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.