not many more

learn to enjoy nothing days

with seconds slower than scabs

relay to the hurried girl yesterday

its easy to close all her tabs

no bus today

for the first time in sixteen years
there are no sharpened pencils
new t-shirts
or rehashing of the old worries
my anxieties are brand spanking new
adult ass ones.
a three hundred count newness
of cotton softness and simple adulthood
making coffee
and living for my own
unborrowed learning

a practical guide to painting your room, pt one

so!

you moved into an urban shithole and need a self affirming domestic pick me up.

not to fear!

painting isn't just for self harming german turpentine junkies.

there are a few things to remember however!

one.

you may never paint your new room the color of an ex lovers hair. the color of their skin is acceptable, as it is likely soft and neutral and can remind you of other things, like wurthers originals or cottege cheese, but hair colors will surely entangle you in old memories.

two.

you are renting. fuck tarps.

three.

when it comes to painting your room, price is no object. mostly because they do not tell you how much your paint is until after it is mixed.

hey

this poem is not good. do not think about this poem.

true love beach, rockport

he stretched for miles

swinging those hips through

the flat smooth ground

.

the stone broke itself

so that he may

be gathered by

.

young girls of the village

that stack his fingers up

reaching to the heavens

long not ride

every drop that fell

on the car with

no windshield

was like a pinprick

to the aged milliner

a small, pained

expected detour

off the course of

beautiful direction

cutting

thank you

little blue

leather man

so many uses

who could guess

this was one

blank

don't drag one out of me

it's not that nothing happened

it's that

well?

i don't want to talk about it.

let me come back when theres something to say.

even this

it all must fit perfectly in nature, he said.

even this.

as he calmly demonstrated

i believed that all the strands of hair.

could live, a perfect match

in every pore.

awe

gee jimi

im real glad

ya tagged along

on my one night off

babe turks tits tats full

home please screamin nites

aw

gee v
awful sorry

ya got drunk enuf

to break away from a

2 ppl post rock freak fest

runinscreamin into the night

today is thursday

wednesday was a strong loss

tuesday was forgetting how summer rain

lays heavy in noses

a wet grey calm

things missed:

windshield wipers

you

i rely on our heroism, dear

it's lovely how you drive the torrents

under your resined planks

full speed ahead

like there's somewhere to go

see thursday

see thursday

thank you pink sheets

does the nine year old owner of this bed you are here?

do you remember being her?

the nights you slept so easily alone

it was the only thing you knew

coming so hard now

get back to those days

sleep less

i need to match your breath with mine when i go to sleep

to the steady in and out of your dreams

or, i can count to eight over and over

until i've erased their meaning

but our unknowing, all loving breath is best.

is this a previous lovers act of retribution?

programming me to synch

set on simultaneous scroll down?

cyrusly

i could never be sorry for screaming like wild creatures at the charles with drugs and homosexuals, white sex asses in bus terminals and long breezy grass

another scorcher

give me give me

ice cubed kittens

and days in bed

the heat pressing

us in like

laundromat quarters

sleep bus sleep

excuse her.

this is a hardly day.

new tattoo missing you

i see you in the flaky black painted rust of brooklyn stoops.

and the wood splinters of old telephone poles, bleached and bleeding, talks spanning generations.

i see you in the kitschy confetti of chinese bus upholstery yellow red blur green specks meeting your eyes and finding a home there.

i see you in the shady red convertible memories, when we tied indifference around our necks.

i don't see you now on these strange vanilla bedsheets in a city far from your sweaty july knuckles swinging.

the fact of the matter is i've seen you where you've never been but i see you in the places i want to go be stay live, and on the backs of my eyelids the places i'll never see again.

but i see you most between my ribcage in the shadows reflected off the windows we once called home.

just stop it

late june heats up quick

the clarity comes only with the morning in the ground dregs of coffee

it is always comfortable to drink

i am a house pet, resting blushed cheeks on dirty kitchen linoleum.

tomorrows goanna be another scorcher. scorcher? like yesterday. yesterday?

yesterday you said you'd call sears!

yesterday we said a lot of things.

tomorrow we will say more.

it doesn't mean you are going to break out of this chrysalises anytime soon.

if stoned tuesday afternoons passively absorbing animal planet have taught me anything,

its butterflies aren't your ne'er do well prissy insect ornament.

they worked for their wings.

so don't expect me to just hand over my powder perfect, fluttering paper tripped out ink blot appendages for pinning when i sucker punched natures shell with skinny black arms for three days, looking, hoping, living for life with my head pressed against the sultry june sky, only to come out slimy, disoriented, a little hungover, and a long way to go

let me tell my own fortunes in lost coffee grounds

and the lines on my six little hands

small world

a shark, a rabbit, and a four eyed man are in a park.

didn't i see you on shark week? the four eyed man asked

no, said the shark. i'm a hallucination.

and you, rabbit friend? said the four eyed man.

well, i'm more of a projection of a talking rabbit onto a lethargic park squirrel.

oh. well then.

will i ever find it?

together they reply:

we have all been many things.

we are one.

sometimes, you are part of the one.

but for you, there is often duality:

the four eyed fucker, and every other fucker.

so it doesn't matter what we look like.

you want distance no matter who we are.

and that way, you won't find shit.

then will i ever see you again, shark and rabbit?

you already have, fucker.

i know the score and

i'm sorry for everything*

what i haven't done yet

what i won't do

not sorry for what i can't do**

what i'm about to do will make me sorry

and i'm sorry this wasn't a poem

*i'm not sorry

**sometimes i am

another crash

i hit a man today

not like, domestically, sexually

but

the way he collided into my windshield

his ribs fractalated snowflake solar systems

that obscured vision

dusted the dash

with dangerous, bloody stars.

i was shaking

it was beautiful

to the bed i never sleep in

oh, hi

remember me?

i made you!

