"Are you that old?"

"Oh yes, I am."

You smell like ink and cigarettes

tears in the typing pool

Holding on to you holding on to me

Holding on tight to my lover's cross

experiment

people say i'm crazy because i'm crazy
they think that i am crazy because i'm crazy
i know it i know it i know it i know it

i know it i know it i know it i know it
i'm in love in love in love with you
in love with you the spreading bruise
green and blues and lies and truths

people say i'm crazy because i'm crazy
they think that i am crazy because i'm crazy
i know it i know it i know it i know it

and i'm crazy for you and only for you
and i'm crazy for you and only for you

i thought something i had a thought
i have a lot of thoughts (of thoughts)
they don't amount to anything
a promise ring
a promise ring

and i never want to let you go
and it's never gonna be up to me
and i never want to let you go
and it's never gonna be up to me

and i'll love you til the day i don't
and that's a day that won't ever come


people say i'm crazy because i'm crazy
they think that i am crazy because i'm crazy
i know it i know it i know it i know it

Try

"Try--

I wanted to try for you. 

Wanted to die for you. 

Dramatic things!"

floating in some unconscious lymph

I thought all sorts of things before it happened. I had some ideas.

I thought that I would write, I thought that I would write something worthwhile, tonight.

I thought that I would listen to Delia Derbyshire, "The Dreams", I thought that too.

Oh, I also thought that I might watch The Legend of Hell House.

I had these ideas, almost plans, although lacking true determination and fidelity.




But, something changed, in that way, that they do, something changed, I have never liked that old hotel.

And my vision became blurred and

have you ever felt as if you were swimming in yourself? Floating in some unconscious lymph?

I frighten easily maybe, or

live daily with fearful things,

and sometimes grow threadbare,

and must sit down must leave.

I largely forget that I am not always well.

It is easy to forget, when I am in love,

so in love, and with so many things.

Daydreaming of babies and playing,

or laughing, and being so cocksure,

that joke that I wear like a truth,

which is a half-truth,

a Beltane mask.



And so I come to my plans, with several spins like a dancer, with circular vernacular,

I write, write something worthwhile, tonight.

After Satie, then after Debussy, I do listen to Delia Derbyshire, I listen to "Falling".

I think I may be too tired for Hell House. It is eleven-eleven in the evening,

eleven-eleven in the evening, I think of course- make a wish make a wish.

And I do, just in time, knowing it will come true, I have such a love,




Sometimes it feels so thick and perpetual that it could feed until full

every person on Earth lacking in love.

I do not mean that I am strong with love, or that I am weak with love,

I only know it as fact indisputable,

"I'm falling upward."

i see

i don't know how i feel about
bitter-sweet
bitter-sweet

i don't know how i feel about
that.

these days i have been in close quarters

with

sad
sweet

sad
sweet
lives in this bare yellow room

sad
sweet
looks at me through eight eyes

sad
sweet
in a teapot

sad
sweet
sticks a needle in my arm

hundreds of

sad
sweet

times

sad
sweet
is in the bathtub

sad
sweet
is moving to germany

sad
sweet
tells me to eat fresh greens

sad
sweet
is sitting across from me

sad
sweet
with a chessboard in between

sad
sweet
is often photographed

sad
sweet
kisses my forehead

sad
sweet
is laughing at his little brother

sad
sweet
has my nose between his teeth

sad
sweet
is drinking wine from a mug for breakfast

sad
sweet
was not invited to the wedding

sad
sweet
(i relate)

sad
sweet
just stay close to me 

and now, some photos i did not take.

tramps

and no, i don't want to say goodbye. -- allison hummel.

       photo by henry

it began with the laughter of children,

and there it will end.  

my heart is too big.
let's shrink it,
or cut some off and toss it.

