In writing on 02.20.10 at 09:05:31 PM all of the coins
of silver and bronze
at the bottom of the
shallows with the
view overlooking
all of the movement
of streams and current
and time spent
finding humor in forgetting
and a thrill that can
only be shared in the
midst of who you are
and who i am
and a wish that there
was something you
would do or say
that could be polished
on every notion thrown
into that well
in the middle of
our walk.
all of the fonts
of black and serifs
passing along the pages
of beige like the white
of our broken teeth
after the fight along
the way to who we
are going to be and
the story of duality
written in what we
will share in consuming
our mystery and wondering
if wishes are too good
of words to say exactly
what we think as we signify
and share and contort
and distort ourselves
in the closest thing we will
have to our reality
in the middle of
our talk.
all of the confessions
of white and substance
calling the name home
to a mattress found at
the end of the road
where you are now
and the two tone minutes
that we lose ourselves in
and know that time is just
what it is, and needs
definition as much as
definition needs patience
and waiting as long
as is necessary for you
to realize that as your legs
are in my legs and your neck
is near my neck we
are in what masterpieces call
perfection and we will
boom and bray and call and chime
in the middle of
our clock.
In writing on 02.15.10 at 02:42:44 PM i’ve traveled like a chord being walked down the rosewood
polished by a luthier’s hand in a sleepy town
with the fog rolling in and the dawn breaking over
a sound found at the end of a drive that carries us
through the years since we last talked about the
divination of wine and the cleverness of astrology
laying on that patchwork midnight of grass and leaves
and a blanket that is too tired to shield us from
the dew after we wake from dozing off after our minds
finally stopped at a minute past three.
you haven’t traveled as much as you want you say,
but I tell you that it’s ok because where we are is
better than flying out over that arctic circle on our way
to a town where we trip and fall off the train and stand
under a sign painted by the hand of an old adorable man
who thinks of all his lost loves every time he paints
and polishes the sign scrawling
“You are here, now just where is that?”
as we turn on the light in a room that reflects the river
outside and suppresses a silence that isn’t out of
worry but is the language we don’t need to speak
to see exactly what it is we want to say as the old lamp
glows and casts the shadow of our laughter as we remember
how we gladly didn’t pack our history.
traveling is just a waste of time when the destination
gets caught up the brambles of a road where we kick up the dust
and whistle a tune that is like a foghorn for the forlorn navigating
there way up the concrete stairs by the gray and green and chipped
statue and the sun parts the fog like we are climbing and breathing and kissing
and holding a hand that fits inside the grooves of our palms and draws
them so close together that the molecules can’t penetrate the conversation
written in our sweat and can tell us the story of how we can love each other
if we would just forget the fiction of fixing ourselves and become the
poems that we think of in one mind.
In writing on 02.14.10 at 07:18:13 PM there is a lie i tell to myself:
permeating every second,
hours at a time on
random days like
the mirror coated in steam
in a room with the lights
that only turn on
in the chaotic slipstream
of knowing it wasn’t a story
in the backseat of
a cab in a city that
is as far away from you
as you are from me.
there is a truth i keep to myself:
infecting every story,
syllables at a time on
the sloped breath
next to a word i want to say
like a song you want to hear
on the other side of
what you can promise
and even these words
are victims of
hiding a secret that isn’t
just obvious but is
nowhere near what
could sleep.
there is a lie i keep to myself:
one of swearing off romanticism,
since boys like me shouldn’t
get lost in the bubbling
wellspring of wondering what
language we don’t know how
to speak in that far away port
where the rain envelopes us
in its warm laughter as it
cracks the cobblestones in an
alley next to the shop where
we go by those names we
found for ourselves after
sailing through the storm
of presence and lightning.
In writing on 02.08.10 at 03:40:45 PM sometimes i can convince myself
i don’t need more than this,
and feel as guilty as a stare over
the clouds slipping by the
spires.
sometimes i can convince myself
that success at things that
don’t matter make up
for the failure at things
that do.
sometimes i can convince myself
that repetition is the perfect
constant for long division
like chalkboards explaining
the time lapsed from
our invention.
sometimes i can convince myself
that inspiration isn’t necessary,
and reward needs adjustment,
sometimes i can forget what
potential feels like
and slip back inside that
old suit of skin.
In writing on 02.07.10 at 10:56:00 PM write me the letter
with the stars ordered
into the list of how
you could be in my arms
if only your timing was
right and mine was a
little more lithe.
write me the letter
with the capital letters
lessened to show the movement
across the white page lined
in your blue and auburn and
porcelain skin as you remind
yourself that you have carried
that broken heart too far
to let go of it now.
write me the letter
and tear yourself away from
your commitment like a ship
on the rocks of intervention
and don’t let yourself
forget every second you sat
and thought under the willow
next to the house that your parents
sold when you were five.
write me the letter
and forget every excuse
you tell yourself so that each
person and moment and second
and destination and choice
and notion and crush and love
and comfort and promise and
reach inside your mind is
the same even though
you know that there
are some substitutions
that will never justify
exactly why it is
us you think of
in the night.
