beard poem
for paul

the jaw angle hangs fat

do you still believe in ten
commandments?

were my hands any stronger
i could hurt you easy by saying it

look up words
to say

say, the part of me that hurts is
every part

so i eat less--

heroin is nothing to me, me.
unless i want to 'come in my pants'

and i told you about this
train, i said you took

but you took absolutely
nothing from me, the haves

my dirty underwear maybe
my lonliness

or the spit
on my hands

to grip the grip tighter
to nail it

to leave my face
at home.

print

form of worship, your head
on my thigh, pillow dog
i am less naked when you are
looking

the befores and afters are when
my clothes come off
or simply wont hide

you found the time
when the sidewalk
was smoothed.

fish jaw

i will talk
under a mouth bone
artificial structure added
but unable to chew

through, thumbs for teeth
plucked at the joints or
cherry picker

will i talk
nice words about you and your
pretty bacteria
unseen on my swinging

knees bent in unmoveable buck,
hip tall boots
grabbing at river darts

show me your true talk
over in the shallow
where the river moves slow

re-application

use the feet for function
all the ground being tight-rope
damp in romantic

because socks are for sandals
here, rotting wood pile
a poem about trees

tall living soulless, is
nose stubs, bent up branch
run my licked thumb over your eyebrow

girl thing
bite at the air passing between
your arm and ribcage, skinned

and jacketed
covered in water, can you
stop thinking

you are such a forest, moving
toward the moon
the top of your head breaking clouds

merry x-mas

haiku 27

write this down about you
without you's

why am i fixed
on parts that will break

on this body there
is no body at all

poetry reading vidz

CHECK OUT VIDEOS OF R. WOLFE AND ME AT OUR FIRST FRIDAY POETRY READING :D thanks jessica

sex poem

sewn in by the winter monger,
sweat feet in the dark, socks,
walking.

does the Atlantic make you gravy;
heroes and heroes are the same
as anyone making it.

it is just work,
the things i do for you, you etc.
kissing your hip too soon.

it is a bone but
i would like to thank you for
the sex i guess.

porn poem
formerly known as kryzewski

a proverbial winter wonderland, i
never saw it coming

beautiful ice sculptures of naked women
and large
toys

my brother lost his job when the porn shop
burned down
many people lost their
jobs

the things you can see, or subject them
into being actual people, on fire.

i haven't decided how it might affect me.

the only time i have ever been in a porn shop
was for moral support
when dane wanted to buy playing cards with naked fat women
on them.

that was around christmas too.

hong kong foot

hard as it would be to wash some socks
for your boy

let him run around outside barefoot
for the wild of it

make him dream of playing football
for jon madden

science fiction

everything burns

the minutes i sing song,
another man, or man thing--

exit beauty, you
on heels. call me.
venomous coward/inward boy

know that you leave me; know that
when two quirks combine
a mass is lost or
i wont think about that

for winter, and drinking

then the snow fell, again
the pears from the pear tree still on the ground

have you ever been this warm
in my old sweaters

and did the birds see it coming,
or
were you asking me.

deer poem

deep into the deer season
my idle neck bucks

the leather here
is the tannest of all
reach to the drop tine

take hold

scout on what might leap out!
you
from the cover of indian grass

my knees rubbing the dirt
begging the earth
that neither of us is armed or wanting.

translation

markings on my face from berries,
my face the abandoned house.

my hands are dark purple today;
they never are
on normal days.

normally i would like to be lighter,
ignite wheat, or your other fields

do boys grow taller
where you're from, stilts and flat-tops,

the question doesn't know what i meant,
but all i want is to be
thin and a whisp

short

rememebered my rabbit face
or excuses to make up jumps
calming bridge sway

when i am alone in elevators
i shake them violently
waiting for the cables

my reflection makes me laugh
queitly
like i am not actually there.

kryzewski

don't know the last i wore
overalls
both straps hung loose
during a kris kross phase, i think

used to try and sneak out the apt.
w/ my clothes on backwards

that was before hurricane Andrew

moved to Gering near the Scottsbluff border
w/ my dad and brother

then the huricane finally came

i was friends with a Broncos fan
named Joey Keener
we played at his parents ranch
climbing hay stacks and throwing things at goats.

gone right for the kisser

untitled

you know i cannot light my cigarette
while i am walking, laugh.

the wind from your upper lip;
small appalachian hills

feeling my arms hang loose
and flap around aimlessly.