2-19-2012
1:04 a.m.

marked drowsiness

marked drowsiness may occur-- it is

all

right

the only thing which can feel between
your fingers and palm
like a handful of fabric

is a handful of fabric.

weeks which passed and are past cannot
do it

time which is to come and so does not yet
exist cannot
do it

hair cannot do it
hair in my mouth and i do recall thinking
'i will remember this'

that sweating jar of lime water
was full of honey once

that bed full of book and bare
mattress not so long ago
was made

once, even, i can remember,

--not only once but many times--

never-mind.




all hours i sleep

i have slept through them all
(not consecutively but rather)

in bent bunches with
snapped stems
soft with the blood of plant

there are things in this room
little things made of glass, to be
doused, lit and thrown

sounds in this house

marked silences growing
quieter

as i grow older or simply
loosen a hold

look for me, i'll be around

dear sweet sweet love

I. dear sweet sweet love

dear sweet sweet love,
i am sick,
all a-fev'r'in, coca-cola, i
adore ya, take-an-allegra
sneeze-and-i-beg-ya
nyquil-for-dinner
naked-the-sinner
yellow-pill-swaller
too sore ta holler
wanna be swimming
far down in the lake
and the lake and the
lake that the old
one-with-the-dock-there





II. cold side of the pillow

grandma i use that now, that
vo5 oil you said will keep my hair
so soft and fine. i've gotta say it smells
unforgivable strong and like nothing i know.
but it works, damn, does it. 





III. it's easy to love ya

it's easy to love ya, excitability
may occur especially in children
it's easy to love ya, Santa Barbara, mi
sublime y generosa protectora,
acetaminophen 500 milligrams it's
easy to love ya, sweet palo santo
so easy to
love ya it's easy to love ya, Coty
Airspun face powder in pale-white-girl,
dear sweet sweet love

DEBUNK

i have these feelings. or ideas. about writing. i have these (feelings) (or) (ideas) about writing. things like:

- don't write about sex
- don't write about death
-don't write about drugs
-don't use the word baby
-don't write about love
-don't direct your poem toward someone
-especially not someone you love
-or someone you're having sex with
-or someone you have a crush on
-or someone on drugs, or who died, or who's yr baby.

i had a teacher that told me, that it said it in a book, it said, "don't write about these things."



so i write about them all the time and then i feel like shit about what i've written. or i like what i've written. sometimes i'm a rebel. sometimes i'm ashamed and my head is bowed and i feel like i will never be a good writer. i guess my point is:





--i'm always thinking about sex because i'm 23 years old and these hormonal whispers in some secret nerves keep saying it, "sex," and sometimes i see him, just a blur of pale skin in the dark, an arm, sweet eyes. i'm always two seconds from the orgasm that rearranges my clattering bones.

--i'm always thinking about death because i'm gonna die. when i cross the street i imagine a car hitting me, the impact, the little flight, my head, its contents a circus of color and texture splattering asphalt.

--i'm always thinking about drugs because i am a sober drug addict, and drugs are part of my past, and i always think about my past... a little bit less every day. but i wouldn't even be able to realize that fact in itself if i didn't think about yesterday, a little.

-- i always wanna use the word baby because it is one of my favorite, favorite words, i find it to be one of the most poetic, i wanna call him pretty baby because i MEAN it, but my mouth is glued shut, all i can do is hum ike and tina.

-- i'm always thinking about love because. well i don't know why. but i'm sure as shit always thinking about love. i guess it is because i FUCKING LOVE IT. i fucking love love. i love love the way some people love fear. i love love foolishly, wildly, and young. i am in young love with love, it feels perpetual.

