Quiet

Dear quiet,
you are so soon come,
not long ago were you filled
with pockets of heartbeats
and cheekbones.
Dear stillness,
I see peacocks and pants,
and patterns,
in the sky you offer me.
I do not question why you are here,
I am thankful for thee.

Dear birdcry,
Dear Nature's battles, how you
frighten me,
return me to my convinced thoughts
that your battles
are from an outside world you
cannot conquer.
Dear skycry,
you move me to think that the
quiet is not alone,
that still there is a buzz of
noise and feeling
and that quiet is not so still.

A Piece of Pure Sugar

wind flies through coloured paper
and I take this world
and make it real.
so, the colours float on book covers,
on small lumps of sugar and sand
from my eyes to the air.
you've built a mountain where you're sitting
but only if the red brick rolls.
this is wrong because he would say
you were fucking the dog.
the wind fucks the eyes,
the heart, the mind.
dogs never smelt like sugar, candy
wind-licks before.
we don't own a dog, my heart cries.
the wild flowers pamper themselves
with small pursings,
the wind blows their scent over
to the deck
where the coloured books and patterns,
paper, thoughts, and
crayons full of sugar, wait
to unleash back into the sky.

Twinkle-tear

other than my addictions,
I'm elated.
she sees it,
tells me it.
she always said I had to give them up
and hit my all-time lows,
or I would never reach my high.
I'm on a high.
she sees it, she knows it,
she is grateful for it,
this small piece of the outside world,
this one last anchor.
right now I'm smoking king-size,
b&h
and my eyes sparkle.
she knows it, and it makes her smile,
even though she cannot connect
me to our chain of ancestors
anymore
than the other four hundred and fifty days before.

Don't Look for the Sky

i want a pen, that's all i want
something to scratch onto paper,
besides my skin,
in place for my brain
since it cannot be removed
from my head.

there are things to be said
that i want to be read
but my hand is just dead
with no pen.

Fowl

For The Mews

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by yearning
Thin over-greedy self-conscious
Strutting through campus streets at dawn showing off
The proof of their opportunity
Status symbol-minded posers burning for green eyes
Wasting space in the jog of their minds
Who targeted and embellished and dumb eyed and bored spend time
Sedating creativity with intoxicated waters and flashes
Wasting desire on imitating idols
Who without any capacity to know why they buy or
On any plain night why the world cries is full of lies
What their ignorance and greed press further away
Who pass through their libraries and parks filled with trees
Without any true sense of what the world needs or the potential
Their glory may feed

Involuntarily Injected

Yesterday you told her
that she had every right
to fight for control of her body.
Yesterday you told her
that she would not be silenced
when she told you of the violation
that society and the people inside
it imposed.

Ecstacy Eyes and Adolescent-Hearted Lies

Gets your skull a-rolling,
Gets your thighs a-rolling,
Gets your hips a-rolling,
Gets your heart a-rolling,
Gets your brain a-rolling,
Gets your thoughts a-rolling from the ground,
From somewhere sound.
Puts you behind windows,
Makes you look through windows,
Makes you think your eyes are windows,
Makes you close the windows when the air conditioning is on,
Makes you stand in front of windows,
Makes you contort your bod in front of windows,
Makes you follow people around houses with windows
Turning off the lights
(At night – in the day the windows give light
And you can’t turn off windows).
Makes you feel hot when the sun reaches through those windows
Into that hall where you’ve been locked behind those windows,
Makes you reach your mind through those windows,
Your eyes through those windows,
And reach your hands through those windows.
Makes you forget who lives outside those windows
Which have become your eyes,
Which have become your lies,
Makes you forget who brought you those windows,
Makes you forget who made you those windows.
Makes you forget what you see out of those windows,
Makes you see nothing out of those windows,
Makes you forget that everything is outside those windows.
Makes you see that glass cannot be penetrated with the bare eye,
Or the bare mind,
Or the bare hand,
Or the bare time (the bare time,
The bare time),
You barely had the time (of the sky,
of your mind, or of your tall glass climbs).

what do you have to do these days,
to get a poem off the ground?

Ventriloquize Those Lies

ventriloquize the guise
that sits beneath your eyes
and let me sit here for a while
while i discern your sense of style
not looking at your eyes
but unraveling your mind,
not looking at your lips
but touching your small hips.

ventriloquize the guise
that i see between your eyes,
and i will too move lips for mine
and we will watch ourselves get high.
ventriloquize those lies,
with your voice hid from my eyes,
let me see your pile of sin,
i'd like to know if i'd fit in.

Indifference Is Eating

how do you extend the syllables?
make them longer with so few words?










i can see my name written
all over the air.

Get lost, get found.

ears so warm,
mind so numb,
ears so filled with sound,
mind so filled with dread.

how long
will you
stay so dead?

listening to sounds,
silence in the head,

how does
someone
get so dead?

stand up straight,
pants fall dead,
I'll tell you something
I've never said,

I would rather
be dead.

Back Again.

Skinny legs, don't be so dead,
you look so pale,
so wet,
so red.

Let me see your arm, baby,
your skin has lost its glow;
Let me see your skin baby
it has lost its coloured know.
Your legs are still so skinny,
Your head still held so high,
You move so slow and steady,
Where'd you go?

Why are you so skinny?
Where did you think you'd go?

Sometimes we think it will be different
if we find ourselves in some place
our eyes have never seen
but I know where you have been.

bored, numb.

i am so drunk everywhere,
all the time, it's always there.

Tilting Eyes

Sometimes there are people in the places
We expect to see.

Yesterday,
there were places.
The day before,
there were places.
But now places,
they are stairwells,
and there is no one.

There is left place for you to be,
Not enough space for me to see.

Burn the words,
All captured in capsules,
Make it easier for me
To not know
Or not care.

Let me think about the world
With no real meaning.

Write it for me,
what the is world
without paper
and letters.

Burn the hearts encapsulated in boxes,
Perforated cardboard,
98% recycled materials,
Small coffees, large teas,
Burn the books all gleaming on shelves.

Press the heart against the wall
Lay your words against the heart
And make it bleed.

Leaving

the music is the honest sound
it picks up all vibrations in the air and on the ground,
when it is fall and the leaves lead brightened lives,
listen to the music as it swishes with the times.

rusty smells of dampen rot falling from the trees,
turning peach and brown as it crinkles with the other leaves,
it leaves,
the music leaves,
it helps me leave.

Listen, leave.

He said,
she said,
look at all the leaves,
look at all the trees,
mustard fields turned upside down,
hanging in the sky,
floating on skeletons.

He said,
she said,
look at all the ground,
look around, it is brown,
there is blood on the leaves
that make up the trees,
burgundy, red and brown.

She asks nicely and he leaves.

I want to write a poem about you,
want to squeeze out your breath
while I see you in the air,
want to smoke you,
watch you rise.

I want to hear you sing so quiet
the truth leaves you
without paper,
without ink,
without duels,
hear blunt silence when you speak
feel unequal value of vibrations
in the notes in the air.

You have cultivated your land, I can see.

it gets late as we drive.
old unpaved roads throwing dust on us,
front seat and back.
the wheels still rolling smoothly.

i stare out the window and avoid noting the crops:
what grows
how many cows
how many crows.

when you get older you told me,
you will teach your kids to sow
raspberry and strawberry plants.

next dust storm you told me,
you will teach me how to drive,
how to shoot arrows.

there is probably
so much dust on the road
during these storms
that there forms a secret opponent
thirty feet away
and your arrow lands completely between your own eyes.

outside the dust storm
the sky bleeds red and your memory
becomes scratched with pieces of it.

running through fields.
rolling in the mud.
the air between the hay bales
is changing to coral.
rolling in the mud,
shooting arrows from the road.
for no good reason except the clean that will come.

