hny

i saw a lot that 4am

but nothing appears resolute

or sturdy. resolutions swayed

with the legs that carried them

high occupancy

head counts count in the hov lane

so don't give head in the hov lane

cleaned

there is something to a clean room

it can be cold or new or forced or empty

thereare clean walls of my drunk neighbor

who says his christmas is quiet

its a children's holiday anyways

and the clean floor and desk of friends

just visiting the room they grew up in

then fly home again

there's the dust free dwellings of people

that couldn't stand it otherwise

and the meticulously folded shirts of my great aunt

who had all the time in the world

my room is seldom as clean as tonight

but i breathe deep and see my life

as it should be, a framed piece

of sedimentary sediment

not sedentary laundry

cleaning

today i came to my soul searching 2 1/2 hours late, but my coffee and egg sandwich kept me there, i wouldn't help myself. tomorrow big armed convicts will detail my car, i will wash my clothes and feel infinate again. my soul will be cleaned with my things and i will sing songs with a windex squeak. i will coo over clean mats and swoon into soft smelling sheets.

pierced septum

greg had it

a septum piercing dangling there before the dip before his lips

a precocious reminder he wouldn't let anyone punch him in the face

another greg did it

he was just some guy to me, around harvard square

someone jim lived with, but they both got out of the shit, kicked habits

i asked greg, the first one

brand me, cut me, anything to leave a mark.we never got around to it

but one day in the shower, he carved into himself a beautiful oak

most lovers carve themselves into trees, not the other way around

but that was greg, and us

this greg, the last one

laid me down after he did it, fishing his needle through me like there was

something on the other side other than my left nostril. my face went white

he asked me if i was okay and i said i had a mixtape of his, for an erin in 1993

the scars were left unseen

nhxmas

maybe i'll get an accent

traveling next to a gps

eve

therein lies lies

in bells that chime

silent night! holy night!

sitting below them

on long wooden planks of childhood

they are whispering from flannel pillows

muffled low tones that put out candles with steady metal swings

sherrice is my age and she has a child

sean is my age and once when i sang the hymns i didn't know who they were to

oh holy flesh, but he lives with the organist now

and a happy festivus

a young dreaded man asked

would this hat make it to colorado and will it fit a girl with a big head?

you could put socks in it and most girls think they have big heads

i wouldn't trust her judgement

a young long haired man said

he likes art and i told him to say hi to greg for me please

he wrote it down and showed me his field guide to whale insults

it didn't stop my missing him

a young man i knew quite well

brought me a burrito in a plastic bag and tried on bellbottoms

and it took my mind of the men of my day, flinging fitting rooms

almost feeling the shopping season

ed

better my plaid was worn but the kiss was yours

holly wipes

don't look at me like that,

i'll write one

about being mowed down at the mall

no row, not now but there were enough angry people

for the boxing ring to seem less far away

or about slapping myself driving to stay awake

first a little pat then a stinging

i psych myself out so that i'm hitting me when i least expect it.

blizzard is heard

we warmed up all right
washing all the cold from toes
we were up all night
waiting for the snow to grow
wishing more for hot coca
waking up to eggs and toast
we saw brightness whitened
out our windows
blowing snow

last day of chanukah

he makes friends wherever he goes

so clear the dance floor for dancing with myself

at least it's not christmas shoes again

and at least lynne is here

and a really drunk liz that goes

"i'm goanna make a fire with my cordouroys"

then burns a pretty circle in jim's neck

arse poetica

at the bar, i tell them

i need to fart out this poem really quick

before i get too shitty

and after laughing and making raspberries

if they’re not too drunk they’ll ask why

and i say because today is today

and poetry happened

and if i’m not a dick

i’ll write it down

at the food court

it's all bullshit, you know

new england christmases

the covers of butter cookies tins are lying to you

they are cold, and even if you are a lucky fucker with a car

you still have to scrape off snow and wait for cold to grow

out of cyllinders

new england christmases

they are cold and mean and loud people yell at you

to slow down or go faster, no matter what you do

and whatever you do, it isn't enough

you're broke and you're only getting broker

buying wool socks or tires

and nothing at the mall says i love you

and you know it and you don't give a shit

jouissance, substance, gentlemen, when

I remember when I first saw cats. I was wrapped in a blanket, in awe of the airbrushed unitards. I remember the first time I smoked weed. I ate pumpkin cheesecake and was supposed to be getting supplies for my missionary trip. I remember my first kiss, it was under that same blanket and started with my nose

I remember when I had my beard for my stage makeup class, there were screams in the girls room. I remember the first time I drank beer. It tasted like my dad. I remember how I suggested starbucks, and you grimaced and took me to get “real coffee”, it became my favorite place.

I remember winning 300 tickets in an arcade crane game. I got a unicorn figurine and my two front teeth were missing. I remember the first time I dropped acid. I tasted purple and my head came very close to falling off. I remember being flattered and repulsed when a local white supremacist said he “liked the way I was built”

I remember when we had to change into our costumes for dance class, and I was the only one without a bra. I remember the first time I did salvia. I lit a microwave on fire and fell in love with a Brazilian musician, who became triangles. I remember how you tried to pick me up at work, but I really just wanted to get my sewing machine back from the shop.

I remember that art phase I went through where I cut off toy animal heads with a rotary saw and mounted them. I remember the first time I did coke. I talked really fast about tattoos and fell in love with the phrase “Barn’s burnt down. Now I can see the moon”. I remember when I ordered a multigrain bagel with butter because I missed you and almost cried at check out

I remember the first time I did pure mdma, it was at a spirit animal party I threw, and was on a lot of other things. I remember dreams where my teeth would fall out, picking at my gums until they stretched out onto the bathroom sink. I remember the day I had a pot full of boiling marijuana butter on the 87 bus (it smelled), then I broke my shoe and was locked out of my house.