...last week

i'm sorry.

i'll try but i'm made of fire

and every tounge licks and crawls

around the people i love

consumes them

with my three in the morning talk

and you don't see any of it but

trust me

when i get back to you

i know it will be soft and sweet

and needed

car song

they picked all of her cherries and they tied them up with string

stuck em in a yellow envelope with lovers words and things

but the postman squished them both together and never was read

the love notes that were truth and beauty turned soggy and red

so i never truly knew how much you loved me

until the day you caught a fuzzy bumble bee

tied a string around it's waist gifted it to me and said

if you let me i would build a shrine for each hair on your head

you think you can keep things close with with strings and knots and so

you keep them close to your chest till you're ready to let go

but i know you don't have to go great lengths and wrap me up in twine

to make you so sure that i'm yours and you are fucking mine.

i didn't need anymore than that young fuzzy bumble bee-ee

newtopia

you!

you are reborn

you are smooth white plaster.

down feathers.

closed eyelids.

(breathing and translucent, never opened)

shayna:

we are the new car smell

we shed like snakes

our skin

too small and fast to see

exploding off us like it had somewhere better to go.

(it didn't)

oh and

in this new and perfect land

the roads smell like fresh laundry

it is not bridges that are burned

every iris is ignited.

you will never see a popped balloon again!

roadkill is dead.

and with the merest feather tickle.

butterflies will drop the strings

of your gut elevator.

again and again.

like a seventh grade morning.

jambo

use what you wrote in your moleskine, bitch

another excuse note

oh christ

excuse her

there was time traveling midgets and

oh...ice cream and

oh...nail polish

some of it in the burly clinical massage chair

some of it on a hot picnic table

painting white to match

she couldn't have

she just couldn't have said anything

hi greg

any day at all darling

is ripe to be

picked out of the hum hum hum

and tossed into a theater

year nineteen sixty nine

rich and sexy

or the day is

soggy tofu croutoned

mix tape talked

sweetness so few know

the soft easy flow

of shakers and mike tests

the can

the sky stayed grey

like it was all week

and did not care about

the lovers quarrels

small as ants on the ground

pills paper

pills paper

beep beep

eleven oh three

a low battery

only if gram bell thought of this tragedy

oh dasterly bastard of phone function standards

haphazard are plans for more longevity

card house

a house of drunks

is a house of cards

fragile

bright

faces that stay the same

and with a new wind

falling flat

jack on queen, aces

sevening fours

all a matchbox and bourbon away from extinction

gah dam

another night

my pink sheets this time

when will i heed last summers advice?

oh you

fireflies fly in small circle pirouettes

while i forget the regrets to begot, beget

old friends

old friends

the bends in the road

lend themself to

the friends of what's been

piss poem

talking through

the bathroom walls

to you

on my lap

forming

the thing i am

crap shes slipping

excuse her. she must return from a boozy somervillian exile in one piece. this is her main concern. love always.

warning

this woman took the bar exam five years ago

with school street dick breath and failed.

she played with the cats and warned us.

don't let this house suck you in and kill your dreams.

the warning fades as the sun moves across the sky.

beach pussy

barely missed summer

on the big black wheel roads.

the family cat wasn't so lucky

but we turned around and

you grabbed him

a limp warm blood spot oh god

and laid him over the guardrail

which seemed right

right as found arcade tickets

with no prize

sunday

the lazy days fast turn into crazed melee, delayed malaise

saturday

it was on a piece of paper. i lost it. i hope i find it.

i'm sorry, i keep

getting distracted

what was the goal?

make something of yourself, kid

yeah.

oh shit. or was it?

be happy. just be...something

while you're doing it

no no

fuck

i'm supposed to make other people happy

or like, make them think

about happiness

make my family happy

or

fucking

accept the soggy puzzle pieces

and angry magpies, stealing tinsel

i thought i saw a grey hair

but instead found a bit of straw

i would have found burst capillaries

hadn't i played with caterpillars

i could have been wrinkled already

if outdoor dust didn't laugh off like leaf veins

mutual doodles

lines

curves

thick lines

and the absence of them

between it all

i'm only

as good as

you think i am,

ginge

living poetry

one hour to herself

cool things about today

fireflies
hammers
late night bright lights flashed out sassy lady gaga goin alejandro
busting pipes open with hammers
using busted open pipes like our rock mountain patio furniture
white butterflies that were lithe and blithley like moths
washed out the inside, our car
was all blinking green and red lights
cooked off mushrooms
dirt piles high
sky lined with
childrens section
my little book about god
little golden treasures
over
big cats sticker book over three hundred fucking stickers
come on

my

lithe white thighs tithe sighs in quiet nights blithe

high school benefit

the home ec room is where the robotics kids practice now

and we all finished wasting a different four years than last time

pee cock rock steady

her favorite bird

was always the peacock

first for the name then

the way they were either

clinking with the shine of a

blue metal rainbow

or nothing

waiting to be filled in

or already washed out

she saw them simmering in the florida heat bobbing

their pom pom bobs and perching

one leg up when they were thinking

one day, she was a young woman

and the scores of

vain indigo eyes

hung from every

blonde little bitty

that flies in the flock of the times

taking her cocky pea pride

that she learned from the best

she shoved those regal royal blue

bristling fronds

right up her ass

and sat on her pride

waiting for the whole thing to blow over

it was over

when it was over she was glad to pick up the memories of her with her teeth and toenails, scratching back into the laundrying shampooing flesh vessel that knew why she did it

sky high

this is the highest the sky has ever been

lighten up

she always wondered about the bleached out pictures in the crotch of her panties

did her vagina try to recreate pastoral scenes by spitting hydrogen peroxide?

does it cry the virgin mary into cheaply serged cotton at night?

eventually, the rock was removed from the tomb

and the medicine cabinet revealed

his after shower facial cleanser

and their marriage the muse

papers, my boy

put off

as in it got or i'm

you off

as in i'd rather get

retrospective 2

i remember scrounging, don’t you?

