Dark Corners

Changing from copper to green, smiling masks, teeth of a saint, tongue of a liar, let's try to categorize each face into the discrete confines of the alphabet. whatever kisses happen across your mouth should mark you blameless in bright red stamped letters, no? or should the snails emerge from their dark corners of the bar with their white flags and the binoculars saying they've seen the truth and it's sticky and fleeting, although it does come with a large box of buttered popcorn if you'll be so kind as to watch the film exclusively in rewind, i supposed this is what we've come to, the forgiveness we're told to succumb to, the wars between thumbs we hum to, the doors to friends we run through, i hear her and her lazy sighs one quarter of a million miles deep within her pores, these are the love molecules we read about that compose the earth's core, i need to find more universal weakness or else my skull may begin to crack from the cocaine they pour into the martini glasses, i don't think i've even been stitched up correctly after the operation, when i came out they knew it would be something of this nature, but not quite as malleable, so please be careful with me, the other hands that have smudged their prints across your skin bring you into a tornadoed landscape of course i exaggerate but the intensity of betrayal is exactly the boulder they tie around our neck as the generations of stone dangle you over a cliff of billowy yellow salted foam how many ways can one person say they're sorry before they sink to the bottom of the sea, regret is such an ugly thing, but i'd rather have that creature picking away at my flesh then all the silk of deceit adorning my naked shoulders on our way to the opera or some other elegant bullshit, besides i have more to give to those who crave the mirroring, all i can say is that it only takes one knock of the hand to destroy an antique vase, it takes one heart attack to kill a man, it takes a whole lifetime to understand self control, but if i cut mine short, maybe i won't have to explain myself to all those i've scratched out of my memory.

Going Somewhere

Rewinding the oysters to their full shells like so many of the other pearls stolen from their homes, bourgeoisie ladies screaming murder in their satin saturday dressing gowns "We've been looted! We've lost the capacity for revival!" Material and commerce the birds sit on the porches of esteemed vagabonded corporate swindlers and lend their comfort and grace bidding a good tithe as innocuous as the feathers they float upon and fragile homemade houses, nests and nuts, worms, and the other earthly beetles that crunch between the thumb and the index of a young strapping encyclopedia bound neatly makes its way back to the forest of an aging ladybug with her manfriend who died right above the "Horseshoe" definition on the bottom half of the page, the small brown smudge of insect entrails will always entail the second half of an intellectual pursuing the definitions of what makes them so comfortable or maybe popular culture does have something up its sleeveless shirts and all the hyper-caffeinated moral standards we set will bring us closer to a remedy that doesn't stop the pulse, but will make the pain irreducible or at least cosmetically appealing especially for the younger girls, you know how self conscious a female can get when they have their motherhood and their friends and their deepening kit of reflective make up, a clown like sensibility of color and presence a subdued sense of fashion or confidence for that matter and beauty that is bright and sold, complemented and corrected with more rouge on the cheeks and a little less character at least on the edges of the eyes, i can see the young ones now, complaining of the weight their lids have to bear the world is already more than 16 pounds per square inch and now this, its smudging deep into my personality and i can't wink anymore for the boys its for the sake of nature but we have to think about it so i guess that makes it less authentic but nobody seems to give a shit about that today or tomorrow or even yesterday when there was peace and the globe was still glassy fresh with the snow fabricated by commercial santa's right don't stop don't stop i need you here so that i can get better and fall asleep and pretend the dream i had was really just how i was born and this is something that they cook on television right? this is not my life a poor quality show i thought i should have deserved more color than this.

Okay?

I feel it more tightly
than before, the lack
of her deep inside me.
This moment, for some
reason, i miss her
so much i think
i might die.

Noticing

It's 2:23 a.m.
my pants are in
a pile around
ankles and toes,
the nails of them
unclipped.
outside my window
the light from the
stars and probably
the moon, too,
twist with the street-
lights, and make the sidewalk
sleepy, beautiful,
cold-looking.
I can imagine
perfectly
how the snow will
settle on this street,
how the flakes will
land and stay
just from this moment,
maybe in a month
or so, and I can't
wait.

Upper West Ruminations

Writing until I forget how cold my feet
are right now. My Manhattan room has been
'has been' for over half a century. The stone walls,
the crumbling furniture appendages swell with my
tossed laundry. Entering this room feels like
walking into a cavern, the staggering stalagmite
piles of books on every free flat surface.
This space gets smaller everyday,
my pages turn quicker, my words get smaller.

