?
What?
This thick rest
resting on my brow?
This hovering end?
This dying ember?
What?
This mute attempt?
This flailing burst
toward conquered
time and hostility?
This crooked back?
This tilted head?
What?
What?

on cool sober nights

i have friends who dont sleep anymore and on cool sober nights when the rain seems as steady as biology their thin ankles remember my umbrella hands and how i snake them into soothing massages against the nightmares of cough syrup drunks and mouth memories of fuzzy pills stuck on the backs of their tongues before they dissolve or swallow down and i am a relief to their crumpled eyes but only for as long as i allow myself to dote on them ignoring the real twists in my busy days playing a good friend and storing favors like money when i need it or rides when i am lazy but they dont know i dont have a raincoat or dont think about that when they call me during the nightstorms to rescue them from their monsters so usually i stumble up to their rooms (always upstairs) soaked from the double dark clouds on cool sober nights for sleepless friends

Sonnet.

in bed after
eating popcorn
and drinking
orange soda,

your breath
tastes like warm,
soft pretzels dipped
in melted cheese;

our open mouths
breathing,
your wet lips
sliding down

my wet lips,
kissing.

Your Poem

I will write
you a poem
when the nights
stop dawning cold
without you here
in my halved bed.

computer-glaze buzzes,
empty pages blinking blank,
swallowed yawns from typists.

swallowed coputer-glaze pages,
empty yawn buzzes,
blank blinking from typists.

typists swallowed blinking buzzes,
blank empty pages,
yawn from computer-glaze.

buzzes from typists,
blinking pages yawn blank,
swallowed empty computer-glaze.

buzzes empty blinking,
computer-glaze blank,
from swallowed pages typists yawn.

swallowed buzzes empty blank,
typist computer-glaze pages,
yawn from blinking.

I.
grind-growls of a leaf blower
yeilding to the hisses of busses
or soft cellular conversations

II.
old automatic doors jarring
open to the rumble-hum grind
of a gasoline lawn mower

III.
cut grass sprinkling onto sidewalks
where busy black shower shoes grind
pebbles into concrete dust

IV.
pregnant belly swells bouncing
in wobbling walking-rythmns
and the whispy grind of thighs

Shosanna at the End

Dying, Shosanna thinks,
'Mother rubbed our rough backs'
thinking Death and living
and air are the permanent things

Bleeding on the floor,
Shosanna counts: her dragging breaths,
daydreams under seagull songs,
the yellow shores stored in childhood,

thinking Death and living
and air and memories
are the permanent things
Shosanna thinks, Dying,

'Mother rubbed our rough backs
smooth with lotion, our patent skin
glowing in the failing daylight'
thinking Death and living

and air and memories
Bleeding on the floor,
Shosanna counts: her purging breath,
the panic-gasps of drowning.

The Nightly Mentioning

when I mention: sitting alone
in a night-dark closet dragging
my eyes down thin florescent slits
peaking around door edges

when I mention: meditative sleep
rapt with fledgling dreams stitched
rough against waking-world flashes

when I mention: thumbprint stained faces
in sepia photographs piled on the floor
as bait for wandering dream-ghosts

when I mention: drawn shades
dangling in muggy-thick window glass

when I mention: headaches and dizzy swirls
from nightlong open eyes saved from blinking

when I mention: cracks in floor tiles
scurrying away in peripherals but remaining
cracks in floor tiles in full focus

When I mention: these things,
I hear you, curled in a blue mink blanket, laughing at black and
white movies; the memories
of sharp nights tucked under your down pillows and happy head.

Eye Contact

The moments trickle from ignorance; we are the wonder-smell of old books.
Spiked trifles of potential vine down my back,
planting me firmly in the now.

In the friction and distance between,
our minds dance behind veiled feathers.
We are filthy spectators with money

to spend on a good show. The theatre of maybe
built brick-wise by both of us eventually
will dominate headlines. Today,

the shows stay small despite the dedicated casts.
The moments dart under conversations
like frightened cats from the threat of thunder.

I don't care where these glances deliver us
as long as you won't ask me to drive.
But know we are a hushed river

whose water whispers motion into the mud
beneath it. I'll fight your moonlight-slit eyes
with my wooden dagger for a bit longer. Someday I'll surrender.

Vines wilt.
Rivers run.
Shows end.

Without Fire

I paste myself against a coastal horizon
amongst the trailing swirls of pink and orange.

Over my shoulder a cloud morphs from a rabbit
to a shell-less snail springing over the falling sun.

I am without fire and alone. There is nothing
in the sand alongside condolences and sea-slate.

I notice the moon is late to its purpling canopy
while wavelets whisper the final slices of sun

towards the shore. There are yet no bottles,
nor messages, nor stars. I am without fire.

I stare across our oak breakfast table
and you are a close-up of eyelids dangling
over the morning's paper. We sleep
in separate oceans anticipating mornings,
the waves have pushed us into rigid currents.
We do not talk, there is nothing new to mention.
You eat your rye toast and I count the crunches,
noticing my reflection in my cup of cheap
black coffee. I keep hopes for a better lunch.

From behind a folded map
you mention brier patches,
which I have never seen.

I counted holidays by her blushing cheeks,
she hid her shopping stories in her skin.
Illuminating her patchwork veins with every lie,
I could always know the truth by her rouge twinkle.

II

I count nicks on the spaceship
as you smile, rattling
outside of the grocery
while your mother naps at home.
You are a brave astronaut
with orders to examine
imagined planets abroad.
I relate to the distance.
I doubt you count who's with you
these afternoon vanquishments
as you conquer galaxies,
not wanting of love or sleep.
If you want to ride again,
I will put more quarters in.

A Woman

The tree has crumbled in my hands,
The sap has blackened and flaked on my arms,
The tree has hallowed my breast -
Caverned,
The branches have been amputated.

Tree you were,
Mossed you are,
You are a snag with water above you.
An adult - so buried - you are,
And all this is folly to the worms.

She screamed at me,
"You're a no-hope kid."
I thought I would want
her blueberry wrists but
secrets seem beautiful
as a stranger.

Puddles settle black
into slick gravel patches
and pothole dimples.

Orange streetlights halo
scattered blocks of dark houses
with deep desert tints.

Awake

I'm staring at dawn,
while the house sleeps around me,
and lonely like God.

Dreams disappoint me,
I disrupt their faded charms
to stalk the morning.

