the spirit world

expanding inward, in many ways,
the family collapsing and contagion
pulling out the weaker. each with its own
way of maintaining: haircuts, boots,
trimming fingernails (external); marriage,
sarcasm, lost luggage (internal). old men
walking dogs, but we are not. we are not old;
we are not dogs. many years ahead, years of
maintaining (boots; sarcasm). the family inward,
the individual outward. sustenance in food,
and in time something more. measuring days in meals,
and measuring years in love. love lost;
love gained; love dropped and picked up again.
(family inward.) the family as finite, and the
soul as infinite. the god as the topic, the
light source for some or the camera for others.
god as the point of view. and yet closer atoms,
closer points on the compass, providing their
own views (outward from the individual), each
in its own orbit. each measurement of love
counteracted against the others, the outward
in contrast with the inward and pulling against,
pulling toward. expanding inward while pulled
outward. internal decomposition held in suspended
animation by external gravitational energies.
the effect of time on mass, or the effect on love
by the passage of years and centuries. the human
condition: love wanes while civilization waxes,
or vice versa; the civilization as family: further
inward collapse, expanded gravitational force
locking each individual into fixed orbit, becalming
the beating heart of love. or vice versa, versa
vice. expansion and contraction of the heart,
beating on the edge of break. or the liver, if in
a foreign country. point of view, tightened up, focused
from somewhere internal, possibly the lungs, with
each breath an affirmation and then an extraction
and implantation of that point into the outer world.
then pulling back inward, alternatingly an inch or two
outside of one's face or within the core
of one's internal cavities, the viewpoint moving from
lung to atmosphere, atmosphere to lung. yet always
a gravity, pulled downward while outside, not
in comfort zone. sarcasm when outside of comfort
zone, and on the inside buying boots. the
persistence of maintenance in an inherently
unstable system. gravities in every direction
nulling each other out; floating through untended
ether. the spirit world overlapping the intimate
internal workings. the spirit world as the crux,
the spirit world underlying all. the spirit world
as the plane of all points of view, invisible to
the external eye. both the internal and the external,
working against each other in harmony.

love in 3 lines

love is lost,
sightlessly, soundlessly, stupidly
searching for me.

gravity pulls me down.

i wake up in the morning,
then gravity pulls me down.
i read the sunday newspaper,
and gravity pulls me down.

sometimes i wish i could fly,
but gravity pulls me down.

sometimes i think that i love you.
(gravity pulls me down.)

there are times when i am happy,
and times when i enjoy my thoughts,
and times when i let myself loose,
and times when i think i can live
until someday i am old;

yet gravity pulls me down.

november

she tells me, tonight, to fall in love,
as if it's something easy to do,
like snapping my fingers
or putting on a glove.

she tells me this, and i resent her for it,
and that's another reason why
i am so completely and utterly failing at it,
and i resent that too.

she tells me to fall in love,
as if i never have before,
as if that particular feeling
had never crossed the threshold
of my universe.

(i love my favorite spoon,
i love the way the seasons change,
i have friends who i love very much;
i am in love, even now.)

she sounds ecstatic, as if
she's never felt this way before,
as if i've never felt that way myself.

and yet i know someone who loved;
i know someone who loved for
decade after decade, who had
enough love to give a little bit
to a poor, lost, loveless soul
like mine.

#332

i wear my father's rain clouds over my head
like a halo.

twin systems

i.
here is Mercury and here is Mars,
and between and around are all the tiny stars,
shining like shards of sparkling glass.

here is the moon and here is the sun,
rising and falling, falling and rising as one.

here is a gleam and here is a spark,
shining bright as dreams in your eyes, to light the dark.

ii.
here you are and here am i,
reflected in those eyes,
and walking alongside
the tide which is pulled by the moon up high,
and you're from Mercury
and i'm from Mars,
and all I see when you're with me
is stars, two shining stars,
above your smile which is straight
with upturned ends, and below
your hair which is wild but not
half as wild as your wild, wild eyes,
each of which contains a solar system,
spinning this way and that and pinning
me down to the Earth while lifting me up
to the Heavens.