I remember you helping me across the ice in the common. I think I loved you most then.

rest

i think

that thought

can wait

one naught

hoo

there's no such thing as bad breath

bollywood final

curry western

in a hurry

scrambling ramble

papers flurry

delighted writing

on the fly

eastern cowboys

lullaby

i'm trying not to yell

so it's like, i tell my mom
i can't have a car with a broken speedo
i look down, and no matter how hard i push
i'm not going anywhere.

my miles never grow, and i stay the same.
i'm idle on the highway anyway today
but i want to feel the bristle of bustle
progress you can't find on npr

so you can imagine my upset
when you know where i am
and i know where i am
and can't get to you in my stagnant distress

in the fridge

is your angel hair
golden a bowl?
is it getting cold?
does it save your soul?

are your deviled eggs
molding or old?
downhill with the rolls
or a sight to behold?

overlap

race track record playing it safe guard rail way ward in prison tattoo gun show down and out of luck be a lady gaga goo gone with the wind tunnel of love sick of your shit storm warning

salt assaulted

hey, i wouldn't worry about not being able to fill dive bars
like you did ten years ago, its time for prime college shoegaze to shine

if it makes you feel better, we can wear matching striped shirts
and strive to solve, imagine, create, or recreate crimes

just let's not crash the car on our drive to yell at burger kings
although i won't say no to go and get those dry free french fries

werd play

it's not
snot

sweat tears
sweaters

...

i got your man back
you got my back, man

stop it!

belly laughs ache and
they left us full

but it was a lovely night

i didn't mean to be me, a mean sordid sort without retort for what it means. to glean wet cheeks, to be sorry i can't be anything but in between, uncanny to have me but it's not what i seem or mean, for i love in a dream not your fantasy.

first snow

as scarlet o'hara cries by her life
we resort to older times
practicing most ancient rituals
with no petticoats assembled

i'm not

i'm not that in love with you
it's not like the things i do
attempt to accrue
a more beautiful truth
of one one from a two

it's not like i only see
your face in every body
black hairs and sweaters
are poison to me

i suppose if i want
i could read some kant
who conveys other ways
to see beauty

but i'm not so sure
there is a cure
to this feeling i get
like a wave on a shore
and i sure can't regret
what has come here before
when the waters stay wet
i can't help wanting more

i might

geting lost
in the static with your voice
or later
with your hair in the eyes

hallowed

hall, oh all, oh. haul all hollow walls

of white to pink/unfold to wilt

sex of pollen bursting

gives little shelter

your sister goes before

the tabernacle rattles

swoon to fallen

colors change

arrange rearrange

in front of you

go before you feel

your sisters tears

mulch and motley

feels ungodly fears

shedding, peeled

gaining years

cater to kate (her)

soup rise

suprise

sous prize

real eyes

realize

real lies

craving nothing

some nights

like tonight

i'm anxious for unconcious

i mean

that my screen

has felt belly snores before

once more

it's a bore

to write right well into the night

good night

feels so right

that i risk again getting excited

can't jive, don't hate

to the musicians i will never have:

my language is the common one. the kind that gets you extra cream in your coffee, or your oil checked. it is the twenty-six letters assembled together that form these modes of expression that i use to make my professors happy, and my temperament said.

your language is the one i admire though. theres a middle man. or woman (instruments have curves). and i know that to play them is to touch your first love. i'm content with the status of mistress, if only to your wooden woman. but like you, i can't get content.

something about thumbs slapping strings to make the soul sing. mine hears it too, and wades through the nonsense of syntax and verb tense like a fog that cuts and clears away. i hear you and it's honest. i hear you. it vibrates my ribs and pulls tight my tendons, aching like a square peg looking down the round tunnel of admiration.

sure, i can jam. but you won't hear me. you'll hear the notes i could shake out of my cold metal valves at the last second. you'll hear the nonsense of noise. you wouldn't know of my soul unless i told you. i need to happen in verbal conversation.

so to my unfortunate unlovers: i love you. polylingual proprietors of my heart, i'm sorry you can't get me. and i'm more sorry than you that soaring free my heart can't be, without a-b-g-d-c. which may or may not be a major key to release a real ease, so i don't wear out what out i sneeze on my sleeve.

love, s-l-c

t givs

this mornings hard

so seans sister gets me high and we watch the dog show

it’s not fair that the judge has one arm.

how does he even hold a dog?

nicole was there too

she was pregnant when i lived with her

but now the kids in maryland and

the only teet being suckled is the bong

thanksgiving is for nonni

she doesn’t see me, but she did once

and tried to take my dimples, every time

even a few years ago, she would mark my skin

and say how smooth it was, unknowingly, endlessly

you know

I never thought changing diapers and coconut cream pie

would make me think of my grandmother

but i never thought i would smoke with my cousin

or drive a car at four in the morning

or talk to uke about the shape of paint

he has this beard now, my cousin

and sweatpants from college

and something new in his throat

shoegazing and blazing

holy shit

thankful isn’t really my bag

but i know i don’t have it that bad

and i know now not to go getting all mad

when holiday tv says i can get glad

longing a little longer

purples and yellows will be washed away
by the river of time
but i wish they would stay

so i could see the way your fingers pressed
in my light white thighs
where the colors found rest

"--------------------------------"

i wonder how long i can follow his lines
the sweeping steady nails, like trains sparks on rails
the lines of your feet, the steady left right left right that makes a straight
and a back, and a forth
and burns into the dust the curve of the familiar

the lines of soft pink blue yellow
that makes up shadows
on the wall when up your stairs
the lines i crawl up there

my lines are never straight
and are sometimes made of dust
and are sometimes a trail of clothes

but the best lines i know
are wherever he goes

lighten up ya sissy

can you hear it?
my heart breaks

every snare hit
it beats of being broken

plucked strings hang low
beaten by the bow
no happy notes to envoke in

can you feel it?
my heart shakes

missed the target
arrows and quivers, shaken

plucked strings hang low
beaten by the bow
all grace notes already taken

the gauge stops here

yeah it was a film noir nightmare
with white dashes on asphalt
and nylons with scratches

yeah it was an easy headache
that came just as same as
a stain on the lane

yeah i was too scared
to maintain cool jets
or curb dreamt epithets

but a gas toting something:
is the basis of my next vignette

hung over recovery

there are approximately

a thosand little babies

kicking at my kidneys

one i concieved

from my margarita

(strawberry)

and a few more

came to be

from that fucking jug of

carlo rossi

date night recovery!

