"good mourning"

This morning everything was warm because
the frigid sighs of northern ice caps were finished
with their annual dirge marking the end of a year;

but somehow the signals got tangled on their way
to the center of the bristling forest that encroaches
that accosts me on all sides

because it's so cold that my hands are bleeding,
and the cracks in my skin are terrifying,
and I think they're wonderful,

even though I shouldn't.
Across the cracks lies a bridge,
a blue music note that is just now fading.

I was supposed to remember something.
I guess it slipped through the cracks
on my way out the door this mild morning.

song of myself, fifth (and probably final) installment

16
The problem with this place is that no one is good enough.
Love yourself, tell yourself that you are beautiful,
but these walls aren't listening;
painted inside our own eyes, we nearly glow,
but that effulgence is diluted when it tries to broadcast itself through our skin.

17
This air is toxic;
I'm trying to breathe, but the windborne poisons creep into my throat;
Are my lips turning blue?
Is my heart giving up?
I think I am the only one polluted by these atrocities;
I think my restlessness has made me vulnerable.

18
I stood with the vagrants and shouted discontent;
I marked midnight with a firestorm the size of a city;
I threw myself into a circle of sharks just to learn their names;
I sang a threnody for the dead men who wander and burn and hold each other's hands;
I went down with the ship and spoke with the leviathan;
I leapt off a precipice and let the wind ferry me to a more halcyon age.

19
I stumbled into the wrong body.
My friend extended his hand; I bent this strange body
and took it eagerly.

20
"Anathema" isn't bad all the time.

21
I am honesty in parts,
I am three notes in the chorus of angels,
I am a frown between the indifferent,
My flesh is a red sky and my ribs are a cathedral;
I am stuck here, suspended between a thimble and a thundercloud —
but I'm not finished yet.

song of myself, fourth installment

(minor note: the first bit is really there just to fit into the assignment, so I don't like it and it might get nixed. bah.)

14
I looked to my fellow countrymen for comfort
but all I found there was a pretty frame of wagging fingers,
so I dyed my hair and wore bright clothing to distract them;
I told them, "I don't need your approval" and I wasn't lying;
but why do I continue this forced march
in search through the fog of a temple's foundations
because it would confirm my wish that once,
people said things that were hopeful and loving?

15
I was going to attempt to smile at you,
but when my face crawls up from beneath the mirror,
my eyes stutter when they speak,
and my mouth writhes and seizes as it catches sight of a thought;
color like a curled crocus spills across my cheeks;
my spine is too effete for this; I retreat again and again.

song of myself: third installment

10
It is yet more difficult to forget that time
when we held hands like children, and it was the truth;
honesty poured through our ribs and fell at our feet,
and in it we glimpsed our smiling reflections;
and even though I lied to you later
(and for that I am sorry)
I want to tell you this, because this is true:
I love you.

11
If one of my eyes was green instead of brown, would you like me better?
If I had a voice the size of the universe, would you like me better?
If I could stand up without folding myself down again, would you like me better?

12
I don't know who you are, but I would take a bullet for you.
That is true. I love you a thousand times more than I love myself. That is true.

13
I tripped over my own bones again and shuddered at them;
Those gaping sockets in the skull, that screeching maw,
I'm so ugly on the inside.
I was thinking about whether it's nature or nurture;
I scan this half-decayed place we call "home"; I touch the ailing twists in me;
I know it's both.

song of myself, second installment

5
The child, he never liked control,
which is why he left home when he was sixteen, when he was only a boy,
but protesting control also lost him the love that had held him up for sixteen years,
so it really comes down to this: what matters more, his values or his health?
His answer means nothing; no matter how far he runs, no matter how loudly he shouts,
once he's fallen to earth, he'll never be able to touch the tops of trees again.

6
The dancer, he was never really sure of himself,
so he's always on the move, looking for something he's sure he likes,
because any sort of foundation would be welcome;
he's praised for his grace of movement,
but no one seems to catch the fact that he only moves because he can't stop himself from moving.

7
The saint, he's spent too many years singing hymns,
sleeping on ice floes, trying to keep breathing,
because he was given a heart the size of the sun that's burning up his insides
in its eagerness to tell the world it exists.
But there are dead men in the sky,
and they're not so forgiving these days.

8
I have a dream that one day,
the content of my character will not be so deserving of discrimination.

9
A young man screamed, "we are merely degenerates,"
and I believed him;
we are rotting out from our insides while the abyss claws away our bells and whistles;
submerged in a great black fear, we clambered up onto this island
where there are cannibals hiding beneath the sand
and there is no respite, there is no respite, because all around us is a wide expanse of
vines that will burden us,
craters that will swallow us up,
and our mouths are dry from waiting.

song of myself: the first installment

1
This is sort of difficult because right now I am stuck
on the verge of a highly anticipated upheaval in which
the definition of "myself" will change; so
which "myself" should I write about, the current one or the one trotting off into a year from now?

