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

dog v skunk no one wins

midnight, the chow black lab, learns life lessons like
skunks spray stink and
people push putrid pups
thrown baking soda and water from a distance
white powder took root in black fur
with the smell as well
she could have fooled anyone

saturdays poem uh oh

(i will publish this poem when i find it)

lynne is in

when you enter
standard retail salutations
face is backlit
lighting cover
silence gleans a twice once over
i see you for who you are
long lost friend jersey swallowed
you see me in a hideous floral frock
i don out of wan

egg scramble ramble

alright police
i know running full speed
to the station is sketch
but you best believe
that i'm under duress
and it ain't cause of weed
its a chore i detest
theres some eggs that i need
ima done do dis deed
so is in your best interest
to let me go please!

i omit the d in vieogamin

i wonder if our error is in glorifying terror
all the pixelated soldiers getting shot at from our server
trigger clicks and grainy knifes in computerized lives
forever gamers never know the value of good weather

melee malaise

ah, glorious quincy center
home of junkies with sweatpants too tight
and crazies with stretchpants, fitting fifty pounds ago
only this afternoon is different, a flock of normals
watch two fire engines outside their place of work
firefighters do roughly nothing at a routine firedrill
nevertheless, they watch, back to the freaks
and i watch them watch
coming late, hoping for carnage
but there is none so i walk home
and run straight until i plunge into the waters of blue oblivion.

hot pink nylon makes me smile

dog escape
pool goan break
in stride i take
setbacks of late

baby, you key
to sanity
specially trained
in depravity

ansty dans pantsy

my body screams for change
not like a u turn or underwear
but the change that happens with the rivers of consciousness course
little pebbles shift, and bit by bit, removing grit
i clear pathways to clean rooms
and nights wrapped tight in simple sheets

not so hot

it’s july but it’s overcast and i’m running cold.
you run hot.
my arms tan, you say, but the rest of you fucking burns.
you’re a smouldering flame, but easily squelched by warm morning showers that estinguish the chills in my elbows
when i put up my arms as if i’m relaxing

pack rat book worm

i collect chaos, along with dusty vintage feathers, wrinkles, improbable stains, and the endless absence of everyday effects.
but not with this book. it is my health class egg shell with an evaluation at the end.
any speck of dust a barely damp towel inspects.
i find clean plastic bags to protect its words against the elements of work and transit.
when i’m done we will see the anal intellect i can be.

jason anderson tells It

singing stomping, yelling in pitch and out of it
beards and flannel like you wouldn’t believe
but all of us genuine for one second
hearing and believing what you say on stage
about this moment and the rest of what we have
and how it may not be much, right now is time to live
so drop your brows and forget the ambulance and go woah woah woah

domestic tornado

forever wanting more
i’m the tub with the leaky drain plug
so close to a warm bath
if i could learn to keep my holes shut

sometimes i got nothin

yesterday was a do nothing day
of sound and fury, and if it signified anything
the meaning slipped through my hands like sand

yesterday was a good for nothing day
with crests and valleys and crashes like waves
that brought me to warm pink sheets and a pristine book

yesterday left me with nothing to say
about wet garbage and corvettes blaring MJ
or deals that make you reel
but i feel tomorrow, and tomorrow’s okay

classic shock

upstairs i straighten and jimmy h encourages
from the grooves in some blackass vinyl

his face stares from cardboard, perplexed
no doubt by his disembodied voice

in the corner of the cover a possessive s-j-c
it was once my fathers but belongs now to me

when side one is done, i don’t live today
i hear jeff m downstairs helping get dishes done

to slapping strings and hoarse throat notes
i think of genes and leaves of trees, all one

oooh. AHHH

colored bursts for america
facilitate the need to scream
sounding whitman's barbaric yawp,
mothers take after their children
and both shriek into each other
moving along a summer zephyr

ungodly tired

double crossed eyes
sight betrayed
my cognitive map
has a flight delay

jonesin for phone sin

a girl of the modern age
i feel squeamish unplugged
unleashed, removed from the confines of communication
if i can't hold on to your voice - transcribed, electronic
if i can't feel the fuzz of your new timbre, warming touch tones
my ear alive with radioactive fervor
then my body lies stagnant
unsure of what to do when you can't get through

nervous novice

pins, hot fingers
lightly graze my cheek
and lingers
until the warm glow grows,
goes down my nose
praying for snow
or a cool wind to blow

wet lunch

it's been a long time since a rain like this
slopes in the old cambridge roads
make primordial pools
shimmered explosions from fat fast drops
that fall from fickle heavens

crowds run, afraid but more alive
their hair returning to its natural state, protesting sprays

to her master going to bed*

come sir, come all, who am i to defy

til i'm favored, by favors i abide

oh my america, how did you know

destiny manifest would help your growth

unzip yourself, for all your pantomimes

suggest that you can't wait long lengths of time

subdued, submerged in entertainment passive

numbs me: i see your glory, it is massive

with lighted screens as my own anesthetic

freedom i can deep throat, all apathetic



* based on a lovely poem by John Donne, found here!

