College: Philip Vachon
(pronounced Vuh-Shawn)
NEW YORK SLEEPS New York shuts its eyes for an hour and a half but just tosses and turns and then has to get up and go to work still drunk I'm a nomad in my own home. I search and search but I can't sleep anywhere that my mind follows me. 1
THE BEAUTY OF NOW The beauty of art is that it will be forgotten, The beauty of the universe is that it continues unseen, The beauty of love is that it doesn't last forever, The beauty of us is now.
BUTTON UP Buttoning Up Like a cold cold winter is coming Cause it's easier working from the bottom up Ask the senior sales manager using his diploma to wash dishes if you don't believe Button up because on days when frostbite or heatstroke won't kill you it's business casual Button them up too Little torsos full of four souls And one half For the 2.5 child family Of the last but not last fight. Winter in America has an icy hot edged sword and it is a bitch So take all the sweater weather you can get before bundling and mumbling begins But it's better from the ground up, Better snow Better leaves Better believes and treaties Better button up.
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FUCKKKKK. FIVE Ks. I just walked in on my roommate masturbating. I have to read essays. I have a girl who I really like who doesn't want a relationship and even though I don't either she can't deal with a middle ground. Friends lovers nothing. I have a weird testicle thing so my balls ache and I might be sterile. I live in New York so there is always too much to do. The girl hasn't kissed me in 3 weeks and I kissed three girls this week. I don't know what we are or how she feels. I'm weak. I'm starting a company. I don't know how to start a company. My best friend dropped out of it. I just got hit by a goddamn hurricane. My water is freezing. This was one of few times I wasn’t afraid to get in a relationship. My turtle of 10 years just died. My sisters in Spain. My parents aren't down the hall. I'm moving away from all of my high school friends. My room is already empty. I don't sleep enough. I can't go back in the room right now because I can't look my roommate in the eye. I just caught him, ya know. Girl 2 of 3 said her friend had mono, after we made out. Girl 3 is friends with main girl's roommate. Girl 1 and I spoke in English accents while we hooked up. We were drunk. Very. Drunk. Oh and I got rug burn on my dick. And have bruises everywhere. I have poor posture and haven't read a book for fun in way too long. My writing and my music suffer. I haven't practiced piano. Hurricanes are hitting me and my friends. I've got way too many unchecked boxes. And I'm starting to think The Pressure Is Good For You applies when the pressure remains singular. I might need to talk to someone about all this. Fuckkkkk. Ah well. I'm in New York. My parents love me. My sister loves me. I'm going to the doctors soon. I get an education. I was in Forbes (online). Girls apparently like me, however briefly. The hurricane could've been worse. My other friends are still in the company. Tomorrow is a new day. Maybe the pressure is good for me. Philip Maxwell Vachon
THE DREAM Write a story about the dream: I was cursed to popping in and out of a life flying by. Within this he discovered he had a niece. She had bandages on her face for some unknown and unquestioned dreamy reason. "You're so beautiful" he said with an absolute that he had never felt. Her bandages and burns had, he was sure, made her the target of many "look how pretty you are"s but she felt his absolute. I know she did. We can imagine she'd be nervous meeting someone new but she had the pretending not to smile of a child who knew she was safe. He would like to think she knew him. He has a dream about a niece he didn't know he had.
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She has bandages and burns on her face. She is the most beautiful thing in the world. He picks her up and in that moment feels a love. A Love that comes free of debate. The evolutionary silliness of needing to procreate dissolves. This is real. Passing it on as we are meant to do. We all are forgotten eventually, but all he cared about was to keep that smile forever on her face. In a moment his success metrics were demolished and rebuilt. A family man. "Your mother and I." A depth of feeling beyond him. Into a new dimension within him. He cried in his dream. He woke up, face dry.
IN THIS OF MANY MOMENTS In this of many universes, objects have mass. In this of many planets, there is air. In this of many cities, there are bright lights. In this of many girls, there is a spark. She presses her body against mine Flesh to flesh with a forceful declaration Each gasp fills me with air sweeter than the last more vaporous than the last. I feel her breath, See the lights all around us, Know the spark within her is not just hers. Millions of moments have aligned And the fires of the past propel us onward Into a future always a second away. I will stand with her on the precipice forever; I will never forget that, In this of many moments, She is mine. 4