In earlier words, I have written about:
a private eye who is tired by his home and by himself;
a boy who is tired of being forced to betray, who is tired of being used;
a wanderer who is tired from the constant breaking down that empty anticipation causes;
a child who is tired from running away and away and away;
a dancer who is tired of grazing wonders that only urge more, more, more;
a saint who is tired by the world's unchanging, ambivalent face;

These people are undoubtedly "me" — which explains why they're all so tired,
I guess.

2
The private eye, he hates the city but loves living in it
because it's so dirty that it stains him down to his lungs,
and he hates his job but loves doing it
because he hates himself for selling out everyone he knows and watching men destroyed,
and only in America can a man hate his life so much but still hold so dearly to every next day.

3
The boy, he taught the world a lesson that neither he nor his brother learned,
and he's the one being praised while his brother is vilified so categorically,
but he loves his brother because he's a martyr, and they must love everything (except themselves);
and he aches from the betrayal he was forced to play out
and it doesn't even matter because the people in this country can never sacrifice enough
to remember the lesson that killed him in the first place.

4
The wanderer, he can't find peace;
since the tundra was split with towers of metal and greed,
the rain of oil has suffocated his skin;
he once saw beauty here, but with the bears and caribou all busy mourning their losses,
the landscape has melted into a void that sucks in wonder and spits money out the other side.

i was going to attempt normalcy, but

when my face crawls up from beneath the mirror
my eyes are like two beats in an ambience
and my mouth is like a fissure that splits everest in two
and the light shudders at how wrong this is,
it settles my hair over everything to cover it up.

i pulled aside the curtain
(i've said that before)
(am i right about this?)
(am i losing it?)
then i didn't —
i left it where it was.

maybe the best path from now on is just
to give up and let things be.

the following is a momentary retreat from usual civility, but it's still the most beautiful thing i have ever written because it's so wonderfully true

FUCK YEAH GIANTS

i am dissatisfied

I stood atop a mountain high and cold,
Like worshipping from a cathedral spire,
But my God comes from a more jagged mold;
His bones are hardened with a fiercer fire.

I cried out to the wind: "Stay with me here,
For I have no more strength or words or love,
This chill corrodes my sight and feeds my fear,
The earth will choke me; carry me above."

A rift lanced through the heavens, yawning wide,
I pondered words: to act, to mourn, to live,
Then called a challenge to the great divide;
I asked, "How much would He agree to give?"

For dreams are never filled with more than grace;
I'd rather lie and watch your sleeping face.

p.s. i can't decipher myself

i was so willing,
i bent and i bent but the pressure was so great
that i broke all the same,

i cracked apart on your honest shoulders
(and for that i am sorry)
despite what i say
(i am sorry. i am so, so sorry.)

and now i can't find all my pieces,
because so much of me is missing now,
all the sinews that held me together have snapped,
all the bones that kept me standing have shattered,

and these little glass fragments
that are the color of your lungs,
of the air when the sun has just risen,
of a flood,
of a rose garden,
of a thousand years of the unknown,

they are like dust in my shaking palm.
i can't feel anymore
and now i am struck with the fear of god
because i betrayed you
and i have been used so woefully,

i am a pencil sketch of a judas,

and i wish more than anything that i was holding your hand
and lying in a field beside you with both our hearts
beating in sync,
and begging your forgiveness.

dear cain,

i am going to be direct.

if i said "i forgive you,"
would that defeat the point?
i guess you wouldn't know.
i guess i'd have to ask the great brilliant sun
who's sitting next to me up here.

but the point of you is a lesson learned,
and if the lesson kills me,
but the learning is immortally good —
well, i wouldn't have it any other way.

i was perfectly young and perfectly stupid,
and you were perfect too;
your mouth that soothed
and your hands that slaughtered
and your forehead that bent under its wine-colored cross.

if i could, i would touch your mouth and wash your hands,
but your forehead i wouldn't touch;
because your suffering is perfect too.

it makes me think about who got the worse end
of the deal,

and who broke this deal in the first place, anyway.

the mind is a curious thing

einstein was a genius, they declare.
and why not? he told us that everything
(i am only stardust,)
is relative
(you are my universe)
.

and they say walt whitman was a genius too,
for celebrating and singing a song
(praises, hymns, dirges and lullabies)
of himself
(life warrants this kind of symphony; wouldn't you agree?)
.

they tell me, now orson welles, he was a genius,
because of black and white and different
(look at it sideways; it will appear to you upside down)
angles
(none are so beautiful as the contours of your palm in mine)
.

but when i have been living mundane
and suddenly, there in the grocery store appears,
sparkling, blue, and all aglow
a digital sea,
and i cannot stop thinking about it for over ninety minutes now —
they haven't declared any such thing:
but i'd say there's a bit of genius in there too.

dan andriano is one of my heroes

To live seems a chore these days
to the young ones who, smilingly,
settle into their satin 40 years too early;
they refuse the hands that strain to help them up;
they hum threnodies like lullabies;
they pour their wine and break the bottle
on their headstones
like a good-luck blessing as they depart.

