Elsewhere poems by Bud Smith

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ALSO BY BUD SMITH

Or Something Like That (2012)  Tollbooth (2013)  Everything Neon (2014)  F-250 (2014)

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ELSEWHERE

poems

BUD SMITH

ELSEWHERE

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many poems in this collection have been published previously, some in different versions. Thanks to the following publications, and the editors there: Negative Suck, TheNewerYork, Kleft Jaw, Mojave River Review, Literary Orphans, Hobo Camp, The Idiom. Thanks to Spout, Uno Kudo, Chuck Howe, Robert Vaughan, Meg Tuite, Michael Gillian Maxwell, Heather Dorn, William Seward Bonnie, Mark Brunetti.

Edited by Gno Onesofar

Design by Rae Buleri

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poem  Suggestion #1 blue house, blue shutters   I’m Not In the Phone Book  up and down the sidewalk Hello Weekend Warrior   Artificial Rose  Just Some Things I Found Development  peace and quiet for ten minutes  Weird New Jersey Mickey Mouse Wristwatch the odd afternoon   Red Trans Am   Walking By The Kitchen In Just My Socks   Shannon staring contest tomorrow will be warm   Elsewhere poem written while you cut my hair Astral Projection First Date   Jane is Sleeping  Woodchipper I Was a Teenage Werewolf   Party On Loon  Greatest Hits   Heatwave, Healh and Crimes Suggestion # 2  Some Good Talks Psychic Reading College Try Nighttime at Mallard Park Meetings

Beautiful Maps Somewhere Over St. Nazaire Lakitu Tiger Tank Player 2 insert 25 cents S’rsly we should trip Wish Jet Pack Vague Direction Silver Balloon Both Sleep more references to the moon Trix’s Marina House Burning Down Fire Hall Today I Have No Dirtbike May, February, May  Purple Teeth A note from your Neighbors Doorbell I love Us Mad Max Visits New Jersey New Love Prologue to the US Army   Survival Manual Edition 404 102 parkway divides 103 step away 104 When I’m drunk at PF   Changs with Aaron Dietz 106 Leaving Las Vegas Being Alive Cherry World Dear Pen Pal Technicalities Remain With Disabled Vehicles Help Wanted Details Of The War Amiright? Uptick Your Favorite Song

56 57 61 62 63 64 65 68 69 71 72 73 74 76 77 78 81 86 88 89 91 92 93 97 98 99

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Now Serving # 86 Raw Romance Lemon Rooms Mail Dear Baby Bird Dear Person in the Assembly line Victory Kite  Threat of Rain Violas Keep Playing Side B See Ya Later, Alligator The Marine 1-976-NTHRWLD enough with the technological advances already July 18th, 2006 August 9th Prayer to A Passing Waitress Even Steven Cuervo and Elderflower April 27th Strip Mall, 8am, Sunday Fortunes Check Up At the Record Store Good Luck Side Yard Punk Rock Rituals Poem Written While Searching $2 Cinema Slumping Off New Neighbor Today’s Going Fast Wednesday honeysuckles the zero zero block king kong couldn’t ordinary houses nice to meet you rock Lunch

110  111  114  117  118  119  120  121  122  123  125  126  129

131  132  133  134  135  136  137  137  138  140  141  143  145  147  148  149  151  153  154  155  156  157  160  161  162  163  166

beautiful weather here Couple Days Before memorial Day Getting Ready For Work The Medicine I’m On Got Your Filthy Letter See You Next Tuesday Joybubble Typical Weekday   The Way I Do Dishes The Stairs on 238th Street May, February, May  Front Steps  Blow Stuff Up, Gently  Rachel In Her Swimsuit  terroristic threats,   muttered under breath  Suggestion #4  Dear Vertigo  Point Taken  No Matter  Reading Till I Don’t Fall Asleep  Turn To Stone  Pow Wow  Crooked Painting

168  169  170  171  172  173  175  176  181

Suggestion #1      be nice to everyone  they might be  the Angel of Death  or have an in-ground  swimming pool

who here has officially fucked up?  raise your left hand.

!10

blue house, blue shutters

have left behind   blue petals of life force  have slept on the roof  in my mortal clothes  have been polite to  armies of magician’s doves  slipped off, high  just passing

art levels status  here’s to many more  Tuesday nights  getting plastered

!11

I'm Not In The Phone Book at one point I lost this poem slipped out of my pocket somehow and stopped belonging to me it probably fell on a sidewalk the floor of a public bathroom, a dying lawn  the gravel lot behind the super market  the ER, the laundromat, your sisters room  it could be blowing in a circle   at the end of a culdesac  in a mess of plastic bags and take out menus this poem has either been picked up and maybe by now it’s been unfolded   opened like a suitcase by a girl dying of cancer a gas station attendant with a limp, a child kicking a pine cone (who will read anything lying on the ground)  a man late for work but who likes being late for work  an old woman who still chews gum  a gunless cop, some young mother   carrying her baby like a sandbag, for exercise  not love—any of them will do I hope they keep this poem put it in some pocket of their own  or throw this poem out, or burn it in a barrel at dusk   fuck it, feed it to the nameless dog  make him bark three times and stand on his hind legs I just hope I don't get the poem back.   I don’t like taking  things that don’t belong  to me.

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up and down the sidewalk first I went to the place that sold me my new glasses the girl there melted the plastic with a small torch, and now the glasses fit my face again

next I went to the book store It took me a long time to find the poetry section and when I finally did I found out they wanted $15 for William Carlos Williams and William Carlos Williams is dead I think, so I decided to buy him later, used, online

after that I went to the coffee shop and borrowed a blue pen from the cashier, who said "I need that back, it's my favorite pen" I sat at a shaky table wrote this poem on a brown napkin not that you'd know anymore it's probably re-done, typewritten and printed on whiter paper   things are always in flux, you know?  btw: kept the pen.

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Hello, Weekend Warrior      early in, I began to hiccup  now I've got this crashed-up car  a lone *hic* survivor beer  your melted picture in a locket  least I know don't know  the *hic* true feel of war   my dime, useless in a thunderstorm  slides in this jukebox, fine  in my smoke machine dreams  I arrive early  no black eyes,*hic*   college'd, thinner  richer  Monday morning  the spell pops  I wake  bubble belly'd  broke, dizzy  solemn vow:   if there's nothing better to do  Tuesday night  I'll seek out my center  for now I'll lie here spinning  *hic* not chanting  or 1 - 12 stepping   yesterday got your love letter   from the top *hic*  of the golden mountain  looks nice  *holds breath till blue*  *1/2 the life of a house fly passes*  *exhales*  I'm afraid my kangaroo shoes  aren't good for  rock peak climbing  I know you're up there  lotus flowered, purple robed,  forever crouching  that's cool, I'm in my bathrobe too   !14

instead of visiting  I've tattooed your nickname  across my knuckles  enlightenment *hic* happens for me   when the sun rises above  the yard arm  sometimes the things we try  at 3:31 a.m.  just don't work out.

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artificial rose

did the dishes, now I can die  bought a watermelon big as a pony.  I don't own a motorcycle. or a lawnmower.   a hula hoop. a pickup truck.   a house. or a squirt gun.  jeez this is hard. walking uphill  arms full, objects in sharp piles  everything with its own name, own use  own rules. it slips from my grip, falls  on my bare feet, hooray for everything  I’ll fail. remember. you'll fail.  big funeral, renegade clouds  I’ve lived long enough   in peach flavored hell. how about you?

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Just Some Things I Found

please don’t return from the dead  I’m enjoying your books  fancy dress shoes, gold pen   magic maps, paintings  combs, cameras, wallet  fishing rod, bicycle, belt  please stay buried, or melted down  or burnt, whatever they did  however they did it  be kind, remain in every version  of the afterworld I don’t believe in  I am most enjoying your bed  and will sleep there, soundly  until one day, someone else comes  and takes your things.

!17

Development

sneakers hang on a power line  but the neighbors in the house  don’t sell drugs, I’ve checked, twice

this is the bird development  mallard ave, loon place  bittern lane, tern court  so on, so on, every street a bird  the builder, whoever it was  had a major hard on for birds

houses look the same, but are not

dogs nose under fences  until finally free  one shows up on my porch  a blue eye and a green eye  tail slapping everything   “go home. go. go. go”   and he won’t leave  I hang a flyer everywhere  but no one calls  so now I have a dog

each front yard tree is doomed  and each driveway is cracked  and each fireplace does not work  and each swimming pool is closed  at least six more weeks   six more weeks, six more! yet, around back, girls jump, leap lunge on diving boards  singing! singing! singing!

nothing is or has ever been blonde here the nameless dog knows no tricks our cherry tree is broken, our sky is weird  it’s all renegade fish egg clouds right now  !18

I was born here; I’m ready to move  I've closed my eyes in cool darkness, knowing my passenger-side car window is open, the interior filling with water from the plastic pivot sprinkler

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I’m somewhere, I don’t know where  probably in my room no one likes to be stopped.

!19

peace and quiet for ten minutes

most of yesterday I chipped concrete  out of a metal drum, circular and oblong  using a pneumatic gun with a chisel bit  my whole body vibrating, neon earplugs  shoved way in, pushing themselves out  —thick dust, and I could barely see  in there, hands torn up, even through gloves  good thing I’m not a concert pianist

at two pm my boss tapped   unexpectedly on the side of the drum, and I came out  into the cool crisp air  yanking off my respirator   and my sweat soaked bandana

he was staring up at the blue sky  squinting, an odd look  something was way far off,   a speck in the heavens   but getting closer  “hey look at that”  “what is it? a helicopter?”  “yeah, I think so”

but as it neared us  we saw it was a bunch of brightly colored  party balloons, with a long strong  hanging, dangling, in the wind   drifting slowly towards the oil refinery

they’d gotten loose somehow

“well, look at that”  when they were out of sight  I went back inside.

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MIA

at noon, the missing in action mailman   materializes, passing  unhappy on foot he’d rather dump our letters   in the drainage pond  he'd rather burn our houses down  accidents happen  and here it is dew slick spring, all is green,  except for him, blue and plotting  classical music echoes through   a screened in window  someone learning, or re-learning the piano  correspondence, music, mosquitos  which house will explode first?

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Weird New Jersey right hand side, the ocean  below our sneakers, green grass  to the left, a maze of pine  above, a bi-plane flies  pulling a banner:   HONEYSUCKLES  A NEW GENTLEMAN’S CLUB  look behind the strip mall  find squad cars with bored cops  parked in 69, they talk in the shade  and move as the sun moves  a tour of shade across the town  through this town’s main attractions:   Dinosaur Liquor   Trix’s Marina, Cosmo’s junkyard  the All-Nite Diner  last but not least, Spider Bar  through the narrow middle:  a two lane paved road  splitting residential developments  and run down strip malls  I got born here  why you’re here:  my punk band is playing tonight   at the VFW Hall  7:30 PM, fucker.

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Mickey Mouse Wristwatch

probably the most  important item  on earth  from an  anthropological   view point  so far  has been  that Mickey Mouse  wristwatch  that touches  itself  at 6:30  every day  twice.

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the odd afternoon

it looks, tastes, smells, feels  like it’s about to rain  all green and mustard sky  the white undersides of leaves  snapping, sailing, floating off elsewhere  and a kite in the shape   of the Angel of Death  gets stranded in our cherry blossom tree  so humid, and the power’s off already  squirrel fell into the transformer  by the church, I’m told  is just up the road

our dog house, was stolen last night  from the back yard   now the new dog has no place to lye  but the cooler tile floor  I suspect it was an inside job  the dog tired of sleeping in the yard  my ancestors all shared a cave

the quiet space after two but before three  when the airplanes don’t criss-cross above  the wind moves everything  reminding us why we disassembled   our tubular chimes

sometimes a few streets over there is screaming  child in a swimming pool  jubilant. utter joy. and terror, too.  the wolf song of youth.  at dusk, a police cruiser begins laps of the block. a rookie, I’m sure  the older ones just park   and wait for the bars to let out

finally, there is the first terrible  fat rain drop, rising dust from the yard  the heat breaks, the dog is on the kitchen floor  !24

looks up, as if to say, “I’ve won”  he rolls over, belly up, riddled with ticks  the tile floor sweats

I say, “we’ve got to get you a name.”

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Dinosaur Liquor has an electric sign that blinks like a heartbeat in the center of our small town one night, sideways in the back seat while someone up front drove I looked up from the back seat trashed enough that the heart beat electric sign looked like a hundred heart beat electric signs and the street lights rained and the heavens had hovered down pulling the moon too all of it blinked on the street outside Dinosaur Liquor I lifted my head and was about to say to the driver, "I'm never gonna move I'll stay in this town until I'm dead" but just then the car turned we made a right and headed into the darkness of the pines and the world opened up like a door that used to be locked since then, I've moved away but it was very close, I was gonna stay and be mayor or police chief or nobody the spell popped. I've sobered up love me a good electric sign when I'm fucked up though.

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Red Trans Am      !26

there’s no sidewalk here  killing weeds is the top priority   when the season shifts  leaves pile by the mailboxes  out at the broken curb  the leaves, in those piles  remind me of Davey  and that red trans am  he used to drive  up and down the block  at top speed, blowing through   the piles of leaves, scattering them  all for a laugh, until one day  someone stacked cinder blocks   in the leaves  and that was that.

