Last night, I dreamt I stood
on a tall stack of books, gathered
with others around a roof
like we were at a dinner party.
When I glanced down– finally,
from the top of my tenuous skyscraper,
I had to brace my shoe against
the house to keep myself
from falling back into reality,
but I did anyway, repeating
to the guests anxiety,
anxiety, anxiety.
I used to dream I’d get so high,
anything was possible. I entered a tower,
beelined to the elevator, and pushed
the button to the top. Sometimes
the platform was already ascending.
Sometimes the whole structure was.
When the doors (if they existed) parted,
the view from the sky was so rich,
I had to be dreaming. Deep tree greens.
Eternal ocean blue. I returned
to this view often, but stopped
near the end of my twenties. I was
itinerant at the time, my life
still an open road ahead
of me. A million meanings yet
to interpret. Not yet bogged by
a steady job but not quite steadied,
living off the promises of strangers
and the engine of my Ford Fiesta,
emitting exhaust into the atmosphere,
accumulating.
(originally published in Artvilla, Winter 2024)
dream
Dream with Bus Driver
This fork in history could veer
wildly left, though the bus driver
announces he forgot his glasses
at home but memorized the route.
Don’t worry, I have been this way
before and before and whatever
obstacles you see before me
and before you belong in just
those places in the long telescope
observing the passage of time
(originally published in Linked Verse, Summer 2023)
Jesse and Andrew
were two good friends in Los Angeles,
and in last night’s dream, Andrew announces
he quit acting, though we knew him as a screenwriter,
because he found success in Ohio, and thinking back,
in reality, we were journeying toward the same adolescent
dream, green stars, and we pursued when we were heartbroken,
worn-out, reckless, and last I saw Andrew he stuffed quarters
into the jukebox at gold-lit Birds, repeating Sussudio, commenting
on every woman at the bar, and I didn’t speak up. And Jesse had
returned that day from Thailand. He was sad and I was in love.
I had a chance to see him again– last fall, New York– but he has
a kid now and I could not muster a bus, or to revisit reminiscing
the dreams we shared, what we had to wake up from
during our long, separate searches for meaning.
(originally published in Ink Pantry, Fall 2024)
Sleep
eyes close, a portal opens
to rain, silent homes / shields for
the wet and yearning. . . escape, enter, in
speckled ceiling light, visions of rice
and effervescent soaking / murk
in nonchalance, the 21st century–
has it ever been different?
(originally published in Poetry Super Highway, Fall 2024)
I can feel it ending
In your dream I fuck
your sister; in the morning
you say I don’t love you.
Because we showed
a broken mirror to the world
and hate the jagged edges
of the trees. The barren
branches.
Sun-sharp bottle shards
glistening atop one bridge
in a city of a hundred bridges.
(originally published in The Los Angeles Review of Los Angeles, Summer 2020)
Silicon Valley (Season One, Episode Eight)
When you see me on screen–
with blue jacket and plastic
glasses– listening to Zach
Woods brainstorm a plan
to pivot Pied Piper into
an app that can attract
rodents– like the fairy tale,
you’d think this guy on TV
is one lucky bastard.
But you probably didn’t
notice, because you don’t
know me, and you see hundreds
of people on screen
living the dream every day.
And you can see me in season
two and the first episode
of the show, ever–
the very first scene,
during the Kid Rock
concert– on stage with a
hundred other extras, and–
at the time, I had
just moved to Los Angeles,
and the background roles
I had been cast for
resulted in me
on a projector!
My friends at home
who got used to me
no longer being able
to meet them drunk
at Highland Tavern on
Mondays were now not
completely surprised
to see me rewindable
in their living rooms.
I felt destined for great
things, marked this only
the beginning, like
everyone else chasing
dreams in the city of angels.
But all I could afford to eat
were packets of beef
ramen, boxes of blue
Kraft mac and cheese
with water instead
of milk– no butter.
Hard-boiled eggs
kept me alive
long enough
to come home
to show friends
who were getting used
to me being able to
meet them drunk at
Highland Tavern on
Mondays my favorite clip–
with blue jacket
and plastic glasses,
I listen to Zach Woods
brainstorm a plan
to pivot Pied Piper
into an app that can
attract rodents–
like the fairy tale.
(originally published in Statement Magazine, Spring 2023)
Meat Trees
This is a binding between nature and mankind
unexplainable through philosophy. The trees
want to reclaim us or, perhaps, themselves.
-K. Santiago, “The Whispers in the Wild”
World Cup – athletes at their peak
when the affliction struck.
Crushed leaves in snot on tissue –
it’s nothing. I was Ubering people
around Columbus, heard the chatter.
Can trees grow in brains? Is the new
trend snorting deciduous?
I tapped the CNN app– first it was
a world-class saxophonist struck
down with a green cold.
Next, football stars from Paraguay
and Russia, all blowing chunks
of trees into white, softer trees.
The first doctor to log a patient
said it’s nothing to worry about.
After a week the test showed invasion:
prickly pines a long spine in the nose
and the headlines bleated MEAT TREES!
It was early morning in the haze
of dreaming when my nose dripped forest–
I wiped my hand across the stream,
the flecks of blossoms blooming.
(originally published in Cough Syrup Magazine, Spring 2020)
Hive
I rented an apartment of bees
that first year in Los Angeles
sticky buzzing day and night
stingers past the turn of knob
sunny day the bees hovering
over body encircling you
paranoid optimistic dreamer
don’t leave the hive yes stay
get stung camera rolling and
action as in stasis as in days
wrapped around you burning
August blankets dripping lust
for fame everyone plays the
game gathering in droves to
hot stove hands on surface
level interaction as in in-
action
(originally published in Chronogram, Fall 2019)
Dream with Patchwork Moon
My love, I want to show you this strange moon:
a quilted wine and blue, half the charcoal sky–
but you are playing a game, a Crash Bandicoot
offshoot where you are a humanoid frog who jumps
and spins across 3-D landscapes. I ask you please
come outside there is a nervous crowd gathering
for this cosmic anomaly. But no one dies because
I wake and recall my childhood summers spent
on the cold, brown, teddybear carpet of my basement,
hands on controller, eyes mesmerized by polygons.
My father would slowly descend the stairs then ask
me to walk with him– as he often did the last
years of his life– that there was a whole world
out there, the world, and if I would walk once
with him he would show me, please, just once.
(originally published in Vagabond City Lit, Summer 2019)
Let Go
Let go
of Los Angeles.
Of the shore
or the dream
of water. Night
sky the black
granules. Negative
film reel. Prints
in sand. Bare
feet: where to
wander
next?