I know nothing
about you anymore.
Can’t remember conversations.
Sometimes you are a leaf
blowing past the yard of memory,
a whisper likening
myself to wind.
(originally published in Subterranean Blue Poetry, Fall 2020)
memory
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)
Finding a Game Token in My Change Jar
I shuffle through memory for
a single midnight. What did we do
at school? Redeem gold tokens
at Swings ‘N’ Things? Cleveland led
me to lake by leash. We listened to Feist
among lilacs and buttercups. We lived
near the airport, never flew. I shouldn’t
keep money for unusable transactions. What
a concept, after the drinking started. If darkness
is inevitable, please invite me to your party.
(originally published in Dear Reader, Summer 2021)
Beer Pong in Your Basement
I was new to this
kind of longing
sticky all my fingers
on red fingernail cups
but I was a visitor I was a loner
I lived in my car
a couch was a luxury
four cats purred and clawed
at me I couldn’t sink anything
into the drinks. I sank
but made myths I missed
everyone in Akron everything
that happens to you
sticks to you. swish
there was a way to
live in all places at once.
Pittsburgh Columbus Akron
Los Angeles. my memories
are mine and they are selfish. I cling
to what I forget which is what
I drink away which is all
the spills over all the years
I haven’t yet wiped clean.
(originally published in The Seventh Quarry, Summer 2023)
We Leave Your Studio for Sushi
You tell me it doesn’t matter
how much mercury
you consume, as long
as the pleasure is worth it.
One day, you say, we’ll buy
sticky rice and salmon, dirty
our hands in the sink
then soap them– we’ll
remove the dead fish
scent from our skin.
(originally published in U-RIGHTS Magazine, Fall 2020)
Moment (October)
spring wind
palette of butterflies
golden hour
the shuffled-card memory
flipped through photos
the month passed
(originally published in The Field Guide Magazine, Fall 2023)
A Year
I wish it were impressive, my insistence
to gnaw at the root of what clings to me,
whatever doubt’s the day’s soup.
A kind of droning in my soul that rings
and bleats. Speaks for me when I must
be spoken for, my might in a cave.
I long sometimes for lonelier days. Too much
noise in the knock of someone else’s luck,
a hardwood for human myth.
Grant me humility to do no wrong. I had a year
to get everything right, and still I waited past
the crow’s deadline, let the line fly
recklessly into the lake.
(originally published in Nauseated Drive, Winter 2022)
Hog
there is no wrong way to eat
a hot dog there is no right
to eat a dog there is no hot
dog hot popsicle of pig
meat slathered in existential
ketchup bread-claustrophobic
*
once on a drive home from Central Catholic
I stopped at the Dairy Queen Drive-Thru
and asked for hot dog wrapped in lettuce
I was more hypochondriac at sixteen
than at thirty-two anyway the kid
at the window said they couldn’t
but I insisted and the manager
smuggled the long sizzling dog in wet
lettuce I carry that shame in the trash
bag of my trunk to this day
*
pig meat
pig meat
in a sleeping bag of green
*
there is no way to eat a dog
there are ways to eat a hot dog
I am a bog I am the bog I am
breakfast lunch dinner brunch midnight snack
everlasting bun communion holy
water life I down through days and lick my fingers
after rough vigorous handwashing
I’ve opened plastic package
set skillet to flame
lain logs on drizzled oil
*
the celebrity chef in my mind
is me I documented cooking when I lived
in my car. That was my true potential. Oh, swine,
you’re years beyond capable
yet I drove halfway across the country
to do what competitors do, which is down
hundreds of you. Joey Chestnut the undisputed
master after decades of dogs.
*
Went to a dollar dog minor
league game twenty cents per dog flies
buzzing in orbit of condiments
five the limit at the window so all
could see I had the buns. One each for
STRENGTH. ACCEPTANCE.
CONFIDENCE. GRACE.
AMBITION.
*
One inning was all
it took and I was alone in my new
city full of my father’s love
of baseball and barbecues. Now
there was an undisputed grill master.
Everyone knows one. I am not one.
There is no way to cook.
There is a way.
Wayne was over and we flicked
lit matches with our middle fingers
from thumbs into ready
charcoal to get the grill going.
We walked away and waited for
an action-movie explosion
but there was no ignition.
*
My whole life I have been walking
away, not turning back to look.
(originally published in HAD, Summer 2022)
Familiarity
I don’t know you
but I must have, once,
in some other life, the same
one this timeline is a part
of, this forward motion
a shadow of a shadow
darkening everything
I believe I know
has obscured.
(originally published in Plato’s Caves Online, Summer 2020)
After I See Your Post About Visiting L.A.
I reach out– longing for connection.
When surrounded by seagulls, I look
for the first semblance of friend. Not
that we have much to anchor anymore,
conversationally. Dolzani’s English class.
I didn’t read assigned books. Didn’t
become The Old Man and The Sea. So
many years to make safe passage. My voice
was a heavy, closed hardcover, whispering
through class as pages turned, and here
I am, strange and estranged, gazing out
over the Pacific, waiting for your response
on my seashell phone. Any sign of humanity
meant I would try. You never answer, anyway.
I unmoor my flaming boat to the coming
monsoon, scrape my hand against burning
plank to gather first ashes. I write my name in
soot. I hold my breath and swoosh into the next
life: the hold-on-to-me, the help-me, the drive-
aimlessly-through-your-twenties until arriving,
at last, at another confused island, a new
decade of drifting through cloudless nights.
(originally published in Cacti Fur, Summer 2021)