the ride

i will search for god on the back of a Harley,
with two wheels chewing up asphalt and the wind
blowing through the empty tunnels in my brain.
i will find my place in the world, or find
that i have no place in the world. i will find
my god on the back of a Harley, or i will die trying.

i will find myself on the back of a Harley,
some indistinct day in the future. the first phase
of my life is nearing completion, a quarter century
down the highway of my life. i will have no use
for walls, putting myself out in the open air
for the first time ever, and letting my voice
be heard. for the first time ever, my engine
will be heard.

i will find my love while perched upon my seat
on the back of a Harley. she will be a tan
Mexican girl, with bright eyes and long, black,
flowing hair. she will have the sweetest smile,
and she will smell like the ocean at low tide,
with the sun sinking down over the watery
horizon line. together we will ride out,
under a moon which is full of nothing
but promise.

i will teach myself everything that nobody
managed to get through my thick head,
sitting serenely like a leather-clad Buddha
on the back of a Harley. i will teach myself
a new religion, a new kind of physics, a new
kind of thermodynamics. i will finally be able
to align all the planets in my favor, for
fortune smiles on those who fend
for themselves.

this is a promise to myself, and this is
a promise to my maker. i will not remain
tamed, not forever. i will not
walk in the same circles, not forever.
i will scream, i will love, i will live
and when i am ready, i will die.

i will do it all, on the back of my Harley.

Vitamin People

We are the Vitamin People:
we come in yellow, red, green, purple,
and pink. We are addicted to many
things, including but not limited to

ourselves. We love to speak
about said selves: how are you,
how am I, how are we, how
'bout thee? We love to drink
each other up. Sometimes we

walk in lines and other times
we fall to the floor amidst
the clutter. We wear funny
slogans and try to act them

out. We act ourselves,
having truly become
yellow, red, green, purple,
and pink.

tender (take two)

i.
beauty has black hair.

beauty has black hair and a dark smile.

beauty has black hair, a dark smile,
full lips, a fleshed-out face, and
a cartilage piercing in her left ear.

beauty has hair, smile, lips, face, and piercing,
and caramel skin,
and perky little Hershey's Kiss
nipples.

ii.
hair, smile, lips, and face
talk to you when you're all
alone, and other times they
surround you in silence.

cartilage, skin, piercing, and nipples
notice your t-shirt
but do not speak, only
awaiting.

iii.
you want beauty:
you want hair,
smile,
lips,
nose, ears, eyes, cheeks,
you want cartilage between your teeth,
you want to taste that caramel,
to part those lips,
you want those kisses pressing down
into your mouth,
you want it so much you can almost taste the
coppery caramel burning a blessed hole
through your tongue, those legs pressed
together around your cheeks:

you want
beauty, you want it, the singular and
the plural, the parts and the whole,
every inch of it, every ounce of it.

tender

i.
beauty has black hair
and a dark smile, slipping
soundlessly in the shadows,
back and forth behind the bar.

beauty has full lips, a fleshed-out
face, and a cartilage piercing
in her left ear, with a thick ponytail
tucked back behind.

beauty has caramel skin
and perky little Hershey's Kiss
nipples.

ii.
beauty smiles at you
and says a few words,
and oftentimes you'll find
her in front of you
when the room is relatively
empty.

beauty will notice
what your t-shirt says,
but she won't say anything
until you bring it up.

iii.
beauty will always
conquer non-beauty,
as spring conquers winter,
until the seasons roll around again
and winter is on top.

every little thing that you do

i've watched you
through the windows of your third floor
apartment, and i know you've got
a whole closet full of replacement appendages,
an arm and a leg for each season. i've seen you
in front of your mirror, giving yourself looks,
lifting a foot, deciding which limb is right
for each given night. i know all your secrets already,
but i can't stop watching. and i know you know
i'm here; your mirror games have grown
more elaborate and you linger longer each night,
each move measured, weighed, calculated
for the eye of the observer.

our unspoken agreement is beginning to chafe;
the flowers which show up at your apartment door,
which now guild the edges of that cursed mirror:
they are the first sign that i am slipping.
these shoes that i am holding; i think they fit
the size of one or two of your sets of feet.
they came from a little girl who was almost
as beautiful as you. i came out from my hole
the other day; it had been ages. the red will
match the most recent roses i have sent you,
which will certainly be arriving soon.