a beautiful hip young thing shows me where to go

"theres a gameplan in getting you past patrons fajitas"

her words sneak out past red lips in a low purr

and tickle her septum

bright margaritas as red as her cowboy boots

i stare at the flourescent sludge with hatred and appreciation i grant prize fighters

how did you get me this fucked up, little guy?

i'm talking about fathers and ex boyfriends

to a rowdy cowboy stomping on eels

fixing my wagon

and eating the paper right off the tortilla

did i mention the deer

as you walked out, the sky fell
benevolent pinpricks turning to tear
to tell of brightness behind skies lying there
as the earth sang out with low toned bells

to the bar

i'm freezing to death
and can still see my breath

i’m not sure our realities allow for this love to come to fruition.

you try to wake me up but
i’m talking through my dreams
bout love with uppercuts, struts
and tea that flows in streams

i’m talking through my dreams
sorting out abstracted feelings
and tea that flows in streams
to reconcile the morning

sorting out abstracted feelings
in complex situations
to reconcile the morning
has concrete connotations

in complex situations
it’s better to keep dreaming
has concrete connotations
if you follow dreamy feelings

it’s better to keep dreaming
when we have this conversation
if you follow dreamy feelings
subconscious love is liberation

registration

times for deadlines
tied for the finish line
with fall and spring, legs tied
no more time to decide

right lane blues

there's a dude i gotta pass
cause when i move i do it fast
and when i pass i pray to christ
there ain't no coppers on my ass


i got the right lane blues
cause the right lane is wrong
i got the right lane blues
and so i'm singing this song

gettin the urge to merge
so i can take exit four
i'm never sure where it is
though i've been there some times before

i got the right lane blues
cause the right lane is wrong
i got the right lane blues
and so i'm singing this song

there's cars to the left of me
cars to the right
cars in front of me
and i can't fucking see at night


i got the right lane blues
cause the right lane is wrong
i got the right lane blues
and so i'm singing this song

oh thai there

there were garters and blood and a big white ass
that could be scene with a scream on the soul night scene

you k

you little ray of sunshine
like a dream
where everyone there likes me

you glide through my eyes
like a stream
where sunbeams trickle lightly

i'll change my stripes when i like

you can't make me feel bad
no no
about the men that i've had
yeah yeah

i know you want a house cat
to stay around get pet
but you should know by now that
that don't get this pussy wet

you don't go clippin my wings
no no
that just makes this bird mad
yeah yeah

my life

first musical roads

then the stage, bigger stage

songs, songs, songs

the entire album

screams screams screams

from girls, and girls

believing in me

coming together

being musicians, being

on different continents for weeks

smoked, dropped

i can see the spirits

changed into costumes

then i had a beard

then

then

years imploded

confusion

bad accident

screams, girls, crying

i didn’t feel anything

remembered

rest

she must not see

took me down this long way, man. that square glow. i mean that thing was a box, man. peter’s drive. i could have taken central to where i needed to be, which was between two lanes and myself, my neon. it took me down to where you were, and i knew your brother was home by what was on and i knew you weren’t cause the nissan’s gone and you’re not even there anymore anyways but that doesn’t mean i don’t get chills seeing the place.

i need to be new. dye my hair red. i don’t see myself in the mirror, i can’t. jaques lacan tells me totality is without myself, and what i see today i see in twos. thelma and louise, blues brothers, seventies lesbians. my roommate put up a mirror so we can see ourselves from the boots up.

i don’t know why that box took me to you. or why he wants to take me to france. but i do know i took my exit twice in a row. there were glares that obscured and obscure glares and it couldn’t be helped but dammit if i wasn’t piss scared going down the highway with lapses of vision and a wholly whiteness obliviating borders.

jam

you know the studio

you’ve been there before

you go down the stairs

where theres ground round the doors

but this time got my rhyme

play friendly again

play me notes to bend

friend lend CD to tend

shayna's blues 2

and if you were my doctor, then that would pepper it up

and if you were my doctor, then that would pepper it up

i’d drink you down cause you are brown but please don’t make me pee in a cup

and if you were my stool, i think i’d be your pigeon

and if you were my stool, i think i’d be your pigeon

i forgot my stool softener but that doesn’t mean i’m not smitten

if you were my chair, i’d move you from here to there

and if you were my chair you’d move from there to here to back to there

i’d go anywhere in that chair i don’t care as long as you were upon my derrière

my man dan

my man

let it go

there's a great road ahead

to float on

a bed and your six strings are all that you need

don’t trade them for shining and fine magazines

or fade when you take what your dosage exceeds

just trust me, love freely, adjust naturally

ode to sneaky faculty

saggy giraffe

conducting operas for no one

as your chin sinks lower every year

drug store shadow and stick

remains there

NEUTRAL BURN

remember new england winters
and i’m still in the same coat
but then i was new to snow and new to you

tounge, form transformed
found friends on beacon
there was symphony, movies, coffee

finding newness in grass
ego let go to geometry
fires in microwaves

crying when aeroplanes put away ashes
to sashays across ice on commons
are when i think you loved me most
but now we sleep in winters coats

jazz squat

goin somewhere, goin to the square
runnin and runnin and runnin and runnin and runnin and runnin and runnin and runnin and runnin
getting nowhere, i’ll know when i’m there
somethin its somethin its somethin its somethin its somethin its somethin its somethin its somethin its somethin

of pink to white - like wilting down to folded

of pink to white - like wilting down to folded

-a week before, the lush magenta leaves-

the sex of pollen bursting - swoon to fallen

above - a dry one - brittle with brown edges

gives little shelter

.

