embers, my kisses
scald your palms; your bandaged hands
ashing from my jaw

Open my chest, drink

the beer resting there, brewed from

the flow of my blood.

Open my chest, ash

your cigarettes on the tray

carved from my sternum.

Open my chest, wash

your face with my lungs, drown

choking on my air.

Under your fingers,

a throat.

My throat

rattling

songs against your hands.

My hands

trussed behind

my back under your bent knee.

Tangled in your teeth,

mouthfuls of hair.

Your hair, tight

against your scalp, tight

around your tongue, tight

around my tongue,

gagging me.

We forget grass stains.
Scabs turn smooth, neglecting scars.
Multiple washes
remove our worn grooves.
Chipped teeth loosen and regrow,
aging like clockwork.

Living room corners
harbor me during parties,
anchored by snack trays
away from the threat
of kitchen bustle and heat.
Conversations skip
past me, I listen,
nodding politely, and smile,
trapped in false concern.
She skitters around,
bouncing between small circles
and offering drinks.

While grey-green clouds loom,
raindrops wave-crater puddles,
soaking everything.

Smoking on the porch,
I will leave the door open,
listen to the news.
Sometimes, hungry, I
bolt toward the kitchen food-cache
and then to my bed.

I forget the door.

She chastises my smoking,
my eating, the dog.

The dog will sneak in,
terrorize the cat at night,
escape by morning.

She loves that damn cat.

I apologize again,
ignored at dinner.

The dog bays--then still,
pointing at squirrels and waiting
for permission, blood,
the moment to move.
We let her in on cold nights,
she sleeps at our feet
and chases the cat.
They wrestle: gentle, aware.
The cat welcomes her.

Theory

You remember standpoint theory. You think about your gender in regards to your standpoint, your cultural positioning, your world view. You recognize the privilege in your soft androgyny. You recognize the ubiquitous pressures steering you toward a particular masculinity become weaker the more privilege you garner. You think to your own social capital. You try to see yourself as a heterosexual, white, educated, middle-class man. You notice your view of your position is clouded. You can not see yourself clearly, the assumed normalcy of your position creates fog and prevents your immediate analysis. You recognize you are the constant demographic. You understand every sitcom on network television because you are the presumed audience. You understand the dramas and romances of every film because the white-washed assumed cultures of their protagonists, their antagonists, their universes are the same assumed culture you live inside. You realize you have never explained an argument from the white perspective. You have never been asked, “As a white man....” Your answer is the safe answer, the constant answer, the answer of society. As a heterosexual man, your answer is the answer of every president, the answer of power, of privilege, of permission. You notice the image in the mirror is the image of the oppressor but even your guilt over the cultural history of the body you inhabit is a privilege. You realize guilt and androgyny are, for you, indulgences of class, of your standpoint. You recognize you have the time to consider your guilt and revel in it without consequence. You realize the ease of white androgyny compared to the pressure of normative standards of masculinity combining with specific cultural standards of masculinity in the face of those normative standards. You like to think the consideration of others increases your objectivity, the knowledge of the society built around you which you have accepted by omission of protest, which you have accepted via your continued presence. You hope your education is enough to guard you against the title of appropriator, studier, observer. You hope your quite androgyny, in attitude more than body, serves as some form of quiet protest to your dominate position. You hope you present an alternative, if only a soft one. You try lending your voice when you hope it can help. You strive to understand. You hope. You hope. You hope you expand your glance, your view. You hope.

Institutions

You think of your family and how they shape and mold you, seep into every story, dominate every personal history. You think of your sister, five years older than you, forcing you and your younger brother to play house. You remember playing school while she taught you and your brother. You remember the collaboration in the games, the peacefulness, the lack of aggression. You remember wanting to play fight with your brother but the game morphing into karate school with your older sister as the sensei. You remember wanting to look like your favorite wrestlers, wanting so badly to simulate their face paint. You remember your sister learning the patterns and painting your face with her make-up and lip-glosses. You remember wearing her choir-dress to play as the kilted Scotsman Rowdy Roddy Piper. You remember appropriating her showgirl Halloween costume’s neon pink, tailed blazer, complete with requisite glittered trim and cuffs, for a ring jacket matching the flamboyant entrance attire of other wrestlers. You think how television permeates through your stories along with your family. You remember recording free previews from the Disney channel when it still had to be ordered. You remember watching The Mickey Mouse Club, Bonkerz, The Care Bears, and My Little Pony. You remember watching the violence of Terminator 2: Judgment Day after family trips to the beach and almost wearing out your copy of Gremlins 2: The New Batch. You remember watching the dating show Singled Out over dinner with your family and now watching King of Queens or The Newly Wed Game. You think back to trying to convince your brother of the merits of the new My Little Pony cartoon while he watched Michael Bay’s Transformers films. You remember your mother indulging your love of low budget horror films and wrestling tapes on trips to laundry-mat video stores. You remember watching and rewatching your sisters favorite musicals. You catch yourself humming songs from Grease, The Sound of Music, and Rent. You realize you can not decide if you admire Tyler Durden from Fight Club more than Billy Bigelow from Carousal. You think to Bam Bam Bigelow, one of your favorite wrestlers because of his flame-themed outfit and fire tattoos on his skull. You remember your brother watching wrestling with you but leaving the room bored, asking you to retrieve him if the women wrestlers came on again.

Body

You think of your height. You remember your shoulders towering over the shoulders of your classmates standing in line in grade school. You remember standing the back of photos of family and organizations and any group photos with standing. You remember walking gangly at fourteen through record stores and bumbling past strangers in the isles, tripping over your feet. You think of your shoes. You lament most stores do not carry size fifteen but lauded online shopping trips find them occasionally. You remember basketball as a constant, lingering suggestion. You remember making the seventh grade B-team and sitting on the beach, cheering on your teammates throughout the season. You remember being kept on the team because of your spirit. You remember gaining weight in high school and becoming more comfortable with your size. You remember the nagging suggestions to play football once you reached high school. You remember giving into the suggestion. You remember playing offensive tackle, the guaranteed violence of every play matched against the defensive line with the wholesome goals of protecting your quarterback from the blitz or giving your running back room to run. You remember laughing at the dichotomy. You remember moving in the middle of high school and ending your football career after your second concussion. You remember your mother’s happiness about this decision to protect your large body. You remember missing the grind of practice but not the stress of games. You remember squeezing into school bus seats in full pads with your teammates on the way to games. You remember auditioning for mascot at your new school. You remember lounging on the school bus with the bag containing your costume under the seat as the rest of the cheerleaders chatted about classes at the new high school around you. You remember laughing at the new dichotomy. You suddenly think of dancing. You remember finally becoming comfortable enough in your body to dance well. You think back to four proms, countless formals, and infinite nights dancing in bars. You remember junior prom. You remember being told you made a good boyfriend because of your size, because you were so masculine. You remember not taking the compliment well, smiling awkwardly, feeling disconnected from your body. You remember tall girlfriends complimenting your height, making them feel comfortable wearing heels and boots. You think back to hugs given by your mother and father and being taller than both of them. You remember your father’s jokes about your weight and becoming a vegetarian for six months. You remember when your father took up power lifting and could bend quarters, how people often mistook his mountains of muscles for fat. You remember laughing at this third dichotomy.