-- i direct my poems toward you because as fucking large a mouth as i have, i still can't tell you this to your beautiful stained-glass face.

me = you

two identical plates smeared in chicken curry dregs
lay pressed against one another
crammed in the sink

hand a hand your left hand always
through the back of your shorn
boy's hair

you close the blinds for me because i am very shy. you have been seen naked hundreds of times by the neighbors across the poured path. you think they must not care because they have never taped a note to the door. you somehow simplify things,

all things primary colors for you,

every body says when they are upset, and though their languages are disparate, their tones are marked, and so you think you understand.

you have been sick for weeks, you call me the Carrier. but you gave it to me with your tongue, like a pill. you climbed with a knee on either side of my thighs and your skirt above your ass and i sang along to bad boy la la la la la la. i felt small and you felt big. a blur which annexed all of my vision. you're not afraid of things like armpits or tongues or where you put your mouth or where you let your heart go. you must be certain that you have one, ('have a heart please wont you have a heart?' you like to sing, along.) you're cocksure, so cocksure,

i would never, never use the word cocksure.

maybe i would.

you clean your room for me so that i will think that you are clean. your possessions in order and a dirty dust floor. your cat sleeps on the bathroom sink. you don't seem to care that what you do does not make sense, draws an elaborate plan for future pains.

the edge of an enormous fear laps like small waves along your skin, and i see it.

i draw on your bruise, crouched over your thigh and your white underwear.

you told me i laughed in my sleep, that i groan in my sleep, lungs rattle in my sleep, i say 'woah!' in my sleep, you watch me sleep,

wipe sleep from my eyes,

hold captive my

impatience
a sickness
wakes me early in the morning

when all is
very dark even the strange orange
dust light which is vaguely
veiled
in stripes
through the blinds

it hurts to---

(deja vu)
(besets me)
there are certain things which i do
when i write

certain things i do
maybe
in the night and
during the day

sometimes i view an instant through a crack
sometimes i am submerged

( and my practice is not pretty
i do not scrawl in little notebooks
if my computer is a ufo
radiation shall kill me dead as dead)

if cats indeed cause schizophrenia
i'm just as fucked

because i have a cat on my right
this computer on my left

and myself deep in benadryl, acetaminophen,
and grey sweater in between

 

w/s/p

swing it, (like
a pendulum and) throw it
as far as you can

tear it in half,
cover it in lamp oil,
(and) set it on fire

--there were a few
colors
of flame.

hide from headlights. no body really
speaks the same language as any body
else.

"get creative." find a way. stretch
your muscles and cover
your face with a hand not your own

 

shake shake

Shake shake. When I shake such tiny shakes so incessantly is it just one shake? There is a town along the 101

I’ve wanted to go there for a few years, because it is the earthquake capital of the United States. The Earth shakes there every forty minutes. There is evidence to suggest that I was not born in this town. It has no hospital. It isn’t on my birth certificate.

But further evidence suggests that I am this town.

And through my stunned and dilated pupils, Small Things Seem Huge.

The town shakes because it lies directly on a faultline, like a tired girl who can’t run any more, so she lays down in the burrs and sand, survives on succulents, she lies and moves her limp arms only slightly and very infrequently.

I feel inclined to say that this girl is not me, because I am never running. I’m asthmatic and sedentary, the silt at the bottom of a tepid lake, I do not run. But that is

Wrong--
It is not true,

I do, I run,

I run in frantic circles.

And I shake, I shake in frantic fear of loss.

2-4-12 Sunny day Saturday

Phone pix.

shiva's pics

the day we got eno shirts

and dream of sheep

"if they find me racing white horses,

they'll not take me for a boy. 

let me weep, let me sleep, 

and dream of sheep."

-kate bush

during the day i think about things like the future and love and teacups.

at night i think about how i Must become a Better Writer.

and love.

shadow puppets

sweet don't be so
weary, sweet sweet
i don't know, my
brain is a
dull, grey spoon

nothing has changed:
the blinds are closed as
i closed them,
the mattress is bare as
bare and i am beneath
the blue blanket:

you were right
this sweater is so soft
it hurts
but i swim
in its sting
pheromone opiate

that is all right i foresee
no danger, boyo.

shadow puppets
are a language
too

and shorn
hair
is just as well and
even better.