In writing on 02.07.10 at 10:45:43 PM i miss driving up your back road
up to the top of that see forever
lane where the eagles dive
and circle and build nests in
trees wide with age and sturdy
with memory.
swooping along the old growth
of yellow and white and pavement
laid by the hands of millmen
in forgotten towns ago,
twisting and turning through the
forest hills as i accelerate and you
lay your hand against my leg
and stare off into the moss
as the engine shifts and drops
to climb up through the fog
split apart by the three-fifty-one
big block built in the antithesis
of the rain we watch drip off
the blades pushing the night
out of our way.
i miss driving along your back roads
and the transistor radio taped to the
dash playing the songs meant for us
only through accident and the timing
of the pistons meant for us only
through intention,
and the glass rolled down so we
can feel the ocean breeze high
above the rights pointing with black
and yellow and green and white reflecting
the directions that are
planned
for you
and
for me.
In writing on 02.05.10 at 01:11:06 PM my writing is wrong,
or bad,
this i know and accept
every time i step away
from the letters written
in second hand cursive
next to the colons, and commas
and misplaced participles
of verbs and nouns
of subjects lost in
the predication of rushing
the revisionism;
but the truth in the relativity of
language dictates that as each
character drawn by a practiced hand
is left in the surf of infinite
words:
the unexpected of imperfection
and waiting for the kiln
to react long and slow and
subdue the method in the beauty
of fire and spark and blue-green
hot sweat rising up over a clay
glazed and new and unused and
placed at that exact distance
from the start and finish
of flowing tip-tip-tip-tapping
and running through the steel
next to the succulence of a pond
that is all of these miles away from
your home,
and writes, types, draws, paints, etches
the scattering of shoulders that
turn, churn, learn, and verbs a word
that has yet to be created,
or corrected.
In writing on 02.01.10 at 03:37:10 PM ruby, quartz, diamond
steel, titanium and those things
on the right side of elements
in a table written and
adjusted and edited:
next to the click and the
stitch and the solar cell,
which
recharges the
escalation of every grin
and fuck up
that binds our wrists
like leaving one year behind
and three ahead.
it’s dodging the fabric of
displaced timing
like a roar coming over
the hills
caught up in
straw and spruce and
the cerulean sentience
of instant aether,
like we are fifteen
hiding the white
under our lips that
cajole and shake
and move a moment
spinning off the scented
silence of that mirror
reflecting the lights
of a million slips.
laughter is
timing the location,
which is
a stage we paint tomorrow
amidst the clomp of feet
and the chorus of flattery
that likes to lay the arch of
passing and missing and
finding and knowing and
understanding that the
second slipping by
on the gear of ruby
and quartz and diamond
of a paused watch
is
found in the glances
showing time is everything
but a stop.
In writing on 01.26.10 at 11:01:25 PM you have a story you are dieing to tell
again as you climb to the top of those vines
where we hid the key that night after the rain
storm that felt like summer in winter
and told ourselves this is how it is
and how it would be as we wait
in the morning remembering how cold
the other pillow was in the middle of
the night and trading the glory
of flannel drenched with the heat
cast off the radiator where the cat
sleeps after staring out the window
out over the horizon we can’t take
our eyes off of even though we know
staring is hard most of the time
and so turn away as quick as we
encountered and told our allegory
of how when we drink we need to
here the words of those that can’t
drive us home and remind us that
in a cocoon of cascading calendars
we are not supposed to meet those
that cause question to become quandary
like, we know!, we say, we play
in between the paragraphs of growth
that flow faster than sentences left
in a stream sliding past the house
we worry isn’t built by our hands
but by the hands of every necessity
that is higher than the lowest deed
but is still perfect in the moment
and is exactly the story we hope
is written after we climb the vines
to the place where we hide the key
after a night of trying to hide
our belief.
In writing on 01.26.10 at 09:59:22 PM rising away from a place
where leaves stand still
like singing without words
and humming with a tune
of the space turning
out over the in of the
leg tossing the wayward
thought about sin
while our eyes look
at a picture of your eyes
and you are neither happy
nor sad nor content
nor unfulfilled
nor satisfied nor
complacent nor
apathetic nor
lost nor unhappy
but you are breathing
whilst mixed up in a net of
beats and hymns
and plans drawn slyly
in the sand of conjecture
and wishing the wish
to be a reality
but knowing that in a
sea of time and history
and gifts made for a
future that is a present
in the middle, or is it
the end, or perhaps the middle of the
beginning that steals
us away across that night where
the salt freezes to pavement
and we think of spring while
laying our hair against hair
against skin against the irises
that know there is a fleck of
truth in beauty and simplicity
has a place in as many worlds
that easily exist from here.
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