At the beach
a man in each tide,
men like grains of sand,
a thousand men between
your toes.
Bring them
to our spot
underneath
the umbrella.
We shall always be
in the shade
when the sea
begins its fury.
(originally published in The Fictional Café, Spring 2019)
if
there’s
a
slice
of
tomato
stuck
to
the
wall
use
your
tongue
as
a
forklift
to
catapult
it
onto
mine
(originally published in Rabid Oak, Summer 2019)
Chin on window, I still somehow lost
myself in the crowd: the subway
left me here, at my draped destination. Yet
street guitars and strangers’ chatter echo
in the underground, eardrums thrumming through
this maze of machines: ticket-takers, escalators.
Half-shell, half-mind, I ascend into the grid
of civilization: deadened lego towers, blind
in the clouds, airplanes wending through
faint chemical composition quarter-notes.
(originally published in Pif Magazine, Summer 2019)
Don’t worry, I’ve seen Signs.
I know we’re not vulnerable
the way those on-screen aliens are,
deathly allergic to water. We’re made of
the stuff yet haven’t learned to fear it.
Avoid city taps. Toxic, they say.
I’m drinking tons of it, unless you mean ego,
in which there’s a bucket devoid of myself
the dark sky so badly wants to donate to.
In the way you believe, we are not aliens,
unless you mean we don’t know ourselves.
Every day, my mouth dries up
avoiding strangers. M. Night Shyamalan
dons an aluminum hat upon spotting me.
I’d do the same– leave the store looking
down at my feet, toggle up the heat
in my Ford in heavy winter clothes
to sweat my chemical reaction out.
(originally published in COG Magazine, Spring 2019)
January, so–
renewal, no, just
soaking in the sunrise,
the year– not NEW
year, same shit
as last, endless weeks
of overtime, begging
the sun
please change
your sleep pattern,
stay up all night
for me!
(originally published in bluepepper, Winter 2021)
I am in competition with darkness
staring into the eyes of people playing people
says the man who lost himself in Los Angeles
on purpose to walk to the beach and along
its shore at night with grayblue jacket lightly
shielding me from breeze inside other footprints
shapeshifting to waves rocking against a porch
of a vacation home that pile of gold inside
a beached skull I carried into an orchard with
knife and sliced gala apples into motorboats how
Dad used to and it is not littering when I biodegrade
myself into Earth sinking deeper into its core
where I sleep for two hours and
wake up a new and filthy man
(originally published in Rabid Oak, Summer 2019)
we smoke
our paper
lungs
in the storm
then run
from your mom
to seek
an awning
to shield
the holes
in our chests
flames
tempered
by rain
clouds
scream
from our mouths
billowed gray
how it floats
above like
to warn us
forests need not
consume flame
(originally published in Hedge Apple, Spring 2019)
I curled into the receiver,
listened to your space-static
breaking up, breaking up–
I imagined your blue
eyes in the light
leading me down
into abyss–
but I refused to look.
(originally published in Raised Brow Press, Summer 2020)
Blackbirds linger over the summer of 2012–
I followed them to Austin ahead of winter’s white
knuckle, veered west into the world of tv,
an industry where I found & fought the devil
in myself, his blade lodged still deep within me.
I chose Los Angeles over love, a dead dream
over crisp grass, intoxicated phone calls of
a faraway devotion– how I once told Tony
who I would marry, how it was inevitable
until the two-thousand mile difference
we would never bridge.
(originally published in riverbabble, Summer 2019)
I walk this familiar street
of spring. Cherry blossoms,
sunshine, the desire
to drink. Yesterday
I snuck into a field
with a flask to avoid
the knife room I
tell myself to stay
out of. My longing a black
rolled-up rug. I tell myself
Stay wound, trying how
I can before I let again
the drunk in me to walk
through the door,
spill me out in scuff
marks and mudprints
just after the rain.
(originally published in Penmen Review, Summer 2019)