poems point me all directions
memory knows not
cuts ribbons like cutting
arms, wrist, future plans
cutting like how
we cut out our long tongues
faithless journeys and how
time does it’s own hemming
short on the leg
long on the cuff
bits of fabric dragon
monolith
tides like fire
eyes like swallowing
the poison
getting ready to forgive
the sun
no matter where you are
I can always hear you
a song that sings itself to sleep
rests on the easy marrow of the day
knows not
the empty void
the empty creation
a song kept
like a kiss
or a ribbon
like an amulet or
a talisman
a phrase heard
not, but almost
fully forgotten
and how it lingers
how it blows out
like a candle
how the wick
and the ember
still glow somewhere
and
more importantly
for some reason –
and everything keeps screaming at me
have fun with god
I fumble with my morality compass
I make earthquakes
I break the surface
my spider-waves
are always
searching
for you
you shine for me
full stream.
technicolour and shit
neon like a halogen
you and your ink-blot memories and your whistle-drop hymns
your secret santa avalanches and your new moon linen
your closed floors / opened doors
dusted chairs / creaky stares
nightmares
you
how to kill a poem
caught in that awkward
silence
all of us once linked arms
like a human tide
I was in the middle
biting at the air like a
pirate destitute
I raised my arms in grief
and was instantly
swallowed
in the art of forgetting you
equals remembering you
is the same pain
the same great big swath
of paint we were
the same totem pole
of shared grief
like digging a grave
for a baby palm tree
is the ghost song in you that
feels blindly around itself
for the contours of shade
and light and comfort
it is a slower trace
than the one I’m used to
a clear sunset
and your violent swath
like an airplane
only in real time
only to a painting
which means
to me
that your sunset
was like an airplane
in the distance
a doomed airplane
maybe it caught fire
maybe it didn’t
how we were then
caught forever
in the crash and burn
how then
crash and burn was
at max
an ethos
and then you died –
that I start in my mind
with my Dad sometimes
we take our time
adding to the fire
as we shed
over the
years
subtle to the gristle
find me –
adrift
spread out between fingers like
the dew on the calm
moon, moves
the water
between us –
I couldn’t make space for it
I couldn’t swallow yr loss
and these are not my boots
gifted, they were
from a mermaid
knew your mom
before the great flood
to the landlords and the city of oakland that it was really no one’s fault. the whole concept of blame, sort of, just, flies out the window, a broken window, with flames for hours for days for weeks for months and years, for ever in our collective grief, but, a jury in oakland said –
breathe in
breathe out
let the fog
breathe in
let the fog
some cut out cardboard
hanging like a mobile
in the air
above
Lou’s Records
I bought it on cassette
1992
guilty
they got me
I was 15
the moon is coming
fear not
feathers in the sun
pierce the coming storm
how innocent the rain
when you smile
I’ve made peace with
the loneliness
I’ve been
searching for
it still burns
flood and wonder
consists loose twig and purple ribbon
a pail of lunch on the horizon
a unicorn morning in the making
it is a deleted text
to an old friend
with a flannel back pack
and no phone –
don’t fall far from the walls
swamp mist and chicken shit
palm fronds as big as a toad’s tongue
ripe as rain
silence and thunder
forever
etched
it was just a small poem
we were just kids
fascinated
I never told you
I still write
it
take me back, remind me. set my feet into yr dirt earth. we were sentient once. it came like a spasm. a coming of age. there were wooded bowls for soup. we had a limousine furnished from scrap tin and make believe, the cashmere in the closet, where the rats fed, so young, so fast, everything eye liner and shadow, i learnt from sage. from ocean and sand. from clouds to doom. all of it. in one belt. one sitting. one life line, as they say. ribbons in the wind, if you will. i remember back seat and tape player. john lennon’s julia, battling the wind in my hair, i played it over and over. high as a kite. my eyes were red and my hair was green.