!27

Walking By the Kitchen In Just My Socks the refrigerator door was left open just a crack no one notices for 1000 years the light was off

life is as exciting as frozen blueberries that used to be wild.â&#x20AC;¨ â&#x20AC;¨

!28

Shannon

it made me think of you  lipstick that rolled   beneath the seat, lidless  smeared the floor mat blue  and sunglasses left   in the center console  one scratched lens  other just fine, rosy still  and of course a tiny lighter   left in my glovebox  pink, like how you were  before they got you. It's better that we split you used to suck my dick while we drove around town and that used to make me love the town irrationally. yesterday I threw the lipstick the sunglasses, and the lighter out today, I finally sold the truck. somehow. even with all the stains.

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Staring Contest  we'll be young only for a blink  and then we'll be old and asleep well, I don’t ever blink  I'll just keep staring, forever  until the orange cat, crouched on this counter, finally does we lean in, eye to eye  it’s coming, I can tell, whole world is on it's weird way joy. black blue white and gray. icebergs and clothes left on the shoe sting line in the rain. the job. the car. the green ocean. the kite lodged in the branches of our tree, "ah! there it is," I point at the cat he flinches. "You blinked!" off the counter he leaps and say, “I win.”

!30

Tomorrow Will Be Warm

our potted flowers   figured for dead  will start to bend up from the floor towards the lemon light since November   she and I have been cell mates suddenly it's June pollen has eaten snow so, the hose is dragged out and spiderwebs cleared from the plastic pickle bucket where I keep soap and sponge I'll wash the winter from the getaway car barefoot and shirtless while she sips sun tea on the concrete steps looking over at me "you need a tan," she says "no debate. it’ll come, help me with the car you soap, I'll soak” “I'm fine sitting here”  “come on, I’ll make it worth your while”  “boy, you couldn’t make me move no matter what you say or do” "I could" "no no no" "want to bet ten dollars?" before she can answer I turn the hose on her she rolls on the front steps, yelling drenched, she doesn't laugh into the house she goes  dripping all the way up the stairs !31

“she's forgotten how to have fun”   I say hi to the brand new bees  leaving the ground  buzzing into the peak above the porch I start to wash the car soaping it up real good I don't even realize when the window over the garage opens and the seasons first watermelon comes flying out from her hands to crash down on my head the bees fly in mad circles  in defense, I turn the hose on myself we laugh. the sky is too blue to take.

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!32

Elsewhere

elsewhere  the night ticks on   headlights  illuminate   exit ramps

list of wishes:  1. the floral wallpaper  peels back   2. I finally find the secret door   3. lost friends step from shadows  4. a brittle envelope   with a golden invitation   is slipped through a window   onto my bed

any of that doable?  elsewhere  a dew slick dream   jewels forgotten  off there glowing   and here, goddamn   these sharpened rocks  discard all useless pebbles  feed the fire   my flip flops from the bedroom window  watch train cars passing  advertising  far off  permanent   vacations  certain walls must be hollow  tap on each one  with the tip of your sword and in our sour yard  there are no doves  dropping navel oranges  !33

or opportunities   to catch said fruit   Wille Mays-style  fingers laced in a basket  "thank you!" elsewhere, elsewhere   the dawn shows up   phones ring-a-ding musical   "go back to sleep,"   a boss commands “you’re not   needed today stay home, with pay"

still, trapped here maybe   without perfumed money  no cake, all candle   bunk beds akimbo   praying for a   Caddy to swing  into the driveway  honk twice  grab your things  bright corsage   and mint leaf suit  a free ride to that party elsewhere   the cool kids graze   but a minor breeze   can ruin everything I saw the bomb   splash down   in the pale park fountain   but it never went off  some kids concentrate  on adolescence   chewing confetti  channeling celebrations  held in distant hotels.

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Poem Written While You Cut My Hair I try not to move the world moves all the stars and sea and lava too, but I'm still out the screen door someone's whistling and on the drooping branchesâ&#x20AC;¨ the birds are always at war

this year certain un-insured mountains will collapse weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll make new things from those re-purposed shards of rock near my eyes the scissors flash your wrist has perfume too a silver necklace dangling a force fields is not up between us

outside: sprinklers mechanically ratchet-soak the lawn I taste ice water dripping down from the tip of a shrinking glacier on the yellow table is a sweating pepsi I do not want snip, snip, snip

I hear it all: the lowering of national flags the readjusting of lunar wind the piling of rough salt !35

the eviction of dug-in ghosts the ice cream truck arriving a dog walker beginning to sing along with the music box music

another flash, another snip hair falling on my lower lip but I don't move the world moves the stars and sea and lava too but I am still even as she leans in to see what she has done as I smell lavender and her necklace brushes against my neck.â&#x20AC;Š

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Astral Projection it's 102 degrees, summertime a dusty construction site I’m standing beside Rory in a trash-strewn field, sweating we’re waiting to land steel now being rigged off a truck by another crew, 100 feet away using a red crawler crane

I'm in a fluorescent long sleeve shirt jeans, boots, hard hat so is Rory, we look the same but aren't

we have down time, so I say  “where’s the shade?”  “not here” we laugh uneasy “hey Rory, what'd you do last night?" “oh …" he says, "after dinner, I left my body, and I drifted high up into the astral plane soaring and orbiting the planets" "how'd you do that?" "easy," he said, "I became a   molecular cloud separating from this consciousness I'll show you sometime"

on the flat bed truck, the crew feeds the sling under the I-beam the sky hook descends over their plastic heads

"yeah," Rory says, "I floated up above everything, to the moon and beyond and all the stars so bright and blinding I hovered for a while, looking at earth !37

searching for the shadow of troubled people living below" "that sounds nice, like fishing"

on the truck, a man snaps the green Kevlar sling into the hook

"when I saw someone who needed help I floated down until the seas shrunk and the marble of earth got manageable houses grew bigger, as I passed trough the tips of trees and between power lines slipping through their roof  sitting for a while in the room   where they are struggling it helps--my presence, a tonic last night, I flew above a blue car as it drove slowly down a dark and lonely gravel road my palm on the roof of their car—glowing I heard the radio come on and the driver, began to sing  ‘I found my thrill, on blueberry hill’”

the air horn screams a man gives the operator hand signals the steel is hoisted up spinning, into cloudless blue as the machine swings I raise my fluorescent arm so the operator can see the spot we want the beams to land

"what'd you do last night?" Rory asks "ah, just went home,” I said, “had a couple beers, did the dishes before my wife got home didn't wanna get in trouble.”

!38

First Date

don’t look for lost keys in your pockets all night or surrender while wide awake  current mood, opposite of:  crushed, malevolent, done won’t lie to make you feel good love gets a free pass, only when  stoned, fall down drunk, odd today/tonight seems uncontrollable walkie talkie me, I’ll 10-4 back  telegram a coded map to your room I’ll figure it out, floating on my way   towards the treacherous falls  how it is: every lock is full of gum  but can be cured with fire or a night of well-placed touch and in my teeth, I always have  a bobby pin, just in case  found keys won’t work.

!39

Jane is Sleeping

I figured out  I’d be alright in life  when I came downstairs  shirtless in the morning  and there was Jane’s father sitting at the table  the old brick wall marine  with crew cut and simper fi   and steaming coffee  and dead wife, and no son  and so on and so on  and whatever   his name was I still don’t know  well he was sitting   at the kitchen table  instead of being at work  elbows out, and listening  to soft rock on a small   clock radio   and not looking   as vicious as she’d warned  I said hello  he said hello  by raising his coffee cup  with a cartoon shark on it  and then I felt stupid  for parking my truck   way up the street  and sneaking in   the house   like Jane and I had   quiet like spirits we’d been  “who are you?” he said  “friend’s call me Bud”  I sat down at the table  and said, “I like   the painting in   the hallway of the   guy standing in front   !40

of the burning village  holding the machine gun,   that you?”  “yeah, it’s me,” he said  “what kind of machine gun  is that?”  “M60”  “good one”  he stared at me  I smiled, gave a little wave  instead of killing me  he laughed and stood up  “I’m gonna make eggs” he said,  “would you like an egg?”  “I’ll take four eggs,” I said,   “and please, one for Jane  I’ll go wake her up.”

!41

Chipper

“so terrible” she says  then sets the newspaper down  “what?”  “a kid died, couple blocks over,   on Mallard Ave.”  “how”  “eaten by a chipper.”  “what the hell is a chipper?”

chipper, chipper, chipper  as if it was an animal, like: look out  a chipper is loose in the development  they’re as big as a jaguar and hungrier  “a woodchipper” she says  “damn”  “he worked for the tree service”  I looked down into my shredded wheat  she folded the paper, as if   the paper was cursed

and so we went for a drive   at first pretending that maybe  we weren’t going to look at the yard  but that’s where the car wanted to go  there was no stopping it  yes, exactly true, just a few blocks over  it was a small blue house  the yard was wrapped in   yellow crime scene tape  nobody home, too much shade  no grass, all moss and lichen  a sad lawn to look at

the chipper was still out there  it said ‘Travis Tree Service’  on the side of the machine  “there’s no blood”  “thankfully”  from the car, we scanned  everything we could see:  !42

the siding on the house, the ground,   the machine, the leaves in the tree  “the people who cleaned up the blood  did a very good job”  “paper said he got his shirt sleeve   caught and was pulled in”  “that’s how it always happens”  “it stopped halfway down, the machine,   there’s a safety … by then it was too late”  “mos def”

a green car passed by at a crawl  then a group of boys on bikes  went past and pointed, but kept pedaling

finally a cop car pulled up, and we watched   the officer get out and duck under the   yellow tape of the crime scene  he walked around the mossy yard  for a bit, just looking, staring off  then he sat on the steps and stared some more  “what do you think he’s looking for?”  “he’s probably doing what we’re doing”

she started the car, the cop didn’t even   look over, his eyes had become fixed   on something caught in the branches   of the tree  I’m not sure what.   and so be it.

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!43

I Was A Teenage Werewolf

skull labeled semi-fragile  spine of glass, don't mention it  be sure to wear a hat  for the long walk, resisting in the rain  where I lean, I may leave rust  it's for you, consider it art  critique it, send your notes  affixed to an arrow  if it hits me, I’ll take notice  I have found myself  in the pages of glossy magazines  tucked beneath the basement steps.

!44

Party On Loon

Strangest thing, from the back deck, Shannon actually sees the squad cars as they’re on the way through the development. Lights flashing.   I stick my head in the house through the sliding glass door and yell, “COPS!”   And then, look at me and Shannon bounding down the back steps! Look at us scrambling through the yard. Look at us squeezing through the crack in the fence, beers now slipping from hand, and watch us run along the neighbor’s yard to the far side. Look at us scale the fence by the road and hop into my waiting getaway car. “Go! Go! Go!”  I stomp the gas. We’re laughing. We’re zooming up Mallard Ave. And we’re seventeen.   In front of the house, other kids we go to school with, are getting busted. We see them in the glow of flash lights. We see them in the disco lights of the squad cars. My window is down and I hear the chirp and drone of police radios. I turn left on Pigeon and then right on Bittern. And Shannon is cracking up.  So am I. Everything’s great.  But the road is curving. And I can barely see, because I’m too drunk. Instead of curving with the road, I drive my car onto someone’s front lawn. “Fuck!”  Bird bath explodes. A plaster garden gnome crushed. I dig the brakes in. Soft grass. Illuminated eyes of an orange cat leaping off concrete steps getting closer and closer.   The car stops, somehow, a foot before impact.   And again, we laugh. And laugh. Swirling dust in the headlights.   An orange light comes on in the house. A window begins to open. A man screaming about something, I’m not sure what.   “I think I should drive,” Shannon says.   We switch sides. Chinese fire drill. Slammed door. Seat belts. Reverse. Peeling off.   She’ll do fine on her driver’s exam next Friday.

!45

Got home safe.â&#x20AC;¨

!46

!47

Pool we swim all day transistor radio melting in the sun the music got distorted and so did we as the beer cooler descends I gain no faith but build up plenty of hope enough to get us through ice storms, heat waves health and crime

I have decided your tan lines are high art and I have mastered the dead man's float

here on my back arms out I can float through air walls, viper's nests, traps vortexes, black holes mine fields, grocery stores libraries, permanent jail airport security, hell and you too, are off somewhere else eyes closed, one hand falling into the water making a ripple swirl around your purple raft.

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!48

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Suggestion # 2

don’t take   the waitresses’ only pen when you leave.

!49

Some Good Talks I listened to the kid with the mohawk who suggested a certain sandwich above all other sandwiches: pastrami with mustard, toasted

I listened to the girl in the rhinestone jacket lisping and listing the better places to catch salamanders for mud lake fishing

I took the MIA mailman's advice when he finally did appear as we stood on the lawn he said, "I'm a lot younger than I look, had a rough paper route as a kid" so I switched to wine for awhile

Lisa and I, fake-listened   to the car salesman rattle on for half an hour about the car we only wanted   to test drive   because it would glide up to 125 on the road beside the creek I agreed with the priest when he said, "your friend is now in peace."

