at the rare convergence of an idea & the desire to execute it

 

(work in progress shot)

 

haiku & shit

uncertainty &
its infinite unfolding
psychosomations

in this thermos cap

fulla burnt umber umbrage

& tears not for you

such superfluous effort at

identity & i can draw a man

shaped like a man can test

his oars eager upon my sea

but with no shores to pass

through a harbor’s hollowed

by how they’ll take & leave

with another ocean’s name

someone tell gen z

bring back lime skittles if they

trawlin’ the 90s

sea brine breaths shiver

down my throat taunt a

mountain-muted tongue 

too tucked in dry valleys

don’t leave ‘til friday 

but my mind has already

gone on vacation

why did i invite

my mom on this vacation

why did i invite

excavating clothes

from my closet depths like yeah

i need to pack this

paused packing for spot

o’ pre-trip anxiety

coping mech haiku

take a vacation

from your problems not take your

probs on vacation

either a v great

bonding experience or

murder suicide

find out next week re

will i post again or just

walk into the sea

october sunday 

magpie grips suet feeder

fat frantic flapping

tfw you don’t

die in your sleep so you have

to go back to work

so sorry but this

is gonna be a shitty

work posts account now

actualize my

arctic hermit dreams before

death in the cube farm

never been more in

on selling all of my shit

& disappearing

1:30 am

thursday morning finally

done with wednesday’s work

59 hour

work week 1 trade show booth start

to end in 5 days

i have been rendered

a desiccated husk of

a human being

that ol’ curl up

under your desk &

angry cry energy

6 am at work

& dressed like a lumberjack

so write this day off

what millennial 

ever escapes their inner

basic hipster bitch

i can assure you

this plaid flannel is fully

nonperformative

can you even live

up a mountain & not wear

flannel on the reg

to be fair tho this

beanie i have far fewer

good excuses for

 the album i have listened to the most this year

in more recent news (like in the last 72 hours) my weird shoulder has been acting & feeling new kinds of weird, so gonna try & go get it looked at this week. but hoo boy is it doing a number on my  p a r a n o i a

got this album on repeat now as something soft to fall back into & ostrich head the whole situation for the rest of the evening until i can get a hold of the orthopedist’s office during orthopedist office hours.

from passive
self sabotage
to passive-
aggressive
self sabotage

walking all these
edges looking
for a slip

i miss tight days with
sharper edges where
the screen door’s an
exclamation for each
gust which steals its
-self from your lungs

climb in this kia
lyft driver says eyyy & skips
the song to smack that

2 hours scrubbing
office refrigerator
i don’t even use

extremely over
workplace misogyny from
white male managers

motherfuckers it’s
not in my job description
why don’t you do it

is what i should’ve
said aloud instead of scream
it internally

7 brrrooooongs so far
from boss’s office speakers
extra extra loud

even better news
he changed his cell phone ringtone
to bagpipe music

i have been here for
all of 12 minutes & i’m
ready to go home

monthly report day
means staring at spreadsheets for
numbers that look “off”

tomorrow’s migraine
is already pressing in
at my brain’s edges

gotta take some time
& quietly acclimate
to reality

i’m just a beach bum
always lost up one kinda
mountain or ‘nother

nothing like a bit
of identity theft to
spice up an evening

late monday desk lunch
ripe cherries & a pit cup
skipping all these songs

i just need to say

i’m confident that

dante rossetti had

a choke fetish be-

cause just look at

how he painted all

his necks & hands

i’ll just be over here
hanging around from
that fistful of my own
entrails you clawed
out after i let you in

he keeps a
poem in his
knuckles

but if i pull
his hands &
plead a bit

he will put
its words on
my tongue

with those
salt pads of
his fingers

 For Love

BY ROBERT CREELEY

for Bobbie

Yesterday I wanted to

speak of it, that sense above   

the others to me

important because all

that I know derives

from what it teaches me.   

Today, what is it that   

is finally so helpless,

different, despairs of its own   

statement, wants to

turn away, endlessly

to turn away.

If the moon did not ...

no, if you did not

I wouldn’t either, but   

what would I not

do, what prevention, what   

thing so quickly stopped.   

That is love yesterday   

or tomorrow, not

now. Can I eat

what you give me. I

have not earned it. Must   

I think of everything

as earned. Now love also   

becomes a reward so

remote from me I have

only made it with my mind.

Here is tedium,

despair, a painful

sense of isolation and   

whimsical if pompous

self-regard. But that image   

is only of the mind’s

vague structure, vague to me   

because it is my own.

Love, what do I think

to say. I cannot say it.

What have you become to ask,   

what have I made you into,

companion, good company,   

crossed legs with skirt, or   

soft body under

the bones of the bed.

Nothing says anything   

but that which it wishes   

would come true, fears   

what else might happen in

some other place, some   

other time not this one.   

A voice in my place, an   

echo of that only in yours.

Let me stumble into

not the confession but   

the obsession I begin with   

now. For you

also (also)

some time beyond place, or   

place beyond time, no   

mind left to

say anything at all,

that face gone, now.

Into the company of love   

it all returns.

& just because
life didn’t make
me hard doesn’t
mean it didn’t
make me clever

or quick & slick
enough to catch
a blade’s glint on
the backswing or
the snakeoil as it

slithers thru your
teeth or track that
timbre of your tone
from those first few
words you fed me

burn all my notebooks

when i'm gone please do not let

my family read them

one of those

slow boil

decades long

pen pal

situations

please

what if you go i say
he says but what if i stay
& then runs away

what woman carved
the man out of your
hollow boy bones

& sent you packing
with just enough fear to
ramble ‘round rattled

‘til you could only run
from any silence might
mean you’d been filled

it's not about the
destination
it's about the
blind frantic stumbling

shook awake by your
old familiar night terror

dark matter memory
a neuron tripwire
triggered by hands

at this door in all
these tall thick walls

ghost you’ll recall
how i woke with you
cold in my arms that

first first time in my
arms cold & long gone

need him to
stop pulling my
push doors

but imagine if

we just started

throatpunches

in response to

sexist behavior

& why not shotgun
a sleeve of thin mints
in the thick of winter

writing
exorcizes

peaces put
in poems

these lines
i’ll leave

behind

how to care
about women
in ways which
are much worse
than not actually
caring at all

:

a theory of
unreliability

volume one

& other
working titles

a post-cancer irony

that each new issue

defaults to cancer

this reflex response

anxiety instinct et al

must walk back

each time like who

needs webmd when

they can just ask me

all day long poppin’
shoulder back into socket
with soft gravel crunch

i miss your long
laugh lunch meetup
$8 all-you-can-eat

pozole a few bucks
extra for those
best fish tacos

available anywhere
along this whole
damn fault line

he hangs
around
at night
another
trite moon
metaphor

midwinter heat death
this half-life where cortisol
is what kills us all