suicide schmooicide

i remember your skeleton knuckles
black blown out lines
from heated hated prison hands
and shudder seeing your name

i remember your eyes that pierce
your self pierced septum
fierce as a hearse
14 gauges of metal
shoved through with cool momentum

the pop of skin from left to right
tensions breaking, blood blooming
on the day we both saw, nose raw
would be enough for most

malcontent, you slit your throat
calmly, like a shave
who found you exposed, i don't know
but they sure as shit put you away

your mind goes to the darkest places
racing to decay
i want to gather every mote
before you slip, lose your grip
and break like a china vase

hard morning

when I wake up, it's in a children's room
with rich purples and pristine whites and flowers flowers flowers.

pictures of them; dried framed ones; painted and stickered on walls; painted on paper then stuck on walls.
pom poms pinks greens blues.

i run my fingers through my hair and discover some wrapped in embroidery floss with a plastic bead, saying “s”.
also notice i'm wearing jenna's sweatpants, then pick plastic tape off my arms, pull plastic bags from bracups.

feel my head tighten and my stomach turn and my mouth smack with the dry thickness of a sunday morning in a room that is not mine in a house full of sleeping friends that are.

tired platform shoes/stations

Waiting for public transit
i sit next to a homeless man,
talking to a street performer,
playing spainish guitar.

He talks nonsense to him closely,
about space and war.
He plays, looking forward
with wide glass eyes.

The man loses interest in the musician and turns to me.
i tell myself to look at him
so i can hear what he says,
so i know what to write.

The burrito i’m eating is so poorly made
that i must perform cunnilingus on it -
eating it outright.
I hear about boys and girls on posters, i think -

My eyes unfocused, downcast.
He gathers his bags of newspapers,
but he does not wipe the phlegm from the corners of his lips
and i see his engorged left calf as he walks away.

mikey likes it

losing cigarettes in the people pack
while the hordes swarm
city hall dances too, swirling lights
the people gathered for eva's death
but then they knew not how to moondance
tonight, big haired girls stood smiling
limp plaid shirt men swung their bones around
and the city swayed with a long lost pop

retrieving records, rompers

there you were
and there i was
looking up
at your face illuminated
then not
and again and again like benevolent waves
backlit then apparition
always moving forward.

in the tedious, sporadically lit hallway
you rolled me past doors
that hide the precious and worthless
i look at you, feeling small
like a baby in a shopping cart
then we make all the faces we can
with our tongues and cheeks and eyes

pull the trigger

billy mays, a bearded dream
wants to sell me oxyclean
in a haze, I buy the stuff
tough on bluffs
is the washing machine

go go china

oh lord am i busy
learning about china
dissension hasn't caught on there yet, you know
the tallest nail gets hammered down

when they take over
you better burn your anarchist poetry
and say yes sir yes what can i do, memorize
you'll get the hang of it, we'll harmonize happily

oh oh castro

they televised your trial, you grew as viewers knew
locked you up, then to mexico you go
batiste, the capitaliste
trekked to the mighty mexican mountains
and nipped at the buds of revolution
but the weed of want is strong
and mud ate the machines of war.

if john glenn wayne
gleaned a skyburst
and waned with the moon
you’d be to blame

oh star spangled country
why did we try
to spray LSD on this guy?
or powder the mans feet
to make his beard retreat?
then it didn’t work when
they poisoned smokes and pens

so throw the proof away, CIA
and let Fidel be true today
the doves came to his shoulders
and they are here to stay

you know,

selling antiques is like selling street drugs
and selling your teats is like being in love
you have merchandise, and they pay the price
sure somebody's won. you'll know who when you're done
but it works like the roll of the dice.