Outside

The trade winds at our backs,
we burnt our money, dancing
in the ashes. A new beginning
with no destiny, freedom
finally owned and lingered in.
River rapids would find us,
and the vapid southwest breeze
would remind us of our mothers
baking memories in an oven
with their sweet steam-makeup.
We conceded family and possessions
for even the threat of adventure.
I shall never forgive my identity,
it was a gift I had not wanted.
Now, tramping through God's beard,
drunk in the passion of nature,
we are only essence. Lucky to die
in the exploration, building
a sturdy sole along the way.
Let the straw grass lament our passing
so it might seem worth the outburst.
With these clothes as our only shields,
the sun and the moon might devour
our purity. Though hopelessly shallow,
we would eulogize every puddle
as we construct landscape memories.
Finally, we breathe honest air,
the same breath unseen trees share.
The good graces of being would shine
down on our questing for its irresponsibility,
but remind us of the liberty in survival.
We will raise our autumn flags
in the fortress of winter. Dark
spring mornings will birth us into summer.
The sky employs us to continue
the trek. Completion is the peace we find,
reveling in our bodies, the universe
feels less bitter when home is a daydream
and the horizon is our compass.

Paydirt Pagans

The paydirt pagans
crawl towards Sundays and summer,
drawn to the hot air.

I stay home these days
chasing the hours with sleep,
laughing through dream-grins.

They want to heal me,
lay hands on my lost body.
I ignore their heat.

Summer '09

I'm all Diet Coke and Wu Tang,
Pop corn and the smell of summer-cut grass.
In daylight kisses I feel I'm home,
And I snuggle warm into the lap
of these stretching weeks of dusk and dawn.
I cycle through dance beats and alarms,
learning to fall and the soreness of acomplishment.
Someday I'll feel employed by the trips
I've not taken and will trust my tired wheels.
Now, I'll just yawn into what fur I've collected,
ignoring the fleas and shivers,
looking for a friend to scream synthesized with
in these ruthless mornings before I fall asleep.

Parties

Social circles cruise
past the lonely left-behinds,
at least they saw fun.

If I Sleep

If I sleep
I breathe ancient dust
onto crystal targets
mounted on my lips.
The dust drips from its soul-cell
coating my chin and throat
then attacking all movement,
shattering streams of light,
raining them to the floor,
learching the room towards total night.

If I sleep
I drown in visceral hourglasses,
counting chromatic kisses
sabotaged in suffocated adventures.

If I could only wake,
rip open the windows,
kicking through the panes if needed,
I could clean this weighted room,
swimming back to some unstuck melody,
free from breathing my dream-dust.

But if I sleep,
I stay asleep until the breathing is done.

Old Man's Song

"Only the death in my eyes,"
the gray man assured,
mounted in his hickory rocking-chair,
"can keep the breeze of life
from blowing in me. And that's why
I keep them closed."

He let his mouth close
around his last words and began
to blindly hum a guttural hymn
I did not recognize. The man
rose his arms into the room
with flamenco patience
shifting his ragged weight
forward in the chair. Worried, I
sat opened mouth with my eyes
shinning across the room
toward him. The hickory rocking-chair
lurched forward, tilting the hungry frame
of the man out onto his bent legs.

The man then rose his voice
as he did his arms, first
into his high neck then
into his alarm-mouth,
wailing, with his lungs
behind him, some holy song.

And I started clapping along,
staring, nearly drooling,
at my hands which had
naturally slid into the rhythm
without my noticing when.

And he sang for what seemed like hours.

Watching the Clock

I stalked the clock
following the falling
seconds, rubbing my hands

back-and-forth on the desk,
trying to drag them
with the rhythm of the day.

My dry hands scraped
the surface of the cheap desk,
raking the sound of desert rock-sand.

Rubbing the desk I found
my own time and sweat trails
swirled under my progress.

The scraping turned to
sloshing while I routed
my oasal puddles. The clock
evaporated from purpose.

Driving Someplace New

Your chest shook
in your flannel shirt;
you were a rattle,

jabbering on about the car,
the traffic, and weather.
I did not care

if it was overcast
or if we were stranded
in the rush hour standstill.

We left early enough
not to worry about mirages.
I could have bathed

myself in your saucer eyes,
glinting over me driving
and the landscape blurring

behind us. You smiled,
full of happy secrets
and plans. I only knew

because you held my hand,
squeezing with every heavy
sigh after hours of miles.

Again, again.

The clicking keys crash
into plastic pecks dotting
each keystroke decision.
Am I writing again?
I must be.
Don't hush me.
Let these fingers frisson
across whatever manifesto
they happen across.
Let them burn the albatross
from the sky and fling love
letters between the thighs
of every panting maiden.
Hands, surprise me.
Brain, infatuate me.
Let's send this empty space
into space and reflect
on the journey. Let's fly,
soar, and score in whatever
arenas we invent. There will be time
for form later. Let's just write now.

Let’s Go Out Tonight

I need flashing lights
and the 1980’s playing
in my ears. I need dancing
and a bass line pulsing deep
like twilight traffic on a Friday night
with the coast in view. Make me
a white sports car so we cruise
to synthesizer screens and count
the shades of cocaine neon distracting us.

Dizzy me into a slow burning morning
and another layer of stubble
rings on the tree of my face
counting my good nights.

I want camera flashes
and still memories
and to linger on the trip there
in swagger-tilted attitude.

Let’s go out tonight.

The Cake

For her first visit from Florida
she baked me a vanilla cake
smeared in chocolate icing,
Two layers of white sponge delicious
divided by a blessing of creme
with red-blotch organs
where sprinkles were baked inside
the monochrome fun-fetti surprise.
The thick brown icing palleted
delicate vanilla swirls, surrounding
a ripe-red heart in the middle.
The heart was ours, she said,
each slice seared from the cake
carrying a piece of the love
bringing her here and baked into it.

The Miniature Monster

The miniature yorkie downstairs
drives jagged yelps through the floor,
forcing disfiguring nerve-chill wrenches
up my sleeping spine. I fly jersey sheet

war-flags, my tossling an act of aggression.
Fortified in my disheveled bed, I stragitize:

I could stomp thunder down into its room
through these dying, paper-crust floors
like an angry god, bellowing
my case below, cursing the dog's cries.

I sheepishly decide, slugging onto my back,
this plan is reactionary at best.
There is no sense of satisfying vengeance
for the casualty of another night.
And I would have to leave my coven base-bed.

With more sonorious rounds firing
from that putrid, tiny mouth downstairs,
I explore alternate campaigns,
bellycrawling through the impossibility of sleep.

Some Haiku

I stole the ripcord,
baby. I’ll regret watching
you tumble away.

Panicked breezes flush
cherry blossoms on my cheeks
these winter mornings.

Craft another lie
with bent truths and half smiles.
You've made it an art.

On the wrestling shows
the muscle men grow
bigger by the minute, I
wrestle with dessert
promising exercise after,
hoping to mold myself
into their stern shapes,
capturing their hard work
in dizzying arrays of push-ups,
the results always hidden
under gentle burn and fatigue.

Church

The adults stood mouthing lyrics
and hearing the wailing pipe organ
singing the drone of an angry God, I
trembled in the pew, curled
cowering beside my mother's coat,
the congregation's chant lifting
the brazen angels' clinched fists
over guilty hymnals on Sunday morning.