Our phone calls never seem to lighten the dark
maybe only tonight my humor has that old
tangy flavor she misses, or just remembers
missing.
Her heart palpitates regardless of what I say.
Mitral valve...something, she says
Prolapse--welcome to the club, now we
can really know each other. Not just the nine
years we've spent trying to scan each
other like cats, now we can X-ray your
whole body and match our defects.

We are soft machines, I tell her.
I imagine her heart failing. I would gladly
give her mine, but it beats with the same
irregular problem she's trying to rid,
ha, much like our relationship
it beats and beats, pumps and gurgles
and eventually misses a step and burps something
violent. We were meant to destroy
each other with this disease the hospital
calls love.
The most potent strain is almost rare
definitely contagious, definitely deadly.

What philosophy is for

What if we are all right?
or what if we have all just missed the whole fucking point?
the trick to life--the way we should have done things.
maybe the buddhists are right--at least what they say sounds nice
like i want those things to happen to me, even though i don't
know them, or necessarily believe them.
maybe the christians had it right from start--maybe we should stop
whining and follow the rules.
maybe it was the greeks or the egyptians, the ancients--
when i was in san diego on the pier facing the pacific i understood completely
why they used to worship the sun. even when i write this
in my manhattan bathroom, the sun peaks through the window
and goldenizes my paper and i thank it for accompanying me
on the most royal of daily occasions. i continue on my throne.
Maybe the guy sitting behind me at the yankees game had it right.
just drink 'til you pass out and laugh with your friends, scream with strangers.
that sounds easy, even enjoyable.
maybe i've been doing it right, though most times i doubt it.
but i guess it doesn't really matter at the end.
the only thing i hope for is that i get all my moments
on tape, a film of my life, nicely edited, when i sink
behind my eyes and into the earth.
maybe then everything will make much more sense, maybe i'll finally get
relief, maybe it'll just make me miss this place even more.
either way i think it's about realizing the beauty in being
wrong sometimes, too.

Today

Today was simple. I did not do much. Woke up slowly just before noon to hear my housemate flushing the toilet and humming some kind of foreign song. My head felt like a rubber mallet. I sat up and stared at my feet for a few seconds, wondering when the last time I clipped my toenails was. I stretched and pulled my face. I usually like to yawn as wide as I can, almost as if to unhinge my jaw so I can feel the blood warm my temples and spread down my neck and into my chest. I lifted the shades and stared out the window. It's apathy, that's what it is. Another beautiful day of indiscretion, of reluctance, of contemplation and no action. I heated up the leftover gyro over rice sitting in my fridge and sat with my legs elevated on my desk, watching the people walk and live outside. That lady made it so goddamn spicy. How do they eat it like that? Anyways, I've been on my computer since, typing up a response to Plato's Symposium, and trying to figure out what my own perception of love is anyway. It is in the proximity of beings. Love is the unseen details, the reassuring silence, the 4 a.m. pillow-gripping solitude, the endless wonderment.
Meanwhile, the smell of grilled onions plagues my room. Now there's a dog shitting on the sidewalk outside. I don't think I could ask for much more. Maybe I'll go to the Yankees game with Tavis. That sounds like fun.

Pool Daze

Hour One:
Tired and groggy we wake
to the shore of the shallow
end, another orange morning
with the sun fresh
and dripping.

Hour Two:
Arms and back sporting
a deep, healthy tan
draped in a violent red
shirt that spells,
"Don't fuck with me"
in GUARD letters
across the back.

You will listen to us
just by the way we sit.
But our ears are flooded
with the squealing,
the splashing,
the jumping,
and the smiling
of all these half-naked children.
Oh, how the young lives squirm
so freely.

Hour Three:
We leave the shade
to bake in the sun.
Sweat drips quick
into the trunks
salting the belly.
Get so high,
it seems like
we're all drowning.
Even out here.

We'll leave
all the thinking
for the future.
Now, only amazed
at all the hair,
piss, spit, and ridiculous
sorts of trash
clogging the gutters.

Hour Four:
Each day we relearn
how to numb the mind
with chlorine and hours
many,
many,
hours.

Again we learn,
not by device, nor by scolding
can you ever prevent
a mexican teenager
from canon-balling.

We know Diego,
We know Luis,
We know Marcia
and all 18 of her cousins,
how they love to scream
and look back
after each illegal dive.

We have let it slide so many times
our eyes begin to close.
The babies in diapers,
the mothers in slippers,
prepubescence
in it's most awkward form
is humping the metal handrail
ten feet away.

Hour Five:
Maybe a chuckle or two
will escape when we watch
the eleven-year-old boys
discovering the bubble jets
and pleasuring their genitals
with high-pitched yelps
of guilty delight.

