Quiches of Kush (for Maggie Grimason)

When I was small my mama took me up  the river bank where the old drunks hooted salty words at peanut farmers coming from the countryside. She gave me a fishing line and told me to wrap it round my shoulder up to my wrist, placed an old rust stained treble hook in my hand and said "tie that hook on boy and if you tug it just right, and you right with god, there's a quiche in there ".

Mama used to tell us about the quiche, about the oil dipped crust golden as an autumn cottonwood, about the egg whites so fluffy you just as much wanna lay on it as eat it. But it was always the spinach that got me “so green it’s black” she said.

Mama said spinach gives you strong teeth and long hair but it gives you back that myrtle too. She said we used to be green. That we was so rich with the life of the forest, the plains, the mountains, the sea that we was green like midnight; but they was color blind and to them the deep forest hue of our skin was black, so that’s what they called us. And she told us how they took all the black folks and squeezed us out to make money, and that's why money looks like ferns and evergreens.

When I was tall I’d battled some rainbow trout, wrestled some blue tailed lobster, and even tangoed with a portuguese man o’ war (and not the jellyfish). Now I’m small but that quiche never bubbled up outta that brine and never blessed me with that warm stringy cheese. And on those thick nights when I lie between the splinters, on these old docks, I can smell ‘em bakin’ in those deep coal ovens. And if god is good, when i lay down, there’s a quiche in it.

Future Earths ( for Lauren Kostelnick)

Oceans empty, in a billion years as the sun swells and boils every drop into the clouds the seas will drain in

My inner ear sways till I’m upside down, tumbling to the ceiling; late at night, when our thoughts congeal and trap us, twisted.

Summits wilt, sheared by air like warm breath flows over ice each grain will dance in splendid chaos, building islands from aborted earth

A million threads kink to their root and swirl from my scalp. They feed from memory, stack themselves in towers, and push out ,spinning.

Life stops, long from here but still too soon, the dying gasp of bloated stars expels our skin and rains in hell from everywhere above

They have edges, these people, they have nails and barbs and splinters and little jagged parts that hide in the face of smooth surface.  I’ve been cut so much, so bruised, beaten, humiliated.

Slow crush, glaciers roll out troughs and creatures swim through desert rocks, recede and leave a tangled swamp.

There is a time when these jagged edges dull. and we’ve all died to see it.

Born into teeth (for Lee Ann )

Keep edge on those incisors with the flap of your tongue,

the fresh meals coming.

You're a carnivore, loose from your pack;

red stained matte,

calves hydraulic, jute high

on the hunt.

Regrets an herbivore, grazing the lichen (dried up) on our backs.

Twisted drift wood horns wrap jaws and you’re low

but she's privy and monsters blink.

I don’t need to tell you, but I do,

“drag limbs, hide your smoke, let it convulse” cause,

I’m a carnivore, sucking you thin

lips pricked on talons, claws recede.

My sick need to injure as much as be hurt.

Instinct.

Dig paws through my jugular,

press reverse.

Am I a cannibal, shucking my skin

Letting you masticate the edges of my cardioid.

We’re a carnivore, joined at the hip;

Rushing with envy muscles creep through our joints and tighten our lungs.

We see omnivores carrying kin.

But were heavy with flesh from the dying

and too late dive in.

Conflagration (for Cee-Mo)

Hell’s Angels soared down my block. As the train poured out and the bars filled up they pirouetted the asphalt and made figure eights from the run-off.  I was gone the day our holy oak trusses soaked up cooking oil like tampons and flashed into charcoal in a velvet tornado, but I bet those angels danced.

I bet they cut the rug until it burned instead of boiled and their wings repelled the pulse of blackened air. I bet they twirled.

I came home to the skeleton and mourned a hundred little gardens made from windows seen through ancient bones that outlived quakes and riots. And as I dropped my exiled life their chorus bulldozed through my chest.  In mufflers and backfires; I heard the Angels sing.

I bet they made an altar at the Dogpatch out of glasses. And their motors joined the engines in a turbine screech of savior and redemption and I bet the Angels sang.

