You cut my face
from a magazine,
pulled tanner grass
in L.A.– how you
lose your sense
of color with nothing
but blue sky and sun
and sidewalk cigarette
stains, everyone dead
in their own way.
(originally published in Califragile, Fall 2017)
Month: February 2019
Marilyn Monroe
& part of her phrase of course is
if you can’t handle me at my worst
but there’s a left turn into darkness
no one wants to take &
the signal’s jammed so no one knows
the direction anywhere anymore
just a mirror of the night
reflecting night, a ninety
degree warming sadness glued
onto a body. one silhouette
low into evening, a heat repenting
unknown sin, a snake slithering
out from its hole into you
(originally published in Gyroscope Review, Fall 2017)
Half
to cut immigration
is to cut me half
-Filipino I am already
halved quartered diced you take
a knife to my mother she keeps
a knife at her neck we both are
American in the blade of the word
I used to pretend to be more
my more-accepted half
to have to choose
is to have nothing
(originally published in Serving House Journal, Fall 2017)
Fidget Spinner
Place the ring around your finger.
Let it spin. Pretend, for once,
that something can attain
perpetual motion. You drive back-
country roads to leave a life behind
yet miss the destined exit. Consider
the spin of the Earth, the galaxy,
the universe. At what point does
longing end? There are always
voids to fill, vast pits of fruit
you would savor if you could
stay still enough to love
a person.
(originally published in Cabildo Quarterly, Fall 2017)
Landscapes
pray to the clay
and snow
there are canyons
cratered in our hearts
not every landscape
is refined each is full
of fingerprints and colors
undefined through
every ridge
the sandstone
in her face you will find
who you are looking for
in any landscape the forests
your father the mountains
your mother the shifting
desert sand tombs
are caverns you must lose yourself
in memories and forget
the horizon no one
seems so far away
beside the ocean
(originally published in Uppagus, Fall 2017)
Tea
the kettle sings I sift the mint
from your leaves become morning
branches inhale steam tethered to
white string high held by fingers
that’ll dig too much into bark
rotting wood from childhood
a treehouse built with dirt hands
and axe planked into core of
every fragile oak soon to fall
(originally published in Common Ground Review, Spring 2018)
I’m Fine
I’m with Lex at Lockview
ordering tomato soup because
I just got out of a relationship.
I tell him I’m fine, though he never asked.
The bowl arrives alongside my Kentucky Bourbon
Barrel Ale. I slurp red and talk loudly
for the cute girl at the table behind me
wearing all black– we made eye contact
waiting for tables between entrance and exit–
she doesn’t hear me, probably,
but my friend watches me cremate crackers
over the bowl to spoon the goo inside.
He says slow down but I say life moves
fast– hell, I ingested magic mushrooms
after leaving my ex’s place then Lex
asks our waitress for his grilled cheese
without mushrooms and the waitress asks for menus
but I hand her my bowl and say take it please
take it then tell her I’m fine and it was wonderful
being in my house alone after this happened standing
on the kitchen table beside the silver chandelier
lined with black mold and dirt and how
I waited for anyone to come home
and no one did so I kept standing.
(originally published in OVS Magazine, 2017)
Stand-Up Comedy
[the comedian approaches the stage in sunglasses
and a shiny black and green robe.]
Knock knock.
(Who’s there?)
I am.
There is no punchline.
Listen past your rush-hour heart.
I am up here breathing heavily.
Listen: I want you to laugh
and never stop. I am trying jokes
you did not know you wanted to hear.
I searched coast-to-coast for lands
who laugh with me, that tectonic shifting
from belly to chest.
Why did boys like me bring ladders to school?
We wanted to learn mountains and rarefied air.
To find reservoirs of laughter waiting.
What did 0 say to 8?
Nice belt!
(I don’t get that joke!)
But I want your holy, exhaled noise.
Relax.
What do you do if you see a spaceman?
You laugh. He doesn’t know what he’s doing here.
What he’s doing anywhere.
I offered myself to the ocean–
the entertainment industry.
She did not want.
The spotlight hungers for no one.
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Why wouldn’t the chicken cross the road
if the chicken intended to cross the road?
Most everyone I know crosses the road
without looking both ways these days.
I do not call them chickens– they are my more realistic friends.
I want to make them laugh.
If you’re not laughing for me, laugh for them.
We are haunted by too many things:
dead friends, dead family, dead love,
dead strangers, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead.
You can be someone’s haunting sunlight.
Someone’s champion jester dispersing their marbles too good.
Look, a magic trick!
[he throws two playing cards onto the floor]
How do you catch a unique rabbit?
U nique up on it.
How do you catch a tame rabbit?
Tame way– u nique up
on something enough to latch onto–
just a hinge’s creak
before the mouth’s swing open, closed.
Some of us never leave that darkness.
The silent divide.
Laughter will bring us close.
I mean it when I say let’s laugh until we die,
even when what we laugh about isn’t funny.
I mean it when I say if you see a space, man,
park your car, man.
It’s over.
(originally published in The Magnolia Review, Fall 2017)