Bastard of the Leaf

Bastard of the leaf
has his first tastes of wind.
His veins feel
like twine.

He kneels to graze
on the cold dirt
and look for lucky
pennies.

A long rope of dyed hair
falls from the window.

He believes everyone gets
one miracle,
so he eats his dirt
and climbs the rope.

Exposure

Your smoke does float
but so far yonder, and only
for others
on unclogged skies.
Lying around on clouds!

Meanwhile
Ponytailed birds begin
to look like you.
They drift through doorways in my home
and bump into the windows.

Exposure

Where are you?
Can you be traced?

Squinting up
at sixty volts
You poor thing!

Her shadow recommends her.

Will it speak?

She puts lipstick on
her shadow.

What?

Exposure

A sky is blue,
I’ve seen the posters.
Your cheeks are blue, too.
Up goes my sun burnt dad
with magic, the TV works, wa-lah!

Sun in sandals,
ponytail in the sky.
And for you in my window, always…

I’ll go where the dog goes,
beneath the porch, to blush.

Lunch Poem

Three cheese noodle bowl, 5% juice drink
Wondering where Berman's promised
Jewish wine will pour forth from

A discarded object of worship
Or a plaything for cats,
I am one of these

For she who I adore
Adores me no more
Howl, howl, howl

Haiku via Mark

I would cry
If I was in a spaceship
and I saw the Earth.

WWJD if he went to college

Never learned a lesson
just read more inspirational posters

Fuck giving I'm done giving
Deciding what I would do
and doing the opposite

Your birthday party the last obligation and frontier
Shoving not showing
my frayed ends into what experts say
will be a beautiful gulch
someday bright

Hi, Don't Come Closer

I was a botched attempt in human sacrifice
sweeping the lighthouse.
Every wave was a symbol
smashed into the rocks.

I was a beached priest.
I came here to see cross-sections
of the shore.
Sure enough, the city reflected in your bedroom window,
swallowed up.

I had a creamy upper lip.
I was climbing a rusty staircase
to your ankle.
You waved with a stiff arm
like you meant
Hi, Don’t come closer.

I Don't Like to Call It a Girl Problem

When she unscrews her scalp
I’m going to flick a paperclip into her brains
and make her love go everywhere.

She’s talking about a boy taller than a bookshelf.
How she wound her arms around his legs.
Her hair slithers away as I reach out to touch it.

I think I’m building myself to last.
But we’ll see.
I got cranky and stood on the fire escape.
My brother sounded worried, but I said,
“Don’t worry,
getting sick will be good for me in the long run.”


I’m mad at you because I made a fool of myself
and I would never let you make a fool of yourself.

Bad Boy

Last night I smashed a pumpkin in the street.
It burst into chunks on the cement.
To be honest, I pulverized it.
The sound it made when it hit the ground was the most satisfying thing.
The empty thunk.

Then all morning I waited around expecting guilt.
Breakfast time came and went.
Mom called reminding me to keep clean, use soap.
Yeah mom I know.
But remember when the bad boys from around the neighborhood
came and destroyed our pumpkins in the night?
How you knelt in your night-gown, sweeping
seeds into a dust pan?
I cried and I thought those boys must be
the most terrible boys on Earth.

They were terrible,
weren’t they Mom?

Bodies

The man has a photographic penis.
I mean a tiny photographer lives in his penis.

It made me think about how dark it is inside all of us.

Big black chambers.

“That’s why I like it here,”
squeaks the photographer.

He snaps another shot of the nest.

Saturday

In my room
putting my feet into
another day w/o
bangles,
air space

but what would you like to
drink with that

Someone leans over a ladder
jerks upwards a window
I piss a creek
down the backyards

in style
she drops a glass bowl
through a sheet
un-injured.

Document 9

Later that night
Darling explains
everything

Our kitchen becomes
like the cutaway model
of a beaver's dam

She loves me this much

Kept awake by hammerings in other time zones

A girl speaks with her horse
and not much else
under the yawning trunk
of a mini van
under pink skies for tank tops
the long sky forgets me

and fading pals
calling come on dude,
believe in our movies!
from the windows of rusty cars,
off to smoke pot
in Mark Twain's tomb

on another day
I won't be in

and I'm left with
memories containing
just our outfits
cheeseburgers floating
where our mouths once said
"what's up doggy" and
two pairs of blue jeans
kneel near a baby's bottle
in the sand.

Dream with Warren

It was the day Warren shook the treehouse until it fell
and my dad offered us warm beers from the washing machine
and Warren said yes while I declined.

"But I'm glad you're here,"
as I'd been meaning
to call him,

and sometime later we were sprayed full of machine gun bullets
in the jungle-print bathroom
of an Italian restaurant.

Then: Again

I know,
If today should become a small cut
on the bomb-builder's hand
I will stand on this year's frozen pond
tearing off stubs of my Old self
and putting them in my mouth
for getting lost in the details.

