Emotional Vertigo for Hermits

Thunderclaps of book covers slamming together and sunny cicada recollections clinking in glasses the color of amber.

Loud music and the rustling of rats.

Rain of the Northwest.

Questioning.

That old love like broken chairs, can sit in the corner waiting to be fixed and put off indefinitely.

Then- an incredible string, improbably lying in an unpredictable place.

And a flash of tambourine.

To shake it all away.

day 1

Circles under my eyes and cracks at the corners of my mouth.
And besides, it has to happen and someday it'll all be so funny
don't you think?

But it's true, you know:
a river runs through me, too.

Un-unravelable

Words want body -
tie themselves to particles
that have weight
or smell
or make you sink just by looking.

The hands slide through the crook of the arm,
pull closer.

Cast your line out,
send hooks with hope
of a throbbing thing soon entwined.

this year

our couch is in the kitchen now.

yea, it sits below the windows and watches as the birds chow

at their birdfeeders, their seeds spilling onto the snow.

i think it seems quite happy there, never heard it once complain,

even when a too-big dog leaves a large slobber stain.

bones of the day

i am retreating
into the bones of the day

the skeletal remains of the hours passed
display themselves without disguise
as sleep prepares to
feast on the muscles of morning
and fat of the afternoon

as night spends its hours
building for us a new day
to slowly strip away

Fog's Veil

Aaron'ss arms adorn his bed like waterfalls to cliffs,

His hair long, to cradle a head of dreams that childhood left adrift,

The eyes that pierced the air between us to my heart now rest,

To allow for my personal unveiling of such magnificence.

A man’s soul grown to the edge of his aura,

Could only be the soul of a man who once was a boy with no mother,

In a world of lost longing, of stolen signs and permanent pain,

A world of pickled vision harvesting chaos, only to repeat it all again,

Grew the man who rests before me, like Poseidon along a river,

He crafts for society homes and shelters, be builds with his hands layers upon layers,

Of pristinely planned mosaics in which we house our lives,

He told me this is the Art that joins, but that humanity divides,

(That was the day that marked our first time together, alone,

That orchestration called coincidence had him working, unknown,

Along a street, where I happened to be

Walking by, when the call of my name stopped me.)

Aaron's body lies framed by his room’s spectrum of grays,

It files away a mystery, like the beauty of a painted maze,

But I am only a vagabond here, he expects nothing more,

And while my heart submits to this reticence, the hours ahead, I cannot ignore,

These moments like lives weave to form interdependently,

An invinsible mandala to illustrate a map for uncertainty,

I will leave him, alone in his world of childhood dreams,

And let him wake to whatever it is, his designed daylight brings

To My Uncle, the Dead Guy

Plastic-spined man,

look what you’ve done.

You taught me to fight but didn’t say why

I couldn’t tell my mother.

As I tried like a dog to get a knuckle on your jaw,

you seemed proud.

You stuffed lies in your mouth

like crumpled speeding tickets in the glove

next to gun and flask

with a few sips the flap dropped down

letting shit fly everywhere.

Did I really remind you of yourself?

It was overwhelming.

I still smell you on my lip

if it splits.

When I hit men in bars,

I hear your neck crack,

I recreate your scars.

Red-eyed rodent,

stubborn like a raccoon at the back porch;

The sudden jumps in your stare,

bronze and wet with warm beer,

could push the brick off the garbage can lid.

What was I holding onto

when you squeezed my hands into fists?

What was I not letting go?

You left something inside me,

a diseased seed sprouted behind my ribcage.

What will grow now

as we plant you, shivering and dumbfaced

in the ground?

I.

Wake up in the morning feelin like P-Diddy

And, lo!

Upon the freshly shaven crest

Before the dawn of time, sublime

Contained in corpulent succulence behest

Shakira's voice sings sweetly as the

Marx brothers perform the Daily News through

analog static

II.

