Bottled Butter - Loose Haiku

Smeared on her upper lip, still
as the splashing milk
of cereal boxes.

Zero

Two girls watch
an iced tea form a ring
on the wooden table
in the dining room
of a marraige.

Their hands are cupped in a shy way.

There are rings under the eyes
of an un-coupled man who is driving
rings around the rosie
for parking.

The girls curl their ringlets
which hang heavily, rounded
like potholes, which might hang the same way,
strung together in a mobile,
playing with the yellow gas
that rings the sun.

SARAH DONT LEAVE ME.

i am going a little bit crazy. but i have a new planner, so it should be alright. everything.

i have to work off a lot of debt for my mom, but i hate being around her recently, because all she does is tell me how im ruining things.

i have to read two books for school, they're both fat.

i haven't seen/talked to my CAPA friends in a good few weeks. i don't know what they think of me, now. i went missing without telling them, i don't have a phone, i don't have any way other than the internet to find these people, but i could if i made an effort, but i don't know if i want to make an effort. im pretty sure we're only friends because we get high or drunk together. im afraid that's all we have in common. i was thinking about having a potluck before school starts and inviting lots of people to come eat together and dance and be jolly. and then i realized that most of my friends wouldn't come because it would be a sober party. do we enjoy each other sober?

i just want to do things my own way and make plans to do things that i want to do and make art and be around art and feel free.

this all makes me feel very alone.

Here/There Us/Them

"You are a stranger of two exiles
so take me like a thirsty bee
and hold me in the inbetween world."

Our/Their words mingle and detach
like the distance and embrace of boxers.
You/I've always been here/there,
on solid ground, in August density,
in sinking sand, in white night,
my/your face illuminated by explosives
or the red flashing of fighter planes
like boxing gloves, slowly soaring through
the night sky, here/there, searching
for a jawbone to break.

Train Cars Sleep Walking

Train cars sleep walking,
dragging their wheels in dreamed
mud steps, hauling moans
like whales over their shoulders,
each foot a claim, staking land,
detaching rust in clouds
that flutter like stars.

Sleepless Little Stories

The bedroom light that won't turn off, that nudges the electrical bill small inches. Ten Little Indians on my bookshelf that I finally stole back from Archie, who wanted to start reading things, but never did. Except for Saul Williams - he liked that. The old baseball that just fell into my laundry basket, that Dave found at the beach in Erie, and let me have because I thought it was so cool. And we tried to play stick ball, but all of the sticks broke on contact. (I've never missed anyone so much). The sniffles that I have, that came with this summer cold, that makes no sense to me. That sounds like crying on the phone and I have to explain myself. The being awake at 1:34 AM considering the subjunctive history of gay boys with accents.

What I Can't Say

Laying on the hardwood floor, footsteps are heartbeats.
My ear to the great chest of the apartment - the world -
whose heart murmurs and falls out of rhythm. (1)

I can still feel the wild illustrations he drew in my goosing flesh,
his fingertips that needle a soft, impermanent tattoo.

The night found deep green in his face. Now everywhere, the mellow blue
of morning. Everywhere, the plump toes of sleeping boys.

His body behind the curtain is a floating ghost.

I found in his chest a thickness, in his hair a soft grease.
I found on his neck poetry, I found beneath his earlobe
a small stone, attention to sensation, sensitivity to touch.

"This is a new language" - I want to say, and can't. (2)

The only way to feel human
in a dehumanizing world
is to touch.

(1) A doctor might ask the globe whether its gravity is in order.
(2) "I am certain I speak a new language, as is always the sign of a new age." - Saul Williams

Airport Notes

A computer voice rounds his Os,
turns harsh degrees on Ts, pronounces
the world just like a real man would,
like a real person whose job he stole,
a real person with a mouth and teeth
and children -

The computer voice cannot pronounce
"Jose Delugas", comes up instead with "Hose Dell You Gas",
but no one is listening enough to be insulted,
Jose Delugas probably isn't listening, just watching

CNN, engulfed in a world where Brad Pitt has Jury Duty,
a woman in Pennsylvania has strangled a rabid raccoon to death,
and a monster truck has run over a crowd,

or just watching the grey squares of rug
which blur away when he loses focus, and sing
into perfect detail when he concentrates.
The TV is a running hum on the back of his neck,
and "Sex tapes of the Stars" sounds more to him
like the erotic mixtures of gases, far away,
swaying in tune to each other,
than some blond-haired movie star thrusting his pelvis.