On A Monday Morning

The sky melts from blue to
tangerine near the horizon line;
sprinkles of stars
struggle, fading back to night
so they may sleep
on the other side of the globe.

The sun rises and stretches,
throwing majesty at all corners
of the morning, and announcing
its blinding ascent to
Awake with bird chirp-songs.

I absorb the breaking day
in waves as the ground drinks
the dotted dew off the wet grass.

I have not slept in the night,
hungry for the clockwork
potential of an infant tomorrow.

The Whitehorse Winter

I chose Whitehorse because of the blistering cold and hour-miles of seclusion. I pioneered myself a cheap, forgotten miner’s cabin and hermited there for a winter, encouraging myself to write. Often, my eyes wore tired of the pale blind of the empty white page, and I sauntered—caped deep under an itchy flannel blanket—to the porch I kept shoveled and cocooned into the old oak rocking chair there. I tended over my wounded words while I rocked, pretending my steam-breath was perique pipe smoke. By spring, I had mustered a thick beard and not much else. I spent no other winters in Whitehorse.

Leaving Again

I tell her
crackling-stream eyes
and twittering frown
I am leaving again.
She believes me
each time I lie
about finally going.
I have turned her
into my younger brother.

I teased him on purpose.
He asked me to play,
plot our new adventure
excited after I agreed,
then frustrate and sigh at me;
I built clusters of mini-chores
between my yes’s and our playing.
I made him wait,
stuffing the in-between
with dozens of ‘just let me’s
and ‘right before’s, tightening
the tension of his trust.

Now, I tell her
drooping brow and
blank slate cheeks
I am leaving again,
toeing the tight-line
of her frail faith in me
to actually leave her.

Cartoons

I have turned your name
into a sort of music,
a jingle for a smile shop,
and lost in you merry melodies
I turn into a cartoon
stereotype. Suddenly
your skin is milk-cream
and I am a starving cat,
but there are no saucers
waiting at my midnight door.
After we say goodnight,
banished to the solitary
staleness of my bed,
my eyes spill under the sheets
looking for the stains
of you left in my mattress.
I linger awake, hungry to smell
your scalp and sleep-sweat
soft across my pillows,
clutching at even the giggling
ghosts we have planted here
deep inside the box springs.

The Morning Fence

The snap and lock
or doors outside
muffle through
the morning fence
we built from sleep
and our own closed
bedroom door.

In my roommate's black
tempur-pedic bean bag chair
we watch Ben Foster playing
Eli, a special kid, on that show.

You sigh and nuzzle closer
to my gray, sweatshirt-covered
chest, readjusting your neck,
trying to get comfortable enough
to pay attention and relax.

Neglecting the screen, I move
to notice the new space
for your head. You bob
with each breath I subdue
like a confused puppy on its side.

I want you to hear my heart
alive in me, drumming along
aloud in my ears, burning
for attention with its eagerness
for your delicate attention.

I am nervous, wondering
if I am breathing too hard,
hoping you hear heartbeats
resounding through me.
I wait

until your breathing slows,
you collapse in a line,
dropping still from head to feet,
relaxing into me to sleep.
I stop watching your head
to find Ben Foster has left
the scene, ending the episode.

Paranoid and nervous with the drunkenness of a crush,
I hope only that you have not decided to ignore our splashes
in quiet chemistry through flirted looks and stabs at intimacy.

We stumble on the brink of conversation,
the veins in your cheek burn and bulge,
I slide my hands against each other
trying to easy the corpse numbness there.

A red LED display burns
numbers into the dark
of the sleeping bedroom.

Night has sprung again
upon the restless,
limping through heavy eyes

and the sore mistakes
weighing on the rest-worn.
Tonight we ignore the blazing

race of time, together
we will curl into sleep,
dreaming without burden.

The ancient carny jargon
spins tired ticket promises

of stuffed prizes for cheap
kids' games, there is a winner

in every family filtering down
the dusky neon blitzes and

torn awnings of the faded midway,
each pregnant with fraudulent hopes

for something classic or genuine,
their wallets bleed to satisfy

the side-show hunger and
candy-apple curiosities.

On a Picture of an Ex

Now, months after, I notice
every corner of your face is a museum
stuffed with sculptures,
mounds of memories
from buried cultures, reborn
with every coy smirk, carving deep
basins into the camera lens.
You flood the photograph
with ancient emotion and
a secret nudge of progress.

It is wrong to think
your plagues are alluring.
The dead litter
your pale lips, kissed and preserved
in the heat of your breath
and the dune-glazed sand
in your stare.

I pack the picture away,
humbled and full of spite,
into a dusty crate of distance,
sending your discoveries
to some fortune-hunting fool,
blessed and ignorant of
the curses in your artifact eyes.

Ignorance crawls in
the corners of Alabama
and scurries, ascending
to the surface on the drive
back to my transplanted home there.

She told me in Paris
'goodbye' is like coffee,
as a true adult
you are expected
to develop a taste for it.

Sick?

Why won't I call myself sick? I wake up in sweat drenched sheets, filled with a cavernous soreness, my stinging breath stale in the fresh air of morning. I collapse out of bed, subduing patches of floor to walk on while my closed head leads me toward the bathroom for the day's first piss, more uncomfortable than relieving. My throat tingles with a blunt stiffness, flaring indignant when I swallow. My heavy eyes cascade over my bedroom and I soup myself back into bed. I fold myself under a familiar linen shield to sleep with the lie that I am just tired, refusing this sickness.

Dark winds whistle
missiles at my trembling windows
while maelstrom clouds swell,
twining soft, white fluff
into looming sky-shadows.

I stare out from the rattling
view, the bleak storm maturing
outside. I am half asleep, spralwed
across an age-stained leather loveseat,
the lights off inside the dead house.

Inside, natural purples crawl up the walls,
the storm tints and sparks the room,
craming a devious, secret strength in the house.

If You Are Falling

If you are falling, howl,
splinter the sterile silence
jailing us, your sturdy bones
will not survive this impact.

Howl, and I will gather
oceans of my numb blood,
drowning your blunt decent
and washing the initial slip.

So howl, and I will fold
the drop deep in my marrow,
enduring resounding leaks
only when I need scaring.

Dear Friends--

Friends;

We are the new rock'n'roll. We are the sonic energy of a bored generation. We are kittens with claws. We are the morning star in an uncertain dawn. So, let us march toward something. Something grand, something true, something genuine. But, and this will be the most important quality, something from ourselves. Let us write love letters to the universe. Let us say something, anything, about our lingering here. Let us smile. Let us cry. Let us tell stories.

Happy writing,
-CPH

I am a carousel of stars
spiraling without a sky,
elastic graces of breathing
binding me in shocking gasps
together toward the clean
comfort of an evolving tomorrow.

I am a stream of ripples
pulsing without a shore,
alive with the gift of you
and pushing past feting nows
through to the innocent
ignorance of an evolving tomorrow.

