Slow is smooth
and smooth is fast.
Probiotics
aren't working
as advertised.
You can hear better.
I can see better.
Together
we'll figure it out.
What you don't
understand
between you
and your god
is the exception
that proves the rule:
When I rock you
to sleep
I'm rocking myself
but I'll love you
'til magnets
stop pulling.
I’m home alone, flipping through a Bannerman military goods catalogue from 1940, and the sound of that brought back a memory. When I was five and my mom still lived in my father’s house she’d lull me to sleep from the next room by reading a magazine. The sound of her presence made me feel safe enough to trust closing my eyes. Its absence, silence, had the opposite effect on me. “Mom, I don’t hear you turning the pages,” I’d whine from my tiny bedroom. She’d increase the speed of her fingers moving paper to comfort me from the couch, the lamp light casting shadows on my ceiling. What I wouldn’t give to be back there right now. We never know how good we’ve got it at the time.
The void when you leave's
a tsunami receding:
sea sucked back so fast.
Currently reading:
"Never Flinch" by Stephen King.
Hair stuck
to my sweaty four-year-old forehead
after running around that smoky room
full of men with half-full Bud cans
in a building since demolished
my father was somehow
the president
of the local fish & game club
though he'd only downed one deer
and had recently moved
to the hamlet.
I caught a baby snapping turtle
its shell like a walnut
in the same pond where
he broke a hole in the ice
and planted our family
Christmas tree one winter
trying to save what was doomed.
"I went fishing there one last time,"
he said in passing, 36 years later.
"They're busting the dam to build houses."
Our pains are present
but different
gold in a brass age
undiagnosed.
The guy drinking wine alone tonight
called the guy drinking rum alone tonight
out of concern for the latter
over the honeymoon you're on
and from the stoop of a building
where you lived for five years
we celebrated together
in what was
the most beautiful moment
since these rummy eyes
first saw you in a bar
not enough years ago.
We caught your bouquet
and used it to garnish
our cocktails.
Safe travels.
Break a leg.
I sneezed
while stepping out
of my truck yesterday.
Some woman
in a minivan
at the Stop sign
behind me
said "Bless you."
I thanked her
begrudingly.
She replied with
"You're welcome,"
and smiled wide
for those subscribed
to her Digital Creator profile.
It was a sunny afternoon
on the warmest day
of the year
so far
and I hated it
and her
for that.
Currently reading:
"History of Bannerman's Island Arsenal, No. 30-C" by Thom Johnson.
He pulls it out
of my mouth
the drill
for long enough
that I can see the score:
physics versus two humans
left in space
for 286 days.
Parachutes deployed
their pod's engulfed in flames
while my dentist
earns his pay
my eyes glued to the screen
that normally shows
the weather, who's died
and what should anger
those of us still living.
He offers me a mirror
that I decline
pointing to the device
he's had installed
for my distraction
in a ceiling corner
of his office.
We watch well after
my allotted time
divers in green helmets
boarding that capsule
that possible coffin
bobbing in the sea
as dolphins circle to greet it.
The astronauts' muscles
having atrophied
they can't open
the vessel's escape hatch
relying on their rescuers
to cue the media frenzy.
I pity their return.
What a lousy planet
they've entered again:
a trauma bond
misnomered
with sentimental value.
Currently reading:
"History of Bannerman's Island Arsenal, No. 30-B" by Thom Johnson.
We're all born
the same way
fresh and blank
with factory settings.
It's what we do over decades
and how we age that defines us:
which joints and topics ache;
which remedial vices
and coping mechanisms
help temporarily;
what are the side effects
of those?
I can't tell you when
rain's en route
but I'm mindful
of how I lift and bend at work
and I know when to kneel
on a piece of foam insulation
instead of concrete.
My hair's thinning,
my beard's getting lighter
and the left half of my chest
has started to go gray
over my heart
so when I'm done
reiterating phrases
from those who taught me
as an apprentice
I ask these young men
under my charge--
"Do you love her?"
I cite the warnings
of coffee break tales
robbed pensions
and child support
but remind them that time's
our most precious commodity.
"Don't wait past 28."
They probably hit their vapes
and forget what I've said
once those tall boys
take hold at night
but I sleep better
having known I've tried
staring down an ashtray
that's more full
than the latest bottle.
It's a lonely life
but someone's got
to laugh at it.
We all had that friend
with a BB in his face--
the answer man
with a lion's share
of walking pneumonia.
Shorthand in muscle memory
as smooth as silk
they rent him out for parties
every now and then.
Like unattended candles
we sing it with conviction.
There's no abacus present
at campfire tales.
Defrocked means
not photogenic.
The synopsis
is bleak at best
a refresher course
in the way you taste:
dead gardens
blood gutters
set back to factory settings
fed too well
to survive the apocalypse
barring acts of god
and men with axes.
