Two kids my age
kicking the shit
out of another younger kid
in somebody's front yard
on 7th St. in Oregon City.
Not avoiding the face,
but
aiming at it.
The teeth are gates
to a pearly white
hell
and
somebody is going to
pick them up off the sidewalk
like they're a string of pearls.
Okay soooo here's the plan
my righteous big brothers,
we're gonna introduce
the young men specimen to bloodshed
in a manner of expectation.
When you get this angry it's just like
Dallas Cowboys
all in your backyard
rodeo call for
pure Texas fuck you syndrome,
passing on what's presented
where the teeth are going to make way
for a tongue
of steel.
not anything here
but
when the wolves
don't show no mercy
be the beast
that the sheep would fear.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Desert exclusive
Out on the other side of the
mountain range, a pasty fat
god-fearing man won by a
fat landslide and cowboy hat.
Built a tower on a
mud hill where you, the blood was
boiling inside. Some dust, out of
the cold intolerance but didn't dare spoil
because it was desert
and by that,
desert exclusive.
The backwards integrity of some holy zealot
sad piece of shit to back of
my chafed throat wanted guns racks for council
like it wanted steam horns in depths of sleep.
Bottom half smelled of sea
salt seasoning the seasoned
proverbial sailor lost.
Warm mud slugging the neurons.
When the ghost train comes knocking
on the door, you better tell it to go running
for the cascades, cuz' hey babe
life's not a surprise party,
you're not subject
to these assholes
and a preacher in the flock
is infinitely worse
than a boxing match with the
pacific spirit hunt line,
anyone would take that any day
it's quite well worth
a chipped tooth, and a black eye.
mountain range, a pasty fat
god-fearing man won by a
fat landslide and cowboy hat.
Built a tower on a
mud hill where you, the blood was
boiling inside. Some dust, out of
the cold intolerance but didn't dare spoil
because it was desert
and by that,
desert exclusive.
The backwards integrity of some holy zealot
sad piece of shit to back of
my chafed throat wanted guns racks for council
like it wanted steam horns in depths of sleep.
Bottom half smelled of sea
salt seasoning the seasoned
proverbial sailor lost.
Warm mud slugging the neurons.
When the ghost train comes knocking
on the door, you better tell it to go running
for the cascades, cuz' hey babe
life's not a surprise party,
you're not subject
to these assholes
and a preacher in the flock
is infinitely worse
than a boxing match with the
pacific spirit hunt line,
anyone would take that any day
it's quite well worth
a chipped tooth, and a black eye.
Nate and Maggie
Nate dying in his sleep,
laying in a hospital gown
with his brother fast asleep in a chair next to him.
Me doing all that I can not to cry while Nate is
dreaming.
As he takes off his shirt and jumps into the ocean to swim
I know that he is free, and that this means he is gone forever.
Piano keys playing notes in a
minor scale,
hanging on after they are supposed to.
Feeble and simple final breaths,
and how they're not even whispered
resembles a paper blowing past in the wind,
more than it does a conversation.
These piano keys are
holding on to existence
dancing for the hand of God
which is really just
the hand of a piano player.
All art is derived in this fashion,
and whether it's
a full cup
a half full cup
a half empty cup
or no cup at all
the polar bears still belong to the snow
and the parrots to the jungle.
A map is still a map,
and you have to wonder
why the notes hang on after they are supposed to.
Nate collapsing to the floor.
after he has just made sweet love to Maggie.
Piano keys hanging on.
Domestic tabby cats and Koalas
meeting for the first time in the history of all things,
cocking their heads at each other,
wondering what to do or what this could mean for the future.
wondering if this could mean no future.
Nate knowing this day would come.
Piano keys running away
from a certain fate;
holding on.
The way a penguin holds on to the frost
knowing that the clouds will always separate him
from the universe.
He is misunderstood.
He wants to circle the earth;
a sweet and friendly bird from the bitter cold
longing deeply to orbit
the suburbs,
the cities,
the wild and the wind,
more than anyone at NASA
could say they do.
The penguin wants to be an astronaut
more than I want to lick your soul,
and more than I want Nate to live.
Teenagers in retirement homes,
Senior citizens drinking vodka that tastes like motor oil
on swing sets,
and you have to wonder
just why the notes hang on so long after they are supposed to.
You see it in the parks,
You see it in homeless old men,
but mostly you see it
wherever there are
children.
Thought I saw it in a little girl holding on
to her favorite penguin doll.
Growing up, she forgot about it
with a love more beautiful
than that of piano keys desperately clinging to life,
and with a love still more short
than that of Nate and Maggie.
laying in a hospital gown
with his brother fast asleep in a chair next to him.
Me doing all that I can not to cry while Nate is
dreaming.
As he takes off his shirt and jumps into the ocean to swim
I know that he is free, and that this means he is gone forever.
Piano keys playing notes in a
minor scale,
hanging on after they are supposed to.
Feeble and simple final breaths,
and how they're not even whispered
resembles a paper blowing past in the wind,
more than it does a conversation.
These piano keys are
holding on to existence
dancing for the hand of God
which is really just
the hand of a piano player.
All art is derived in this fashion,
and whether it's
a full cup
a half full cup
a half empty cup
or no cup at all
the polar bears still belong to the snow
and the parrots to the jungle.
A map is still a map,
and you have to wonder
why the notes hang on after they are supposed to.
Nate collapsing to the floor.
after he has just made sweet love to Maggie.
Piano keys hanging on.
Domestic tabby cats and Koalas
meeting for the first time in the history of all things,
cocking their heads at each other,
wondering what to do or what this could mean for the future.
wondering if this could mean no future.
Nate knowing this day would come.
Piano keys running away
from a certain fate;
holding on.
The way a penguin holds on to the frost
knowing that the clouds will always separate him
from the universe.
He is misunderstood.
He wants to circle the earth;
a sweet and friendly bird from the bitter cold
longing deeply to orbit
the suburbs,
the cities,
the wild and the wind,
more than anyone at NASA
could say they do.
The penguin wants to be an astronaut
more than I want to lick your soul,
and more than I want Nate to live.
Teenagers in retirement homes,
Senior citizens drinking vodka that tastes like motor oil
on swing sets,
and you have to wonder
just why the notes hang on so long after they are supposed to.
You see it in the parks,
You see it in homeless old men,
but mostly you see it
wherever there are
children.
Thought I saw it in a little girl holding on
to her favorite penguin doll.
Growing up, she forgot about it
with a love more beautiful
than that of piano keys desperately clinging to life,
and with a love still more short
than that of Nate and Maggie.
The birth of legacy
Lightly quivering
upper lip
I know what you
want to say to me
but I am not going
to say how it makes me feel
when you say it.
