Tagged: the Gods

Creation Story 2

I was meant to give myself
entirely to something
by now

but each time I say it
my face seems smaller
my beard like ivy on a wall

I am both good and
bad things pretended
but in nature

I am exonerated
I have a cat’s
imagination

under the table
this is how I forgive myself
to build without

touching the mountain
to set up all the little
people

I was meant to give myself
entirely to something
by now… can it be you?

you put a blanket
on the window, close off
all rooms to this room

your jar lids pop
in adjacent counties
ice crumbles into the sky

our breath remains obvious
counted
we lower our portions

beyond the curtain
is a frozen planet inside
a warm vent

another chance to make a life
to remake life in our image
a ball of heat

the twelve minute race
however long
we must hold this embrace

Coleoptera

      1.) Entomologists estimate there are nearly
1.5 million different types of beetles
if you double the weight of all beetles
the world would cave in on itself
I love this nature fact – partly because
it sounds so made up, and partly
because I believe it must be true

      2.) Cleopatra wore lipstick made
of crushed ants and beetles
David crushed Goliath with a stone
Since then, the weight of humans
has doubled many times over
we are gathered around a large hole
each awaiting our turn to see

      3.) My parents have just called a meeting
to say cremate us, no need for all
the fuss, unless it feels important to you
that you have a place to visit
Do we get a hole to see down? 
a box in vain denying the earth
thousands of beetles crowded around
– the stags, the rhinocerii, the oxen
Now that would be interesting! No
mom says, just pour us out anywhere

The Ancient Reptilians

every dinosaur movie starts out
a long long time ago, or
before
there were buildings, cars

before the trees were gone (once
when they had never been)
before
the leaves were different

and as gluttonous drinkers of sun
they stood, broad faced and brachial
before
their necks. maybe we say instead

instead there were dinosaurs
very unlike cartoon dinosaurs, who
before
becoming huge and terrible

could fit in the palm of your hand
their hummingbird hearts bled in
before
receding, flooding again the plains

of their limbs to move. they’d tense in
vegetation, wary of their own feathers
before
in agitation, taking flight

this is before and during the
beginning of time
before
enough collective damage

had been done to call it the past
before there were roads
before
the whispering of animals into rooms 

of our dwelling. be it houses, clothes
as fire eats the air
before
air has had enough and shoos it

when at once it has always been
like the ground to a foot in a shoe
before
the biggest thing on Earth was God

Creation Story

I used to dream of an invention
that would let me sleep deeply
but consciously, so that time
would pass less quickly

It would let me dream of anything
but I’d still dream of nothing, just
so I could lay there in it. I have
always had a strong affinity for nothing

Out of nothing anything can happen
Something usually leads to something
There is always the gray color
of what we know, we think, the gray

color of night and day exchanging
prominence. Black and white cue cards
heavily rotated, each with the next thought’s
location, the next fertile coordinate

each like asking for more love. In the garden
there is a man, a different looking man, a
tree. I say don’t touch that stuff yet!
I’m not sure what it’s all for

18 Ailments

Last to go of godlihood
is guilt
I still feel guilty
about the things I do
The lies I feed with tubes
Right now I feel sick
that I have not yet
called my grandmother
even though she recently
sent me money
for a suit. I was sensible
getting one appropriate
for weddings
as well as funerals
A sort of charcoal rubbing
There are other offenses
The provocation of anger
to prevent boredom
The minutes I store away
like bodies, to keep
from returning. I’ve been told
I’m way too intense
That I borrow bags
like golf bags, body bags
and don’t return them
          An actual PGA pro
once gave me his golf bag
and told me to cover his name
with tape. So I did, and
felt with every swing
his presence, like
I had to honor the clubs
somehow, hit the ball true
I have never been true
Here and there
I’d get one right, watch
as the ball became smaller
against the sky, like
a thumbtack being placed
Mostly I was shit
thwacking balls
into water hazards, sand traps
adjacent holes
where golfers posed beautifully
in their games
like lilies
against grassy embalments
admiring

Severed Thoughts of a Blessing

The trees in her yard. I can look them
in the eye. My grandmother throwing the football
My grandmother teaching me things on the phone
like how to clean a fish

A factory, its catch-all basket catching watches
wedding-rings. A tattoo being twisted past the knuckle
All the ways a man can lose his finger. A thimble
for love that is more like a helmet

Being alone. I think of being alone
until by thought I am guaranteed. There’s newspaper
laid on the garage floor. The fish I attempted
to learn on. There’s blood, the drying muscles
my grandmother’s voice saying
Go ahead, you can eat the bones

What Stays After Falling Out

We don’t talk anymore but you left
your hat at my house

And once after classes
you told me you dreamt of an angel
that she asked you to tell
three people of her coming. You were
crying. Our friends played Frisbee
in the bus lane, a neon disc
passing like one halo between them
occasionally dropping.

And the nights driving. On 1626
I stopped at a red light with no one around
You were incredulous, like how
could a color like red
mean stop for boys like us, who bite
the heads off centipedes
and peppermint liquor bottles, many
of which we refilled with water
and placed again
into the cabinet

I miss that world
you led my hand into
with everything unclaimed
until we touched it

Looking for Snakes on the Beach at Night

How can anyone take the purple smell
of cigarillos seriously, throwing up
off boardwalk piers into sand dunes
boasting signs about snakes, beware
the rattlesnake, this is its home we
have dropped our folding chairs onto
our trashcan goal posts, our interior
truck music and lives together with
just one other. I have never seen a
rattlesnake. I have however sat in an
empty tent that no one seemed to come
home to. I used the walls to better hit
my pipe. I sniffed the stolen air for sex
but it was already covered. I have
never seen a rattlesnake. I have however
seen teenagers crying in the ocean with
their Bibles, looking like tired surfers
letting several gods wash over them in
waiting for a larger god. A more swollen
feeling. I have never seen a rattlesnake
I have disposed of truth, as it is without
coil, without the spring to life that
fills me. I know the moon will pull the
water in, and push it out. But how much
closer is a moon that leads us out there
with its light as a bridge, onto the oil?
To see the people going on there. I have
never seen a rattlesnake. I have pretended
to see one, even pointed at the holes they
may have made with their heads. I lamented
their absence of hands, as I do
my own absence of people touched