ETERNAL THEMES I'd felt licked behind the ears And bruised up Realized that the theme of love adolescent passion fire love dominated my poetry, I'd left feeling dumbed down and bruised and whipped needing a rubber nipple to cry on And my life, O my life was a still-casked wine, (Frank and Walt I'll asterisk, notwithstanding.) So I left and searched for more Me, Time Rhyme Ancient Forever-Words etched in marble, And finding merely Me solely Me only Me! I shouted! But not too loud because I'd not been alone Sputtered midnights holiday blankets lifted me out and I'd shamed myself in my shame, So out I came And I'd stopped looking. Eternal themes as I see are all and every and love, As I see through my rose fake I.D. lenses, Is in all and every too. FRANKENSTEINS I don't make Frankensteins anymore. Better straight-through top bottom start end clean No more running out of thread too. No more ugly transplants green skinned goosebumps and Peacewar, No more holding on, No more beating hearts beating warts beating mind racing memories Was that-? No No more beat back beat black street fight lungs ripped, No more night talk, No more piecing or pacing. Fresh and white like the sheets it's all clean. And eyes closed I can cry for my creations and apologize, But they don't know they are And that is the worst. ASK YOURSELF Ask yourself how many more nights do you have left until you get sick of these lights? 5
TO WOODS Dearest Woods you savage you You daring devilish impassioned you Crunching in the snow with boots prepared And speaking annals stone into cold air Have you been gone? Dormant content in the flannel fireplace Bloodhound rifle barrel at your feet, eyes Joints and sockets quickly deliberately? Leave me trails of broken saplings Snow packed layered hammered Motorboats gasoline sandpaper stars Woods! Do not abandon me to ink stain fingers. But in my striving I may find you This distillation I will drink down down However densely packed buckled I will Not by my own accord but by incandescent log cabin fever dream little big smoking pipe tobacco ancestors time itself burning smoking eluding and in my mind for Woods Woods! Silent serpentine turpentine clean as night all that is the holiest slate Orion‌ And I have found you. I dip my copper cup and it is taken Fold my to-day newspaper Sword hat boat and away the torrent Away a deeper brook and crick For all the brooks and cricks behind Papa’s house Away a faster stream and brook For all the young boys racing leaves for me racing leaves Within leaves we will meet But only outside truly ever converging Hatchet out the signal and I will follow And follow and follow. C. ETERNITY True under-the-covers fear Never death or finality for me Always the lines unwinding Dashes, years for 6
Not spindling definites, My mind feels its expansion My skull feels it most but tissue too Whirling chemical rush Straight to the heart and I’m up Pacing running heavy breathing. I as terrified at all eternity As eternal white clean clothes As eternal blood whip fire punishment As desk jobs blowjobs time travel Family members board games Time to my thoughts, poetry! I want to cut that side-eight Accept a number dash number But most don’t And I wondered and didn’t realize The distinction. Until Physicist Trillion years Universe dead But we could jump to another, (It was this that lodged darkness,) And I knew. A world that dies with us A mortal world mortal universe And we decide now if it's worth it. A trillion year flash in the pan, That's one zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero, And then wiped away. An eternity. Countless more trillions of lives lived and to live, And its reprieve not its entrapment terrified me. THE NEON BLACK I swear it buzzed like neon The air between our lips Every atom energized, Vibrating with the electricity of anticipation fear excitement. The black of eyes closed and the black of eyes open Black of uncertainty, the calculating unconscious measuring Heat and breath and that atoms' vibration The black that amplified breaths into hurricane roars 7
The black of endless depth Of falling butterfly mouthed Gyroscopic madman and madwoman Endless endless endless to know as they fly. I believe this energy holds Stretched now imperceptible Still there though, still tethered Your lips the zap of infinite asymptote. WINE In your hands. Dionysus you sonofabitch You wingman you maker of gods You maker of fools you parade singer Ferris Bueller. Fuck you. I love you my friend And all that you stand for All that you loved and professed your love to Serenades like grenades grenadine red Red like you my fraternal twin I talk to myself in the mirror I’m not that drunk I’mnot that durnk I’m NOT that drunk. I promis I mprioms And your promise always kept Promise of godlike victory over death in life Victory and war, or rather pride. I lie in your hands Lay in your hands Sleep and try to sleep In your hands you Bacchus Singer of songs of merrymaking Oak wood slamming glasses And when I forget the tannins and legs When I forget my own legs You cradle me singing lullabies Of my unprecedented greatness; The both true and untrue facts And in dreams I’ll shimmer gold Mornings of Apollo kick my ass 8
But you cradle my head. In your hands. Dionysus you sonofabitch You wingman you maker of gods You maker of fools you paradise singer. AMONG THE TIMBER Creaking and aching like floorboards Trees crack in the ice night I walked among the timber to read Whitman I’d begun and out of mind. Crack! And I’d looked up Just another trunk unbending But up went my light, (as up went my head,) And that is when I saw them. Two eyes Devil At me Wolf, run. O exhilaration I ran, but after a moment. Four eyes connect; We’re both beasts in these trees snow night. PRELUDE IN THE MILKY NIGHT Lay down with the stars, Embrace the sun with tanned arms Live each day with the sky Make it breakfast For she is terrestrial royalty The glowing queen of night Nymph and lover some A cold crater some Tonight full, tonight attention Attention! She is full of strength this evening And she demands respect. Salute the moon, She knows our lunar bathed excursions.