It will go something like this:
When they put Gary Cooper
in front of the cameras.
That falling out of your mouth.
Your trees are shaking early
fruit on the orchard.
Spoiling the craters
of the uncertain,
the war zones
out of luck
out of speech.
When my mother spoke
At my grandfather's funeral
she started off with the word
"earnest."
Let this be the birth of legacy.
Lord, the piano strings
pulled so hard in my
thudding heart
that the rubber bands
were on their last stretch,
high noon for the taut ropes
keeping the sailors
near to wives
now mothers of fatherless
namesakes.
Felt an ancestor leaving
the family for far distant lands
tucked the sensation away
put it in wooden barrel
with hundreds of apples
far too ripe.
Counted two separate inadequacies,
shortcomings and surpluses between you and I,
tragically comic
and more tragically
not amendable.
It's the imperfection that makes
it more bearable to be with
than without.
and there was my grandmother
sitting in the pews tearless
so sad and so strong,
while my grandfather was hovering
above the box where his ashes were,
hallucinating the re-assurance.
upper lip
I know what you
want to say to me
but I am not going
to say how it makes me feel
when you say it.
It will go something like this:
When they put Gary Cooper
in front of the cameras.
That falling out of your mouth.
Your trees are shaking early
fruit on the orchard.
Spoiling the craters
of the uncertain,
the war zones
out of luck
out of speech.
When my mother spoke
At my grandfather's funeral
she started off with the word
"earnest."
Let this be the birth of legacy.
Lord, the piano strings
pulled so hard in my
thudding heart
that the rubber bands
were on their last stretch,
high noon for the taut ropes
keeping the sailors
near to wives
now mothers of fatherless
namesakes.
Felt an ancestor leaving
the family for far distant lands
tucked the sensation away
put it in wooden barrel
with hundreds of apples
far too ripe.
Counted two separate inadequacies,
shortcomings and surpluses between you and I,
tragically comic
and more tragically
not amendable.
It's the imperfection that makes
it more bearable to be with
than without.
and there was my grandmother
sitting in the pews tearless
so sad and so strong,
while my grandfather was hovering
above the box where his ashes were,
hallucinating the re-assurance.
Mighty universe
I want to bury the hatchet,
but I don't want
to forget how it felt
to walk into the blizzard.
I carried a hatchet and compass
seeking out firewood to burn.
In the blinding white
the forest saw me as I was born
I was naked, so nude
and the frost
swallowed me up whole
bitter cold in my bitter bones
gave way to bitter bourbon
and serpent friendships,
they gave me bitter drugs
to make senseless out of bitter sense.
I wanted to play fair
but when I was losing
I wanted to pull out the bottom
of Connect Four because I was a bad sport.
So many times I fussed and fought,
but I grew up. Some people don't though
Karma kindly gave me plentiful
and rewardingly. Gifts
plenty of them, wine in my face,
board games tilted over on me
carpets pulled out from under, just like Connect Four chips
and hard shoulders at the end of the match.
Who wins when none of us
can control the things that
make us hurt?
Not you or I for sure.
Probably not any of us
in this whole goddamned
puddle of a city.
Maybe if we dug a hole
all the way to China
like our fathers told us to
we would find that over there
people have more honor than us
but it's probably not the truth.
With each passing year, I get the feeling
that everybody is the same everywhere.
I bet even the Cro-Magnons
had the same shit happen to them.
The same shit that we have all experienced.
Some people probably fell in love, some probably died,
and some probably laughed.
What can I say?
The holes I have put in my brain
have helped me to become a
whole, when I was only half.
Spiritual enlightenment,
life changed, re-birth, etcetera.
Call it what you will, but I call horse arse on you,
higgledy piggledy, shenanigans – you can smell it all for miles
Candidly speaking, exactly the same
yet so far from what used to be,
just trying to bury a hatchet in the mighty universe
with hatchet and compass. Zero plus zero?
but I don't want
to forget how it felt
to walk into the blizzard.
I carried a hatchet and compass
seeking out firewood to burn.
In the blinding white
the forest saw me as I was born
I was naked, so nude
and the frost
swallowed me up whole
bitter cold in my bitter bones
gave way to bitter bourbon
and serpent friendships,
they gave me bitter drugs
to make senseless out of bitter sense.
I wanted to play fair
but when I was losing
I wanted to pull out the bottom
of Connect Four because I was a bad sport.
So many times I fussed and fought,
but I grew up. Some people don't though
Karma kindly gave me plentiful
and rewardingly. Gifts
plenty of them, wine in my face,
board games tilted over on me
carpets pulled out from under, just like Connect Four chips
and hard shoulders at the end of the match.
Who wins when none of us
can control the things that
make us hurt?
Not you or I for sure.
Probably not any of us
in this whole goddamned
puddle of a city.
Maybe if we dug a hole
all the way to China
like our fathers told us to
we would find that over there
people have more honor than us
but it's probably not the truth.
With each passing year, I get the feeling
that everybody is the same everywhere.
I bet even the Cro-Magnons
had the same shit happen to them.
The same shit that we have all experienced.
Some people probably fell in love, some probably died,
and some probably laughed.
What can I say?
The holes I have put in my brain
have helped me to become a
whole, when I was only half.
Spiritual enlightenment,
life changed, re-birth, etcetera.
Call it what you will, but I call horse arse on you,
higgledy piggledy, shenanigans – you can smell it all for miles
Candidly speaking, exactly the same
yet so far from what used to be,
just trying to bury a hatchet in the mighty universe
with hatchet and compass. Zero plus zero?
The new necessity
Well, I suppose, if you look at it like that...
if we forget the buildings and the clothes and the cars
and the shit and the grease and the stardom and the stars
and all of the sticky dung stuck in
adobe walls,
we will remember
that there are an estimated 6.77 billion loose cannons
running around.
But you've got to love the whole thing
even if it folds in on itself.
Everybody's got a plan, man.
It's the new water,
food,
shelter.
The new necessity.
They've all got big plans for the commonwealth
and they’re all so goddamn big that that all they need is hope.
When in doubt about the ones you love
and the ones that love you,
remember that the generals massacring
indigenous populations,
were humans
just the same as the natives,
although one might not have thought so
of the other.
For the believers – could I see what you saw?
Was it
the new necessity,
aging wood on
young flame?
Was it turtle dove pain
on some smoky wing
bound to note?
note tied to foot?
Impoverished children
smiling
while my friends cry at the end of cheesy movies.
The pope wearing Bono's sunglasses (totally cool)
while bums and street preachers spout wisdom,
High divorce rates while
student teacher relationships make headline news.