!50

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Psychic Reading your acronym will become something horrible.

!51

College Try passage lead beneath the street where you live let's check them out

the skies never get blue enough for us here

I promise to often swim in the drainage ditch at night believing in the ghosts, leaving bending around the tops of trees, greeting far-off things not just mentioned briefly in text books

some wall must push inward and take us to the moonlit beach this car cannot stand another tour of the county mall and its food court

one of these tiles rotates one of these piano keys makes the earth move revealing a secret life hidden behind the dusty bookcase

for your birthday I'll send a box packed with stairs that go up, somewhere !52

and a postcard, noting: in certain strange religious sects, kids are allowed to smoke freely on the roof

as the neighbors cement their windows closed dusk starts smoke appearing puffing, drifting out of brick chimneys making a map of sorts I take a polaroid that says, one minute "Believe in Want" till the wind changes the thing to, "Believe in What?"

start with me

!53

Nighttime at Mallard Park walk silently around the development find the baseball diamond a lock left off the gate the moon is falling she picks up a pebble   points, at the north star  calls it like the Babe her wine bottle  strikes the pebble sends it over   the chain link soaring towards a ring of dark houses and pine trees jet black I'll be on aluminum bleachers   ironic cheer, ironic clap watching you swing your glass bat celebrating at second base I raise my own wet bottle and as you round third trotting home you narrowly   avoid the stumble sipping the last drop come across home plate looking sharp in shadow tonight there are no shooting stars that we can pick out darkness falls on the dugout for awhile we sit till the bench starts to hurt then we spread out in the sharp grass sharing the last

!54

of my juice  semi-joking   about snorting  chalk dust.

!55

Meetings

UFO Sect Local #888: I get my kicks under a black sky the undersides of expansive walls of cloud  hiding celestial bodies, sky line advice columns,   fortune cookie constellations, Gods signaling with dim flashlights;  leave the bedroom light on for me  I’ll be in the yard with my drip drop friends  power lines humming all night  the body electric desires a good time  and just a blink before dawn  I’ll slip in our room, with new ideas  to tremble into your sleeping life.

Anarchists’ Anonymous:  Failure of the not cute and fuzzy species  drives my head against my palms  in certain garages are set aside  circuit boards that may or may not work  towards the greater good  nails, copper wires, random fuel,  special powders, poisons unknown   in circles beyond this room  Ssssshhh

Lonely Heart’s Club:  the quiet streets  are where I spend my time  trench coat dragging  gathering around my bare feet  the cobble stone is cool  and all the windows  I can see in, are award winning      Nostalgia Society:  My version of the truth is blurred  so many years later it all seems dusty, yet made of gold  photographic time machines !56

black and white, you can never see the red  like Hitchcock, Psycho, chocolate syrup  there’s one photo in particular my brother with his face all busted up me ripped up too  we’re holding 3 scoop cones  outside the parlor on main  our t-shirts soaked in crimson too  see, what had happened was, he was standing way across the road  and yelling at me, on the hill  “Bet you can’t hit me with a rrrrrrrrrock!”  I heaved a flat chunk of asphalt and it stuck him just below the nose  no teeth were lost  my uncle, seeing this from the window  ran out and cold cocked me  my brother wept into the clover  red dripping on the dandelions  and then, to me, shouting  “What happened?   Why would you do that?”  my brother saying,   between the tears, “I said,   bet you can’t hit me with a rock.”  My uncle took us all for ice cream  the photo is of us both  banged up faces  smiling  idyllic   strawberry   looking grey

!57

Beautiful Maps earth tastes like a ripe cherry tonight

we've survived personal apocalypses left and right came back alive cold beers in hand over here, in my chair I'm focusing on learning to glow in the dark

my progress report: I fuck up all the time the dust settles you forgive me namaste.

!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !

!58

Somewhere Over St. Nazaire I keep going to parties because I'd like to talk to Alan Magee  who’s dead, but was  the ball turret gunner who took on fire over Flack City,1943 I'd like to hear him tell about the bullets   that ripped apart his B17 named Snap! Crackle! Pop! I'd like to listen  to the man talk about scurrying out of the turret age 19 knees to chest as the plane wobbled spinning out of control what was it like   as he watched nine of his friends bail out one by one? and then what was it like when he frantically found that his own parachute was one of the many things including the right wing that'd gotten blown apart by the anti aircraft guns below? did he calmly watch   the green army men float down away   from the silver plane? how long till he decided !59

just to jump. no parachute and four miles up and, what was he thinking as he stepped out   of the cargo door and fell forever? Alan Magee who free-falling 22,000 feet out of a B17 Flying Fortress at age 19 Alan Magee from Plainfield, New Jersey 5 foot seven cheerful, talkative who said, years later "god was looking out for me" Alan Magee who loved some girl   just up some road Alan Magee spinning, organs compacting arms tucked in not unlike Icarus approaching the earth a regular guy reaching terminal velocity can you keep your eyes open   in that much wind? I'd ask him everything  if I could corner him  at some party I'd pull him away by his shirt sleeve another beer for Alan Magee tell me about tumbling end over end for 4 fucking miles !60

no parachute tell me about crashing down through the glass roof of a train station occupied by the enemy injuries vast but somehow surviving I know the story, man but I want to hear him tell it. the man who fell to Earth and kept living somehow when he is finished talking I'll shake his hand

and make him tell it again.

!61

Lakitu

switch the system off who are you gonna be in the morning what wild guesses in the rain will be true? where is army jacket hung? your flattened hat, your punk rock posters your one tequila two tequila three tequila floor shirt? every window I own has been open like love, like an artificial rose man, doesn't that one hurt? there's a meteor looking nothing like a dove there's your favorite song suddenly dead history pissing on it, by tomorrow it'll be all all all rust there's your crashed up powerless car, there's your wood shop want there's a kiss for you on the roof through dry paper lips, a flinch worried and pulling back let's stay friends but never again will we talk the talk and if a cloud comes across with Lakitu tossing spiked shells you don't have to grow the fuck up if you time it right, you can enter the water where you can breathe forever weaving in and out among the cartoon squid.

!62

! !

Wheelchair

last week, there were ambulances but now the coast is clear we walk out, for a moon swim crossing enemy lawns carrying tropical towels first I hop the chain link and then I help her over their kid broke his neck in the shallow end of this pool night just like this so now we are much more careful  we strip down  and slide in as if we are  sugar glass fragile  the humidity will shatter  one day, but not tonight next week he'll be home and then me and her will have to be even more careful will have to kiss secret   much much more careful and ignore the thought of him watching the moon and the reflection and us from his mechanized chair at the bedroom window.

!63

Player 2 Insert 25 Cents I was raised by a pack of wild cherry Pepsi in an arcade closed down after summer wet snow falling on New Jersey I busted out a window cleared the cobwebs from Street Fighter 2 fed my stolen quarters endlessly while my mother worked night shift in an aerosol spray can factory and dad slept sideways on a couch too small for him I got my slow education in isolation waiting for spring battling that blinking machine face awash in blue light.

!! !!

!64

!! !! !!

!65

!66

! !

Wish I'd like werewolf teeth all the time. I want all my guts to glow in the dark so it looks cool during my woodland midnight surgery sessions. I'm an aspiring sky blue ghost living in an electric maze surviving off cherries. Not as confident with my knife throwing ability as I should be at 31. I wish to be perfectly oblivious to pointless nonsense and only become sold by sexy destruction in the shadow that the sun throws on our way up to it: jet packs, out of control

!67

!! ! !!

Jet Pack

You leave by jet pack. I squint as you go over Jupiter. Slowly a little green army man falls in a parachute with a message "miss me?" I nod. On Wednesday I can't take it, I go out to the garage, I duct tape everything together chunks of old records, VHS, punk rock posters, a black and white tube TV set. I put all our photos on the floor I super glue our snapshots to sheet metal, to engine blocks to the glowing molten iron core then, while that all hums I go in and I call up my boss "I should have called you earlier." "why?" "this is my two week notice" "Oh fuck." "I'm leaving." "Where? Our rivals?" "No ... off in the cosmos, after a girl." it's a two second notice, I think, feeling worse I get my air tank out cause I'll need that in space and I pack my back pack 99 cent used paperback books and some blue supermarket roses then, I climb on the humming !68

garage debris count backwards from twenty-three and act surprised when everything suddenly vaporizes (sorry neighborhood watch) and it's just me and the coldness of space and the weird light of approaching stars as I close in on you kicking your legs on the rings of Saturn waving, school girl style, waiting for stupid ol' me like you said you would for a short timeâ&#x20AC;Š

!69

Vague Direction put on this titanium helmet this neon flight suit climb in this cannon get launched at supersonic speeds through a few brick walls then out over the sea and another sea crash land in Nepal Southern Italy followed by African safari Zanzibar there: continue to have a heart like an atomic bomb but don't hurt anyone keep forever calm in the wilds unless they ask "what's your favorite song?" what kind of a maniac could answer a question like that? always say, "not the happy birthday song" and have a worry that lessens as if you had holes in your pockets on purpose and your worry just dropped out like useless money falling in the swaying grass forgotten elsewhere.â&#x20AC;Š

!70

!71

Trix's Marina I think the tide is low and those black (spots) blobs floating in the white light made by the moon are ducks

Sometimes headlights flash from behind the marsh grass and make the dock glow or shadows grow across the cracked sailboat hull laying sideways in the mud

"I'm just about to cum," I say and her head lifts up Shannon finishes me with her hand her pink watch slapping my thigh

! !

"That was a lot," she says When I flick on our headlights I see there are no ducks it's two styrofoam coolers bobbing up and down surrounded by seaweed and trash

she says, “I’m ready to go home.”

!72

!! !

House Burning Down Jane had a pit bull I'd walk the dog for hours up and down the hills of a quiet neighborhood an hour up north

She'd walk with us sometimes we wouldn't have lasted so long over a year but the pit bull really loved me

the best night with Jane in fact, was a disaster a house behind the record store caught fire and as we, all three of us walked down the hill to watch the flames throw sparks over the A-frame roofs it started to snow

the fire trucks showed up Jane squeezed my hand the pit bull barked we stood for a long time watching them douse the house their yells, their flashing lights "This is cheaper than a movie." "And in real 3-D." An ax split the door

the house was incandescent !73

the pit bull on her haunches Jane said, "The street looks as bright as noon."

From her bedroom window we watched the flicker me on the floor her on the bed

Leaving, in my car at actual noon the house we'd visited was nearly gone grey ash, collapse there was a foot of snow everywhere else except that yard

At the record store they had a bin of warped vinyl bent from the heat I still listen to some of them warbled, alien noise others perfectly fine despite how they look.

!74

Fire Hall the Lagoon House was full bad music on the stereo I materialized out of my rented room eyes dilated, stars crossed Otto and Trish, who owned this house were at a wedding 2 miles through the marsh at the volunteer fire hall somebody he worked with at the junkyard getting hitched

we were partying in their living room Saturday night, Jay with acid it was drip drop raining John Sullivan on the couch talking about the time he’d caught a 75 # rainbow trout in the bay behind Trix’s Marina “Bullshit.” “Absolute truth.”

I went out in the kitchen Shannon was sitting on the counter she passed me another beer “I’m high,” I said, “It won’t do anything.” Sullivan was arguing with Jay about how fast his car got up “210,” said Sullivan I looked through the hole in the wall, where Vic had thrown Paul and could see into the living room the back of Denise’ head. Even the back of her head looked good. “We gotta fix that hole,” Shannon said I nodded. Every weekend was a planned sheetrock party, planned in the evening John Sullivan always offering never showing up in the morning !75

“Maybe even 215 mph!” he said “John’s full of shit,” cooed Shannon.

In the living room, he called my name “What?!” “Hey man, I need a beer! and I can’t walk anymore!” Shannon touched my arm, “Don’t” “Fuck it.” I popped the top dumped 3/4 of it on the dishes in the sink “Reach behind your head, the cabinet, a plastic bottle.” There it wasbottom shelf alcohol the worst. Boomerang Vodka 'It Comes Right Back' I filled the beer bottle back to the top carried it out to John “Thanks bro.” He knocked it backguzzling it even, instantly turned green, then plaster white Denise was flat on her back now studying the ceiling fan for greater understanding her left tit had fallen out I kept on staring

The screen door burst open Otto collapsed in suddenly 1 am blood on his face and his Sear’s suit he crawled on the beer-can floor Trish hysterical at his heels her dress ripped, eyes wet Otto bleeding all the way to the bathroom Trish a wall of shrill screaming “GET OUT! GET OUT!” our mutual friends in disbelief Otto puking

There’d been a crash the two of them fighting !76

trashed and leaving the volunteer fire hall wedding Otto pulling out foot on the pedal he put the Nissan into the side of a parked van parked parallel with Salty’s Bagel out on the street they retreated down the darkness of a dirt road leading through the marsh grass plastic bits of the Nissan shimmering under the streetlight a light coming on in the window the blue house across from the volunteer fire hall

Otto flushes the toilet I step out into the driveway the front of the car is caved in anti-freeze gathering in steaming pools on the yellow stones Jay and John stumble out on the back deck Shannon calling my name “We leaving?” “Nah, I’m too spun,” I say Trish comes out back “JOHN! GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!” He shuffled off, falling into the vinyl siding, knocking over the recycling can

I went back inside gave Otto one of my shirts to sop up some of the blood A car started outside John Sullivan driving away from the lagoon !77

when I sobered up 6am, I recall telling Shannon “He’s dead, for sure, drove right into the bay, he’s at the bottom now with the mermaids.”