slipping on the ice
where my warm body sticks to--

avocado

hold you in my hand,
aligator pear.

pull my mouth over cinnamon stick,
caphor or bay laurel;

leopard speckle or do i call it
sun rain,

whisper to my fingers,
let them know the softest parts,

tell you, i will write this story for you.

tell me, you will be there.

gently separate the fruit from skin
with a spoon, working around.

sugar

so the awake in me is from cane fields
or sand hill birds
as in flying back to nebraska

do you dance on my bed
even in the winter, or more then.
against my chest w/
long pink legs

the lips you bite
sewn to the nibble, a bit
for you to wear
when confronting the Hells Angels

telling me stories of them,
w/ their hammers.

follow

my winter beard flutters toward
your cunning snow steps

diagonal zig and retrace
or does the heat
wonder where all the cold goes

the wood begins to die,
ash is not what i am filled with

i am a child

stop your sad look
you look at me as if i forgot something

as if i was meant to zag in the snow
to get lost

krzyzewski

that was a stolen sweater;
arms forever

where going west only means
wyoming and more wyoming

vampire christ, hail
marching roman like, around, around--

the death of you
is not forgotten, yet. my mind.

totem truck stop
blown the youth of your

face.

bone-chew

does your god know i
don't exist

the dollars of your can
feed it

who doesn't collect
shark teeth on the beaches of florida

the flattest place
on earth

even the alligator in the canal wouldnt
eat
my mother.

winged it

did you abandon me here,
do you cum in your pants

on the train.

forget every second of,

in the distance between here, and
another here

the voice of my hand
slapping against the hood of my car
pouring coke all over the battery cables

does this picture make you giggle
while you are faster than i am.

fly colors

the saying of flea in your ear
or as all hands, all hands!

in between the fingers he smells
of deli meats,

will you call him, thunder voice
and all, your worth in words

every last word by thunder,
she speaks like a boat

all riddles and sea charts
that lead you to more of this.

Cutlass!

and he slowly slides back
down the hill
more boyish than a baby may--

try to remember lines from [i]treasure island[/i]
to make sense
of your father as a pirate

think
snow doesn't always stick
when the ground is warm

stop thinking for a moment
say to him
yes, yes, ma'am i, yes

but then there is the meeting
at one point
your age or his, the matter

you say to him
things like
this is who i am today

put down your Cutlass!
your leg is missing
stop your dream.

cripple

the sky can be muck,
or think about the girl stuck in muck
near some Omaha lake.

my beard floats above,
strange as pears scatter on the ground
yellow and halved.

axe

a pile of dirt inside of me,
with my hands, nails.

when the moon is full and the river rises;
again, nothing has happened.

she said the dirt is actually on me,
or she has some,

i can cut you down tree;
i can end you this way.

gold's

three men in suits under a deli sign
talk business talk; notice

rich men go bald the same way poor men go bald
along the front ridge & crown

because i am mad
i will separate the river thames from
your shoulder pass

muffling the voice of adults,
the garbled rumble of whales

the male ones hunt in packs
for love

snore under water as floating device,
wake your baby sleep

listen to what the bus stop people say
with their coats on in preparation of winter
or all things coming.

for kitten

promise to call
warn you

when i walk around the apt.
naked

my socks on silent
the cold kitchen floor makes me quiver

i will taste the deepest thick of
you

because i am mad

visiting

scumming for a like soul
can i breathe your ocean air, nebraska
cold is colder than your nebraska.

your copper hair blondes me, gum
your plumb neck. plump my lips from the cement--
i can bite you, modern world, with my fakest face.

the slope of your back with the back hair
goads my hand to nick-it,
can you reach for me.
take away my cape.

fragile in the sense that a man is,
or why i get nerves in my belly when i see you,
a beauty.

call me for a second; call me while i am sleeping.

call me a word like darling
so my fur jumps
& the coats that warm my shaved shoulders
hide great plains from the belly i said.

more, there is an ocean under here,
you can listen
for the train coming. breathe
the air for me,
the jewel of cattle beds.

mr. october

for the earth of it
dirt cleat, teeth is what you got
& swing like a slugger
secret club, do the tattoos you got
say something.

cry because it died, the person
love that goes on a face
munchin' on xanax bars 'til your heart stops

swing batta' batta'
ask the same question
does a team full of professional men
making mad bank
really shock the world with success

it is the death of it
that leaves.