"Then again,"said the barber,
as he spun my chair
so I could inspect his work
on the back of my head,
"you really believe the moon is that big
when it's among the buildings."

May 17

I walk differently with new shoes into a field full of dandelions at night. I walk into this field, shiver, announce my presence to this field. I am sheathed in cold air. Cold air sheathes me. The field introduces the sky for questioning. Is it a bowl turned upside down? Are you drunk? Has my voice changed? A doe limps out of the woods. The doe, that’s your symbol! It moves through the dandelions with shadows stuck to it/ you move through the dandelions with shadows stuck to you/ something like that. It’s stupid, anyway. You’re back but you’re not glad: What is the symbol for this? Maybe it’s on the radio. An airplane guides itself with a white light. You will fly tomorrow. All my good ideas seem pretty bad now. I think about the airplane’s destination. Wherever it’s going, I totally agree. (Later I find out that the airplane made an emergency landing on my high school’s football field, and looking back, yeah, I saw it coming).

I have this image of your house: It is sunset, and orange sunlight streams through a set of sliding glass doors, splashes on your kitchen table which is made of blond wood, travels across the floor, crawls up the pantry door which stands partially open. I think there’s a grocery list or something, tacked to the door. On the floor, next to the door, is a dog’s water dish. You’re in the backyard. I can see you through the sliding glass doors. It looks like you’re waiting for something to be thrown to you.

The sky is still there, waiting for me to do something. I decide to make a wish. I wish curling up into a ball and crying was common practice, like going to the bathroom, and equally as effective. All my old ideas seem pretty dumb now, though I take some comfort in the fact that they looked good at the time.

a long time

I'm a bit worried
what if my voice has changed?
we'll go slow, and gentle
how my dad treats flowers
flattened in the storm
without disdain
for the wind

coming home

it took me 19 years to speak
of the diverse vegetation in my
hometown
i spoke in the driveway
with the sun going down beyond that
sweet-smelling tree
the sky carved up by
airplanes in the branches
my brother bit his tongue
skateboarding 4 spots of blood
on the white cement
he swears more now
and better, too

on a page folded down the middle

1
shuttle ride of
silence OH MY GOD
for a second I
thought my computer
had stopped breathing

how can i conceal
my fear when it
blossoms at my
throat like a rare
nocturnal flower?
crocus lilac crab
apple listen UP!

a tree has grown
in the back of this bus!

2
I needed something
to check on so I
checked to see
had the grass grown
since last time
certainly especially
with last night's
rainfall I held my
mother's nail file to
the blades they had
bypassed last time's
Sharpie mark by
centimeters
this sure beats
waiting for text messages

something fresh

DOINK
that's the sound
of the zit popped
eternally in time
as I sense my
vulnerability in the
shoe department at
Kohl's

All the boys in the
short-shorts say
"HEYY"

it's the Beach Boy look
I agree with myself

moms in denim
waddle up ladders
they don't care about art
I appreciate them
from afar

sliding doors slide
open I am in a
commercial for
mouthwash where waves of
icy blue mouthwash
crash among the aisles
of a grocery store

one year ago

a lot of boats
on land under buzzing
orange lights and a can
of paint where is
our car
where is
south
where is
everyone else

one year ago I entered
the yacht club ordered
a root beer
a DJ was setting up
on the parquet floor it was
early evening we took photos
around an anchor I did not
know what to do with my hand

that was now then
now this is now now now?

what the stereo heard

candle-shake
candle-lick
candle-memory I married
your shadow as it shrank away
between my fingers

driving home
i go out the window
smelling the trees
and your shadow got split up
by the trees

you put a story
in this room
you pulled a ribbon
through my eye-holes

above all the stereo
is for listening

at the beach
a flag flapped in the dark
the beach shaped
like an eyelash
a boat covered with
blue plastic
cold city
the loneliness of it all

poem on Mother's day

the mothers on the altar for a blessing
the blessing shoots out of our
right hands and
the mothers laugh my mother
among them and I
somehow cheering her on

she rides home with flowers
in her lap they are yellow

"he was laughing
and they were being silly"

she says
spying on the neighbors
making wild assumptions about
her obese friend or
the prom date in the
flapper dress
(how cold she must have been!)
Mom my
mother dreaming
up her next post-it note
dreaming about her
father
well
her worries have never been
evident i think
she loves this little house how it
hums like a machine when she's
inside it