U-Pick Berries! like U-turn, turn around!

people who were sitting indoors moved to the front porch when the crash sounded so they could enjoy the noise.

neighbours gossiped for miles,
bikers, runners, those who had just come from the detour.
policemen stood smiling, redirecting traffice.
an old bus sat dismantled at the side of the road in front of a blue truck that had crashed.
dreamcatchers hung from the dashboards of passing vehicles.
old men carried canes, wore sunhats.
old ladies took the drivers seat, stretched their arms around the chair,
shifted their weight so their triceps stretched.
my hair escaped in curls. my sister sat beside me unbathed, running her hands over her acne. you know,

if you ate something other than chocolate you might feel a little better.
a little less
crash and burn.

He watched her die.

I would rather be a tree!

He took her to the road.
She wanted more than cement, she wanted more than headaches.

I am become like a tree
because noone knows how to keep me.
I am become like a tree
My legs have been whittled, my knees and elbows
look like knobs

Count the lines on my face,
watch my hair grow wild in the summer like leaves.
Hear our words turn into leaves, clapping together.
Harder when we argue, softer when we do not say a word.

Sometimes it is softening to yell. It sounds like storms.
Sometimes when it storms the leaves clap together and it reminds
me of you after we have made angry.
It reminds me of toes tapping against tiles.
It reminds me of being cold.
It reminds me of seeing you in public.

I saw you the other day, I found a twenty on the street, thought I would come in.
You do not get angry now. Now you just get tired. The cement is making it difficult to breathe.

Every day for the last year we have seen each other. You get tired, and I come home with leaves. I wear them on my breasts, on my upper legs.

The woman gets lost in the trees often because it is easier than witnessing his legs, too weak to move. Once you planted a small tree in the backyard, supported by a hockey stick. The tree grows large and full now but there is not as much hope for you.

Broke the Rules

I had a date with your brother,
you told me to stay far away
but I couldn't contain myself.

Every so often thoughts of your brother
and then he is on the street. What will you
have me do?
He smiles like you do
and dances like you do
and he is short like you are.
Your brother is not as old
as he claims,
his heart is broken but it still moves.

Will you then mind if I break the rules and try to keep you?

if your knees break,
if you can't walk,
if you can't bear the thought to run,
if you can't talk without slurring,
if you can't write,
if you can't read,
if your skin leaves your bones
will you then mind if i contain you?

what will you become then?
scratches in the air,
scratches in the back of the mind,
something as mere as memory,
or a reflection of how you survived,
squeeze you into the vile,
put you on my skin.

if on the bone up my left wrist
be who you are,
if on the heel inside of my left foot,
be where you are,
if on the back of my neck,
breathe,
if on the palm of my right hand,
concentrate.

I'd heal you up

you are so young boy -
much smaller, whiter, softer than I.
my skin would burn you.
you are such a young boy,
far too young for me

yet look at those wounds,
so large, so red, so open,
I could dig my hands in if you
want me to?

I'd heal you up but you're so young.

I am so much bigger, darker, harder
than you but you get scary sometimes,
talking about sex, talking about
sleeping with girls, talking negatively
about everything

because if you're pessimistic
it seems much easier -
yet

your skin does not show signs
of being too old, you still seem young.
I'd heal you up, I don't mind blood,
but you are still so young.

Tangled Carpet (Tangled Brain)

all these secrets in the carpet
in the rips in the carpet
in this lofty apartment where it gets hot
and then it gets cold
without anyone telling us how to control it -
when it gets to twenty eight degrees
let the man know and he will turn it down.
so it gets cold but then i wake up hot, so hot,
and it gets cold but then i walk around and i get hot.

but there are secrets in the carpet,
there are secrets in the walls.
if you trace your fingers between the stones you find
secrets in the walls.
you stick tacks in the wood and find more secrets.
don't think anything too loud because someone
you weren't expecting will answer.
there are secrets in the carpet -
where it is ripped into squares and other shapes.

i don't know the secrets and i don't know the answers
to the secrets i have found but i know when you get
up in the morning after too many drinks i hear
you from all ends of my room when you occupy
the front end of the apartment.
i know your lock doesn't work anymore
but that's another kind of secret.
the carpet it curls up in such interesting places
but stays flat in most places

but then it curls up and i think about the grains,
the strands of colour and i think of someone with
their hand - i think about someone with their hand
taking the strands one by one - the colours don't matter -
and i think about them running their hands over each piece of thread
and then weaving it one strand at a time, filling it
with their lies and their secrets or their lies or
their secrets and touching each strand really hard
until they weave one entire little section.

and then i guess they continue until the
entire loft is filled with enough carpet or secrets
or lies.

Ain't Talkin

little girl i heard about you
and i heard you're not ok.
don't go away.
*
he didn't mean it,
i know when he means it
and he didn't mean it.

it gets hard as we get older
to know why his brain gets so hard,
why it presses so much on his shoulders
on his fist.

he didn't mean it,
i remember sitting on the sidewalk,
refusing to go inside
until he stopped meaning it
and started to think.

he didn't mean it
not with you
*
wish i knew what to tell you
wish i knew what to say
but i mean it,
don't go away, stay.

a product of your generation.

...dying is the most fantastic experience in life. It's a hip, chic, vogue thing to do. It's the most elegant thing you can do. Even if you've lived your life like a complete slob, you can die with terrific style. I can't wait for this moment.

- Timothy Leary

Starting to Work

finally things are starting to work. the air conditioning works.
i work. the lights work.
we don't pay for utilities but i turn off all the lights whenever i leave
the room. people are starting to work.
with the heat gone i can get out of bed at 6 am and not sleep
uncharacteristically until 12:40 pm.
the internet works.
the air works. these buildings are no longer just tall and filled with pressure that makes it hard to breathe but they are filled with air that works.
the books are starting to work.
the looks
are starting also, to work.
i am never good at beginnings (they are always the same) and i am never good
with endings (maybe i said something wrong, wrote something wrong, maybe you think
i meant something else when i didn't. maybe you think i like sex, do drugs, drink too much when i don't).
those are also starting to work.
a lot of people i can see will cease to work.
but not jesus. not the little boy.
not anna,
not robert,
not the four. maybe there will be one or two more.
the thought of dying is starting to work.
the interviews make sense.
the references work.
my limbs are starting to work.
my breasts are starting to work.
my posture works.
you stay in bed and don't go to your job
and that works.

* Nothing wrong with illusions as long as they work...
and continue to work...
(C.B.)

the lights work. sometimes i turn them off and sit in the dark.
sometimes someone else turns them off.

Lose Your Millions and Call Me

if only you
had been a poor man,
i could have stood to have you
see my books
as pieces of material,
i wouldn't have minded when your dirty
hands touched the page
and made it unreadable for the ticking
it now made when i try to concentrate on the words,
but you traded my brain
for bank bills.

i want to bring
you back to the store and return you
for a new edition
with new pages
so there can be room for new stains.

if only you had been a poor man
we could have clung to each other
for what we didn't have -
me to you for your thick skin
and way of seeing the world for roads
and maps and laws.
if only you had been a poor man,
i could have tolerated your love of old cars
and your need to spend
(maybe you would have travelled
further then,
maybe i would have called then).

instead we suffered through improper pronounciation,
use of semi-colans,
commas, parleying about greek gods,
your roomate interjecting where you
couldn't finish your sentences.
if only you had been poor man,
we could have clung to each other,
become ripe,
not known the page was stained
because the juices from our mouths
would have made it look new again.