sometimes i turn my gaze away,
to the security guard in your lobby, just to see
how big a breach would be needed to break through
the barrier between us. i'd like to hold up a hand
for you to fasten on, or tell you which fingers are the most
appropriate for an occasion. i'd like to take you apart,
limb by limb, and help you decide the way in which to put
yourself back together again. oh my detachable bride,
in my mind we will order the parts to piece you together,
and wait for the mailman to arrive. i will give you
my foot, if you give me your hand. i will be sending you
these shoes shortly.

logical

you lay alone at night and tell yourself you’ve made the right choices,
you don’t lie and you don’t speak truth,
these gaps in reason into which are crammed a busload of the greatest mysteries,
your history doesn’t point in one direction but many,
and that’s when you realize that you can’t escape it anymore,
there is nothing above and nothing below and there is only you and the people to your
right and left, left and right, in front and behind, and around and around your
head is spinning like a 45rpm record, because things like this just don’t
happen in the world that you’ve set up for yourself and you’re still thinking about your
choices and why didn’t you and why you did and that was
bad but then again, then again then, at the time, you’re still going now and
that’s enough isn’t it, you lay alone at night and at least you’re still around, there are
those who aren’t, those who fell along the way into, into what, into something,
into nothingness, non-existence, and existence always beats nothingness
doesn’t it, so you lay alone at night, head spinning like a 45rpm record,
god dying in your brain, the devil frying nothing but hamburgers down there
at the fast food chain because he failed his classes in high school, where he beat you
up every day of the week and on the weekends you never have enough
time to make yourself who you really want to be, you’re still growing now and
that’s enough isn’t it, you don’t believe anymore as you lay alone at night
and tell yourself a million things, but maybe you will again tomorrow.

of all people,

her.
yes, her.
she who has never
even
chopped down a mountain
with her bare hand.
she who still uses
a hairbrush
when she needs to comb her hair.
yes, that one: her.
hasn’t even taught a troll
the lessons of love. hasn’t even
gone ice skating with the eskimoes.
not a goddess, not even
the daughter of one.
not even greek.
even so.
nobody else at all:
of all people, her.

Comprehensions

Slipped into sidestream,
seeing larger like photograph but
unable to navigate away and
back to source. Floating outward,
feeling smaller, more
detailed. Words being boats
in moats of daily living, drifting
in and out of mouths. Sounds
are steering, clearing pathways
toward understanding, landing
in ears fit to accept them. Pesky
sentences incomprehensible,
denied. Simple life made longer
by modern medicine when
all is getting brighter. Dark lines
disappearing, colors melting into
blankness. Giving solace.
Grieving, playing, relaxing.
Taste of many, mostly same
again, again. Tasting sour,
unclean, inedible. Smelling
simple, green, single cells.
Forward moving, thinking,
feeling. Connections to
the greater, one and many.
Networks, breathing, sleeping,
birthing, dying. Making
love. Making connections.
Being fruitful. Fruitful
fruitflies feeling fixated.
One another. Another one.
Same yet different, longing
for, lasting. Looking back.
Forward at beginning,
backward at end. Hopeful
and then wistful. Love
after lunch. Will miss him.
Looking back now, being
wistful. He was and is.
See him soon. See him
happy.

weeds

weeds are growing in this garden.
someone to turn on the showers,
someone to pull out the gold:
the camps are ever, the jobs are full.

weeds are growing in this garden.
someone to give the orders,
someone to take them and carry them out:
names are pointless, faces changing.

weeds are growing in this garden.
someone to turn their head away,
someone to shut their door:
seeds may be sown, but weeds will be grown.

falling out of

the end of your arms is such
a lonely place to be. and i
have friends, we keep in touch.
i can’t even seem to forget
a time when i wasn’t in love
with your face or your soft and slimy
and blood-filled heart. and the last time
i felt
anything
i was in your arms in the dark
or in the womb
in a million half-lived lives
where i didn’t
love you,
and in each and every one
i turned out
just fine.

luck

lady luck is looking down upon us,
but unluckily we are not looking up.

