Pizza crust and Cheeto dust,
smelly socks and Finn’s Xbox.
A piercing here, a tattoo there,
can’t find his phone anywhere.
Stealthy creep, then hours of sleep.
Never sunny, rarely funny,
craves a honey, needs some money.
Taunting jeers mask the fears
of looking dumb while trying to become
somebody nothing like me.
A years-old news clip tells the story of a teen
girl who lost one leg & two fingers in a brutal
bull shark attack. When interviewed, her father
recounts a living nightmare, how he repeatedly
punched the predator in the face until it released
his child, now a young woman who works in ocean
conservation. She rocks a prosthesis, electric blue
hair, & a brilliant smile as she looks at the camera
& insists, Sharks are still good people.
For some usually evil end
I’ll get my Machina up
and poke a hole in the raft
of my dear old Deus Ex
Everything needs poking now & then,
even if it’s God, she says, and proceeds
after my bedded body with an Amish
broomhandle, mad that I’d slept on the couch
again, adrift in a mindless stream
of Nabokov describing the perfect female
mid-drift, full of sour candy and lint
But it’s art, I say, of the best kind,
one that casts the penis into brine,
one that becomes real in a man’s dream
for such a time as
this
quiet defiance
I will not rue the
day
despite what one might
think
story is mine to
write
freedom is found when
I can sing my praise
freedom is found when
I can sing my praise
freedom is found when
I can sing my praise
Sad to find out who I was
I’d had high hopes for me
I didn’t change the course of rivers
Treasures I collected turned to dust
All my goals were rabbit holes
The medal round my neck, an albatross
Answers still blow in the wind
but now they have no words
I must have lived another’s life
Regardless, all will be discharged in bankruptcy
Rooster crowing, wind blowing
Trees bending, creek wending
Thunder cracks, branch smacks
I made myself a promise
Every time I think of you I have to write instead of call
Something tells me I won’t hold on to that for long
But for now, it feels right
Healing even
So when I imagine you walking the streets of New York
Or think about the comment you left on my post
Or guess the feeling you had when you wrote me back
Or remember that tomorrow’s your birthday
I don’t break my promise
This evening’s sunset
looms along darkening sky,
portending goodbye.
Lakeside, Ohio 6/27/26
the star-stoked