Shannon took me to his street in her red Civic and we found his Buick parked 1/2 on his mother’s side of the lawn but, fine

that evening we did cut the wall apart in the kitchen and fixed the sheetrock me, Denise and Shannon.

!78

Today I Have No Dirtbike

have a friend who’s dying  have a sister who wants a tattoo  on her upper thigh  do not have access  to the secret chord  just the tab to ‘Spirit in the Sky’  got blown on a train   going south, I think  have lost love sending   morse code over the radio  have one more beer in the fridge   and people on the way

can I kiss you without it being weird?  can we hop this fence and take that walk?  can the night get lighter?   can some things be forgiven to make   room in here?

want a painting of this sky  want more piano solos  want vs. need and fuck it all  no ones looking, drop your pants  want everything revealed   in a veil of blue smoke lifting

will they visit me in new jersey  will you bring polaroids   of wayward Jane, wayward Shannon  will you tolerate it  if I show where the bullet hit?  will it ruin everything?  asking for a friend.

!79

May, February, May

the bedroom fan  with its chipped blade   is tearing pages   off the calendar  that's fine, I watch the months  rip off the wall, one by one  July, May, February, May  they slap against the record player  and land in the graveyards  of paperback books  April, June, January  left out in the rain  mayday, mayday  I don't do anything   who could?  March, December  If I close my eyes  the computer goes away  October, October, May  an airplane about   to crash   in the swamp  time makes   of this room

for this feeling  someone. somewhere  has written   an inadequate   song.

!80

Purple Teeth the TV glows supernatural I drink wine & more wine but the cards stay drawer'd dark windows reflect early Christmas a transistor radio, Crick-cracking Willy Nelson I'm fine right here, f'kr after pumpkin pie, dad shows me the new assault rifle black death-esc we make plans to shoot it behind the dump next Sat. My girl wears leather pants & we slug bourbon & lemon juice m'ok: dead @ 72 I tell my brother 'bout Pale Fire he goes into Robocop detail I make a point of setting aside wine bottles & my bourbon skeleton too I'm looking forward to laser sight blasting them both on clay ledges at the black pentagram sandpit edge but he won't accept $$$ for ammo and my brother won't read college bullshit & the house has straight walls & the tv has sharpened teeth So, I pour the last drop of available drink & lay half on the couch half on the floor. Ceremonially: in the perfect dark my girl takes off !81

her leather pants.Â I wake up void of medicinal shock.

!82

!! ! !

A note from your neighbor I always knew you were illuminati the secret way you tied your shoes I just kept it quiet, ignoring how you cut your grass on a strange diagonal pretending away the fact that your toothpaste was non-whitening for a very diabolical reason There were codes implicit in your driveway oil change patterns. Big deal I am not one to judge I always knew you were Illuminati and accepted you for who you were in the big scheme of things climbing through your window when you were at those secret meeting I ate your Oreos non-judgemental and re-filled your liquor with water to the exacting levels required of our bond.

!! !

!83

Doorbell

the ghosts of birds fill the trees, making it creepy for all the regular birds.  I’m in my pajamas using up my florescent markers highlighting obituaries red sharpie circling classified ads for businesses near town   selling luxury viking funeral services  the things you own, end up owning you  but the more you have  the cooler the fire gets  so there. in the caverns beneath this place  ethereal spirits glow hot pink  idyllic with their ice cream memorials recalling fondly, pretty girls   on green grass in spring when you go, you go for good that’s the rumor anyway the penalty box, that’s where you stay standing around, bored  watching the living live well, here I am, very much alive  putting new ice in the old glass  awaiting the doorbell about to ring.

!84

!85

Mad Max Visits New Jersey Out there. Foggy wilds. Stars slung low, hidden. Drunk on ridges. City lights tremor. Warm girl/ cold night. Music escapes. Swamp gas. Patient. Myths made of sugar glass.    Hypnotize anybody. Charms swung counter clockwise Curses lifted. The floating faithful. A rotating sky. Mumble in sleep about love. Worry dissolves. Help us up. Help us up.    Wait here. Blue time pops. Figure out the day. Where the night stops. Other fog. Other lives. Coming back in a bit. Wait here, miss. Fearless with my cartoon shark mug.    Sunrise on pause.

!86

New Love

Gears spinning, balloons sucked in. Stone steps. Hands still smell like orange blossoms. Found good things today discarded by the sea. Smoking ruins. Nuclear rubble. Your telephone number.

Walk with me on the outskirts of the glowing jungle. Toss old promise rings into that nest of vipers. Life is not stored in moth-proof cedar boxes. Birds swoop, dropping flyers for far off car washes. “Crashed my car into the ocean.”

Now, look, watch the eruption. Our first kiss is awkward. All teeth. A week later we’re better. All grow’d up. Don’t need no chaperone. You melt down some black sand, and make me a funny crown. I lead you towards the hidden orange blossoms.

!87

Prologue to the US Army   Survival Manual Edition 404

zero hour: if sirens scatter doves rise from desk or bed burn documents slip down escape hatch proceed with care belly-crawling through nearest mud knife, canteen, Walkman baretta 9, double A batteries fluoride capsules for teeth at the pharmacy pay phone dial 1-976-NTHRWLD leave message age, rank, serial number what you like for breakfast take the bus to muster point 1-7-C mums the word, though, comprende? items inside camouflage briefcase: playing cards, leaflet on edible berries seed packets, vitamin water malaria pills, beef jerky stop at longitude latitude check point A5 dash 5 collect electrified key for buzzing door beware: the easy door may open upon sheer cliffs have an alternate plan for the alternate plan have you studied our brochure on various poisonous snakes? Jesus, I hope so decoded it reveals your destination decoy: hidden inside your left shoe is a fake topographical map !88

if chased, discard fake map to throw them off the real map is right up here *taps forehead*  if every earthly item on a slant retreat to a life of caves, minimally prevent the ground bursting open with your feet planted firmly reverse commute the city learn simpler existences in the shadows close the stone curtains call off newspapers cancel premium cable entertain yourself watching hot light sparking up from dim divides dogs, rabbits, fish all for a thousand miles have moved a thousand and one miles away natural romantic disaster me and society on are taking a break but are still good friends with benefits a fortune cookie says: have enough rations guns and iced down beer to last a quarantine of 1000 years starting Thursday.

!89

Parkway Divides check engine pops on I'm an ocean dweeb but I long for the mountains my tires, get flatter every mile weeble wobble I feel alive fleeing ordinary houses cops lurk, spider-like behind the darkened billboards castle keep, rest stops roll by wide awake, drive all night in dreams I am impervious to fire lectures I have survived jobs shed like used-up fur only made my spirit brighter no passenger to scan the radio distance but moonroof lets the light in motor missing a beat the sputter of the engine ahead, the highway splits veer to the left taller elevation, rock, snow veer to the right salt, breeze, sand, girl last possible second I decide, steering wild swinging in, pedal down Step Away

we won the week the odds were long bubble bath surrounds now in each glass a slice of lime tongue numb nicely and music ticking out every brick these teeth could cease a bullet I smile most when I shouldn’t paid fresh cash the other day !90

loose now, sprung to my glowing room life temporarily plump’d and bloomed girl, piano, rum, money it never rains; dark clouds elsewhere perhaps they'll hover in on Monday but now it's clear electric red and purple skies dusk precisely, Friday.

!91

When I'm Drunk At PF Chang's   With Aaron Dietz

things occur to me an emptied glass  will refill itself  given time

! !

the bar is made of parts  not needed in the tropics today we watched  a man with a green bandana   over his face, like a train robber  shoot a hypodermic needle  into his ripped apart leg  we were all riding the light rail  from one part of Seattle   to another part of Seattle     the college basketball on TV is better than war

points of truth:  the arrival of lettuce wraps shall determine all earth’s happiness unsweetened ice tea   always needs some sugar blue skies are forced to linger but who likes steady rain? sadness can be cured with hot sauce throughout the evening daylight is just a threat my future may or   may not be arriving

advice: don't work from templates squint during earthquakes

!92

hold your breath till time goops up  “two more scotches, please”

the waitress seems to love us  I give her my church money  instead of leaving it at the church  a predictable sacrifice, or penance

for a decade I accidentally tipped 10 percent  see, I’d decimate the bill  and forget to times that by two  when I tell Dietz that story  I always think he’s gonna  fall off his tropical bar stool

we leave, in light rain  feeling all was forgiven   or forgotten  oh well

the fortune cookie said:  “society is niiiiice now.”

!! !

!93

! !

Leaving Las Vegas

Day 1:

Got a crazy nice rental car (for free) and can't figure out how to get the gas cap open because fancy things are complicated. Now I'm out of fuel and on the side of the road, walking into the darkened trees, smearing mud on myself. I live in the forest now, I'll make a weapon from a simple rock and prosper. Day 2: Draped now in animal pelts; deer, raccoon, fox (mimicking movies I saw) I move soundlessly through the brush, gathering berries both to eat and to make stains to paint art. Sometime near dusk my fucking iPhone dies. Of all the things I've lost, I miss beer most. Day 23: While swimming in rock pool at hidden waterfall, I realize I've forgotten all the passwords to all the things; my bank account, the garage door, the alarm system, my email account—up on ledge, she has stripped down completely and is smiling as she jack knifes into the cool water, creating not a ripple. Day 45: We have moved farther away from the light. The stars become bigger. I cook; she hunts. Day 100: decide winter too harsh, make long return to rental car, find encased in thorn vines, impenetrable. manage to smash apart door. have metal now from it to make daggers and better arrows. walk back home, our tracks are those of grizzly feet we cut off and wear. I think it pretty cool, maybe install fear in others looming in ridges. she hold my hand for first time.

Day 153: first rains not frozen sky snow earth returns beneath white all gone soon green poking up and we gather it for salad when I joke about something I used to know, haha balsamic vinaigrette, she tilts her head as if I speak of God.

!94

Day 276: kill … fire ... day ... hmmmm ... child coming ... moon … night … but no wolves

Day ???: … … …. …

!95

Being Alive flipped bike went head first down gravel hill shattered self healed slow by the window first day off crutches was tackled in snow, broken things stayed that way threw a rock from 100 feet hit my brother in the face still stutters brought fireworks to school set them off in the hallway searched for glossy magazines in all the upper regions of all the adult closets faked it through grammar school nurse tests for years afraid they'd find out I was deaf and cut apart my skull to fix it moved to a campground set fires in the sandpits to draw the New Jersey devil smashed out streetlights with a football went to one college class English 101, wasn't for me quit the football team when the coach showed up dressed in army fatigues found a fallen nest of robin eggs put them in the refrigerator stole a close friend's girl same girl left me for another close friend we were all once so much closer hit my mom in the head with a baseball she was pitching, I was hitting almost went to the emergency room electrocuted myself with a toaster wet hands, thought it was a ghost I hid till someone came home !96

got my photo taken by the police on a June morning, interfering with a police investigation got pulled over for drunk driving on the side of the road ‘walk this line; touch your nose” the rookie cop let me go wrote a novel in my parents basement refused to hit delete played guitar in a noise band till my good friend, the drummer died in his sleep met my girl at the movies moved from a dirt road to the city burnt myself all up welding everything they'd let me floated out; both American oceans flat on my back, not quite dead.

!97

Cherry World      clear-eyed, patient  miracle sober  Saturday in shorts   Saturday in no shirt  sitting on the floor  listening to a new legion  of songbirds   right outside my   light leak window   they’re still up against   the same war  they’ve always had  since the beginning

today, for me, in here, is easy  I have no war, no radio, no TV  but outside, holy hell

poisoned green leaves  the crush of blue skies  carnivorous brick walls  maybe everyone is dead   on all sidewalks  just out of view  I can’t tell

I raise my cartoon shark mug  full of rainforest coffee  and wonder what the fuck  is in the rest of that  paperback book  laying split-spined   on the orange couch

we may be out of toilet paper  sugar, bread, batteries, love  light bulbs, spoons, forks  knives, mouse traps, soap  time, candles, salt and luck  !98

but not life

I open  the window   wider  and try to whistle  like the birds   do.

!99

!! !

Dear Pen Pal,  I've mowed lawns for years shoveled driveways raked the infinite leaves yeah, I've been around now I'm tired of taking a blue BMX everywhere want gas computation not peddle and chain gonna get me a sleek black car no more than 200,000 miles and voyage somewhere other than the public library the county mall the strip mall record store find a Mary Ann, Lucy Melissa, Rachel or Jane drive endless laps around the reservoir, holding hands across the center console necking you said where you live there are mountains wide rivers, horses the ground is compact well here it's all sugar sand below sea level marsh forest fire pine barrens do they have necking or roller skating in your snow capped peaks? here, a hot date is taking the dirt trails deeper looking for the Jersey Devil together a black car would change my life me and the Mary Ann of Jane or Shannon would make a home for in the backseat raise a family there !100

two kids, a Nameless dog   and an orange cat better make sure it's a beautiful backseat any more than two kids one would have to live in the trunk I've saved my money for a lifetime hiding it in the basement wall under a full moon I count out three thousand in fives and tens a Scarface stack of small cash laid out on my twin bed and forever I scan the newspaper and walk the used auto lots up the highway somewhere the black car is there waiting full tires, gassed up, waxed I nearly have my learners permit just two more years to go ... how's your summer break been?

yours,   Bud.