water displacement: 40th attempt

weathered cowboys live in a place similar to hell
guarded by the mother of god,
then asked 'did you see a titty'
& you wonder if you actually did.

your basketball coach drowned in nebraska
which has a great deal of ground water.

we can wait for hours, wondering when we will see
a t-rex. somewhere near york. but that might be wrong.

in my head i said, i said i complain about things
so that people feel sorry for my life not turning out
like my dreams.

like my dreams, i see things.

the drive across nebraska;
hemingways grave, ketchum; a titty.

i saw none of them.

then we decide to go on a rampage with axes
through the lower step of boise,
we complain about the sex in our sleeping space,
smoke our brains numb.

you talk to cats when you are alone.
the desert reminds you of water,
the titty you saw.

putting your life together;
things that fit inside
of you
become interesting

nest

wild horses draw the head off
you, razor-legs show me
skin of your bite bones
or where the fir trees grow
down to the night-time-water-body, so
i can be a romantic man
talk generic about the places of you:

the off-path covered wagon,
dirt boat
my beard dangling w/ twigs
& prairie flower.
arranged to remind you

krzyzewski

under the plain swell
can you feel all the earthquakes

the man i know from Falls city
saves you sometimes
or so he says
then rumbling, loud like a motorboat

until the forest over here
sang it out for parachuters
when the garlic mustard killed your garden

path cleared of poisonous spiders
the indian graveyard seems safe now

but you realize there isn't an end to this
the spiders are back every summer,
the father still has to have it's kids

canoe #2

bending my near broken buffalo collar
bone down the winding Niobrara, she
lays lady finger between each western rib.
my skin ripples in pond
telling me
which water snake will bite my face
sweet & lonesome
beneath an other-worldly sun
tanning our hide
naked in a boat

pioneers

counting bruises oh, are we
apples
sail upon trampled fields
of water wheat
you grow gold w/ your soiled hands
she
drinks & i
drink redberry-wine cold
behind trails of bison bur & indian grass,
smelling in barberry or
may-apple maybe, we
wait for it
to get dark for
our skin to hide

poem
1.

do
i go at it all wrong; on

deck
for the swinging game

more clobber
out of my bones arm--

cast
the throwing of small

boulders or
am i
poet

2.

poet
am i

falling to pieces in my
pieces falling

zone. so girl
turns to stone

inside of my baby
my baby groans

can i
find a small boy named i
& home



sand.gravel.limestone

I.

a part of me is not apart of me,
voice to lung or wrong tube
a singer & dance-a-thon
queen Anne’s lace or

do you know all the wild flowers in Iowa
the way i know all
the wild flowers in Iowa after i see them.

my cell phone does not work well
in the centers of cities
in the centers of cities
you can buy cell phones for cheap
at cheap cell phone stores

somehow i walked back into
wicker park w/o you
talking w/ my cell phone

& texted: everything you say to me
makes me smiley.

II.

i am jealous of the desert
w/ small you

see
there are no stars
over Chicago

take places apart
to make
small distances you can hide behind
a cactus
leaves no part of me

no matter how much the temperature changes
at night

when bats fly over a desert
to kiss nectar
& move on

to another desert.

III.

measure the unreal
by those who are not real
emptying eye parts or i can
pretend not to,
galaxies forming in the pit of my pitness
& other dark floating bodies
where you can't see

or to make more sense
see,
there is this machine
always these machines
that can carry
a) voice
or the physical parts together in my
thought

IV.

crumble the mountain

is it easier to hear dynamite

does the bridge swing

can i ask small favors

put each arm around my

detachable neck

i feel

going somewhere

fresh fruit

gobble going gets tough
where i leave my skin to skin

in the sun's weather weathered,
leather under where i sun my shaded self

selfish to hide. breeze i can find
seldom despite a shiftless center--

horizon i noticed, the trees are no trees,
but the trees are still planted

i grab you by this neck & this neck
so they tell you the neck is detachable

coffea

gone from where i saw you
or is where i saw you there.

staining things on my hands
now stain the pant legs of my pants.

shower when you might come by;
i do not shower often.

the rich wet dirt you want
is under the hard dry earth.

you put this seed over here, over here
& cherries grow out of me.

oh, profile

i refrain from complementing you on a daily basis
because i am a flirt

when there is skin, or more skin
i will tell you & i won’t tell you at all

a neck wrapped around my arm
while i step on pine-cones the size of my head.