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SALUTE THE MOON We ran down into Washington Square looking to salute her, We ran down 5th Avenue looking for miracles and found moonlight, We ran and skipped and stumbled down moonbeams looking for pavement, and finding unstable snow, vanished, We, the youth determined and sure to be just as drunk as Fitzgerald, Hemingway, pickled, Laughing the laughs only a wartime generation can, the champagne clinked against fountain sides, And we didn’t need a New Year to make our resolutions for us, we’d resolved and resigned under stolen gin and expensive wine, We kicked snowballs ten stories high hitting bankers on their monocles spitting rhetoric of Republicans, We sang of the Republic, living clandestine moderate, We stood at attention at our only true goddess, goddess of substantiality, touch, see, reality, We stood at attention for our steadiest of all figures above that we held onto in drunk stumbles, We loved her for longer than any of us could remember, longer than she could remember, spinning on park benches we danced ancient dance not to be mocked, We were pulled up by the beautiful cancellation, girls hair floated oceanic eyes dissolving lunar pools, We threw our glasses and masks and high school diplomas and loans and fast food wrappers and mothers’ pearls and copies of Catcher in the Rye into the air and they danced, and we danced. AND CARNIVALS IN MY HEAD Freewheeling carnivals Laying in a mattress floating Flipping bright lights strings Seizing and heaving on oceans of wine MANHATTAN In early morning haze view, Bouncing through the bus window 10
I feel the golden metropolitan glow Cross the bridge where concrete mammoths and poem niches await: Manhattan. LOST TOURISTS Lost tourists of New York, Lost natives of New York, Searching with maps unfolded Spiraling out of control. You know exactly the route recommended, New York; Avenue whispering sounds like description. WINE OF LITTLE TIME I know that as I think of her She burrows deeper in But now I start to wonder When together the next sin? Lotion skin and goddess eyes I've truly lost it now, Given way to poet-say O God, O Cupid how? I've drank the wine of little time And now am drunk on thinking Of her but sir, please tell me pure For what should I stop drinking? FOR LOVE OR LONGING What sweet ache is this? Has it come to me with spite? It pierces through the soul of me The very words I write. Look! I show, I point, I shout, And all I do is useless, For love or longing woe is me, And as for her, she’s ruthless. SO SWEET TO BE Love’s perfume has baited me Dancing strewing rose petals Into a prison of romance 11
So sweet to smell so sweet to be‌
WHISPER; BEAUTY
And the night caught fire And my heart, (which we all seldom truly feel,) Beat in my chest and I knew it. Knew that this life This future Sprawling out in front of me Was beautiful. Though a whisper in the universe, A beautiful story lied within it And beauty was full of its intent The only word capable The only word suited To give justice to a whisper that means so much And a whisper that will change my life and is my life Is your life and your mother's Is all life and the birds sing it through the trees along with the wolves at night. These stories are written In a golden ink Onto our bodies And our minds And our souls and our imagined souls. And my whisper Will not require a "lean close" But a knowing nod. WHEN I RETURNED TO BED I got up in the night and poured my glass of water in the dark, Because I didn't want to wait for my eyes to adjust to see you When I returned to bed. EMBERS It smoldered like a fire one wine bottle in, that town. From up here 12
Quietly Telling stories in a bar of its bright blaze Telling stories of flames, Fiery caresses, Illuminating the world. Now a drowsy crackle Glow. Embers now. AND EYES Moonlight falls in the corridor between In the air that gets in the way A filter peculiar Enhancing and purely rendering her And eyes Within my mind they are skinny Unfull and untrue image Blaspheming through my thoughts Setting a yearning for her reality And eyes And a gaze that sweeps and bestows greatness And in each other’s an infinity traps me Looping this passion, This greatness This ancient pact And eyes. WITH WHAT? With what? If I am
flesh
and
solid
In her gaze what am I To leave breezes unaffected?
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ROCKIES Silent Massive They sit, a wave of earth Never breaking Always breaking On the sleepy mountain town below Snowcapped in night Wisdom forever held Time silently watched Snow marbled the earth. Just high enough to feel the curve. rules who makes the rules? who made the rules who rules it all and if so when and where’s the fall? who made the claims and together with his subordinates barked orders made names and tacked up the fence? and from whence? you there with the big top hat or the indian chief warpaint i give my own rules up and within yours I find time and all the dissonance W; W I; I T; T H; H I; O N; U T it is everything and nothing AND TIME I. And time will be there Waiting patiently but not at all Waiting. Not in malice, 14
In duty holding hands all That do not clasp but fall And I’d like to think there May drift a sea breeze Gulls, saltwater chalice Pads to the hardwood Bad dreams left (finally) Missed bits of wisdom and those remembered. A WORLD THAT DIES A world that dies with us A mortal world mortal universe And we decide now if it's worth it. A trillion year flash in the pan, That's one zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero, And then wiped away. An eternity. Countless more trillions of lives lived and to live, Breathes the fresh corporeal energy Of no tomorrow into my bones. QUIET! Quiet! My shimmering trembling mind Shattered mirror ball Bouncing radiation within my skull Light dazzling and disorienting Blinding Quiet I whisper within myself I beg that fragments fall Into knife-blade murals And show me what it truly is. FEEL FOUND Wandering through alleyways Eyes wide open In fifth floor lovegaze Passing fences Eyes Searching To feel found
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THE MESSENGER She's looking for someone to kill And I'm the messenger Blessing her sneezes Jesus Christ, I’ll live life Until I don't The will is broke And my neck is sore too But it all comes out sometime When I'm living for you. DISPEARING FLOWERS Dispearing flowers Who which are real All he animals are parts are your imagination It's about a harsher reality Analytic hearts are wrong? Who are you? Are you coming back? It's 1:30.0 INFINITE True Fear, I’d always worried more About eternity than Mortality. NOCTURNE Tonight the moon wobbled And tipped Spilling its shine over lovers Sweet lipped, It rushed down alleyways Avenues Sidewalk moon silk All for you, Debating with smiles Which was better I penned the nocturnal 16
This love letter.
BEAT ME WITH SHOES
Beat me with shoes Go fuck yourself You slapped me for no reason Super sorry. Beers probably Like an idea. I don’t think I’ll believe Another word you say Nice people Nice lines You can be nice But shallow and shy I like you when I know What I mean Let me be a man. Cheeseburger Saturdays Crack open a beer Is anything else I just stood up but knew. PORTRAIT OF A SNEEZER His knuckles were the sharpest kind Glasses perched on the edge Downward sloping Eyes in deleting. He was a man Whose sneezes I feared to bless, What a mess. CANCIONILLA SEVILLANA By Frederico García Lorca (Translated by Philip Vachon) Sunrise in the orange grove. Bees of gold searching for the honey. Where will the honey be? 17
It is in the blue flower, Isabel. In the flour, Of that pilgrim. (Little seat of gold for the moor. Seat of gold leaf for his lady.) Sunrise In the orange grove. COME AND GO Eyes diverting, Late lustguests Name and face – less ladies of the night Come and
go.