last train, the forevermobile

end of the week
end of the line
and thats how it feels

tired feet
head heavy
and buzzing with the beat of the T

loud townies
yell to angry hollow metal
about failure


eyes like holiday marbles
they choke and scream on phones

then the blue voice of the baby boom
says they must leave soon

no rest for the wicked

late night experiments
make work hard
and naps easy

seafoam green discs
slip from under my skin
and into my room shimmering,spinning
flickering like an old projector

i wrapped myself in matts warm down
and you talked about detox,massages,lesbians,court dates
your voice fast, strong, needing something
the cartoon lines blown out and blurry

rolling my eyes to the sky
i set my alarm to four hours from now
anticipate a difficult and glorious shower
and drink down my tap

you will later take me
to draw circles of sleep
around tired eyelids

to jeffery amadaeus

soggy remains
after the rains
crows come round
adown on the grains

therapeudic sunday

i think
that, um
i’m getting
better, slowly
eating with family
and not wanting more
loving and talking at work
or too busy with work to chatter
nights are when i see some friends
not enough to be so reckless and messy
but enough to keep in touch and feel loved
i pet midnight on the head and plan out my day
then clean sean's bathroom and go antiquing for iron
or to diners where staff count change in lieu of filling cups
then, some red light racing high school boys in big white pickups
i hate to say it but i think i'm happy with it all and having some fun

the walk back, the ride home

i get just enough time in harvard square to keep me sane. the homeless vets humble and bad beatles covers by ponytailed jimmy buffets make me feel the strength of actual creation. i see fashions; ironic, real, incidental, purchased. books in windows, smelling soaps. yoga mats and meatless burgers, paying pretty pennies for strawberry smoothies. starts making me thankful for my humble home.on my way there via rickety red rails there are men that are now women with sneakers and nine west bags, blue haired lesbians with portly moms, the desperate, the tired. beautiful rich young things talk about picking out wedding veils and how homeward bound killed countless puppies in japan. privileged khaki men with button downs unbuttoned, drunk, talking about the value of time. all of this at snowballing volumes, clamoring, clashing, begging for a piece of my precious attention. tomorrow i will remember to charge my ipod.

donning dawn

good morning, mourning

good evening, awning

well-worn's the warning

pawned fondles yield spawning

typewrotwer poem

rivers don't have issues

today
i’m afraid
of the dark waters
and the inner storms

but my helm will not plunge
it will point to the sun
in sleep i await
tomorrow

Making A Great Nursing Environment Together

my father, the metal man
with millions of prickly particles
sometimes in every direction
ambivalent, unsure
sometimes in magnetic fields
he draws toward, assures

today a different magnet stirs
i'm pushed away for unknown days
no suitcase, just me
in my clothes, dirty
from worky
my ass thrown in class

hands shake, directionless
wanting the elements
to turn around and
dry, realign
my horseshoe head

classsssssy

lotus eaters
eating lotuses
with a xanax chaser

i will get old
i won't stay here

nonexistent, noneventful life
in provincial massachusetts
lends itself to chinese dreams

i will learn more
i won't know all

sticky rice
sticking sides
tasty travel tangents

sunday: family, drugs

old friends and too many cigarettes
you’ve gotten big
your little brother graduated
your nephew is going to preschool
your mom is the same, mommin around

i eat a watermelon with a fish knife and a broken fork
tell my little brother skin heads are fucked
not to get jumped like his friend
we smoke a blunt at the sea and skip stones stoned

tried to hit a pile of mud but never did
when he almost got it, i’d give him big flat grey ones as incentive
and saved cool looking ones for myself

no seaglass but there was a dead fish
what if there was the most beautiful piece of seaglass under it anthony quizzed
i still wouldn’t touch it I said
i know myself that well at least
maybe my fears will change with the tide, when we both get high

spectacles spectacle

in these glasses
i am not broken
cracked out
held together with sharpie and tape
like my old glasses

i am queen of the 80's scene
an inverted gender version of the breakfast club
is where i'm the nerd
geeky chic

in these specs
i'm not wrecked
i dont have holes from heels
on toes and balls of feet

i am full of grace
coo! shoes, doves replace
creamy arches, ankles
bangles of lace

i am the five hour steamer

sultry steam seeps into shirts
hawaiian, printed paradise

rehanging, refolding
reworking working.

redolent of earlier eras
where fashion was in fashion
and retail ruled

wet all day

third day, three showers
my first at the ass crack of dawn
with no hot water

i jumped back in bed in a flash
hair had the frothy hum
of two in one

two was after a long, messy sandwich
i grilled at work and ate on the grass
by the bus that I took home

blew drew my bangalangs
and let the wind take care of the rest
sky sprinkled, follicles followed

three was at the very very end
a hot forever shower
that washed it all away

let's pi picasso

dada, baby, i’m so many shapes
crazy eights, cha cha
through the gallery

obtuse but not obscure
acute when minds refined
multiplied demure
when our squares are aligned

chillest past time

picking up habits
concerning picking up
while picking up

jay with an eye for glam
i pick shiny human leftovers
from the earth, beach glass
softened by the ever ebb

short stop at the street corner
then up three stone steps
into the sand, crab carcass
splayed, crunched claws
or whole baby ones, belly up

former sea life is the peril i face
but it’s not like i can wait
for the spare albatross or mallard
to finish picking the shells off

tisseranian, or that one time dan talked

my chest hurts
is it your lovin
or last nights smoke?