boiling water in your black hoodie

letting your tattered sleeves get precariously close to the hot bubbles

we lived in a shit hole anyways but it was ours and your dad let us stay and my dad got drunk and helped put a floor in the bathroom and i mean, we cleaned out the old cat piss and i painted and painted while you were at work, turning the walls to red and black and blue so how could it be anything but our home.

that winter we had the quaintest christmas party. nothing in the house but twenty dollars worth of decorations and beer between us and i can’t remember which year but one year we found a tree across the street and another we made one out of a tripod. it was greener that way

the warm summer months we wore shorts and from the porch we saw the church car washes from across the street, beer in hand, watching fear in god scrub hornets out of hubcaps.

and i didn’t go anywhere but i didn’t need to because i had my cigarettes and you and the bong unless we broke the bong, which we did, and we cried and packed something else and tried not to get the cats high.

an especially hot day paul rolled up in his el camino, passed out girl in the bed and we smoked cigarettes and wondered what to do but eventually we carried her upstairs and fed her veggie burgers back to health and she fell on the treacherous stoner landscape of our coffee table naked, trying to show us her led zeppelin tattoos.

one of the summer months, i moved out a pregnant 18 year old on an adderrall bender because her boyfriend was a pill head and a hoarder and i mean how could i not? i wasn’t too particular about honing my morals but damn.

the attic stayed a haven for the insane and stoned that wanted to disappear in the floorboards and clamor onto the garbage posing as furniture and i don’t know what we talked about but the only light was candles so it must have been something romantic or scary or serious which are all pretty close anyways.

and the floor would undress itself, leaving us little laminated slivers of nothing to stick in our feet and beds and carpet we should have gotten rid of months ago.

and our liver stayed stuck to the ceiling, a dark purple sac looking on with at least a morbid curiosity.

retrospective

i know the things we picked up along the road

stones shaped like hearts beaded curtains

one thousand gold matches in metal elephants

daydreams of down the street pink mustangs

dragonflies turned into helicopters

where third eyes were opened

for the second time

the things we lost along the way

god, first homes, clothes

i remember all the times you fixed it.

which you always did, but i also remember when fixing it was as easy as saying bunchie.

i couldn’t even take care of the cats

or the earwigs in the drain

i remember how pissed you were that i left the water running because i was so scared of them just like

hiding from your mom in the closet because it was past ten

you held my hand over the rail at island grove when

my hands were allergic to friction

and again over the hospital bed guard rail

when i was trying to leave saying

please i really didn’t mean to say that i wanted to

i remember henry died and you touched me like how you touched my chest that one time i got a sunburn and we were too young to be touching chests and every touch was electrified

i remember i broke your heart and while i was busy getting stoned you bought a big red sports car

i remember i broke your heart and even though we got stoned together then and you lost the sports car

i went off gallavanting and forgetting how your eyes get smaller when you smile or the clever way your face shape shifted into mountains on the hot summer nights where I wore my green plaid dress and a smile and you still had your sports car and a smile so we convinced ourselves there was a car show in halifax and spent the next day on the saggy grey couch watching top gear or when we went on clever cruises in the company yaris and i wasn't wearing anything in particular but not the sort of nothing i was wearing on top of my black bra in the mountaineer that one time when we were what like sixteen?

i remember when i couldn’t drive or keep my cool or think for myself or talk to adults or stay focused or believe i was beautiful but now it all a memory

in clutter

mom, i’m finding myself

at the bottom of crushed cans

and sticking on the insides of

helicopters? pinnochio noses?

if i peek into the garage

where the stray cats fight on a

forgotten (stolen) corvette

i see myself napping in the backseat

licking love into feral sisters ears and

mingling with the leathered dust

last day

i notice more the

smell of everyones lunch

and the couples on campus

touching theories and fictive strategy

sanding away satan's goat head in the art building

i wonder why i never pursued that crafts minor

so crowded

mayfair maday

no room to lay

june without a

post noon melee

dear lord

dear lord

please excuse shayna from this past yesterday. she offers her condolences for blowing you off, as well as everything else that was supposed to transpire this past evening. she will attempt to refrain from being a hedonistic party wolf in the upcoming hours.

the powers at be

the game

kill your whole

family kill

your whole fam

ly kill your

whole family

kill your hole

my sal a

mander my

salaman

der my sal

a man der

my sal a

i am just

resting i

am just rest

ing i am

just resting

i am just

and then the drums

i would go right ahead and excuse shayna from this guy right here. you wouldn’t believe it. An early trumpet practice, cassette tape poetry, and a really, really long ginger ale. she didn’t even get the power point done. professors can yell at you from twitter now. but she read “for catie” for catie’s family and had the poetry boys over stoned and grieving in a let’s get high kind of way.

and then there were the drums she was late and had to wear the pink dashiki just like that nightmare she had because she is afraid of taking a solo, but she took two and at least four people liked it or said they liked it.

and you know, she wasn’t clear on the details with the moustache party or the sea monster gold margarita grapefruit martini cosmo types of events or discourse, but she did say it ended in encino man with bright eyes and dinosaurs and puffer fish and the most discrete kinds of vomiting so i am rather convinced she couldn’t have spit this one out if she tried.

if you need any more information on this series of events, the appropriate pictures have been tagged

---X

radio control in hell

and the sky came down just after the sun rose for the last time

peeking up its ginger head and pulling the covers over again

the sky came down against the grain of the sun rising

and the suns stiff fur rose up and oranged the sky

bristling, tickled the pads of its hands

it came down and decided to stay laying reclined

with it's sunglasses on enumerating all the roads

lost cliffs and pot holes

with the back of his spine he aligned all the cracks and

the sky came down and smoothed out the bends and curves

in our foundations

she's being emotional

the heavy wet tears rolled down like rain and the rain came down too but the rain doesn't need to explain itself and neither do i dammit but i should but the steering wheel stay steady and i will take the rays of red and green bleeding from the streetlights and squeeze them back into their rightful orbs by sucking it back up into my guts but it hurts but it will never be right but i want it to be perfect i want you to be perfect but after you saw that i can cry over anyone you will stop being so mean but it wont be because it's perfect but you finally saw the beautiful inlay and gold filagree on the 300 porcelain arteries you can't unbreak.