.

.

the tabernacle rattles

in front of you, behind around

you feel your sisters go before you

as colors change arrange and re arrange

one sumptuous leaf can still flex in the wind

for which no tears are shed

now mulch and motley variances of dead

working hard or hard at work

old shaft jackets and shaftless buttons
leather, fur w/ burns
and old ass hats
w/ feathers and snaps
leave sleeping to subways
and flirting to muttons

comfy

i want rest but i want it all
i want you but i’d rather fall
into my bed and get ahead,
be ready for my day
but my greatest want
is lacking jaunt
and in your bed to stay

film

in a small Cambridge café

it was filmed with big square bright hot lights

and small square dark cardboard to deaden them

there were scripts, binders, skeleton props

we made the skeletons dance, the actors

found work as baristas instead of being baristas

except for homeless man, who was a method actor

or down on his luck

for putting him in costume really cleaned him up

shayna's blues

and if you were my baby, i’d put the spoon in your mouth
like the birds that gurgitate the worms before they migarate to the south

and if you were my pussy, i’d give you fancy feast
cause if i couldn’t make it purr at least i’d make sure you have somethin to eat

and if you were my guitar, i’d give you a strum
your neck may be a bit too long but damn you got a round little bum

and if you were my mink coat, i’d wear you out all around
you’d keep me warm and be a form i’d love to walk around about town

massholes

when I’m saying words to no one
its in a drivers seat
and its for finger light honk
for verbal communication
usually what blurts out is
I don’t like it!
Or
Sorry!
When I’m saying words to you
Is when I’m most not sorry

retro a go go

throw me on your back
you sweet throwback

carry me around in the world
of mustaches, matches

batting eyelashes
full skirts and hair curled

driving again

it’s coming today
panic, swift and hot
a dessert wind
a subdermic shot
to do lists short circuit
and sun stays under the visor
blinding, wanting rest
from the brightness, slowness
tightening of the chest

change

oh to be you
to be anyone else but
what i am

could be a sham
i have feelings in my gut
oh to be new

fifteen things that astound me

i’m having dreams, and i remember them, and i know what they mean

i’m a self aware self sufficient organic machine

fractals

i thought there was a god and now i don’t and i used to think the pieces to the puzzle were random and couldn’t be put together but now i think they’re a little soggy and expanded and you need to work to make everything fit and i’m okay with being in control of my life, even if it’s the only one i have

i repeat my bad habits, but then sometimes i don’t

music (sounds made by people on wood and metal and strings and throats) can make me cry even if there are no words or the words are german.

the mojave desert, with long flat stretches of nothing, , and then mountains climbing up beyond where you will go, and the joshua trees that climb out of the ground and mark you with their stagnant ugliness

people watch television every day. some of these people watch conservative talk shows.

cordyceps fungi. there is one thing out there specifically designed to be the end of you.

self preservation through wealth and popularity is a high priority for the modern human

there is still war. people sign up to kill strangers for convoluted reasons, possibly because it’s a better adrenaline rush than halo 3.

perplexing victorian constructs such as the mutton chop and the penny-farthing bicycle

cchinnamasta, the mahavidya goddess that severs her own head, sending streams of blood from her neck. her, the mother of the universe, the fulfiller of desires, into the mouth of her attendants. she is usually seen standing on kamadeva and rati, fucking on a lotus flower, with her head in hand.

oscar wilde tells the story of salome, also one of decipatation, in heart wrenching prose: I will kiss thy mouth, Iokanaan.

i have an unexplained feeling that i want to smother you in. it’s like love, or a connection, or the desperate need to tell you that i am you and you are me and it’s alright we don’t understand each other completely because when i see you i know that in us all resonates a holy oneness, of whose origin we are ignorant of, but in our darkness we are together.

to the thin classmate darkly

you're so beautiful
i'm glad i get to hear you talk
even if it is off trifolded cardboard

you have eyes that are dark and
deep and sad, with bags
older than i think you are
hair thin but unrestrained
a wild mane wavy, not plain

i don't think you wear pants
but what you don't wear
you wear it well

with dark red lips, secrets you don't tell

you wear black but
you are a pale sad lilly
in a sea of tiffany's, stephanies

thinner than thin, i see you drinking tea
for sleep
in a big warm bed you can disappear
from providence or city

i think you drip sex that
no one can catch
the way your hands in a nervous flex
across your thighs and hips stretch

driving miss me

it's so scary
driving for the first time
alone, in my own car

it started off the same way
i drove my moms kia or the rental
laughing to myself
short and hard low laughs
a laugh of joy and disbelief

the same sound of the laugh that comes out
in frustration
in not getting simple things
like my times tables, and later
monogamous love

then i have my hands on the steering wheel
first at 10 and 2
then one and 12
then 5 and seven

how to make a birthday cake

mad libs poem

i'll add when i find it

donkey show

we invented sexual liberation!
he shouted in my ear
his wife was dancing
with their son, my friend

he wore a dead mans shirt
that rested at old hogs house
until we dusted off purple floral
until it had weird sex appeal

toscanos

tonight we practiced being adults
fumbling over bianco and assorted vino
risotto, bruscetta, scallops, gelato
crystal glasses so stiff and thin they sting
forks with a spiral metal handle
and wasps swarming up the walls

damaged goods

you’re damaged goods
like the vintage i sell
beautiful, exquisite, but
worn in the crown

that doesn’t mean
that i can’t be seen
with you wrapped around me
like a mink, about town

this will be a porm one day

Modernism
RenaissanceRenaissance
Harlem Renaissance
Neo-Classical
neodada
Futurism
Art Nouveau
Pop Art
Post-Impressionism
Post-Modernism
modernism
les nabis prophet
luxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"

thinking about boys

the ones that are brave, the ones that are not
that will do what they love or think they will love
and feel the joy of pursuit

that have loved without remorse, because they know these girls
sex crazed, young, possibly lesbians, compulsive, previously committed
time is not linear, love is not linear, their experience is fleeting and polygasmic

there ones that are not brave, that do what they think they want
but do not know themselves, self loathing and regret coming after indulgence

that sit for the long drives home, only because they can't pace
and go home alone to themselves, counting grains on planks
and might as well have gone to the buffet to gorge
instead of to whores that remain unengorged

it smelled like cinnamon sugar and beer

i want you. i need you. i'm going to consume you.
i'll tear the salt from your fine lined fingertips.
suck the creamy cool of your cornea.
draw a line down the spools of your spine.
buttons meet teeth, pop one, two, three.