!101

Technicalities they say   don’t drink   alone does it   count when you   are asleep and I   drink as you   sleep in the other   corner   of this   room?

!102

Remain With Disabled Vehicles the highway is a war zipping by sit indian style on the rumble strips wave to all the blurs, unbutton your cowboy shirt unpack the trunk filled with illegal flowers break the windshield into manageable mirrors on the count of 1,2,3, go—start grass fires chase the animals out of the fields enjoy your picnic in eye line of the billboards your car is a mobile church on wheels now flat the tow truck will be here sometime tonight set up a nest of road flares for the first responders get Shannon on the car phone "I'm on the hood, sipping bourbon" "where?" "mile marker eighty one” “I’m the opposite of coming” cook robins eggs on the last heat   of the engine block get my silverware set from the glovebox make cave art on the fenders with the first aid kit sharpen the key down to a small dagger the moon is up and you might meet vampires have ready your license and registration rip out the seats, tear up the map  flag down other vehicles at will fall in love, make out tune the radio to something nice hope the battery never dies the emergency broadcast system gets me hard hazard lights blink in time with the beat of the human heart.

!103

Help Wanted

team member needed; must work occasional weekends, we don’t know which ones, this was a problem for Dennis, and now, who is Dennis? we can’t remember, he’s dead to us; qualifications: recent resume, two years experience in the business of life, clean driver’s license, sharp wits about you; $19 an hour with sporadic overtime, some benefits ie. dental, vision, massages, all done on premises by Gail; this is important, you can’t have a CD or mp3 copy of Sounds of the Rainforest, Walter is also dead to us because of that; drop in whenever you like, there is always a manager on site.

!104

Details of the War for a little while the love you have is a cloud absorbing the moisture of even your own blood

! !

during the night the void fills with cherry flavor often I have lived hard to avoid walking barefoot on nails, glass, other people

when it rains like crazy I hang my heavy head out the kitchen window rinsing the soot from my mouth

nearly every dawn the floral wallpaper peels back  and I peel an orange  at the coffee pot  holding back both hands of a clock  with every psycho-kinetic muscle  remaining in apartment 12.

!105

Amiright?      hi, I'd like:

all your drugs and books, black velvet paintings, cactuses and baby birds and free car washes and coffee and hope and patience

! !

for these reasons  1. all the men wanna be you all the women wanna be you all the cats and dogs and even the grass and the crab grass and the bugs wanna be you

! !

2. I guess that’s it, take me to your leader.

!106

Uptick kickstart wired, love-us-leave-us, cut it down to the heartless paint, sift through the receipts, find a place and time to appear redeemed

carved skulls from salt crystal, made a life in the cliffs leaning, telephoned all the marathon sinners, have a fortune in pussy, had no forgiveness for debt collectors

break apart on the deep rocks, build the day out of unfulfilled bombs, said hi to all your friends, out my application in at your borddello

found a family in clover, was enough, ten lives. dress your children in death squad black, teach them to smile like tigers, grease the gears.

!107

Your Favorite Song

for 7 days, walk around the world headphones on, do your best feel like nothing else exists  topless girls explode out of cakes  easter bunnies fly billion dollar jets  snipers on slim towers mow students down but you’re protected by your favorite song and it’s new, it just came on bullets skit by, sparks pop on bricks you’ll live forever, kid

before, what was life? rewind, wait, repeat your heart and lungs and guts now made from perfectly spliced magnetic tape the plastic wheels spin, eternity is measured out in the usage of AA batteries

on the 8th day, there’s a bus ride south west, east and north motion feels right to accompany music you gauge all society against the bridge the solo and the weight of the chorus

the 9th day is good too, you decide to die in your favorite song, but not for very long maybe a hundred and fifteen years from now from now on you’ll only dress in the lyrics sung within the 3 minutes and fifteen seconds and you’ll only drink and eat the bass line you’ll go to college in the fucking song too and have it as a career

at night you lay with it the sex is soft at first but gets rougher and rougher then there’s a period of time, where you don’t know where you stand with the song try to love it anyway, more and more build a shrine to it, let no one see it !108

let alone hear it, hum it in your sleep let all your wishes be guided by its rhythm

many years later, wake up on the floor bewildered and crushed shake off the pain, and sit up brush yourself off, slip the tape in your field jacket pocket and walk around the jungle in silence thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no death for something great.â&#x20AC;Š

!109

Now Serving # 86

! !

the girl behind the deli counter is in love with me, I realized it in the cookie aisle there’s something about the way she slices the cheese so thin the moon can glow through it I took a package of chocolate chip from the shelf and hopped away, only red squares the floor might be triggered to explode a man at the end cap had samples of Costa Rican coffee, fresh brewed, I took two small cups  and hopped on red squares, past the seafood past the international canned vegetables at the glass case, I stopped, clutching the unspilled coffee and the uncrushed cookies there was one person ahead of me, a lady in a blue coat getting a pound of sale pastrami  I waited patiently beside the pickle barrel when we were alone, the deli girl blinked at me and said, “Number eight-six”  I stepped forward with her gift.

!110

An Orange Cat Doesn’t Live Here

the endorphins don’t know  or the dumb birds  these bus drivers, or microwave  cooks, the rain clouds  stranded on the roof

I’ll say hello to anybody  who seems like they could use it

but there’s all this bright sunshine  and no dog, passed out in it  I make a promise to learn to whistle  lead Nameless out of the shade  into the lemon light of the room

the postcards don’t come  or the miracle powdered soap  the no hiss, no fuss  easier than ever, live forever  clip out super saver coupons

it’d be nice if somebody simply  knocked on my window at dusk  when I let in the bright   blue moonlight   anyway

never really seen anything  just heard about it   in the cowgirl’s sad song

hold your breath  count wrong see the coffee cup glow  and the orange cat slips  through the impermanence   of a chain link fence.

!111

Raw Romance 1st date was a failure, kinda sorta got set on fire. 2nd was no better. 3rd date, swam out on glowing water. 4th, started living forever. 5th, found passage through another sky.

6th date, we slow danced on Saturn's rings all night, had fun. 7th, married at Vegas, but not the Vegas you're thinking of. 8th, stopped the star shower of time. 9th, lost my tragic mind. 10th, met her fucking parents.

11th, moved in, tried a house plant, tried a dog, decision: no kids. 12th, one long deep wet well of a kiss. 13th, laughed about the worst kind of curse, ours. 14th, watched ice spread across the third and fourth and ninth dimension. 15th, fed each other lava in bed for breakfast.

16th date, left our needy bodies, became elements of shattered light. 17th, split up after a dive bar dart board argument. 18th, decide to split the dog. 19th, alternate weekends with the house plant. 20th, on a foggy thursday, get back together, less mortal than ever.

21st, remarried & regenerated in the eye of a hurricane. 22nd, settle down at the bottom of the ocean. 23rd, it's so quiet, we are each secretly screwing octopi and ghosts. 24th, read bad books in separate watery rooms. 25th date, fake both our deaths, both say nice things at each other's services.

26th, renew our eternal vows. 27th, set ourselves on fire again for our anniversary, laugh all night. 28th, everyone else runs for their lives, we toast each other during an avalanche. 29th, decide to adopt. 30th, watch the child eat the sun.

!112

31st date, I take up golf, she becomes God. 32nd, the population explodes. 33rd, I invent the rose. 34th, now I professionally float. 35th, as a disembodied presence she's even better in bed.

36th, our parents pass away, we become them. I inherit her father's business: they start to call me Death. 37th, her smile wide, teeth sharper than knives. 38th date, the earth explodes. 39th, black space and the solar wind blows. 40th, she recreates earth, I'm proud.

41st, we enjoy margaritas and tacos on 59th street. 42nd date, war becomes a popular thing, we toss each other grapes. 43: made the mistake of saying, "you're just like your mother." 44: vaporized the mountains of Mars. 45: began to understand each other out of the dark.

46th, helped her clean the attic. 47th, went to the vertigo casino. 48th date: took a cruise ship soaring through a worm hole. 49th, skinny dipped the beaches of Hell. 50th, the volcanos of Heaven open, we oww and ahh, it's like ‘end of existence fireworks.'

51st, Q: "does this all encompassing omnipresence make me look fat?" A: "no." 52nd, the universe rips to shreds. 53rd, we try again. 54th date: we set off our nuclear hearts in Ikea. Dinosaurs rise from tar, magma recedes, rivers unboil, the garden is still full of apples; we go to a movie and afterwards, avoid TGIF Fridays. 55th date: I close my eyes and she's there.

!113

! !!

Lemon Rooms to whom it may concern: the dryer makes a lull better than music through the wall. The smoke detector bleeps in perfect sync. I pull the battery out. Birds po-tweet beyond reach of all the feral yard cats. Pepper, our dog, died today.

to whom it may concern: on July 6th, 1998, an ambulance rolled down our pot-holed street. They took Azure to a quiet hospital—a month of group circle, medicine colorful, halfinflated basketball. I’m not allowed to visit.

to whom it may concern: when I piss, it burns. On February 7th, 1999, it snows one tenth of an inch and I don’t have work. I guzzle Canadian whiskey in the basement, sharing benignly, with the silver fish.

dear Azure: Salt finally ran out in the street, leash-less. He twitched for an hour. I buried him half-alive, I’m sure. I’m not humane enough to own a gun, yet.

to whom it may concern: May Day, 2001, she’s doing far better now, has a rose garden, has paperbacks to read by the widow, laughs at the kitchen table, sings while soaping the dishes, strips away the darkened floral wallpaper, paints the rooms lemon.

to whom it may concern: bad wreck on the way to work. A grey Toyota crunched sideways in the trees. Six bearded Orthodox Jews crowd around a bleeding boy. Never mind the blue sky. People creep to look, but keep going. I propel over the rumble strip, striking the divider myself. I run to help— and wrap my blue dress shirt around the kid’s head. Cops come. Ambulances come. I get a DWI. But I’ve made a lifelong friend, Eli.

this just in!: Frederick. Six pounds, two ounces. Eighteen inches long. January 2nd. 3:46 am. Smiles immediately, a good sign.

!114

Dear Abby: I have a gun safe now. On Thanksgiving Day, I show off our AK-47, saying, a little buzzed, “We can go shoot it behind the dump.” Plans arise. It’s decided, closer to Christmas, we’ll go. “And we don’t have to just shoot garbage, bring anything you’d like.”

to whom it may concern: I try to not drink during the span of February. It doesn’t work out. My dreams are devouring me, asleep on the scratchy downstairs couch. Sometimes she comes down after work, sits and sips, but doesn’t stay.

Dear Pepper’s Ghost: the washing machine explodes. I drive my clothes to the Wash n’ Fold. The music of those machines, engulfs me, I tell the chit chatting girls to “sssssssshh!” I’m in my nearest version of church.

Dear Salty’s Spirit: on July 18t, 2013, we went to the beach, my family and Eli’s. I snuck vodka in my lemonade, and may have imagined a shark in the surf, its fin dark and straight. I paddled out towards it, belly up, gripping beach ball. I’ve lived a full life. From the sandcastle, Azure and little Freddie called my name like a cheer.

to whom it may concern: the roof needs to be redone. Complete rip down and re-shingle. From the lawn, I figure out where to drop the dumpster. Then I decide another thing, after finally thinking about it all morning. Azure drives me to the hospital, coffee mug in hand. The pills I get are even brighter than hers. We reconnect in the new months.

Attention! Attention!: House For Sale! 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath, full basement (no silver fish), 1 car closed. garage, modern appliances, 1,691 square foot, above ground pool for those hot summers, new roof! Lemon rooms! Trees full of singing birds! Asking ____

Dear Eli: our last day there, an orange cat brought a bird’s head to the garage door and left it as a gift. I put out a saucer of milk, then went to get the last box of dishes by the sink. When I got in the car, Azure was smiling and hiding something under her coat, “show me.” Freddie laughed. It !115

was a kitten, unnaturally yellow, we named her Lemon. As we drove away, I made certain not to look back in the rearview. Even I know the story of Lotâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wife. My family, apparently, does not.â&#x20AC;Š

!116

Mail one night, the post man decides heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s through walking down our pot-holed street, across our lawns up crumbling brick steps to plop our 3rd party mail in the box beside the door he finishes his beer dresses in his uniform drives the mail truck out to our block at midnight smoking, and still drinking he begins to dig a small hole on the edge of the lawn where the mail will go.â&#x20AC;Š

!117

dear baby bird grown my hair long and half silver disowned all art, thrown the books away fed the record player to the wood chipper the shirts I used to wear are flags now protesting whatever shows up in my newsfeed

I dunno

there's a rumor that everything we do  is meaningless and one day the planet we live on will be crushed flat like a grape in the hand of a kid like me   who never went to college think I read that on a patch sewed on someone’s daughters jean jacket

dats fine, open the wine, dump the sauce over the steak, inflate the basketball, slip your world-famous red dress on/ take your red dress off, shoot every bird out of the sky, bake a fucking pie, walk in the park fully chemically spun and eyes beyond cartoon wide, all the flowers and specs of garbage on the ground, life confirming/ affirming, etc.

dear baby bird  let’s live to 135.