I loved each and every one of you from all the way
in the back of the class.
Celebrity drama beating backwards blood
into the hearts of jaded punks in faded jeans.
Counterculture eroticism,
symbiotic polarization,
hope on a rope
through the uncertain showers of federal/moral prison,
the new necessity.
if we forget the buildings and the clothes and the cars
and the shit and the grease and the stardom and the stars
and all of the sticky dung stuck in
adobe walls,
we will remember
that there are an estimated 6.77 billion loose cannons
running around.
But you've got to love the whole thing
even if it folds in on itself.
Everybody's got a plan, man.
It's the new water,
food,
shelter.
The new necessity.
They've all got big plans for the commonwealth
and they’re all so goddamn big that that all they need is hope.
When in doubt about the ones you love
and the ones that love you,
remember that the generals massacring
indigenous populations,
were humans
just the same as the natives,
although one might not have thought so
of the other.
For the believers – could I see what you saw?
Was it
the new necessity,
aging wood on
young flame?
Was it turtle dove pain
on some smoky wing
bound to note?
note tied to foot?
Impoverished children
smiling
while my friends cry at the end of cheesy movies.
The pope wearing Bono's sunglasses (totally cool)
while bums and street preachers spout wisdom,
High divorce rates while
student teacher relationships make headline news.
I loved each and every one of you from all the way
in the back of the class.
Celebrity drama beating backwards blood
into the hearts of jaded punks in faded jeans.
Counterculture eroticism,
symbiotic polarization,
hope on a rope
through the uncertain showers of federal/moral prison,
the new necessity.
The quiet earth
Months ago
we walked around the city plenty dizzy and hot enough
for all of the important people that live in it,
or at least enough for the people who thought they were important.
(is there really a difference?!)
For better or for worse,
we bounced off a wall into
a phone sex call center
and waited for the employee lunch break.
A plain looking girl came out to have a cigarette and
walk to a diner a few blocks away.
I told her I wanted to ask her a few questions about her
occupation.
She told us we could walk with her.
I asked her if she ever felt like her job
was more sexual than
socially acceptable
and if she maybe thought
it was morally reprehensible.
I was so out of it that I didn't realize I was dreaming the whole thing up!
or how goofy I looked in my own dream.
She told us that her job wasn't really erotic
and that she felt more like a nurse;
talking
nasty
to sad souls,
putting bandages on their wounds.
Helping lonely people along,
a fantasy away from heaven
or at least an improper climax;
washing their feet.
"Strictly platonic," she said.
A real Mother Theresa at work in a foul place,
although I am not quite sure what a person's options are.
I can't judge.
Some ghosts are just forced
to take care of other ones.
She made me feel uncomfortable,
as if I would someday be diagnosed
with a rare brain illness.
It slid away because at that point we fell through the ground
through the quiet blackness
through the quiet atmosphere
and landed back on the quiet earth,
where myself and my second self soon realized
it was a big ol' coincidence
that we had ever been born.
we walked around the city plenty dizzy and hot enough
for all of the important people that live in it,
or at least enough for the people who thought they were important.
(is there really a difference?!)
For better or for worse,
we bounced off a wall into
a phone sex call center
and waited for the employee lunch break.
A plain looking girl came out to have a cigarette and
walk to a diner a few blocks away.
I told her I wanted to ask her a few questions about her
occupation.
She told us we could walk with her.
I asked her if she ever felt like her job
was more sexual than
socially acceptable
and if she maybe thought
it was morally reprehensible.
I was so out of it that I didn't realize I was dreaming the whole thing up!
or how goofy I looked in my own dream.
She told us that her job wasn't really erotic
and that she felt more like a nurse;
talking
nasty
to sad souls,
putting bandages on their wounds.
Helping lonely people along,
a fantasy away from heaven
or at least an improper climax;
washing their feet.
"Strictly platonic," she said.
A real Mother Theresa at work in a foul place,
although I am not quite sure what a person's options are.
I can't judge.
Some ghosts are just forced
to take care of other ones.
She made me feel uncomfortable,
as if I would someday be diagnosed
with a rare brain illness.
It slid away because at that point we fell through the ground
through the quiet blackness
through the quiet atmosphere
and landed back on the quiet earth,
where myself and my second self soon realized
it was a big ol' coincidence
that we had ever been born.
Happy
The telescope made love with the atmosphere
and I walked around
with constellations bleeding in my strobe vision.
The fireworks show was delaying traffic on
the freeway,
because they couldn't get enough of you,
and I couldn’t either.
Your paintbrush was like
stars dripping out of organ pipes,
God feathers
sliding down my lower belly
A thousand inappropriate remarks at the conference
made wrong merely because of context,
but I saw them perfect and honest.
You were rolling a volcano cactus
across the M that my legs made...
you made an M just like my name.
That cactus was about to erupt
in the best way possible;
the dams were going to break
returning the borrowed water
back to the canyon.
"BZZZZ",
the lamp
"BZZZZEZ, I SAID"
the streetlight looked like heaven,
and it sounded like it too.
I became a little bit fearful,
as fearful as looking at heaven can be,
but was still fuzzy and inexplicably joyful.
I hurriedly tried to get inside
and into my room
before I underwent judgment,
before the cold or another dimension ate me up
I was in my element,
right at home,
watchamacallit? oh yeah, "comfy,"
as one says.
We shared a meteor brain
when all that was left
were some boring memories of earth.
Yes dear, I was quite happy
living in your sky castle.
and I walked around
with constellations bleeding in my strobe vision.
The fireworks show was delaying traffic on
the freeway,
because they couldn't get enough of you,
and I couldn’t either.
Your paintbrush was like
stars dripping out of organ pipes,
God feathers
sliding down my lower belly
A thousand inappropriate remarks at the conference
made wrong merely because of context,
but I saw them perfect and honest.
You were rolling a volcano cactus
across the M that my legs made...
you made an M just like my name.
That cactus was about to erupt
in the best way possible;
the dams were going to break
returning the borrowed water
back to the canyon.
"BZZZZ",
the lamp
"BZZZZEZ, I SAID"
the streetlight looked like heaven,
and it sounded like it too.
I became a little bit fearful,
as fearful as looking at heaven can be,
but was still fuzzy and inexplicably joyful.
I hurriedly tried to get inside
and into my room
before I underwent judgment,
before the cold or another dimension ate me up
I was in my element,
right at home,
watchamacallit? oh yeah, "comfy,"
as one says.
We shared a meteor brain
when all that was left
were some boring memories of earth.
Yes dear, I was quite happy
living in your sky castle.
Disquiet
An ominous wind was blowing
from the east,
down from the mountain.