drinking warm champagne and weed
that went around and around and around and around and around
in a washing machine

sat on the surface of surf and turf sofas
where three chords is easier than two
but not as easy, dear, as you

family's up

my Grandfather, sitting
in his red and mustard velor track suit
head of the table
in the back of the kitchen
he tells me about skinny dipping in quincy
the black and white cars meant trouble
i thought about my skinny dipping
and how i knocked myself out
head hitting paddle boat paddle
not a right now story, i reckon

dine at ninety nine, party seven
three daughters, all mom hair
Dani, my blonde new bride texan cousin
has discovered my facebook
pictures of what I call getting an education
how are you and sean? she asks
he’s fine he’s fine, I say
building a racecar somewhere
oh she says i’m twenty i say

Papa: the only male, alpha wolf
discovers his third drink
the first spilling on his lap to heavy silence
by the third, loses three twentys to chronic generosity
helping him in the car seat
he whisper yells in my ear
don’t let this long thing happen again!
Denise, lady america fitness, first born
will tuck him in tonight
next to nonni’s nightgowns

if love exists, it hides in you

dammit
old habits
like comfort food
boys that aren’t rude
two beers
in the shower
means I have the power
to say cheers
for memories
of you and me
what we had
what we have
it’s not free
but it's not bad

memorial day isn’t for people that need to forget

with the homeless I sat
and named all the pigeons
but I had no adam
because my task
came after the fall

lazy sunday indeed

my face is melting off today
i know i’ve said that before
but on 3pm this morning
summer still with fontanel
i know truth

i can feel my foundation
and like silly putty on newspaper
it bends and warps the message
until it is nothing
and I start from the ground up
with a grassroots campaign
in consciousness

travelin'

hello again somerville
i missed your gutter punks
with soccer balls for pant seats

somerville, I get you between my toes
overbear me with your heat, noise, cultural clamour
suffocate me, forearms against my head
picking your grit from teeth
wiping your ash from feet
banging my suitcase
up your narrow staircase

somerville
i’m very small
wrap me
hide me
stick me in your hippest closet
or hang me out, dry
droplets of dye
runoff, run off.
flipping into the charles

scenic q town

ah, the formidable walk home
dead people in bed on the left
people driving on my right
mobile, presumably not dead
and looking at shayna's shortest skirt

too hot for cashmere
last night was too cold for just that
limited skins
in the baby blue suit case
gives me shivers

catching up

hate incarnate penetrating
whole days spent anticipating
writhing, cringing, lamenting tormenting

playing with the whitest fire
never knowing when I burn
leave marks in me, just you can see

mottephobia

moths fly everywhere
striking fear, such
unpredictable
flight patterns

needing nothing

kissing the skin
with wings for eyelashes

wanting more

transient caterpillar
that has a helped escape
remains weak, unable to break through
and expires in a cracked chrysalis

mayday

I'm chipped away
stripped
today
I start new

pink and vulnerable
two trim travel bags
baby blue butter leather
thats where my shit is

records, record player
stickered footlocker
costumes
books
on costumes
in a five by five
for forty

long long long
labyrinthian hallway
for forever
and at the end
the blue door of
memory, material

found poem: my kitten notebook

someone left a poem in my notebook
I think that's great

youre a kiss of sunshine
on my cheek
use the white light
regretting nothing
as my garden angel falls asleep
sadness waits at my door with you
silly creatures of death
in the light they glow
so brisk, before the moth falls
few know your beauty but me
as you waste oxygen, asphyxiating hope
the starving children have pot bellies too

I hope the hidden message in the first letters isn't for me :)

low visibility, high profile fun

a blind eye for three
leave me snake eyes to see
ah, hindsight perceive
steve; he spake sighs blue, free

FML

i'm not real
this isn't happening
i'm a white screen
to you, a black screen.

theres a bug bite on my ass

i’m back, rollin pizza dough
dad upstairs, swatting mosquitoes
bringing the heat, a promotional t-shirt
makes a flat, clean thwap and stains stairwells

N + 7

sorry, avid fans, I'm trying this out. with a paragraph from Miranda July's first book

enjoy.

ahem.

all my everyone
i have had the same hands
its what they call knees
it always unfolds to the same time

except for everyone,
the sex began as it always does
in a low ceilinged consequence
where couples is forced to crawl around
on their hands and beetles.

phonicks, don't phail me now

i misspell a lot of words
i mean, alot

did you know
unrequieted love
is saying quit
and not quiet?
quit, not quiet
lesson learned!

and tommorrow
is shorter than I thought
every single one i have