!118

dear person in the center of the assembly line  I'd like to grab a beer with you after work we could talk about whatever you want just don't dispute my religious leaning "the universe is a rental car, fully insured, that we're allowed to drive into a brick wall." suggestions: the bar must have a dart board that I’d like to sit nowhere near the bar must have a bartender not from Sweden the bar must have a mirror so clouded and broken that life is not reflected in it the bar must have water damaged posters hanging on the walls advertising girl punk shows  the bar must have a pinball machine   that is smashed in  figure—5pm, home by sunrise.

!119

Victory

just got laid doing well in the day light

thought I lost my sense eating an orange, too soon after I brushed my teeth

still hanging tough so what, the speakers   are blown out   I’m killing in the afternoon  hope to kill   during the moon light, too

just got laid so the war doesn’t matter the lack of money doesn’t matter  neither does the buy one get one free  the laundry, the roof, gutters  glass along the path  the mythological 8 hours of sleep  joke wishes, joke magics, lists  or going north just to get south w e f e l t g o o d laying on the bed sideways we said names/places/times/things over and over again hands gripped her ass her hair fell in my mouth we both somehow survived

what we call, victory.

!120

Kite

an Angel of Death kite  blows into the tree outside our window  Kate says, “I don’t like that.”  “It’s fine.”  “No way.” She’s sick, it’s an omen.  I close the curtains, but we know it’s   still there.  The next day, I try to climb  the tree but there’s not enough  branches and I can’t get more  than halfway up  If I stand on my tippy toe   and stretch, I can almost reach  “I’ll jump,” I think  but just before I can, Kate yells  “Don’t do that! You’ll fall.”  “I won’t.” “You’ll die.”  “Who me? You’re crazy.”  Her idea is probably safer  we go to the roof   with fishing poles, and cast out  the lines with the share hook   but the wind keeps rising  and the line goes wild, the hook goes  we reel it in, nothing gained  it’s midsummer  the world is green  but by the next morning   the tree has orange leaves  that drop the following day  “I’ve got a clear shot at it now,” I say.  First I throw a football up at it  the football gets lodged in the branches  then I throw a basketball—no  I throw baseballs, a soccer ball, a brick  a broom, a boomerang—all is lost, stuck  I give up on the Angel of Death kite  but Kate gets sicker, another appointment  more doctors, she loses weight  !121

they can’t tell her why  at night the tree groans in the moonlight  I look out the window and know  in her sleep Kate whimpers  at dawn I try to climb the tree again  I’ve got a rope, I’m going to get as high   as I can and loop the rope   around a far off branch  as I climb, the lower branches snap  the tree is weak now, can barely hold me  still I climb. “Stop!” she yells from the widow  but she’s gray and fading and I can’t stop  I loop the rope, tie the knot, start to climb  “Please!”  “No!”  the branch breaks.   I fall.   That’s all for a while

the doctors know what’s wrong with me  I’ve broken my back, my neck  other minor things  “It’s a miracle you’re still alive,” Kate says  I can almost see through her

that night there’s a storm  the tree falls, it crashes  through our roof and crushes  where our bed is, where we’d   have been asleep

a neighbor cuts the tree up  he makes a pile by the road  that says, “Free Firewood”  but no one takes it

the kite must have blown off in the storm  into some other tree

later, at the diner, Kate and I sit  me in my neck brace, her staring  at the broken rotating pie case  !122

but I feel fine, you knowâ&#x20AC;¨ I can see the color has returned to her face.â&#x20AC;Š

!123

Threat of Rain

during the jet black   uneven sundown talks I’m not listening, I’m just nodding thinking about golden bullets piercing diamond hearts

let’s have no discussion our teeth get dull, that way  just chew gum  it’s not the 4th of fucking July

silence is golden streets on fire the night is an ocean I’m putting shoes against the door so the door won’t open zipped the mouth  left the only key that works  to the cat that’s fled  from this place, this noise

ask your favors through the brick wall avoid straight forward contact in the mine field our love song was non-prototypical neither of us tolerated instruction manuals

one promise, now under no circumstance will I lie about the threat of rain I like the sound.

!124

Violas there was a woman  on the radio  talking all about  eating flowers  how great it is to eat flowers  bees like them for the nectar  so will/do we  and the texture!  try them in a fucking salad!  I looked at my dying  window plants  shriveled up  all sunshine doomed  and I took out a carton  of eggs  instead.

!125

Keep Replaying Side B when I’m all busted up and lost, I realize it  because I’m not seeking out new music  I’m just sitting in this same floral chair  lifting the arm with the needle  and going back to the start of track five  but all that will be fixed, today  the flowers are jumping out of the sidewalk  the cardboard boxes are there in an army  filled with cheap wax, three for five dollars  yesterday, I got a recommendation  Dvorak, The New World symphony  that sounds about motherfucking right.

!126

See Ya Later, Alligator interests include: opening the window, letting the birds in off the fire escape; watching my wife get tan in white sand; grey bats crisscrossing a swollen moon; fireworks not burning any houses down, but maybe catching the top of an insignificant 300 year old maple; swimming, always swimming, arms outstretched in an aquamarine hot spring or thermal arctic pool. not to mention: dark rum, sugar, and shirtless in the afternoon; driving reckless down a yellow mountain, sheer drops on either yellow side; new sunglasses discovered on a sidewalk; everything stinking like coconut, finally; the dew running off the branch, slapping the ledge outside, like an alarm doing its job, right. but this: the other night, for the first time, the ice cream truck arrived. It parked and played its broken-glass circus song on loop for an hour. It would have been more, but I finally put my shoes on and walked out of the apartment. The sidewalks were empty and the sun had gone down. I was the only one, troubled. I said to the ice cream man, “Why don't you move along—you're parked right underneath our goddamn window.” He said, “Not going anywhere.” The song continued. The truck stayed. I went back upstairs. My wife said, laughing, “Looks like that didn't work.” I said, “I know what we'll do. I'll get a bunch of watermelons. And I'll drop them on his truck, one by one.” She said, “Nothing feels more like summer than a watermelon war.”

!127

The Marine

heard something about  a kid from school   I hadn’t thought about  since I’d seen him   by the eggs  in Food Universe  and he’s said  “Hey man! What’s new?”  I set my basket down  said, “Nothing much”  truth too, “Nice crew cut.”  his hair had always been long  he said, “I signed up   for the Marines.”  “Aw shit, that’s crazy.”  I headed towards   the peanut butter  off to Afghanistan   he went      saw him at the bank  six years later  skinny and long-haired again  but we didn’t   say anything  just passed, me going in  with a ziplock full of coins  him on his way   to his crashed up compact car  that looked like  it’d been in more wars   than him

another guy from school   came to work at the refinery  and mentioned our friend, the Marine  “Crazy what happened to him …”  “What chu mean, maing?”  “Fucker was killed with   !128

a samurai sword”  “Where?!”  “Mallard Ave”  “How? Why?”  “You didn’t hear this? Jesus.   Well, he had gotten big into pills   I guess, and broke into his dealer’s house.”  “No shit.”  “While he was digging around   in the dealer’s room, trying to steal   the pills, the dealer’s parent’s came home.”  “No.”  “Yeah, he tied them up in the living room  back to back in two chairs.   Went back to digging   in the dresser drawers”  “Damn.”  “But the dealer came home, too  found his parents tied up,   went out into the garage,   got his samurai sword; sliced through   him three times as he tried to run”  “No way!”  “Twice in the front, once in the back   as he was headed out the door; if you wanna   go for a ride, I’ll take you over there.  was a two years ago but the concrete steps   are still stained from the blood”  “Sure”   I grabbed my coat.

!129

1-976-NTHRWLD affiliation:  still not in a pagan death cult  was just out on the thawing lawn  lying belly down, too soon  sucking spiked lemonade   (not blood)  up a twisty straw  life is a string   of unknown songs  slow reveal, we fake our way along

service:  devour wayward stars  sing and flinch and sing  flop cinder blocks on crab claws  conquer ethereal Wednesdays  be 1000 percent kissed off  scale the lattice, shirtless   when ice vaporizes  spring has sprung! arrangements:

1. bury me in this motherfucking plaid shirt 2. remember me: eating oysters, drinking tomato juice; bacon was my only religion 3. remember our lovely wood paneling; and how we swam through ice water, with purpose, like mint; how we made a career rolling through the sprinklers, on fire, well pretending, anyway 4. I enjoyed: runny eggs, short skirts, white ceiling fans, the odd afternoons 5. last seen leaving: rivers thawed, having waxed my newspaper boat to float to Hades, paddling occasionally, squinting even in shadow to look cool; when I'm gone though, I'll still say hello, I'm sure the caverns have upward echoes; leave the toilet seat up, the drains open.

!130

July 18th, 2006 sometimes, average  blue sky hurts  watch the way I collapse  through other people’s eyes  easily falling down hill  green grass and dandelions pass  and when I splash into water  head whacking river stones  everything suddenly feels right  the sun ducks behind a renegade cloud.

!131

August 9th

a) forgot  my clothes  on a branch  b) then rain  c) I fucking  wore them  anyway  all day.

!132

Prayer To The Passing Waitress

sangria   saves   lives  (repeat.)

!133

Even Steven

our small emergencies  of oxygen and energy  the failing orbit in the sludge  of our awkward bodies  I am yours  whenever/wherever  you have my cookies.

!134

Cuevero and Elderflower

the afternoon crash lands  it’ll be alright, right cat?  been so busy, what a lazy life  over-efficient, salt mine ready  prayer really didn’t work for me  lemon light broke the kitchen window  now blood, sugar, spikes—oh kitty!  day and night, what’s real?  someone on the TV always   wants to save me  while you lick yourself  solution, get couch horizontal  pitcher frame, pillows, teak okay  lime, ice, tequila, salt, st. germain

!135

April 27th

cherry blossom   and dogwood   going crazy  all in bloom   or on the verge  what a good day  even here, sitting  on the guard rail  car hissing.

!136

Strip Mall, 8am, Saturday

I usually drive into a strip mall  and first things first, swing   around the back  to see the loading dock  and the card board  dumpster  the shadow’d woods  behind …  you ever do that?  I wonder why  —either way.

!137

! ! ! !

Fortunes If June 13th is your birthday: this time it's for real. Whatever comes on the radio, go with it, gyrate in public. Capricorn (dec. 22nd—jan 20th): Your tombstone will be a jukebox, but not for a severely long time, ions, possibly. Aries (march 21st—apr 19th): Still don't know the slick streets, or the wayward doves, the name of the bus driver, or why these rain clouds are stranded over the roof? Solve that crisis.

Taurus (apr 20th—may 20th): Say hello to anybody who seems lost. Eat more illusive fish. Death unlimited, keeps crashing another place. Man, that feels niiice.

!! !

Pieces (feb 20th—march 20th): Get fucked. Gemini (may 21st—june 21st): There's all this bright sunshine and no dogs passed out in it, make a promise to guide them out of dense shade into fine lemon light.

Cancer (jun 22nd—jul 23rd): A pink fire appears in something mechanical, and of great value. Be on the lookout for this. Carry a bucket of water everywhere.

Leo (jul 24th—aug 23rd): Old friends reveal themselves as shadows of shadows, seen in a gazing pool. Oh, btw, get/find/ locate a gazing pool some instance before midnight. Virgo (aug 24th—sept 22nd): Postcards don't come or the miracle powdered soap, there's no huss/no fussit’s easier than ever, clip not a single live forever coupon.

!138

Scorpio (oct 23rd—nov 22nd): It'd be nice if someone knocked on my window at dusk and carried in the blue moonlight rumored in those cowgirls' songs.

! ! !

Libra (sept 23rd—oct 22nd): Your best fears will claw on your window at dawn. Aquarius (jan 21st—feb 19th): Wear a bulletproof vest over your bikini. Sagittarius (nov 23rd—dec 20th): try all the doors, book cases escape hatches—two-way mirrored ceilings looming over sometimes conceal hidden passages within reflections.

! !! !!

Your Lucky Number: 123

!139

enough with the technological   advances already

dear pagan gods. dear moonless days.  dear animal trapped here.  dear glue rapid terror.   dear highways through   the thrashing sea.   dear purple west, I'm on my way.

you seem so ready. you  collapse across the jetty. you  set fire to a spring need. you  arrive dusted, 1/2 dead, keyed

quiet dream, quiet  wind, quiet every sleeping  thing thrashing in its  violet sleep, quiet.