Language

You think of your brother and his many nicknames with the family. You think of Cake and Boo and Cakey. You try to think of your own pet names with the family but only remember abbreviations, shortenings. You remember your father calling you son like he did your brother. You remember your mother calling you sweetie like she did with your brothers and sisters. You feel a lack, a hole where your own language should sound, your own word. You think of your name. You think of the spelling and the missing ‘e’ and the pride you take in the simplicity. You remember meeting girls in fourth grade with the same name, with the same spelling, and asking your mother about it. You remember her telling you your spelling was most likely the more feminine way of spelling your name but she liked that spelling better. You ask about your family, searching for namesakes or reasons for your name, your spelling, your word. Your mother tells you the name begins with you. You remember feeling hollow then, empty of history. You ask where your name came from, wondering where your word, your place holder gifted from your parents, originated. You mother tells you she simply always liked the name. You remember the dissatisfaction with her answer. You remember frowns and the bitter, tinny taste of fought-back tears. You remember wanting something solid, you remember wanting a boy’s spelling of your word. You research your name now, curious of the etymology. You find your name has history, if not in your family. You find your name dates back centuries. You find your solid ground in your word. You find your name comes from the word quarry. You smile in your new fact, in your name which comes from stone, from inside the earth, from mining, from labor. You suddenly slow your smile curious why the fresh masculinity of your name brings such joy. You think of rocks and pits and wonder how these words relate to you past your name and their shared history. You realize you are not that solid. You think of the girls in the fourth grade with the same name and wonder if they know the same story for the word. You realize it is not a shared word. You realize the name only becomes as solid as you are solid. You realize suggesting the name to friends with coming children is not suggesting earth, or strength, but suggesting you, your story, the meaning you have attached to yourself. You stop researching your name. You start writing it.

Before You Were Born

You think of life before you were born. You suddenly picture streamers sailing across Japanese wrestling rings thrown out of adoration for the wrestlers. You trace the streamers back from the ring to the throwers who are lost in the crowd. You realize how the streamers, red and green and purple and orange, symbolize influence. You realize life before you were born is life while you were born and life immediately after you were born. You wonder what happens to the streamers once they are swept under the ring, after the matches, after the crowd has left. You store the pageantry of Japanese pro wrestling for the moment. You think of your father. You remember his face full of stubble smiling under a mustache and trucker cap at a bundle of blankets. You sleep or cry somewhere in the sea of blankets under a head full of new hair. You think of the faded photograph which imprinted this image in you, the unmatched but barely recalled outfit of your father. You remember his lack of a fashion sense, his sweatshirts matched with scrub pants. You think of the eighties. You think of the excuses of excess and a good economy. You remember your father’s Cincinnati Bengals jersey and the bumper sticker on the black briefcase which held your birth certificate. You think of your father’s disappointment watching the Bengals lose the Super Bowl when you were seven months old. You think of the halftime show, Be Bop Bamboozled in 3-D, the first ever network broadcast in 3-D, introduced by Bob Costas, sponsored by Diet Coke, and hosted by Elvis Presto. You remember your grandmother’s love of Elvis Presley and the room in her house dedicated to him. You remember other celebrities vaulted to ideas. You remember your father watching and laughing at old Clint Eastwood films. You remember silent cowboys smoking in Italian fake-Mexicos firing their revolvers in extreme close-ups while Ennio Moricone scores whistled along in the background. You remember your mother’s crush on Patrick Swayze and your father’s crush on Sandra Bullock. You think of Public Enemy and Spike Lee but remember your father listening to Alabama and Johnny Cash and Conway Twitty. You remember your mother listening to The Beach Boys. You remember Van Halen. You remember your father blaring I’m Your Ice Cream Man in his truck without any trace of irony. You revel in the lack of irony. You think of your grandfather. You think of cycles. You realize your grandfather defined manhood for your father as a child as your father defined manhood for you as a child. You think of your grandfather in the army, in armor, in Vietnam. You think of your grandfather’s funeral. You remember his obituary only mentioning only his retirement from the paper-mill where he worked for decades. You think of your father joining the army out of high school. You think back to cycles. You realize why your college education was a vital suggestion, a demand, from your father and grandfather. You realize how they shaped the man they wanted you to become. You realize everything shaped the man you would become. You think back to the streamers discarded under a wrestling ring in Japan. You realize they once hung spooled in stores, were manufactured in a factory. You think of influence. You think of stories.

Acorns

Collecting acorns,
I hold them to my forehead,
a spectral planting.
I mound wet seed-beds,
streaking my face, brow, and scalp
with handfuls of mud.
The acorns settle,
buried, shoaled against my skin,
rooting through the years.

Do not threaten me
with sleep, you shit-filled morning,
for I breathe coffee.
Do not crust my eyes,
for my dilated lens
hungers for the sun.
Do not slow my steps,
for I have stretched and yoga-ed
and centered my chi.
Do not wither winds,
for I have dawned a thick coat
and challenged the breeze.
And do not kiss me
with warnings of the coming
day, for I am bliss.

If I walk alone
along the morning foothills,
I refuse to see
the moon-dawn glowing,
craggy-blues draining: slow, slow,
Tennessee Autumn
ebbing in rust-reds
across brush-fields and forests,
disappearing stars.
I refuse to watch,
will shut my eyes as I hike,
will huff through my dark.

"Well, how was the play?"
"We left at intermission.
Thus the hangover."

Ignorant of men,
she thinks, "If only I were
love-worthy, or whole."