I saw them sway and stumble from my untouched bayview window meeting eyes and nodding slowly at what the T-line would bring. The gentry marched in store fronts,  blocks, then streets and I was gone before the Angels. But I stumbled down that block for old times sake and saw their treads; and I bet those angels danced.

the likeness of being (for Stephanie Wilson)

There's is a marsh ,25 miles from where I was born. It hugs the inlet coast and anchors out into the bay with boardwalks like veins and sand bars like capillaries. When I was small we took car trips with Big Daddy to the look out point, it felt so alien landing in that dirt lot in his high-yellow Buick (15 years later I pushed it through the desert).

I climbed the wooden rail, thick as my chest, and saw dinosaurs tall as the crows nest bury their heads for leaves and krill. Chris asked the ranger what we could see. She said there were birds, fat and thin and small and long from all over the world and they came to nest. 

I moved to a warehouse in the city. We sat on the docks and watched hood temples, drip, of the broken sea wall. We'd  drive through the marsh to raves under the lookout and watch it rain sweat form the sign that said no fishing if you plan to consume. The birds can't read, so they contined to eat,  but I saw no dinasoaurs. 

Infinitesimal (for Lauren Kostelnick)

Frantic for longevity we crossed the last bridge, found our origin and ran back screaming. Nothing was real, but it had never been, so we buried the truth to let it rot.

Sprinting till we soared we frayed the threads between the suns and let our cradles fester.  We knew that madness was a fiction, but felt the psychic pressure of a million trillion flailing creatures, through the voids, burning.

Desperate for serenity we built a galaxy of barricades, combed reality for paradox and fell weeping. Nothing was here, though it had always been, so we coffined our minds and let them die.

Spawning from the cesspool we awoke and woke up gleaming, and searched the mangled ruins for history. Our destiny was closure but we opted for the figment, the corroded reset switch, and set the clock to zero.

Frantic for longevity we crossed the first gate, found our origins and saw nothing.

Forever-War (for Billy Bellmont)

My aspirations were displaced in an ocean of disease and

Every wave was an endless struggle beating back at me

If I’m sand logged, washed up, dried out, and clinging to a reef

Please know you missed the battles and the fleeting victories

My dark and glaring blunder was that I ever fought the sea

Cause every femto of my life it's calling back for me.

As the jagged mudstone digs into my soles

I taste the salt of San Francisco from so very long ago

And horizon slices lengthwise on the void where stars are few

I’m compelled to walk until the tides are doppler screeching through

My dark and glaring blunder was that I ever fought the sea

Cause every drop of vapor is still calling back to me

Discontinuity (for Melisa Garcia)

No one can take this from us

no one

Nunca

Tu mama y my moms luchaban todas sus vidas so I suppose.

I suppose that means we should be grateful but … I'm committed to my truth.

Truth that good people teach lessons with piggyback rides to libraries and

tender lectures on heritage and hope, and with the

backs of their hands and "your a worthless piece of shit".

But feel lucky,

That backhand could have been a fist and those words a green switch and

We could have been raised in our native lands, where

you can count a child’s age by the radius of her callouses and

where a pedicab is a steady job and the queens english is a wormed out peach

I suppose that means I should be thankful. But I’m committed to our truth

That hood schools had classrooms with no teachers and teachers with no books and

15 buys Newports, 16 buys you blunts , 17 buys 18-Dummy,  and 18

trades that diploma for makin’ sure pops don’t choke in his sleep.

But I’m privileged,

I could have been hatched in ignorance that finds hope in shadows and see’s

dreams on distant shores and

those slaps and kicks and pangs and teeth … gnashing … taught that

their love hurts more than their god loves, and

I search for love that don’t bruise even though, everyday, I come back with welts.

Tu mama y my moms luchaban todas sus vidas so we never will,

but we do

and no one can take that from us

Nadie

never

Share this Concrete Perch (for Tiffany Brazil)

Through a void of quantum flux

they came, the waves,

feeding grit in thin cold breaths.

We would be washed in luster without the great exhale and yet they cross the void

and cross the leaves

and cast a hound’s-tooth shadow.

Lie just on your lacerations

let my saliva soak in.

Lay on shards of trees and slice the joints,

five points waiting .

Down your aspirations and lie wasted, with me, sloppy, on me

Close your scabs with fire, water cleansing but.