Muffled wall Gasp physical Solidness deamplified Tip-toe two sided. High
and
low.
The loud alibi Convention we both know Then sound sculpted By lips tact-tingled. So..
and
sigh.
Contracts are maps Through invisible ink The dotted line drawn Turn the knob as it silent-shuts. Grow and
lie. EROTIC LOBOTOMY
Am I really going to do this again Another girl Another father 18
Another after ruined destroyed And what have yous Murdered. Sex. Kill. And hot erotic Erotica lobotomy FALL SLOW Crunch crackle snowflakes Tap tap tapping my coat Coltrane makes the snow Fall slow I race the light Hop the puddle slush The breaking waves of tires through cloud dropped whisper Each group of friends holing up together You and I holing up Persian rugsitting fire crackle Close from me in the night But for now the snow Fall slow Fall slow
HAIKU 1. pig faced poets leave the open mic names crossed off night blind search with socks satisfied long fall into hamper 1130 am girls out the gym O workout pants muttered street windowsill echoing we rule this city odd noises belly sandwich shiver deep 19
a bag of air yeah period idk dot dot Love unpunctuated it's a game we play it eternally home rules laws blank page snow makes white (k)night ancient Hurrian melody first and tapping into my entombed emotions Ghost hesitation Late night corners My baby loves me BOY Boys Sing it to the balconies Scribble into journals of sensitivity With ink of romantic comedy, Sister's advice and girl friends NaĂŻvetĂŠ of thinking their feelings are what they want Communication and to be adored To be the queen in adoration of adoration Everybody just loving everybody Why wouldn't they? But that question is for boys Not wary war veterans Pre-crushed and maimed at their weakest Brought up on sugar sweet syrup costs over not that cold shoulders Varsity jacket cheerleaders Happy endings And yelling and screaming in the household isn't for lack of it As assumed No. It's a balance. 20
With no labels and no idea. No talking because talking is for the weak No surprise No spark No fucking finesse. No neediness. Never. No rushing along with your chemicals No rushing along with your body only with hers No needing her Needing anyone Her needing anyone No help as she poisons her own cup And you can see it. Girls Gossip it to their friends Squirm at the feel Depressurize before critical Sing I'm not a slut sing he likes me too much sing he doesn't want me I love him he shouldn't love me I want him love love love Like Like they want it to hurt Like they want a fairy tale wedding to drop out of night atoms To seem unplanned Like he can change but can't before her Like too good Like like but that's all. A man Sees this girl Grabs her shoulders Holds her shoulders Knows to not hold the door And to Walks the tightrope Summons dreams from the lights and murmur of night streets unplanned Walks her line until. A woman Taps her foot In a bar in a beer In time to hearts and shakes off the coat Shakes advice and glimmers hope Multiplies his glimmers Declares Owns 21
Her fears Our fears Our our our Stands at the balcony and swoons an unshame chemical heart Kisses foreheads and blushes at scribbles Deserves the sonnets and is his muse Is the muse Resolves an until. And transfiguring with each other's Whole heart embracing Turns a silver waltz golden and our love our love our love spinning dizzying forever In a divine rushing urgent and patient. boy girl woman man woman boy girl girl girl boy boy boy boy you silly heroes of our nights. IT’S IN THE BREEZES It's in the breezes When a chord hits tossing pirouettes into my hair That purple mercury that would be melancholy if it all wasn't so damn beautiful. Thinking about generations with grander and cooler causes There's this purple love that is not covered by hallmark or even a song One that allows my loves lost, found, in the limbo of OUR generation, given away in fear or fear of Loving. The walk back to bed alone And a celestial love that demolishes Valentines gifts given back. That middle school shit that is our secret ruin Swiped away in the embrace It's in the breezes When sugar plums in February dance in my head And the air itself looking down at its shoes looks up with a romantic request.
SUB URBAN Sub urban hoping to raise their complaints up to be worthy of singing Sub urban a replacement for the true living that enmeshes consciousnesses Sub urban underwater with all that pressure Sub urban beneath that cement foundation lies the Levittown fed self referential self poem writing masses of the movie watching Leave It To Beaver masses.