Savage Bed

I don't want to know
about your mind kid,
your skin is fine with me.

you bought long tailed crustaceans
and let your skin bake -
you called yourself tanned
but you look slightly red to me.
skin red like lips
even close to burgundy.

your skin is heating up
are you sick or are you fine?
it isn't too late
your brain is still ripe
if you use water
and vitamine and put the paper
away, put your hot skin away -
rest away.

you got sick in the sun,
I could have rubbed your skin
hard to make it disappear
between my hands and the sand,
could have made it soft
but I didn't want to know
about your mind - just your skin
would have been fine.

Sugar Eyes

stupid strands of sugar
all over the sill,
sad silences do still the air
where once you fell in
sheets -

sugar is melting all over,
sad, sad, sad silence.
there is sugar all over the air
and somehow it eliminates the
spaces -

between where you are
and where you are not,
but it is melting,

slowly disolving into clumps
and then into nothing,
all over the air where i stick
my tongue to see if you
are still here

but you are not.

Drunk Love, Sing

you always knew how to party,
you know that, they know that.
drunk and pretty love you have come so far
in so long, in so much time since we have been
writing next to one another.
stop picking at your hands and play a song,
you always knew, you always knew
(for the record i didn't always know -
drunk love you always did know how).

baby, pretty baby i am drawing you but
you are coming out darker than before,
in all the dark, can you be seen in lights?
can you be seen in the light in a chair
with my love on your lap, hands soft in your hair.
no more drunk love, no more drunk love,
i will have no more of that drunk love for
my body cannot handle all of that
drunk, drunk love.

you always knew how to party,
they will give you that at least,
let you in and give you tools for things that
you don't know how to do (that alley was dark,
that alley was dark, these alleys are filled with
beer and drunk and love - you're going somewhere
and i'm going nowhere, nowhere).
sing a song, sing a song.

Stop Pulling On Lashes

look at the tip of my finger real close
now real close, yeah

but babe!
stop pulling out your eyelashes please,
stop pulling out your eyelashes,
if you ruin your face, you'll be no good.

(you know i don't mean it,
babe),
how goes your pigeon toes,
how goes your husky lips,
how goes your pa,
your ma?

i know what you did babe,
i know what you did and its no good.
your teeth are not so good now,
now that they have that space
on the bottom right
(i have it too babe -
but i know what you did and
its still no good).

opens wounds wounds wounds,
open wounds
(holes in your lids where the
lashes once were).
i know what you did,
STOP PULLING OUT YOUR EYELASHES PLEASE.
yes i know mine are not as long as yours
but that doesn't mean i don't know how
to do it like you do
(stop wishing on me).

STOP PULLING OUT YOUR EYELASHES
its not fair
that you do it like you do - STOP.
pigeon toes, husky lips and eyes
that are no good
without those lashes of yours
(stop pulling them).

All over the town and all around

all the sand all on the ground
in the town,
all the sand in the air,
it's just not fair.

you're making it REAL hard.
do you know my papa's dying?
that his limbs are slowly cramping
and yet i can't be here
because all your man amounts to sand

and it is all over the ground,
all around my eyes, my fingers,
my toes, my brain -
all over there is sand
and now the sand is your face
in its place
and i can't stand.

you're making it REAL hard.
do you know my papa's getting slower,
getting older much more faster
than your man
is getting old,
i'm going home,
i'm being told
i cannot breathe with all the sand.

all in my eyes,
it gets real dry,
i cannot see,
i cannot stand.

Alcohol Makes Pretty Girls Ugly

A play I am going to write soon:

Have you learned the lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and disputed passage with you? - Walt Whitman

Clement: Money doesn't buy happiness.

Florence: I know.

Clement: Now don't go thinking I'm not happy. But I've learned a lot and I know, money doesn't make you happy.

Florence: It won't buy you happiness but it will help you get a lot of places that will help you be happy.

Clement: Sometimes I think I'm greedy.

Florence: Why?

Clement: If I keep doing this as I have been, I'll have a million by next year.

Florence: (Holy fuck. A million dollars? How much money do you have boy? A million dollars could help out with a lot of things) That's interesting.

Clement: Do you think I'm greedy for that?

Florence: No, not at all (You do everything you need to reach that goal).

Broken Body Baby (Never the Same)

you've got some love for your ma,
since she nursed you back to health,
you were so pale and thin and broken.

your body ain't so right
since you broke every bone in it babe.
three seizures the other night
but you still won't tell your ma,
still won't stop drinking,
still won't stop breaking up the love
in your fingers and then rolling it.

that's what i miss about you babe,
waking up to love, and rolling it,
and nothing being right until nothing more
was said and we were in bed
and quiet.

the lady at the lingerie shop told me
i don't want a man with bad health anyway.

hope your body's alright babe,
take care,
do not drink, pop, snort, or smoke it please,
take care -
your skin has already been sold
for too much money.

Silent highway drives

1. long silent drives down the highway,
your hand on my knee,
my eye on your mouth,
your eyes on the electronic road map
you paid so much for,
the silences driving me angry, cold.

long silences in the air grow slowly into
sand, then turn slowly into mud
wrapped around your hands.

every stop on this sequence,
one that has been planned,
on your electronic roadmap,
how long could i stand it?

this silence is heavier
than sidewalk sun tans,
rocks ingrained in the skin,
in the pavement,
in the cold air covered with frost,
and our eyes,
and our lies -
we could not want to be here,
any longer.

2. today i took the road without you
and it was long and it was cold
and it was lonely,
though i know i couldn't stand
your hands,
your man,
your lack of sunscreen tan
(babe),
i sure do miss you.

though we knew it wouldn't work,
it gets so cold and lonely
and the road is so long
without you
behind the wheel,
costs more money,
takes more time,
makes me much more sad and mad
and lonely.

(if anything i told you i could stand you
because your hands were so much poetry)
so much screaming,
so many loud silences screaming,
so many long hours on the pavement.

Dear, Dead Love

you are nowhere to be found
dear love,
dead lover.
so far away you have become
yet still i feel that i do want you
do need to have you
dear, dead love.
you have been gone
for some time now.

don't want to call,
don't want to come,
don't want to not want you
to not be here,
anymore dear love,
dear deadness.
do you feel dead now?

have your bones begun to break,
has your head yet lost its heal?
has your body shook and shaken
as of lately?

thought it was the boy you killed,
the boy you killed for,
but he is gone
and you are still dead,
dear love, you need to be here,
dear love, you need to see here,
dear love you cannot die here,
what can be done?

you are dead and
gone and nowhere
to be found,
you're not around.

l.ove.

today i noticed you weren't here.
your eyes were so emerald in the picture
but where are you, not in pages, tried
to have you down in pen but you found me out,
dear its alright, i know i ripped the page
around you.

dear, today i noticed you weren't here. must be
nice with laundry in the house and time on the
road in your hands, but you don't drive anywhere
anymore, even though you bought that pretty new
corvette, you don't go nowhere i know it is true,
it must be.

today i noticed you were not here, and i wonder
where you keep me, not in wood under the dresser
i should hope; not in bags, where i left me i
should hope; not in the laundry where my sock is, i
would hope because you might get confused then.

the page is ripping, ripping, the page is blank
because you ripped yourself right out and glued
yourself down on the road, dear. ruby lips, you
sure do have, diamond dentals, saphire eyes or
emerald eyelids. today, i noticed you weren't here.

Strange Fat Lip

you didnt leave marks on my neck
like you said you would,

my skin is still soft like you said it was,
my hair is still thin like you said it was,
my eyes are still the same
as they always were

but for some reason

you didn't leave bruises on my legs,
like you said you would.


we spent all night in the kitchen,
you kicking my legs, your height
giving you an advantage over my low knees,

but still there were no bruises
when i woke beside you,

strange because usually i can bruise
by putting one knee on top of the other
and just sleeping,

and sadly you said
you're going home
and you closed your eyes.

strange fat lip,
i woke up with this morning.