May 2

lining up, the man with
party favors becomes
the life of the party it’s not
fun if you don’t
leave

dragging something over the lawn
it was dark
ask her for her
I don’t know it was dark
what was it
dragged in the dew

they synced up their stereos
sped around the cul-de-sac

stuck in that spot on the lawn
the world gags on you
what’s dragged curls up on your feet
aw it
likes you

everyone receives the phone calls
they’ve been waiting for

Harlow Barton

whistling through Thursday night
in a cigar shaped automobile
wind licking his hair, lips pulled
back over a neat set of teeth
grinding sticks of blue gum the wind
combs his hair past the
laundromat dishwasher microwave
joint blessed by streetlamps
extending their right hands
over his glowing head in
flickering baptism bullets under
the rainy bridge pavement unravels
beyond headlights just
where thought it would the
cigar-car eats hills eats tar
gravel bottle caps hardly stops to
eat a hamburger in the dim
diner don't even picture
the car stopping don't even picture
the passenger seat there is none
one little Buddha on the dashboard
one case of beer in the backseat
one furry hand on the steering wheel
another tapping time on hot red
flank of the scream
winking into the wind winding into a
dark green valley little cottages
with sleepy blue windows little
foxes leave a field in a line
and long headlights filter the
pocket from its dusk accuse
the air of its dark cigar-car
tongues black dips with
pools of black in their bottoms
and hoses the dregs poof into
a cloud of bats tornadoes among
sleepy cottages Barton splits
clawed night
the swooping nose of his chariot

Farm

The
horizon boils
over spills into the
big field a
sunlit farmer
folds himself into the corn
stalks and follows
earth's quiet curve
with palms cupped
for gather and posture
sculpted by smiling floorboards
a front porch
cradles a concentration of
brown nuts and ladybug husks
a dead fly or two

what spilled from the horizon
drips up the porch steps, drinks
milky orange shingles
and

the sunlit farmer picks his way
through the tall corn each step
revealing the glory of
that which is uninterrupted

Tits

big round
tips of synagogues
houses of who cares
when your hand melts on it
who really cares

April 30 2009

1
mom i take back what i said
about the socks

excavated:
three old socks, not matched
alone down there for
a long time

i can't believe i got you
to want to
buy my lamp

2
stumbling across a facebook page
you've never seen
what your room-mate must think
mismatched socks covering every
surface of the room
he said he'd pay for
the lava lamp
but the rest was
your problem
how many of the socks
did you jerk off into
they're lying around on the
night stand
like dead fish
it's not the socks
slamming the door of the mini-fridge
god, what a prick!
talking in his girlfriend voice
your socks pile up around you
he explains how
nervous you feel before tip-off
but once the ball is tossed you don't
feel nervous anymore
the socks crowd closer

April 29 2009

1
the fuckers who made this mess
me slip and fall on wet green tiles
wet-sock misery and a limp but
somehow that day ended

2
two cats play
in soft fog
light's journey
tunnels
we see
picking poppy seeds from the teeth
and sharpest night
calmed with a cushion of
wet air
edible night
night gathered in our hands
and tugged
night to stuff inside
our pocket
large slabs of night
break off, slip into the lake
as we waltz under its
cupola
ringing like bells

3
rainbow scar, the uncertain talons
of a beauty queen she
stifles in the third row a band
of black glass across her forehead
little hairs creep up her forearms
boys notice the rainbow scar
the skin around the under arm she
sighs into a patch of purple
the vision reviewed before bed

4
and there is a summer
a long distance
under which the sun kneads
our skin like dough
a distance and a time
we measure against
the backs of our arms
we press against
heavy glass
but everything goes
the same speed
our flat tan skin
against the glass

5
the birds sing all night
we busted the screen out
my mom loves the doctor
and putting on makeup
she blushed when i asked her
if the doctor
out the busted open window
the house to myself
my room
damp corners i unfold
myself and my corners
feast on what the open window
kisses in
i think about jobs and hand jobs
somewhere in the future
and my mom loves the doctor
and my future is what rolls
through the window the birds
sing about it and i construct
the setting of the hand job modest
of course and relax in my humble beginnings
as mom dabs
her lips with tissue for the doctor
and i fill my room with shreds
of my self

Silence in the Nude Recording Studio

Silence in the nude recording studio
Song titled "The Impact of Bodies
on the Air in the Hallway".

Loops of turned-off mechanical
toothbrushes mur mur mur and the
engineer puts on his cap he is
leaving to smear himself westward.

New title: "The Cry of Envy
in the Sound Booth",

The guitarist loosens a grumpy note
from his guitar uncomfortably aware of
being in the space his body inhabits.

They once had a drummer but he
dedicated his life to inventing the
mobile drum kit which the musician
does not play but plays with as it
travels around stage on its own accord.

The vocalist sang the space
between the words and the
guitarist nailed his guitar to the wall
sat down across from it
and this song was called
"Memory of the Concert in Sondra's Basement".

The thought that kept me up all night

There is a space between everything








Yes___________________No

Mystery Smell

I snapped at the waist and
My hair kept going
Splat on the wall
Could my roommate be trying to fatten me?

The mystery smell…
Brown-cheeked girl in snow boots
I tied it to you.

Last Night

They crashed through the glass ceiling above the dance floor
And beat the beer pong champion with their nightsticks
Before roasting his genitals over a fire on the roof.

They dumped the water cooler of jungle juice down the sewer
And made us watch.

I recognized the scalp of my friend
Dangling from the sheriff’s belt.