There is this song lyric from the band Les Savy Fav that has been in my mind lately ( Read more... )

Being Alone is not a Place

Pages of handwriting and
what keeps coming back

is not me.

But it's not exactly her body either.

Perhaps it's a movie quote
a personal favorite, she whispered

the narrator's twist 
in the back of my mind.

What I keep coming back to
is one good looking night
that replaces the rest.

The smell of rain, asphalt, and

a loss of control;
( Read more... )

A Glass of Orange Juice to Cure the Hangover

Went back

to the point in history
when I knew better.

It felt new again.

The drive to Lake Michigan.

The way things are.

black hair
a windy day

Understandably,

the concept of survival took time to get used to.

But it's taken so much time

to love.

to return.

Are these the same things?

A lake somehow stronger
because it's

 A Ceiling for Rain to Fall Upon

Why come home late
with the smell
of rain along my neck,
in my hair?

And the timbre
of my friends' voices,

The past and present

hammering against themselves
like tree branches in the wind.

I close the door as secretly
as I can behind me.

The revelry sleeps
somewhere within.

A bed for one person.

The shortest sentence I can write.

It wouldn't make sense for me to tell you anything
I don't know myself.

A Firedrill of Blood

the scaffolds of night are sleek in the rain
and the cowering couples below are annotating
their discoveries on their shirt sleeves.

where is the atlas for navigating out of youth?
what promises magnetize their compass?

if only there was a street long enough that the night could be walked without ending.

White Sand and a Sieve

Keep the evocative girls sleeveless;
keep the ring in the box. As the bees

fill the suburbs,
remember her smell,
and swarm in the middle of the road.

Rhythm of wet gutters
Congealed mud and honey

Gravel to my velocity and my want
and break my fingers off in her hair.

The tension of imminence.

Experiments in Affixes

Reach out and let our fingers wicker.
In the joints my greatest
fear unsheathed
and it feels adult to show you
how to make a savior bleed
how to rebuild the body you worship
how to linger and not taste.

Uninvent desire, then make eye contact.
To do otherwise suggests coherence
or selflessness
or eyes caught unmascara'd,
denim blue.
so ( Read more... )

 Reverse Creation

I dreamed myself loosely
and had no indifference

to the sky blisters
the confused eagerness
or the vulnerability of ambition.

I let go of poetry
unauthored my name.

You would say, this is a beautiful day.

 The Permanency of Ideas

with pearls

around your neck, you walk:
soft pressure along our ballroom floor.

no serration, just the lines
of hair in your eyes.

brush these away too
and look at what you know.

love remains, after
you were mistaken.