Doo-Dah

july 4th horses
means I’m drunk
again riding

the whirlwind
of my American
personality

I wave the
flag of surrender
every day

but here I
see stars
in the blur

of the city
parade

 

(originally published in Hamline Lit Link, Summer 2020)

ferns in memoriam

ferns in memoriam
in the room of you

the four walls   the plaster         so what
we would have had a life
together not just be alive
together
                                                  so what

I’ve learned to lose the leaves
the old days
          reminisce in new nostalgia
created   from a new & better era

my body alcohol’s punching bag
but the nights!    no straight-edge
James    nerdy
                       yes     but one that
lets me lets me lets me
grieve in the light

 

(originally published in In Parentheses, Spring 2020)

You Leave to Make Art in the South

      humid
          green
        swamps
    a riverflow
  of talent
      the sediment
         of the world
             gone well
                   past
                 my flaws
                   I wish
                 still for contact
             this accident of
          longing a lesson
       in how not to be alone
                    through the lens
                              of canvas

(originally published in Erothanatos, Spring 2020)

Roadkill

eye contact
with a dead deer
on the side of the highway

his eyes were open
facing oncoming traffic
neither happy nor sad

just dead
face intact
a mangled cute

because I don’t find deer
particularly cute
nor useful when alive

(here I am
another man
valuing appearance

as commodity)
but I don’t want
to kill them

I am on my way
to see my underpaid
overworked partner

on memorial day
passing cop
after waiting

cop
and I swear
there are

more carcasses
than usual
in the tall grass

 

(originally published in In Parentheses, Spring 2020)

Erosion

I want to sketch surroundings
in my skull they are skeletons
each day dustwhite percussion
bleating purple ears forgetting
shapes faces family landscape
manicured blood lawn of bone
dry cocktails to leash legacy
within brick pen of a home
we call distance inside air
conditioned repainted longing
to be where you are inside
construction green architects
will lose the blueprint to

 

(originally published in former People, Winter 2020)

NYE, 2010

that was the monochrome new year
I reached for your leg like a frog with long
tongue and you were on
the couch flyswatting everyone

the walls were drunk too the way
we behaved in the wild dorms
animals celebrating the turn of a page
the setting of the sun it was winter

in Berea and we held each other
like it would never be warm
again we caught snowflakes on
our tongues left black bottles in dead grass

 

(originally published in Datura, Fall 2019)

Panera

I lost the important things
sweeping baguette crumbs
underneath an industrial
fan– cyclicality, the broom’s sashay
from one end of the room to
the next– sand blown from the center
of the desert, and how selfish
to keep water in the bottle
with other mouths to nurture.

 

(originally published in Adelaide, Fall 2019)