god is in the tv.

untitled 12/29

Black hole in my potter's field

never seems to run out of room

to bury things in.

But part of that,

I'm sure,

is that I can never just

let sleeping dogs lie.

I'll pick at anything that stands still

long enough -

'til it's open and bleeding

and then I'll put my hands

in that too.

I've dug one million graves

in the same hole

and while I'll let you believe

I'm being economical,

the truth is

they're all the same to me.

Nothing ever grows here

and if it did,

I'd dig it up.

Rock, sword, wheelbarrow;

I've always got something that fits the bill.

Cut the phone lines

so they can't call to cancel my reservations.

What would I do

with all this food

if they did?

Hunting season is year-round here

and nobody ever asks to see my permit.

I'm a bad shot

but I don't mind firing twice.

I'm not gonna save the skin anyway.

I love everything I kill

and everything I love comes home with me.

My backyard is what I'd call a garden party

and there I keep the only guests I'll invite:

the kind that can't fight back.

10/24

This is my Father's house;

his bed and kitchen table.

This is a numerical recounting

of my sins:

Took what wasn't freely given;

halved what wasn't mine to split;

I never return borrowed things

and I never call it stealing.

Visiting is what you call it

when you don't pay rent.

This is my Father's car

and it's the one room he'll join me in

these days.

You can't hate a thing you owe,

or cut out a debt already written.

I know where dead things go

when they're not allowed to leave

because I make their beds every morning.

Better yet -

I know how to kill a thing still breathing

and pin it in a shadowbox for safe keeping.

This isn't my display case.

I'm just visiting.

But you'll visit me there too

and eat the meal I cooked for you.

This is not my kitchen table, or my chairs.

This is the counter you lean on,

this is the bed you sleep in.

This is the picture I've painted

and now have to live within.

I don't have time for ghosts

so I keep them on a short leash.

This is where the IOUs go

when they stop piling up.

Next to me, for safe keeping.

Wanting or wanted are foreign concepts

but personally,

I've got lots of practice

being a bad roommate.

6/22/21

fishing

This is like playing blackjack with a fish

looking at me across the table

chanting:

'hit me, hit me, hit me'

with no comprehension of the stakes.

Hook, line, & sinker;

I got you here in that chair

lips pinched between my fingers -

nobody leaves the table

until I've broken even.

You're gonna watch me dig this hole;

you're gonna help me dig it.

Packed tight like dead eyed salmon

in a cooler -

you can take all my money

but I won't sleep alone.

Freeze dry me for better times

and pull me out for dinner.

I never learn my lesson

but it's you who keeps casting the line

into still water.

I can't see you from down here

but I like to think

you'll sit on that dock all day,

baking red in the mid-day heat,

just to turn me down for a hand.

I'd call any bluff you made

but never be able to identify one

when it's hanging in mid-air.

Dead-eyed and clammy palmed -

that's me,

fists banging on the table:

hit me, hit me, hit me.

I've got the rules written down

but never remember to look at them.

Nobody is leaving this table

until I've emptied every pocket

and signed and dated the IOU.

Nobody goes home happy here:

you can't accept debt from something

that doesn't understand the concept.

sorry for notes screenshotting wont b retyping this or going to the trouble of capitalizing good day

make & model 7/27

Long rows of red brick houses

with very pickable locks -

I'm gonna select one at random

and put you to bed.

Out of sight might work for some

but I've got fish to feed,

I've got things to go home to.

Fat tomatoes to pluck

and let rot

stinking sweet in my fridge.

Things to reap

and things to sow:

that's an even list

punctuated by long hand notes

describing the passenger seat of pick ups

and dodge chargers.

I don't carry a gun

but you let me hold yours

and rode around popping shots off

at mail boxes

laughing in whatever car you were driving then.

Bench seats painted in ash and mildew -

I was here when this chevy was painted,

face numb to the sun,

swigging sprite and vodka in the garage,

lots of lots to cover.

Have all my hot dinners.

I just don't have the stomach for it anymore.

This little boy summer

I spent playing cops and robbers

and nobody is looking for me

in a long line of gas station parking lots

one foot in a little murky puddle of gas

and the other on the curb,

messing with your side view mirrors.

Then,

I dig through the trunk,

reach the bottom,

and eat these words.

Strangers are brothers to me

but I've got the most respect for

white bone gap grin

trying to skip your bottle cap

and kicking rocks into the creek.

I should've worn shoes on this outing

but we're swatting at mosquitoes

and lining up cans

so I set em up / knock em down;

busted glasses looking at me

with one good eye -

you've got parents somewhere.

Leave it all in the trunk;

pack it up and put it to bed.

These sleeping dogs share a king

but I feed them on the ground all the same.

7/4/21

h words

This is one million home grown

breakfasts -

hashbrowns heated slowly

broken up with bare hands.

