verse

i'm just a whimsical breeze
picking flowers from trees
arranging them in vases
to make my plastic life
something of beauty

i'm just a song to be hummed
to a love come undone
singing baby please don't leave
i've got something for you
under these sad eyes

live in trees - may 31st

I am searching for
the root of my
discontentment,
only to surmise
that I created it.

instead of feeling grass
at our fingertips
we muddle through
wires.

drunk and blind - may 26th

when we have none to do
we sip wine in the moonlight,
and soon after
we forget
what the moon is.
so it turns on us

stone - may 18th

stone-like in the backseat
i can't hear anything
but rain outside
in the busy street.
it's monday night
in my old city
and i have nothing
to look forward to.
no one's waitin' for me,
my bed's been empty
for months.
sure i've got the same folk
who've been by my side
for some time now.
but still each night
i sleep alone
like a stone
under soil
and overgrown

rose bush - may 16th

all of life's
familiarities
sing sweet songs.
like my papa's
rose bush
that grew wildly
next to the
back porch,
until the wind
swept it
away.
we used to play
croquet and pickle
in the yard
while the parents
got drunk
indoors,
searching for
that familiar
feeling
that fleeted
with the
wind
a long time
before.

worms

as I descend down this hill
song in my ears, sky above my head
I see three worms stuck to the pavement
suddenly I pity these worms
for there's no dirt underneath their soft slender bodies
no limbs for which to extend their disapparated arms
and soon the sun will eat their trampled corpses

perhaps no one but me took the time to observe their existence
but over on the other side of campus
there are ten more worms
whose days are also short lived
and whose lifeless encasings will soon be stuck to George's shoe
who was too distracted by the road-killed frog
to see them down below

years from now

laying beneath a plum tree
the grass, soft and wet, and the sheathed sky so high above
we lay there in a Spring dream
the golden sun swallowing us whole

on a forgotten day I whispered secrets into you
and you held me dear against your shoulders
until I wept unto you honest tears -
strung down my face like paling lanterns
and i will never love you more

I write about dreams a lot.

tied

I have reasons that will suffer me
I have an orange tie round my hair
My eyes are growing weeds
And in my dreams your limbs extend like branches
Where clothes fall off like leaves, welcomed by the ground
You smile down at me with the most beautiful blooming eyes

I saw you today as a stranger
Our stale glance rendered no reason
No reasons, just vacant suffering

I have an orange tie round my hair

gaspless

I have dreams where my leather books crack up and dry
Gasplessly, I watch as bits fall to the ground
to blend in with the dirt
My legs stand exposed to the sun
and to you

and then I sleep

balance

Do you ever get that feeling that you are dreaming when you're awake? You could be doing something that requires at least some level of concentration, but all you see is what you're mind is making up. In any case today I was mopping the tile in my room when that happened. I could hear girls scuttling in the rooms nearby but it wasn't hard to tune them out. I continued pushing the mop in a linear motion, glossing over the unswept floor, leaving patches of hair and lint and dirt behind. It would have been smarter to sweep first but I don't own a broom and who really cares after all. I picked up the visible remnants of filth and stuck a palmful into the nearby trash. The sun was shining in through the window like a golden pool and I just wanted to jump in and stay there. I knew that right on the other side of the glass it was cold and still snowing and that all the warm was just an illusion. That's the thing about illusions though, most of the time they are very comfortable.

Anyways, the heat that came in through the glass reminded me of my dog, Buddy. I started to picture in my mind, as if I were dreaming it, how at home in the afternoons I would find Buddy on the stairs near our front door, laying in the beams of sun that melted into our carpet like wax. Occasionally I would curl up next to him and scratch his neck for what felt like hours or until my arms broke out into a rash. (I was slightly allergic) When the sun had passed around the corner my Mom would shut the door and Buddy would pace around the house restlessly until someone let him out. As if beyond that recently closed door the sun was waiting for him - waiting for him to jump back into it. Or perhaps he just really had to piss. I'd let him outside though, and once there in our bleak yard, he'd run around in circles, through our electric fence searching for the sun but all he found was darkness. Sometimes a squirrel or a car, but nothing compared to the contentment he found in that sun. The next days or years the sun was always there again melting onto the carpet. Sometimes I would skip right up the steps passing him, but it phased neither of us. Because by nightfall, he'd be out once again, barking or howling at the sky and all he found was the moon. Even he knew that the moon is just a semblance of the sun.