Or the young family,
with their young baby
so kind, so innocent,
giving me hope
for the future,
but
it is all shattered
by another obnoxious
and watery explosion from
Luis' ass.

Hour Six:
Praying for rain
praying for a friend,
using the phone as the only
key to the world outside
and those epic moments
of surprise with the relief
of a companion's visit
and the treat of pizza,
conversation, music,
and the royal highness.
It all comes together
so incredibly
perfect.

Hour Seven:
Netting up the days'
debris, mesmerized
by the color of the water
the way the sun hits
the surface and how it shines,
lazily and bright
Makes me wonder
whether it is even real
at all.

Hour Eight:
Grueling by the edge,
kicking out the kids,
nodding to parents,
waving to their babies,
counting each second
on the stubborn clock,
who always refuses to move.

The day is done.
The sun leaves it's glow
on the deck, it's heat on
the skin.
Locking up, closing down,
walking away from a summer
that still melts in the trees
and into the pavement.

In Honor of:
A year that has been burnt
into the memories of the men
with the red shirts.

Sitting and Talking

She sighs a sigh the size of the night
Image churns image, teacup fills teacup
I hold my head, she twiddles her thumbs
Golden light on the wall sinks deeper, more golden
The corner shadows begin to grow
Her smile, in the wooden kitchen,
Starts to magnetize mine, pulls us closer

She makes me whole,
As though I am something real.
I begin to crave her and the way she feels.
The nape of her neck, my viscous kisses
The ivory that engulfs our touch
Her plum sugar lips infuse my being
I become weightless and secure

I am always unfinished in the way I unravel
She is always falling asleep too soon
The color of her dreams, she tells me
Fill her journal pages
But I want more than my eyes see
I need her oceans, her skies,
Her breath, her flavor

When she leaves, she leaves her traces
The chill on her fingers across my face
The mood of burgundy under my nails
Soft tastes of affection on my tongue
When she leaves I pray
I pray heaven hears my lazy prayer
And stitches us together
Once and for all

From Above

When the moon looks down at me
all she sees is another grain
of speckled sand sifting below.

she cannot hear me sweating
like the ocean, with my
hungry teeth, my itchy
nails.
My footprints become swallowed
by one of the mouths of wind
and we'll just keep it
a secret.

the clouds and i
we laugh together
as if we know
something more
than we should.

Minor Suffering

After breaking my wrist
a couple weeks ago,
I experienced a change in my
way of daily living
many people asked me
How much more difficult
is everything?
I tell them,
you have no idea
how hard it is for me
to convince my sister
to make me a sandwich.
They laugh.
I don't.

The Lady at the Counter

She says hello
politely
asks me if I need any help
finding a cigar
No thanks, I say
and just browse
as I am want to do
I find a cheap pack of
10 cigarillos
from Germany
She smiles,
so I tip her
then she gives me matches
Have a good one she says
I smile Thanks you too
She says she'll try
I want to talk to her
but another customer comes
and she says hello
so I leave
and have a smoke.
It's smooth.

"I Think We're in Arkansas"

Scrounged every quarter,
Every last drop
Of liquor, scrapped
Meat and cheese
From fridge corners,
Enough bread for
Six days driving.
Six dudes piled
Together, cargo van
Windows always down,
Drinking the sun
Through aviator glasses.
Trading thoughts, stories
Personal histories, karma
Absorbing color, strong
Wind, heat, sound
Pouring through skin
Making us whole
Becoming one whole
Car and not
Six separate passengers.
Hot speaker stereo
Music with fingers
Tickles our faces.
We keep rolling
Cheap tobacco cigarettes
Tangled in laughter,
Episodes of conversation
Or momentary seclusion,
With surplus jerky
Chewing jaws numb
Until smiles stuck
From muscle tensed,
Dozing off, on
Sliding down seats
Drooling in sleep.
Forgetting our names
Remembering only seconds,
Tattooing a memory
Shaped like wheels
On my ribs.

I Scratched This onto a Desk in the Library Somewhere

On the west side of the city, the chit chat of strangers
Leaks into your pockets and pulls
Your face into smile position.
Ladies like to open their eyes
Wide and talk loud,
Just to make sure you listen.
I wore my only suit
And slicked my hair back
For this?

In High School my problems quickly became all of my friends’
Too, once I started exploding violently out my mouth.
I called it catharsis; they called my problems “Bomblems.”

When I broke my hand in a tragic typing accident
I started writing with my feet.
Pen between the toes, biting the upper lip.
Nobody knows the relief writing holds like I do.
Distracting the pain, much like fooling
An old dog when you pretend to throw his toy away.

