New Poetry

On Moments of Arrogance

“Are you always such an arrogant putz?
Most people don’t appreciate it.”
Maybe I am, but
I’d never say that aloud.
Most people wouldn’t appreciate it.

It’s an arrogant thought, but
arrogance isn’t hubris.
The word though, it’s a
conversation-stopper. Mutually destructive,
a social dirty bomb
slithering in multisyllabic pride straight
to its target.
The speaker keeps it
hidden
in a briefcase, or backpack, or shoes then
“Arrogant putz” and
we’re both on the floor
reduced to writhing monosyllables:
proud and putz.

We’ll both get up,
but the ether us in the space between our
internal shouts are permanent shadows:
stretched tall, hand-to-hand, either grappling or dancing over
some surface I can’t see.



Breaking In

Stephen, I want to break into your house.
I’m sitting on those stone steps,
your porch, I guess, considering
climbing over, or around or maybe straight up,
onto your roof, and jumping into the pool,
but maybe I’ll knock a cinder block off
how you did, and bruise my knee.

I’m not sure if your parents are home,
or what they’ll do if they see me,
or even really, who they are without you.

Stephen, I want to break into your house.
I’m sitting here, wondering where that
invisible line

is.
Which side of the clearly wooden gate?
Or did it follow you?
Is it on vacation too, too far away from me?

I can’t find that invisible line.
I can’t find the limit or the definition.

Trying this again

So, someone asked me to post some of my writing in a blog. He's a cool guy, and I'm fucked up and probably trying to seduce him or something creepy like that, so I'm listening. Anyway, here's some poetry:

Concave / Convex

In the glass
stands but a smear
the color my flesh.
Pocked with the same
black hairs, but
in a gentler light,
diffused through the dew
of a steaming shower.

In your glass
must stand a rigid outline.
No approximation.
A mirror image lacking
nothing but
the gentleness of nature,
like the dew
after a cold rain.

Elegy

Boy A is dead.

His body, severed from his mind.

A spiritual lobotomy.

His body walks down an empty street.

It sees the sky on the ground;

all echoing the streetlights.

The sky-made rivers buoy his naked feet

an eighth of an inch

above the knives of asphalt, lusting

after his spoiled flesh.

It trudges on, distracted by the raindrops:

each, a cold wet kiss until

shattering and drifting

down his face like a tear he’s never cried.

His mind is awash in the roar of rivers

and their screams

as storm drains swallow them.

Supposedly, this is the end

of the universe.

His mind imagines it’s a lot like his cigarette smoke

drowning in the rain.

His body is ambivalent,

but prays that the smoke rips through his lungs and

pours from his back,

into fluid wings.

It wants to fly,

and hand deliver prayers.

But really, none of this matters, for

Boy A is dead.

Cashed

Burning—but not like a candle—

thick, green, living

smoky tendrils grab at nerves and

tickle every sense into submission.

Rising like a flower:

soft, green, young

tendrils grab like vines and

roots reach deep into the earth.

Dirtying their fingers,

blank, sweet, young

spit-puffing ash into the air and

watching it fall to the dirt:

submissiveness burning—but not like a candle—

in the knots of nerve tendrils.

So sweet and young and falling

onto the soft ground.

That's it for now. Go watch Adaptation.