Posts for June 12, 2024 (page 2)

[written in collaboration with Lillian Bramble]

the 2 of us + our 4 feet        hanging over an ocean
of bodies                  spend 10 years on this
revenge rotation/revolution                      with me?
i see it clearly        now, a plan 9 months     
in gestation                    twirling down        8 circus
painted spokes           to the middle of it all
leave behind 16 bleeding lines             like runaway
stray kittens and red smeared lines    (cut our teeth
on road signs, license plates).               5 second rule
on our           hearts falling out        of our mouths
jaws unhinged            and tender bellies pressed flat
to the grass            phoning you in white    face paint
to tell you              you’ve won 1 free            cruise
to our ferris wheel + we’ll even give you a lift there
climb in the back of my 2014 kia sorento—15 miles
to our        destination (detours         not included)
the structure is perfectly                    safe, see—there
on the sign—under fast facts—7 men—6 hours—and facts—by         definition—are true.

I have never fit in 
never wanted to
some of us are just 
meant to be different 

Like the subject of so much bad art
The entire horizon is lit up in rainbow colors
With the hills and trees making gorgeously black
silhouettes in fanciful shapes
The rainbow is not stacked but ribboned
vertically, from an astonishing shade of fuschia
to a deep smudgey purple,
bore down into a very flat,
very wide angled ratio
like one of those horizon photos
your phone stitches up

Rippled bark tree
Blue sky that looks purpley
Dapple so sharp it turns everything passing
through it into a blazing lightbulb
These things, and more,
The bunny, the three flickers, the soft ruffling
silence you dont hear often if you live in
Lexington
-Six miles out of Berea you can’t hear cars and trucks-
The kind of quiet you drink
All these things bored into my experience
So profoundly
that I almost feel taken up from earth

Black cod,
Black rice
Bok choi
Black pepper tofu
Tempura green beans with mustard
Float lazily through my body
Francoise Hardy sings us out
Gripping a great sage bush in a box

the light hangs low, cutting
a crescent  slightly above
my  jaw, as if to put the rest
of me into shadow, as if

the sun’s  angle is impossible
to distort, as if i couldn’t just
pivot my whole body to wax
in wonder what all exposure,
crater and all, could do.

And I am already dreading winter

I am missing the sun hot on my skin

The cool water engulfing my body

The bright orange weaved into the sunsets

Dinners on a crowded patio

And the bright green trees hanging over the road

Summer always made me feel more alive

Gave me hope that everything would be just fine

I wonder what I’m still doing

Living in this landlocked state

That sees every season

Why can’t I leave?

Run to where summer is forever

I’ll dream of that while the snow covers the roads

And the trees die

And the sky is grey

I’ll write about summer

Like she’s a long lost lover

And count down the days

Until she shows up again

To hold me close

Until then I’ll try to enjoy

What little I feel I have left

Of her this year

Jesus Christ, son of God
In faded pastels,
Stared through me from his home,
Carved into a fry-cook’s arm,
While I waited for my order

Smashed
Like a Rorscach test
Smashed like a broken candle

He looked less like a stained-glass window
Than a piece of toast in a local newspaper

The bleeding watercolor image
Of God’s only begotten son,
And we’re all God’s children,
Or something,

So yeah, whatever.

I used to watch
people in the complex
across the alley fucking
until one would rise,
genitals hanging,
& close the curtains—-
I’d miss them,
their intimacy
reminding me
of a time when I, too,
was loved. Is the artist,
myself as a voyeur,
the art? Or
is it this life
I watch
habitually
in my heartless
boredom? Praying
for their joy’s downfall,
to meet the same fate
as I, when I turn off
the lamplight & put down
my pen. I trashed
my bed, only sleeping in a hard,
wooden-backed chair,
facing away from the lovers—-
distant, our joined life,
yet close enough to savor:
I have nothing else.

One of them bought flowers
for the other—-placed them
in a vase, made love
after the gift was given:
it was the most beautiful,
tender moment,
but they never looked at them again,
they just sat there
on their small kitchen table,
they sat there until they wilted.
I didn’t see them throw them away,
but one day,
they were gone.

this will not make sense

if you don’t watch the GameGrumps.

it’s snowing on Mount Fuji.

my grandfather would 
turn to one of the three
channels we had
to watch what felt like
a day’s worth of golf
through he never played

when he would mow
I would follow behind
and notice the paths he made
mimicked those golf courses

when I was told
to mow my landlord’s yard
with rigid straight lines
I realized it had
nothing
to do with golf