Now he is dead. Buried in the backyard underneath the soggy soil. And each morning the sun rises and he can feel its warmth underground, and he is still happy. I hope he is. And we'll both dream again that this time I stopped to curl up next to him and scratch his neck, because it meant we were both existing. And next time the sun shines through my window I'll dive right into it because it's illusion is enough for me, and it was enough for Buddy. And you bet when the sun disappears tomorrow or next year that I'll keep searching for it night after night until I find something. Whether it's just the warmth I feel by this window or the cold reality beyond it's frame.

train

when you're on the train you think you can look at everyone's eyes and know their life
scruffy man with the basset hound face, are you sad? you're eyes are sinking
girl with the leather boots and flower tattoo, how long did it take you to get ready this morning? you're eyebrows are painted on
homeless man with the bike standing next to me, can you stop running over my toes? i know you're homeless and I feel bad about this but your backpack is too close to my face and it smells weird
conductor, can you stop this thing from screeching? can't you tell my head is pounding?
old man in the Russian hat, I like your hat.. now stop staring at me!
sleep sleep, hold your bags
see your reflection beside the window
hold your breath
catch a glance
fake a smile

memory

I was in the back of your parents car as you sat next to me rubbing the hair away from my neck. Your brothers were sleeping a row ahead of us and I was scared that we would wake them. The salt from the ocean was lingering on our flesh and when you kissed me I could taste it in the cracks of your lips. It was two days after my birthday, and Cape Cad will never to this day be any better. I wish I had jumped right into your arms but I stood there with my feet planted in the sand. Two foolish feet stuck in the wet sand. You looked me up and down and smiled and I smiled back because we were so damn young. Your hand moved down my shoulder to my bare arm and our lips intertwined so quietly and tenderly to ensure that your parents wouldn't hear or see. Your brothers stayed sleeping, and we kept kissing gently in the back seat with your hand moving down and meeting mine. It was dark, and shortly after our eyes met I fell asleep beside you, your arm around my waist. Once we reached my house you walked me into my damp basement and we made out as I leaned against the furnace. This was our freedom, but I missed your sweetness. I live for that goddamn sweetness.

I think that Joanna Newsom may have written some of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. Honestly, I have been moved to tears many times I have listened to Milk-Eyed Mender or Ys because her words are just so incredibly stunning and her voice and the harp show so much emotion in each album.

I saw you last night by the river
I dreamed you were skipping little stones across the surface of the water
Frowning at the angle where they were lost, and slipped under forever
In a mud-cloud, mica-spangled, like the sky'd been breathing on a mirror

And everything with wings is restless, aimless, drunk and dour
The butterflies and birds collide at hot, ungodly hours
And my clay-colored motherlessness rangily reclines
Come on home, now! All my bones are dolorous with vines

And what's it mean when suddenly we're spent
And tell me true ambition came and reared its head and went far from you
Even mollusks have weddings, though solemn and leaden
But you dirge for the dead, and take no jam on your bread
Just a supper of salt and a waltz through your empty bed

poetaster

in the heart of darkness
always exists a solitary contentment within me
its not happiness
just an balance of sorts
where I find myself smiling
and settling
and breathing

all that I write is just a reaction to life
its not planned nor pertinent
its not a reflection of what surrounds me
but rather what is within me
pulling the weeds out of my mind
and replanting them here
where some can grow
and others diminish into nothing

by and by I know that in the end of this life
i'll see myself wrinkled and old
standing in front of a mirror stark naked
ugly and puckered
and let loose a grin
because underneath it all
i am happy

poem for a stranger

i hate all that you don't say
and the words i do not speak to you
will grow in my chest
like a sapling on a train
foreign and suppressed
no whisper of the sun
will greet our cheeks
all we'll have
is a shared glance
out of a train window
i guess it's enough

are you drunk?

drifting to sleep on the couch
i'll never know if all those times she was just tired
of wakefulness
or was it that she just had too much wine
(perhaps they were linked rather closely)
sometimes she could smile through all the bullshit
i'd be kind, for i understood her wasted potential -
her view was tainted and out of focus
until eventually she saw nothing
not even her own body in front of her
making friends with the darkness;
reaching out and procuring
another wine glass full of sleep
she rose each morning like an aging flower
wise and beautiful, fragile and forgotten -
and broken, stuck to mourn her own living death
but her dreams live on!
floating sweetly in and out of the drifts
between each cushion
just a tish...

excess self

i am a two hearted dream
from the bottom of a boiling pot
to the top of ever-rising steam