keep writing,
though no electronic text
will survive the next
major (inevitable) EMP–
natural, or man-made
keep writing,
though only
cave drawings
have even a little
staying power
in the human frame
of spacetime
keep writing
because it is a
sure way to connect
your imagined world to
your undiscovered self
as your subconscious
whispers secrets from the echoing well–
and the well runs deep
spend your life
as an explorer,
and keep records–
for yourself, if
no one else.
There’s no surprise in this one,
no clever escape at the end.
The doorbell rings and you answer.
A dog barks at something out of view.
Objects are closer than they appear.
Maybe mist, maybe lights. Maybe light.
On a sandbar with tide rolling in.
live long and love your life
long live rock and roll punk and jazz
long live colored hair tattoos guns
long live choice to use dangerous tools
live long and love move your ya-yas
long live your kabul dreams
long live the ladies philharmonic
long live earth sky water heaven
live long and love your string bikini
long live cowboy poet eastern shore
long live widows orphans filthy rich
long live salt fat flame skinny legs
live long and love your science
long live mars air condition car trips
long live ozone layer beef chicken farm
long live chance to harm the truth
live long and love your sacred feed
long live wake plastics ocean bed
long live coronovirus monkey pox
long live polio blood bath crutches
live long and love your firecrackers
long live power speech want will
long live individual physical quick
long live open arms upper lip feet
live long and love others as you love
long live nero that adopted fat fuck
long live sensitive murder excuses
long live caligula’s throat teen idols
live long and love your books
long live historical record executive order
long live sugarcane cotton vanilla
long live better servants leap punch
live long and love your freedoms
long live what it was what it is whatever
long live pickles brain drain estrangement
long live shit no one wants to hear
live long and love your liberty teeth
long live suburbs colony anthill bee
long live city smog purple height
long live bunsout fire cruel groupthink
live long and love your process
I rejoice to wake in the middle of night
to write
words I hear in my heart, though none
try them
but why should they until they really
need them?
When they do, these simple words will
feed them
Thank you for reading my word rumbles & outstretched
reports. It’s a lot to ask, I know. Thank you,
compadres of stanza, conspirators of rhyme
scheme, concision & metaphor. Thank you,
enablers of language overdose for letting me spill
like a jar of dark molasses on your table. Thank you
for accepting my bumbled efforts, my sticky sentiments,
my breakthroughs. It’s been too much at times. Thank you.
We’re in such a rare & delightful pub; all lined up at the bar
waiting for a fresh draft of words. Thank you for reading it all.
I must channel my grandfather
with everything poem I write.
He would submit poems to
Highlights.
As a child I would sit
next to his desk.
Remaining quiet
and not be a pest.
When the royalties came,
between seven and twenty-five cents.
My brother, myself, and cousins
would split the profits.
There was always
pennies to be had.
I began waiting
for the mailman.
He loved to joke, play
and watch us run.
From poems to ring toss,
it was always fun.
Thanks Grandpa,
for all your time.
I’ve got the rhythm
and you taught me the rhyme.
it feels as if it should be something big
a proclamation
inspiration
message prayer bestowment cure answer to all
questions
leaving off with a bang nope instead
stumped stuck frozen paralyzed
looking for grandiose impactful bright intelligent revelatory rich
make them cry laugh shout respond
at least smile
words synonyms antonyms adverb proverb conjunction
not those
trying to make me feel smart
<mother checking my grammar in the back ground myself>
or at least wise
or maybe just
worthy
there it is
finished.
My father would always say “getting you to do blank
is like pulling teeth” and to any kid still with his
first pair of incisors, the simile stuck. From waking up
in the morning, to cleaning up my room, all
the way to exercise, my stubbornness preceded me.
If I didn’t want to do it, by god, you and your army’d
have to make me, and my emotionally manipulative
phalanx is bigger than yours.
It’s taken me years to even attempt to undo all that.
Relearning who I am, and what I can be, not being told
my dislike is meaningless, my discomfort invalid,
my desire unworthy. my defects irresolvable.
My obstinance was but a mirror that later
learned to reflect upon itself, to
project the outside in, and
reason a reason for
everything.
He wasn’t necessarily wrong, my father. But statements
such as those are reflections of the sayer as much
as they are indictments of the said-to. He taught me
to be my own worst judge, jury and executioner,
killing off any belief in my own perspective of the case.
One is taught one’s self before the self is even
conceived, with the weight of everything else that has come
before, at equal odds with the escheresque
bootstrapping of the soul.
I now know that
the pen is in my hand.
I must go write myself
into existence.
Dull. Morning dragon, you grind your teeth at me, & nothing happened
then the coffee you gulp in ground assaults to cure five hangovers.
Then off to your notebooks, & notecards, your pens, & your scorecards,
your prayers, your intentions, your dog, & his bone.
Fourteen years of marriage, & frankly, you bore me. I don’t drink anymore,
but bland, base, & boring to you, I give up & drizzle myself with bourbon—
with nothing on my stomach besides. Churning, not knowing your favor
here’s what I say:
I pray everyday, Saints Mary, Matt Talbot & Anthony find us, we’ve lost our way.
In the middle of life, in a sharp thorny wood, the skies are dark at midday,
& since she cruelly gave sideways a look outside Old St. Michael’s today,
at the 2nd St. Bridge I sliced off my hand in the sight of the sweet buds of May.
I’m bleeding & bored by us, but what a curiosity to see! Our marriage
an alchemy of dung & straw, two things so dull they exploded.