don't watch carrie at 1am

hello there
you're up late

late au lait
you're up there

i know what you want but you already are

every single cell screams of beauty beyond time
where stars align, combine
become entwined with the dust of lives

i have so much love and you want all of it

but to reach the sublime, i scatter
myself to let the birds take me
in mouths alighting to pines

i let myself spread
like holes
that grow
in dough
for bread

who am i kidding i fuckin love food

i've been meaning to develop anorexia
so i can see myself, what makes me
bones, control, pathology

i've been meaning to melt into a puddle
of legs on black and white linoleum
to be with the rest of me, all jumbled

my outfit

green shoes
white knit tights
dress blues
belt bright red

toast to grainy foundation

sugar spun spider webs
lay pink flesh thread
electric dendrites
lips releash a feeling

a tired hard squeeze
was what i needed
but not real defeated
were all of the demons

making out amidst explosive aftermath

green grassy hills where
i sorted our few memories
high school, abandoned houses
hiding secrets

research discovery
i talked to your answering machine
about the canopy bed with baby blue sheets
that married us. breakdown, the sky opened

whisky explosion
angelina without eyes
brad’s face melted, and they’re still in love
pulling out schrapnel with TV teeth and tongue

ran into you at the grocery store
staring at the cake, blue and purple
like a scorpion would come out
and me with a sledgehammer

new season

there isn’t that comfort anymore
in my walk, stroll, gait, way
i feel being outside, exposed
searching for sun

i find instead the crisp quick chillness
of a new england autumn
must start bringing out leather, and sweaters
thinking of scarves and mittens that
expose my tips at will for cigarettes
i find myself searching for you

in the fields of bright faces, in pods of wool
even though you are not up this early
or up here at all
i seek you like the fleeting sun in my fall

white house planet

great to see
being nuts
hasn’t left
youth & city

last chat

supine bovine, made of porcelain skeleton
fruit hangs from your neck, and you eat not
buddah looks on, pleased to see
holy creatures fast

i need to go, grab my bags
of you, your skin
not like you, the color is spring sky
oh, but that’s not the go, help me:

how do I do it?
“silk and woven scarves, oh to hang as limp as
they too feel the breath of life pass through
them where their fibers are pulled and tried”

jimmi, jimmi, jimmi
i never stitched your name
the needle stuck, black chino
but some of the chalk remains

how do I do it?
“the steer horn, hung on brown leather
holds flowers fake as you
but certainly more permanent”

shoeboxes full of empty cigarette boxes, photographs, lighters
how do I do it?
pastel dresses don’t tell

infatu-train-tion

you fill my thoughts like caulking
with the tip clipped, crack won’t stand a chance
i can’t get through five minutes
of class, coffee, chatter, whatever
without that impervious hot prickle
i swear my brain will atrophy
daydreams making swiss cheese of senses

liscense

i can go now
go fast
i mean i can
i’m allowed
but the means
needs achievement

back

back to class
where all teachers teach about penises
envy, gender, love, inversion
repression, transgressions

and this
the word, the way
the beautiful shiny gift
divine cock of knowledge
knowing bliss
to describe, transcribe
rights and rhymes
of the active mind

weddin

alone in crisp chartreuse cotton
burning wrinkles into a union of legs
as white chiffon collects pollen
i’m thinking of you in your bowtie and suit
i don’t go to the coast that often
but I sucked my Darjeeling right down to the dregs
and it said your blue suit case don’t need to sit rottin’
let loose and abuse your youth for this weddings sake

x fumari

i made my mind a kaleidoscope
with bright lights and pills and my travelin shoes
with fresh hair and an old shirt
i boldly roamed streets I will never know
pillows and a hookah bar and friendly strangers
weed from and apple in a hotel bathroom
where the border trim said
this is where you go to die, every time

settlin

i love you san diego
girls of platinum with a drippy tickle squeak to their tones

land of palm trees whose dead fronds dangle, reminding of time
big, tan malls, self replicating and infinite and huge with pricey coffee besides

land of lazy drivers, or friendly ones, when you are where you want, no need to go fast
hills too steep for feet, but wheels make them sing, enough for a chorus

land of the rust free automobile, dripping with chrome, colorful class, burning rubber on flat asphalt

will type out

I was walking down the street
And everybody I met
Were all people persons pettin everybody elses pets
And when they said hey man, at which store did you get
This fuckin chow, this poodle
Lit another cigarette

lame plane

You took a long time
In the great divide
Deciding what’s yours and what’s mine

We twixt it with twine
Wrapped in piles and lines
Were our banjos, and boots, and shoeshine

I know all these rows
Left a toll on our souls
But they’re bricks on our toes
When a pleasant wind blows

My mouth made goodbye
But your terrible eyes said
Our lives look much better combined

I know all these rows
Took a toll on our souls
And you know that I don’t want
To see your cheeks go

But you’ve gotten my heart
Mixed up, twisted in knots
So I’m taking my lot
Just so see what I’ve got

main plane

California is where
We laughed under the stairs
And ate oranges and red wine

The merlot matched my eyes
And the sorrow that lies
There, but you’d rather look at the rind

When I meet you, I’ll greet you
And say how’d you do
But I know that the real you I’m not talkin to