my stay at home secret companion knows this
my tiger in the reeds knows this
my poem is as a poem does knows this
my pooh-faced cloud incarnate knows this
my soft cloud disposition knows this
and this is not a movie
there is a chance
we will not
survive this
be safe
stay warm
I decided, upon walking the street in a little town north of the mississippi river, to buy a van, to drive it home to oakland, to be a roadie for my friends’ bands. also, to get the fuck out of missouri. I was visiting my mom. It was a fight or flight moment. I mean, shit, the van was only five hundred dollars. what could go wrong? my driver’s license was expired, the van was not registered, had no tags, no license plates, it was a cold october morning and I said fuck it. on the way out of town, I stopped at my friends’ place, where he made me a couple of CD’s, for the road. I promptly bought a CD player and some speakers. And with barely enough gas money, save for coffee and peanuts, an engine and break lines that were slowly corroding because of the salt on the ice, think cold colorado, windy wyoming, utah’s mountainous cliff drops, think splayed freshly cut deer, in half, think hunter s. thompson incarnate, think death mission, think the walls are crumbling… and though I am not on an adventure, an adventure which, at the time, opened pages, for my writing, and headphones and scribblings and a faucet poured out, was it trauma was it losing myself was it what I had been searching for the whole time, I know not. but I wrote for months. and I found that If I could just keep writing. If I could just keep listening. I could make it home –
I would light the smokes
for the two of us
so he could drive
that tossed in the breeze from my cigarette and the wind and the road and that saxophone solo and how free I felt like a dove or a raven or an owl at night surfing the unknown stars in the distance surfing the imaginary idea of future because when you’re a kid that’s what you do when you’re out in the wild unknown with your wild unknown friends and you cling to that you cling to what feels like comfort like casmere like making destitute a place of friendship like making loss a sense of coming together like endless bummer like true friends forever like riding a bicycle and all that wind in your hair like how everything coming at you is a welcome’d and perfect calm
damn. the energy in this is intense. it makes me feel things that I don’t want to feel. like, maybe there’s still some dark fog I left in the back of that drawer I’ve been cleaning out for decades I’m picturing a hallway. my hand forever reaching deeper and deeper it stretches there’s stuff everywhere not just pen caps and rubber bands or folded notes and scratched out poems there’s pictures on the wall there’s memories everywhere I can see them in the distance at first just colors then oozing colors like picture frames barfing dancing singing searching with my desperate digits combing spider man crawling slow and fuck man this album is amazing and fuck man where are you tyler? please come home
land locked or knot
that wound up in the future
I am an expert swimmer
creepy keys
candles and
buffer
hold your memories close
we are not the
closed doors
we
suffer
may it cast it’s hidden secrecy in waves across our invisible shadows like deja vu like humidity and song like a fishing line and a guitar in a canoe on a lake at night alone a sea of stars –
hurry now. my direction. go with the wind. tilt that shit. this way. there are hearts in the fronds. they have secret feathers. the rats tend to them. they are delicate. ear drums like pencils. flowers on the ready. so. hurry now. take yr time. you’ll never believe what happened –
we can erase the moon
say when
is the tree
i felt
when i
first
met you
i get lost in the details
i set sail for ambivalence
i get lost in the details
alcatraz like the ocean
when you woke up
you tired tyrant, you sleepy monolith of epic clarity, you heavy heavy air, you and your shelf life, you and your tired old obituaries and your faded paperback detective stories and your make-believe airports and your broken pencils and your unfinished crosswords and your late night secret-coffee-monologue-poems and your evening sketches, you and your serious blanket isolation, you, the owl to my wingspan, you and your secret cauldron promises and your sweet forgiveness, your bliss acceptance, you and your choose-your-own-adventure never-land dreams, and your secret crutch, your hidden misery, your red riding hood shroud and your sunny, perfect days, you and your clear glass fate and your mountains and your lakes and your wind, you and your full laughter and your full tilt exorcism, you and your axe –
you unwanted guest, you silent waiter, you and your appropriate attire. you and your clean cut and your deep breath. you and your open krishna mouth and your endless dark matter. you and your forever sunrise and your endless night. you and your sudden whip and your instant forgiveness. you, the long distance traveler to my seasoned response. you the patient mentor to my grief. oh, sad and heavy news, won’t you, for once, join me in a prayer? won’t you help me turn back time? If it’s in your power to disassemble, surely we can turn the tide. surely, we’re magicians, after all –
there’s enough cloud
for the both of us
and purple sage
white blinds
purple pigeons
her pure black hair
and that howling wind
being late to the party
I was busy
I wasn’t sure you’d show
I sat on the cliff
I sang “Jane Says” to no one
I started bleeding and I didn’t care
the strings were so thick
the seaweed was everywhere
I waited so long
wait for it to pass
reminds me of losing you
and who we were then
and how you left
and how it hurt
and how sudden
it still feels
is the pure blanket of clarity
that fills my days
touch the ceiling
break through it
I was knee deep in Cormac McCarthy’s All The Pretty Horses.