It's Not Really Working (I wonder if you know that)

Because I'm restless
and impatient.

Did you ever,
(when you were younger),
did you ever
go with your friends
to the back of the play
ground and let them
bury you in the snow?

Starting with your toes,
creating a wall around your
body,
moving up
to your shoulders
and then around your head,
and finally,
over your head,
so it felt
like you were dead?

It gets dark
in the snow,
it gets warm
in the snow,
it gets calm
inside
the snow bank.

I get restless,
I get impatient,
and yet,
under the snow
it is calm,
and it is warm,
and it is dark,
and it is quiet,
and it is so lonely
under here

but nice,
it is.

You get so restless.
You get so restless but never close
to I under the snow.
You get impatient
but never so impatient
as I.

Nice Legs You Stupid Drunk

i.
I get drunk
off the food these days,
I get drunk.

I eat food and I get wasted OR
I have become wasted.

my body doesn't like the food,
my heart doesn't like the body
(it races and races).

I eat the food and I can't stand up,
I get so drunk.

ii.
all I want to do is eat - no.
all I want to do is eat - no.
I want to not get wasted

(not be wasted,
not get wasted)

off my food,
no more, no more.

iii.
you're losing your mind (you know it),
you're losing your body (you know it),
you have to be careful of your heart,
it doesn't beat right (you know this too),

your heart beats like this (swish, swish),
you heart beats like fists.

your body beats down to the ground
when you get so drunk off the love,
the food.

iv.
before when I ate,
my body used to feel the food,

now it doesn't need it.

My Skin Is So Transparent

how the sun turned into you this morning, love.
turned your skin a colour like the insides of apples browning,
left you warm and sweating slowly.

between the night and the morning,
i find you semi-precious between sheets,
your jagged eyes,
your blood-tipped nose,
your wolves lips,
the scars all over your body
(some disrupting the pattern of
haystack hair so precious,
rolled from bales in all directions,
others on your face creating tracks,
down across your back, the largest one,
deep rooted cuts lined with staple marks -
i can see how you were butchered).

i take for granted how many times a night
you wake to find me sleeping,
and let the moon illuminate my hallowed skin
(your hands all drenched in water,
more proof of your semi-preciousness).

they say love shines in the light like a diamond
so bright the sun makes patterns on the wall.
(your skin is the colour of sun on the walls,
shining through diamonds).

Your Vocal Chords Taste Just Like Sugar

a tarp of green covers the air that we have made
our own, when we are inside we stare at the mud
and sticks and we turn our backs and smile, still
staring.

it doesn't matter where our eyes grace, whether it
is the brown above us or the stark grey air, cool
like fog and so thick that we have leave to hang
our new presumptions upon it - so far we have not
hung anything but i know in both your pocket
and in mine there are things to be hung.

there is sugar all over the air and somehow it
eliminates the space between the places we must be -
you have sugar all over your skin and i feared that
in the heat you might feel inclined to go the water
and then to melt away but still i can feel it when
i place my tongue in the air - the small pieces
of sugar like sand.

this sad stillness in the air has become plain again,
it is not my way but if it was i would feel
lucky that you should act like it is yours - there is
so much sugar in the air that i feel it may melt
into dirt again, so much sugar in the air that i am
calm again under this tarp of dirt and green.

sugar twisting around branches, around air wrapped
around bodies, limbs, faces, around air that is
waiting to be hung with new grains, large impositions.

Sad Day Before Sunday

like sugar between flour,
what are we here for?

(distressed, deranged,
dismembered -
shredded).

sad silences sing softly,
hanging in the air,

the sun has cut your hallowed skin,
the sun has kept mine cold;
the sun has heated all your skin,
the sun has kept mine cold;
the sun has kept my skin stark white,
the sun has kept you cold.

sad silences sing secrets onto fingers,
sad silences sing whispers
onto tabletops.

You and Your Back Roads

you love the arrows at the bottom of the page - fool.
shooting arrows down country roads and watching them fly,
watching them skim your face.
pull back, prepare, release.
you have country roads across your lips
and I can see them wind all over -
you drink beer while driving on country roads,
you speed you car on dirt on country roads,
you let me drive down country roads
and tell me I am terrible.

lean back in your chair love
for soon I will leave you and soon
I will be back again.

feel the dirt fly up in tires,
see the cows,
stack the hay,
don't stop at corners.
large generalizations love -
your lips,
your roads,
your eyes again.
let's roll in the dirt and lie in country fields.

I will be home when the first snow falls,
my country, country love.

Seasons Greetings

Hello dear.

I've been thinking about you. I had a family Christmas party the other evening and the love of your life showed up. You remember him, don't you? He wanted to start a business that sold the skin of the chicken on its own and then he wanted to start his own television show. He asked about you. I told him you were doing fine. We made out in my hot tub for two hours after the party died down.

I really love you dear. I do. This isn't just the alcohol speaking at all - I've been thinking about you.

The Trees, The Trees

someone stole your table!

i know, i tried to stop them but i couldn't -
i was two floors down, you know.

someone asked me why i like you -
why do i like you:

your hair is wrought dry like hair held too
long in fists and never brushed.
i can imagine what it would be like to grab your
hair in my fist and few by few twist until
it was too dry,
and if you tried to do the same to me,
i would demand you desist.

the lines in your face by your mouth which
i touch and draw squares from.
i can imagine what it would be like to take your
head in my hands and one by one kiss until
it was too dark,
and if you wasted my pale skin like that,
i would attempt to resist.

i know!
i spoke, i know.
do you remember when i spoke?
it was the last straw and you were about to fall -
i know, i know.

you left,
i know!

your eyes are like mine in these flourescent
times and i'd like to keep tall
and not staring at all search to find the resemblance
and try some until we got over the ground
and not caring
if you tried with your eyes to resist
i would attempt to insist.

you looked,
i saw!
i know!

and the trees, the trees -
do you know you're such a tease,
what is it about those god damn trees.

Pigeon Kill

just so you know the reason that i
hate you is because when i see the
glint of your skin i already
know what you will taste like.

even though my legs are tall and my foot
is strong to stomp you,
i know you could kill me -
you have a beak and i am scared of your skin.

your skin glints different colours depending
on the light and every time i discover a new colour
i hate you more.
your feathers don't even look like feathers anymore,
they look like pieces of paper painted with gloss
and metallic shimmers.
you have a beak and i know it could take my eyes out.

just so you know i hate you because i can already see
the path of your skin,
i know where you will end and still i can't control you -
when you come crossing near to me i turn and run.

even though i know you will be served on a plate when you die
i will not eat you but i will take your meat and throw it
against the wall, and even though i fear it
if i had the chance i'd take your claws and one by one
i would break the bones and one by one i would pull
the feathers from your wing and leave them on the ground.

i found you the other day, freshly shot and dead on the sidewalk
and i could not run. i saw you the other day with a puddle
of blood more red than your claws pooling around your head and
i did run -

the very thought of you dead
makes me want to revive you and kill you again,
makes me wish i was responsible for the kill.

i could have lifted you and put you
right into my mouth, i already know
how badly your skin would have tasted.