Legs crossed tight, I watch
two women discuss their jobs
and buying new dogs.
They talk about food,
losing weight, moving away,
husbands, growing old.
They sit close, phasing
through ways of sitting, watching,
but never touching.
I fidget, nervous,
pretending not to listen,
but obviously...

i dont even smoke

cigarettes i didnt smoke
coat my favorite clothes,
so when i get dressed,
want to look good, go out,
i think about your lips,
parted and poutin

but this aint fair, i dont even smoke

friends say do laundry,
freshen up, but that would mean loss,
memory is loss, too, but softer
and these days i try to smile more
so i decided to go out less
and not try so hard to look good
when i get dressed in the mornin,
but your lips and hands stay there

but this aint fair, i dont even smoke

nights i do go out i carouse
around red-dressed, dancin girls
and they smoke like you, kiss too,
but mornins after, crawlin out of bed,
i dont have their clouds around me,
just your old nail polish and lipstick

but this aint fair, i dont even smoke

Scrolling through my phone
I realize I only keep
the unctuous texts

Ashley Billasano

We still had town squares,
gathered there in November,
a new mess declared.

The elders concurred,
we huddled, should have done more,
let her face sting us.

Established rapport
ignored our stiff injustice,
lost, we found our guilt.

We exchanged pictures
of the girl smiling, self-killed,
buried immature.

Once the tears had dried, we left,
her notes scattered, deaf, ink-wet.

Sugar-Ants

Armed with the plastic
shovel from my son's bedroom,
I scoop sugar-ants
out of the pantry,
away from the coffee can,
off of the counter.

Shovel full, I march
toward the bathroom to drown them
and pretend they're gone.

I drink uneasy
cups of morning coffee fuel,
refusing to watch
any lingering
soldiers swim down my gullet
and die inside me.

Catherine, a dancer,
hacks at dance floors with her feet,
bleeds in the shower.

caverns announce the guttural grinding of deep rock-shifts,
her chest wheezes with that earthen creaking

while her eyes wain, flutter through sleep and sense
locating you, losing you, desperate to steady themselves

still; you pray for crises, earthquakes, an excuse,
a chance to crumble and lay open-mouthed on the floor, empty.

your hands are shaved, amputee
spiders wrestling with themselves,
their nail-spindles scratching and growing through the fray.

your hands cast their webs
into the crooks of my neck,
onto my ears, and crawl across my chest;
nesting, sleeping, stretching their legs as they fall still.

Cameo

Locked inside oysters,
(I search for sterling framing)
you long for pearl skin.

You scratched my back, shocked
you could trace the raised trail-scars.
Your tilled stripes remain;
I call them tattoos,
name them after you like stars,
plant memories there.

You Imagine The South

Your professor prepares the class to watch footage of Dr. Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream speech. Your professor reads quotations from Plessy v. Ferguson. You are taught about the dismantling of Jim Crow laws. You remember seeing footage of the National Guard with rifles at Alabama schools. You imagine Jim Crow as a man. You imagine the National Guard lining up as a firing squad. You imagine the execution of Jim Crow. You imagine his grieving family as Racism and vowing vengeance on The South. You imagine The South retching in the throngs of that curse. You imagine Jim Crow smiling as he bled out knowing the terrible strength of his family. You imagine his rusting blood. You imagine his bullet wounds. You think of the military and state-bought bullets. You think of your soldier father. You remember his story of shooting a man in the leg. You remember the warnings and promises he made to the man in the foreign country. You remember thinking of a tank then. You remember tanks and their steel skin and earthquake tracks. You remember thinking of American flags tattooed on the tanks' turret and knowing they belonged to your nation's terribly strong family. You remember laughing and nodding at your father's story. You remember goodnight hugs afterward. You remember Dr, Martin Luther King Jr. as an accused plagiarist and philanderer. You watch the footage of Dr. King's speech with your legs crossed. You wonder about his family's tattoos as the speech ends.

You Think of Warplots

Your professor asks your class to think of paralles between Cold War containment policies and current events. Your professor, thinking of arms, relates a story about finding a gun. You hear him describe finding a loaded .357 magnum in his shrubs. You think of warplots. You imagine the yard angry and building an armory. You imagine the yard growing unmowed and regretting the loss of subtle cultivation. You think of mowing yards. You remember yourself mowing lawns for your father's friends. You remember him teaching you how. You remember him telling you to grab the rumbling handle of the lawnmower and walk in a straight line. You remember his large hands clinched on either side of yours. You remember how minor your hands seemed. You remember how thin your arms were then. You remember your father walking behind you and steering. You remember thinking of your father explaining why crowds booed the Russian wrestlers. You think back to Truman's doctorine on Communism. You remember the Marshall Plan. You remember Truman's metaphor of evil seeds and evil soil and infestation. You think of mowing as patriotism. You think of your father as a patriot.

You Notice The Hook

You read over an Academic Paper Format. You read down the outline. You notice the five part Introduction. You notice The Hook is the first part. You read, "-attention getter (Why should the reader care?)" You imagine a fish hook binding pages together instead of a paperclip or staple. You imagine invisible magician's fishing line. You imagine the line unreeled from inside a reader's eye and knotted into the eyelet of the hook. You imagine everything with words with hooks. You imagine strings dangling from eyes, knotting themselves around the reading hooks automatically when you want to know what something says. You imagine this is how reading works. You imagine a grocery store. You imagine the magazine rack. You imagine a meager greeting card selection. You imagine old women crying over touching sympathy cards. You imagine their tears welling and flowing down their eye-strings toward the hook. You imagine the hook rusting after enough tears. You imagine everyone knows the best cards all have rusted hooks. You remember how blood rusts. You imagine finding a perfect sympathy card and wanting other people to read the card but not being able to cry. You imagine cutting your finger on the hook when you can not bring yourself to cry. You realize how blood and tears often appear as a package. You hope your blood-rust hook works. You hope your finger's hook-cut is enough to turn shoppers into readers. You hope not-crying does not make them stop caring. You return to the Academic Paper Format. You read the last section of the outline. You notice the seven part Discussion. You read the last part. You read, "Provide a brief conclusion."