Heightism

I cannot reach the storage bin above my seat.
How many cloud-eyed flight attendants
get turned away every year for being under 5'5" ?

Indy

Sitting on the sun porch, right after the rain. There is probably chocolate stuck in my molars, I think I can taste it. I am trying to find ways around moms, so I can see a boy. Is it so scandalous to see a boy? Every body that walks by, I think is my sister - I hear she is coming home tonight? I'll hear her voice before anything. She is my favorite human being on this planet, I hope I die first. Blogger just autosaved my draft, what a relief. I spent a lot of time on the phone today, on hold for a Southwest airline operator. I got Cindy.

Revolutionaries.

Revolutionaries eat chinese food pizza chinese food pizza orange tea, hoagies on special occasions.

Without a cell phone, I've pretty much ostracized myself from my friends and the night life. Billy's the only one who's been trying to contact me, which is sweet I guess, but... He's Billy Ash. Invited to go trash picking tomorrow night, but I don't think I will, seeing as I'M GOING TO PITTSBURGH ON FRIDAY! Can't wait to see my Dave and my Katherine and my Su Lu and my people who care about living, who want to spend their time creating things.

Shit Poetry

"Thick rain, today, all smushed
in the moss purple of the sky,
all sweat shine in moons on foreheads."

His old eyes blink behind thick lenses,
and under a black cap, bent to the measure of the curve
of his hand: Old Willy Baptist,
holding my shoulders in experience as my feet
slip to memory.

I am sitting still in the way
his eyes are still in their sockets, still
floating onto my shoulders.

Distance

BAYM (Student Union's summer program: "Building A Youth Movement") is going incredibly well, I know much more about all sorts of oppressions and how they work together to keep the lower class separated and dehumanized so that they can't rise up against the beourgois. Yep.

After today's workshops, I went to the Last Drop with Amber and Ben. We only bought one drink for the three of us, which I'm pretty sure is considered loitering. Kept running into people, which is fun I guess, but sometimes I don't have the energy to be genuine and end up smiling and saying "yeah" and "what have you been up to?" in a really shitty way.

This is the one I miss:



I need help getting to Pittsburgh for under $40.

come my way

sittin next to my sister on the dock of the bay
(the couch in the living room,
the room you live in)

yes, one of those moods, the tired goof ones,
a shade of delirium, too tired for sentences to find ends
or capitalization. woozy with
unfinished dresses
and folks i miss in pittsburgh
(miss you too much to have a long conversation)
who can meet up because they have cars
or whatever it takes to meet up.

watching the tide roll away
sittin on the dock of the bay
wasting time.

First Prayer

Night, my crawling onto the half-roof
(above the porch, not the roof roof, not the top of much, but)
shining at the stars and the half-moon
and taking a cigarette, avoiding the wet pools
that - if I forgot, my socked
feet would sneak to -

my thanking the wet leaves for drooping so.

Night, the feeling of words rushing to your mouth
with no one to catch them but an idea
named God, the feeling of letters
that crash upon finding your lips closed -
fall to grains, and melt down your esophagus
to your stomach -

where they were conceived.

A Little Bugger

More importantly: He’s got seven trash bags full of American vintage clothing down in Amarillo that he intends on selling in Berlin, one day - “Don’t you think the Germans would go wild?” Maybe his brother will drop him off at an airport, like he dropped him off in a corner, in Philadelphia, no hard feelings, just - “Go ahead and fly solo, if that’s what you want.” This kid is so interesting. And sleeping on cardboard really isn’t so bad.

Even more importantly: I lost my cell phone and now the world is a little furthur away than it used to be.

Even more importantly: A little bugger is on this screen, crawlin around like it ain't no thang.

Sunday Mourning Notes

The mountain of everyone’s laundry -

Even dad calls it “the mountain”,
pulls nature from stripes, checks,
the line drawing horse
that rushes wildly off a yellow chest,
the white plastic number twelve,
the inseam falling to threads.

The faded patches of earth below:
A double wedding ring, quilted
plot circle, hardly visible
under the brambling ragged underwear
and mismatched socks.

I fold them into the earth, carefully
creasing and facing buttons skyward,
treating each collar as a pinch pot from wet clay,
each pant leg as a grave
molded from the backyard earth
for a dead mouse.