All posts in poetry

on the count of three
me and you will buy the biggest balloon in town
and get a room

we’ll inflate the balloon, mix our breaths
tie it, and let it float to the ceiling

then we’ll get naked

we’ll fuck, and love
and sleep, and wake, and cook
and eat, and play, and bath
and laugh, and just stare
and enjoy each other

then we’ll fuck again

we’ll pay the most minimal of attention
to the deflation of the balloon
in the room, filled with us and it with our breath

but when it reaches the floor
we’ll put our clothes back on
shake hands, and go our separate ways

and when your friends ask, just like mine will
what’d you guys do?! we’ll tell them
we bought the biggest balloon in town
we mixed our breaths, and watched it fall down

they’ll think we’re weird as fuck!
but we’ll smile, cause we did
(shit, i’m smiling right now)



so, you ready?
one
two

teresa said the poor and suffering are closest to God
so she held them down, and let them stay there
then she lost faith in God

king said i have a dream!
and he did, in beds with hookers
with the wedding ring on

gandhi said an ounce of practice beats a ton of preaching
so he beat up his wife, and chose sex
even when his father was dying

winfrey said integrity is doing the right thing
even when you know nobody’s going to know
then she snorted some coke

sinatra said the mafia?! i’m not friends with them
then sent them gifts
signed – your pal, frank

charles said i can’t stop loving you!
to nine different baby mamas,
he messed around on

hepburn said true beauty is reflected in the soul
then stopped eating and cut her wrists, in her
one of many, bouts of depression

woods said honesty matters more than golf
then he told his mistress
pick up the phone, take my name off

clinton said i did not have sexual relations with that woman



that was how you said mother, martin, mahatma,
oprah, frank, ray, audrey, tiger,
bill

this is how we walk to church when the news says priests touch boys
this is how we sit when they preach, this is how we kneel
this is how the end justifies the means

when lovers die

     should we hold plays?
     with commotion in the wings?
          ex-lovers complaining
               they didn’t get enough time
               to walk the stage
          ex-lovers complaining
               at least they got
               to walk the stage
          ex-lovers proclaiming
               don’t anyone dare complain
               about walking the stage
               that fucker made me a cripple

     or should we hold wakes?
          and stop ruffling the drapes
          because though the silence is immense
          complaining can’t bring what’s dead back

i’m an onion beneath an iceberg
globally melting (bizarre
i too wonder what i’m doing here)

i’m tearfully waiting, hoping
you swim down and open these layers

i’m dreaming about the softness of your hands
of you touching me

here’s to hoping you can breathe underwater

naively i asked, can you trust a master
of words? (of speech sound)

yale men, harvard women, and those not
elite, all trusters of ears
say yes (but what did i expect?)

my mind though, runs to yes
and walks to no, and i, confused by this, yell
yes! at first (to appease myself)
but eventually i say babble should not be
examined by the babbler, i am young, ask the elders



naively i ask, can i trust the elders, who are they?
of whom are they?

this took four winters

do you melt, taste your poem
as little as i?

this morning i found myself
talking to my pillow, seriously!

i told it, stop it! be still
let me hold you for a bit

like Bukowski or something

when there’s no beer in the fridge
sometimes i think

the poets are just
so afraid

too afraid
to write the book
to bleed for that long

most times i think
they tell themselves
they don’t have enough time





i’m rushing, speeding
hopping, home
past red lights aplenty

i don’t have enough time
i don’t have enough time

my fingers are wet
the water has broke

in this one moment
in this delivery
i’m not afraid

of these red lights
of these safeguards

i’m not afraid
of these demands
to touch my face
to walk these lines

in this one moment
i am limitless
infinite
i am not afraid





i wake up and find
another still-born birth





someone at the bar
told me that
on her fifth marriage
she’d finally learnt
how to be a good mother

i asked her how
(she didn’t know it
i’m desperate)

she pulled me in
close
told me you just have to stop

stop being so drunk

she told me that
it thins blood
but after

after taking the piss
long enough
you find it
suffocates the home
the children

she told me to trust her
after all
she was on her sixth marriage

i asked her how
how she’d stopped
remembering failed marriages

how’d she’d learnt
to caress babies
with dry
shaking hands

how’d she’d stopped
being so afraid

too afraid
of lines and stop signs

she told me she hasn’t
you don’t

you just stop being so drunk
and give yourself enough time

vowels are speech sounds
created by

1. free passage of breath
2. no build-up of pressure
3. no constrictions

so i figured
if i say

1. i hate you
2. i hate you
3. i hate you

if i voluntarily serve
three consecutive life sentences
it’ll be like gambling
like risking it all
on finally finding freedom
in prison