You Imagine Helen Keller

You sit in a small classroom. You notice a grey-skyed downpour out of the lone window. You notice the florescent fixture above you. You notice the bulb, blinking and staggering. You guess it will die before class does. You flip through the stapled pages of a speech on your desk. You read Helen Keller wrote the speech. You hear the professor describe how she delivered the speech to teamsters. You furl your brow. You stare at the pages. You imagine Helen Keller gesturing from a balcony down to an adoring crowd. You imagine Helen Keller as Evita. You can not imagine her speaking. You imagine her mouth sullen and shut as she reads. You imagine her throat rumbling through the words. You imagine feeling her throat rumble with your open palm. You imagine the vibrations as harmonica notes which raise in pitch as her gestures grow furious. You imagine her eyes. You imagine her brow dancing from behind dark glasses to the melody of her guttural harmonica song. You imagine her wearing a purple velvet Victorian dress. You imagine a high neck and white lace. You imagine her wearing a matching hat. You imagine her hands in grey leather gloves. You imagine yourself wearing coveralls in her audience. You imagine standing packed against men buzzing with the hope of her gesture-song. You imagine they smell like your father. You imagine they smell like sweat and smoked cigarettes. You imagine holding a wrench in your fist. You imagine lifting your wrenched fist when Helen Keller thrusts her arms into the sky as her rumbling harmonica screeches. You imagine the men around you naming their daughters or cars Helen. You imagine farmers peppered in with the teamsters. You imagine your grandfather. You imagine Fred in the back of the crowd leaning on his Buick. You imagine her song disintegrating his reservations. You imagine him convinced. You imagine him nodding to himself as he drives away. You imagine he heard enough. You imagine this is why your mother is named Helen. You recognize you are still staring at the stapled papers. You notice the fixture above you buzz and flash. You notice the bulb burn out.

You Are No Druid

As you sit cross-legged under the pear blossoms, do not count the seasons their ancestors have bloomed there. The druids built stone calculators to count the seasons; the pear blossoms bloomed away from their craggy math for centuries after. Do not offend the pear blossoms so early in your sitting. First, close your eyes. Lift your arms into the sunlight after you have escaped your sleeves. Warm your blood. Turn your hands toward your face. Kiss each of your fingertips. Press your blessed fingers into your still-closed eyes until the black-pink-orange-yellow swirl-burn seeps slowly to the back of your brain. Bend your head to the ground and kiss the cool dirt in thanks. Settle your arms. Open your eyes. Allow the sight of the pear blossoms, sturdy and seeded, to recover your gaze. If the breeze does not scold you, does not mockingly whiz past your ears, the pear blossoms are pleased with your offering. You may now whisper of winter to their roots and understand bare branches. You may think of numbers; leave them unspoken but draw their shapes in the warming dirt. The pear blossoms will read your pictures and know that you are earnest, that you are no druid.

The moon, aloof and looming.
The sea, stalking and innate.
The whole damn mess,
undulating in stanzas,
engraved,
romantic.

Your Mother

Your mother lost her virginity thinking of a song; had, at some point, loved more men than you had lived years; let your father kiss her neck before the night you were conceived; dreamed of men, stoic yet empathetic, as she showered.

Your mother imagined celebrity and writing songs; rode down back roads before dawn daring the dew for adventure; cried, discarded, weekend nights she wasn't asked out.

The boy, burning deck-wood
falling char-steamed into the sea,
recites Casabianca but stammers over
"Love" in each line.
The poor ship cinders into midnight,
the poem left ill-read,
the boy, a failure, adorable, left drowning.

The boy, bubbling burnt-air
seizing toward the surface after the ship,
enunciates "Love" with mouthfuls of seawater,
Casabianca finished only after the fire's smothered.
The poor poem, like a schoolhouse
sunk under the weight of fiasco,
never moved the swimming sailors, the doomed captain.

The shore cocoons itself in sea,
prone & cold, a comforter to snuggle
while dreaming of marriages or
watching early-October horror films.

The sea wears the shore off the shoulder:
a slinky silk number bordering on oriental.
The sea prances in mirrors dawning the shore
decked in curlers and parody-red lipstick.

You Sit In On A Lecture

You sit in on a lecture. You hear about The Great Accommodator. You hear about Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Compromise. You learn the importance of loyalty to rich white businessmen. You think how the help then were just a law away from being the slaves. You hear about black housekeepers crying at the funerals of their white employers who had been their white owners. You imagine chapped mocca hands clasped in prayer under proud, melon breasts under heirloom shawls. You think of funerals. You realize your fear of death but not your own. You remember your first stepmother. You remember her funeral. You remember her smoothed, pinked skin. You remember not touching her. You remember not wanting to touch her. You remember thinking of molting snakes and their moon-blue eyes. You remember thinking the shed skin meant a more-comfortable snake. You remember growth. You remember thinking of the first girl you loved too young during the service. You remember how she was older than you. You regret losing touch. You remember scripting conversations about understanding monogamy and loss. You remember not understanding why she suddenly seemed vital. You remember hyperventilating outside in the shade afterward. You think back to loyalty. You remember Booker T. Washington. You remember The Great Accommodator. You stand and leave the lecture from the back of the hall.

I carried
you, shivering & sweating,
inside the house to my bed,
buried you under my comforter.

You planted
your bare hands
into the powder snow that morning,
stinging them, red & raw.

wicker rocking horse
scattering shadows across
fluffy beige carpet

rewritten love notes never referencing the editor, or revisions, or the author shambling through uneasy stomachs, or red ink, or slashing his way toward just what he means, or his not knowing what he means, or the crawling cowardice of not speaking to her but building folded-paper forts held together with colored ink, or the budding calluses where when his scrawling becomes feverish his fingers squeeze the pen, or the pushing of his knuckle toward the ink so his pen draws honestly, or the crying over too-honest editions he later crumbles and tares into strips before dropping them into the trash so no one can read them, or the eventual submitting because he was done with the relationship, or the rejecting of the narrative he could charm her back with notes, or that she could be charmed back, or that she would want to come back, or that he would want her back

Baggage

Unpacking the house,
mountains of still-taped boxes
suffocate closets
like old suitcases
forgotten at train stations,
displaced and hidden.

Replacing hidden
furniture inside the house,
I clean the station
grown stiff with boxes,
the musk of wet suitcases
seeps from the closets.

Shriving the closets,
disclosing what was hidden,
open suitcases
flood halls in the house
like trash tossed into boxes
while flushing stations.

Platform train stations
rattle like empty closets
after stark boxes
cease to be hidden,
scattered across the whole house
near lost suitcases.

Bemoaned suitcases
linger behind at stations;
repairing the house,
I restock closets.
Though no longer called hidden,
I restack boxes.

Marking the boxes—
porters name all suitcases:
worn tags fade, hidden
inside the stations’
lurking backrooms and closets—
I forsake the house.

Boxes in the house,
like suitcases in closets,
hidden in stations.

Instant Animal Goes to School Poem

I came across a raccoon, wet and whimpering,
on the way to school.
His tail was very pleaded with blood-rusted spindles and dead fur,
and his eyes were very closed.
I hid him in my shirt, against my chest, over my heart
(so the rhythm might warm him)
so that teacher would not see.
He stayed there very quietly
until frightened by a sigh.