It kicked up newspaper
and soda cans
like tumbleweeds.
The air was electric.
It was
daring forks to jump into sockets,
and those perturbed forks of fate were, in turn,
daring the children of the neighborhood
to stand on their roofs, offering
lightning rods to the unforgiving sky.
Around the corner, a stray dog
was eating trash from a can
that had been knocked over by the wind.
Eerie marks of the beast
in common canine
delicatessen.
It was an irrational terror.
A random fear
like the sound of hoofs outside of your bedroom door
at night
or
waking up to find that everything you have ever known
is made out of clay,
for your friends and family had thumbprints
on them
where their faces once were.
They are from the place
where the fingers of their creators
played with them too hard.
The dread farmer collected honey moths to begin eating up
everyone's sense of things like a skin harvest on a mission.
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day
termites start at the feet.
It took me ten years to gather the courage to write the next ten lines:
When I was younger
I had a nightmare that the last thing
I would ever hear on this earth
would be a single beep.
I couldn't sleep for days.
I watched TV at night
so I wouldn't sit in the chilling disquiet
waiting for
BEEP
and then nothing ever again.
The storm was coming.
The hills
melted away from a river
that had been collecting acid from
paper mills
for too many hundreds of years.
The hills
melted away from the river
like the spine collects nerve
before it separates from the body
to drag itself across rain soaked pavement.
The dread farmer heard the rooster crow
and began combing the fields
for silence.
from the east,
down from the mountain.
It kicked up newspaper
and soda cans
like tumbleweeds.
The air was electric.
It was
daring forks to jump into sockets,
and those perturbed forks of fate were, in turn,
daring the children of the neighborhood
to stand on their roofs, offering
lightning rods to the unforgiving sky.
Around the corner, a stray dog
was eating trash from a can
that had been knocked over by the wind.
Eerie marks of the beast
in common canine
delicatessen.
It was an irrational terror.
A random fear
like the sound of hoofs outside of your bedroom door
at night
or
waking up to find that everything you have ever known
is made out of clay,
for your friends and family had thumbprints
on them
where their faces once were.
They are from the place
where the fingers of their creators
played with them too hard.
The dread farmer collected honey moths to begin eating up
everyone's sense of things like a skin harvest on a mission.
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day
termites start at the feet.
It took me ten years to gather the courage to write the next ten lines:
When I was younger
I had a nightmare that the last thing
I would ever hear on this earth
would be a single beep.
I couldn't sleep for days.
I watched TV at night
so I wouldn't sit in the chilling disquiet
waiting for
BEEP
and then nothing ever again.
The storm was coming.
The hills
melted away from a river
that had been collecting acid from
paper mills
for too many hundreds of years.
The hills
melted away from the river
like the spine collects nerve
before it separates from the body
to drag itself across rain soaked pavement.
The dread farmer heard the rooster crow
and began combing the fields
for silence.
Bye bye Junebuggggg
All of the monsters come in the afternoon
during that week or two near end of July
or the start of August where temperatures rise
consistently above one hundred degrees.
All of the monsters come in the afternoon
when the loud fireworks have since come and gone.
The fan counts time by little relief offered
aid of which the clock has none to offer now.
The TV turned into a gaudy prophet
and showered sweat all over my hot sore skin.
It was so bright outside that it was pitch black.
All of the monsters came in the afternoon.
God eyed the sun too long. Burnt his retinas.
He blew the curtains and trees till they sordid wept
wet like an orgasm, or a funeral.
All of the monsters came in the afternoon.
A kid on our block fell off of his bike at
4PM and we never saw him again
Things were shifting, tectonic plates of madness.
Stars were exploding all day long. Nobody
saw them. Unholy mirage made it under
front door. Nitrous gas from the nightmare dentist.
He made me drool scared. I saw him standing there
by the door and he looked like how people are
not supposed to. A body of water
shaking, quaking, mistaking me for the prey,
I could do nothing
so I spit into the vast sea
with tears of epilepsy.
during that week or two near end of July
or the start of August where temperatures rise
consistently above one hundred degrees.
All of the monsters come in the afternoon
when the loud fireworks have since come and gone.
The fan counts time by little relief offered
aid of which the clock has none to offer now.
The TV turned into a gaudy prophet
and showered sweat all over my hot sore skin.
It was so bright outside that it was pitch black.
All of the monsters came in the afternoon.
God eyed the sun too long. Burnt his retinas.
He blew the curtains and trees till they sordid wept
wet like an orgasm, or a funeral.
All of the monsters came in the afternoon.
A kid on our block fell off of his bike at
4PM and we never saw him again
Things were shifting, tectonic plates of madness.
Stars were exploding all day long. Nobody
saw them. Unholy mirage made it under
front door. Nitrous gas from the nightmare dentist.
He made me drool scared. I saw him standing there
by the door and he looked like how people are
not supposed to. A body of water
shaking, quaking, mistaking me for the prey,
I could do nothing
so I spit into the vast sea
with tears of epilepsy.
The high court, but honestly, pretty high in court
I felt the pain in the rag tag chain gang.
With my orange "Westside Community Court" vest,
people looked at me like I was the bane of society.
It shows the hilarity of life
that a minor violation, a petty crime,
can draw a line in the sandwith "us and them" intention.
A few of my wayward comrades
asked me what I was there for as we took in the filth
with trash grabbers.
My head blossomed with ideas
of what to tell them.
…
…
…
"Aggravated assault. I've got a lot of hours to fill up,"
I said,
wanting to burst out laughing!,
wanting to pull down the pants of strangers!,
wanting to run wild like a lunatic!,
wanting to pull a practical joke rivaling itself!
If I can make jokes that only I will find humor in,
I think I am alive and well at last.
I kept my face straight, and they nodded. Some explained their crimes.
Some of them:
speeding tickets,
minor violations,
public indecency,
disturbing the peace of our streets.
For the pavement,
it is serene.
It is filled with
cigarette butts empty lighters fliers gum broken glass old newspapers
and severed Christmas light wires.
The demographic is as wide and unpredictable
as the things we find in the muck:
addicts students unknowns lawyers transients politicians teachers liars lovers
maybe even a handful of celebrities
maybe even Joe the plumber.
All of them -
dirty
dirty
dirty
dirty
dirty
just like me.
We shot the shit while we picked up Portland's feces.
We talked about police brutality.
We talked about the basketball game last night.
We talked about how the Christmas light wires were telltale signs of junkies,
using them to tie off
and subsequently shoot up.
A middle aged guy
from eastern Oregon
but living and working on Southeast Foster
bought me breakfast during our break.
He was nearly halfway through his community service hours.
I asked him what his hours were for
and he told me that he got in trouble for talking to a lady.