Three Secrets

***

Did I ever tell you it's always the cheap suits that make me the most remitted? I will find myself spending a weekend in meetings full of attractive associates, all adorned in fine-fitting forms of business-appropriate perfection. Meanwhile, I sit fidgeting, wishing I'd spent more money on shoes and had better fitting pants, wishing they could see the cuffs of my shirt outside of the sleeves of my jacket. I tremble, my stomach spins into stabs of self-doubt and I want out and away. I slip privately into a crisp fall afternoon where the sharp chill mandates another body to cuddle and keep warm. I daydream about overcast skies and low temperatures while blabbering bits of well-dress information spill over me. I dream of leaving to bowl alone or watch a movie, pretending that I listen, sitting fully erect with a shotty pride in what I am wearing, in who I am. I have to. They have all the other advantages.

*

Did I ever tell you once, stepping onto the porch to grab the chunky Sunday edition of the morning paper, I found a murdered tabby cat hanging limp from my brass door handle? The cat's wispy white fur matted against its rust-stained skin in places, and the dangling paws wobbled hollow in the breeze. The horror and general shock of the moment stunted the easy morning, and the scene lingered, twisting in me. My eyes welled and reddened with the threat of tears for a tardy and desperate catharsis, but I remembered I didn't have a cat. The murdered tabby simply wasn't mine. I remembered I had never had a cat at that house. Nor a dog. And the morning started moving again.

*

Did I ever tell you I buried a sack of Brazilian voodoo bones in the backyard? The pearl inlay was fake, but the magic seeped into the soil somehow. On that day the grass blurred and hissed, and the rose bush your aunt loved so much withered and bloomed in loop for a full week after. I buried the bones because I was afraid, after stealing them, that the proper owners would want them back, find me with them, and shrink my skull, leaving it as a morbid souvenir for brave tourists. Somehow I thought the ground might hide the bones like it does corpses. But these were Brazilian voodoo bones, and those tricky spirits die hard in this soulless American soil.

***

The Brazilian Voodoo Bones

Did I every tell you I buried a sack of Brazilian voodoo bones in the backyard? The pearl inlay was fake, but the magic seeped into the soil somehow. The day I did it all the grass blurred and hissed and the rose bush your aunt loved so much withered and bloomed in loop for a full week after. I buried the bones because I was afraid, after stealing them, that the proper owners would want them back, find me with them, and shrink my skull, leaving it as a morbid souvenir for brave tourists. Somehow I thought the ground might hide the bones like it does corpses. But these were Brazilian voodoo bones, remember, and those tricky spirits die hard in this soulless American soil.

Cheap Suits

It's always the cheap suits that make me the most remitted. I will find myself spending a weekend in meetings full of attractive associates, all adorned in fine-fitting forms of business-appropriate perfection. Meanwhile, I sit awkwardly wishing I'd spent more money on shoes and had better fitting pants, wishing they could see the cuffs of my shirt outside of the sleeves of my jacket. I get nervous, anxious, my stomach spinning into stabs of self doubt and I want out and away. I slip privately into a crisp fall afternoon where the sharp chill mandates another body to cuddle and keep warm. I daydream about overcast skies and low temperatures while blabbering bits of well-dress information are spilled over me. I dream of leaving to bowl alone or watch a movie, but look as if I am listening, sitting fully erect with a pretended pride in what I am wearing, in who I am. I have to. They have all the other advantages.

Tabby Cat

Did I ever tell you once, stepping onto the porch to grab the chunky Sunday edition of the morning paper, I found a murdered tabby cat hanging limp from my brass door handle? The cat's wispy white fur matted against its rust-stained skin in places, and the dangling paws wobbled hollow in the breeze. The horror and general shock of the moment stunted the easy morning, and the scene lingered, twisting in me. My eyes welled and reddened with the threat of tears for a tardy and desperate catharsis, but I remembered I didn't have a cat. The murdered tabby simply wasn't mine. I remembered I had never had a cat at that house. Nor a dog. And the morning started moving again.

Cary Grant

A manufactured charm,
genuine enough to cradle
hostage audiences over
two hour romances, soared
over the closeted real man.

But velvet rouge lips and
dandelion hair compelled you
like magnets on the screen,
laughing for Deborah Kerr
or fucking Grace Kelly.

The part in your polished hair
perfected aside the image;
a half-cocked grin relaxed
onto the boyish face of
a silly-handsome Scotsman
sitting spitefully crosslegged
in a tuxedo, your hard chin
daring the world not to be enamored.

So, as I kiss cellophane
goodbyes to Archibald Leach,
I wish that I could be you,
the ironic pounding of that
shared wish playing us to black.

A Blood Red Barn

Pa built a blood red
barn far out in the north woods
away from the house

and worked on it every night
for two and a half summers.

We watched him build up the frame,
and fill it in with cheap wood.

He did it alone,
never once asking for help
from any of us.

While he worked his eyes were mean;
we didn't ask what it was

but watched it take shape
and figured it was a barn.

When he painted it,
we knew not to go out there.

That's where he'd do the killings.

Explaining Myself

I called the dogwood,
shedding in the autumn wind,
a blizzard; she laughed.

Looking at the tree
and seeing snow again, I
tried to explain it:

"The flowers burst out
into the flustering breeze
like a tidal snow.

First, the white pedals
bound in the air, playing with
the soft, impish gusts.

Then they shower down
after the wind releases them,
painting the ground white.

The pedal dusting sticks,
fooling me into thinking
that it is winter."

After I explained,
she understood and agreed.
We laughed together.

Fingernails

My fingernails bruise and grow
In jagged summits and snarls.
But I will cut then even,
Smoothing away their threat.

In jagged summits and snarls
are wild, woolly madmen
that, too, smooth away their threats
with deceptive coats of style.

Are those wild, woolly madmen
any different than me, grooming,
with deceptive coats of style,
this archaic, ragged body?

Any difference in my grooming
now is simply a coincidence with
this archaic and ragged body;
Noticing has made me self-conscious.

Now, simply, a coincidence:
I cut them uneven.
Noticing makes me self-conscious,
but my fingernails still bruise and grow.

the arrowhead edges of a crushed aluminum
can jut-out from the sagging
sides of a white plastic trash bag,
bunched at the top with red plastic ties
tossed, tumbling wayward, into a cavernous green trashcan.

Friday Night

My stomach sings regret
as I wander around
the dorm excited
for a party
I did not want to attend.

My ride is late
and I wait
with all the
anxiousness of virginity in
an uncomfortably familiar lobby
going through the motions
of the weekend party ritual:

Friday night is a breakbeat
introduction to a club banger,
manufacturing anticipation
to heights that
will not be fulfilled in dusky
crowded rooms that swim in darkness
and sin until the kind pause
of sleep and drunk induced alzheimer's
washes them away.