Instant Louder Than You Can Imagine Poem

Louder than a slip wrinkling under her dress,
louder than a held hand,
louder than a lip bleeding
or a knuckle swelling,
louder than a pair of heels hitting the floor
or a dinning room chair falling onto the linoleum,
louder than a quarter spinning.
Louder than a dimpled tie,
louder than a car door locking,
louder than a tissue tearing
as she feverishly dabs her cheeks,
louder than an eclipse,
louder than an empty shot glass,
louder than a closed book,
that's how loud my sister SNORES!

Instant Hello Spring Poem

Good-bye, father's socks.
Good-bye, spoiled milk.
Good-bye, winter.
Spring's ahead!

Good-bye, chapped teeth.
Good-bye, sweat-bruises.
Good-bye, winter.
Spring, hello!

Hello, cardinals' sweet fucking.
Hello, resurrected savior.
Good-bye, winter.
Spring's in sight!

Hello, mosquito nets.
Hello, salmonella.
Good-bye, winter!
Hello, spring!

Instant Birthday Poem

I’m getting another year older
And I’m getting another year older,
And I’m getting another year older,
And I’m getting to learn harmonica moans,
And I’m getting to dance in boxed stutter-steps,
And I’m getting to think that leaving with a smile
Could be hard.

Instant This is the Poem That... Poem

This is the poem that waits
in the laundry room,

that inspects ant lines
because it's hiding

because the other poems scolded it.
And when guilt

tumbles loads of regrets into towers of steam,
this is the poem that laughs

behind the dryer
blowing ants off course.

September Septet

afterwards
we found cut-off shorts
near the shore-rocks where we slept
but we wore trunks out swimming that night
and those girls had been missing
for almost a week
at that point

The broken coffee mug
(darting, jutting, crumbling, cragging...)
holds dried dogwood petals,
held your keys,
slices at my fingers.

Instant I Asked Poem

I asked.

I asked the radar why it was amaranth
and it washed and wavered over targets.

I asked the thrush why it was mottled
and it pecked at my swollen mouth.

I asked the hand of my lover why it curled under my weight
and it curled under my weight.

I asked the crash to sing
and it reminded me of steel.

I asked the iron to grow
and it did and the steel became jealous, bickering with the radar.

I asked the thrush why they fought
and they overheard.

I asked myself if I had ruined the party
and the noose of my apologies to lost lovers grew
as taut and tight as the room I leave for them to
resent me.

The night yielded.

The sleep arrived
and I kept quiet
and everything was perfect.

Grandmother

Grandmother—
disarmed, disquieted—
mulling, shuffling, recanting
her coveted, hidden cookbooks.
Irene.

my dearest Egypt:
I may plague you no longer,
my parted seas dry

September 22, 2011

I wrote more haiku
today than I did poems
the whole of last year

wedding receptions,
my parents' waking divorce,
teens, last night engaged

sipping spinal dew
from the mouths of gendered gods;
ain't I a woman?

dying campfires;
Texas brush-burns conquest through
the char-grown plains

cigarette burns race
against my languid fingers
the morning after

dry bed, tear-salt trails
evaporate from your face,
the dunes wait for rain

I apply the myth
of our relationship to
the pits in my throat

dance-sex auditions,
minimum drink casting couch,
no leading ladies

night air thick with breath,
we sweat, pressed inside white pews
absorbing scripture

Nature as a book
we assigned chapters and named
logic or reason

you wear the madras
pattern of my kisses on
your chest like armor

your calloused hands, twin
cities where the trains still run
on time, lack mercy

tangled in christmas
lights
and plaids

bemoaning David Bowie’s
eventual death
while

well-reviewed lo-fi
sizzles from your Boise
speakers

I Like Collegians

I like collegians.
They are so unlike adults.
They smoke cheap cigarettes.
They snort cocaine in bathrooms at house parties.
They study weekdays.
They go to class unbathed in pajamas.
They support the causes in Africa.
The children and wars and all of the causes in Africa.
They jog around the quad in pairs.
Most of their families are wealthy.
The poor students get better grades.
They sneak whiskey into football games
And write about class and sportsmanship in the student paper.
They forget the names of people they slept with.
They use protection mostly.
They go to the beach in the Spring
And home for Christmas.
They pledge fraternities and sororities
But have never, by any means, been hazed.
They curse loudly at videogames in their dorm rooms.
They wear tweed blazers ironically.
They order pizza and refuse to tip the driver
They buy pot from him instead.
They ignore the solicitous emails from professors
The same emails the administration ignores.
They trade laughs with their roommates.
They do not report rapes.
They write papers in coffee shops.
They play Frisbee shirtless in the sun.
They post pictures from Thursday bar nights online
And tag their friends.
They graduate and eventually run the country.

As you would embrace the moon
in stanzas swooning over craters,
I would brace it, construct props,
spackle over craggy ridges,
repair the patina.

You would decry my alterations
as villainous, ruinous, wasteful.
You would long for dust and cracks.
I would ruminate on my efforts,
call the moon a pearl,
ease into a proud drunk.

Fishgut Ambrose stylized-environments
fascinating game lore hired under heist-fists
bright splits, fruit trees, underscored potentials
leg-full spider nests demanded over cargo

A Poem in which a 21 Year-Old Plans to Move to Mexico

When the gray breath of age tickles my hair,
I will shave my thinned, faded strands in a Mexican villa.

When I wear stubble shields against even workday mornings,
I will lounge unshaven in the dirt-dusks of a Mexican villa.

When my voice, burning, becomes a fresh-spent shell in my throat,
I will give my whispers to tall brunettes in a Mexican villa.

When my tattoos leak their lines, fading within my skin's rumpled swallows,
I will restain myself with new picture-stories in a Mexican villa.

When my words fail and English falls limp from my tongue,
I will evoke my novice Spanish, learning names again in a Mexican villa.

When my furled brow becomes heavy and I'm too pissed to stay sober,
I will drink tequila with the news, falling to sleep faster in a Mexican villa.

When my laugh has dulled its edge, no longer cutting to my belly,
I will erupt with tremors of laughter listening to Latino comedy in a Mexican villa.

When strangers look into my dimming eyes and call me sir without irony,
I will watch children, shoeless and smiling, playing dirt soccer in a Mexican villa.

Feild Trip

an "Alpine" water
bottle floats down the river,
currents keep it fast.
Downstream crows circle
eating and diving at fresh
fish amongst the trash.