My watch has been broken for a few months now,
The hands behind the scratched glass, frozen,
Or dead, not sure.
I can’t bring myself to throw it away,
I like the way it holds my wrist far too much,
So now, it’s my compass.

It took me twenty rounds to realize, life was just a board game,
We only move the pieces because boredom isn’t as glamorous
As it used to be.
I will always be the same player,
Even though, sometimes, I would like to be the silver shoe,
Or even the top hat.
I guess it doesn’t really matter,
As long as we finish together.

Nothing makes sense,
If you think about it long enough.

Sandwich.

The King of Clear Skies

When my name is Galinqua I
will pull the stars off
their hooks and you will
crave me like a moth craves
dim closet lights.

More you than you are you

The Chicago Anarchist Society is having
a meeting this Saturday.
The mohawked one invited me,
but I told him plainly,
that I was strictly
Anti-Anti-Organization
in my principles.

A Virus With Teeth

The devil sleeps in my veins
he is balled up and protruding--
resting in tumor position
making me sweat, making me worry
this might be the last time
i ever use a knife

Why should you pay for anything when your senses are free?

He says it was a car accident,
But we smell Russian Roulette.
A doctor with a southern accent tries
to piece together a broken
story. It's four minutes 'till
1 in the morning, when sleep shies away
from florescent lights and hospital beds.

All I hear is clicking and heavy breathing,
and I see the immiscible colors
of pain and cure
mixing
above my head.

"These scares stair me!"

We've Reached an Impasse

Like the conversation between bricklayers
Slow steady grind of teeth on hay
After years of meeting at the bottom
Of a crooked staircase
With a welcome pack of cigarettes
And two bottles of cranberry juice,
We’ve tried, God knows,
But we can’t figure out the puzzle
Of a forest fire or the maps in our fingerprints.
We only tell ourselves lies to keep
From falling asleep.

It Only Takes a Pen to Admit

You and I, my friend
Are just misspelled words,
That no one notices,
Or cares to fix.

Playing Dead

Seeing what
"you"
really mean.

If we all agree to destroy ourselves together it will be much less depressing, hell, we'll even call it fun.

Champaign flows like trash
infested creeks, sludge can slow,
I fight for you like a bull
heaving dry and wet on his
prized day
reaching out
with fists bent into palms
breathing in all the sounds
from the rooftops, from the streets
the deadened, skeletal conversation,
words with no meat,
a tongue weak, only catches liquid
and no meaning,
an anemic phrase
and bulimic butterflies
to keep that pencil-line
smile stitched to your face.

Sometimes it feels like I'm alive.

Everybody Knows

Homies don't explain.

Reflecting on too much

It seems as if I know
I will die today,
simply by the way
the snow hits the ground
so gently,
so frequently.

Speech as a mirror

Whenever you speak of another,
you really speak of yourself.

Making Sense of Repulsion

We've become too much
like magnets,
when i thought
at first
our chemicals
were reacting
quite well.

This is the Truth

This.

Oftentimes, Well Maybe Never

When sitting in your room
won't necessarily do,
you collect the words
caught in your walls,
the ones that will
never be spoken,
the ones that only live
trapped in paper.
After a few more drinks
and a couple more notebooks
you run out of ink,
and inevitably begin to think
of the haunting sound
that every question-
mark makes.

Inflatable

...but if love is really love
it never fails,
but fail it does.

If I have come without a thing
then I have come with all I need.

My window faces westward.

Time Wasted

Just like water drops
memorize a splash,
I remember every
curve of your body.

Cautious Like Guaze

Some words cannot be
unwritten, not like socks
unsewn and raveled back
into a neat burgundy
ball, or Listerine
swashed and swished
back and forth
between dumb
porcelain studs.
Some words turn
into arrows once
they touch the air
and sink sharply,
deep and irrevocably
inside the chest.
The pain in erasing
a scar comes not
from the bleeding
but from the sound
of the memories
it contains.

Your existence is transient. Remember that.

Cool cat lookin' for a pretty kitty.

The Death of a Year

And with the shore
comes the pain
of wiping ice from
the lashes of a year-
long of holding back
lyzozomes.

After midnight
I can finally breathe
back in all the smog
left from my former self
and regurgitate feelings
that were once too warm
hold, even with gloves.

The sky tastes like blue
now.
Clear blue.

Forgetting the past,
building the future
out of clay and wood.
Should be easy
with all that whiskey.

Tartar Sauce, Santa Claus

Purposely erasing all my
memories of salt.
This is accomplished
by silent steam baths.