to Chicago

a whim & the fog
rolls, i can say what the fog is. where smart cats keep breeding
w/o consequence, & then the kissing words--

knew the sun would return even when there is no sun for miles
or if it took months
so on & a great distance that i can push back
behind your ear.

or do i dare that rain to/to touch us
with house taps--
scare the dog, drops

a letter
written with small bumps only

you will read to me words like hung, & hair lip, push me
back against the wall & i
watch your mouth

then know my hand is now your hand,
lost in the land of your hand parts. connect to other places
hidden by limited vision, & there
people are

& then a reality filled w/ real things such as
people eat, or
can i see pictures of you before they changed it.
walking on
hand pads for the feet to rest, i could walk like this for days

w/ you telling me, don't be so silly
my boy hands. hold--

maybe more of a man w/ man hands than i want to be
measured by the silent minutes
between the airconditioning unit click ons and offs

but you don't look where you're going
& pass the nature walk, say blind spot
Iowa rest stops
greener as temporary, as green can be for the garden or
just a damn lucky guy going for the turn-around
& walk back towards the greenless things
that we can talk about
when we talk about

or do i know what i'm doing, with it
said
‘i know why fog is here.’
now, you're softest when the rain hasn't stopped
& a small line can be curved into something
like the dirt of me, mud spittle
my mouth runs over your
collar bone
still.

looking

standing naked
in front of my bedroom window
i feel
the cowlick on the back
of my head
running
all the way down my
spine &
tail
the never ending list
of skeletons in me

looking

standing naked
in front of my bedroom window
i feel
the cowlick on the back
of my head
running
all the way down my
spine &
tail
the never ending list
of skeletons in me

five

no whiskers for the thought of it stopping on a
dime

the feathers of this pillow are much more put together
compared to another pillow i will not name

when i am in Iowa
i feel like i am from the city.

it is not as if i do not like how the blood of your meat tastes
i am just forgetful

in a way
i could tell you why your mother and father never sing in the car.

mariposa

laying in the bath
three inches of water
maybe less
& more, cooling
quicker than i can clean
say:
these are teeth,
beautiful white jaws
around me in porcelain, they
beg me to slip
every time

untitled

making it alone,
as in a living
a singular tree grows next to
then another

as far as allowed, up
does the heart stop
wincing
see faces in the knot-bark

find a way
to shimmy the trunk
notice through the leaves
out, out,
my fingers fatter than the branch

comfort food


when i was naked
you smiled

w/ hands
for claire

on the line to being cute
because my hand is careless in your hand

picking loose hairs off, picking
the pic-nic-king spot

on a roof,
ask if i have forgotten something

to fly
i think

the largest meth bust in american history

maybe steal some old beers from the garage
of your junior high school counselor
go hide somewhere

maybe throw a bowling ball out the window
of a moving car
watch it hit the curb and fly into the air

drink out by the river
burry your liquor in the sand bar
for another day,

maybe see the truck
that held the largest meth bust
in american history

more story. (EDITED)