Grating on small rocks,
hard-soled shoes stir the gravel,
inspecting the scene.
Jostled by a friend
keeping the pattern of pranks,
lanky arms reach out,
moving to balance,
negotiating shoreline
obstacles, again
preventing a splash.

Questioning the day,
rowdy students ask teachers
shallow nature things.
To keep their patience,
understanding their purpose,
veteran teachers
wisecrack sunlight is healthy,
Xanadu gives tans.
Young kids look confused,
zeal saved for other subjects.

Computer Lab Before Class

Strangers scratch at thick
stuble. Their faces tired,
they breathe slow and deep.

Lovely Old Mask

Acropolis-eyed, she wore a mask of wisdom
brandishing age-vein maps of her years
curving down her checks to her mouth's corners.
Dimples of youth hollowed and sunk,
engraving pits when she spoke,
filled with salt-seas of tears when she cried.
Graying strands of broken hairstyles
hung loose down her forehead,
interweaving through her teeth as she slept,
jostling her awake with thick mouthfuls
kinked around her tongue.
Loxic, the eyes of her mask were carved uneven,
mushed slanted under the weight knowledge,
nestled nearer her temples each new year.
Over her dry sockets thin leather
paper, wrinkled jagged,
quaking in her sleep as she dreams, grinding
rigid against her focusless gaze.
Seeking mirrors' pitty and finding nothing she
tears at her mask, now beckoning burial
under the ancient dirt along with her,
voices of the past scream for her to stop,
wishing she would leave her mask so they might recognize her
xoanon without gouges or blood,
zealed with respect and not monstrosity.

Confessional (found poem: Rain Taxi)

Out of Pamela a confession.
She does not beg:
haunting, her silence.
She wants to tell us, and she does,
keeping us always on edge.

She begins with water, remembers
her childhood and a girl under
the lavender of summer's fecundity.
The barrenness of March, in
the balance of the equinox,
lies in breathless trance,
starving for the season's turn.
the opportunity the season will have to define
itself evokes the turn. As it takes us
into the last word, it urges us to turn.

This brings us to an ominous source
deep within her that fountains up,
welling from the heart.
Remembering her mother at a swimming pool
where she felt alone, a mother bathes her daughter,
remembers exactly its fragrance of soap,
the grooming of a woman who flinched
in her nakedness, lived sequestered,
born into a home of secrets that confused
the lonely child.
But what is the truth going to be?

Thus a family has tried to keep hidden
a tragic event. She looks at
the aftermath of this tragedy,
the death of her mother.
Goodbye to the stoic form she has chosen.

In the final section the saving hinted at comes.
The mother's legacy: she cherished
her daughter who buried the family secret.
She now lets her words flow out,
as if in a stream of water. They convey the truth,
finally freed.

My grandfather told me,
“Son, pay attention: you’ll live longer,”
and I have noticed these things:

The tar on fingertips after a syrup breakfast

The underbellies of pillows, fresh and chilled

The thick breathing in saunas

The nameless sherbet sky-swirls of dusk

The stretching of a kitten lank with youth

The stingy purge demanded by curry

The layers of sweat-musk stacked on mattresses slept bare

The guttural songs slung across gyms

The haze stamped over fall sky planets near cities

The tinge of brokenness in obedient dogs' eyes

The stubble-gruff of three days unshaved

The taste cascade of iced root beer in summer

The branch pecks on windowpanes in November breezes

The crackle of bad joints against exercise

The indomitable cowlicks of a hard sleep

Spring Series

I.
men in suits on cell phones
dodge past leaf blower blasts
and groaning, hissing city buses;
sunglasses shielding their eyes
as they hustle through the city in May.

II.
on his riding lawn mower,
Mr. John sweeps his yard
in even passes, cutting his grass
at night, headlights on;
diagnosed 'legally' blind,
Mr. John grew ornery.

III.
Wu-Tang Clan rapper Method Man
calls flip-flops feminine in the song "Ya'Meen,"
I listen to the song walking over freshly trimmed
grass clippings on the sidewalk
on my way to class wearing black flip-flops;
I inhale the smell of the grass hanging in the breeze
but won't bend to smell the lilies while the song plays.

At the End

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

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

thinking Death and living
and memories
are the permanent things
she thinks, dying,

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

and light and memories
are the permanent things
Bleeding on the floor,
she counts: her purging breath,

the panic-gasps of drowning before
the shock of Mother stealing her
out of the death-hungry ocean,
thinking Death is the permanent thing.

Dying, she thinks,
thinking Death thinking permanent
Bleeding on the floor, she counts:
thinking thinking thinking thinking.

'Mother rubbed our rough backs'

Cool, Sober Nights

"I have sleepless friends
and on cool, sober nights,
with rain steady as biology,
their backs yearn for my umbrella hands,
how I snake down their spines
soothing them into sleep with my massages,
fading their nightmares into cough-syrup comas."

"With memories of stuck pills
haunting their throats, my friends rub their eyes,
tearing over in the pain in my absence.
I allow myself to dote on them when possible,
but my schedule twists and morphs regularly,
I can only play nurse for so long before my life
calls me back: I go to work, I want to rest,
but my friends keep losing weight, too tired to eat,
and need my massages to sleep."

"And I'll yield. In the rain I'll cross the city
without an umbrella, without a raincoat,
(because I own neither)
to tend to a friend with my hand-medicine
despite how they ignore what I endure
helping them. My clothes, drenched, drip
up flights of stairs, I climb past elevator doors
with 'out of order' signs taped on, mocking me."

"Sometimes I fantasize denying them my magic,
watching them huddle into corners
of their beds, drawing the covers, crying,
begging me to touch them, to quiet, just for a moment,
the monsters of discomfort and insomnia plaguing
their frail bodies. I imagine their sickly, gray-green skin
drying out and ashing off, only the skeletons left,
the bones begging for back rubs and the faceless skulls
looking like they would bite me if I tried. But I yield.
I close my eyes tight to escape the fantasies and
sure as spring sunshine, I yield to my sleepless friends"

Blueberry Pancakes

Sitting in an English class
focused on 18th century novels,
I spot an abandoned campus newspaper
folded on the floor, half a headline
still readable, and notice a photo of a veteran
dressed in his green Class As
sitting smiling in a chair being interviewed
under large bold letters proclaiming:
"...honored with reception,"
and a wave of shame flushes over me.