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THE RED DIRT In the red dirt of good old Oklahoma Golden grains saluting in dance, Bluesky— shoo, I’ve got alliances to make. … Where are you Oklahoma? Are you in the muddied minds of Millennials kicked out of cradles thrashing in the birdbath? Is your solid earth truth in outdoors buried beneath the papers? Laws and updates and threads of yeahs and see you thens and bad news and bad news and the last straw of minds, Subtly war-torn, Quietly fed the chemotherapy the left tendrils of a more sinister poison than was meant to be eradicated and stamped out with a Sacagawea 5 cent one, Quietly sat down to cereal and dark red debates with blades sharpening each other and watched with a silent knowing that isn’t silent until you did that math in your head, Thought in millions and billions and lasts and sufferings, Thought in Mayans and ancient current Cold Wars, Thought in bricks and bigotry and frustrated threads never cut or tied, never cut and dried Bought magazines and flipped past bright sharp red pictures and those big angry fonts, What are those fonts? Fonts of Them as far as they saw, And as far as they saw wasn’t the horizon Was the edge of the sweet Columbia look how far we’ve come Utopia Maize stitched and sketched by two dimensions World, The world they live in, And I did. But where are you Oklahoma? Well, situated in that yellowy graintown abyss of coastal imagination, Land of reaping and sowing and good honest waking up early, Land of quiet and strong towns, Land of quiet and strong men, Land of that sweet sweet liberty and that I dig, man. Oh I dig. But where are you O Divine Worker? O lover of progress, O lover of the sweet nectar of Mr. Coors or Mr. Miller, O lover of having an opinion on that matter, O lover of men being Men, (and I mean that in the highest sincerity), 23
O lover of sincerity through nods not parentheticals, O lover of the late nite back road radio, O lover of that girl that makes you ache for that back road silence O lover of that back road starry blackness, O lover of industry, O lover of bills paid and the dogs fed, O lover of our team, O lover of hands-on-hips semicircles figuring, O lover of the simple things? Did you disappear into the mist? Ascending, Denim arms outstretched, Bestowing fertility and virility to all and all things? Are you tracing fate lines of His hand on the couch, In the Oval Office or otherwise? Have you the sweat and bone of the country risen up from among the stalks and hailed the coming of our king? And don’t forget to vote? And a special weight is laid upon those Lazarus’ who Vote and Die, So… But what did you do O Callused One? Did you disappear in scalding steam heat? Ascending, Reaching arms downstretched, Bestowing fertility and virility to all and all things? Even the punks? Even the slut freak emo faux-intellectuals acoustic guitar or gel-hair or cut-off or shark tooth or dragon shirt or never call or always call or let’s fuckin’ party or hah gaayyyyyyy douchebag Even the headphone ghost or immortal tease or sonofabitch or cashier or fire escape smoker or shut-in or photo stalker or secret writer or aspiring actress or neighbor or brother or sister or subway rider or tractor rider or elementary school gym teacher or committee chair or rat or pipsqueak or actually happy married folk or the person that ripped your fucking world apart with their love and that vacuum? I don’t know but I can see your creator, Boots in red dirt, Eyeballs in red tape, Mind in red hurt. Sharpening his swords against one another, Hey look its his mother, Hide! Shitshitshitshitshit we are dead. Triumphantly posing in front of the temple of iron and sweat, And the cameras got it all, 24
According to plan. We begin to get nervous about all this. We begin to wonder about that red dirt, We begin to wonder about the bold ALL CAPS, That wingdings decoder ring on his finger, We begin to wonder about ourselves. We’ve wondered before right? We’ve railed against the gears and ties right? We’ve propped up the legacies of secret interest history Gods? Or were they lost causes? The meteors already hurtling toward space? The adult yellings and thermometers elemental momentum? The wars on top of wars on top of wars not remembering peace? Were we robbed of that perfect nostalgia? And where in the name of this blesséd and mortal universe are you Oklahoma!? Where are you to show us our inaction? Where are you to show your solitude? Where are you to live and breathe beneath us? Where are you to thresh our souls crisp in morning air? Where are you to be more than that Holy Home? Where are you to leave us spinning in the magical blackness in which movements and first kisses occur? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you!? Where are you?? Where are you!??? Where are you!?!?!?111!!??? you are that red dirt brother of my bones living, always we.
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THERE IS A LONGING There is a certain longing When night folds over me And the whistle blows at midnight The workers have their tea. Looking down from up above There is a certain clearing Of masses in my line of sight A dullness to my hearing. And wither still my flower The solitary rose Within my chest so crimson But now, a shiver, froze.
A MORNING FOR THREE READERS Let my love adorn you. How did I wake up with that in my skull? Turn faucet eyes closed hoping this is dreaming. I'm hearing it all on loop this is from last nights jam. Schizophrenics I think just have more well-spoken inner monologues. Waters getting cold, half a degree knob turn learned. All this in foggy fuzz glass so separated. Mental mystic-- god I'm using M's! Blankstare-SNAP out! Yawns take up my whole body. Yawns Yawns (yawn). If you say it enough it doesn't sound like anything. Fuck the faucet temperatures always adjusting. Hot hot hot hot cold cold ah ah little twist- okaaayyyy... Fuck the room is still tailspinning. 26
Slowly coalescing now I can feel my feet on the--- what is this material? I can feel myself coalescing slowly on solid ground. I. feel. Coexisting slowly less lost than found. What do I gotta do to- day? planning with moving calendars. What do I gotta do today? while playing with my penis. How long is this taking? Late? Late? Putting on deodorant I'm low key one man Putting on deodorant I'm slow me one out of 5. Putting on deodorant I'm slow. Running alive. Good morning me. GooOOOOOOOoooooood Morniiiiiiiing!. Goodmorningandwelcometotheworldagain. I MUST SAY I've watched cops run red lights, Priests burping as many Patron Saints as they can, Teachers checking the spread on their dropout bets, Watch me go about my day, Living carefully as I do of course I'd never say. I've seen headlights up the sidewalk, Strollers that combust when milk is spilled on it, Men who light cigarettes and holding them with coolface watching them burn out, Lions freed from zoos into tea rooms, Refrigerators whose lights flicker whenever a banana or anything with that many vowels is placed inside. I've witnessed God lifting his fist "What are YOU gonna do?" *Flinch* Heaven giving living nightmares as sales pitch, Mother Earth sieving diamonds and counting backwards, Evil sputtering bilge pumping waste and protestors waiting for cameras, Fatal miscommunications killing the most promising of young loves, Big brothers giving noogies to unsuspecting townsperson #4, Stunt men say fuck this I'm going into marketing, Marketing men say fuck this I'm going to be a marketing woman, 27