the tapes

i found my lover filling a box in the basement

in his remaining form, the mix tapes

all that is left of him is what can be seen

in the curves of capital on white label

and the crackle of almost faithful acetate

lazy ass

the plaid is pleading not to be pleated

on his anus is heinous jameson

a day to my goddamned self

upon leaving my house, a robin.

but not before a long day

laying naked. answering only

to lazy whims, like

what does your face look like at night

or who is martha and did she know

her vineyard would give birth to deaf little grapes

naming “fish” and “i love you” with their waxed purple hands

upon waking, fifteen missed calls

from one phone. and the pebbles between

my toes were jumping beans and i thought of him sitting on wood chairs

naming all the cracks in the wall “shayna” and “i love you” and how he wishes to splay fingers in my mouth

tickling canker sores in my throat

fondling the opposite of my clitoris

upon thought, i took the day off

from anything but being the cool tiles

my cool tile

and my radiator wrapped blanket

that can kiss the shower off my hips

just as well, and leaves me free after to

perform eulogies for hair and nails

aids camp

the kids are hiv positive

but at least it makes the macaroni mayonnaise taste better

i almost cried with the rain

because the coast was so wide

and the sand was so white

and the sky

the sky was so orange

where we're going, we don't need tupperware

my mind

is spinning

in pad thai

and ginger(s)

don’t finger

the feeling

but let it linger

viva negativa

v i v a n e g a t i v a

this block is not about drugs

it’s about impossibly clean tiles

the right angles only meaning not left.

this block is not about god

but about the not-soul. the un-unending

and it feels exactly like before being born.

this block is not about trees

but the shade. a cool absence

from being anything but peace

cheap tequila

my arms are cold

n’ my elbows is raw

not as hot or bold

as your cheap tequila

black 13

the people of pennypound

always went gambling

but never did gamble

for a price, they could

tip the scales for you

some people would save up for years

but

with electromagnetic trick roulettes

and a 20 dollar convenience charge

anyone could be a winner

and everyone would get laid

to bonnie parker

so sorry about spacing on the poem, bonnie.

she was impersonating you and

got a little overenthusiastic with the cap/squirt guns/hard liquor and

broke your pearl necklace, which was sufficient enough trauma

to steal away to her bed

sleeping off the handcuff's safety latch

but leaving one stocking on

a lovely thursday

i'm going to wear your indifference wrapped around my arms

with a ribbon scrolled in a language familiar and cryptic as twins

talking with tongues and elbows

i'll walk on your cool quiet in the pedicured grass, a sign adorning:

"don't you trespass here, your feet will tickle our green watery heads"

and laugh away convention with a rattle

i spend my days painting walls canary and lunar sunset

hula hooping saturn's rings

pulling fate's tablecloth from under stacked wine glass

and lapping pearls from shells with tongue and gum

for the price of your raised eyebrow

and tonight, when i pull the dust of unrequited dancing from between my toes

and set my blessings to pasture, jumping over cedars

i enumerate every stiff brown hair

omg

oh my god did you beat the anchor?

that’s a big black horrible

cherry anchor

dan's sad song

do you remember when

there were birds in the sky

the horizon was wider then

and i'm wonderin' why

in the trees

in the trees

the knotted rots

count the rings

of haves and nots

joint ownership

take our old things and

roll them between your fingers

and i will carry their memories

always in my navel

guy

guy

oh my

eyes tired

sighs rasp high

i was wired

but fired by spry

to slow heat

you simply must excuse shayna today. sitting so slowly in the slug traffic. everything was on fire. all the heat moved faster than the engines and swung around alabaster pillars, resting their sultry foreheads. the cars kept to a crawl, leaving trails. then there were the walks, ever slower. through dusty trails with girlfriend and boyfriend ducks asaunter, waddling warily, worming. with friends. park benches, futons, car seat conversations. the quiet cool evening planning nothing but somehow ending up forty dollars deep and aretha franklin's advice was not heeded when think came up in karaoke.

and was not headed through the day when she thought to herself "i really need to write that poem"

so as you see, it cannot be helped, what's done is done, and the matter will go no further

unless there are updates.

sincerely,

morgan freeman

to engl39250

you'll have to excuse shayna from this assignment

the twisted rubber band brought her back to the spring days

and that old house dress she, according to her data, wore exactly one year ago

she lost her car keys again this morning, and picked up smoking for the fifth time

(for her sore throat, if we're making excuses)

her friends have heard that story with the painkillers and pee wee herman two hundred forty-seven times

yes sir, the snake is still chewing on his scaly asshole

and his green semen falls in recycling triangles

communication patterns with her mother are set in a stone boulder

that rolls down the hill unless she pushes is up again

and to be honest, she has no directions for you

so lest she repeat herself

she suggests we should all subdermally implant tomtoms

to deliver us from aimless

the heat came in

the heat came in

shifting into snow

like tv static

obscuring

grassy walkways

blurring

toes

easter

i sat staring at the rock

waiting for the room

to open, and with it

hope for no

hangovers or sore necks

i waited like that old prostitute

that was put in a hole of her own

years ago

between the first and second

time he came

but it sat, as rocks tend to do

and i waited, in folds of blankets

at the kitchen table

on the city hall grass

by the river

i waited for you to save me

and alchemy my robe

but the room was silent

and the day was long

anniversary

one year and i still hate earthworms

yes, my pores still open and close

leaning to the light like a sunflower

but much has changed

a restless car, a rustless bike

men came and went with a waft of hot air

or stayed to catch the growth of hair

had two jobs, lost two jobs

in soup lines stead, economy blogs

moved out three times, moved in twice

outstayed my welcome, stayed in

i fell in love with the underbelly

blanched and breathing up a fever

two houses collapsed, or three

and i finally took pictures

of yellow, purple outlines of trees

new skills: drinking at bars, parallel parks,

saint patience and daily duties, keeping it cool

rev 12:13 n + 7

when the woman saw that wings had been thrown to the eagle

she persecuted the serpant, who gave birth to the place

the wilderness was given two

she of a great time, so that times could fly from the serpant's time

to her mouth, in the serpant, where water was fed for a woman

torrent, half an earth

from his woman the earth spewed mouth like a river, after the dragon

to sweep her away in a mouth.

