Wait

The base of the Chicago river
is pavement
ushered in whenever
to direct the flow of used things
south
where locks and sewage keep
waves from bleeding gently
into the larger body of a lake.
I’ve seen it flood
seen the police drag
its smooth stomach
in search for those swept
and held against it.

The house on the lake
is all I can remember.
I could breathe day into a ceiling
smitten with stared water marks
or talk about politics while drunk
at a four a.m bar.
From here to this
now is not too far
(what day is it?)
then I’m finished.

The river moved
truncated doubt.
A small segment
engorged
and fell out.
I take it apart
to pull it taut:
more next to longer more;
an inch first
then stone on stones
magnified and developed
like a photograph
of modernist architecture.

Dear Pacey,

I nearly died last Monday. I thought it was daring to be riding so fast through the graveyard. I lost control hitting a curve and thought the brakes would stop me. Instead they stopped the bike and my body flew over the handlebars and my head slammed against the pavement. I guess I just lost control. You know, the way Mitch died when Dawson left L.A. to chase love in Boston. I expected it to hurt more.

I could feel both my arms and my legs and stood to brush myself off, but I just spread mud all over my pants. I wanted to take control of the situation, Pacey, I felt like I had to decide my next move. The bike was in no condition to ride. The back wheel was bent into an oval and lodged against the brakes. I tried to carry it along the steep downward path, but my wrists gave out after about a hundred feet. Some of us are men now, Pace, for us the worst pain is to just ache and stand in one place. We can’t all stay something like eighteen forever. I was running late for work.

Oh yeah, I wrote a poem and I want you to decide what it’s about.

I want it to be sudden and intentional.
My legs are long and muscular
and I want it to blow me over,
to be destroyed and taken.
It doesn’t matter if I know
that it’s coming or if it takes
the wind all out of me. I want
the bricks to break and the
support beams to twist and crunch
under the pressure. I’d rather
it was thorough that way.
I want it to happen while
I am still young enough to
appreciate the melodrama.
Some of us are men now, we are
assertive and furious.
We are insatiable and inconsiderate.
There will be no fade to white,
when it comes I hope it looks
into my eyes while it takes me.
When I see it coming I want to feel it
in my joints like a storm,
the way my hands and legs get after
a larger than average orgasm or bike accident.

Next Season

She had a lutheran look to her; the chubby christian aspect of the privileged- a bible bound into a ben franklin planner as the ultimate schedule: creation, birth, death, redemption.
The bible belt is hidden in the west under cliffs in trailer parks overflowing junkyards of broken aspirations rusted over by wishful thinking; 'Ill get er ta turn next season, I reckon'
Im sick as hell and the reeking petulant perfume reminds me of the satisfaction Huxley's Staithes takes in that acknowledgment of your own human stink.
I take none.
'Who is that?'
'A girl I once loved'
That chubby christian aspct of the privledged, reeking petulant and acknowledgement of your own human stink. Frowning in the eyes and smiling with the mouth a toothsome grin and wrapping arms around eachother in nonchalant dissapointment.
She must've heard the stories and oh god, im sick as hell. Trailer parks and junkyards stinking and oh god, the chubby christian aspect all overflowing wishful thinking.
Petulant stink bound in a ben franklin- acknowledgement of broken aspirations: creation, birth, death, redemption.
'Ill get er ta turn next season, I reckon'

Ars Poetica: An Interactive Relationship

I fill up a balloon
in three breaths
to tie to a string
then drop on pavement.
I am waiting for someone
to pick it up
and play with it


1.
I am a creature of habitat.
I’ll have a cigarette.
I’ll masturbate with my shoes on
to the time you tasted my sweat
from the hot night that morning
our friend was in the bathroom –
I never thanked you for that
and I’ll tell you next week
at the assisted living facility.

You’ll see my grandfather
not remember the day of the week
as years unwind
before his plasma screen.
I struggle with this
but he doesn’t.
I binge drink
for a year
when he dies:
I only cry for hangovers
because life revolves
around me.

2.
The moon – or can we
talk about you again?
If the poems wrote themselves,
I would publish you this:

The Nipple of the Evening
Your breasts were smaller
than they were last winter
and your pre-teen nipples
no longer make me shudder.

3.
Pardon my implosion,
these are the poems I want
to see printed.
Engage with the audience,
make them feel withdrawn
from yesterdays emotions
and tighten the muscles
around their wry faces.
Wait, read it from over there.
Those lips are red
and look like eyebrows
instead of a mouth.
The image changes
with immediacy.

4.
I’m thinking you into a battery
because that winter you kept me
from freezing. I remember you
only this time (last week)
your body is too skinny.
I’ll write you into being again
before this is done
I remember through words
that make language interesting.

5.
Time-travel is tangible:
memory sags
and the right moment
is not how it happened.
Notice anything different?
Pirouette those grotto toes darling,
our doubt tastes
like chocolate covered strawberries:
hard sweet
then juice
dehydrating.

6.
Easy.
A balloon blown up
with breath,
tied to a string,
and left on pavement.
What happens next
is not important –
I will have made it up.
I am not the poet
who wrote any of this
and you are not the woman
with the skeletal chest.

We are in this together,
waiting for the poem
to end.

Johannesburg Gun Underground

It is Friday night
Things have gotten too consecutive
More than 8 nights straight
I’m trying not to count
But today was my first real hangover
Since I can remember
And the smell of the food in the restaurant where I work
Nearly moved me to vomiting
So
I have withdrawn for the evening
Into quiet music
I’ve been thinking about buying a plant
I’ve been thinking about filling up the book Frans’ made for me
I’m somehow unmotivated
Even though his return is immanent
And
There will be certain things that he will expect

A small girl (the owner’s daughter) ruined the remainder of my female friend’s soup
As we sat eating our vegetarian lunches this afternoon
Unable to talk about anything
Because of the presence of an intelligent child
It was emotionally tense
The black-haired babe tossed tattered pieces of our respective napkins
Into spiced cabbage and tomatoes
Before we had the chance to object
Asking us whether or not we wanted
A fan, a bowtie or a tipi
Folded for us, with the paper scattered locally
Throughout the small café
They were all of the same essential design
Heavily reliant on pleats

I am sick of seeing blonde-haired young women
Walking around on the verge of tears
In my workplace
I am unable to tolerate
This kind of non-sense weakness
Now that I – myself – have overcome it
I am apathetic to their plight
Their trouble is a result of their approach
I know that I am at a strict advantage
Because of my uncommon ability to adapt myself
To madness
Without any hesitation or need of explanation
However
I am uncaring and dismissive
When I see their shining eyes behind the bar
Heedlessly they wipe the glasses
Blinded
The Old Man rolls his eyes
Somehow, I suddenly cannot blame him
I return to our conversation about the mountain,
And he blurts its name unintelligibly through his thick accent
With his back to me
As he stares vacantly into his huge black safe
At the many colored Canadian currency
Like the leaves in September at Victoria Park

Again, Frans
He specifically told me not to meet him at the airport
Frankly, I am relieved
He was worried about his unseemliness
Myself
I have been harboring a deep anxiety
That I would not be able to keep my shit together
Around his Mother, Sister and Father
At the terminal
It was very hard
Then it got worse
More mysterious
Entirely disconnected
I’m not sure what will happen
Like seeing yourself in the mirror
For the first time ever
Willing to drown yourself
In a fight for what you already possess
Ending everything
In a mortal conflict with your reflection
A too accurate self-portrait