I was puzzled.
He then told me that a "friendly looking woman",
near 82nd and Johnson Creek was smiling and waving at him,
so he stopped and talked to her.
He said he was charged for attempting to pick up a prostitute,
but all he was doing was talking to her.
"Just talking, only talking. That's crazy isn't it, man? It's so stupid, I mean I got arrested for talking to somebody. It's fucked up, right?"
He was speaking really fast
tripping over his words.
His jowls transformed into
vibrating lunchmeat, and in that one moment,
those billowing curtains of ham made me want to go home and sleep.
I said, "Yes, that is very fucked up," not really wanting to talk about it anymore
although it sounded to me like he was very much trying to do the dirty.
Guilty as charged.
It looked to me like he might beone of the lonelier ones.
Melted and charred
by whatever it was that made
his suffering
solitary and
horny.
From then onthe day blended into itself.
Walking, walking, talking,
walking, walking, raining,
raining, raining, dripping
except for an apology from an ex-lover ripped into a dozen pieces
scattered on the ground in front of me.
I could see the anger invested in
the purposeful tears in the letter.
I carefully, caressingly
picked up each piece like a fossil
with my metal & plastic garbage arm,
putting them together, reading the words.
The rage of destroying memory
made sense to me.
I felt a bond with those who bury the pain and the
insincere apologies with hate shovels,
all the while thinking that those who have wronged us so profoundly
give us nothing to keep our backs straight.
I felt little more than bad blood shared
with the one who cast me into the quarry,
forcing a fleeting smile and thinking that commonality
catches us in the strangest places.
With my orange "Westside Community Court" vest,
people looked at me like I was the bane of society.
It shows the hilarity of life
that a minor violation, a petty crime,
can draw a line in the sandwith "us and them" intention.
A few of my wayward comrades
asked me what I was there for as we took in the filth
with trash grabbers.
My head blossomed with ideas
of what to tell them.
…
…
…
"Aggravated assault. I've got a lot of hours to fill up,"
I said,
wanting to burst out laughing!,
wanting to pull down the pants of strangers!,
wanting to run wild like a lunatic!,
wanting to pull a practical joke rivaling itself!
If I can make jokes that only I will find humor in,
I think I am alive and well at last.
I kept my face straight, and they nodded. Some explained their crimes.
Some of them:
speeding tickets,
minor violations,
public indecency,
disturbing the peace of our streets.
For the pavement,
it is serene.
It is filled with
cigarette butts empty lighters fliers gum broken glass old newspapers
and severed Christmas light wires.
The demographic is as wide and unpredictable
as the things we find in the muck:
addicts students unknowns lawyers transients politicians teachers liars lovers
maybe even a handful of celebrities
maybe even Joe the plumber.
All of them -
dirty
dirty
dirty
dirty
dirty
just like me.
We shot the shit while we picked up Portland's feces.
We talked about police brutality.
We talked about the basketball game last night.
We talked about how the Christmas light wires were telltale signs of junkies,
using them to tie off
and subsequently shoot up.
A middle aged guy
from eastern Oregon
but living and working on Southeast Foster
bought me breakfast during our break.
He was nearly halfway through his community service hours.
I asked him what his hours were for
and he told me that he got in trouble for talking to a lady.
I was puzzled.
He then told me that a "friendly looking woman",
near 82nd and Johnson Creek was smiling and waving at him,
so he stopped and talked to her.
He said he was charged for attempting to pick up a prostitute,
but all he was doing was talking to her.
"Just talking, only talking. That's crazy isn't it, man? It's so stupid, I mean I got arrested for talking to somebody. It's fucked up, right?"
He was speaking really fast
tripping over his words.
His jowls transformed into
vibrating lunchmeat, and in that one moment,
those billowing curtains of ham made me want to go home and sleep.
I said, "Yes, that is very fucked up," not really wanting to talk about it anymore
although it sounded to me like he was very much trying to do the dirty.
Guilty as charged.
It looked to me like he might beone of the lonelier ones.
Melted and charred
by whatever it was that made
his suffering
solitary and
horny.
From then onthe day blended into itself.
Walking, walking, talking,
walking, walking, raining,
raining, raining, dripping
except for an apology from an ex-lover ripped into a dozen pieces
scattered on the ground in front of me.
I could see the anger invested in
the purposeful tears in the letter.
I carefully, caressingly
picked up each piece like a fossil
with my metal & plastic garbage arm,
putting them together, reading the words.
The rage of destroying memory
made sense to me.
I felt a bond with those who bury the pain and the
insincere apologies with hate shovels,
all the while thinking that those who have wronged us so profoundly
give us nothing to keep our backs straight.
I felt little more than bad blood shared
with the one who cast me into the quarry,
forcing a fleeting smile and thinking that commonality
catches us in the strangest places.
Grdfthr clk
A person becomes changed
whenever they are run like a horse on the track.
Their silence becomes static and obscure.
It is still and surely
time is still out there
frozen.
The whole gang of dangling keys are
hanging out in mono sound
spending too many days working
on becoming a work of fiction
instead of actual creation.
With down character eyes
saying "I was born this way."
When I fall
my heavens will come down...
but not yours.
Certain circles do not spiral inwards.
The sticker on the bike reads:
"Nobody Dies All The Way Alone."
We are merely bicycle wheels with transparent spokes.
We are
connected to and removed
from
one scary burning sun.
If you yell inside of here,
it is going to be so loud
that all of the miserable tyrants
and heroes of history
will awake and undoubtedly curse your name.
Just like the grdfthr clk of God
declaring midnight in a strange world.
So if you can be quiet
please stay with me for a while.
There is plenty of sitting room on the dream train
with its seizure cars running reckless
through my withering vein tracks.
I am trying to have a dialogue with my own head,
but instead,
I accidentally eavesdrop in
on a phone call to a fax machine.
A person re-arranges their consciousness
when they are run into the ground
by this
awful,
confused,
cloudy,
cloudiness.
whenever they are run like a horse on the track.
Their silence becomes static and obscure.
It is still and surely
time is still out there
frozen.
The whole gang of dangling keys are
hanging out in mono sound
spending too many days working
on becoming a work of fiction
instead of actual creation.
With down character eyes
saying "I was born this way."
When I fall
my heavens will come down...
but not yours.
Certain circles do not spiral inwards.
The sticker on the bike reads:
"Nobody Dies All The Way Alone."
We are merely bicycle wheels with transparent spokes.
We are
connected to and removed
from
one scary burning sun.
If you yell inside of here,
it is going to be so loud
that all of the miserable tyrants
and heroes of history
will awake and undoubtedly curse your name.