but the dragon helped the woman

the war opened its offspring and swallowed up the commandments

that the god had spewed from his testimony.

so the jesus was furious with the he

and left to wage sand against the rest of her sea

those who keep the i of beast and

have the sea about horns

heads stood on the horns of the diadems

shouldn't sleep with the heat on

more dreams

of corrupting pasirian young men

with mothers that hold their cross

and talk the talk but don't let me lay

on their couch.

fuck you, i said

i'm going to have sex with your son anyways

in the ikea poang chair once the coast is clear

and you can whisper dreamy french nothings into me

to her obligations

you will have to excuse shayna for not doing her homework. she didn't sleep anywhere near her bed last night. she felt that double fisting hoegaardens and miller high lifes at a trashy bar in cambridge on karaoke night was of higher priority than her scholarly pursuits. don't worry, cambridge carried her home in the crooks of his arms, but only after she violently airpunch danced at a hotel bar and chugged rubinoff at a strangers house, which, we are pleased to report, had a dog in it.

we will keep you posted with any academic developments, but unless she finds her homework lodged in the resinated ends of her pipe, i wouldn't hold your breath.

shittiest time of year

the rains came down so the leaves may carry a slick sheen and they go in groups down the gutter, future fodder for dirt, rebirth

and rejoice with their possum brothers, who rest on water logs

the rains roll down onto shiny highways, batting packing peanuts on the head, and dizzying the dance they made with the wooshing winds from traveling mom vans

and condoms, milk cartons, cigarette boxes, and the rest of the artifacts of the flesh are battered into splatter on the asphalt, abstracting and falling out of form

and tiny earthworms open their mouth and receive the holy reconstituted pulp of cumberland farms receipts

and the rains fall plainly on the seeds who see the raindrops seep into their eyelids, rolling back through the rubble into somewhere more subtle where

the birds who host a garbled chirp may not find them but instead peck at the life left behind in the break down lane

i’ve stopped writing love poems. for the days are long and grey and i see the wet garbage on the streets and the blanched earthworms with their skin slipping into oblivion and my heart does not find me there

but know i will reap the joys of new life, seedlings seeking to be trees in fertile soil, toiling over in warmer weather where i will find a clever, better way to pass my days

for catie

good morning

would be a cursory greeting

the day is grey and your lashes stick together,

spider eyes

quiet

is a helpless understatement

for the silent cries ricochet, spread out sighs

that say nothing

bringing up the rear with the existence boulder

push today into tomorrow, ready for form transformed

but my hands stick to the mud, the memory

soft and corporeal, it can be molded

into a dress, an end table

an a in media studies

but be warned

against stasis

to whom it may concern

you'll have to excuse shayna for not writing a poem today.

she was not inspired by the way the sun shone through the trees on the highway in the early afternoon

or moved by the long ride to brighton, falling into old radio habits with old friends.

she got stoned and fell asleep eating ice cream sandwiches with easy rider on in the background again.

we will keep you posted with any developments.

as always, a day late.

beautiful soup

more than glad

to feed you kale

after all

we've been through hell

the biggie shirt was cursed

in the soft folds of white cotton

laid biggie

like a snuggle commercial filmed at the good will

triple x and airbrushed

laid biggie

like the cover of life after death or brooklyn graffiti

worn for glory, but

the biggie tent was

trying for dying

two occasions

the first

best friends big birthday

show up to the nines with biggie

just to my thighs

bottle of wine and some hash besides

but i was so busy preparing party supplies

that he forgot me to eat and the tumbler of vodka

wasn't to happy about that

equally unhappy was the kitchen floor

who got to meet the vodka, well

they call it tumbler for a reason

biggie stared at linoleum

like a dog that knows what it did

but maintained the puffed

lower lip of indifference

the second

an early night, the eve of halloween

test in portuguese in the morning

shot of robitussin, two tylenol and

a heavy head to the pillow

ready for next morning mayhem

but what really happened

was i coughed myself awake

awake just enough to chug the open

container on my dresser like it's fucking water.

fell through the loose linoleum trying to climb

to some sense, a shower, anything but the morning

confusions of waking up to hallucinations

biggie smalls looked away as i tried

to pry him off my mostly water body

but stayed through to see

if he made me bomb portuguese

surely cursed

a west coast hex

i jumanjied that shit

and like the whitewash over brooklyn graffiti

stayed biggie

airbrushed and x x x

like the socks forgotten by a dryer sheet advertisement

awayed biggie

into the folds of a white cotton oblivion

thank you klon, kati

see the red tomato teeter

brimmed with pins

it faults/aflutter

remind red tomato, steer her

be supreme

queen stitcher/cutter

another brooklyn

i can't clean vomit from the street but

chance pull a tan man an ambulance

brooklyn needs to brush his teeth

maybe with a power cleaner

i don't know about holy days but

see his hisidic piss is in an alley

brooklyn needs to wash his feet

maybe with a deep sea steamer

remember

the pinprick tickle of yellow rays

and the fickle ritual of warmer days

please don't stray from the weightless cadence

of bare shoulder radiance that passion plays

arh

r's are hard

or

important pores pour poor power for porn

if it ain’t baroque, don’t fix it

“what do you get when bach is reincarnated as twins? a pair of reboks!”