Heavy Mind

the daft one smokes her joint,
and so do i too feel the need,
the allowance for this deal -
sacrifice the mind for want of nothing,
sacrifice the thought for want of nothing -
the word means other things,
the lack of sound, lack of pounding equals sane.

i used to care for clothing but now i bear it,
wanting only the look of some trees
while i sedate my mind with the passing of the bark
into paper.

can the earth be rolled and understood,
can the matters of the earth prevail?
and if not where am i found -
you probably wondered why i am so quiet,
you probably wondered why i have nothing to say;
when we talked i wasn't right until i smoked it.

we undress and i am shocked by your bones,
i would never want to lie between your bones,
just so you know,
but still i am shocked by your breast and your chest with my legs,
and my chest and my breast with your legs,
one is perfect, and one is not -
what do the words mean?

what does it mean to care for the earth
when your foe thinks just of paper?
what does it mean to know for the earth
when you still have need of paper -
when shall we be measured and who by?

this intuition of trees, this intuition
of paper does not exist if we still try.

i'd like to take your baggage and compare
your want to mine -
did you grow up in the trees?
i will take your baggage and roll it next to mine
until the leaves become the measure of the word
and paper dies.

Characteristics of a Gifted Child

when I was twelve
my brain
was too good
so i drank
because at least
with the drunks
I could talk about something -
with the books i got bored,
eventually;
with the drunks I never
did because they gave me
something to write about.

Murder (Sorry Mother)

when I was twelve
my reflection time resulted
in a paper full of the
word H A T E
in bright red
from one corner to the other,
from the top end to the bottom,
and the entire time I wrote it
I thought of my mother.

Midland Town Docks

i know where you keep your boat,
someone told me,
someone told me you keep your boat at a dock
near my house where i live -
your boat is kept in a place near where i live
and you come here twice a year to use it.

i come from a town attracting tourists from the city
who come here to be on water that is clean
because all of the water in the city has been used;
the water has become dirty in your home
so you come to where i live twice a year
and use my water.

sort of like the way you use
my body twice a week while we
dwell not far from each other
in this cold, city town.

in the tourist town where i grew up
people seperate depending on the time of year -
in the summer people come into the streets
and work their trades,
in the winter they hide in their homes
leaving the streets to freeze over -
every so often some members come out and not
seeing the coldness of the street
fall down despite them.

i heard you don't dock your boat in Midland anymore;
it reminds me of the feeling i got when i left your place
the last second time of the week we met - we haven't spoken
since because we traded goods and now we have no reason
to keep each other at all.

Stop Calling Me

Do you know what pigeon feels like
when it is between your teeth?
Rubber.

Do you know what pigeon looks like when
it has been shot dead?
Like a sidewalk full of language barriers.

No, I never said I wanted to kill all of the pigeons.
Why did you kill all of the pigeons!

Like: When Can We Meet Us Again? You Will Call Me
Tommorrow? We Can Meet Us At Noon?
No.

Like: just eat the fricken food because you're in a nice place
with nice people and even though the bird tastes like rubber,
everyone else is eating it.
Tastes fine.

Like: good morning skatter, guess what I did this morning,
I killed a pigeon because I know you hate them. Come outside
and see.

Rage ie. Pop Culture

no. you fuck,
i don't have time for you.
i was in the city
with some people
to get away from
the likes of you.

my father orders rocks,
orders tractors to be moved
to calm his shaking limbs,
to loosen stiffed up limbs,
to make his mind off of
the legs he has not gotten -
my father is my friend.

i think you're a fuck sometimes,
you know that.

i met a person and i went
on a date, a date where leather
pants were accepted and patterned
tights were worn and where I
ran and I tripped and I fell
and did a face plant.

you're a real fuck.
take a look at my knee you fuck,
there was a cut there and now it is
scabbed over. i had a friend
who slept with a boy i loved and she taught me
to destroy the likes of you.

fuck. i'd like to shut you up.

i came to the city to get away from
the likes of you.
the city is a place where people like you
dwell - I'll fuck you up girl.

Come Not Often

I slammed a boulder through the window.
I did, I got a crane and I learned how to use it
and I picked up a rock and I dropped it into the
window and I smashed it.
Twice I have been witness to the repositioning
of large rocks, both moved by men whose opinion
I liked and both times I have been shocked
by the desire to move such largeness into unnatural,
man-made forms.

The glass was perfectly clear and had been washed
with windex by a man in white who had been
sitting in my head.
I ate an apple and then I smashed the
window and I stood at a safe distance
so when the grass cracked, not a single piece
would scrape my skin.

Just So You Know

it was good to see
your bones.

do not look in my direction.
i may lose my mind and then i may
lose my head and then i may lose
my neck and then i may lose my bones.

Usurp

i'd like to hear your side of the story,
i saw you and you are still too skinny.
i want to know, is it cocaine, is it sadness,
is it madness, is it craving, failing, liking the dark,
needing the light, needing the bones to
be seen, tell me, i'd like to hear your side
of the story, do you think you'll be alright,

friend, i'd like to hear that you are okay
because if you are not i'd like to lend my pencil
and draw you skinny and help you find your way.
skinny friend, i do despise nights, the way they ended
the way your side of the story came out empty, skinny
friend, i do despise mornings, and i do despise

how skinny you have become since
you changed my favourite syllables, dear friend,
you are far too skinny, is it cocaine, sadness, madness,
tell me friend, i am mad as well, i am sad as well, i have been
wanting some cocaine, dear friend. skinny we are, have become
and i am sad that your skinny legs are skinnier than mine
and that you are too sad to sit still and speak, you are so sad.

Skinny Legs, I Saw You

your skinny highway jeans drew lines across my legs,
your skinny highway legs left lines across my eyes,
your highway cock killed me three times and i wanted to die.
four hundred skinny legs tumbled together like kindling,
the windows got shut to prevent the cars from driving through
and i wanted to creamate you there between my lines.
your skinny highway lines drew eyes across my ties and you
told me that skinny highway lines come often.
(but i want you)

your skinny highway planks of wood left lines across my legs
in broken skin and your skinny highway planks of cock left
me silent in your skinny highway lines of springs and following
skinny lines of stepping i watched you do in skinny sight
lines and you told me that skinny fucking love was hungry for
some hungry fucking love and lines across your skin are not
meant for leaving along lines
(but i want you)

your skinny highway legs left imprints on my brains speckled
and purpled like bruises that come from evenings when too many
drinks have been had and too many people have gone home alone
leaving lines in the road (but i want you) and your skinny
highway jeans leave too many lines at the bottom of my nose
too many lines at the top of the ceiling, your skinny highway
of rails and lines goldened like the sky above the treeline
(and i want you)

skinny highway love goldened hard against the reflection of the sky
against the skin covered keys on the sidewalk, i want you and skinny
highway jeans and love and lines and four hundred skinny arms tumbled
together in piles like fire wood, clanking and bruising skinny highway
lines into lines we were never meant to be and skinny highway sightlines
do still the air so skinny highway jeans are meant to be here in places
where your highway cock and skinny jeans leave lines across my eyes
(and i want you).

Here are a List of Reasons/New Muses

Here is a list of the things
my muse embodies:

Wheat grass.

My muse embodies breast plates decorated
with jade and amber and fluorescent pink
stones that belong at the bottom of
a pool of water coloured aqua (the jade

and the
amber are found in small
markets;

the water is
coloured by the
floor on which
it
finds itself
floating close
above -

sometimes it is dark
because the bottom cannot be seen).

My breast plate has become an arena
for bones

and for jewelry.
My breast plate has become an arena
for

decoration.
My breast has been wiped
of the seeds of the earth and
hungry as a breastplate I
have become clean.

I have become gaunted and blackened
and darkened at the eyes;
my skin has lost its rosy glow

but it stands still across my bones -

before we can create for the muse
we must become

the muse
(watch muses
through glass, through mirrors,
through windows);

my muse stands still, knowing watching,
knowing less the reprimand he has

upon my planting of new weeds,
upon the planting of my skin behind glass windows.

