11/24/07

Every once and again, mostly on holidays,
the idea that people have no true
redeeming value pops into my head.
Skipping family for early morning sales,
thirty channels of football,
enough food to feed an African
country for at least a month.
Lines out the door at Starbucks,
young bands playing shoddy tunes
from from the nineties as shoppers
push each other down for the
last Harry Potter gift box set.
Skinny girls laboring behind a counter,
promising themselves that they'll
run off mothers cornbread stuffing
on their next fifteen minute break.
Teenage hard ons clamoring for the
girl in the short skirt in twenty
degree weather.
"She's gotta be noticing me man!"
A time of love lost inside light
and dark meat, pushed behind the piles
of leftovers in your aunts ice box.
What happened to fires and thank yous
and girls who knew to cover their midriff?
Have we lost the simple joy of holding hands?
Looking in each others eyes and saying
"I Love You?"
If long checkout lanes and bust lines are
any indicator, maybe I should just buy
my coffee, stand in line and join in.

Sarah's Year

Not so unlike Gina.
Browner hair, ambition,
a smile that faded the summer.
Just like last June,
only now it's July
and things are moving faster.
It was "I Love You"
pushed between adoption
and cold fatherly stares
from the back of the room.
She always had a way of surprising,
photogenic poses, and the smell
of mountains laced in her hair.
I'll never forget the cold air
in the back of a Texas parking lot.
Her warm hands as she looked
into my eyes for the last time.
I'm sorry I didn't write back.
All I could think of was late
night water parks, blond haired
girls and how some things never change.
June to July.
August to October.
I wish I could have been
different. Maybe then I could
finally write back.

Love and the Machine

On calloused skin
her hand rests, an
awkward show of care.
Tracing lines between
small spots of melanin
'till her name appears.
H
O
P
E
Slowly passing time
with the tips of her
fingers softly on
her lovers back,
pushing down fast,
thought of impending
morning and approaching
goodbyes.
Sometimes the sun isn't
the biggest thing in the sky.
Tossing through sheets
and wires, trying not to
unplug the last semblance
of her name from love,
and the machine.

Love and Drugs

I imagine love is like taking
that first hit of heroin after
two months on methadone.

Slowly sinking back,
a euphoric state of
self abasement.

Chemical constructs bleeding
your system cold of memories,
stereotypes, and needles.

A mind scarred from nights
of chasing the dragon
all around town, hoping

she shows up while you wait.
I guess if love is this
unpredictable,

withdrawal
can't hurt
much worse.

Beautiful

As the light dips slowly across the table, inching perilously close to my latte, I'm suddenly aware of how beautiful life is. The curve of hips. Yellow complimenting blue. The genius of the iPod. Sure you can see it in mountains and plains, but it's in Manhattan, London, and Kyoto. Bright neon disasters welcoming everyone to a loss of privacy. The way a cellphone drops a call right before she ends it, delaying the future by the seconds it takes to hit redial. The frown of a person waking up with blood on their wrists and breath in their lungs. It's knowing things will never work and still trying, with every tear, to find the words to say. Maybe she'll notice one day. Maybe she won't. Tomorrows not just a new day, it's another one. Stop waiting for the sun to shine. You never know when it'll explode in a beautiful hydrogen fourth of July. Isn't life beautiful for all the wrong reasons?

Untitled #74

Sometimes on Friday I dream up
how easily I could become a cokehead.
Cutting lines with my friends razorblade,
I would never keep my own in case of
really horrible binge nights. An ornate mirror
would sit majestically in the middle of an
imaginary French coffee table that my parents
got me at some antique barn in Indiana.
People would beg to do lines next to my gold
records and ’72 Telecaster Custom.
“Just one more before I drive him,” my
girlfriend would say, but I wouldn’t let her.
Even cokeheads have limits.
Maybe I would be involved in some type of
Eastern European supply chain that decided it
was easier to move the dust in through airports
in Kansas, cause who’d expect that.
“Stuff’s good this month,” I’d snipe at the
Mafioso who switched bags. Only to settle
back in close to my Parisian throne.
Sometimes on Friday I dream of being
a cocaine addict, only to realize that it’s
Saturday morning and I’m too broke
to even afford prescription meds.