Just like the grdfthr clk of God
declaring midnight in a strange world.
So if you can be quiet
please stay with me for a while.
There is plenty of sitting room on the dream train
with its seizure cars running reckless
through my withering vein tracks.
I am trying to have a dialogue with my own head,
but instead,
I accidentally eavesdrop in
on a phone call to a fax machine.
A person re-arranges their consciousness
when they are run into the ground
by this
awful,
confused,
cloudy,
cloudiness.
Care mansion
We put the wallflowers up in our favorite sitting room,
up there on the most treasured walls
where those eyes we collected in the pond
followed our paths on the cedar floor.
Their vibrato of language;
narrowings, widenings
and the soft flit of eyelids
sounding off as curtains in the butterfly house.
We put them with the recorder
just to hear and hold onto the deep tongue
of the color and the story.
That dialect,
on permanent loop in the air raid sirens
of Care Mansion.
Grey was cold steel.
green was rare fire,
but we couldn't talk about the blues or the browns
because they sucked on our hearts.
They spoke without words
enough for themselves.
They were melancholy enough to sober up a man
just so he could drink the sadness up all over again.
North and east can only mouth this dirty west -
these eyes don't need some appendage, some direction.
They belong here where it is safe,
where the tall grass grows indoors
and the gardener blows
glass humming like a generator,
cornstalk sacrifices we made to
the scarecrow god
because we have cared for our hay men
and they were
worn and weary of hay fever.
Their throats were burning
up up up and away
so we put the wallflowers up on the spire
next to the windpipe
looking over the wastelands,
looking over the storm that had passed
and the pink swollen earthworms
washed ashore.
They were wiggling routes to leftover puddles
on the drying asphalt.
There was no way they were gonna make it
so I picked them up one by one
and they were
bottled and tangled
in the jam jar.
The joy fingers made a prayer
and said a reverent word or two;
a nod to the prosperity
of the oligochaeta posterity.
A better tribute to compassion,
they dropped into the stream where the fish ate them all up
because of how much they cared.
up there on the most treasured walls
where those eyes we collected in the pond
followed our paths on the cedar floor.
Their vibrato of language;
narrowings, widenings
and the soft flit of eyelids
sounding off as curtains in the butterfly house.
We put them with the recorder
just to hear and hold onto the deep tongue
of the color and the story.
That dialect,
on permanent loop in the air raid sirens
of Care Mansion.
Grey was cold steel.
green was rare fire,
but we couldn't talk about the blues or the browns
because they sucked on our hearts.
They spoke without words
enough for themselves.
They were melancholy enough to sober up a man
just so he could drink the sadness up all over again.
North and east can only mouth this dirty west -
these eyes don't need some appendage, some direction.
They belong here where it is safe,
where the tall grass grows indoors
and the gardener blows
glass humming like a generator,
cornstalk sacrifices we made to
the scarecrow god
because we have cared for our hay men
and they were
worn and weary of hay fever.
Their throats were burning
up up up and away
so we put the wallflowers up on the spire
next to the windpipe
looking over the wastelands,
looking over the storm that had passed
and the pink swollen earthworms
washed ashore.
They were wiggling routes to leftover puddles
on the drying asphalt.
There was no way they were gonna make it
so I picked them up one by one
and they were
bottled and tangled
in the jam jar.
The joy fingers made a prayer
and said a reverent word or two;
a nod to the prosperity
of the oligochaeta posterity.
A better tribute to compassion,
they dropped into the stream where the fish ate them all up
because of how much they cared.
AAU Wizard
J.P. would have had us all believe
that Jason Kidd was the best
basketball player,
the most important thing
in a relatively
basketball un-related
human history.
It's all about perception,
that's what they were all getting at
in fate
even if they said different,
Jesus
and
Adolf
and
Theresa
and
Mussolini
and
Ghandi
and
Talaat;
The great players
in the greatest tale,
protagonists and antagonists
on the same bench.
What makes you think
that you are any different?
that Jason Kidd was the best
basketball player,
the most important thing
in a relatively
basketball un-related
human history.
It's all about perception,
that's what they were all getting at
in fate
even if they said different,
Jesus
and
Adolf
and
Theresa
and
Mussolini
and
Ghandi
and
Talaat;
The great players
in the greatest tale,
protagonists and antagonists
on the same bench.
What makes you think
that you are any different?
Last fix = fixed conversations
Dear golden bear, dear divine skeleton,
you pull me so far from everyone I know,
and the golden retriever still wagged its tail
even after being abused by its owner who had
a golden monkey on his back
with fists closed to the sad spot.
About two months ago,
I came across a scene
that had unfolded on the south sidewalk of west Burnside.
A junkie had overdosed.
He was being zipped up and loaded into
the back of an ambulance.
The paramedics were taking their time.
As I passed by,
a man wearing a ragged Portland Trailblazers jacket
from the Clyde Drexler days
confronted me.
His beard was long and filthy
and his eyes were cloudy milkshakes.
He mumbled something about darkness
coming to fruition in these times
and I knew it was true
the same way I know there is another world inside of the world
with different laws,
different gods,
strange animals,
altogether stranger creation.
You think it's a gamble, but I'm telling you,
it's for sure
it's nothing,
if not
guaranteed,
thorough,
and absolute.
and on that same day I saw "D.N.W.G.O. – Doesn't know what’s going on"
scratched pen on wood under a table at the university.
Two days later I saw "Jeremy D.N.W.G.O."
written in a different hand on a bathroom door.
A week after that, "Gabriel D.N.W.G.O."
on a light post on campus
I want to see D.N.W.G.O.
on the sides of buses,
on presidential campaign advertisements,
on gang t-shirts,
on flags,
on bumper stickers.
It's the truth
and if this is truly terminal, eternal,
then the truth with a capital T
means to be endowed with humility
for our brothers and sisters.
The body's just another
cage for the soul,
know what I'm saying?
I have adored the smell of
life and its other brother
harder than heavy metal,
harder than tough love,
and harder than I know how to fall.
Dear golden bear, dear divine skeleton,
when you roar,
it shakes the skin right off of my bones.
You wore a costume to the campfire
to make fun of what is not funny,
to lighten the load
like a freed goldfish
swimming in the seaweed brain of the architect.
Last dream breath = last fix = fixed conversations,
conjugal visit in an opiate analgesic jail block
on the elbow of a life sentence.
you pull me so far from everyone I know,
and the golden retriever still wagged its tail
even after being abused by its owner who had
a golden monkey on his back
with fists closed to the sad spot.
About two months ago,
I came across a scene
that had unfolded on the south sidewalk of west Burnside.
A junkie had overdosed.
He was being zipped up and loaded into
the back of an ambulance.