Suddenly I'm thinking about my father,
but he is an army engineer, the veteran
looks like a marine if I had to guess,
but something about a man in uniform
“…honored with [a] reception” connects
this nameless soldier with my father,
and despite my best attempts
to participate in the discussion of Mr. B—
as both villain and hero in Pamela,
I am lured into a tangle of memories.

The flashbacks start in objects,
things that reappeared daily.
There's his ubiquitous brown shirt,
which, outside of his drill sgt. hat,
was my favorite piece of his BDUs,
and in slow motion I see myself running
from Jerry Springer or Judge Judy reruns
to hug him, finally home from work, and in the doorway
I rest my head where his chest shifts to stomach,
inhaling deep whiffs of his 5 o'clock cologne,
a mixture of sweat and cigarette smoke:
my father's scent.

And there's cans of beer,
cases of whatever was cheapest
in the cavernous freezer room at the Class Six,
stocked cold in the fridge where I bounce
to grab him one as a favor while he slumps
deep into our hunter-green, leather couch
to watch Cops or Sportscenter, his head perched
on his right hand, his left hand in a bag of pretzels.
Sometimes I would shake the can to surprise him,
and the white beer foam would volcano out
over the tab onto his hands and forearms as he leaned
out of his seat to avoid dripping on the furniture,
ordering me to run for a towel and clean the mess.
Still separated from the class discussion,
I think how angry a friend shaking a soda can
before handing it to me would make me.

With a new wave starting to surge, guilt,
the flashbacks switch to places,
and I'm inside a fourth grade classroom
at Partridge Elementary School at the top
of Epps Street, the street we lived on
and walked up every day to school
when we lived in housing on Ft. Leonard Wood.
I'm sitting at my desk looking forward,
watching Mrs. Casey writing something on the chalk board,
and my dad opens the classroom door half-smiling
and nods at the teacher before crouching behind me,
whispering so he doesn’t disrupt class.
He wants to know when I'm in the geography bee
because he was able to leave morning PT early enough
to come watch me compete.
And I explained to him,
still dressed in his gray sweat suit
with ARMY plaster on the chest
in big, bold black letters,
his shaved head kept warm
under a black wool beanie,
the bee was moved earlier in the day and was over,
I didn't call home when it started
and he had missed seeing his boy
beat out a bunch of fifth and sixth graders
to win the damn thing and earn a spot at districts.
And after I told him this, almost annoyed
having to explain the situation during class,
he smiled at me with a hand on my back
and told me, "Good job!" and he'd see me after work
but had to go home and change for the remainder of his workday.
As he walked quickly out of the room,
I started crying to myself at my desk.

And I'm walking over the standard hardwood floors
in base housing into the back bedroom
he shared with my mother then;
on Saturdays, when he could sleep in after long weeks,
I would wake him up, jump on his bed, lift his eyes open,
so he could make me blueberry pancakes.
I loved his pancakes, but I stop remembering

because I can feel my eyes watering,
the sudden self-consciousness reminds me
I'm sitting in a college class room surrounded
by adults and should not start crying
while discussing Pamela's 'virtue' as her fortune.
I rub the ebbing tears out of my eyes
and look back to the marine in the newspaper,
wondering how Vietnam vets were spat on
after returning home. Maybe it was just
the nation's way of asking for blueberry pancakes.

Diner Dinner (a revision)

Missing the Southwest
dishes that trained my pallet,
I travel my fork

around "meat and three"
at a diner. Drained of hope,
I guess at the meat

chucked across my plate
and decide ignoring it
might save my stomach.

Boring side dishes
dissolve me into lessons
well-learned living in

Texas: grilling steaks
out of marinade puddles
taught me to taste flesh:

I sizzled briskets,
detonating charcoal clumps
with dripping juices,

anticipating
painting my mouth with blood, sauce,
and earthy flavor;

tongue rolling slowly
over booming tender chunks
of Mexican steer,

my grandpa nodding
behind me, sipping tallboys
and teaching me tricks

his grandfather knew,
failing to hide ancient pride
behind disinterest.

Breaking my flashback,
a waitress asks if I'm done.
I kindly say, "No,"

securing my plate,
still thick with food I won't eat,
next to my water,

"but you could bring me
a refill and a coffee.
I might stay a while."

Our Afternoons

I count nicks on the spaceship
as you smile, manning controls
outside of the outlet store
while your mother naps at home.

You soar, a brave astronaut
with orders to examine
imagined planets abroad.

I relate to the distance.

Not noticing who's with you
these afternoon vanquishments,
you, son, conquer galaxies,
not wanting of love or sleep.

If you want to ride again,
I will put more quarters in.

Strolling (another revision)

She strolls alone
bundled in a fraying peacoat,
eyes scattered toward the ground
and peeking above scarf-folds,
the flagged ends dangling down
past her knees. She strolls alone,

the city night a familiar hallway,
and imagines people living in the abandoned
apartment buildings and townhouses she passes,
giving each one a character, a family
sitting together in portraits
she mentally hangs in mosaic
along the walls of the night: star-strung and black.

She strolls alone and new blocks
become new wings as she builds
a slow-growing mansion for her
slow-growing gallery. She strolls alone,

the sound of her shoes scrapping across the sidewalk
reminding her ex-boyfriends' back rubs
soothing her to sleep; she thinks of her night-mansion
and imagines bedrooms.

She strolls alone, draughting at red lights
and crosswalks, each passing car
a sudden waterfall crash.
When she stops and intersections are busy,
the traffic is thick
and a conveyor belt of tumults,
a refrain of orchestral hits sweeping past her
only inches away. She strolls alone,

breathing deep into her scarf while the chill
of the opposing breeze waters her eyes;
her night-mansion now on the coast,
a hurricane blowing against it,
she imagines rushing to her high windows,
closing them, shutting out the storm,
scrambling down the long halls
empty of pedestrians.

She strolls alone, fists cinched in pockets,
the thin slopes of her shoulders jabbing
sharp into the cold stillness swallowing
the around-her. She strolls alone.

after securing the schooner's failing mast-sail
against the spiking sea-blast of several sea-gales
Skipper demanded he buy the boy a drink,

so amidst the pub's Sunday crowd
Skipper gathered the crew around
and gave the motley bunch a bit of advice,

bending his knees with a crackle and dread
the old man was heard to have basically said:
"there's still death in this boy yet!"

"find him a whore with a fake last name
and if he needs help, aid in the strain,
but let it be known he saved our lives last night!"

"so while he's out taking a piss
let us gather together, the night is his,
and cheer a poor soul that God don't seem to want!"

"for if we be but better men
and not so learned to mortal sin
we might very well be angels now!"