As usual, the dancers will eventually
forget their steps
and we will find ourselves
in Saturday morning,
stung with the stale
sweat and wasted toil of our attempts.

But, finally, at the party,
this Friday night waits for me
in the lonely corners
of a loud room where
I smirk at blurs of girls
I'm not attracted to
but would sleep with.

This Friday night screams
for empty sex and
a dashing tongue
in the weary mouth
of the work-week.

I falter from the plan,
the party eventually
takes me and dances with me
and I unexpectedly fall
into a good time.

A woman keeps my
attention and rips away
my sanctimonious pretensions;
she is intelligent, well-spoken,
and hotter than Halle Berry.

We rock and tangle in rhythm
where I find her soft lips
on more than one occasion.

And to think I didn't
want to come.
This Friday night has tricked me,
and yet we both have won.

So, galloping, I find lifted
spirits and begin to fly
on the now sturdy wings
of the weekend, beckoning
Icarus and giggling with
my new 'friend'
about his failures.

Now, we work with rod-iron
and steel, so keep
that weak wax away
from our Friday night.

And after we recognize
that the dancers are
all tired having failed
in their doomed mission
to pen an epic encounter,

we stumble into a descending groove
in the breakdown of the song.
The pulsing beat of everything
we had wanted is gone while
the sounds slides away to Saturday,
showcasing what we have found.

but I'm no longer worried or morose.
I tell my ride to go on home
because I'm leaving with
this brand new friend
to a hyacinth house full
of pleased lions where
we can sleep until afternoon
after tumbling like burning banshees
in the pyre of unexpected weekend sex
and still say to each other "Good Morning."

Favors

I wanted to ask
the professor if
he'd stay after class
with Elizabeth.
We needed to talk,
together, about
that night, where we'd walk
to, and the amount.
I couldn't pay, but
I had kept quiet.
He owed me, above
all else, and knew it.
I made a deal with
him; she was a gift.

Where is my whiskey
glass now, broken on
the floor under me
like a country song?
Will I two-step through
the jagged pieces
with a lost woman,
no clue who she is?
I don't think I'll dance
tonight. Just clean it
up, adjust my pants,
and meander out.
I'll slump back to my
truck, dropping the night.

Not Shaving

I refused the razor today,
neglecting a shave
so I might remind myself
I am a man.

The stubble masculinity
proceeds me, announcing
my roughness and
willingness to tumble;
I'll fight and nibble
the grit and gristle there,
in my near-beard.

And as its witness,
you will recognize
the beard's wisdom,
its grizzly bear gruff
and guttural, hungry growls,
grilling themselves solid
in the grind.

The manly freedom shards,
hanging from my face
as I age and grow,
into the smoothed
skin of youth.

I refused the razor today,
neglecting a shave
so I might remind myself
I am a man.

Bed Time

My eyes ache
like dirty blankets,
smothering my face
with gently hung
scratching and wavering
surges of hush.

I am rolled
into a drifting sleep
in the soiled bed
of my dirty clothes;
upright, my mattress
is firm as a gravestone
giving the posture
of a tax man.

I feign life
in the flashing tumbles
of consciousness,
strobing between periods of
teased dreams and descending
stillness.

I rub the roughness red
into my sclera,
hoping to flip
the draining pillow
of the moment to its
shocking cold underneath.

It is no use,
I admit to myself
that I am
slumber-fodder
and drift nobly on,
defeated.

On Spoiling a Crush

flattering fascinations
were never enough
to cover the bluff
of your infatuation,

so

your crystal snow flakes
fall fragrantly to the concrete
of our reality,
shattering into shards
of smell that stab
my memory into submission.

the transmission of peace
is interrupted for another
frenzy; again i am descending.

i blow kisses to god
for protection and mute
the jagged doubts
that self-protection
spins as safety webs
ensuring the quivering
insect of inspection
is not devoured
by the black spider
of the moment;

i am in the moment.

i bluster like an oyster
snapped from its shell,
there is no peace
in this tumult-ocean
and i am waved and
raked across the coral
that circumstance has
scarred into the seabed.

let me sleep and dream
of a softer nightmare;
my attention bleeds
to scab but i am
a ruby river of next,
next,
next.

and you.
you.
you bully your
tank-framed images
into line.

and i am powerless
to retreat, to climb,
or to swim at all.

i wavier and laugh
myself into fits.
again, i am descending.

and i blame you with
the reward of my spasm.

The Failure of the Prophet

i'm nervous.

before i even jump on stage
and pretend these wooden
planks are a word of
my own creation,

i feel my stomach's treason
bubbling and knotting
all my confidence,
kinking the hose to
my pure self expression.

and all the attention
adds heat to the already
burning, smoldering pile
of chard ash that is
my artistic ambition,

i had a vision
but this spot light
has melted it.

and while i prance,
singing praises to romance,
self-discovery,
hilarity,
and the shame of being broken;

i'll lament never hitting
the quick of those
original intentions,

the burden of the applause
is the proof that
i have failed.

i never meant to entertain,
i had only wanted to educate.

as Paco de Lucia

When the strings agree
and writhe, feverishly
plucked in the torrid
tune of the moment,
I wince in the pure
pleasure of my control.

These calloused hands
strike and scratch the
medal, pushing and
pulsing across the bridge,
as graceful and sexed as
the sultry dancers listening.

I shake my head in time,
violently dotting where
the song demands skill
and I oblige; again
seamlessly, again perfect,
again wincing until

there is a breath in the
song. And beauty intrudes
where intensity has quivered.
Tears will lick my eyes,
never falling. But the sympathy
is there. My hands feel the pain.

My fingers flash-flick and finish,
the finality of the silence
haunting the room in the instant
before the applause. The journey
is done and the story told.
My hands bow. I nod humbly and smile.

Alarm World

We live in such an alarm world,
set sirens for sleep and living,
and the nature in us has died
along with the ability to feel.

We stoically rustle against set budgets
of time and money and people, pacing
through memorized steps, dancing nowhere,
and stick parasitically to the lame rhythm.

We slouch and cough and die, all
in the same cycle set synchronised
with digital faces and micro-divisions,
draining away that inherent god in us.

We live in such an alarm world,
buzzed to birth then work then death,
wallowing in the set contentions of
this rigid and worn waking-day world.

Freshman

Our freshman year we would wake up together, pushing each other out of sleep and bed, and stumble to la clase de espanol, hardly on time and in our stale pajamas. We would find lunch after, doing the homework while eating, then crawl back to her bed with our stomachs full and, smothered in jersey sheets and feather pillows, sweating onto each other's chest, would fuck well into the afternoon, falling asleep until dinner and our late astronomy lab. These were our Tuesdays.

"you should go

down the street
to mr. reed and
find his cane
again.

find his cane
so he can stand
his drunk ass up
and try to walk.
take him to the
station so he
can buy himself
a beer. find his
cane and if he
needs a dollar
for a beer give
him a dollar.
don't say nothing.

go down the street
and help mr. reed.
find his cane
again."

