Back to It

A poetry student told me

I should get back to writing,

and there’s no metaphor

in that anecdote.

So as January strangles my space heaters,

I numbly miss keys retyping my handwriting,

probably something along the lines of

infatuation

or despise

or learning my mistake from the last girl

or, and let me pause, death.

I am twenty-four.

But maybe I find an atypical remark,

like how the girl and I met

because I starting courting her girlfriend,

how someone might only tell us apart by our sexes

since I’ve already given her my name,

but nonetheless, I have to mention those fucking green eyes

brighter than the green I’m accustomed

because I know you’ve been there before.

My voice cannot be contained in conversation.

3 million words still cannot bridge my understanding.

I guess I’ll try again in the next poem.

Without Gods or Walls

If only

I could have sent you

someone else’s words with

someone else’s music conveying

someone else’s feelings while

claiming them as my own.

If only

day were as night.

If only

some god or

the walls could have let me

know how to

love your name for more than

its evenness,

your laugh more than its

frequent sincerity,

your eyes their deceptive

frailty.

But I could do without

these gods or

these walls bringing us apart

or taking us together.

If only we

were not clothed

as children.

I wanted to say

you rouse in me

something effeminate,

something where the words

come down but don’t

come out

right.

So though it was unintended,

like how your eyes went beyond green

when your pupils dilated,

thank you and

have a lovely day.

Piano keys

and lovely voices,

wasted hours and

wasted pen-strokes,

wasted obsession

again. Alone again,

naturally

when I walk through my

dark backyard

on a Saturday.

Precious ugly days

reminding me of every ordinary name

belonging to droll people who

accept their flaws or

recite boring lies.

Messiah Drowning Ducks in the TN River

The river running backwards
reminds me of the
stream of time.

Crash into the river.

Shrieking
ducks in a line
uneven.

Negroes hanging from the Market Street bridge.

We pass successors of slave-owners
with their adopted Oriental children.

Praise the Black God.

4 a.m. Drive

All sensibilities are parked away from downtown at

4:12 a.m. while you and I are tying together murderous orcas in the swimming pools with the shade behind the blinds.

4:26 and I wish I could talk, but you’re too chaotic,

and still my greatest inspiration.

Everyone likes Kerouac for the chaos.

The women of the last few years are the terror that I’m late for work with no clean clothes.

Coffee hasn’t slowed me yet;

tomorrow isn’t ruined.

The slow drip of morphine is too slowly

taking it out of her.

Hopefully the perfect wording to Anne Sexton’s question

is lying at the bottom of my pen,

a chord or so between blinks.

But everyone likes Kerouac for the chaos.

Writer's Block

Middle of the month

middle of the day

repeated laziness

every chemical stuns

to uselessness,

every song the same.

This is my longest day;

I can’t sleep without sweating.

Overruled rules of engagement.

Somewhere there are men

worse than I,

and I speak to them regularly.

The Goblin King

has only access to his fellows.

Growing older,

not rotting.

Start & stop.

Repeat.

Pass by the smells of a fellow,

one of those I mentioned.

Lou Reed might say

this is just a perfect day.

I migrate from room to room,

avoiding utilizing the AC.

Fruit flies sink to the bottom of my hand-made

acid trap I’m inclined to drink from

with its sweet tea-suspending consistency.

Life’s not complicated.