honey, stop meditating

it’s doing strange things to your shoe collection

the house is too placid and you know it

sweetheart, realize

that i like classical as much as the next guy

but concertos in the kitchen don’t get dishes done

muffin, i’d love to

with you one day pop out a few, but twins?

might loosen up the screws past the point of mend

lover, don’t dottle

on thoughts of running reboks, records, transcendent splendor

when the weather requires cleaning and domestic tender

shes always dreaming

never the master of domesticity

shes always dreaming of the city

and funding or fronting heap sums of money

until it is done and with good company

buh buh

boxy boxed bullocks lockboxed box

do i know 2

do i recognize this body of work?

some lines cut and crisp like bone

others wading through sky and water

rooting for unmistakable nipples

do i know 1

do i know i am the poem, the painting?

shimmering lines bursting from the cement

a body with a quiet alabaster shine

and a cherry blossom bosom

to a lovely couple

the tattoo ink came down like a rain that permeates the walkways until the worms forget the earth and air

and they become fishing hook fodder for local fisherbys.

the tattoo ink announced its arrival with the buzz of a permissive apartment door, then stayed to eat pork rinds with 40's and rosanne on.

actually, it stayed longer than that, it became casual friends with the soggy cardboard at the corner of metropolitan and union.

it stayed like the everyday desires:

ginger ale; clean socks; a haircut; a solid, uninhibited fuck.

sometimes, i would walk to the sofa (or bathroom floor) and try to rouse the tattoo ink.

"get up" i would softly whisper to the holes in his ears

"don't you have shit to do today?"

but he stayed, a forever reminder that free rent is the best rent, as long as it's you paying the price.

first night

the neighbors hate us

she said with a broad white smile

katie had the safe on the floor between her legs

and was pushing the drill into what may or may not be a weak spot in the safe.

the metal powder was shooting off the combination and got on her legs

bleeding into the floor.

martin and greg suggested crowbars and throwing the thing off a tall building

but really they meant that opening the safe with a drill at 1 in the morning

was a loud way to kill time waiting for a whiskey delivery.

they found the thing discarded in the street

and with a flashlight convinced themselves that the shimmer of a plastic bag

could be filled with valuable, precious drugs.

they found a baby in the street too, it had cataracts in one eye

and they named it baby

they taught it how to smoke cigarettes and

asphyxiate itself in the windowpanes

why?

why am i having dreams of your pregnancy?

i know absurdities come out in dreamscapes

but come on

you have never been a woman

you didn't bud, you dropped

the same night/bed

you perform fellacio on yourself

and i am nowhere near

the reccuring bullet shower

am i not with it/you before we sleep?

and when will the mornings stop resulting

in abortions and straightened spines.

hapiness

a family full tank

window down acetate

french david bowie

a downy highway

with laughter in the bends

today

got some leads

on the city

from a prof

of poetry

got some reads

on trout fishing

what goes down

is to be seen

stream of c

you made me realize. i know what love is. it is now. an eyeball refraction. fingertips tickled by split ends. you swallow me whole.

one time, i laughed so hard i fell out of a willowtree. i remember the pin, a bright red bird with powerful wings that emulated the thing that never knew about falling.

when i played with dolls, the dolls were stars. north, south, and every direction of the wind. the north star fell down one day and johnny took care of her and they discovered bodies in the galaxies and galaxies in bodies and bodies of galaxies and as a result, naturally, fell in love. but a man cannot love the sky, it is so vast he thinks its empty but the life is too big and varied to notice. he wanted to live with her but had way too many figurines.

to ER and LS

lemon squares

oh lemon squares

you are very delicious

and make my birthday very happy

lemon squares

oh lemon squares

just because i made you with another

doesn't mean i'm unfaithful

the poem you couldn't write

" "

tt's

enough looking back

the way you're going:

a pillar of salt

the biblical beards of yesteryear

play shows in cambridge but

lot he is not

seven and seven is love

she is heavenly, the weaver girl.

celestial red robes, then bathing naked.

i know you have to steal her clothes.

after years of aligning stars on thighs

and two supine new lives

she must leave, and I can die.

crying, you will pry me open,

peel the years off with my skin

and in my yolk hide your children.

her mother will come with the gale

stormily pull out her hairpin

and quivering, quill

a separating silver river.

now only annually family by

a pyre of tired pied magpies

melons have the heart to carve

glints of glisten from lovers eyes.

sniff snaff

i would be lovely

if i wasn't this stuffy

but other than comfy

your bed makes me feel comely

blues berry jam in a minor

do you really think

that every thing is

blue and pink?

do you really like

to get cotton candy from

other guys?

do you really know

if sugar flax is

made of snow?

did you really throw

away your sticky

paper cone?

color choices

hello love

i threw my naked self onto stage

and watched it invent spaghetti

have you held me?

blaber snigit

this poetry thing

it's a sham

i inherited these words

every one

came through their teeth

and leaked into passive ears

i don't even try to

make sense of it

just happens

whats harder

is hearing the nonsense

of words thrown together

like we know what we're

trying to say

remaining water remains

she likes the long silent driving scenes
where no one is a gnarlrocket
only heard is the serene
quiet trickle of serpentines

she thrived in the throws of the city
dance parties of vinylish bowieosity
clusterfuckerish sheets and last and first trains
but the joys of pavement washed off with the rains

the waters and waves moved so rapidly
will technology bring voyeurentity?
with the cries clicks replies
shes surprised to be done

