edits

Cacophany


A man walked by me he smelled like a lover he smelled like a lover I had.
I'm wearing a square coat I'm wearing a sun hat. The night is swelling like a wound.
The moon is the moon is the moon is the moon. The night is stretching like a sapling tree.
I look like an eccentric. Like an old lady. Like I think that it's the nineteen twenties.
Like someone trying to smuggle themselves away.
And the gates are locked so I can't climb the steps I can only keep walking.
A man walked by me he smelled like a lover he smelled like a lover I had.
Al-ee-Sahn he would call me Al-ee-Sahn when I was in his
Lithe arms lying Al-ee-Sahn, disconsolate doll in fancy dress.
Now I am an eccentric. I'm an old lady. And
The stars do produce a brilliant cacophony.
Spent an hour waiting for grace at the pharmacy,
White paper bag crackles comfortingly.
 It’s no tragedy, sir, in fact it’s my comedy,
And I am the one laughing now.
A man walked by me he just kept on walking he walked all the way,
Walked away.
I didn’t say hello had quite a few things on my mind.

























You Might as Well Eat a Chocolate Bar She Said


First the bile in my stomach dissolved like sugar
Venom dissipated left some strange benevolence
No longer aching to be spat from fangs

The disconnect which stretched like salt water taffy
(Boardwalk boardwalks all that neon blinks and rolls)
Clasped itself to itself and became whole

You might as well eat a chocolate bar she said

Soap in my eyes made my stomach contract a pupil
Shocked by light he looked sweet enough to eat to
Not be a lie like sweat and wheat and

Seashells tumbled in a curling line

I don’t know some time before
The Common Era

It was decided I’d abide

Above all captive
Of the hand’s
Mechanics

Shaking my Matrix adjusting a shutter-
Speed calling into clarity

My haze 

























In the Event that I Cannot Have What I Most Want

It’s no small thing not too big either but
Branched like coral and submerged in my
Narcotic doubts it seems somewhere between

A small stone and a shard of glass in
Consequence a song the words of which
I can remember yet the tune eludes me and

That is my bane oh lonesome train maybe just
Come take me away away I’m no good for any
Body here just straining to peer over a fence not mine

And tired to beat the band I am really full of it this time




























Can’t Do Math

I seem to believe that the new-found magnetism will tumble with momentum like a song.
Must have found it in my pocket. Looked down at his thigh for hours,
It didn’t do anything, he just sat there, sometimes bouncing a foot,
It was ‘hot.’

I proclaim that it does not make sense. Then I wonder what makes sense.
I wonder if this is my long-awaited recompense,
How many times I’ve been taken down by a hit and run.
I don’t think I’ll ever know because I can’t do math.

it's a lovely

pretty pretty is a word i hear pretty often like damned
eucalyptus insidious insipidly poisonous useless and futile til
hey

the landscape torched
it's a lovely fire

strangers strangers i see pretty often all of their faces
familiar to me like those fucking eucalyptus trees free of
identity until hey

i think i love you
it's a lovely feeling

pharmacy the pharmacy is a place pretty often i frequent
the place where my money is spent, a twenty honey fifty cents
but hey

it keeps my wire spooled
it's a lovely mercy

Stuck (a song)

You tell me who abandoned who on the dock

You tell me who turned away to chase the

Neon of the boardwalk

When the ferris wheel went around I wondered why 

I hadn’t just left town 

And in the fun house mirror all I saw was your 

ignorance and fear and 

The reason and the order of the past

All tumbled back

In my white dress gaze arrested on the one 

That loved me last 

Refusing to act in a way that would betray a lack

Of that thing that could send good people to heaven

If there ever was a heaven

Now it’s behind bars

Instead of heaven there’s a train

It has its hedonistic cars

And you can ride with the leaden eyed

Or keep quiet where you are

You’re not a martyr if you’re not having fun

You’re just stuck thinking of some one

On Billie

I have loved Billie Holiday since I was a sentimental thirteen year old. Now I am a sentimental twenty two year old, and I sing along to her songs with words rustled from memories of nights alone, tossing and longing, nine years ago. It is so sweet.

redbeard

redbeard

simple with wet sand smeared on cold hands

a skull we found was mythical huge of proportions perhaps unearthly

and i did not assume to know and i do not assume 

to know the nomenclature of the beast entombed beside the beach

and i do not assume to know the future or its friends

the bough of our fortuitous beginning heavy with our end

i am only the sum of lingering loves and futile fears

the accumulation of books and years

only the perpetuation of that which we must all abide

that as we grow we take our small steps toward the tide

gazing silly sidelong into another’s blossoming eyes

redbeard, i find it old as stone, unnamed, deep and wide

now in ghastly glowing parlor i recall a finer light

how it shone oyster-gleaming on your sweet crown

and the churning currents sung it down, down, down

ours, ours, ours again

12-21-10

proclamation

    In time, I proclaimed it in my bedroom. “I am a poet,” I said. He asked me how it felt, and I said painful: it feels like pain, and it does. Yet I could have been more explanatory. Being a poet feels like being always in love with someone who sways you and jerks you like fishing line. It feels like the constant nausea of anxiety pressed against the headiness of desire. It feels like the dread of a thing left unspoken, only noticed when the dust is blown from nostalgia.
    And it feels like three hours of dancing alone with eyes closed to the sounds of pipes and bells. It feels like a simple memory of love. It feels like absolute nakedness. And it feels like gazing at the nakedness of all around you through a lifted trapping of gauze. It feels like every one you see has a chest as open as Mary’s and through the window a burning heart exposed. Including your self, including your self.