It's a plague ripping through us all.
Youth means fear now, whether we like it
or not;
to pray is denounced as cowardice;
to hope is decried as foolishness.
These rats have their fangs in our heels;
we are crippled; we are crumpling;
we are lying in the ground.

I wish —
I can't think of one thing to say here.
This is the worst part;
half of us want everything
and half of us simply don't want.
So they just take;
we don't want to stop them;
and all of us lie in the ground lamenting.

the runaway

Don't slow down or you'll get scared.

That woman who told us to keep running
now collapses against her husband's smile.
The word "iniquity" comes to mind, but really,
we've done nothing wrong.

Dust roads that should be dirt,
streams that should be rivers,
books that should be thicker,
and adults who should be able to take care of us;

they said, "poor children, so sad, so sick."
I would say to them: "I'm desperate.
I've been running toward you for six long years,
So why do you keep walking away?"

They smiled, they said: "You're wrong, poor child;
Maybe you can't see from your four foot seven eyes
but you're just so slow on your little legs;
I've been right here all this time."

Is that true?
I don't know, myself;
I've always had a hand in mine
to whom I could ask the question.

an ode to playoffs: we are the underdogs

We were watching brightly the screen,
those men who rush and tackle and throw and fall,
and I was yelling for joy;

I was on my feet, explaining to my mother
"buttonhook" and "up-and-up"
and I was cheering for the tight ends,
and we were a point ahead,

but things didn't end up working out
the way I'd envisioned it.

So I went upstairs to write about it:
"Why is hope so useless recently?"
Because I like underdogs,
but despite my cheers, which always seem to mean so much,
we just end up getting beaten down again and again.

the mafia, baby

december 26th.
a pocketknife, a lighter, and a decided lack of holiday cheer.
i'm out of cigarettes.
christ, i don't know how i'm going to make it out alive.
it's my job to kneel in the garden
outside drawing-room windows,
to steal words and hide them in a black-box recorder,
to protect and serve all by my lonesome —
but those mafia wives are just so persuasive.

january 3rd.
the world is black and white.
cigarette smoke sits comfortably in the air.
men tip their fedoras to the ladies
who stroke their pearl necklaces and laugh.
billie holiday's voice croons out from the phonograph,
and she winks at us behind her song,
singing us into another late evening.
vodka makes me think things are all bad,
but billie is changing my mind.

"Pardon me, but can you draw clothes?"

You know, fury is fascinating,
and joy, and anger, and love as well,
and empty pages and heaven,
and saints and circles and wings;

but when it's just after midnight
and you're laughing into your cold coffee
about a cartoon so funny that
you forgive the coffee for being thin,

then none of the other stuff really matters anymore, does it?

so i yelled to the young man,

think about what you do. Please, think, because I have
never believed that anyone could ever be that callous,
accidentally and absentmindedly tearing apart what they
do not love (what they do not hate).

so i yelled to the young man,
look around you. She is crying out for a reason,
because look at her; she opened herself up to
whatever you would give her, and you gave her
beautiful red roses with toxic spines.

so i begged the young man,
stop. You are burning this like a crumpled newspaper,
like she crumples helplessly as you toss her into the fire,
and she can do nothing but bear in black and white the message
that she has always borne — the one that the flames will erase.

THIS IS ME, I AM A BOY

I was welcomed by a wall of sound,
but it wasn't true, just like last time.

There are times when I want to pick people up and shake them,
because they are hurting their friends so much,
but I am weak;
I can't be a saint just yet.
Or is it:
(because they are hurting me so much,
but I love all of it;
I can't be stable just yet.)
Dear brother
I hope not.

But my brother isn't the one who's looking down upon me;
it's your eyes, it's your power; it's you.

I don't want want control.
I want you to control me,
guide my hand,
bend my spine without caring whether or not it breaks,
open my eyes to that which will both drive me mad
and bring a crushing hope upon my spirit,
fill my lungs with flames of azure until they collapse from the sheer
joy of it.

Please.
I'm handing you my heart.
Know that it will fight to keep on beating.
You will use it far better than I.

eleven lines

break bread with a dead man.
leaf through ancient pages inscribed with sand.
watch the world twist and ache from inside a seaborne body of ice.
forge a path across these heaving oceans
that swallow ships and spit lightning into the sky.
imperfect silver will still show you the same man
whose kindness becomes him as much as his scars.
a firefly's flight will ignite the stars
and turn the sky red for a change.
we will smile at the blood-colored moonlight
and know we can never get out of here.

bright lights don't mean much anymore.

it's past midnight.
2007 is gone.
i'm alone in a half-lit room.

this has changed;

but it won't be changing for a while, i feel.