Why We Should Leave

Now there is nothing here for us.

There was once kings and queens for
us. Smiles on trees for
us. Notes and kisses for
us. Hands and winks for
us. Candy and films for
us. Books and poems for
us. Nights and nights for
us. Sweat and moans for
us. Gifts and words for
us. Hours and wails for
us. Fights and grins for
us. Frowns and blood for
us. Scowls and crowns for
us. Winks and drinks for
us. Drunks and drugs for
us. Knives and hugs for
us. But the feisty angles have left
us, and this shallow, empty void becomes
us, and we need something. Anything.
But now there is nothing here for us.

Now there is nothing here for us.

if i could sing

i wish i could sing.
i would sing constantly,
i would not stop spinning
in my whirl-wind cocoon of tune,
infinity provided in my perfect pitch.

i would never stop singing.
in every breath would beat a new note, and
in every breath would unfurl a new melody, and
instantly: infinity in my perfect pitch.

i will never stop singing.
i will become a cocooned chorus, a constant gospel,
in every breath a whirling sonnet sung
infinitely melodic and note-perfect in orgasmic pitch.

i would make my name a song.

If You Want to Run

If you want to run I'll buy a gun and learn all of your favorite songs. I'll wear an old western shirt, find my boots and my jeans, and we'll jump in my El Camino and find a desert road to drive down until we both choke on the idea of our deaths while finding nature and whatever reason there maybe for us to be here anyway.

The
spinning cannon-ball
rapture that
has become my idenity
is hilarious
these
days.

Zip through the registry with me
and mark only expensive gifts.
Let them guess at what we wanted,
stranded, pondering frailly
over expensive guitars or dvds,
wondering why any new families
would at all need these things.

It would be our joke.
Our own little prank.

Hair Dreams

I'm waiting for 1:00 AM
so I may fall asleep
and dream again that

I have sturdily grown hair
in dowdy strands of grainy
blonde, thick and bristled
around my face,
like a Missouri youth.

I will worry in these dreams
with my hair about what
distresses I might flounder in,
saving the waking-day for
lighter matings, but so
frantically consumed by
broken lyre strings while
I sleep that I hardly notice
the trouble.

Heavenly Piece

so i'm reading Newman,
an old Tractarian,
and he loves God
and has given himself
to the glory of Christ,
and that's fine

but he advocates
celibacy as holy
and those who enjoy
the flesh as somehow
evil, or marked with
the spot of the devil.

i will not be considered
evil because i have sex,
evil because i like sex,
evil because i want sex.

mr. Newman may be in Heaven
enjoying the company of
his distant, lonely God,

but my lord, or force, or power
will embrace me fully
and take me inside,
feeding me into the universe
as we both shake and rattle
to warm jazz and swirl
nonsensically together
like flavored milks mixing.

we will clamour romantic,
erupt robust,
intertwine holy,
and all the evil sex before
will make sense as
the practice for this moment,
this introduction to GOD
and accession to my rightful
place in the confused body
of the eternal and never ending.

and we will never stop this:
our limitless, beautiful tumult,
because Heaven is sex
on a different level

and I'll not let
the confused virgin corpse
of a Tractarian poet
tell me any different.

Flocks of leaves
drift morose in
the gray slits of sky
under the umbrage of trees
we might devour
under our breath.

We breathe the sky these days.

Sorry

I think too loud
and too fast
and come to conclusions in this
frantic freight-train way,
and worried,
want to share how my world

has crumbled

because of my flimsy discoveries.
I'll throw them at you
because that's what I do,

hoping a piece of a discursive musing
will stick with you
and remind you
that I, too,
can be beautiful,

but I'll leave with only
your jagged smirks
and quizzical eyes;

your face drowning
in a glaze,
telling me that
I should have saved
myself the trouble.

Your Rebuttal

my face is gone
from the photos,
scratched away

so there is only you;
your crescent eyes,
your melon-slice smiles,

still there after
i have been erased.

What I Wrote in Philosophy Class Today

I'll change hands
to the metal pair,
so that they'll creak
with their rusted gears
And you'll not
want me to touch you
again.

---

Stand fast...my friend
we'll break...on in.
This time...we'll win.
Patience...Again!

You won't take us back alive
You can't take us back alive

We're fine...I guess.
New cross,...old chest.
New scars...this time.
I'mso glad...you're mine!

---

If I hold
you, don't cry.
I want you
to be happy
with me.

If I hold
you, love me.
I want you
to hear my heart
alive in me.

Horatio; A Response.

He was always
a crunch-corpse,
piled on the sill,
wobbling in the breeze.

He was always
a friend to us,
never buzzing and
never stinging,
never really a threat
at all; he loved us.

Or, rather,
he lived with us.

If there's even
a difference.

The Glue of Dogs

Your daschund is a horse.
Your daschund should be made into glue when it dies:
sleek-look, smooth-coat glue
that whimper-barks on papers,
sweepingly soft rather than sticky;
that avoids the stiff wet-smell while drying,
inedible with a garbage-mouth taste.
That dog-glue would look loud on a page.
Elmer would shake in his New York boots,
but your dog is not a horse.
Your daschund could be a glue-horse though, a glue-dog,
if those janky, short legs should ever break.
Its patter-steps halted by a snap, then art on a page.
“Cats are just smarted than dogs.” – But they make poor glue.
The glue of dogs is loyal and fast drying. Perfect for Man.
The glue-dogs are more precious and immortal in our projects,
with dog-glue I would make a thousand Picaso-esq collages,
and Cory would see them in a gallery and know
the glue-dogs will serve a purpose. They will exists still.
These cohesive canines deserve what horses get!
Dogs would make glue more beautiful than horses ever could!
Los perros harían el pegamento más hermoso!
We love them living, they beg us to love them dead, to use them dead:
thousands of old pets, sticking together, still loved and used!
Yes!
Your daschund should be made into glue when it dies!

I realized that
after cutting my
hair short,
shaving it down
with clippers
like a soldier,

that I would rub
the soft stubble-fuzz
on my head
whenever I was
thinking or
dreaming or
feeling.

Little brother,
when I think of you
I rub my head, and

in a world of
'gone away,'
you will always be
my best friend.

A Bad Poem About the Past and Nerves

We were nervous
watching the teacher tell
our parents about us
in class; we watched
through the door
from the safe, sterile hall.

Were we well behaved,
and what would they say
about our grades, and
did we pay enough attention?

Were we right enough,
had we known enough
of the right answers to
show that we had read
and that we had studied?

I get nervous now
when I hear yelling
or crying, especially women,
and I don't remember much
of school or childhood.
I don't remember much
of anything then.

15 Minutes, 10/9

(a twenty something male sits in a room reading a book taking notes. another twenty something enters excitedly. they are friends.)

