we missed each other like bricks,
talking into navels.

each sighting uneven.
always just leaving.

somehow we made home,
kissed bellies,
and met.

This bed
creaks
and swings
when I
shuffle
and shift,
but I like
the way
it makes
the most
out of
moonlight.

Being right
is not the sole
of not being
wrong.

Step softer, my friend.
There are people underfoot.

I spent a penny
on another,
and now it's
raining dimes.

Like a miner,
or a lama,
I spiral
deeper,
getting
quiet,
lighting
candles,
to read the backs of books.

you called me an angry thing,
said i blamed the leaves for falling
and noticed you less.

i loudly disagreed.

but as i watch you call for cabs,
scratch your ear,
and pack your books,

i miss the angry thing
i used to be.

Between the borders
lie bubbling mires,
thick but porous,
pockmarked and soft.

A chorus of croaking warts,
"Slither through my friend;
take back whatever
is yours,
but please
please
please
add us to your maps."

I take
propranolol
and it makes
my jaw tight,
like mushrooms,
but I flick
my fingers
somewhat
less,
and I'm less
distracted
by beautiful
things.

I flip you
like pages,
you make me
ticker tape
dizzy.

There are bugs
who bounce
and flit
between
the same empty
things,
who would ever,
who would ever?

While I while hours
and wonder where to be,
by the time the *** is empty,
I like the view from here.

When I saw her again,
I learned she named
all her pets
after exotic spices,
like cardamon
and sweet flag,
flavor she found,
life she had earned.

Lizards, snails, birds, and *****,
tobacco plants,
thornapples, obscure types of
buttercup.
Pinecones, arrowroot,
the more striking moments
of fossil remains,
foreign fish and normal bugs,
a terracotta monkey.

We took the things that matter,
gilded them in squares,
glassed them astride.
We enshrined your lazy gardens
in a temple on the cheap,
reminded you to
visit,
to look up
at the world around
above.

How do you end the future?

Palimpsests
of first footsteppers.
Old starships
and kidnapped daughters.

For forty years we've watched
the screens of lower stars,
their clean floors
and hateless dilemmas,
taking tours of the best of us.

Our problems,
their past,
left lightyears behind.

And the next generation
is always always next,
like planets first federated,
like first contact at last,
a speech undelivered.

An ending that satisfies
may just well be
where no man has gone before.

when i kiss
your clarinet
fingertips,
i honor
the arcane arts
that unlock
ancient melodies,
lifting
catacomb curses
and stirring
restless devils
within me.

These kids can't cope,
don't eat on time.

They stomp craters in sidewalks
on their way to the
culling.

They choke me in comet tails,
blear beauty through brains,
cursing at cops,
stooping to saviors.

They streak their spit like evidence.

These kids get angry,
get plosive,
like it was kissing or grinning.

These kids get angry,
and I've yet to say thanks.

Empty boxes bellow
with very violins.

The ones I love whisper,
mostly out of tune.

I pelt you with puns
while studying slate.
Insult all your friends
til you bellow and trill.

Clumsy and desperate,
I break taboos,
like a ***** boy
testing new squeezes.

It's just that
when I make you laugh,
I can risk to see.

Like a solar eclipse
I can meet your eyes,
in those brief brutal breaths
where I made Light snort.

My eyelids are a coiled bolero,
a bear trap,
a battery.

My tongue is bitten with
careful measure.
The skin of my teeth,
a dormant antique.

My breaths tilt forward
to the next dry season
and downbeat ignition.

I keep faith with the calendar.
I worship the prophet,
the savior spark.

each knife gray morning
and slate gray night,
i held vigil on a treetop
bare and swaying.

kept time with its nausea
til it was my nausea too.

i watched the sea horizon
for glints of gun scopes
and unfriendly flags.

hungry others,
who wanted me and mine,
for their cabinets.

they did come,
i think.

i heard them play kings around me,
curing as much as they caused,
humming some friendly ******* patois.

it didn't matter much by then.

i watched the sea horizon,
my newer me and mine.

the hours play pianos
through the scaling
spiraled
march of truth,
out my window
afternoons,
fleet of foot
and sharp of tooth.

stranding through the moments
come glimpses
of tomorrow's
news,
inked in future
blacks and blues,
just off beat
and out of tune.

surely there's a braving
somewhere
waiting for a
nickel rube,
selling something
old men use,
softer eyes
or faded suits,

where sighs are money,
and sleep is grace,
i can settle in
the spot they've saved.