The paramedics were taking their time.
As I passed by,
a man wearing a ragged Portland Trailblazers jacket
from the Clyde Drexler days
confronted me.
His beard was long and filthy
and his eyes were cloudy milkshakes.
He mumbled something about darkness
coming to fruition in these times
and I knew it was true
the same way I know there is another world inside of the world
with different laws,
different gods,
strange animals,
altogether stranger creation.
You think it's a gamble, but I'm telling you,
it's for sure
it's nothing,
if not
guaranteed,
thorough,
and absolute.
and on that same day I saw "D.N.W.G.O. – Doesn't know what’s going on"
scratched pen on wood under a table at the university.
Two days later I saw "Jeremy D.N.W.G.O."
written in a different hand on a bathroom door.
A week after that, "Gabriel D.N.W.G.O."
on a light post on campus
I want to see D.N.W.G.O.
on the sides of buses,
on presidential campaign advertisements,
on gang t-shirts,
on flags,
on bumper stickers.
It's the truth
and if this is truly terminal, eternal,
then the truth with a capital T
means to be endowed with humility
for our brothers and sisters.
The body's just another
cage for the soul,
know what I'm saying?
I have adored the smell of
life and its other brother
harder than heavy metal,
harder than tough love,
and harder than I know how to fall.
Dear golden bear, dear divine skeleton,
when you roar,
it shakes the skin right off of my bones.
You wore a costume to the campfire
to make fun of what is not funny,
to lighten the load
like a freed goldfish
swimming in the seaweed brain of the architect.
Last dream breath = last fix = fixed conversations,
conjugal visit in an opiate analgesic jail block
on the elbow of a life sentence.
Us all together running
A man that looks like a sexual predator -
not because of his clothes or stature,
but his eyes.
Those eyes of a wolf.
It's just so hard to meet somebody these days.
People on the benches, waiting to meet someone
who could be the only one.
They are:
sipping mall court smoothies to the internet dating blues.
A six year old white kid is:
wearing a flat billed cap and a Detroit Pistons jersey
listening to 50 Cent on his headphones.
Oh angel, if I could buy your happiness,
I would.
A young man my age with his eyebrow pierced,
pulling a brand new skateboard out of his bag,
while his beautiful baby boy sits
on the tile floor
pulling snot out of his nose with his fingers.
Stroller wheels running over my toes,
lending souvenirs to my lower half.
You will be
most exhausted when surrounded,
if you don't already know it.
I'll arrange the mannequins into intimate positions,
while you gyrate their hips.
The gift of life is
sexy
sometimes,
but easily manipulated and pathetic also.
It hangs by threads on cheerful slogans
and equally alarming catch phrases.
It's so fucking hard to be positive when
there is nothing but this long death march out to sea,
and every single human being you know is
running
running
running
to the beach.
To the babies:
you have been begging everyone to stop this madness,
but they will not take you seriously.
The greater population, your devastators,
your jurors,
have substantiated
that you are crying wolf.
It is generational genocide,
and at this point, I am so tired
that I don't feel like myself anymore.
Ask yourself.
What wisdom would the turtle yawn
if he were in this place of a thousand
bright smiles waiting impatiently to die?
Oh angel, if I could be your happiness,
I would.
A group of Goths and mall punks
walking in a pack,
scared of the same things that I am,
but only in a different way.
I feel for them with their
black trench coats
leather,
and colored hair
like I feel for the soldier in Iraq,
and all of the people that he is killing.
I feel for them like the obese girls feel for their
helpless stomachs
walking past
hot dog on a stick
as if their lives depended on it.
You give them sympathy, when it is empathy that they rightfully deserve.
I feel it all as a I felt when I said goodbye to my Black Labrador
before she was put to sleep.
It was a lonely omen,
but also carried something with it
that I knew would be revealed in time.
not because of his clothes or stature,
but his eyes.
Those eyes of a wolf.
It's just so hard to meet somebody these days.
People on the benches, waiting to meet someone
who could be the only one.
They are:
sipping mall court smoothies to the internet dating blues.
A six year old white kid is:
wearing a flat billed cap and a Detroit Pistons jersey
listening to 50 Cent on his headphones.
Oh angel, if I could buy your happiness,
I would.
A young man my age with his eyebrow pierced,
pulling a brand new skateboard out of his bag,
while his beautiful baby boy sits
on the tile floor
pulling snot out of his nose with his fingers.
Stroller wheels running over my toes,
lending souvenirs to my lower half.
You will be
most exhausted when surrounded,
if you don't already know it.
I'll arrange the mannequins into intimate positions,
while you gyrate their hips.
The gift of life is
sexy
sometimes,
but easily manipulated and pathetic also.
It hangs by threads on cheerful slogans
and equally alarming catch phrases.
It's so fucking hard to be positive when
there is nothing but this long death march out to sea,
and every single human being you know is
running
running
running
to the beach.
To the babies:
you have been begging everyone to stop this madness,
but they will not take you seriously.
The greater population, your devastators,
your jurors,
have substantiated
that you are crying wolf.
It is generational genocide,
and at this point, I am so tired
that I don't feel like myself anymore.
Ask yourself.
What wisdom would the turtle yawn
if he were in this place of a thousand
bright smiles waiting impatiently to die?
Oh angel, if I could be your happiness,
I would.
A group of Goths and mall punks
walking in a pack,
scared of the same things that I am,
but only in a different way.
I feel for them with their
black trench coats
leather,
and colored hair
like I feel for the soldier in Iraq,
and all of the people that he is killing.
I feel for them like the obese girls feel for their
helpless stomachs
walking past
hot dog on a stick
as if their lives depended on it.
You give them sympathy, when it is empathy that they rightfully deserve.
I feel it all as a I felt when I said goodbye to my Black Labrador
before she was put to sleep.
It was a lonely omen,
but also carried something with it
that I knew would be revealed in time.
My dying America
There was a kid at my high school that would sprint through the hallways
to his next class.
He would hold onto the straps of his Jansport backpack
with a fevered grip as he weaved in between my awkward peers.
He was enthusiastic; glad to be alive, to say the least.
When I think about how kids poked fun at him,
I realize people have acted in stranger ways.
What people do in private is
tenfold more peculiar
tenfold more revealing
tenfold more depressing
than what is vulnerable, open,
splayed across a public corridor.
I went to a party on the eve before the New Year 2009
carrying a cold front similar to an idea carried just before the end of the world.
A few years back
from the New Year 1999 when Y2K was a banking bomb shelter
and a round of M16 bullets away.
The same children that
joked and
pranked and
gossiped and
stank of the reek fanning outward from
dead & decaying catholic suburbia
were still children
just like me.