We can’t hold these river banks, they constrain us, teach us how to climb

this pumice ledge and mark the early dive bomb, car bomb, liquor dropped and bitter.

All that wonder? All that failed hope and jaw dropped anticipation, let the monsoon take it.

All that heat, from burning hardwood? Keep it, cool it; just leave my trestle desk on all fours bent and ready to receive.

Let my midday rot like wrenched out wisdom and have the thunder spray it down

And when it’s down, spruce my evening books,

stacked on face ,

on edge,

magenta

to cyan

to peach, floors scorched clean.

But OK is just a state of “wish for something better and regret the next day” and why hold your aggravation. Because it keeps you warm in winter dawns.

But god, these mountains rise, and pillows sit on every crest, but never come to bring fresh air and wet when midday flesh clings to your breast.  

You know these points traversed the great expanse to reach us. And these fractal shadows represent a choice, forced by circumstance.

But those 8 minutes … were a life time … of gorgeous hesitation.

Dating in 12 Easy Steps (for Jasper)

1.     ) Randomly text the object of your affection in the Walmart parking lot where you work as a independent windshield hygienist. Be sure that your text messages uses as assertive a tone as possible without actually sounding in anyway assertive.

2.     ) Weep tears of joy when she text you back. Hug the cashier at the liquor store where you had planned to drown your sorrows.

3.     ) Proceed to buy that tub of low-end vodka anyways because, holy shit she texted you back!

4.     ) Call a friend, then another friend, then 10 more friends and ignore all of the advice they gave you. This kind of thing needs to be hashed out by your deeply embedded neuroses and crippling self doubt.

5.     ) Open up the phone book and hire the most pedantic actuary you can find. Have him or her draw up a 100 point date itinerary complete with a master schedule and pre-written “spontaneous” quips.

6.  ) This date will be fancy (is there any other kind?) so ask your least antisocial Kmart clerk to explain the difference between cherry apples and apple cherries because only one goes well with Cabernet Sauvignon and you’re totally fucked if you don’t guess which.

7.  ) Dig around your closet for your nicest outfit. Since you are most likely a fury it may be challenging to find a dry cleaners that can spot wash a human sized felt pink squirrel suit on such short notice. Instead rub dirt and leaves on any obvious stains;  she’ll appreciate the rugged and sexy look.

8.     ) Remove the backlog of Korean-Animated-Fetish quarterlies from your glove box and install several conifer shaped air fresheners (pick colors that match her eyes!)

9.     ) Things are looking up! This is the perfect time to send correspondence to your arranged bride with a cashier’s check returning the hefty dowry you’ve received from her parents. Include an extra large Ted Nugent belly shirt so she always has a little bit of America to remember you by.  

10.     ) Almost date time. Stay out late the night before and get as phone numbers as you can. Burning the digits of lesser women in your ceremonial kiln will be a classy way to end a romantic night.

11.     ) Date time! But you have no idea where to meet her. You probably should have texted your date in the last 10 days to re-confirm but hope is not lost. Compensate by sending a weeks worth of text messages in 5 minutes. Works every time. OK, so maybe it didn't work this time so instead...

12. ) Go to the pub and have a friend date! They’ll appreciate the free booze and who knows, maybe some attractive women will notice your sophistication and you’ll be in relationship bliss in no time!(you won’t).

Froakland (for Blaine)

Some days I feel like shit art pours out, doubt clouds the switch and every rails is a false start.  Your doing better, I hope, but I think I know you are. So maybe that's why I don't ask who you’re with or whose holdin' down like when we were kids. But were we ever not?

50 years to controlled fusion and 10 till I restart. Thought you'd be in so Cal and I'd be on my way to Mars. But if that's the flip the negative ain't so bad when you consider all the aspirations for which we never ground like java.

Numbers say I got family in one piece even if forever tattered and by the textbook your home is broken but y'all still together and never scattered. So what's the truth then? Truth is growin' up happens in fits and starts and we head butt ourselves till our confidence departs. But ya heads to nappy to feel the impact and mines to soft for these collisions with dirty cars, no registration, no license to skate through rainbow streets from the ocean sunsets bounce of transmission leaks but we keep it movin’ keep the seat warm.

