Lost behind the cattails
given to the slow lapping
mud hazed waters
too lazy to take it
there was a pier
and forsaking all others
it is there I would take you
just so you could see the me
you catch darting behind the curtains
when you unexpectedly enter a room
free and feather light
urgently young
and wrapped in a safety
so exquisite
that it never occurred
to end every conversation
with “I love you”
for fear
“Jeremy
I’ve never liked cantaloupe”
might be
the last thing
I ever said
to the boy in the bulrushes
this house is a hospital, this house is a morgue
this house is a hospital
intravenous hoses,
thin and translucent, snaking through holes
behind appliances, coursing
down to the dungeon-basement,
down to the inner workings
of water, gas, electricity,
this peal of adrenaline
introduced into the veins
hums to its own cadence,
to the tap of hands on forearms
and thick fingernails on
measure-marked glass
tick (x 100, 1,000)
catheter-tap metronome
paralyzes and lulls
this house is a morgue
intravenous hoses
opaque and clotted,
ripped out and spurting
across hardwood floor—
invasive and daring.
blue-spark pop from outlets
behind televisions, behind desks,
louder than a howl into the night
bespeaking lost rhythm,
offbeat tangent screams
into a limbo thicker than afterlife.
Sun-grazed-tundra skin
quickly dissipates warmth—
frozen, barren, flat-lined—
paralyzes and lulls.
Cliche makes the rat hyper
And you say life is short my friend
And don’t I know it
But the rent is so high my friend
What a silly trap
And down go these whiskey shots when you condescend me
And up goes my hyper caged rat self!
And you are right life is fucking short so let’s live it
Lets live it!
Lets pet this puppy
And run singing through the streets
Fight if need be
And fuck for fuck sure
Cause life is short, life is fucking short, give me that fucking shot
The hyper rat is out of his cage and nibbling and bibbling about
Slapping your ass and spraying you with sweat and beer
bust a line out, or some paper, or some gel
Lets paint
Lets wake up these zombies among us
Wake up! Sound the alarm! We are dead before our time has come!
Thank you for reminding me
Condescending or not
Because life is… Life is…. Life is….
Shit I’m so hung over for work I could kill you.
what a funny little cycle.
Why
Dissociative mornings;
Taurean curls
Slow rapt- tepid chilled
sweet air, the
sun rags at tiny rays
through torn screens
of very old warmth
just now hitting my
woke skin
My daily agenda is
mapped out
on sour smelling library
cards from all the
discarded books collected
ages ago disowned from
their dusty shelves
The stain from a warm cup
now imbedded in rings on
all of my belongings
Gold amber turned seafoam
green- jilted in an artist’s
oblivion to catch the detail
in anything but overlook
everything else.
I'm a Bad Person
i want to love her, but i wont
“i’m yours” she tells me
while i grab her by her throat
i’m not sure if she means it
but i sure hope she doesn’t
she doesn’t know how she’ll get treated
or that i cannot be trusted
i came for her body
but i’ll stay for her heart
and ill let her down softly
when we start to drift apart
this is a poem from my head but my heart wrote it
no,
i won’t sugar coat it
this is a poem from my head
but my heart wrote it
& it’s a bitch
trying to get to the bar
when you spent all your money
on liquor instead of
the loan on your car
yeah,
but that’s real life though
see i never thought
that i’d be this broke
never could imagine
all my cash going
up in booze
& smoke
no,
i won’t sugar coat it
this is a poem from my head
but my heart wrote it
Forever more (Poem by Rakuli)
^ ^ ^ ^
^^ ^^ ^ ^^ ^^
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^ ^ ^^ ^^^^^
^^ Will you ^^ ^ ^^ ^^^^^
^ ^^ halt your ^^ ^^^life for
^ ^^ one tiny ^ ^ moment to
^^think about and reflect on
what our words have done to
the innocent dark birds of the
world. Blackbirds, ravens and
crows are painted as the crux
of evil, harbingers of doom. It
isn’t because they live on meat
opportunistically scavenged, a
man is as likely to be guilty __
of that sin. They are not icons \
of murder because they hunt, killing the )
smaller, weaker, “prettier” birds… No —>
a man will always be guilty of
preying on those around who are at less
of an advantage. Black birds represent sin
to us because of their eyes. For us, eyes
are the window to the soul, and when we
see only black pools in their
depths, we
are +
+ \
__\ __\____
. . \
\ - a f r a i d
we
will
be
their
next
p r e y.