Apartments Behind Alleys Onto pages

can you see across the stream,
the angle of my pen,
the way it squews the letters into
shapes that have gone sour;
can you see the scratch of pen,
the scratch of language,
scratch of the mode this text implies,
momentum this implies.
i once smoked a tube packed with
need and i felt clean -
that is i felt beside myself -
like ecstasy obscuring curtains
and keys and pages of books
into things i can identify with stories
out of our cynical tripping to
scratch hands, make bands;
can you feel the scratching of this suede
against my toes, braided vinyl pushing
leather to the side where i found you
on the sidewall scratching hands,
stealing steez between the rings that make
imprints on your skin.

Maybe Means Yes Here

7:00 am: bike ride into town on bike three feet too tall,
bottom of seat digging into small of back,
antler horns and elbow rests.

7:10 am: man with dog in park.
7:11 am: man fishing off pier.
7:12 am: dead mouse.
7:13 am: elderly man with baby.
7:14 am: fireman smoking in back of station.
7:15 am: giant bell.

8:23 am: dead raccoon on side of road;
dead cat on side on sidewalk,
hitting dog on side of bike.

10:13 am: water.

12:26 pm: vegetables.

1:13 pm: water;
1:37 pm: water;
1:50 pm: water.

4:47 pm: stiff knees.
5:10 pm: purple aprons.
5:57 pm: blasphemy.
croissant with spinach.

9:27 pm: mountain bike with loud wheels,
stunt bike with suspension,
road bike ten feet tall.
posse on easy.

[Summer Lover] I have taste -

once again you stand alone beside me,
dear friend, don't tell me we have lost it
once again;

its been a while since i have felt
this screaming in my head,
its been a while since i did think
that maybe i am dead.

i love you like cocaine,
i love you like tar driveways peeling off the gravel
and all around my skin,
i love you like black tulle sewn into dresses,
i love you like new years,
like salads
like the sidewalk on the mainstreet,
i love you like kissing,
like smoking pipes,
like cigarettes,
like acting my age,
my suitor,
i love you like my mother,
i love you like the city (and more)

(i have gone unmad and i have gone silent).

if you were to rip my head open you might find tar
where you once stood and you might find strings that
do not work but i am still happy you were here

and you were here,
like cocaine, tar and ramala, i love you.

Think Something

you are nutty,

son!
get your shit togetha.

Deserted

summer hangover in the desert,
with hamburgers, strawberries, and you.

every year you call me, you say,
happy birthday.

this year there was no call
but there was heat and there was
panting and there was no water,
and there was the hot of the desert
with a hangover.

you are gone away for a very long time,
you are gone away and i won't hear from you soon,
which may be better considering
my skin is covered in such dirt and no water
from the sky.

give me a call,
i want to but i won't.

there are places that are not good, there are places
that are not healthy, there are places that are bad,
and there is the desert,

and there are places that make the desert seem bad -
(people
are not meant
to be kept,
how long do you think he can keep you?)
i've taken far too much without thinking,
i've made too many thoughts without thinking.

It's Just A Spectacle.

you are the only girl
i ever wanted,

you are the only girl
i ever wanted,

you are the only girl
i ever wanted,

you are the only girl,
i ever wanted.

Leave me Lonely (Get Real).

i am sick of people and their things,
i am sick of people and their blazers,
and their trail blazers,

i am sick of people and mismatching earrings,
and their people who don't care,
do you even care?

i am sick of people,
smoke a jizz,
smoke a jizz.

i am sick of girls
(what are you missing that i will never have?);

i am sick of boys
(what do you have that i am missing?).

i am sick of girls and boys
and things.

you hair is too dyed,
your waist is too hungry,
your eyes are too lined,
your life is too lonely,

do you care?
(sick and straightened,
uneven and sad,
unfaithful and ugly,
do you care?).

your necklace is bright blue,
your hair is straight dead,
your eyes are sad.

Love Set You Going Like Rock

"Love set you going like a fat gold watch" - Sylvia Plath, Morning Song

This morning we covered you in tiny rocks that we found on the beach. One by one we lathered the edges and placed them on your skin. You looked like a mosaic except there was too much skin showing so we collected seashells and zebra mussels and covered the lines between the rocks leaving only the coral of your nipples open. You sat in the tree and I imagined the bark peeling off the tree and onto your body hugging the curve of your back and your bum. In actuality though, you sat there on the bottom branch and you spread your legs, so not only was the coral of your nipple showing but the coral of your lady as well. In the evening, the fire was raining on our faces, and we stared at you still covered in rocks and shells and we made you a geranium bulb necklace and tied it round your neck and you sat there staring blankly.

This morning you woke up with tiny pills covering your body. I wanted to lick them and make a paste and use it to stick fish scales one by one to your epidermis. I went to the water and caught a fish and then I killed it and shaved its scales off. I glued the fish scales one by one to your right arm and stared at you and imagined how fine of a mosaic you would make if only I could cover the lines between the scales. I sat quietly and waited for the crows to come and I killed one and I took its feathers and I used them to fill in the spaces. Later I found you by the fire with coals skipping across your nipples, your arm still covered in scales and feathers. I wondered who let you fall asleep at the fire with so little material covering your skin. I wanted to smear the coals black and cover you with sand and leave you there for the day, maybe pour water over you and turn the sand into mud but I just left you. I imagined putting you in the tree but I knew the sand would fall off without any moisture to make it stick, so I left you staring.

This morning when you woke up, the scar on your face was shining red, so I went to the beach and grabbed pieces of grass from the shore and I pasted them on your face with clay that I found at the bottom of the bay. You lay there the entire time as though you had never woken while I started at the top of your face, pasting weeds past your eyes, over your cheekbones, down across your lip to your chin. You looked fine, like a mosaic, pieces of skin separated by lines of waxy green. I imagined you as part of the beach, even thought of moving your body to the new ecosystem at the edge of the shore. Your scar now protected by the grass would not be affected by the sun.

This morning I told you how lovely your eyes would be if they were balls of glass and you let me shatter them to flatter the sun. You told me you wanted a brooch but your words could not be pasted so I took you to the bay and I threw you in and I watched you lie there, imagining you as a rock, completing the mosaic of the water.

Letters to L

Dear L,
I saw your father today. He was sitting on the curb by your house and when he saw me he told me, there's something wrong with the dog. He told me your dog wouldn't walk beside him anymore, that he insisted on walking ahead. He must be tired, I said, and he asked me where my shoes were.

Dear L,
I saw your mother today. She asked me how the house was coming and I told her you had collected all the bricks and tiles we would need and that the house was coming fine.

Dear L,
Today my father told me, there's a dead tree I need to cut down, do you want to come? I went to the passenger side of the truck and he said, you bring your notepad, so I did. I sat on the bench staring at the birch trees, wondering what it would be like to be like them.

Dear L,
I was looking through the drawers today and I decided that I like the spaces between us more than I used to. We are never full from each other, and that is good (gluttony is a sin, you know). The spaces between us leave us room for our shoulders and our knees.

Dear L,
When I think of you I see green, peach, magenta and scarlet, like the colour of my coat the other night and the colour in my face when you ask me that. I would like to take you into the woods and pour needles over your toes, and tell you that I miss you.

Fejai

indifference sits on your shoulder,
heavy and aching -
is it the voices or the
silence that are your madness?

there are few (there is one)
boy(s) with whom questions do not
lead into lengthy conversation -
you are (the) one.

your indifference to me is my madness,
artist - you have seen behind my eyes
and i have seen behind yours but still
there is nothing to say, no questions

to launch (i know all the answers,
artist - boy -)
is it the voices that are your silence?
or is it the madness?