!140

Check Up

I know the ocean by first name  came to me under electro shock therapy  hurts that I can't share violently but carefully carried through the streets won't be love enough as it should be try on as many versions of life as you can don't flinch when the tax return is revealed act your best version of surprised

try this, in no order: 1. snail mail a birthday card to everyone 2. parade wave at the flickering cemetery zipping by--warp speed in the EZ pass lane 3. make a puzzle from a photograph of a better time

candles, wax-sunk into every stone step windows reflect match head fires darkness is a certain lack of dream inside seashells, I hear 'for he's a jolly good fellow' try to trust less in police

and this: clouds show up in dreams dressed in halloween green the roof shines nice, the sailboats bend again take nine and call me in the morning

the night nurse says: moon just a target for your big ol' eyes spread the metal bars with your buzz saw mind then take a dive in a neighbor's pool drive your neighbor's wife to school

further advice: keep all your tax papers for seven years hidden in a sand castle guarded by orderlies slipped off !141

how it is: another couple weeks you'll be free promise.

!142

At the Record Store

sing the alphabet  roaming all the rows  reaching out a hand  grazing promises   sucked inside cellophane   endless wooden bins  the long haired clerk   has his head down   at the register  drooling on his  3/4 sleeve shirt

when things were new  felt like discovered  amethyst tossed out   into the snow  or floating in a metal boat  through boiling mist  lightning and a first good kiss  and all the while, always  always, a miracle on the radio  some song, what song? thee song  I'll never know, the DJ   forgot to say, then an ad  for soap, life's great mystery  what that fucking song was

so study every sealed record  ask the kids by the mall fountain  collect call the great beyond   fake pray at the foot of your bed  for the song to arrive/appear again  smoke machine dreams of your favorite band  having something in section p  h-i-j-k-l-m-n-o—nope, nothing fingers flip the plastic back the red-eyed clerk passes  with an empty cart  “help you find anything?”  break open my bedroom wall  !143

find a million dollars in gold coins  find Shannon flying low over my roof  naked with a parachute  help me find the power  to blink and stop time  help me know everything  I'm stoned, I'm staring  he repeats, “help you find anything?”  “I'm okay,” I say, “just looking.”

!144

Good Luck

it just happened, a bird   shit on me—so begins  the good luck streak  off in the distance  the cowgirl sings her   saddest song  but I am payday invincible   nothing will be wrong  every beer bottle that falls  does a somersault  slaps on its bottom, flat  there are not even suds  just more championship seasons  more blossoms, more meaning  sleep walk to a charmed life  not off a single rock knife cliff  furthermore get no shiners  no busted lips, no lies  other houses burn down   in the spring death night  cars explode, the world shakes  my tongue sweat dogs  sprint offs, get doomsday lost  a whistle, all it takes is a whistle  and my dog comes trotting back  usually I’m busy  falling down the stairs  and laying there till morning  tonight I’ll climb to the top  of the sea green water tower  this town’s highest point  to toss my pennies   onto the sparking power lines  to make myself happy.

!145

side yard

the cowgirl   of southern new jersey  smokes endlessly  on mossy cellar steps  sipping skunked beer   awaiting the plop of rain  the motorcycle  ripping down the street  even the missing   in action mailman   to bring her a letter  from almost anyone.

!146

Punk Rock Rituals  it’s nice to be invited   the lovelies spit in circles  set blue fires, sip blue poison  dance stupid, are un-quiet  coo all night like uncaged   tropical birds  does this cult even have a name?  I don’t ever belong here  but I’ll drink any kind   of punch you have  and put nostalgia trinkets   into the fat lip middle  to be used in the seance  of your punk rock rituals.

!147

Poem Written While Searching

all this distance the girls disappear and out my window fruit trees bloom a TV through the wall murmurs, 300 vanished the first robin has its nest broken by a random wind a man on FM radio mentions again that pesky misplaced airplane from the porch I watch the wind move the leaning telephone pole beside my sleeping car with a xerox of Jane missing since June a thousand nail heads  in her lost head staples too, a shredded purple balloon where have all the good times gone? in the bird baths frost had dug in then blammo, one night finally it's warm  fans swirl the computer cools off the cardboard castle gets dark by seashell nightlight I search the dryer for my other sock.

!148

the $2 cinema

the arrow of   life is pointing   in your direction

every crystal eaten   becomes another arrow  arms up and around  hold hands   and m&ms in   the popcorn  after, pay phone   shivering  in the rain  waiting for   goddamn   where-is  -she-mom

the arrow of  life is pointing   in your direction

hearts collected  blue swords, waterfalls

bleached hair   turns green  your princess lies  in another castle  player two insert  whatever you can  just use protection  I’m ovulating

! !149

Slumping Off

I think tonight  the stars  are flinching

June and I  go walking  barefoot

hot streets hiss  a cracked glass  of orange Tang

spiked with   anything  lost comets cross

power lines   know your name  glowing clouds

banshees  swing over the   black earth

strip down, swim  we frog out in   the drainage pond.

!150

! !

New Neighbor  the dogs learn first  they piss her name  on the lawn   till the crab grass   dies there  then I can read it   from the street  ‘Shannon’   I say  smiling  walking over  holding  lemon pie.

!151

Today’s Going Fast

dawn—green lights, gun shots rust, disassemble, eat the clocks life has an off-kilter time table screw everything, youth is plinko still don't know the answer to the never ever die riddle

noon—no one gets beheaded for fun instant rain, instant fucked, sugar rim meet me at the docks for lunch

dusk—raise your hand if you have questions in the tornado kick those feet, break all the upmost windows

moonrise—climbs the slimes here comes the long night arms in a V, collapsing through the duck feather bed never stop to dream live forever, exposed teeth you point, I'll bleed.

!152

Wednesday

enough of  days without   tiny rocks lost love  in pockets, in shoes letters  got quiet  all done  drink this  lemon/lime death  get the ringing phone   barefoot, glassless  a voice says  ‘coming home’  me smiling, wide  as I eat the phone.

!153

honeysuckles

There are six cops, I know their squad car numbers by heart. Squad car: 757, 681 222, 112, 90, and 14. The bar let’s out, I walk up the grass hill behind the parking lot and slowly eat honey-suckles growing through the fence.  The last drunks stumble out  The guy that was punching the malfunctioning jukebox gets in a red Nissan, and is pulled over immediately by car# 681.  A woman screaming through a cigarette hops in a pickup and is caught by car # 14  Two lane highway. No escape.  I devour flowers under spinning moonlight.  Car# 90 nabs a wobbling man on a wobbly bike. That doesn’t seem fair.  I lay back in the wet grass to watch the clouds smother the rest of the moon. In another life  I’d like to be a wolf, but not a cop.  A young couple, make-out, for a long while in a blue Volkswagen beetle, fogging the windows. She draws a heart. He does too. When they finally leave, they’re chased down, whoop whoop, by car #222 and #112  I study the flashing blue and red against the glass of the closed forever hobby shop.  My mouth is full of honey, it seems safe to leave, but I don’t. I close my eyes on the wet hill.  There is still car #757, and that motherfucker wants to drink my blood, most of all.

!154

the zero zero block

I want to get lost on the streets I grew up on laying in an X   on soaked grass chugging watermelon flavored poison

I hope bonfire billboards spark all night long

and the six cops in this place remain parked   wherever it is  they park

I wanna survive oblivious in the dark because of a weird kiss from a weirder girl.

!155

king kong couldn't

on my third beer  I begin to know   universal truths  about all forms of life  my immediate reaction  is to order a forth   no—make that a fifth too  yes, bring them both  and have the bartender  turn off the music, please  I am about to give   a sermon on the top  of the jukebox  like motherfucking  king kong couldn’t

wonder who will shoot me down?

!156

ordinary houses

all the while the wildest birds infiltrate our ordinary houses maybe they  presage death with the slash of perfect wings   color of the sky just after the storm   I’m not sure I'm still climbing up   little weird vine   at a time  getting the fuck   away from   that house.

!157

Nice To Meet You

after the crash  we slid out  and stared at  our smoking cars  “you alright?”  “fine, you?”  “good, good”  the night was big  and somewhere  was the sea  and girls smiling  and anti-toxins  “alright then”  “alright then”  we moved on  what else   are people to do  after a  head-on  collision?

!158

Rock

my brother, four feet tall  red curly hair, hands cupped  calling in the distance  “bet you can’t hit me   wif a rock!”  a green hill, I’m 9  dandelion lawn  my brother, way across  the gravel hill road  making an X   on a wooden platform  half of a half pipe  nineteen eighty seven  he’s jumping now, shouting  “hello! I said, ‘bet you can’t   hit me wif a rock!”  I palm a flat chunk   of asphalt   from the edge of   the driveway  and with no worry  I swing my arm back  perfect  it leaves my fingertips  and rotates end over endless end  as he jumps  as he he jumping jacks  as he smiles  as he laughs  the rock  a clay pigeon  a UFO  a discuss  end over endless end  a part of the horizon  every element  star, ghost, music  non-mechanized art

it hits his face  !159

he drops

falling off the platform  into the gravel  rolling, screaming, bleeding  my uncle was at the window  watching, eating a bowl  of cereal   and now! running to me!  without a word  milk in his beard  clotheslining me   into the dandelion lawn  a sock’d foot on my chest  “what the fuck!”  weight presses down  wind gone

my brother holding his face  sitting up, not screaming  not crying, blood everywhere  “you okay?”  my uncle at his side  “noooooo!”  “what happened?”  he’s looking in my brother’s mouth  all baby teeth still there  just a cut above the eye  “what happened?!?”  “I … I … bet him he couldn't  hit me wif a rock …”  he started hitting my little brother

after that we all went for ice cream.

!160

Lunch one slice of watermelon, swallowed whole its sweet pink meat, white and black seeds  the green rind was gone, already  before I got here, don’t look at me like that

two small packs of unsalted peanuts devoured instantly  to think some children die from these I would die for them, I’d kill someone I didn’t know for the privilege to keep eating these peanuts I mean, the salted ones of course

there is no talk here during lunch  that is saved for after lunch

coffee for me, english tea for that guy  a soda over there fizzes, I haven’t had a soda  since I was a boy, that was this weekend before I grew up, but hey, look at me!  black coffee, and for that guy, english tea

now, the sandwich, today’s sandwich is tuna fish, it’s I think, white albacore  and the mayonnaise is 2% milk fat or higher but that's just a guess, I bought it off   a silver truck that sells cigarettes, lottery tickets watermelon, peanuts, coffee and english tea  donuts, bad salad, sodas, ancient pastries, more  after I finish my sandwich, everyone else  seems to be done eating too,   men all eat at a pretty similar pace  trust me, I’ve timed them

while I sip my coffee I begin to write this poem a man with half a mouthful of ancient pastry  asks me, “what you writing?” the scratch off lottery ticket guy looks up “a poem about lunch,” I say “lunch? ha, jesus, nothing else left? only topic?” !161

“I guess so” he stops chewing the pastry, lottery guy stops scratching  “read us some”

so I start to read this lunch poem our fattest man, sipping the soda looks away uncomfortably he puts the cap on right away  the ancient pastry man is shocked  “you’d kill a kid to be able to keep eating peanuts?”

I continue reading, unabated english tea guy says “my goddamn name is Paul” “I know that, Paul”  “and you eat faster than anyone” he says

laughing , fat soda man says “you stink like a bad date—you reek like fish”

I’d love some more   watermelon.

!162

beautiful weather here   you won't find me dead today I'd chew a thousand bullets to no ill effect   slip all the knives in  I’ll crack up about it tomorrow they say it'll rain we'll see, then.

!163

! !

Couple Hours Before Memorial Day doves cooed at twilight that's all over now I'm sitting still somewhere in the outside dark little bit of moonlight falling through some black trees frogs, bugs, buzz black powder’d new summer bombs the roll of cars as waves crashing on the two lane highway I'm drinking bourbon and lemon slouched here content music-less couple of those tall saint candles burning.

! !!

!164

Getting Ready for Work took a hot shower with the window open just about to   thunderstorm 5am I've been waking up hungover   then driving my car to the job but not today it's raining all electric and the earth is drowning gurgling, washing away me too, even behind the ears soaping up everything   still haven’t   lost any hair in the drain  still brush my teeth  till I see blood think for breakfast I'll have a beer and go back to bed half wet.

!165

The Medicine I’m On

let’s me see the earth spin  like a dime flicked on a glass table  the medicine I’m on had me float last night through  I’d guess 100,000 waterfalls  looking behind each  for a beer, or a pit of wishes  or even the lost plug to the drain  the medicine I’m on  whistles at ghosts drinking rain  and lets dogs loose from clotheslines  or cats skidding in the marble   halls of the mountain king  the medicine I’m on  has no interest in pinball  town hall or supermarket death  the medicine I’m on glues me down  slows blue time, makes me understand  that when I’m not sick, I can wrestle   a lion, for now, I’ll be over here, on fire  hit me with the hose if you can.

!166

Got Your Filthy Letter

rose petals and ripe berries, bicycle spokes  rusting super slowly, got a letter in the box  it said, ‘JUST WANTED TO RANDOMLY SAY, HI!’   there was no return address, I’m used to it  hot tub chemicals poured in a mud hole  earth shaped marbles, juggled  rumors of bonus spring, extra moon   cats trot home, mouths full of pitted cherries  our street remains an easy place to cream  mint ice water, sprig of rosemary, peachy skin  don’t get sick of dew—hate is empty   please, squeeze my average sized lemon, the two thousand and fourteenth year, the sixteenth day  my garden gate is open, ripped it down  no one been reported killed here for years  time will tell.