I've got it!

I'm fine, thanks for asking. How are you today?

What?

Nothing. What are you so excited about?

Just that I've finally got it. I've figured it out.

And what is it that you've figured out.

I know what women want!

I doubt that with every fiber of my being, but I'll bite. What do women want.

Well, no. There's a whole story thing. But I know now!

Okay, okay. What it is?

(the excited one stars to pace.)

Okay, so I'm walking around campus today, right?

Yeah?

And I come up on this skinny, lanky hipster kid. But he's not your run of the mill hipster kid. He's wearing some early nineties bicycle hat and has on these damn-near elbow length bicycle gloves. I should also point out he was on, or, rather, straddling his vintage looking bike.

A bicycle hipster?

Yes!

Okay?

No, but he was talking to a hipster chick! She had on the skinny jeans, the flats, the whole deal, right? But I could tell by the way that they were talking that this bicycle-hipster guy was into this girl, like he wanted her and whatnot.

Right.

Right. But he's got this weird timid thing going on. It's like he's playing shy or aloof so she'll notice him more or something.

Like ignoring her?

Not exactly, but making her push the action. And then it hit me.

What women want?

Yes! And it's not that. This bicycle hipster guy is obviously into this girl. Like, they're friends or whatever now, but you can just tell the way a guy will talk to a girl what he's thinking about. But he wasn't doing anything with that.

Just sort of languidly chatting it up?

Right! Man, that is not how anything happens. The funny part was that she was obviously into him as well. I mean, you can just see these things. But nothing was happening. They should have been setting up a date, or holding hands, or...shit I don't know, making out or something. But nothing was happening.

I follow...

So you can't just sit back with ladies. I've been doing that my whole life. I've got the cute, playful act down. I've got the patent. But there has to be a follow up. With girls I'm always worried about coming on too strong and seeming like an ass.

Isn't there a middle ground?

Yes! There is! And it's so obvious. You can let a girl know you're into her, sort of drive the action, without being a forward crazy jerk. You can still be playful and cutesy...

Thank God

...without just letting all this potential sit there. There is nothing wrong letting a girl know you're into her want want to get to know her better; physically, mentally, or whatever. People like that. I like that. You have to show interest. Or it goes no where.

And women want this?

Well they want action. Everyone wants action, but if a guy acts he's got something of an advantage I think. And without action, I mean, no one is getting laid.

And that's no good.

(the excited one sits down. he is tired from being so animated.)

Not at all. I'm just glad I've realized this before it was too late, you know? I could have been married by know. I think normal girls, the really worthwhile people even, are going to be a little timid.

No, no. I agree. Forward girls, at least in my humble experience, tend to be a little insane. Lots of fun, but lots of crazy.

Now that I've got the plan, man, all I've got to do is put it in action.

Who's your first target.

Target's a harsh word, I don't intend to shoot anybody. But, since you asked, it's Jamie. I think I'll talk to her.

Nice choice. Godspeed. Now, if you'll excuse me I must get back to my Malcolm X paper.

Well I will leave you too it. I gots a lady to talk to

(the excited one stands up and walks out of the room. the one with the paper raises his fist and calls after.)

Fight the power!

Liprings

I don't like liprings.

I've been dazzled by the expert way
that eyebrowrings glare off shining faces
and bounce down to the eyes to substantiate
in even the longest of stares and blankest
self aware beauty into a warm capture-look.

But I don't like liprings.

I've been turned-on by the way
belly-bottonrings dangle or shine
their majesty unto torsos, highlighting
the pure sex in the center of gravity,
damning my attention to lusty intention.

But I don't like liprings

I've seen the husk of protesters
turned glamours artist by a nosering,
adding senseless class and old nobility,
Weighting a face-line posture with sparkle
and shamelessly becoming a fetish.

But I don't like liprings.
There's something unbecoming
about kissing a piece of tackle.

15 Minutes, 9/7

(a man in his mid-thirties enters a living room where a teen in watching t.v.)

Did you find a date yet?

What? What do you mean?

Eve told me. Did you find someone to go with yet?

What exactly did Aunt Eve tell you?

She told me about the prom. You really ought to go. It might seem silly now, but as the years wear on these things get more important. You think about them, you know?

No. Why would she tell you?

Look, it’s fine. Don’t worry about Eve. Get a date.

Damn it, Uncle Tarver. This always happens. Let me just do this my way.

First off, watch your mouth. Second, no.

No what?

I don’t like your way. Your way’s no fun. Go find a date and go to your senior prom.

Please, could just leave me alone. Just this once. I don’t want to go to prom. Really. It’s stupid. I don’t like the music, I don’t like to dance, I don’t really like the people I go to school with so I really just don’t want to go.

You just can’t find a date, can you?

Tarver, please!

What? I was ugly AND unpopular in high school. I still managed to snag a date to both junior and senior prom though. I even got laid.

Should I clap? What do you want from me? This isn’t a big deal. Just stay out.

Look, you can’t fool me. If you were that pissed you would have ran off to your room by now. You’re still here pretended to be angry at me, though, so it’s obvious you want my advice with the ladies. That’s fine. Your Aunt Eve is a beautiful lady that I happened to trick into loving me. I have the secrets, big guy.

(the teen turns off the t.v. and fully addresses the man.)

Would you like me to leave? Would that send the right message? I could go slam my door and yell or something, but I thought I would try to present myself as calm and serious, but that doesn’t work with you. I’m not going to prom, okay? That’s that.

That’s that. Okay.

(the teen turns the t.v back on. The man waits a moment before continuing.)

Hey, whose that cute girl with the short hair your bring over here? Ask her.

Elizabeth? She’s my friend, like one of my best. I’m not going to ask her to go to a stupid dance that she probably thinks the same about as I do.

Fine. Yeah, you’re probably right. What do I know? You know…yeah. Proms are sort of silly. You just dress up to dance and have a good time. I mean, nobody likes looking good and creating memories. And who would even want to go to a stupid after-party, because who honestly stays at the dance the whole time? And really, who wouldn’t want to be let off the hook from their curfew for a night because of a special occasion that a certain uncle finds vital to a young person’s life. I mean, really? YOU. ARE. STUPID.

Damn it, Uncle Tarver.

(the teen storms to his feet and out of the room)

Where are you taking that sailor’s mouth to?

(leaving, the teen answers.)

I’m getting the phone.

(the man answers to himself, smiling.)

God damn right you are.

The Mercenaries

We clutch plastic guns,
belly-crawling on beige carpet
draped in our father's flannel,
with underwear on our heads.

Invisible villains are killed
as we whisper through the enemy lines
invading the kitchen cabinets.
Later, we capture the laundry room.

The mission is accomplished;
we belly-crawl down the hall.
Passing Tiffany's bedroom,
we reach homebase.

We reload our weapons,
sharing the orange darts.
We agree on new emergencies
with underwear on our heads.