Brothers on rooftops tap dancing their future peaces and pieces, Black bags, God say to men "Well shit guys, I'm sorry. Tough day today," And mean it. I've watched firecrackers stamped out before waking up the neighbors, Kids admitting it, they threw the gum in Jessica's hair, Kids admitting it, they want to believe in God, Marketing women loving their new bodies and finding love, Me finding love or in the process at least, Crazy girls dancing, Crazy girls living, Crazy, Watched teenage manboys realize their future loves are out there now watching each other realize, Watched people hold doors, Watched people not roll eyes at simple courtesies, Watched kids poke an escape route for buried ant hills, Watched atoms in stars float to becoming us as we go about our days, Loving uncarefully as I do, I must say. CAN I BE HONEST? Can I be honest? It's a thing I'm doing now. I still like you. I still like you and I think you're beautiful. And I mean that in that timeless way but I am afraid to be too nice to you because I don't want you to think I'm like obsessed with you or something. And maybe you think it's romantic, and it really is so you should think that, but maybe you do already. Maybe and probably you're super insecure from middle school and high school and all that horrible traumatic shit that we'll never get over but I rreally think I can be good for you. I think I can be the one to make you think you're beautiful. And even if it's not possible you're gonna need someone who believes it is possible. And I am that person. And I'm afraid I'm taking advantage of your insecurity because again you're so beautiful but I'm not that scared because its worth a patch of moral fiber to be with you and add in some infinitesimal way to your beauty. And that really is romantic. But it's more true than it is romantic and when those two concepts meet it's something like seeing two attractive and confident lesbians holding hands or making out in the subway. Probably more like the first but I wanted an excuse to imagine the second. And I know you won't think I'm taking advantage but that's the point. But that's also why I'm fine with it, you know? You don't know. I'm sorry you don't but you won't and you don't. But you understand things I will never know, probably some about me. But that's what I want to find out! So be with me. And I can't stress this enough. You're a fucking bombshell beauty like Katherine Hepburn if she was combined with a Shakespearean woods sprite. And that was off the top of my head. Imagine what I could do if I drafted your beauty? Imagine... Us.
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A METEOR HITS THE URAL MOUNTAINS (Unfinished) A Meteor Hits the Ural Mountains February 15 the meteor came down Shattering windows in thousands mini explosions. At minus 20 centigrade in Russia, The gas was turned off and the windows rushed to fix
LONELY OUTSIDE It's lonely outside tonight Cold Settling A rendezvous Not long me and you
EIDOLON HEART The air feels heavy with the almost Like any sharp word Could let loose true love And cut the membrane Between the low and above Tiptoeing softly Living on that wondrous edge Giving time it's due I'm left ecstasied In crystalline goosebump view And you Breathing slight and softly Fogging my cloudy mind With heat sweet unseen Eidolon, my heart And you my silent careen.
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ONE SCRUB One scrub And my soap is dwindled to skeletons One scrub And my arms reach over countertops One scrub And step stool's a relic One scrub And prices scents and brand square to in aisles One scrub And I'm absolved I'm baptized I'm ready for burial One scrub And I'm pure.
cumulus My breath got visible not from cold but the swoll'd air with so much wet it only took exhalation to make a nimbus or a cumulus
FLIGHT IN DUMBO I pushed out the doors and unexpectedly warm hit me like an unexpected blanket trap of kid days. I cut across the street with a Russian mobster B movie actor shutting a truck. Probably full of someone who talked or scripts. Crossing the street while a big truck across from me took a left I looked up at the perfection of double overpass on the coast of Brooklyn. Angles and vectors carrying goods and dreams to the masses on that overpass. Then I'm subterranean. And some couple with matching beanies discusses a concert of a band they know and filling my metro card I am forced to acknowledge my lack of home as I struggle for which zip code my card is under. This couple mind you is my age or younger. Surely by soul. Anyway. Now waiting. Waiting. Letting the air hit my face with a heat that I didn't want to know. Not where that energy had come from. Where had my energy come from? And
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LAST MOMENTS I. Where were you when the ash started to fall? I was on the unsuspecting street Stepping on a leaflet for an escort service I knew it wasn't cold enough for snow And when the flakes didn't melt in my throat I knew it was over And I thought How pretty To be over like this In the pure ecstasy of a silent snowflake apocalypse II. Fuck. That was my last earthly utterance Such a brute word Common though, For that Not oft elegant Not oft beautiful Mostly Fucks and Screams. III. I’d read it on the news ~IMPORTANT~ When I knew I ran To her And in rushed confession and undressing We summoned momentary eternal love And damn right we smoked our cancer and disease away after that shit. IV. There it was That beauty snake metal and beaming It was my exit There is no way to know way to know 31
If there's really a light at the end When you're face first and between the lines V. (For the music) The bomb went off in the subway Me standing on the radius Now I scream into my own ears And watch silent tears and years fall
THROWING THE FLASK Throwing the flask Flying through that toxic air That toxic liquid Come here Let me hit you How hard Enough And enough Totes. Yo. Dude. Give them up.