Rotten mashed potatoes are still rotten

And they rest on the seventh day as in Matrix marathons

and on, and on, and on while--

Credence

O, the radical contingency of the moment

that ought to have been long ago

Your face and scarf on the wind beach

And

Poof-- like fresh milk one day gone horribly

sour the next morning

III.

O, Aiko, like a summer plum

Juice of sweet divinity,

Unto you I pour my daily hum

as dandy from a vine.

Your skin so soft as fleeting dew

your belly a moon-pie of pillowy glee

Day One

"By the time you read this, I'll be gone..."
sounds so classy.
I want to write that
to somebody.
Maybe it will start that way.
Just send the note
and watch from my room.
Like I always do.

First Poem

spending the day like children

roll and poke naked

we set the tone for the year

Kid again martbay is a kid again

allen 001

grinding suckerpunch of a meatloaf sandwich
i gotta box of little things
don't need a sandwich

A Day To Clean

Something animal in my room
I have been sniffing intensively
nosing around the quilts

The quilts look like this: thin, with dark triangles and blue rectangles and grandmother colored squares


they are rumpled by snout force, peppered with shed sock-skins
the scent of something trying to smell better what is it what is it?
masked itself musked itself I can hear my cat retching
returning newly parched and then slaked with
dust dimpled water from discontinued glassware...

Shall I, then, continue? Wrinkling all in my wake
safe in snot-caulk enclosure why find the source
and do nothing? I won't do something.
Hey-ho new year, what creature's died here?

newyearnewyear

I sat at a wine bar last night
and unfolded across the prosecco
seeking lips.

then we walk into crowds
bodies pressed close
and fire twirling nearby
and standing on snow drifts to see

we are now sipping champagne
in another bar.
now smelling bright cologne and
running fingers across skin
and it is late
and I am dancing
and it is new, cold and fresh.

ring it in.

Whatsgoodwithyoutonightma?
Do you want to do something?
wat you doing?
I'm in the house. I don't feel like going out.
PREGAME AT OUR HOUSE!
That sounds like the perfect thing to do.
LET'S DANCE!!!
are you coming here?
Let me know!
Dunno...still negotiating...just a couple of us here and we're shaving David
ThirDaugo. PleaseSate
I have a bottle of champagne. Find us!
Oh. well i'm bored. gonna pee and leave.
where you at?
decided to go home after watching a guy mop up someone else's puke

untitled

Fifteen feet high and twenty long
it seems just big enough to fill the room
with space around the edges
to collect pennies
crumbs
dust
and pubes

be gentle, she's tender...

there's a tightness in my chest.
it makes my heart pound.
makes my mortality so much closer.
but, i'm getting used to it now.

that's a lie.
sort of.

"the emotion is valid,
let it pass."
i watch it fly by,
it whooshes out the window...

along with gravity
and oxygen.

maybe there's no getting used to this-
my unending unraveling.
there is growth, though.
and strength and self love...

and beauty
in every little thing.

tightness. like holding a baby close to my chest.
like hugging someone who loves me.
makes my mortality sweeter.
makes my tenderness easier to bear.

sweatpants

when it gets cold
i will only have
your sweatpants

Napalm in the morning, J. Buddy Else

I smell the love of napalm in the morning

some people are not screwed up

they are warriors in peacetime

How to speak the hard truth?

without screaming it out

at the darkness all around?

Relationship- come on in

We'll put the screws to it

it's ok to be boring in twenty-ten / what was that thing about cyborgs?

I haven't been doing much lately and twenty-five is a weird age around the holidays

so, I keep telling people how my grandma can video chat now and at the family reunion we all took turns talking to her on the computer

she couldn't come because she doesn't fly anymore

I say things about how she is really in great shape for ninety-three and there were four generations in the same room, if you count pregnancy and digital images

it's like one of those little culture stories on NPR or morning television, pointing out in a boring way the intersection of technology and whatever

"and my cousin held her belly up to the screen"