I took a week off
to draw maps
on your legs,
so that whenever
I felt like leaving,
I'd remember
why to stay.

There's red,
there's white,
there's blue.

There's other colors too.

I wrote poems
for half an hour,
so I guess
I still do that.

Should we see
at the speed of grass,
find it stretching
good morning
at the growing heat,
we would notice it pulsing
and step more softly.

I found
socks
and poems,
a cat,
found
get-well cards,
under my bed.

My fingers through your hair
leaves your hair
through my fingers.

We chase each other
in circles,
cause we like
where we're at.

Coffee is for
mild apologies
and introductions,
sometimes to
yourself.

Feel free
my friend
to let your eyes sparkle
upon the one
you love.

But keep in mind
there is such a thing
as too many orchids.

Wood-fired summers,
spiral iron curtains,
cloudy watercolors,
a stride away from certain,
brazen vinyl blearing,
lazing under searing,
sighing over greening,
reading over fleeing,
gritty teeth and halfway crying,
brand new air and album trying,
one foot keeping
in your hiding,
noses stretching into braving,
loudest laughing,
neighbor waving,
counts-as-living,
public sinning,
barefoot breathing,
hornet seething,
coffee filling,
spirit swilling,
someone
smelling
later
grilling.
.
the safest sort of being,
only just outside a door.

I made the books on my shelves
straighten their posture,
I dusted lamps and practiced jokes.

I bought new things
for you to sit on
and next to.
I wondered which fruits were your favorite.

I suddenly
grew clean
and brave,
because I knew that you were coming.

novels are rocks
to be kicked and chipped,
impress that they remain.

poems accumulate
like ash,
are made to breeze away.

It's so nice
to be so high
without doing
a thing.

The heights
and plummets,
the Saturday
rocketeering,
all look like
gentle slopes
from space.

Birthday cake tutus,
bobbed barbarians,
these children
screech
when they aren't
dead-eyed
or
cackling.

There's a river city
close enough
to pin my sloppy
dreams on.

I was blessed
when you found
several seconds
to twirl for
me.

I blessed you more
with many magic
manic
hours.

We were both so
stupid
and so blessed.

You always think
some physical
thing
will change
the
*******
air.

You fanged at me so proud,
but I only eat poison,
I only kiss snakes.

Dying artists nurse
on youth, beauty,
and foreign cities.

They think that
making marble
is their gift,
and not simply
the belch
of their overfed
souls.

I remember
our soggy ears,
barefoot braving
the asphalt,
jumping
from white line
to white line,
checking
with our
angels
how much
longer
we could be
brown,
loud,
and young.

you send me sheet music,
i juggle jargon back.
i parse you all wrong,
while you squint
and rub your temples
at all the dead languages
falling out of me.

Give a penny,
take a penny,
spend the rest on stickers.

Like a tax return,
once or twice a day,
I wondered
when you'd get here,

thought about ways
of making you
spent.

My country is coughing,
my neighbors number.

I search for pictures
of places
I used to live,
find landmarks
I remember
in lesser light,
scroll to the bottom
of local news,
where lonely hearts
notice me missing.

Remember when you coughed here?
Saved money to leave?

It's collected some dust,
but we saved you your spot.

The stone you strive against
with no success,
becomes the perfect
welcome wall
to rest your head.

You projected your voice
to the backs
of ninety theaters,
even whispered asides
to ballrooms and arcades.

It would take generations
to see your domes tower,
to call you to curtain,
our line of sight
at last
unobstructed:

You crafting your
cantilevers,
you setting the stage.

Each morning
brightens
visibly
at my approach,
busking birds
and snoring
garbage trucks.

The mailman
refuses
to let me carry
my boxes,
and the bills pay
themselves.

Hands on hips,
popped akimbo,
I just want to hold something
that's angry at me.

How can one be holy
in this world
and not also be
a fool?

I wish I were brave
enough to babble,
ashamed to not
be naked,
knew enough for now.

Knowing better
is not being
better,
and Brother Juniper
runs
to do good
in any wrong way.

You were stern
when we were young
and spared not a rod,
but when you moved,
for us,
you boomed like miracles.

Later, you calmed,
and willed us
your wealth,
tried to share
how to share,
and we stubborn
and stupid,
wielded your love
like bludgeons.

Now modern,
full-grown,
we trace only
our ugliest genes
back to you.

And you,
old and dying,
can climb no mounts,
have nothing new to say,
and we don't call you
anymore.