In the west coast, precious ghosts
Peel skin off the limes
And sting me with beauty
I will no longer find

ode to the intent train musician

you keep your concertos close, sir
headphones hugging you, the sizzle of studios
with an ipod case that will keep out the rain
a big back book

between the sheets, tapping foot, now feet
only devotion to the movement, baroque music
you used to hear it
but now feel it

and more in it than the train
you are not in your clothes, or
your clothes are not you
stiff khakis and blue

all around

whirlwind girl
in a daze, works a maze
and my cheese is brie at the last turn

a broken chain
set my pedals to go
faster, so fast, that the going was slow

pashaweary naan, a leopard cope

sought comfort in sewing clothes together
taking off my mind things that fall apart

exotic soul soothing where they know our names
opened closed doors, giving spice to the weary

bye bye meow meow

Pallid puddle of blood
Eyes bursting with maggots
Mouth small and shriveled
Like grotesque latex masks
But the gore is real and stays there

sick day

walking through the day like hot sand, barefoot
stumbling through stirring soup for the sick independent woman
and backing up in a straight line, squeezing squeaking tires on curbs
trying not to cry

you can't expect me to sit in class with a faucet nose
and listen to whiny 19th century bitches cry about nothing, lady
when i have a to be a driver by friday and sleep off disease till saturday
times not on my side, here

poem #1

i followed it and tackled it, angry,
until i had it headlocked

it swallowed spit and when it bit, fangy
my arm hung limp in deadlock

when will feelings learn
to wait until their turn to show

resentment to me
on the street is where everyone knows

that i loved you and from you,
the one thing i got in return

was this feeling of reeling
like butter, these guts pound and churned


heart be still, it's my will
and only my sense you obey

i'll be ruled by no hearty fools
oh please tool me tward matters of grey

for the brain holds no pain
just the stains that remain
of the memories that stayed to serrate

but my heart is a lark
that will start to embark
at the speed of a quark and migrate

strange infatuation

scooping dust into under nails
watching rainbows on depression glass
full of cherry blossoms, cherries, waiting for tea

i sang your name from my sternum
and the glass quivered; the dust smelled like home
picked up a shaving mug, said “think of me” –

- and I did - and was covered in poppies
you know how I feel, right?
well, how could you?

i want you
i want you to connect
i want you to connect with me

is it hard
is it hard too?
is it hard to together be

i know
i know there are many
i know there are many walls

built of eyeliner, sidewinders, spellbinders, pall malls

we can
we can break it
we can break it all down

watch it
watch it burn
watch it crash to the ground

then level we’ll be, what we think isn't we - stripped, we’re everybody

motion, loco!

bird songs in the trees behind the platform
and it sounds important, a garbly braah
like it needs something
it is loud
maybe it is voicing for the train
a garbly braah is not unlike the steady whoop
and it sounds desperate, shrieks, braaiiglabaglaba
twitters and flutters, swooning for locomotion

social visit

your face? in my house?
the one of a distant pleasant memory
swirling like froth on a hot chocolate mind

you 70’s slacker
with the semblance of a petulant boy
but of inverse disposition
always smiling, making me smile
for days and days
stays the warmth of your open eyes
seeing and showing and making and being

summer tales of skinned dear
brought back to the barn, shot and dead
how you left before lifeblood spilt
tainting your view of the horned beauty that breathed

skinny, dreaded vegans eagerly ate the venison
knowing that fellowship foreshadows all isms
there was no kill like this since wild men reigned
with drums and shared lives, community beauty

to have had your eyes and feet this summer, friend
to have been there, but being there once having seen there
is my most prized pipe dream, kept alive by mountain slides

whatta saga

past porter square speeding
past old boy memories
faster climbing needing
to ride out this feeling

retrieved my ride
for making good time
in parks and past pines
to where classes define

saga celebrated
in a kitschy boozey kitchen
where my dancing desecrated
talking heads and times i’ve waited

bold move

so many many things today
infinite little white dashes on asphalt
two tanks of gas
a couple dead birds, also raccoon
new room, kitchen, bathroom
blue walls with baby blue butter suitcases
emptied out into a place that can stay.

how do you do it

when disaster comes, it swallows us up in its dusty storm cloud with a howl, and shakes us by the jaws of fate

or other times, failure is manifest in the pungent midnight silence, where breathing is too shallow to be real sleeping

but with my age comes knowledge of the holy us

i can now see the smiles and sparks that make fuckups crumble, pill, and fall like white erase board marker markings

the breaths of timeless compassion, cloudy at the two am station where i wait for your limitless love.

saves the day saves the day

i can shake down my troubles now
into the grooves of floorboards how
they try to pry up my toes once alighted
of shoulders the bad vibes can smolder around

i flipped them out of my body, now scout
for the remnants of rubbish, around and about
on the ground and then pound them out the damn door
they will flounder and ask themselves why and wherefore

don't worry

it's okay to let me go
because we aren't a necessity
i need you like a vice
but your charms i could get down the street at the dusty corner store that carries my smokes.

allow me to flee your memory, all the gestures, appearances, best wishes spinning
my clothes, hair, smell, my worn and tired soles, where my eyes move or don't move.
what i know and don't, what i like and have never tried, if i have a god, or am my own
what i want, what i want of you, what you saw in me, the things i will be

let it all go until you have to claw your way out of clouds to see me smile and ride off

two poems today

you hungry banshee
shooting flames from your teeth
with words bursting loud
sizzle dangerously

i'm falling in love, and not the every day train love
the elevator holding my guts, cable cut, kind of love
wanting you, because you are me
and my skin is across the seat
reading a book i'll never read

my kind of love today is the love
where i've met you and you've met me
a smitten kind of swooning of
unknown enormity

*********

you're the old america
in mother of pearl buttons and teeth
birthed by that aquatic sea bitch of beauty
holy laughter rolling along her clamshell
as she parks the bivalve, dipping into
the glory, wonder of a 57 bel air
thinking about her son in a jukebox
and the way his hips churn waves

ode to the sleeping train lovely

darling, in all your religious stillness, did you miss your stop?
do you have a destination? dusty callused hands show your travels well.
slumped over like a crumpled puppet, dark red hair limply hangs over the rail
a stale late stratus sunset.
your silver shoulders, the highest point in a sloping arch
shine, a summer moon, shiver then are still.