Heaven's host of better child soldiers

home for the holidays

and happier to be away.

How long will you wait at my table;

how long will you count my chickens?

Help is never far

in the form of half-hearted hands

and full-hearted heathens of

a different race

heralded as saints in their suffering.

Here is where I bury the remains;

here is where I go to nurture

the dead and dying -

this soil of hollow stomachs,

homegrown hurt -

slow roast at 350 and

come back to visit later.

Fat hens love me best and bitterly.

This is one million and one

home cooked / home grown

hardy breakfasts for growing boys

putting on heavy work boots

and marching for a place

I do not name.

step-son 5/25

This is a bedtime story to my step son

who I love less than the rest of them

but to whom I owe more

because punching bags

are a dime a dozen

but I'll never get sick

of watching you pick your switch.

I keep all his baby teeth

in a pill bottle

overturned in some nightstand somewhere.

This stray dog

never dies and never stops eating.

Land surveyor

isn't a title I respect

'cause you can't when you

till hallowed ground.

Bury me there with my brother/son,

my John the Baptist.

Fate-sucking

and wielder of duller swords.

I taught you not to play cards with cheaters

but you still learned to deal from me.

Gonna whip this kid 'til he likes it

and I'm gonna forget about the rest of them

until it's time to sign permission slips.

wishbone 5/3

That's my whipping boy -

brittle boned and pliant,

trained in the art of mimicry.

Roll over, play dead.

My wishbone kid,

I taught him everything he knows

about faith in higher powers.

Nobody's top of the food chain here.

I lay down with dogs -

I give fleas to all the other kids.

This is a big knife I've got

but I can't reach the competition

through the water.

Love them and turn them out,

I've got religion in place of everything else

and our God never sleeps.

This is animal loyalty

and above all else,

situational.

Lot's lost son,

avoid the cross

and get the switch instead.

You'll choke on greener grass

but not if I get there first.

Down to the last bone,

we're sucking marrow

and if you bite my hand,

extending the last of it to you,

I'll know I trained you just right.

Gamble from behind brick walls

but I'm the one with the gun to my head here.

That's my mirror image I see

staring back at me.

I might've been carved into something else

but I extended a hand and did the same to you

and there's no forgiveness for that -

You can't betray things like us.

My matching Christmas china bowl;

bitter at the cracks

where I am filled with burning things.

Childhood lover of God -

I'll teach you what it means to sacrifice.

trimmings 4/9

The things that live under my bed

have teeth and opposable thumbs

and sit at my dining room table

demanding that I cut their hair at regular intervals.

Love affair with my lesser nature;

black thumb of better beasts.

I butcher hogs out back,

I save the meat in freezers

to feed to things that do not sleep

so I can curl up in bed with them at night

and not worry about becoming dinner.

My place settings keep multiplying

but there's no one waiting at my door.

There's nobody at the door.

Price-slashed my goods due to overabundance,

wrote out GARAGE SALE signs neatly

and still -

there's nobody at my door.

I clean the bathtub with bleach and steel wool

and at night I sleep there,

cheek pressed to the porcelain.

I touch the sun with bare hands everyday -

I can't stand to sleep with blankets anymore.

All my windows open

and all my doors locked.

When you crawl out to greet me

I am no where to be found

but I left you a note taped to the fridge reading:

Dinner is in the oven.

Please don't dump the fat

down the sink.

walden's waiting games

3/22

Of all the lakes

in all the world

the only ones I'll ever long to return to

are the ones I've already seen.

Life is grown slowly but surely

in the cotton clutch of mosquito eggs

cooking in the soup of a hot day.

All the rot, all the dessiccation,

becomes worth it once -

and then to wait for that moment again,

that creates the worth in after.

Slow cook this dinner all day long;

tempt fate by teasing buzzards.

Learn not to turn your nose up

at things bound by their nature

the same as you are.

All moments of happiness,

or worse,

contentment,

are both fleeting and dissolvable.

Land of many birds

but more things to feed them with -

anything that hurts

must learn to savor relief.

Waiting is a pious act.

Martyrdom, not so much.

Patience is not just a virtue,

but also the stick

upon which your purpose is tied to.

Dip feet in frigid water,

wait.

You'll eventually learn to tolerate the sting

long before summer rolls around again.

cash crops 3/15

Cash my check -

credit card debt

is stacking up

in place of letters

I meant to write

but I always remember

to send out the IOUs

when Christmas rolls around.

Do you promise

to visit me in the hospital

when my account overdraws?

Big money, big God, big love -

I wanna bury myself

in these things

and let them take root

until there isn't room

for anything else.

I wanna tie your shoes

and trip over the laces.

Cash my check

and send me on my way.

I've run out of doorways to

haunt

and windows to climb out of.