We grow up in middle class bliss.
Life does not give us lemons.
It gives us watermelons, mangos, papayas and pomegranate,
so we make juice and spill all of it
over oak remodeled floors.
We are carefully laying the grounds for our own foreclosures.
One of the clean-cut guys who popped his collar and who played varsity sports
was coked out at the party in question,
and everything really came full circle.
It wasn't the fact of his sweating out
a Miami Beach circa 1985 neon fantasy,
that made me feel grave and laugh darkly
but the things he said to himself when everybody was asleep.
He thought nobody was listening.
When I finally closed my eyes around 6AM that morning,
I was drunk
off the apathy that comes with forgetting the weeks and months before
a particular type of departure from life.
It felt so much like Tony Soprano falling asleep curled up next to an assault rifle,
and like Bobby Baccalieri being shot to death by two of Phil Leotardo's hit men
while looking at a model train set in a toy store.
Truly,
this
is
the
end
of
the
rope.
If I could take all of the mornings spent at Sunday school
and then add them to all of the Wednesday evenings spent at Religious Education
and then multiply them by the days where I was indoctrinated of God's glory,
their total would not equal a fraction of the moments I have spent
wanting to slip through the cracks in the floor.
Their end product
could not come close to the agony of being guilty;
for feeling so awful
while living well.
And when I remember it all,
I wish I could take the nerdy innocence
and happiness
beheld by the boy
who went STRAIGHT
from point A
to point B.
Listen closely to this mob gathering.
I want to explain how it feels to be jailed in the biceps of Goliath
when the story doesn’t go how it should, and David is having the air
squeezed out of his lungs by behemoth hands.
Everybody wants David to win,
including me.
They are screaming in horror
that the tradition of the underdog is being suffocated by an abomination.
After it is finished, Goliath in all of his childlike stupidity
feels bad for mauling David and throws himself off a cliff.
"What a waste," somebody in the crowd says, "All of that for nothing."
So the saying goes – home is where the hate is,
but I do the same things in private that others do.
The executioner is always his own biggest critic.
So when those that have always told me,
"you can achieve greatness"
ask me what I will do with my life,
all I will be able to manage is honesty.
"I hope I learn enough in college to fill up my guns with ammunition
before I go from town to town of my dying America
trying to find the jackals that I hold accountable for all of this
disorientation,
because I, myself,
am not strong enough
to own up to it."
If we could all understand
why
the priest that our whole community loves has not one, but two silver flasks,
why
man's best friend usually wants to die alone under a porch, or any place that is dark,
why
the wealthy banker has a collection of hundreds of dolls in his lavish bedroom,
and why the privileged can be so goddamned heartbroken,
I think we would have some answers
or maybe just
no questions.
With good reason,
Atlas would shake his head, gently earthquaking the world
resting on his shoulders,
and laugh at our sickness.
My dying America,
many times I have sat with you in your hospital room,
only to read you all of the books that you do not like
while you slowly make your way to a place
where better things await.
to his next class.
He would hold onto the straps of his Jansport backpack
with a fevered grip as he weaved in between my awkward peers.
He was enthusiastic; glad to be alive, to say the least.
When I think about how kids poked fun at him,
I realize people have acted in stranger ways.
What people do in private is
tenfold more peculiar
tenfold more revealing
tenfold more depressing
than what is vulnerable, open,
splayed across a public corridor.
I went to a party on the eve before the New Year 2009
carrying a cold front similar to an idea carried just before the end of the world.
A few years back
from the New Year 1999 when Y2K was a banking bomb shelter
and a round of M16 bullets away.
The same children that
joked and
pranked and
gossiped and
stank of the reek fanning outward from
dead & decaying catholic suburbia
were still children
just like me.
We grow up in middle class bliss.
Life does not give us lemons.
It gives us watermelons, mangos, papayas and pomegranate,
so we make juice and spill all of it
over oak remodeled floors.
We are carefully laying the grounds for our own foreclosures.
One of the clean-cut guys who popped his collar and who played varsity sports
was coked out at the party in question,
and everything really came full circle.
It wasn't the fact of his sweating out
a Miami Beach circa 1985 neon fantasy,
that made me feel grave and laugh darkly
but the things he said to himself when everybody was asleep.
He thought nobody was listening.
When I finally closed my eyes around 6AM that morning,
I was drunk
off the apathy that comes with forgetting the weeks and months before
a particular type of departure from life.
It felt so much like Tony Soprano falling asleep curled up next to an assault rifle,
and like Bobby Baccalieri being shot to death by two of Phil Leotardo's hit men
while looking at a model train set in a toy store.
Truly,
this
is
the
end
of
the
rope.
If I could take all of the mornings spent at Sunday school
and then add them to all of the Wednesday evenings spent at Religious Education
and then multiply them by the days where I was indoctrinated of God's glory,
their total would not equal a fraction of the moments I have spent
wanting to slip through the cracks in the floor.
Their end product
could not come close to the agony of being guilty;
for feeling so awful
while living well.
And when I remember it all,
I wish I could take the nerdy innocence
and happiness
beheld by the boy
who went STRAIGHT
from point A
to point B.
Listen closely to this mob gathering.
I want to explain how it feels to be jailed in the biceps of Goliath
when the story doesn’t go how it should, and David is having the air
squeezed out of his lungs by behemoth hands.
Everybody wants David to win,
including me.
They are screaming in horror
that the tradition of the underdog is being suffocated by an abomination.
After it is finished, Goliath in all of his childlike stupidity
feels bad for mauling David and throws himself off a cliff.
"What a waste," somebody in the crowd says, "All of that for nothing."
So the saying goes – home is where the hate is,
but I do the same things in private that others do.
The executioner is always his own biggest critic.
So when those that have always told me,
"you can achieve greatness"
ask me what I will do with my life,
all I will be able to manage is honesty.
"I hope I learn enough in college to fill up my guns with ammunition
before I go from town to town of my dying America
trying to find the jackals that I hold accountable for all of this
disorientation,
because I, myself,
am not strong enough
to own up to it."
If we could all understand
why
the priest that our whole community loves has not one, but two silver flasks,
why
man's best friend usually wants to die alone under a porch, or any place that is dark,
why
the wealthy banker has a collection of hundreds of dolls in his lavish bedroom,
and why the privileged can be so goddamned heartbroken,
I think we would have some answers
or maybe just
no questions.
With good reason,
Atlas would shake his head, gently earthquaking the world
resting on his shoulders,
and laugh at our sickness.
My dying America,
many times I have sat with you in your hospital room,
only to read you all of the books that you do not like
while you slowly make your way to a place
where better things await.
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