you stepped in dog
poop on your birthday
but still had a good birthday
we walked through windchimes
off golden sidewalks
& drank a vat of black coffee
free from a corporation
so desperate for your loyalty
all our other friends
reached into their pockets
to blow out their rewards, too
(originally published in The Daily Drunk, Winter 2021)
I have driven along red sand roads
knowing my speed uncontainable,
locked eyes with oncoming traffic
on drugs and drink. Death wants
to always remind me how close
we often get, that sometimes
he’s a blur rushing toward me,
and I must know to swerve.
(originally published in The Writing Disorder, Summer 2021)
I need this walk through the suburbs
summer heat has me a certain way
lovers have me a certain way
I need to clear my head with the zen
of weedwackers droning, an SUV’s blur and
whoosh, lawnmowers torturing the grass–
white noise, white birds, white hybrids.
walked with white sneakers in the mud
last night drunk in the rain through an alley
(originally published in RASPUTIN, Winter 2020)
blue wheat
meat on the heart
he told me
gaze the world
to understand
heaven
the angels
scream under
trees
their glossy aura
spines
(originally published in Ink Sac, Winter 2021)
The guitar hides from the sun– a shadow
of someone familiar singing. To bare my snake
skin wrapped around this temporary home.
Green of smile. Holes of jeans. Sweat
of beetles. Let me keep a tambourine
nearby. I want to make sound in the spotlight.
(originally published in Academy of the Heart and Mind, Fall 2020)
Tell me your wildest
vacation fantasy. There,
we will visit our home.
I dream of caves–
stalagmite fingerprints.
The drop, the black bat,
meat. There,
we’ll forget light
and its animal skin.
(originally published in eGoPHobia, Fall 2019)
Head is hard wood, paint and brush
stroke, linens in the lighthouse, light
without threat of darkness or vice versa,
a grayscale version of a tremolo, where
everything acrylic includes your apathy.
Painting nothing / city / boat I raise
my hands in the air to weather the storm.
(originally published in Dreich Magazine, Summer 2021)
Self-absorption has turned me
into a selfish alien. On Earth,
we live in isolation
waiting for the cosmic dawn
to return in a brilliant explosion
that would rock this rock like
a great song
performing on its uppermost
stage, all of my being
expanding like a flower
until the whole universe
opens wide
like a Great Eyeball.
Our role will be to find
inexpressible
connection– a ring
of stars passing rings
of fire, each a small
cluster of blue petals.
(originally published in The Subnivean, Winter 2021)
I am
& nothing
about
the murk
of love
extracted
from
my worst
(originally published in Terror House Magazine, Summer 2019)