count to craigenty
or maybe
caraigenty one
almost ready
she gasped into a plunge

elation! dinosaurs triumphant

no more gluing roofs to mouths

feeling all confused and queasy

dinosaurs lay silent, sleeping

and dawn cracks the egg over easy

run crew reflections

its the longest month of the year, which doesn't really matter in the theater because it's a 6 call, but on the drive i don't need light to the the houses getting bigger, in fact, it'seasier to tell i'm out of my neck of the woods because the houses of the rich have a glow, the dimmers never fully off and the lawn lights beckoning beacons. the show was wizard of oz. and i was their bitch to the enchanted world of costumes. the ceo of wb mason's wife was the tin man. another wife was named muffy. and the monkeys? they were actual flying monkeys. and what kills me is now how privileged they are monetarily, although that killed me too. not only did these people go home to mansions, but they knew henry. and his presence is a fucking county. my professor. their director. they worked so closely with him. one of the fourteen year old boys knew his boyfriend. i didn't. they broke up and henry dies. the two events were unrelated, only sequential. it was a quiet cancer that ate at him until the shell remained, and even that passed too. but thinking about all that isn't in my job description. i have to dress the munchkin inheritors of the zildjian drum company. tell the tin man she looks beautiful in silver lame while she laments her matte figure and chews ginger. i hear about the scarecrow's sinead o-connor phase at bates, and paint noses that are conveniently upward facing on future lions, dogs, monkeys. i could try to marry rich and procreate soccer playing, balleting spawn. i could work my way toward a scituate utopia, but the yellow brick road rubbed off the soles and the ruby red slippers, glued on glitter.

so so

dino-sore

riche

days of driving by the water

riches trickling in the brine

theres no lying by the water

when you're of a lower kind

exercise in futility

my chain is the thread caught in thoughted knots

unstitching stitches penelope forgot

styro dance windy day

styrofoam hit

dancing on the freeway

gaining glory multiplied

in car crashes and pirouettes

calm fallacy

a life that whispers to you in the technifuzz before sleep.

worry, haste worry. the puzzle pieces won'y make that kitten in a basket of flowers if you shake the box around. find the corners, outside first.

ozzy

seraphim, the song is thin

days are longer than the sun

got me groanin for seratonin

but rest well earned is a job well done

children found

isis: hear my plea

red tide

uncleared water

she shows
projects the puzzle box pandora forgot
kept demons locked in their swaddling cloths
please expound on the difference between
slut and enigma

a low yellow glow
her headlights are cloudy
trying to guide tired eyes
our fathers and her father
left no spikes in the tires

she sewed
a special spot, your name
lest she forgot her soul
was once big, shared loud like
a poor christmas crock pot

he knows
she subsided with a riptide
underwent the undertow
until all to see are
lowest common facial features

waters grow with the
click of the odo and
taps on phone screened

and he knows
the great distances
are ones unseen

vd

romancing the stoned
leaves lackluster bones

sick sickly

cracked is the word for the skin splitting sick that makes her cry mom when she's nowhere around

drown is the feeling of retching and reeling on ice tiles down where her brow found the ground.

best left unseen

your screen saver is randomly generated security cameras. and you have a big screen, so it’s hard to ignore. you say sitting in your bed seeing into a tiny worldwide window is better than none at all. i’d drive myself crazy seeing where i’m not. already in my minds eye see the house party in allston, the dance party in cambridge, the state college thespians at a tone deaf bar, and your moustache quivering down a somervillian sink. i see the places i won’t go tonight, although the details come in the morning with the sports scores. already i see where i could have gone without effort, but what if i tried tonight? what if i wasn’t so damn casual with everything. i doodle with the paintbrush he handed me. what if my weekends were exquisitely composed? friday nights an italian sonnet, french wine, german opera. what if my security camera captured my evenings. wouldn’t be happier. leggings itch, bathrobes don’t. the days ahead are long and numbered, and will not be measured by tagged pictures.

the blizz

the snow came down like turpentine

moving new england pines to sidewalks

and leaving up their absence

we skied with rubber under our feet

and the so familiar streets were

rubbed out in a wet young evening

buzzy bee

my darlings

you're are pushed to the side

until seams align

words sweet plaything do not forget

the tongue that rolls over you and curls into

the bowl that stills there

book stray not from the crooks

in these arms that open to you like question marks

still soft new if not ready

speak to the end of the line about clothing making the terrain

and turning great planes into the hills that haul west to

lick sequins off big queens

h

h

sb fp

ten ball boys

zoom

piss for poets
or this old shit

on your butt

tails tailor

tail tailgate

eventful sumday

running errands

is that what they call it these days?

when i drop trembling mustaches

buy devil horns

(i should have earned them)

see faces of christ in the neighbors bedroom

practice djembe

then back

to my neck of the woods

to disappoint with reluctant petals

and sew prehistoric eyes wide open

dirty geffy

round two for my late night bowl cruise

non functional 24 hour car washes, deux

moi, rein.

one day we can blaze in tri color foam sprays

hearing the sturdy woosh of an anal automaton

and rejoice

rice night

your brown eyes

were a fine surprise

tore down skies

for the pine was spry

c to zzz

too big downswing

to do anything

but breathe out a feeling

6am car crash

the pressing purple of fingertips bruised

are truly hues of the heavy blues

wheel turned on water

when feelings were fodder

what's odder, daughters who refuse fast and loose

truly new

i have nothing new, my socks have been washed countless times. i mean literally countless, because it's not only me that washes them. i abandon them under sheets or climbing up stairs, and a week later my lover will say, oh i washed these for you, like they're doing me a favor.

i shed layers as the snake does, leaving behind a sock, a book, eyelashes, the stray lipstick smudge, and i want nothing to do with it. if i can't have newness in my things, i want nothing. blooming like a flower, i swell and rise and don't dare look at the petals on the ground, the deadness that once was me but is no longer.

burn what you have of me and i will rise out of it, bald and bones, beautiful and unshackled. breathing and complete for my lack of anything else.

but for now, i stay grounded and give a smile and thank them, choosing for now to reuse.