We Crumble Scallop Shells

there is a break in the words and the
space on the street,
there is a break in the time it takes me
to digest the tea and the time it takes
for me to wreck the shell you have placed
here in my hand,
there is a break in the lavender lines the
scallop drew when he still lived here,
there is a break in the size of the ocean
and the time it takes to travel,
there is a break in the words and the
space between us, on the street,
in the room and here (our removal
is coloured purple by the bottom of the
shell, purpled broken by it falling
apart in our hands) -

i wish i could draw layers and layers
of salty flesh around my words so you
could understand them.

Save Your Babies, Kill

dirty seagull, fly away,
for i will kill you.

dirty seagull, fly away,
i will rip your beak in two,
and pull it off your feathered
skin.

dirty seagull, fly away
before i find a knife

and kill you.

dirty baby, mouldy skin,
don't worry, i will save you.

dirty seagull, fly away
and give your diseased skin
a chance,

scoundrel, i will kill.

dirty seagull, fly away
for i will kill you.

Wanted

Naked woman
selling trees.

Wanted

White stucco house,
woman with tight ass,
tan, pretty hair,
mowing lawn, scrubbing
walls, short shorts,
hot pants, wearing
work boots.

Songs Of Living Lonely

Crazy man walking and singing his song,
(those bikers snickered, crazy);
Crazy new prophet singing songs
rubbing his afro in his footsteps;

Girl with patterned shoes: I am so excessive,
I want to burn your clothes off (we are all weirdos
in this place so still, so empty) - the city left us
with new names;

I hear your door open, it is strange that you don't
live there, (why am I standing here, it is wrong),
Check to make sure your pen cap is open before
you scratch your wound (she says);

Please don't look at my fingers, the sun has ruined them;
She sings under her breath so noone pays attention to
her face (I meant to tell you);
If you want her body, you want her skin and what
is underneath her.

Riding The Bus To Get Home (The Sun Is Burning The Window And Then Me)

I want to lie in fields surrounded
by pine cones in flourescent orange,
and poles connecting wires and
make love (not to you).

I want to lie in fields surrounded
by trees and lavender stones
and stretch between the lines in
the mud and make love
(not to you).

I want to feel my breast
and legs go numb and lie
in fields beneath the mud
and teach you about street
cars but never once make love.

I will chase your flying
garbage, I will cross
my fingers that your
car comes soon but
I will not love you.

The city is too hot, the
country is too dull and
I want to make love
(but not to you).

He Would Leave Her On The Road And Watch Her Die

I would rather be a tree! And Not Make Children with Thin Hair!

She could not go upstairs. Her skin was still too uncovered from him, too revealing of the parts of her body that were not toned like his. At times this could be overlooked, but at moments such as these when they had raised their voices (Never interrupt me! Never interrupt anyone!), any contact of skin or body would send her bumping her head against the hard gravel ground as though she were hanging, being dragged. It has been too long since I have been reprimended. Far too long since my skin has been punished for the sins it has made.

"You are pale," he told her when the weather uncovered her legs. "You are pale and it is ugly." She knew he believed that this was true. That her paleness made him afraid of all the imperfections her womanhood might possess, might imply to future offspring he planned on feeding through her body.

He chose her because she was perfect, because he couldn't figure out her mind, because he knew she could not be afraid of him (his madness), when it came climbing out of her own limbs.

Strange people (strangers) write things down to keep them from the atrocities that make them mad, Because Noone Else is listening.

His father was mad. This was known, but never proven. He walked along the street, and then back to his house and he rarely said a word, not because people were out of reach but because people never came close into speaking distance. She could feel his father, breathe him, from six blocks away, know that he was there, wonder what he thought, wonder what might be said when it was realized that daftness was common between them. I wonder what might be said if one was caught bathing in water like this, she thought.

His brother ran away on drugs, an experiment that tested him also when he let it. They spent many a night in other worlds together, letting silences become laughter, misunderstanding become false understanding; a magnetism that held them together. The other night, she saw him at the bar and he ran his arms across her back. She could feel his large hand and she wanted to stay there but he had come with someone else.

When they made love they were hush, letting the silences act like breathes between them that communicated their desires. He chose her because he believed that when they were silent, when they stared at each other like children awake, but born dumb, when they made love, he knew what her voice and straight staring eyes would have said. He would be what he thought she told him, while she wondered what he thought she was thinking and improvised from his movements.

Often they did not touch each other, only touched themselves, with him kissing her on the forehead when the act was done. And always they acted when they finished, like they had never known each other, that this first meeting, again, was shocking enough to let the silence lead them away from the obvious indifference that always settled, that became proven between the rocks he laid down when they first moved in.

There are enough rocks here, she once thought, that if I rubbed them together long enough, I could make an island. There are enough rocks here that noone would notice if my skin and my blood became parts of the surface. Once she asked him, how do you think this setting implies us?

It changes us into characters we avoid, he replied. A beautiful woman cannot survive without her words, and I would rather go mad trying to keep her, than let her go.

Green Walls, Green Words.

Biking along the town in the heat.

The
cement does not breathe, and I sweat
off the tops of my shoulders and I think
about last night.

Idiot, you said. Faggot.
You know, you shouldn't
say those words, they aren't nice.

And later, me telling you: Speak in your
language and say whatever you are thinking
or were thinking.

I miss my G, I miss my D, I miss my chance at
Greatness.

(This is an example of a fragment you amount to).

An Island!

1. There are enough stones here
that I suspect if I were to rub
them together long enough,
I could make an island!

There are enough stones here
that I suspect if I were to rub
them together long enough,
they would grind so small that
my hands would bleed!

There are enough stones here
that I suspect if I were to die here
I might be happy knowing you could
rub them together and make an island
and leave me there surrounded by the
sky and the trees until it eroded enough
that it disappeared under the water,

maybe then my body could float
and then you could find me happy
once again.

2. If you should find me dead here, please know
that it was not something you said or did not say
but simply that I was bored and thought
becoming dead might stir things,

and that my spot in the shade under the sculpture
of the silver goose got smaller and smaller,
and my boredom got enhanced by the heat
and the way my skin was burning.

If you should find me dead here, please don't ask
about the bird or inquire about its purpose:
It is a sculpture and it is placed here for viewing pleasure.

3. I think if I were to be found dead anywhere, I would
want it to be here, on this island because the overhead
search and scan would be nice and it would reveal water
and water and water and land and water and water and
water and trees and -

There she is lying on the beach surrounded by the water -
what a beauty day, its a shame she had to die.

4. Since 5:oo I have been waiting. You, you who hates the
telephone, and never makes a call or answers the phone unless
a holiday when you may scream a greeting loud, you called and
said,

Be sharp,
Be on time,
We're leaving early.

So here I was and you were not here, expected of course but still
I screamed curses and waited under the silver goose and stared at the
trash and the grass and the seagull manure covering the cement squares,
until a woman with no cellulite on her legs and a silver metallic bag
looked at me and said

Honey are you okay? You seemed flushed,
Like you may die.
No thanks, I am fine, I replied.

And all I could think of was that smell in the air, not muggy like the day
but lovely, and if you were here, I am sure you'd know the name,
but I am dead now.

Garter Snakes Occupy A Variety of Habitats

i've been dreaming of garter snakes,
ever since that time my dad made us
carry the wood and the bricks the mile
to the house and you declared

"i'm out
of shape",
you're always complaining
and i was tired of it so i
went inside only to hear you
screaming,

"its a snake, its a snake"
it's only a garter snake,
i replied,

and then you started chasing it
before explaining your paranoia.
now i'm dreaming of them every night,
hundreds of them weaving through
roots and acorns as i jump along
the hardened ground trying desperately
to stay out of their way.

the boys used to pick up those snakes
all the time and i guess my fear diminished
with the amount of time we spent telling
each other secrets and playing spin the
bottle under the raft.

i'm dreaming of them all the time and i can't
stop thinking of you either.

my dreams now successfully consist of
you smoking a joint, driving by in your car,
you smoking a joint, holding my knee,
you giving me crystal meth and cocaine,
you screaming about garter snakes,
you luring me into the empty bathtub
while i try to hide the drugs in my bra
and my back pockets,
and shopping for kiss-lock purses as a reward for my
good behaviour
(imagine a purse like that
packaged full of snakes like them).

ps. i can't believe your arrogance or
your pessimism, of course the bricks
and pieces of wood will fit down the narrow
hall.

