I am not this negative.
I look at Post-It note
days and see a march
of white beneath, my life
before me on corkboards,
dilapidated. I used
to joke easily in this junk-
yard, chasing wayward
clouds in the sunset,
in awe of our city’s
little skyscrapers
over shards of broken
bottles on asphalt.
And you’d join me,
too, running across
the parking lot,
the cars rolling
over blue bridge,
roaring, as we
were under it
at the mercy
of an aged
but comforting
infrastructure.
I don’t know
if I have changed,
or if the world
is wearier, how
I don’t even
look for the
weather when
I open
the door
to leave.
(originally published in A God You Believed In, Fall 2023)
production
I have been drowning in work
but the sun still floats past 8 PM
& I wonder where time went
sunk in the blue glow
of overheating machines
it is Monday
and everyone hates Mondays
because this past weekend
I went to a house concert
in the state I once lived in
only to return to the wheel
and drive a few marathons
windows open music loud
past spontaneous roadkill
and honeybee fields
last night I slept on a pile
of unsigned documents
dreamt of paper cuts
and Parochial school
I bought green bananas
for the office
and by the end
of the day
they were brown
(originally published in The /temz/ Review, Spring 2025)
The Film
Sometimes I sit at a café window
watching pedestrians pass and I think
all the people in this life I’ll never
know, these strangers in the space
we share, an unseen assistant
director setting up the scene and
critics will leave harsh reviews for lack of
dramatic irony, or subtle comedy, whatever
the previous scene sets up, or seemed to
be leading to, but the longer I move
through its runtime, the more I fear
a lack of coherence, that Chekhov’s
son never grows into what Chekhov
demands– the boy dies a few acts
later, randomly, and still the film marches
on, aiming the lens high toward some plastic
profundity with its pervasive god
and blue sky gazing through a tall
circle of trees, leaves swaying, keyboard
guitar, so frustrating, and later will be an op-ed
from the Production Coordinator that outlines
the sacrifices needed when the rented lens
shattered, dropped from a rooftop, costing a
hundred thousand, and the producers had yelled
about budget cuts yet still wanted an endless
duration, excess cast members extricated with
no follow-up but others too much, your dead
dad referenced with each hailstorm, you grow
tired of the metaphor then sit in the park
watching people pass when a past lover
from act twenty-seven enters stage left
with a pup and you wave, a stunt, restless
limb, in case she asks, which she won’t,
she’ll avoid eye contact because she is
no longer in the contract, can’t say a word
without pay, but still she will
wonder if you are the same actor,
and I’ll have to rewind a long while
to see if you are.
(originally published in A God You Believed In [Pinhole Poetry, 2023])
The View at Work: Dump Trucks
Look at this kingdom of garbage
trucks. A survey underneath
the 31st St. Bridge, where I spend
my horrible days collecting.
It is Friday night and there is
pressure to deliver. I told you
nothing we do here is important,
so take a deep breath. Smell
the compost of contemporary
capitalism. My blue brain
has ceased to need a function.
My winter is every man’s
desire for himself. It is waiting
for my back to give and bear
the weight of the waste:
the compacted nature of my life,
squandering, squandering,
squandering the ineffable.
(originally published in A God You Believed In - Pinhole Poetry, 2023)
This Vestibule
& within this vestibule the sighing & side-glances,
demands for just-asked-for jackets, & axes dealt
to execs in their excess, & star-born nephews needing
validation; & on this thin strip of wooden walkway,
in the gaze of dead deer, a floor air bubble that shocks
& wilders passers-by who have walked upon it one
thousand times, beside the gunshots on television
(free film school for everyone!) where we have
seen passive-aggression, passing gremlins, & a red-
state journeyman who lusts for connection along-
side extras lost from fittings (if they just turned right
past the blue truck, an open door you can’t see
from here, here, where we have waited for a call
sheet for hours), & once, there was a heavy storm
& we watched a CATERING cone withstand
the rain & hail & screeching wind & we were on the
inside, too, through the glass, rooting everyone on–
yet hollered in catharsis when it tumbled down.
(originally published in Osmosis Press, Fall 2023)
This American Factory
Work snips years
it abducts me
from living
and the drinks are heavy
after
in my liver
my tenuous body
if I could live
in a less-consumed way
outside
with the grass
not overgrowing
my head
in the mountains
with a beach-blue
overlook
and while I’m
fantasizing
I want a bug force
field to keep
the pests away
I want to glide
over the landscape
a less-ambitious Magneto
breathing in
high-altitude sea breeze
until the stress is gone
and I deflate
into the ocean
though I don’t know
how to swim
see
even my daydreams
end with darkness
(originally published in The Wise Owl, Spring 2023)
Zone 28
Tara, the arcade was not the answer
(air hockey shots & bowling) such
fantastical surrendering with hollow
hunger & the terrapin match /
between dinosaurs Maureen was
drunk & screaming. typical
punch bowl. red & strung
with lights I lied about my blue
ice I said I did not have enough
but I drove to Taco Bell next door
& ate five soft ones texted
you I made it (though I live somewhere
different now) home if I move
how will the wind know
the difference?
(originally published in DREICH, Fall 2023)
End of Week Two (Happiest Season, 1/31/20)
at Tessaro’s after a long sunless
January mumblecore weekend
beginning no one to vent to
Pittsburgh bars of cig smoke
without windows I can barely
come up for air in the work
in which we say it all works
out in the end despite wanting
a cigarette having given it
up years ago just to again
(originally published in Nauseated Drive, Winter 2022)
Production Dinner, 2022
I.
tonight it is free to clink
glasses with luxury
at the steakhouse downtown
my first
Manhattan
since Day One
I have been
red meat squeezed
of all its blood a puddle
at your recommendation
on our plates a weight
to our long
day
but hey
a hundred bucks?
you produced The Hunger
Games
& film’s
a hungry hundred days
believing
the dream is not a struggle
II.
trout on dry
land among
the cattle
wriggling
out the net we lose ourselves
in work
yet
gorge
on appetizers
bacon-wrapped around
each other
the shrimp
is not taboo
nor endless
with buttery bread
I can’t end
this twelve-hour
shift
III.
I long to spend
free time free
but you close
your eyes when
you talk to me
like you can’t
bear to sit
at the same table
in the down-
trodden way
I say hey
this could be
my favorite
restaurant
over and over
to no one
(originally published in bluepepper, Spring 2023)
Endless Imagination
The bowtie light switch has a mustache.
What does that say about me? I’ve spent
too much time seeing whatever I want
in office objects. Tape gun forklift.
Soap giraffe. All I want is to love
what I have however diminutive
the love, however diminutive
the day stretches out in consuming
all other days. My endless
imagination boards me
on its paper airplane,
the rock slungshot the first
time I read a book and never
arrived at my destination.
(originally published in OpenDoor Magazine, Winter 2022)