sweetheart, the day is too cold for your waves of aqua chiffon,
pleated and needing the sway of walks way.
but your endless skirt sea ripples with only wind, then is still
i won't see your face, and i never will, but i know its benevolence and innocence,
pure and spanning centuries of waxes and wanes, timeless patience of saints.

and like me, you will get off your stop, stream, but too soon return to the big blue oblivion, silent and loving, needing, being all.

blood on the tracks revisited 2

i'll finish the story

blood on the tracks revisited

the holidays were over and the usual group was getting back
to the smokey tattoo parlour, hung over over egg nog and jack
and propped up on a window, the young apprentice saw
a deck of cards on the edge, fixn for a fall
he quickly caught the lot of them, savin for the queen of hearts

the desk girl dolled out five and they occupied their time for a spell
they bet on living real estate, the space below the pinkie fingernail
and whoever won the pot would pick their favorite men
and there put a reminder, where no reminder had been
to canonize their loses, the symbol on the queen of hearts

untitled

i'm thumbing through days
like pages in a book
them flying past faster
the longer i go

18 ctr, 1909

like a thriller
we walk up the steps
and into dusty history
where old town memories keep
like this photo, taken 100 years ago
of the place we have made home
and i wonder what romances died before us
as victorian glasses and combs stare
at these modern intrusions

i'm alive

all day, i thought
this is the day i die
the last day i make my pink plaid bed for the living
before retiring to black sheets of dark unknowing
my big black book i want to finish before i go
which is physical, not a metaphor: House of leaves
i’m reading scenes, navidson, the great explorer, waits for death
and slaughters time by reading House of Leaves [ ]
in my case literature provides no escape

i move to bike rides with a younger boy me
to the big pink bakery to buy canolli's
i splurge on whole milk cause hey this is it
i call and old friend to check up on his kid

no cornet practice, it seems futile
but the day turns to night and still standing, alive
i celebrate my breath, my fingernails, each one a miracle
beautiful skin, attached freckles intact, in place
and aligned with the stars, which are still so fucking far in space

exploring deploring

there's this feeling
of my being idling
wanting relief before
hitting trains home

it's like this every 7 thirty
sometimes i people watch
today i decide, people talk
with homeless youth, 20 like me

i chat near their guitar case
about whiskey and money
quite the opposite of your mommas
water cooler small talk

they take me to junkie city
by the river where harvardites run
but there's no fast moves for the spaced out jaded
in faded black ripped tees

something about glue huffin punks
and friendly dads on junk
or drunk young things bleeding, glass feeling
makes me really real, feel alive, idle subside

come together

wake up in separate beds


you, to a checkerboard chin
natures pattern scratched out a gameplan
in pink and beige
or maybe you started this morning
banged awake by cosmic meat cleavers

what the fuck is this?
i have no idea. It’s perfect. did you sleep on it?
i slept on my back.
what the fuck.

me, i woke up to swimmers ears whisper
poking, saying “sorry, your defenses
were sloughed away by the poolside”
it's all day morning mumbles,
for i fear i can’t hear dear.

what are you poking?
look. I’m pointing to it.
what the fuck?
do you see anything hurtey?

for you i’m grateful

you let your senses play for me
imprint blueprint‘s facsimile
of everything in line in place
my back, for it’s the largest place
a checkerboard for me to show
that prove your kisses come in rows

swooning on the job

oh i love you, thing of mostly carbon
ephemeral boy that will perish, flesh and memory
make your time my time, which is borrowed and supine
elbows shoulders, moving fingers in rituals
that took years of muscle's maintenance
forming gestures familiar to character
let me kiss where fingers meet in a valley
align limb vines of mine and time's
with eyes looking at eyes with eyes inside
you'll find our minds
slip, dance entrance
imagination, fancy to unbind

hmm yess

velvet, red, black gold on display
begging to be released, titian granting.
nudie beauty permanent, unaware
how their faces stare when no one is there
burning holes in the parquet

so you know

so today, i'm walking down the street and it looks like everyone's smiling at me, amused. and i think, this is weird but smiles are infectious so i don't mind. i hear the word "unicycle" from someone passing and sure enough, a one wheeled performance artist was directly behind me, with a spiked up pony tail and a tripod clutched up against his tan bare chest.

i can smell it

tomorrow is a happy day where good will happen and you will see everything and it will be beautiful, and if you cry from it you won’t be sad and you’ll get a little startled when contentment is an easy exhale and came together without a precursory cosmic to do list. the yesterdays full of uncertainty, loneliness, rejection (real, imagined, loud, unspoken), will be laughed off shoulders like old dandruff and dissipate until they reach an outside blue and dance with the clear discs that run along eyes looking on the sun.

you stick, slick

the popcorn, putzing
beers and videogames
past the movies where
you never want to
get scandalous
but you’re a nice boy
with shirts with buttons
and slip on vans
that likes cars and
letting tension go -
smooth it over like
steamed creases
or folded money-
how you make
masses happy
but your creamy cool
crosses my thoughts
days spent feeling breezes
thinking if they could
dry our summer sweat in bed

a mean clean

i can procrastinate for years
but today i turn to one of my non projects
and begin a long road that ends with a clean cellar
to tiptoe past earwigs, ants, alive or dead
i will find old levis that ex boyfriends stained
along with their once prim argyle sweater
shirts that advertise faith, belief in
showing the lord to mexico
petticoats no longer period
now that rains have dip dyed them like easter eggs
old ass memories of people that are fucked up now
or doing really well, in oil paint and skeleton suits
patches to commemorate my relationship with mom
that never did get sewed to a sash
or dare certificates that never got hung up
there are things that haven’t changed
bags of googly eyes, packs of needles
in both cases the big eyes have been taken and used
too many memories, stuffed into three ring binders
and things that, thank god, have changed
like the mess and mildew and ideas i can’t keep up with

it never makes sense

if i could take my brains
and erase all the times you saw pain
at my hands and my feet i hope what would remain
is a beautiful scene that a painter would paint

if my silliest wishes were chalk
i’d draw on the sidewalk us both in a frock
coat and me with a parasol gleaming we’d be
floating through rivers of creamy ice cream

involuntary nap time

foggy grog for days
where i can’t see your face
but i’ll wait for the rays
of clarity to grace