I recorded nine hours of Pink Floyd onto cassette tapes from a scratchy and faded Colorado station.
Lost in Santa Fe’s ugly summer, its angry cacti.
I quit taking my anti-depressants and bottomed out.
I downed the rest and headed for New Mexico’s endless oasis.
The green belt.
Think empty and rusted cars.
Sun faded porno’s.
Abandoned washing machines.
Suddenly, a dark and moody patch of forever-charcoal clouds shone on.
I found a wallet, with a bullet hole – pierced through.
I found a shady shrub and sat down.
I felt nothing.
And the Nothing was growing inside me.
And I realized I was dying.
Two songs found me then;
“Jesus Don’t Want me for a Sunbeam” and
“Things are Going to Get Easier.”
I remember spilling apple juice all over the place.
Taking off my clothes.
Crawling into bed.
I remember the stomach pump.
My lips were blue.
My hair was brown.
I remember the sunflower fields in Kansas.
Mom and I, on the road again.
And all those Black-Eyed Susan’s.
Winking at me.
i used to be the moon
i used to be an astronaut
staring down
at you
like you collect rain
back and forth
music is memory
back and forth
died in that fire
inside me
bring me
closer to you
patience is flowers
plant everything
go broke
patience is everything
plant flowers
slow down
yr hair in the neon sun
we were summertime gloves
kids against the world
reverse echo
set off car alarms
is at war with everything
I do not wear my hat
it’s like everything inside me
just wants to
get away
too
many postcards
to you
and who
I was
then
you tired traveler, you distant warrior, you imaginary me, (you turn into dreams, don’t you know?) like a river, I collect and let go of everything you have to offer, we’re cool like that, you and me and our collective un belief, you and I and our collective acceptance, you and I and our shared sun. you the moon to my earth, but, I remember, I do, and there you go again –
shone so darkly powerful
in it’s brilliant defiance
of my grief
where I’m at
not a picture frame worthy
I do not have the photos
to prove it
of surging inspiration
music is memory
let it rain
glimmer and switch
glitter and twitch
wrestle with which
the two
of us
and you
paint
brushes
back
I’m a nervous castle
we were taut and taunt
ween and want
hungry
test me
I will best you
a poloroid postcard
a cardboard cut-out
neon dusk
in the autumn sun
won’t you join me
fireball and all
shit and solace
steel mojitos around
we’ll toast the captain
set sail for spain
search for mermaids
survived katrina
but not the anesthesia
perched on the corner of the bed
with the cone of shame on
the last time I saw him
yesterday
you’ve been
holding
your breath
ever since
you died
limestone and yellow’d I am the sun and the strawberry moon and I collect daisies on the daydream walks I take from memory makes me hungry for Spring’s late night butterfly’s and I am nothing paper like steaming coffee or tea or perhaps there is no daydream and it’s always winter makes me fonder for the subtle things like mint and I have to wash my hands again
your final burden
exit: stage left
enter: curtain
your final curtain
exit: stage left
enter: burden
everyone around you is greiving 