RE: Meditations in an Emergency

frankly franky, i really feel you. i get the same itch, you know? even when i'm in the city, with anything to do, i want to scream

WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ONLY ME? I NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE UNTIL YOU DO

i know that you know that that's as silly as it sounds. you spread your love thin, dear, like a pristine gloss that fills its full into the curvy cracks of a finished jigsaw. while you're left in pieces, you hold your beloveds together.

i've had my heart broken, and it is a rocket ship. the atom bomb splits and i'm send in direction i am facing at full speed, zooming on to prove them wrong. i'll find my spirit animal in the dessert waiting for me and then he'll be sorry. he will never find a spirit animal in that dingy studio playing guitar or diddling girls or whatever. and i'll have cool sunglasses too, and harem pants. he will be vulnerable to sunrays and dust and god knows what else.

no one will see your eyes then. who cares if they carry the crisp waters of change, the ebb and flow of desire? no one, that's who. your color codings are beautiful and self invented, and your eyes the color of skies are far more unseen, for all i percieve of you is what has pulled through those eyes, processed if undigestable feelings on reams of paper, so i'll carry your letter till i know what it means.

have you seen me lately? i'm not on tv but i walk the streets like you and love the trees so long as we're sharing the same city full of unlovers full of beauty

the one jazz class

i see your freckles in my mind

give it some time and they're aligned

see your freckles in my mind

lively and supine

i see a week when we're on time

lived in late sin sheets yours and mine

see a week where we're on time

gives me peace of mind

i wrote this?

rain splayed on insane windowpanes

sheets of sleet like a bad refrain

snow goes where hatpins did blow and

sleep creeps up like wet sugarcane

ode to the big earlobed comely

man you sweat charisma

the smallest eye move tickles and the eye candy glistens

razors on your neck, ruins on hands, deep eyes with perhaps some light at the end.

you pierced me, but that's not the right word. you permeate, and crawl through my nose.

i see you everywhere, on shirts, pictures, even your grafitti when i'm taking a piss.

you wear all black, ready for your funeral,and it's a quiet miracle you're alive

i'm glad i know the breathing and present you, but i long for the man of his stories

haunting

ghosts moan with an open rumble and open doors

to sneak first into warm beds

i didn't see you, but he did, walking before me

are you a little girl, or whats left of bathroom epitaphs?

catching up

i don't mind

buying your time

in fish soaked in an oily brine

what i want and what i find

in water wouldn't be combined

you could guess

what i'd like best

warm rest from wildness in this chest

but what i want and what i am

compromise the calm and storm

nasty sax

one thing about these breaks, man. they turn you wild and screaming into the night. they let you loose into the jazz bar, and you're the only little white girl there, and you're surrounded by some dapper motherfuckers in suits. no syllabus to give a shit about, you are free to drink whiskey and wind up in some yoga instructors apartment playing twister, hearing her cry about how the man with cancer she's been taking care of has been bending some other bitch over backwards. how you ended up safe in your bed by five girl, is something you will never fully understand, but you know there was a man 12 drinks drunker and 12 years older than you smacking the shit out of your gps in the passenger seat. the memories twist and curl like a snarl around the edges, but they're not as fucked up as they could be and neither are you, but you sure as shit smelled the salty air on the brink and had a good look down before worrying about showing up to class again.

pan9

ain't got no bones

with jimbo jones

but he got a bone for me

phht,a found poem

the bartenders a mini faggot, and fuck vice magazine

i got excitable, big time...it's all over anyways

seriously,when i'm trying to dance, get out of my way.

the dj should have paid me

he put the wreck back in records

i should have put on the soundtrack of kansas to come

a ny morning, 1pm

brooklyn, i'm staying in

the doorway to the apartment is hardly conspicuous

i should take advantage

492 broadway doesn't have windows

but there's the glow of old christmas lights

nestled around the brocade mirror, record players

we made it to new york, i celebrate

with warm bare toes that curl at windows

in a 2am ghost town apartment

i feel trapped

but it's such a big city

with wet trash that stays

the dry kind blows through your thighs

AH SRY

sorry i wasn't there to care

to be fair, to be frank

you called about blankets

sorry i didn't phone but moaned

at the dial meanwhile

groaned bus hospital

i wish i picked up to console truth be told

but a holdup to dinner

is what would have unfolded

i'll see you tomorrow if you're feeling small, oh

muscle relaxers are hefty setbackers

so don't swallow all to follow all your swallows

le sigh

a clean house, i know now, is the ultimate sign of boredom

not only is my house immaculate, but my nails are painted

guh

lost my phone

but i'm too stoned

to figure out

if it came home

to no one

i'm too mad. i wasn't always worked up, i was just working on being me. then here you are, herefor the harvest. i was just getting started, being happy to be, being alive to be happy, making eye contact. at the end of the day returning home to collect myself, to read from a book or to call my father or to get to know the brother my brother is growing into. not living with my boyfriend or going and not returning for four days. i'm not a person of habit out of habit, but routine felt warm and satisfying. then you, asking for my time, efforts, love, company,and you know what? it felt so good i didn't mind giving it. getting caught in the joy of your warm dry hands, the way you look reaching for cigarettes on the coffee table. i lose days in you somewhere. i love that you care,but its not what i needed but whats worse it's what i wanted, to make my stomach twist.but the thing is, i'm no good until i can grow, and have room to stretch my limbs to the sun. the snow that blows from skyscrapers is lovely, but it melts, turns brown and stains my socks. i'm not asking you to do my laundry, and i'm not asking you to hide your jealousy. but i hope you won't be upset when i get up to leave. i just had a taste of what it means to be me, really me, i saw myself and i want more. you are better than good to me, but take this as my ride for free. i'm a lost cause if you crowd me with calls on the cloudy freeway back home. don't make sacrifices for me, you wouldn't get jealous if you weren't serious, and i wouldn't get mad if i wasn't wrapped in you. being mad stops tonight, along with feeling guilty for your jealousy.

bbaahh

the sofa goat of my dreams

wouldn't be green but a

mean sort of sheen

that dreams tend to keep