Tagged: the Humans
Mink Teddy Bear
to exist beyond
the worst
having happened
is not the end
of fear
but a full lap
the kids will
often
bring me things
one brings a mermaid
I take its
temperature
one brings
a transformer
it lights up
another brings
a bear that is so soft
it feels alive
maybe it is alive
we’ll keep
its secret
it hides
in the child’s
arms
slips
behind
her voice
around the breath
beneath
the door
mutating, undulate
along
the air
like a virus –
evading its end
by
pretending
it’s
not real
to my Brother’s Spirit
at first, my courage
was naive
it couldn’t have imagined
so it led with that
now my courage
feels old
no longer looking
no longing for something to happen
like Mom said – I knew
there was something
interesting about us
and I felt it
now I couldn’t care less
I want to live
as long as we can
in case we were wrong
Fear of Dying
I beg the stars to move –
that is, to have died already
I’m still uncertain of their distance
now more than ever
what would happen if I ate one?
would it kill me? if I sleep
facing the sky, will it breathe me?
if I get bit, will I die?
I am unsure about so much
what does a virus want?
which is the universe
and which is the galaxy?
is it cicadas? or static on
spirit headlamps? or
Denis Johnson’s feverish
kazoo music?
could be just a bug
am I doing the right thing?
where do I place
the needs that could kill me?
Yell Fuck at Canoe Rental
geese scream hate
over a banjo being played
inside a trailer full
of life-jackets
the geese are so angry
they lose themselves
feathers in disarray off them
dropping two at a time
soon there will be
more feathers
on the ground
than on the birds themselves
you could build a new bird
imagine the feathers cleaned
and colored for crafts
kids attaching them
to their shoes, banjo music
lifting them into the sky
where light is adjacent colors
the music plays on speaker
it will never stop
but eventually the geese do
they scream their necks
into collapse, then
disperse, like light
onto the blacktop, squirming
the way light does
the light is the same light
as always. we’ve had it
this whole time. it has been
everything since and will be
everything else
it extends beyond the prism
of our atmosphere. it comes from
a fucking star – how can there
be hate?
it is only the brain making
of light what it will
the brain which has never felt
the feeling of light on its skin
Salamander
light, like the cricket that leaves the cave
our minds which consume
and think they have been. our minds
of the palest skin
they are stuck inside
the cave of skull
blind as a salamander – seeing nothing
aware of only what they see
Pressing Medicine
I do one, maybe
two things wrong &
I can’t function – my
stomach is the rag
my ribs are the glass jar
inside awash with medicine
how much does it take
to twist like that?
what do you do with
the rest?
black in the dark, black
red in the light
it is left
in the margin, discarded
white space that
oblierates, white winter
that proliferates
how can it be so many
when it is also each one?
Why Don’t You Say My Name as Much Anymore
my parents would say Terri – I mean your mother
or David – I mean your father
as if I wouldn’t know who they meant. Or like
they were each hiding some Terris or Davids
we weren’t supposed to know about. I never really
suspected, but I would listen sometimes
put a cup to the wall in my closet
that connected to their bathroom
I’d listen to my mother and father spending time
with Terri and David – coordinating spits
in their sinks – starting the shower for the other –
flushing the toilet. sometimes I’d hear the long lighter
snapping its fingers at the candle. sometimes
I’d hear the tub water. they’d say their lover’s name
– serious business in the house that holds
their children. they must have been in on it together
sometimes I’d fall asleep in the closet listening
my nicer pants and things hanging close to my face
curled up against bags with my name
adorned on them, a clear cup along the carpet
Candida
your heart will hurry
to the places it’s been
a note tied to its leg
what if the quiet place
in your mind vanishes, or
worse, is given to someone else?
for now though, this is us
this is a city
it shows us its spirits
it calls when the grass
is too long, stops calling
when the grass dies off from sun
where the ice cream truck
does circles, donuts
do your ears hang low
and the occasional BOOIIIOIIINNGG
or HEELLOOO?! we lay
in its sound, having just licked
each other, perpetual lawn mower
I guess the gears of the world
dairy for the diligent whackers
and every house, broken in
on champagne, with its windows
smiling through a baby
under expansion, like most things
built to withstand fire
bison, winter, crop
shortages and floods
termites, outages of power
the way things are
underneath, before eventually
there is a die off
a long low moan without
complaint, the REMEMBER ME
of life that has taken hold
bugs in two dimensions
a flattened Earth holding
more of us, all at once
if she is trying to say something
we wouldn’t know
she is collapsed upon. so
we move forward
in the old way
in which you’re only allowed
to replace yourself
Orion
If you lay in snow
and I lay in snow
even with the same moon
as headboard, the electricity
wouldn’t travel, the water
too densely packed
I feel that way today
both in our underwear
separately, in the city
you walking from Planned Parenthood
to yoga, me having worn
the wrong clothes to work
now bathing in the spillway
we have no gas for water
we named a cat Fuel
each man presents
his best self, the
6-month awoken blood stem
you unlock something in me, he says
it was not there before
you make me want to be a better man
a star falls on the roof
of the Whole Foods
by definition not that great
of a star, but close
men burn their tongues
try to recall
what they were doing before
just to have you say it
have you pull it out
the long steel draw
approachable temperature
a star just being friendly
holding it
lighting their eyes
but stars are forever away
maybe they have already died
Voyager 1
baby birds cry
to expose the red insides
of their mouths
so that the parents
can deliver food
any sound they make
is just screaming
it attracts possums
raccoons
we sing, we scream
in both joy & anger
we certainly cry – in
everything we say
we are saying
Here I am
Come get me
like baby birds
preferring the company
of whatever’s out there
to nothing