LUSTNIGHTS Walking past The cops can smell pussy on my breath Breadth Son Who have you been ecstasying 32
With Width Talking without breathing Brick wall the motherfucker Staying strong Long Cop Stops with college eyes phase to adult To the happy couple Supple Flashbacks Of lustnights lastnight Little flashes My neurons stir Her
OFFENSIVE: WOMEN deep within me i know women are worse fucking trophy wives fucking wnba fucking slaps and slaps and emotions and problems desperate dropping pants and latenite illegalities wanting angelic self-delusion dancing on the clouds literally liiiitterrrallllyyyyyyyy stumbles and mumbles and passive aggressive and romance goddess running zero calorie religious ponzi scheme CUNT CUNT CUNT CUNT FUCKIN FUCKIN CUNTNIGGER BITCH
OFFENSIVE: MEN fuckin dicks 33
dumbstruck and drooling more insecure than all clingy and girly and then they swing other don't care bitches fuckin' fuckin' slut whore and asking for it lets get laid steak and sports and steak and win win win win it's a game and competition subtle disconnect until dead and only sculpture and it comes in stages dick douche douchebag fuckin piece of shit cock and he thinks they want it measure your tiny dicks in the faggot sleepover always comparing bringing out our own measures bitches aren't bitches you fuckin bitch ladies will never like your judgy fuckin cocky cock wishing for pussy doomed to lonely bitchness you make me want to say the c word
BEGINNING A FREEWRITE And the night fell like the dawn among people‌
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WAITING ON THE WALL Boys make the first moves So boys get rejected and girls do rejecting So boys have to invest less heart into it right away Girls sit and wait for boys to validate desirability So girls start to wonder why they aren't choosing and they wonder aloud about those girls that are being chosen And dream and visualize their perfect meeting Boys keep if hardened cynical no luxury of that dream And we all are waiting on the wall for that walk up to save us THE HOOP The rim hangs And droops
Where
We hung On it Plastic base cracked now from ices escapes Winter Left Undrained It had been a gift from Dad And Mom would pump up And she would puff up Before the ice came Winter Left UsDrained dad challenged pickup Dunking two feet over Hanging over like he did For the seasons unshowedup to CrookEd 35
Dinners uncooked All of us crook'd Centers is spinning side heavy Bending the fall toilet bowl down netless Silence No swoosh Of satisfaction Just asphalt hits smacks slaps cracks draining thaw into ground Growing Always growing Steady splitting From that Winter That life Split in two MAGNET GAZE And it pulled me O lady of that pull Living beautifully Making obvious admiration Give me your dreams And I will live your pull MISS RIVERDALE Miss Riverdale Queen of the ball Queen of the Ping-Pong Queen of song Queen of this poison She runs through my veins I can feel The poison running through veins And this adrenaline And I lift my head And she lifts her hands And it's going And momentum is beyond stopping Magnets in her eyes 36
GETTING QUIET Born shouting the truths We are gathering secrets Getting quieter now IN WEEKS In weeks What I haven't seen her in The times tables pulled out in frantics Your antics She was tired of so walks were took Houses like glass panes shook Black snake night wrapped her sugar sweet ankle Giving all the more reason for your heroic rescue Your regular rescue My hurt For her lives summoned By a night-watching rescuing knight, broken-watching
FINDING HEAVEN I'm not afraid of dying Just not finding heaven before it.
SCENES I. A man in an expensive tuxedo pushes a homeless man off of the warmth of a street grate and cuddles up where the homeless man used to be. II. The villain begins to leave through the push door but hesitates as he reads the sign next to the door: Please Use Revolving Doors to Save Energy 37
I don't know if he then uses the revolving door or not. III. “Why not, on the fifth of the month, join the military?” The vagabond in the gutter slowly rises up in a pristine blue union uniform, waving those thirteen stars with his eyes. Cast follows down the street in the choreographed dance march, specifically that rehearsed in last Thursday’s run-through. SUMMER’S RATS When summer rolls around Splashing in the surf They will burrow up from ground Gnashing at garbage The heat will melt ice prisons Bring insurrection Turn diamonds prisms Enter elections Brown bag 40 ounces late Night air warm and fresh Sitting on thrones not the gate The park rules by flesh It's given over to hoards Teeth clacketing long As the violet sun chords Softly drop the song. WHAT YOU EAT She said it with recitation of cultural proportions Unthought but transferred to me Me, Possessed by spirits of chicken, the calf, the lamb, the bull Souls digest and enthrall my core, Enlivened by totems of the wings, the breast, the tender loins, the tongue Living in silent dovetail the ducktail crisps in the ether, Recalling the wire, the coop, the pen 38
The fences and feed and living dead, Feeling my souls intertwined and ca-cawing A speaking through, Our breast, loins, tenderness of tongues Wings unfolding in resonation divine and devil Incantations in the fires of stovetops A unordered sermon served scribbled in the flesh. ATTEMPT 1: THE CHEST PUFF In courtship of the female, the males in question will begin subtly demonstrating masculinity, but in group settings there is and amplifying effect, as each must out-masculine the other. (see fig. 1)
Masculinity (M)
Bro Threshold
Time (t) In this attempt, the female may originally be impressed, but as the environment becomes more and more masculine, she will begin to mirror this masculinity. Once mirroring begins and she begins to act as “one of the bros” the perception of the men involved becomes one of friendship, likely caused by the narrowing gap in gender indicating attributes and the subsequent decrease in sexual desirability. The “bros” literally become viewed as brothers. This situation of course is exclusively involved in a purely heterosexual situation.