Song of Upbringing
Translated from the Japanese by Christian Nagle
I
infancy
the snow that fell on me
was like floss silk
childhood
the snow that fell on me
was like sleet
seventeen to nineteen
the snow that fell on me
dropped like hail
twenty to twenty-two
the snow that fell on me
seemed like balls of ice
twenty-three
the snow that fell on me
looked like a blizzard
twenty-four
the snow that fell on me
became so mournful
II
the snow that falls on me
falls like petals
when the burning firewood makes a noise
and the frozen sky darkens
the snow that fell on me
so delicate and lovely
fell reaching out a hand
the snow that fell on me
was like tears
that sink into a burning forehead
to the snow that fell on me
I offered heartfelt thanks and prayed to God
that I would live a long life
the snow that fell on me
was so chaste
3.18.2013
Happy birthday again!
For you I’ve said it’s ok,
if you ate the last nectarine
in the ice-box again (like
WCW) but actually it wasn’t you,
and it wasn’t David W. Pritchard,
there were more in the crisper
which shows just what a shitty
house-wife I make.
Something reeks in the disposal
and outside, mere rain,
cyclone made out of actual fire,
my car got washed away
to turn up in a reservoir
all the way in Northeast Philly
where ivy makes the front walks
inconvenient and pretty.
So that’s why when you guys
came in I was sitting there silently
reading Alfred Starr Hamilton—
on account of my car being washed away—
and why, essentially, we went north
on foot.
To reiterate history, some guerilla
may slip into Wissahickon Park,
release his wendigos, and vanish.
Do you think that’s more or less
culturally relative? Or at all
appropriate to say?
The best beer I had that night
was a Baltic porter literally called
God Puts His Tired Hand in Our
Tired Hand. It resembled a nebula.
After that, $2 Joe Porter. I said to the guy,
I’ll take the $2 beer. He seemed unimpressed.
I’m getting into really malty ones,
I’m thinking, and full disclosure
about the nightmare of genealogy.
I’m also getting into figs and honey, that is,
eating them, also aspiring to the Land of Them,
and picking their seeds
from my teeth with a very long knife.
Psalm
Give me path, woman; tread you
make in vicious landings, over and
over with little-boy feet. Give me
the un-mother who swims like a carp
beneath your belly. Give me the trembling
wake of all epics bowing at the sight
of us.
Give me song, darling;
give me breech with a flood
of music. Mornings of hail, strong
coffee, addictions beaten and
moulded into the faces of
men we tried to love. Give me
violets pressed into reams
of tape.
Give me crow of lantern, talon
of witch. Give me that mess
in your kitchen, that chimney stack
leaning in the doorway, that
passage that goes everywhere
we want to be.
Give me adoration you wind
in sheaves for the father
you wanted and
never got.
Give me hips, naked salt of
bone, licking of temples. Give me
breast of couplet, unbound and heaving.
Give me red-letter holy, not the way
it is written but the way it is meant
to be lived.
I will take the granite with
the garden, if for nothing more
than contrast. I will take the skill of
fine motor, strings uncoiled and stretched
the length of a neck, small sacraments
I do not carve.
And for you I will not be one who
breaks easily. I will see better in
the shine you cast, when all movement
ceases and there is just you and
me and some emptiness we’ve yet
to conquer.
Give me the fill of knowing,
the tongue of futures.
Give me hair and wire and
spit to hold us
both together.
love poetry for the disillusioned
I’m not asking for much,
maybe a sunday night on the
couch,
the taking of pelham one two three
on the classic movie channel,
something on the stove,
pasta, steak,
I don’t know,
something easy
and maybe I’ll
even buy a lamp,
some light for
your hair to catch
as we sit,
time escaping,
sinking to a civil
and unexpected
place