Currently reading:
"Catalogue of Bannerman's Island Arsenal, No. 30-A" by Thom Johnson.
Defending creative control
technophobe:
"Your bruises, they suit you."
It sutures the same.
Emergency contact
what's your mark
on the world?
Inflatable lovers
our dreams have expired.
In dark rooms we laid
where the sun
couldn't reach us;
neither the truth
nor our avatar faces.
The cellars we've seen
of the savvy still haunt:
This chapter
"Survival"
will be a hard read.
A lover left me a bag
of spinach leaves
before her flight
to those who mean more
on holidays or any.
Poking through them
tonight, plucking out
what's started to rot;
salvaging what's able
to be saved and sautéed
I wonder if the gods
do this with men
and which one
I would be
in this playroom
of clumsy dreamers.
We bellyache vaguely
of the holiday blues.
I'll lay mine out
for you:
There was a brief time
in my life
when I was
almost the hero.
Estranged parents
a wayward replacement
and my brother
they didn't make
met under the same roof
to sit at a long table
with name cards
placed strategically
snowmen and elves
drawn on company time.
Twice a year
this healing was held
after decades of separation
brought together
by what we all thought
would last.
We were wrong
but we have those
memories, silent
and loud
like gunshots
unaware of whether
to be grateful or lost
in the wake
of what almost was.
I would have worn
a better shirt
had I known.
You begged me
to win your tits
in a cancer
awareness
charity auction
in which
a bust of your breasts
was entered
painted to draw
a fan of the valley.
You said how unsettled
you were the last time
when a stranger took home
that replica of your chest.
You claimed it meant nothing
when he finished inside
last week, that Plan B
would prevent
any glitch.
You dodged two words
for far too long
so now you can't live
rent-free in my head.
How'll I sleep
without your mane
in my face?
My brothers in Christ
we're on a roll tonight.
Cracking wise
at old holes
glamorized
could've given you
a kid
could've peaked
at black beans;
pet peeves
on a Tuesday.
Deep in our grief
of mourning for ourselves
like my grandmother's
sewing machine;
help me knock off
the rust tonight.
You spend
so much time
looking for what
might not exist
that you forget
your own response
for whenever
the excuses fly
from fellow hacks:
If your brother didn't
have balls
he'd be your sister.
There are few
who've ever called me
Billy, even as a kid.
It's Bill, it's Will, it's William
if I'm in trouble.
I'd always been
misinterpreted
unworthy
of that familiar -y
until almost four decades
into this mess.
Maybe now some see
what no one else did.
Maybe this mirror's
too dusty
but a pat on the arm
and a brotherly "Billy"
persuades me to spit
that bullet
back out.
Find it.
Open it.
Close it.
Bury it
again.
Pretend
you didn't see it.
There are reasons
it's in the past.
The scents of fresh fruit
and rotting leaves
are in the air, mixed with salt
from the brackish Hudson
on a Saturday morning.
It's the earliest I've been
at the river's edge
in too long.
Sensations feel joyfully familiar
and sting simultaneously
until the boat approaches
pulls up onto the beach
sand crunching audibly
beneath its bow.
The skipper I've missed grins
and a thin, yet capable hand
reaches out to pull me aboard
the lowly angled sun in my eyes
blinding me temporarily
as I accept what's meant to be.
A dozen men behind me
lift their tools and prepare
to embark upon what's ours again.
I fall in love
with all of it
as the boat engine rumbles
and we approach
whatever comes next
together.
There's a limit
to my love:
Slowly
Become What
You Most Feared
Extravaganza.
I've seen
shooting stars.
I've watched
women shoot dope
between their toes.
Simmer down, Othello.
We're nonplussed.
The highway pavement's
bathed in deer blood.
It's mating season.
Inherited plants.
That free advice
cost someone else
in the past.
The most beautiful blonde
I've ever spooned
needed a place to stay
a year ago
so I started to cook more
and bought her a dresser.
I still have the dresser.
She couldn't make food
and I didn't want to clean:
a partnership based
on the negative.
We listened to more music
than what I felt necessary
to fill our shared air
and watched movies light enough
to keep her out
of the psych ward again.
The sex was as monumental
as what you'd rather not imagine.
I faked it on New Year's Eve
since I was too drunk
after shameless karaoke
at her sister's house
and she had work in the morning
at the hospital.
Had I known it'd be
the last time I'd sleep next to her
I wouldn't have gone
through the motions.
She missed her boys
and they couldn't live
here; hell, I barely can.
Ten months later
while waltzing through a hallway
a long strand of wavy corn silk
attached to a light switch plate
brushed against my arm
and inspired a tribute
to what should not
have been:
The closest to normal
that we'll ever have.
She's since chopped her hair.
I left that one dangling.
I hope he goes light
on the peppers.