Leo, you don’t deserve what you get
pricking prickly fingers, to test, let it out
brothers throwing punches, spacey sisters
drunk dads and messy moms
Leo, we both lived through it
and we’re pretty fucked

but you’ve got it, little man
you got the grunt of adolescent angst
and i hope teeny mean teens see your swagger and shiver
at the dangerous, dark cool
you know ed cullen don’t got shit on you.

Leo, one day you’ll find some planets aligned
you’ll roar with purpose headfirst down a road
that can’t show where it goes
but you can feel it, deep and clean, as grass between toes

let it be known that i’m not there
most of the time, i’m elsewhere
i’ve got that travel bug and trouble follows
but with what heart i got, i care

i got roots like a tree all day for you
and if i had a band i’d jam with you
cause you’d keep it roarin with that Leo sound
that when found, will make mountains
and fountains stay cool

mind was wandering all day
working, swimming, hanging out
bob dylan, johnny cash
brains remains
estranged, untamed
house of leaves, house of matt

i wanna redo this

i hope you’re happy
cause i am
with a fat lip and a bruised ego
i take your abuse cause when i smile
blood sticks to my teeth like cherry taffy
and i’m laughing cause frankly
this is how it should be

Sleeping in the doldrums of summer. I decide august goes by so silently, humble and clear, these few weeks before the proverbial shit hits the very real and in use fan. Before the desperate online searches for previously skimmed textbooks, before bedframes and folders, older sofas, and crap to slap on bare walls. Before the beauty of beginnings, there is an august peace unspoken and overlooked like a carnation in cement cracks.

fraid i bruised
my ass on a cruiser
i gotta get used’ta
thick pantaloons

bug by land, blue by sea

skin is bitten
plunging in
tickles ankles
inhale nostrils
breathe deep blue
soon, achoo to
swim and sputter
bugs like chew
flutter, falter
under water
quiet anew
i knew quiet

we had fun, right?

timely timeless you
your arms area vortex
smells like soap and sweat
and black leather seats
when our skin meets
i lose me and you and it and all
as sound as the grave
alive as the skies
i breathe out, breathless
restless content

maybe some days
i squander, wander
but days the hourglass
slips sand through slits
and trickles tickle time

but i’m on my side
your sides are mine
when you’re on my side
sandy swirls tip, are still

long longing throng

this is all i have

i am what you have

i have you

i haven’t had enough

i’m not too tough

like pieces of meat
i fall off the bone

crumbling stoned to pebbles
starting tumbling trebles
that groan, settle, moan

passion fit

colors danced to make clovers grow
on a slate gray subway in miles of snow
her sweater got wetter and made brighter glows
hunched shoulders they smoldered, she knew when to go

shaded and jaded, sea’ve sunglasses sprung
became moribund when they saw the sun
oh mothers, don’t bother to see what they’ve done
they’re peeling off feeling, becoming undone.

cognition XX

on impression dissention
how past me sees me now
and how me now sees me to be

questions come when shower water covers
about mothers, will i ever hear
your children are so beautiful?
what do i wear inside my mini
below my sunglasses and ice coffee
that conceal and reverse a restless night
lipstick stain on an orange straw
can i see myself at all?

what did i see as a girl
wishing i was a teenager
curly black hair and hoop jewelry
curves and lines shouting out my head
walking on asphalt, my childhood street
slapping heels and smacking gum

two for limbo

deffered for now/prison, london

people wait for/tunes to change

one with some luck/two lack of funding

split like a hypun/known future remains

russel rustle, stirring ghosts

heart is a rabbit in a hurry, hungry
for sundry samples of memory, lovely
flashes of you in your tank are too much
for my stomach to keep down such little a lunch

i wish you the best, i’m wishing you well
but seeing you there is like being in hell
i’ll throw in the ocean my happiest token
to wash away notions of sad laughing swells

404: love not found

later, you will look back and cringe
at our pithy attempts of intimacy

knowing the future finds a car, computer
to have you gripping your seat in full swoon

decked out deco

to be you, girl
outlined in sultry bold black
woven fingers to hold your curls
waist dropping and droopey, disappears

those twenty year later minxes of gingham
all cheeks and titted teeth
smiled for a while but
what stays, distant stately elegance
dripping with parisian decadence

late early life lessons

learning how to steer, point, turn
my mother directs us to hough’s neck
where i was born, and a place of regional pride
evidenced by the lexus vanity plate: NECKER
let’s go down to where you had dance recitals, i’m getting chills
i’ve backed up in a straight line here before, only in a tutu
more landmarks are in the maternal tour guide
like where dad had a boat with cliffie
and where the horseshoe crabs burrowed
generating phobias, spanning generations.

got over hump day

waited for your lips in my dreams
which is where i went on waterfalls
which were more like haunted houses

after long burns from sojourn yearn
back home is where the walls groaned
spittin trippy drippy metallic static
make breathing heaving, goes to toes

genius of love*

i’m not moody (spaced out)
always returning (2)
a fifth of beethoven
waters of nazareth
take pills: phantom headlock
colours: the warning
hold up trans europe express
we will become silhouettes

*all words are from titles on my ipod's genius playlist for "take pills"

lust bites

saying i love you is like scratching summer skin
relief in a rush, then the tingling spreading sin
knees got pink and grew, elbows ankles creepy crawl
infected, engorged, inescapably enthralled