I plant things that die

and then refuse to part with the bodies.

I plant things that die

and never learn my lesson.

ghost town 3/12

I'm gonna take an early morning greyhound

to Death Valley,

strap myself to its back

and get some sleep later.

I'm gonna dig myself a deep hole

to die in.

Drink heatwaves

and never be cold again.

I only go to bed with things that burn.

No matter how hard I try,

fate is always in my favor,

so these are the things I would do

once I've made my peace

with being alive.

I'll dig myself a deep hole.

I'll dig myself a deeper hole.

I'm gonna take 35 to Waco

and I'm gonna find something to believe in.

I'll crawl down that road on my hands and knees,

saving all the gravel I remove from myself

as souvenirs.

I have t-shirts from places I've never been,

but I did sleep in the hotel.

And I got a cab outside the hotel.

And when he asked for my address

I said -

Take me to a ghost town.

I'll populate it myself,

and I'll never be cold again.

untitled 12/24

In want for higher protein content,

mice who have just given birth will eat their young

pink and screaming

to save themselves.

I would give you whatever

you could scoop out of me with cupped hands.

I would beg you to feed stray dogs.

Achilles, in closest proximation -

I only wish to taste you suffering in solitude.

I only wish to conquer what’s left of you

in tenderness.

Open the left side of me

and collect what remains.

My rock / thorn / shield,

there may be no purer love

than to draw blood for the pacts

of unwilling recipients.

Written in unwavering script,

the symposium cast us as two halves

of one being and preordained enemies

and despite or because of this,

I will only ever see this last supper

as a romance.

spoils 10/1

(Stop.)

You reflect my cruelty back at me

and turn it into masochism.

Drink of my cup and spit my poison

back inside me.

Drink of my cup and let the overflow

spill back into my hands.

I may be an ugly beast

but not more so than the hand

that holds my leash.

This, then, is what destiny looks like.

I couldn’t find it within me to hate you

the way you deserved,

or hurt you the way you deserved;

blood squelching between our clenched hands.

Instead, I lashed myself

hoping that sacrifice would be enough.

God called my bluff,

took my lamb,

and laughed at me

for presuming to keep an untouched slaughter.

Possession must be consummated

but I could never bring myself

to commit murder.

(Go.)

You reflect my cruelty back at me

and we both drink from the cup,

gluttonous and drunk on kingdom.

I ripped the flag from weak knuckles,

took it between my teeth,

and tasted the iron.

You smiled when you pulled it from my mouth.

I promise to bare my teeth this time

and let you count them.

I promise to bite with full force.

I would never let the nape of your neck

out of my sight again.

I have counted my blessings

and found myself willing to take on

a higher power than this

in order to retain custody

of this doomed purity -

to keep you on the alter forever,

eagerly awaiting my knife.

Given half the chance,

I would write my loyalty inside you

on a place you could never unearth

and never erase, signed in blood.

Cast as the Devil,

I have come to collect my dues.

journal entry 9/7

The adored child is a cruel one - intimately aware of the price that is asked of favorites, and willing to teach the less appreciated a lesson in gratefulness. Are we all so desperate to know obsessive love that we seek it in anyone willing to give it?

I am bound by nature, bound by predestination at someone else’s hand (not God, the Devil, or any angel in between) to not shrink back at harsh trades; the prioritize loyalty over kindness. Honesty has both no place here as well as a pedestal of its own. The favorite wears the crown and places it upon their head relishing in the bite of thorns. A chosen people - eldest in the line of sacrifices and savoring the taste of blood drunk from cupped hands.

I have birthmarks shaped like fingerprints and when I press my own to them, I feel somebody pressing back. Ghost of my former self, I keep her under my bed and pull her out to remind myself what the price for such things is.

Window Seat

Glass houses with broken windows

whose occupants come home to find the burglar

not only still in their house,

but asleep in the master bedroom.

Sticks & stones & polyfiber filling -

some guests may only leave once invited.

The glass in the dustpan

is older than your intruder’s stay

and wiser to the nature of your domesticity

and whatever companions came home with you

have long since vacated

upon finding their rooms occupied.

Build pedestals in place of the windows

once you have made peace

with your lack of will to replace them.

When you come home at night,

cook dinner for two.

Feed a stray,

and you can never expect to ask it to leave.

Invite it into your bed,

and lie comforted in its possessive companionship.

Make a list of things

you would sacrifice to keep this:

your life,

your house,

your dignity?

What do you have left

that’s worth gambling with?

You bet on losing hands that night;

her face reflected in the side view mirror

with the windows rolled down

and the shape of what you traded for

growing harder to identify in the glare

of the only pane you have left.

hypochondriacs

creatures

I HAD A ONE NIGHT STAND WITH ANNE SEXTON; A COMEDY