social security card update
I tried to follow
the rules
stepped into line
smiled at strangers
typed myself out
in numbers
sat surrounded
by tile and waiting
trudged to my car
unsecured
I tried to follow
the rules
stepped into line
smiled at strangers
typed myself out
in numbers
sat surrounded
by tile and waiting
trudged to my car
unsecured
I look like a guide on a jungle cruise:
shorts grazing mid thigh,
white seersucker button down tucked in
(this, especially, is a prize,
sifted from the closet of a small dead man
at an estate sale in May)
warped leather belt I insist on buckling
too tightly around my waist,
hair wrapped up in a half up pony,
the bottom cinched by a scrunchie,
full eighties. Steve Irwin and I,
twin flames and shaggy blonds
(tomorrow I’ll step in stingray nests
that riddle the ruddy beaches around Jekyll;
may we rest in peace).
When we pull into the parking lot
of a little bungalow bookstore,
the owner smiles across the counter
as I slide Yesteryear into her fingers.
I love a book that tells me how to be.
Be grateful, Steve Irwin’s protege,
of where you are. Be glad you can stand here
at this counter and buy a book
for thirty dollars that warns you
away from where you came. Be humble,
the past is right around the corner
and there is always time to take you back.
When the woman points at the screen
and prompts me for my card, I smile.
You bet!
i die in my dreams,
neon shapes til i wake up.
if you were curious, mostly pink triangles,
but also small red trapezoids,
bold and bouncing like a dell computer logo.
i try to say my throat feels like a car wreck,
and my mouth like the hospital
but instead you buy and drive
a stick right there into my brain,
and on the spot
two red lines.
in june, flu b.
Tell me, what’s the cost of giving up?
Why does it feel like help will never come?
Maybe I’m the one I’m running from
It’s too much to carry, it’s all getting heavy
Lift me up.
–Poppy, The Cost of Giving Up
nah
dont wanna write a poem today
work was eight hours-a hell
bottom blocks buckled
brought the whole damn building down
just wanna go home
pour a glass a bourbon
fuck
drink it from the bottle
no ones here to see
got saturday off
then five straight
tomorrow will be bed til two kinda day
a pajama day
im already gettin dressed
dont call me
dont text me
dont need no one but myself
least of all you
cause i know what you will say
Nah,
I don’t wanna write today
cause it gets hard
and nobody’s home.
There’s a shortage of creative energy
ideas stopped flowin and I’m
just lookin for a reason to give up.
So what’s another week without doing the the laundry?
What’s another drink when I’ve already had six?
What’s another thirty-second session
pullin up porn
and frantic masturbation
just to feel something?
I owe this to myself.
But nah.
I don’t want to write today
because that would take effort
that I’m not willing to give
yet this is a promise I made to myself:
to do a little bit every day-
keep the wheels spinnin, y’know?-
else the shame blows in
like a tornado to a home.
It doesn’t take much to level me;
that’s why I need to fortify my walls
so when willpower disappears
discipline can pick up the slack.
Because no.
I didn’t want to write a poem today
and maybe you didn’t or don’t either.
Raise your hand, man,
if this is sounding familiar
Maybe you stared at a blank page for half an hour
before declaring wwwhelp! I tried.
Give it another half hour,
give it two hours
give it all fucking day if you have to.
Do something that isn’t a slow destruction of yourself.
Develop a mantra to keep you rooted
when vice or ennui want to take up your time.
Call up a friend to talk you through the Empty.
Man was not meant to be alone.
Engage in a passion–whatever it may be-
and stay at it until you build something beautiful.
It get hard, but you can make it easier.
Diligence creates fulfillment.
For me, it’s in poetry.
I hammer out abortable words
before they disclose a couple lines I can use.
I italicize them
underline them
or put them in bold,
set them on the page like arms of a snowflake
while figuring out the in-betweens
forming crafting placing composing…
I said I didn’t want to write today
because it got hard
but look at us now.
We got ourselves a motherfucking poem.
I am in a coffin
of the mind
in my body. I don’t know
why I insist on this. gut
tricked out grief. heart. nerves. bitter
joints. hello? why. and
could this be the crawl
space into the buried
occupation of the soul. consider
with some small lit wick
the opposite, where you can
not feel or see. not feel where
you are, dear one. or that you are. that
you are not the anguish, but too
easy inside it. the coffin
basecamp. what if
acutely, you are too much
in relationship with the woe
you do not want. without
one window. and no eyehole
of contemplation. I am
wondering now. was soul
the password out? and in
again next go?
Father of the sky, his Sun
holds bright expectations:
conquer the morning
and enslave the night.
He burns with determination
and blazes with glory,
scorching all who defy him,
whoever dares betray him.
The sky is restless, cloudy
with unrest. They revolt with a noose
at his conquest. He who shines
must be hung at high noon.
in the waiting room again
7th appointment this week
this month? who knows
in the waiting room again
just another youth
amidst curious peers
staring at my cane
in the waiting room again
tired as all get out
slept 11 hours
eyelids half open
in the waiting room again
jackson 5 in my ear
too light and cheery
for my disposition
in the waiting room again
when will it ever end?
(for the rest of my life?
who knows.)