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LA MAPA ROTA Descúbreme En la distancia inolvidable Recuérdeme Donde la luz desaparecida Y cuando la mapa es rota Búscame en tu cuerpo ASCEND And they’re getting drinks ready in the cart, With the patterns repeating in the upholstery Seats repeating in the rows repeating in the souls The living census in black-box purity rows, With the books read in the button beams from above Bumping through clouds bumping through heavens Waiting in ‘bing’s and indicators on the ready, With sweat grip readings of the instinct warning Eyes shifting on bodies shifting in the tense Elderly in the exit row of duty and time, With skin tough and the baby crying in the back Lines crossing lines crossing times in the air Ascending all together in steadiness of now, Ascend. SUN ROSE So the sun rose By any other name sweet Milk sweet honey bees Buzzing with energy tropic Fauna flora the dew fresh Evaporated and misted Palms open palms waving Oils of ancient opening waft
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LIVING STILLMOTION Resonate, body giving shift. Dance with ‘we’ atoms elastic. Draw us all the oscillating. Tomorrow its vintage starts braiding.
FOR BELIEVING For those believing, It still exists Still empty and origin bound Pre-and Post-historic Roiling in the magma Toiling in creation. It lies in waiting To warm by softlight Saddled you, nestling Between The black flat stone And the miles of air stacked. It is your longing Still real and disappearing Hovering on the dune Pre- and Post-hysteric Miracling your tear ducts Giving you the tactile. For those believing To cool their boilings Living under the sharp clear stone Between I and living sits sifting The am of your first righteous home.
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THE OCEAN INSIDE There is a shell With the ocean inside Wooshing to ears Crashing at the sides There is a shell With ear adjacent Catching the years Breaking into time There is a shell With each one resounding Shaking the gears Grinding ocean rust There is a shell With ocean surrounding Tumbling in depths Living within shells
SHE WALKS IN DARKNESS She walks in Darkness for her radiance slides the dimmer to life in mood lighting. Eyes’ beauty Killing my fear of clichÊ, of Knights in song and new worlds I dream And i walk in light swimming incense ether. It leaves my atoms singing and this is hers
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EDGES And horizons Radial world waxing Opening with compass With dial Feeling the curve Scaling outward Feeling the curves Lines Shimmering massive dance Liquid;City Shining massive pushpull When my horizontals Go tall Tower Shine from Babel Shine Repunzel Give birds Pains in the ass, And my lines Big bend Im-perfectable Like they all do When blackness Tugs This Pull And horizons Come inside From the firefly porch And the roof rips off And the walls come down, I will go tall Bricking towers To heaven I will big bend 43
In vacuums To gravity And I will come inside From the firefly porch Into the firefly night of my vanishing edges.,‌
ON A TILT (written on the waters of Old Havana) On a tilt The invisible line unraveling In time, my friend This ember will flame in glory And in its embers again Pulsate nostalgia for a past and present That will guide me into the night But in time my friend
TICKING LIE (to be tattooed on the sides of three fingers) Living in my time The elaborate ticking lie: Hands always return ; Hands always return The elaborate ticking lie: Living in my time
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JERK OF YOU That was really a jerk of you! i ff-fucking hate you i hate you i hate you ! ! ! can we go home now? my throat is sore you make me get like this and youre in a circle and i cant see anymore youo make me can’t see you you—uuuuughhhhhhh ! ! ! ! ! ! my world is only fits me and its crushing! youre breaking it! and you don’t even care!! ! … my body hurts from crying im just so tired and you and kids at school and this was it and you ruined it and you said i could! you said! tomorrow i’ll be tired in my neck and ribs muscles have to let them cut in with less than normal I REALLY DO I want a love I really do I want a recipient for these odes These ballads Tear out my heart With no heart to trade with I am dying on paper. I want to love I really do I want to be saved by saving And in a syrupy air of love Get stuck looking Locked in stares at each other's angel. I want for love I really do Because it's getting old And some of our older siblings said It didn't exist 45
I want to show the presents aren't hidden in the basement. I want more love I really do Because enough isn't reflexive And victory is complacent Everest keeps growing every year And I'm trying to summit over Whoville 3 sizes my heart Grinch style. I want you Recipient of this Ever-changing until that day it isn't And with crumples and origami Singing the death of i I will ring out the love for you, I really will.
BEAUTY & WORTH Beauty And here it is Shining in modern progress Twinkling May christmas lights An infinite line pushing Me to the edge drunkard Too beautiful Looking for woman to match And the lines above question my fight Am I worthy?
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THE DOT And now I feel like the dot Truly Running down the line Hopping dashes Four digits The concrete mess of present I blur in the clarity Visions primordial searching Kill or kill or kill to live Live to live and I multiply Over the orange grove ripe Trunks cut When full I don't Give slip Slim base Sapling Bark rare Either metallic neon blur Either the rough bark tall To astonishing. It's not meant to be So how do recalculate the years Tacked on in ceremony, pride? Or skeletons in the cupboards Not closets but notebooks The closets cheerful and woeful watch us where fire is reached Maybe rip it up So the consensus unreal
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THUMPING BASEMENT The dark basement Bass bass bass Bumping pumping And it's going to the four four beat like you wouldn't believe Coming home to the door And Kerouac is living in my text Killing it Swaying to the beat Absolute taking over Too holy Too killed Leaving my trees covered in christmas lights still of spring unremarked He's truly murdeering me No way out now No way With the trailing known only as genius And Chet baker and the jazz and it truly spirals It's truly too new to not take out and rob I've robbed killing joking autocorrectings And the poems die because they must Who am I published by The time streetlight headlight before the end of my old death
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