those ancient men and ancient women

see a face like a moon

in the morning

thinking

those ancient men and women

musta worshiped

its bald pale face

but they all died

and left their remains

for college graduates to find

for their thesis to write

but their sloping sockets

told something and

held something too

there’s was a delicate thing

like the bones of a bird

buried deep in the soils of unrest

and my tools

are unwieldy and I’m far too

passionless

for this line of work

so I busted the fossil

and forgot all of my dreams

from last night

look, this is me trying not

to be an animal

this is me

putting human pants

on my animal ass

this is me not giving up or

losing it

or getting lost in rib cage land

on the backs of k-pins

they said

those ancient men and women

were assimilated

that our species

ate their species

what wild wild times

I wonder if I

was from their tribe

cold my cape

I’m tired of this winter

my passion a long vapor and

herald through a conch

the quiet white

covered everything

cold night shattered

its remnants spun in the atmosphere

trashed

like a snow globe placenta

I’m a traveler

among bones

milk my entrance

cold my cape

glide on femurs

a boneyard pathway

I equate the great cold

with a sharp sense of

mortality

becoming more clear with

every frigid day

bone rider

white shiner

riding bone white knuckle

wide eye socket

frenzy

a frantic

picked clean leviathan

and snowed roofs

the long hard barren trees

they’re reaching up in agony

cheated

Good News

 

Splitting my back

Washed out

Washed up

Birds silent under traffic

Traffic is all I heard

Change in jars

(not enough quarters

Only nasty copper)

My nose an oozing wound

On my face

 

I’m looking for good news

In every bottle I find

Lifting my pen

To defend myself

Cutting the clouds

With my own protesting

Chill

Showering under the pale

Light

I’ll pretend to be a

Bald face moon

 

Dignified

 

Thanks for coming to see

Me yesterday

You looked like a sweet

Tired stain

To my heavy head and

In my favorite story

truth terror

 

swimming outside the rim of sleep,

head near the undertow of the tides of dream-

thinking of our words in circles

pencil acting as a catheter

of my worry,

I’ve been puking into my journal,

I’ve been barking up the wrong tree,

I’ve been in a cave

with a broken lantern-

and the water’s been around my knees.

I’m all teeth, hair and eyes.

I’ve known well the-

truth terror

but I’m still wanting it dressed up-

I asked you to put a happy mask on it

but you said

“I cant pretend,”

red locket

I’ve had this red heart shaped locket

for 12 years now.

I got it as a gumball prize

at a rundown Chinese restaurant

(maybe in Germantown?)

A lot of the paint has chipped off

and the tiny keys to it are long gone.

What shows beneath the paint

is shinny tin.

When I was a tacky teen

I would wear it clasped around my

neck imitating Sid but not

knowing it.

I always wanted someone to give me

something like this

but I impatiently jumped the gun and

cranked the dial of the machine

myself,

and the tiny Valentine rolled out.

(SINCERELY, YOURS TRULY)

No sentiment to share.

Now I’m nearly 30

and it hangs on my key chain,

a teenaged 50 cent memory

amongst adult responsibility.

If you see me standing crossed arm at a show,

and spy my red locket,

know that I’m an advocate of

living in the past,

and harboring silly passions.

smother the one you love

I lay my love on the string of kite

I admire the thing

as it glides stories high

but detest the burden carrying it

 

saw you in my dream again

it was as much you as a watered down

pigment of your skin

I dare slit a pallet to paint you

to make the horrors real

 

too dense to be sunshine

instead

I’d love to be your dark cloud

anchored to your finger with twine

 

smother the one you love- a slogan I recite

lay only with me

having doubts snuffed into washed out color

a jungle cat full of kill

no desire to hunt

only to smother

 

one last thing

hold me tight like a found doll you lost

that had been flattened in the road

many times

I lost my button eyes but now

you

can see who I really am

thanks for writing me every day (reminding me)

do you remember our trip to the south

and how much fun we had?

 

yes, and how the dusk dozed,

turning the cotton fields purple

and the cranes flew like

living paper planes

and every star was real

and as bright as the

humble candle flame

 

yeah

and the bluesmen sang to us

I always knew love better when it was damaged

 

these little angry blossoms only open

 

because you proclaim what you’ve done

like you deserve a reward.

it sours the dinner

and it spills my guts through my nostrils.

 

yeah I know, I know, I know

take our time, we should take out time

in those haunted gardens

behind dive bars

with sour drinks in hand

the bruises we made on each other

fading from black to yellow

 

yeah we should definitely take out time

 

letting the doubts shrink

like plastic to a flame

 

didn’t some old Yankee say once

that the beauty of deceit

begs to be exposed to the light of day?

 

I’d keep this little thing secret,

a favorite button, a cat’s eye

in my pocket to rub to remember

 

I only keep whistling the same damn tune

because it’s still stuck in my head, okay?

I was just hoping

someone was still willing to play games-

 

and run blindly in

traffic with me.

everything loses its meaning under the strain of redundancy

 

 

this very fall reckoned

everything loses its meaning under the
strain of redundancy.

 

I know this to be a perfect truth

but I still revel

in the images I keep sacred behind my eyes,

with all my autumns boiled down (a bare bone),
to a single one for me
that was warm crisp and altogether virginal-

my last one, as long as I live

for it is replayed as each monarch rests in my sight

and with each bird arrowed south-

and I tongue things spiced to remember
so I can go down with memory’s ship

willingly with collapsed and stunted lungs

 

tenderly warping it into something it never was
bleeding it dry of auburn reds and gold,
my attempts at keeping myself loved-

young.

but now what do those moments mean?

there have been many falls since that one,
nothing but I love yous on walls-

played back so many many times,

like warped vhs, warbling and clipping
the inherent meaning gone or completely scrambled.

I Need Some Good Words Fucked Into Me

I need some good words fucked into me

or

I need to find the right lines

to right me.

traveling the tides of time

on the backs of

Bradford blossoms,

the stench of carrion nostalgia-

I heard it was the strongest

of our longings-

to become such as fossils,

to relive what were.

a million reasons to be

distracted.

a million reasons to

spread my legs-

a million reasons for the

birds to sing-

in which I cannot see

but it churns the tides anyway,

learning to love the

right way, after

being fostered by drunk brutals

or father’s in their own right-

I’ve left that decade

in a grave of lines,

lines I’ve scribed

and lines left unearthed.