Esther Morniga

I'm sorry but I have to cut you off.
I can't serve you with a name like that,
Sherrell I could stand but this is too much.
At least Sherrell was weak, strange, not as
stable as my good own name. But this I cannot
handle.

I have tried to serve you many times before,
I tried switching my disease to alcoholism,
Drinking binges here and there, but that did not
work, and then I tried liking girls but the only
one I ever wanted had a name I couldn't pronounce.

The Plaster White Girl

if something happens to mama,
i shotgun the woman in the back room

how do you feel about hitler, the grass, and me?

who would sketch
my breast
if i were dead now?

sometimes i wonder
if the breast is like the
ground,
if it matters how much rain there comes,
how many times it has been tread,

and if i had been dead
who would dare sketch my breast
onto paper?

there has been you
but it has been long
and my breast is

not like that
now.

i wondered if you could fix
the backyard,
the lumps of dirt sticking up
from the grass,

and i almost asked you to
once or twice,
but you didn't seem to understand

and then it rained,

but i still wonder what it would be like
now for you to cup my breast in your hand,

it is larger than before and it is more
round and more perfect,
and it looks better naked
and i assume that it would look nice
next to you

-

i wonder what he knows about the patches
of dirt where the grass used to be,

i wonder what he knows about the branches
ten feet tall with blossoms about them

It Was Beautiful To See You

I am scaredy-cat: I have fifty acres of land and I am still afraid to run through the trees with no shoes on, I am scared of the birds and the things that bite my ankles.

I am a liar: hanging from a telephone wire with my pants on fire.

I am selfish: I get angry when my sister borrows my books because I think that they are mine.

I am bored: and this is why I crave someone.

I am naive: I can't believe you had sex with him, that you cheated on the other him, that you don't even mind.

I am a stoner: I smoke weed, often, very often, and I wonder why I can't form sentences and why my thoughts are so sporadic.

I am a hillbilly: I would only ever like to own some land with some trees on it.

I am a liar: I am so sorry that I keep changing, but I don't like you anymore.

I am a lesbian: I would date girls just for you.

http://almcarr.blogspot.com

i am trying to have a conversation with my sister but my mother won't stop talking, and neither will her french boyfriend. i don't care about the messages, i don't care about you speaking french, i don't care about anything except for what my sister has to say. she is a science nerd and i love her and i want to be her sister for as long as i can live. she is where my heart belongs.

Gifted

her skin is pale
and she is bored
and he is scared
of her paleness.

he thinks her being white
is a sign that she is not
his woman,

that the children he plans
on filtering through her
will be pale and white
and not like a woman at all.

Inebriated.

do not move, just write

Jeg Savner Dig

you have been here,

and i have been home,

but we feel
the same

(drinks, papers,
lighter),

we both feel the same.

Mother Fucking South Africa, Pushed Me In The Water

the summer the devil finds us
is here once again.

"do you have an extra jersey???"

II. Forty-Seven Nests (I Think)

these are not the kind
that turn into butterflies,

these are the kind
that eat the leaves away
until the tree is dead

(they hideaway in nests at
night when the killing has
been done).

A Boy From South Africa, Not Welcome

Butter
Soy Sauce
Paper Towels

(What is this -
barely begun when
the boat docked)

What is this -
A list?
A scam?
Another piece of paper
proving how unclever his mind
is,

She is still stronger,
(remembers the condiments)-

A boy from South Africa,
not welcome,
because he has earned his privacy,
his right not to be frustrated
with new questions and ideas,

A boy from South Africa,
forgetting again to take the steak
in before drinking new beer,

What is this -
A girl,
A boy,
He is black,
He is cute,
What is this -
A list?
A scam?

A list of questions before
Thursday,
(She has once again proven
how clever her mind is).

I. Caterpillar Man

kills all the caterpillars,
blows them to death with fire;

watches them cooking, curling,
sizzling, climbing, dying, curling,
dying, crawling, being stomped on.

their nest is dead.
i am lost,

he is tripping over the river bank,
(i step over it),
he is tripping over the tree stumps,
(i step over it),

he is killing caterpillars,
from the trees
down to the ground,
stomping,
all at once
putting out the fire,
killing all the caterpillars.

Can Weed Kill You?

And if so, how quickly...

Skin Like Raw Meat

The rain is a break
from the break between us,
from the reflection of the water
on my skin,
as red as stone,

from the meat on the barbeque,
How do you like yours?
Well-done or raw?

We are covered from each other,
for reasons of our own:
the skin is red, the skin is
plump like a new mother
and her baby child -
we both have been treated like children,

stand apart from each other,
ignoring the break where our fingers
don't fit in.

You have come here from far
and spent the first two days with me,

First contemplating how much room there
is and where we should leave it to roast
in the sun, over fishbowls, vodka, water
and beer, and

Second looking away from the shady spots
around your pool that should find us
and falling asleep

after finishing lunch,
one quarter plate vegetables,
three quarters plate steak,

yours rare,
and mine medium well-done.

-
My father's steak is better than this,
your friend with the money would
never allow such a thing.

My Boys

Earth's grasses are green
and there is pending danger.

The air smells like rain,
the breeze feels like we're not safe here,
(again the time has come
when the space under the deck

is not
big enough).

Leonard drugs me up,
Charles reminds me what is lucky,
Czeslaw teaches me
that the earth will be ok.

Sifting Through Madness

Bukowski reminds us of the
paralleling number of poets
and whores that have
existed through time.

There are
thirty-six
of each
who matter
and the rest
are left
wallowing.

Poets and whores -
and/or one in the same.
I have no jokes, no witty comments,
no history of knowledge to pull out
when the time has come.
I have no friends, just liars,
and I have no peace.

I listen well and I know;
I have hair that shines when I will it,
and a smirk to always give
But I do not fit into categories,
bored, fearless, dared, or blessed,

And it will rain tonight regardless:

Poets and whores will both wear the rain.

All The

look at all


the

dandelions
on our
front lawn,

let me get one,
let me -

let me smear

it down
your arm;

she gets tired,
she says,

you
stay
out of here.

The Leaves...

I keep asking if
anyone else thinks
the world around
here is dying.

The trees look dead,
the grass looks dry,
and my backyard
has been made a golf course.

Even he forgets
himself
why he came.

I keep waking up wondering
how my bed
got at this angle
and then staring at the trees,

and the sky before thinking:
it's time to get out of bed.

I wonder what he knows
about the patches
of dirt where the grass used to be;

I wonder what he knows
about the branches ten feet tall
with blossoms about them.

Even new company stays the same,

and all the dead trees ever do
is fall between the boredom
of the sky and ask:
what have you been doing?

Division Street

the road has just been
swept today,
very. very. clean.

i can't stop
staring and i notice

the sidewalk outside your house
is missing,

and i hate the lines in the
grass that tell me it is true
and i know, i know the sidewalk was there
because she used to make me change the route
to school to walk by your house and stare
at the mary and jesus in the tree.

i still do not know these backyards,
the cops come there,
that boy lives there,
that woman gave us five dollars
for our baked good and then refused
to take them,

and he has left me for his
boyfriend,

and he says "caitlin, right?"
and i say "yes, do i know you"

"chris"
"oh yes"

"have you moved?
isn't this your house?"

"yes it is".