!167

See You Next Tuesday

I make some water hot  in the microwave  and put two green tea bags  into my cartoon shark mug  then I sit down   in the lemon light  and sweat it out  I hope nothing gets cut off me  anytime soon.

!168

! !

Joybubble 1.

The angel of death kite blew up into a tree outside our window. We first notice it, sideways, while we screw. Uncharacteristically, we stop, and draw the shades.

! !

2. There is one particular dog, she's one of those hot dog ones, and fast too. Lately when we walk past the dog park, she's in there sprinting from one end to the other, snapping her jaws up, pulling frisbees out of the air. All sun. The boy who throws the frisbees appears to be from Japan. I ask him about the dog, eventually. He says, "Nothing makes her happier than this." I ask, "But what else have you tried?"

! ! 3.

Today I found a YouTube video that will probably change my life. It's instructional, a way to finally air condition the room where I sit and do my writing. (I can't put in a window box AC Unit because the window hangs over the street) (splat!) Here's the trick: Get two buckets, one slightly larger than the other. Place one bucket in the other. Drill a 2 1/4 inch hole in three spots, through both buckets. Step 2, put a frozen one gallon jug inside the inner bucket, stick a small fan (pointed down) into the lid, plug it in. Aim the bucket at your ass, enjoy on a hot day. It's what we call in the biz, Sno King bingo. â&#x20AC;Š

!169

! !

Typical Weekday  I'm too drunk   to even submit   previously   published   poems.

!170

It’s Only July

been hiding behind the waterfall  even a dog knows to stay out of the rain   been night swimming, been faithful   been stone carving your invincible name  often I sleep on the lawn   after I aim big rocks at the moon   and the rocks orbit down   onto my head, that's why I was gone  why do fireflies glow?  just so other things can eat them easier?  somebody with seniority  grant me the serenity  to whatever whatever  whatever, I cannot change  the calendar changes  the ice cream truck evades  the fuel gauge dives  an orange cat in gloves   catches no mice  and fuck it, I like mice  from time to time, I even leave  the waterfall cave, mouse in hand I let it go back to the trees  coupon-less, sideways, strange  there's no more consequence  there's no more wilderness   there no more negotiations  there's no more gentle prayer  there's no more invention  or doom or hiccups or dare  but plenty of life   it's the 4th of fucking July  and raining  but we're alright.

!171

I can’t teach this tour guide anything  but I know the way there are  places not like this  lift both arms  float there  had my doubts  and fears folded  in a wallet I lost  worry too, fell out  passing through some door  for the dog to eat  for the birds to sip  I’ve failed hard, crashed bad  lost foot races against certain statues  and I may not be able to  teach this tour guide anything  but I do know the way.

Not Just a Mountain the sky right now  all renegade clouds  fish eggs and ball peen wind  sparks on the ridge  never knew you well enough  never licked stamps for you  or lied regular-grade or super-grade  in a birthday card  get well card  X-mas card, farewell card  tonight I’ll lie on green grass  soggy in the moonlight  and sing what I can  before everything’s sucked  into the volcano.

The Way I Do The Dishes On Bad Nights in the kitchen doing dishes  Wednesday night  and I was trying not to drink  we have no dog, no house plants  no fish or cat or lottery ticket  all is right in the laser’s path  when I come to a glass  I’d like to get drunk out of  I break it in the sink  then slowly extract all the glass  and by then, the feeling has passed.

The Stairs on 238th Street     The first time I went to this bar  it was midnight, tail end of summer  I got off the 1 train and walked  with Jon and Ros and my wife.  The steps surprised us, appearing   like sheer stone vertical hell  but we went up, and up  dragging ourselves up.  On a landing in the middle   of the climb, two teenagers   were lying down, fully clothed  writhing, she was on the bottom  he was on the top  I could see neither face  their faces were pressed together  as much as faces can possibly be  we climbed the rest of the way   and went into this bar  and there we stayed, until hours later  when the bar closed.  On our way back down the steps  the teenagers were still there  writing on the stairs, she was on top  now, gyrating, still fully clothed.  That’s my story about these stairs.

Steps

I was seventeen  new license, old car  had a g i r l f r i e n d  Laura, who’d come over   and fuck, if it was safe

but the winter was hard

the house had steep steps  going way up that my father   refused to salt  “it eats the blocks”  “I’ll replace them   in the spring—swear”  “no” he said

the ice was two inches thick  I called Luara on her line  “sorry, I won’t go up those steps  I like being alive”

I tried to melt the mess   with a small blow torch  but he took it from me  “you’ll burn down the house  go take a cold shower.”

the night went on  I went for a walk  a friend had beer up the block  when I came home, late  my mom was on the couch  smoking a cigarette in the dark  “your father had an accident   on the steps” I laughed  “it’s not funny, his feet flew out  he crashed all the way down”  “where is he now?”  “his room”  “he’s not paralyzed”  !5

“no”  “so, it’s a little funny”  “go salt the goddamn steps”

sure, but first  I rang up Laura.

Blow Stuff Up, Gently.

1. Girls toss marbles at us and we chase them down a thousand stairs, bounding, leaping, hands out as we soar towards the soft marble floor  2. Orange jets floating towards glass clouds, reflects— I’m pretty sure—mountains. Or they’re cloud mountains, not glass at all. Who knows?  3. Destruction is inevitable, I said to the kid at the deli counter. He knows.  4. When I drive my car, I imagine I'm driving towards somewhere with pink fog lying on the surface of the wet bubblegum world.  5 Got my work all done. Froze a bunch of black cherries, so yeah, fine, come on over, I live downstairs.

Rachel In Her Swimsuit      on my way to prison  in a gray bus with  NO CHANCE   stenciled on it  my hands shackled together  and fixed to a bolt in the floor  I'm facing a sentence, 75 to life  just up the muddy road  I think in the dream, I've killed  some other dreamer  there's never a feeling like  “I've been framed” or anything  all I have is guilt for my crime  the guard on the other side  of the metal gate  sits with shotgun on lap  dozing off, and the other inmates  are wide eyed with dull sorrow too  but I always feel like I am   the only one dreaming  we bounce down the muddy road  and the driver gleefully says  “Half way there, fuckers!”  the shot gun guard snores  a man behind me begins to weep  and I set my head against   the sweaty window and almost cry too  but then, outside the window  I see my wife, Rachel, in her swimsuit  and I feel fine, she's waving to me  from the edge of the blue spruce pines  she puts a blowgun to her lips  firing a series of darts  that pop each of the tires of the bus  we skid to a hard stop  and the driver and the guard   !8

get out to look  more darts get them in the neck  they collapse in the mud  and everyone on the bus cheers  as Rachel takes the guard’s keys  and comes back on the bus  to free, as she can, only me.

terroristic threats muttered under breath

in the worst way, we fail—and no one notices.  I spend my days waiting by the unplugged phone.  the nights are wide open to shell peanuts,  to get kinder, to offer this, to offer that. to break a leg   at the lip of a wishing well. to toss a tennis ball at my dented wall.     got a non-love letter, saying our love letters are about to expire.     at dawn it all burns down. we’ve been warned.     you’re there. I’m here. we can’t talk. but I have this brush. I have this bucket. I’ll paint your house red when you’re not home. all I can do.

!10

Suggestion # 4    don't ask cops for directions   if you're hiccuping.

!11

dear vertigo    are you still  getting my  signals  the machine  I use now   is as old   as snow.

!12

!     point taken    I wanna buy Beethoven a beer  but they insist I’ve missed   my chance, I wanna jump   through the ceiling and crash   down on another version  of the sugar glass floor  you can take me   or you can tell me to go  I’m ambivalent, quiet, neutral  but when cornered I sing!  that’s a warning shot, man  I sing bad, break all your windows   and mirrors and lots of bad luck  tonight all my heroes are dancing   it's enough to make a grown man   give up, and in the morning  go out and get a real job   and stop living in another   dimension with clouds kissing  all down the front of my shirt  and pulling my fly open with their teeth  what? you’ve never been   felted by a cloud before  grow up.   I got all my world weariness   from the usual hells, ignored them all   all the hells, happy to be alive   and driving this car covered in bird shit.

!13

No Matter.      the people I know are all going to some place that doesn't exist. hell.

I'm skipping across the road all torn up under the sideways moonlight.

when they set you on fire you find out how serious they are. no matter, we eat fire for lunch around here.

!14

Reading Until I Don’t Fall Asleep       I read James Claffey in the bathroom   and Ryder Collins, and Nabokav  not all of them on the toilet  I take long baths, you see  read Amy Hempel in the bath tub too  book is goddamn destroyed  I read Bukowski, Love is a Dog   From Hell, while pissing  each piss, a poem, standing there  paperback in one hand  and you get the rest  and I read Len Kuntz that way  too. Pablo Neurda: also a pisser.    I read Seidlinger at work  sitting on top of a tower that boils  oil into gasoline, fire shooting   into the black starless sky  over new jersey  and inside a big metal drum   I read Meg Tuite, I was supposed   to be chipping concrete with a   pneumatic gun, but I wasn’t  I was reading and pretending  so be it, they had a night shift too  it was no rush    When I crashed my car, I was reading  Raymond Carver, the cop asked  “is it at least a good book?”  “sad book”  “goes well with this ticket then”  I was reading Meg Tuite again   on the airplane  when the turbulence started

!15

and the lights flashed out   and in the dark cabin  the family in front of me  started singing holy death bible hymns  in Spanish  I kept reading   or I would have cried   for my life  we survived  the book ended good too    was reading Dustin Holland at   the doctor’s office when they couldn’t  figure out what was wrong with me  for the second and third time  fourth time I was reading Gay Degani  now I’m onto Robert Vaughan  they still don’t know what is wrong   with me    was reading Merce Rodoreda   time of the doves, in the park  by my apartment when I was   on unemployment   have read Fante and Misti Rainwater  on state checks too, not to   mention Kevin Ridgeway  Denis Johnson and Frank Reardon  I like being unemployed and   being state subsidized to read  those books in that park   by my apartment  more of that please    read Kyle Muntz at the beach  got sunburn everywhere  except between my toes   and my nut sack

!16

read Ben Loory to my friend’s   kid who couldn’t sleep  read eight of Aaron Dietz’s books  in a yellow chair next to my radiator  the radiator was chanting and   popping and making a fucking racket  occasionally I’d yell at it  “shut up shut up shut up!”    read In Watermelon Sugar again   last night, did that one again  in the bath tub again  I’m always doing that  In Watermelon Sugar and   the motherfucking bath tub again  Richard Brautigan probably   had a good one   he brought into the bath tub too  wonder what it was.

!17

Turn To Stone

!or salt or a frog a soldier, a college graduate a girl leaning on the pay phone at the truck stop turn to pink pills dart leagues, exploration love in the muddy fields crystals when properly clicked can god-damn-look-at-you you-are-healed! turn to lesser skies, lesser need lesser want lesser bullets broken apart sort the ashes sort the pebbles the fragments, the skulls the skills, expectations, losses long may you return my glance.

!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !

!18

Pow Wow

!other people don't understand our window, washing machine the trick to the shower how to force open the broken cellar door, cabinet, closet where to find our condoms secret fact, there are none they can't stand in our doorways even, and sigh how we can or find the other shoe the secret sugar, the pink candles playing cards, remote controls maps to wherever the dog ran wish I knew too our sheets could use more bleach and our cops need to get laid in this development, our fortunes are invested in beer we raise our fortunes to you as you walk up the driveway thanks for coming to visit tell me about some things   I could never   understand.

!19

Crooked Painting

I didn’t do good upstairs  the body lying in its nest  and the people kneeling  saying good bye  at the foot of the coffin

I never do too good   at these things  I walked down stairs   away—to a quiet spot

the funeral home was laid  out like the maze of the   underworld, past the coat closet  I found a room marked 'private'   and managed without   asking for help, to open  a stubborn door

inside was an old smoking lobby  mostly preserved   the way it had been back   before I was born  and comfort was different  I blew dust off leather chairs  and lamps made of gold-plated   knight’s helmets  the otherworldly ashtrays  were mortally empty  newer signs, warned someone,   not me—“NO SMOKING”  that’s cute, it’s been saying  NO SMOKING  since before I was born

It was very dim in there  I turned on an extra lamp   !20

to make it less creepy

a crooked oil painting   leaning off kilter   caught my eye  it had two boats washed up   on the shore, wrapped in seaweed   little rowboats nestled together  the scene dark and somber  seagulls overhead like vultures   or I guess sea gulls do the same thing

I got pretty upset again looking   at the crooked painting with the rowboats   because of course, each empty rowboat   represented a person and the people   the boats represented were together, in death  but that wasn’t the same thing   that was happening, upstairs  upstairs was all separation  we weren’t all there yet, together   if we ever would be

I sat on the dusty leather couch  wishing I had a shiny red apple  or a pomegranate or an answer

the afterlife is a room marked ‘private’  you used to be able to smoke there  you can’t smoke there any more  so as I left the room   I straightened the crooked painting.

!21

!22