Keep the dollar chinese cookin’ drive by rain storms and no lordes without a bus pass and grand got no stars. But they ain’t got the 57 do they? They got kids from my bosque up in the hearth and you a constant and for this I thank your god that. You never left for too long. Even then you still check my pulse when I’m on life support.  

So. Even though we got the same silhouettes, same creases, same diseases and same regrets the similarities are out matched by how we ain’t changed yet. Maybe some day we’ll have the same porch, a guitar and keys goin’ stupid on the same chords while redwoods blaze and bubble to that same noise. But till that hazy cali sky is our same roof, I’ll keep on writin’ and you’ll keep paintin’, speakin’ that same truth.

The Rain Came Down (for Brian Slaughter)

We met before a rain storm, swapped lion roars, brain stormed synonymous and made promises for poetry. I felt our laughter stretching out from planes to mounts and sent a bolt to split the clouds. “Why does joy escape” I sighed but knew good times though fleeting always cycle, heavy wash, a cleansing whirl.

And when the rain came down I was a prisoner, sickly and fathomed, blinking slow through mumbles when thunder cooled the air, smoothed out our faces, and the sky poured out.

A trillion coronas frothed from the drunken tarmac and on each crown a jewel of water housed a point of dust. And drought washed out.

I shivered with each inhale, muscles fired with panicked tension, let the denim hold me close and soak a million bits of melted snow. And is it strange that when the skies close we feel freedom, like each drop was a spark over an empty field on a blistering night.

We swam down streets on steel frames as friction smoothed our tungsten pads and dots of light splintered into static waves . Our passion dragged us into alleys and over bridges, hungry for libation, drowning in ambition.  

Cielo, backlit, heard your name and  plasma rippled through airborne veins as long as this city, as this state.

We met before a deluge but now I think of rivers moving down your green-stained window and let the rain come in.  

Deconstruction (for Dee)

She walked up to a house trailing sparks from a hammer. Swung into the deck pillars, little bits of plaster, dust, splinters, came flying at her face.  “My fucking eye” she said.  The roof sags in and more dust cracks off the curved straight beam. She walked up to the kitchen window heavy head in palm and jabbed the handle through 4 panes. The fractured glass sprayed in, bubbles of liquid-sand bending pockets of light. “So fucking beautiful” she said. The door was open, swung out by the odd pitched roof, and those hinges looked old; she whipped the hammer through the way and ripped out hunks. The floral pattern wallpaper spinning, mid air, blasted through a carousel of fine crystal. Porcelain black baby angels flutter, naturally, in all directions. She climbed the crooked staircase being careful of jagged edges, surprised to find the bath. Steel through mirror, zanex, advil, wellbutrin, cortisone, estrogen, respidone, testosterone pulverized to sugar her hands turn white; puts out a tongue, “This is fucking bitter” she said. She ran through the house lead umbrella leading. Bust every fixture sparks fly, dirty water flies, railings mangled. She races one, swing past the deck pillars, little bits of plaster, dust, splinters laying at her feet.  

Socrates (for Greg Z.)

Can you be a doctor without a doctorate?  And can a doctor doctor a doctorate? I wrestle with these enigmas every night before I wrestle with myself in a soothing bout of autoerotic asphyxiation.

If a man wipes with his left hand and drives a clutch, does that make him a shitty driver?  These are the questions that hold me tight, tighter than all the nipple clamps in my shared utility drawer.

Does my shower want me to pee in it and if the answer is no why does it have a drain at all? Eratosthenes, Plato, Socrates, Descartes, one is a philosopher the others are names for my face towels.

Is there a god? Does he not want me to say his name in vain? Does he like it when I say his name during sex, like grimy art school bathroom sex probably between two guys that look like Ryan Gosling, maybe young Ryan Gosling from Blue Valentine and Ryan Gosling from Drive moments after he kills that guy with a hammer because damn that would be pretty hot. Thanks god.

When a women woo’s a man does that make him a wooed-man? What if his name is Hector Enchiridion, is he then a he-man and a dark lord of the nether realm? Clearly it’s not coincidence that all of these rhyme with seaman as most men long for the sea.