i'm going

i'm going to learn to drive a motorcycle,
and i'll ride away with you into that bright orange orb
on the horizon. i'm going to learn to fly a plane,
and i'll be seeing you up there in the sandpaper
sky. i'm going to learn to breathe underwater, and i'll
meet you by the lobster traps.

i'll be a lion tamer. i'll be a stand-up comedian.
i'll be the conductor of the new york philharmonic.

you'll be the percussion section. you'll be the
ventriloquist's doll in my act. you'll be the biggest pussy
i've ever seen.

or if you want,
i'll be an atom and you can be the sun.
i'll be a neutron and you can be a supernova.

i'll move at the speed of light, and you can move
at the speed of sound, and we may not be going
in the same direction but we'll almost certainly
end up at the same place.

chinese children

oh all you little children,
be still now and listen:
a lullaby to lower your eyelids
at the end of a long day, something
to soothe you into sleep. let the
darkness of the day pray upon you
no longer, fading into the alabaster
of bleached sheets. oh you
taiwanese toddlers and indian
infants: hear the sterile, serene sound
of my voice, and let your heartbeat creep
stealthily into the simple, singular
blackness of the night. let the waters
wash you away to the four corners
of the earth; let the winds carry your soul
up high to the heavens. let the worries
of tomorrow pray not upon your
tired mind. oh you children in china,
in thailand, in eastern turkey:
feel the quick sting of the hypodermic,
and dream a little dream for all eternity.

#324

it's easy enough
to make someone tick;
what i want to do
is to make you tock.

newark

excerpt from dave pulls out all the stops

newark; graffiti: live for today.
river runs slow,
     towers touch sky.
bell on train, ringing. people:
getting off and getting on.

newark. a childish baby-scream.
river of the world, small sidestream.
garbage sodden by downpour.
rained today, rained hard.
enterprise: rent a car. rent a life.
man in seat, reading; man
in seat, writing. bookmark -
stop -
rest eyes a bit. rest eyes a bit in

newark; conrail. rained
hard today. leaving; train
whistle blow. goodbyes are
so difficult.

malformed heart

i eat a cookie my mother made,
which is shaped like a malformed
heart,

on valentine's day,
on valentine's day.

my father leaves me a note
saying that there are gloves
if i need them,

on valentine's day,
on valentine's day.

i scrape the ice off my car,
with cold bare hands
holding a cold metal can,

on valentine's day,
on valentine's day.

light years

they say that the light we see from certain stars
is 13 billion years old,
so i guess it shouldn't be surprising
that you still shine through into my dreams.

even if

if in Eden you were to offer me an apple,
even in the darkest night, even
at the end, even if you loved him,
even when I’m blue, even in
the ruins, or if you were ruined too,
or broken, or beaten (even in
these childhood hallways my
mind returns to you),
even were you watered down,
even if you walked away, even then,
even if,
even if in fiction,
if only for my love,
if only due to you,
I would take your apple and I
would eat it.

staying up late

one time, my cousin and i
stayed up all night in our
grandmother's house.

we came out at 8am,
having conquered the dark.
we'd brushed our teeth and washed
our faces in order to stay awake.
when we told her what we'd done,
our grandmother made us march
right upstairs to bed, putting an end to all the
fun. sometime later she made us breakfast,
which we ate eagerly, claiming it as
payment for the difficult undertaking we'd taken
upon ourselves. to this day i am hard pressed
to think of something i'm more impressed with
that i've done.

in darkness, with light

here we are, hearts wreathed in
twilight halos, our minds scattered
and fractured, having no north star
to guide them. here we are, sheep without
a shepherd, lost in the valley, in darkness,
with light. whose love will lead us each
is uncertain, and whose hand holds us is
almost entirely incomprehensible, yet
still we strive forwards, or sideways,
or backwards. still we flounder, still
we fall, still we heal and harken on.
we are covered in darkness, with only
the tiny shining lights of our souls
sparking out against the curtains of
the nighttime nether. here we are
in heaven, or in hell, or wherever we
imagine ourselves, from one thought
to the next. there is darkness, and in
that darkness life, and perhaps
even love, and sadly a strong
and senseless sorrow, along with
all the tools a hand would ever need
in order to build something better,
something like hope, or perhaps
even happiness.