The Things I Remember from the Dreams Where I Die

The faint taste of oranges whisper-hushes its way into conversations; I fail to realize the problems with this. Forgive the weakness of my concentration.

You. You are always there. You have a trip-wire tongue and will never kiss me. I've tried to save you many times; rarely am I successful.

The melting kelly green of hyper grass that grows only where I cannot imagine concrete.

A tall, elderly man who is my grandfather, but is nameless and so frighteningly vague.

The empty sense of nobility in self-destruction drapes itself around my shoulders.

Falling for dangerous lengths of time is typical.

Tears. Genuine tears without hyperventilation; just loss. Always loss.

And that ironic waking satisfaction.

15 minutes, 9/1 (2)

(two men in their early twenties are in a car driving to a theatre to catch a movie. they are close friends.)

What time does the movie start, again?

9:30. But I want to be there by 9.

No, totally. I hate missing the previews.

Thank you! Christ, it is so annoying when people can't get to a movie on time. Let alone when they drag me into what ever evil plan they have for settling their blood-lust for being late.

You know, I don't even like to miss the fun little trivia slides. There are all so outdated, but it's still fun. That, and all of the advertisements are hilarious. God, that dentist one is too funny. The apple's teeth in that cartoon are way too damn huge.

Yeah, no fruit should have teeth that big.

Or teeth at all, but I'm willing to digress for a good time.

You know you always made me late to movies?

Oh God. Don't say it, please.

What?

I know where this is going, and I'm going to just delete it now before it even gets out into the world.

Okay, grand poo bah, what was I going to say?

You were going to mention, for what would undoubtedly be marked as the near-infinite time, how Vera would make you late to movies.

So?

So? So? It's played out my friend. You guys broke up three months ago. I think the time for peppering you friends with bitter remember-rants has long since passed there.

So I can't make a relevant comment about the conversation we're having. Thank you for editing my speaking habits, I've been meaning to have less control over my motor functions lately.

Suck my cock. I just don't want to hear about Vera. And it's because I'm a good friend.

You ask me for oral sex because you're a good friend, too?

I see how pissed thinking about her makes you. And since you can't call her up and brake up with her again, there really is no reason to bring her up at all. It sucks for me to hear about it, and it sucks for you to think about, so just don't bring it up.

Shit still bothers me, though.

Why? Just let it go. She is out of the picture.

Not entirely.

What do you mean? I thought you guys were done-zo?

Were are, she's just not out of the picture.

Explain to me this picture, because with as much as you complain about Our Lady V, it could be an interesting portrait.

I mean I still see her around. She's friends with all of my friends. She unavoidable.

Okay.

Okay. And we talk sometimes.

Okay. And?

And what? I'm trying to be friendly. There's nothing wrong with that.

You guys are sleeping together aren't you?

What?

You're sleeping with her again, right?

We're not together or anything.

But you are having sex.

Perchance.

Hell, man. You are a walking contradiction.

How so, Mr. Moral High Ground?

Please. It's not like there's anything inherently wrong with what you're doing. You're just a dumb ass for doing it and you know why.

Enlighten me.

Because you hated that relationship. I like sex as much as the next guy, but I'm not an emo whiny ass like you. I can see it now. You're going to mistake all the wonderful sex with your ex as this crazy idea that things might work out again. You're an idiot and you're torturing yourself.

What makes you think it wouldn't work out?

It had a shot. A long one if I remember right. And you complained your way through that. Do yourself a favor and stop living in your fantasy world where revisiting old flames will somehow develop into this ridiculous fairytale that you somehow passed over the first time.

People change.

Not likely.

15 minutes, 9/1

(two older teens are in a bedroom staring at an open lap-top at a desk. a boy is sitting in the desk's chair while a girl looks over his shoulder.)

No, this is stupid. I can't make her spin clockwise, damn it.

Calm down. Just move something in front of the screen.

(she waves her hand in front of the screen.)

See, clockwise. Okay....okay, yeah she just switched back to counter-clockwise.

I can't. She won't change for me. I can't believe I can't make the ballerina spin the other way.

Maybe you just have to relax your eyes, like one of those hidden picture dealies.

Is that what you're doing?

No, not really. I'm just sort of telling my brain to switch her around.

Why can't I do that?

Why are you so worried about how the ballerina is spinning?

It's a test thing. A right brain vs. left brain test. If you see the ballerina spinning counter-clockwise then you're left brain, and if she spins clockwise then you're right brain.

What if you see her doing both?

I can't get her to switch. I'm left brained. This is not right.

Why are you worried about the side of your brain? Just go with the flow.

No, see, it's not like that. I'm left brained, but left brainers completely go against who I am.

Like an enemy sort of thing? Oh no!

No, I'm serious. Here, right here. It says that left brained people are more logic oriented, can see the details, focused.

Those are nice.

Yeah, but the right brained people are described as feeling, emotional, creative, big-picture oriented. I always saw myself as a right brain person.

I guess that makes me a centrist. Well, buck up. It's not the end of the world. Not yet, anywho, that's 2012.

Why can't I make her spin...

Just relax. All you have to do is change your life plans. Listen, just stop writing poetry, stop drawing those cartoons you do, and just pick up engineering and statistics. This way you can actually have a fulfilling career that does something for society AND will pay you a decent wage. Win-win, homeboy.

That's horrifying.

(he closes the computer and leaves the computer desk.)

I mean, I know what I'm into. I'm creative. Artistic. Right?

Sure.

I can be an artsy type. That's who I am. That's who I've always been.

That's the spirit, tiger.

Besides, no I think I'm right here. That's just one test.

It WAS on a news site. A BRITISH news site. They are pretty prim and proper with their reporting.

Yeah, but millions of people probably did the same test. And who knows whether or not it's even accurate? It's the Internet, after all.

Yeah, but the Internet is pretty much the one collected spot for all of human knowledge and experience.

Oh, God. I'm really not meant to be an artist am I?

I have the feeling this is about more than just the ballerina.

My mom is thinking about sending me to State.

But she said you could go to the institute. I thought that was a done deal?

It was, I thought.

But State has NO creative writing program. Like, at all. And why wouldn't she send you to Tech? It's right there. Tech even has a respectable English department, and I say that unbiasedly though proudly of my future Alma-mater.

I don't know. I was excited. Everything was good. The Institute was here, you'd be at Tech, we could still hang out. I could stay at home. I don't know what happened. I think it has something to do with "life experience" or something. She's putting me into a dorm.

That, all respect to your mother, is bullshit. You don't need a different area code or zip code for 'life experience.' You already got into the Institute, right? Just go. That's all you've been talking about since, literally, sixth grade.

I can't do that to her. She's my mom. And she's paying for it. I, honestly, have no leverage.

But you can talk to her for Christ sakes. This was your thing.

I know. I know. I don't know what's going on any more. Everything is dying.