slow over time
start low slowly
at the bottom
for each chance.
flow and function
lower on-
slowly blood will form
low too
slowly over time.
may be worse
but will
start low slowly
start low slowly
at the bottom
for each chance.
flow and function
lower on-
slowly blood will form
low too
slowly over time.
may be worse
but will
start low slowly
It isn’t helpful to be called
an old soul by a man
whose opinion matters more than any others,
when you’re just twenty-two
and struggling beneath a load of insecurities
that are still in need of sorting and assessing
like cadaver organs at autopsy,
to add the expectation
of heightened perception
and be expected to walk a straight line,
to re-feed the meter.
You understand he meant well
and with the benefit of age
his intention: to help you rise.
But, you weren’t built for lighter than air
reaching for optimistic clouds.
Your place is earthbound, under,
among the grubs,
the snake in the rat burrow,
the lost cat’s bones,
the nicked arrowhead,
running with the ravenous moles.
Big Mike said he’d teach you just like the old butchers
did in the 50s—before middle managers & quarterly
profits & when a wage earning man had enough time
to make cuts precisely & with honor. Soon the nightmares
rushed in. Keen-edged blades flashed & twirled
in your hands—out of control. You’d wake
like a shelter pup with the jitters, think you’d cut
into your own hand with a cimeter, or worse,
you’d sliced into another butcher, blood streaming
on the meat room floor. Like an ice skater repeating
basic 8’s, if you perfected your daily routine maybe
you could stop the repeating nightmares.
A voice inside drilled:
From a short loin,
you get T- bone & tenderloin
strips; from the inside round:
cube steaks, stew meat. The top
butt gives shish kabob
chinks, ground sirloin; shoulder clod
yields arm roast & fine brisket.
Like an trusted uncle Big Mike intervened, shared
a secret ritual passed through generations
he called putting the knives to sleep. On the kitchen
counter you’d practice & whisper to yourself:
Thank you boning knife, cleaver, chicken
cutter, skinner. I fold you one
by one, cotton apron clean
& soft. No stains & always
tuck the bottom in. Next, fold
the right side, then the left
& into the apron like a jellyroll
you’d roll up the knives tightly
& methodically & with a double-knot
tie the long strings around the bundle.
You asked the knives to settle down, beseeched
the blazing edges to stay out of your dreams & before
bed you offered thanks to everything damn little thing
you could think of & finally the nightmares stopped.
some days I write love poems
and pretend they aren’t
fairytales.
I write about a future
that I pray is
still waiting for me.
I trick myself into holding on
just a little while longer.
second mother’s day
second mother’s day
i made brunch, only to mourn
one seat left empty.
my grief sisters said
year two is worse than the first.
now i know it’s true.
your sister bought me
a vase of roses. like you
they died much too soon.
You love listening to Zach Bryan
Cause you think he would understand ya
We look at the stars above us and sing A cappella
laughing when we mess up
Blowing smoke rings to the stars
In the morning you are gone and I wonder why God gives me glimpse of people I need but will never have.
A craving taste of friendship, I miss ya bad.
Now I’m driving alone to a place I don’t want to go, the radio is screaming this kid knows what it means to stay leaving.
Alone and chasing all those memories I don’t remember making
I sing along to this sad song
You told me it was your favorite.
STAN LAUREL AND OLIVER HARDY NONCHALANTLY
BREAK 75 TO 76 CARS THEN AFFIRM IT WAS
THE GRIEVOUS FAULT OF ONE SLIPPERY BANANA PEEL
It surprises me the Prohibition has almost universally provided
police provision to apprehend drunks on the hour every hour
because I want to know who invented the pride that enters
chocolate when it remembers the wheated white cream
And I am preoccupied much with silence and astronomy
and the velocities of a multiplicity of standing horses
and the unmoving express trains prefiguring future deaths
in lost trams across the clouds
but more than this was you coming into the world wearing a hat
looking preoccupied
yeeeeeeessss
I regularly remember my little maternal grandmother
when a rasping raven razed the tower
and your breakfast, Ollie, 144 nails and brass tacks
numbering 18
and it is that they fired you as chauffeur for ignoring all the cities
on the Left
I think I’m going to have to cry
I think I’m going to have to cry this sunrise because a streetlight
killed my bicycle
WE ARE GOING TO CRY
and my soul, scientifically preoccupied, knows, that
the elaborative process of steaming cocoa goes
slowly with tears
because I fall crying always, 12 to 13 times daily
and now resulting that I have no need of snacking
it appears we have no need of snacking
of crying
of snacking
of crying and snacking
or of snacking and crying
WE WILL NEVER CRY OR SNACK AGAIN
and it is that I would like to die because
I am very much in love
and I am filled with tenderness when I see a
policeman dressed as a white bird
I am very much in love and you are filled
with tenderness completely when
you see a policeman dressed as a white
bird
and
suffering the grave error of confusing
the police station for a fruit plate when
you know I want to die
tell me seriously if I want to die.
Author: Rafael Alberti
Translator: Manny Grimaldi
You know he only calls when his body
wants–a deal you make. Believe him
when he gives so little of himself to you.
It’s all he has left in this modern age: a whiff
of smoke and the beast of him, horns gleaming
in halogen. It’s like the end of something,
in a way. So much mood and drama.
Maybe the candle wants to be winnowed
The clouds moved so slow today
I looked up–
for some answers
thought I knew where this sentence was going
watered the garden
tall with bee balm firecrackers
white goose neck loose strife
hanging all over everything
lillies on the verge–
on-the-verge
yes that’s it
what I’m feeling finally–
waiting for that cloudburst
waiting for lightening
waiting for those damn lillies
to just open their little orange plant lungs
and sing and
bloom already!
bloom already!