"but thanks to the kid
we were saved from the skiff
and still may serve Poseidon!"

Sunday. 2:56 AM. 12/06/09.

I try to sleep,
but the fire alarm sounds
in a neighboring dorm;
under my window

cold, riotous residents
gather in the night.
Now, firetrucks.

My Process:

I sit staring
at my computer screen,
and, counting the errors
I missed sleepless,
regret the additions
to my latest
attempted poetry.

Alabama Dreamin' On Such A Winter's Day

All the leaves are brown,
and the sky is gray,
but I'd still rather stay
in December-bitten Alabama,
then get stuck
on a California freeway.

a watermelon, broken,
black seeds wet in the dirt;
the shock of a bloody nose,
rust stains settling on your shirt.

Pollination

The spring wind grinding
two pink irises together:
your vaguely lesbian poetry
free of honeybees.

On Illinois Back Roads

Driving near dusk in cornfields
outside Effingham last fall

picket fences dangle in the breeze:

the space between an infant's teeth.

Strolling (a revision)

She strolls alone
bundled in a fraying peacoat,
eyes scattered toward the ground
and peeking above scarf-folds
hiding her face like a lace veil.
Only, her lace is flannel,
and the flagged ends of the scarf
dangle down past her knees.
She strolls alone,
the city night a familiar hallway,
and imagines a new family portrait
for each building, all hanging in mosaic
along the walls: star-strung and black;
new blocks becoming new wings,
she builds a slow-growing mansion
for her slow-growing gallery. She strolls alone,
the sound of her legs scratching across the sidewalk
reminding her of an army of boyfriends' back rubs
soothing her to sleep; thinking of her night-mansion
she imagines bedrooms. She strolls alone,
draughting at red lights and cross walks,
each passing car a sudden waterfall crash.
When she stops and intersections are busy,
the traffic is thick and a conveyor belt of tumults,
a refrain of orchestral hits sweeping past her,
inches away. She strolls alone,
breathing deep into her scarf
while her eyes water
against the chill of the opposing breeze;
her night-mansion now on the coast,
a hurricane blowing against it,
she imagines rushing to her high windows,
closing them, shutting out the storm,
scrambling down the long halls
empty of pedestrians
and the relationship of mutual ignorance
she shares with them. She strolls alone
arms cinched in pockets,
the thin slopes of her shoulders jabbing
sharp into the empty stillness swallowing
the around-her.

Diner Dinner

Missing the Southwest
customs that trained my pallet,
I travel my fork

around "meat and three"
at a diner. Drained of hope,
I form meat hypotheses

staring at my plate
and decide ignoring "meat"
might save my stomach.

Bored with side dishes,
I dissolve into lessons
well-learned living in

Texas: grilling steaks
in marinade puddles
taught me to taste flesh:

I sizzled briskets,
detonating charcoal clumps
with dripping juices,

anticipating
my teeth melting deep and slow
in earthy flavor;

tongue stuck collapsing
over booming tender chunks
of Mexican steer,

my grandpa nodding
behind me, sipping tallboys
between tossing tips

his grandfather knew,
and failing to hide his pride
feigning disinterest.

Ripped back into now,
a waitress asks if I'm done.
I kindly say, "No,"

securing my plate,
still thick with food I won't eat,
next to my water,

"but you could bring me
a refill and a coffee.
I might stay a while."

A moment; a newspaper abandoned, folded
on the floor in a classroom, headlines
readable: a veteran sits smiling in
Class A's and "honored with reception."
Something about his suit summons your shame.

He, a marine, your father, an army engineer,
identical only in service. Still, you smell
the five o'clock cologne of sweat and
cigarette smoke. You bounce to the fridge
grabbing him a beer. Men earn beer
with work. They earn dinner
and football and sleep and still fry pancakes
for their sons early on Saturday mornings.
Men earn soldier with blood, father
with dicks, and Dad with showing
up late to watch his son in a grade school
geography bee son forgot to mention
had been moved earlier in the morning.

You notice this smiling marine and do not ask
yourself: how your father had time to love
you. You will understand the sacrifice
of family when you build your own. You
ask yourself: why you were embarrassed
when you told him:
(knelt behind your desk in class,
quiet, sure not to disrupt,
breathing heavy in a gray sweat-suit,
ARMY plastered on the chest,
head shaved and safe under a black beanie)
he had missed the bee.
The time changed.

Sitting, head down in the classroom
he help pays to put you in,
you wonder: how were you embarrassed of that Man?
You wonder, ashamed, staring through tears
at the newspaper print of the marine:
how did they spit on veterans after Vietnam?
A moment; you wonder: have you earned I love you?

Record Store Disciples

Once, I thought I saw God in a music shop.
He rummaged hungry through old records,
surveying the tracks, dragging His finger
where the needle runs the groove.
After an album passed inspection
He announced the artist and each song
on either side aloud to the store.
Held hostage by his voice, I anticipated
the ensuing selections, ignoring
what He had piled to purchase.
Where I a more meticulous man
I might have noted what God was in to;
I might have glimpsed some secret
hidden from the understanding of man
in the musing of His holy headphones, only now
revealed, God allowing Himself
the indulgence of human-music.
(I imagine now, after the fact,
God digs Neil Young; the beard gives him away.)
But I didn't notice the titles
in His buy-stack. I just stood
transfixed on His lips, waiting
for more matriculation from His mouth.
God, in a music shop, shocked me:
The Bible rewrote itself in front of me,
history now a merry-go-round swirling around
the stationary center of the moment;
His words new revelations
for a set of record store disciples.
Understanding gradually the gravity,
fumbling a copy of Master of Puppets,
my eyes watered and I was suddenly self conscious-
a man crying next to his lady
on a romantic comedy date night.
Moments like that require fog, and a tonal score:
the store swayed under His booming,
the floor hollowed and cracked, we disciples
recognizing lightness and power in our legs
while the ceiling opened in our imaginations,
heaven, sturdy as a stepmother, waiting above,
growing a dance party disco in the clouds.
We all stared at His beard-white mouth pronouncing;
family, community, believers, audience.
Turns out, though, it wasn't actually God.
A fellow disciple explained later
it was just a homeless man draped in tin-foil
with flows of snow-white hair who wandered
in off the streets plucking every Marvin Gaye
album off the shelves he could find.
He renamed each one after a different author:
Here, My Dear became Judy Blume.
Now, I laugh about tearing up,
lucky I didn't see God; if given the chance
I like to think I would have found out
what He listens to: I would have read the stack.

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