tom had been staying at his parents house the past two weeks. it was the house he grew up in for the most part. the house was empty now except for the things left in the storage room upstairs that tom had converted into a guest room. there was an old bed in there, a bicycle, golf clubs, other things.
someone he knew once had called him the other day leaving a message that she was coming to see him. she flew in from kansas city after spending a few days with her parents. tom thought that was funny for some reason. even though she had let him know she was coming tom was still a little surprised she showed up at the door. it was tuesday.
when the doorbell rang, tom sat there not moving. he was in the living room sitting on a folding chair he had put there. there was charred wood in the fire place with ashes scattered on the floor nearby. it had been two weeks.
the doorbell rang again.
tom got up and brushed some crumbs off his pants. he didn't remember eating anything that day. walking to the door he could see her peeking through the small window. she saw him.
the smile was something he had always remembered. he wrote about it, though none of those poems were well received by his editor.
he opened the door, attempting to hide what it was he felt.
she was still smiling, her face and neck blush.
'hello thomas,' she said.
'hello,' he said.
he stepped to the side to let her in, but she approached him to give him a hug. she leaned up and kissed his beard.
'it's nice to see you' she said, quietly.
'it's nice to see you too.'
'really?' she looked at him.
he looked to her side and saw she was carrying a grocery bag.
'what do you got there?'
'supplies,' she smiled again.
'let's go up stairs,' he turned.
'should i take off my boots down here?'
he shook his head and started up the stairs.
'we'll need glasses and ice,' she said.
'i have those up here,' he was halfway up the stairs now.
she didn't know what to say. she couldn't tell what he was thinking, or how he was feeling. she wanted to say something.
he didn't know why she was here, but he was glad in some way.
she came up to him, standing in the hallway waiting for her.
'what are you doing?'
'in here,' he opened a door that was painted over to blend with the wall. it opened to the storage room with the guest bed. he took the bag of supplies from her and started placing them on a card table he found the other day; two oranges; bitters; a bottle of simple syrup; a bottle of makers.
'old fashioned's,' he said.
'still drink them?'
'not since i last saw you' he started mixing a drink.
she didn't know what to say. he wasn’t looking at her.
he pulled out an ice tray from a mini fridge under the table.
'nice dorm room you have,' she said, looking around at all the collected junk, old things.
'yeah,' he poured one cup into the other to mix it. he looked around at the room but didn’t say anything else.
'the weather's really nice here,' she was looking at him again.
'is it?'
'it was dreadful in kansas city. it rained the first three days. stayed cooped up in the house with my parents. it was nice at first, but then i just couldn't wait to go. i couldn't wait to see you," she looked to him for recognition.
'well i'm glad you made it safe,' he handed her a drink. he smiled the way it doesn't look like he was smiling, his lips straightened out.
'me too,' she took the glass from him and took a sip.
'strong,' she made a face that wrinkled the bridge of her nose.
'you still drink it that way?' he was mixing his drink with his finger.
'not since i last saw you.'
he smiled.

the smile was something he had always remembered. he had written about it, though none of those poems were well received by his editor.

working on a story pt. 1

tom had been staying at his parents house the past two weeks. it was the house he grew up in for the most part. the house was empty now except for the things left in the storage room upstairs that tom had converted into a guest room. there was an old bed in there, a bicycle, golf clubs, other things. someone he knew once had called him the other day leaving a message that she was coming to see him.
she flew in from kansas city after spending a few days with her parents. tom thought that was funny for some reason. even though she had let him know she was coming tom was still a little surprised she showed up at the door. it was tuesday.
when the doorbell rang, tom sat there not moving. he was in the livingroom sitting on a folding chair he had put there. there was charred wood in the fire place with ashes scattered on the floor nearby. it had been two weeks.
the doorbell rang again.
tom got up and brushed some crumbs off his pants. he didn't remember eating anything that day. walking to the door he could see her peeking through the small window. she saw him.

nest

wild horses draw the head off
you, razor legs show me
the skin of your bite bones
or where the fir trees grow
down to the night-time water body
so i can be a romantic man
talk generic about the places of you
your body
the off-path covered wagon
dirt boat
my beard dangling w/ twigs
& prairie flower
arranged to remind you

krzyzewski

under the plain swell
can you feel all the earthquakes

the man i know from falls city
saves you sometimes
or so he says

then the rumbling, loud like a boat
but the forest over here
sang it out,
when the garlic mustard killed your garden

with the path cleared of poisonous spiders
the indian graveyard seems safe

but you realize there isn't an end to this
the father still has to have it's kids
& the spiders still come back next summer.

interview

don't work hard enough
move to a new 'world'
excuse
bet on the underdog
& complain when the upperdog
wins
can i get a job w/ gold teeth or
if i wear a t-shirt
w/ all the presidents who had beards
on the front
so what if i hide my face from you
level 2 proficient w/ microsoft office
yes,
will you hold it againt me:
violations after violations
dig out all the bones
& make yourself a bone yard
how many you's does it take to--
stop me if you heard this one before
high school football coach as reference
though i do not know his current phone number
how do you
sleep at night
in your bed made of shatter proof sheets.

canoe #2

bending my near broken buffalo collar
bone down the winding
niobrara
she lays lady finger
between each western rib.
my skin ripples
in pond
telling me which water snake will bite
my face sweet & lonesome
beneath an other-
worldly sun tanning my hide
naked in a boat

pioneers

counting bruises
oh, are we
apples
sail upon trampled fields
of water wheat
you grow gold w/ your soiled hands
she
drinks & i
drink
redberry wine cold behind trails
of bison bur & indian grass
smelling in barberry or
may-apple maybe we
wait
for it to get dark for
our skin to hide

spicer
that marvelous finger
he gave it
after being asked to take back
comments made on ted williams' contribution
to the bosox
i was there he said
i was there when he gave it
but it wasn't worth
a goddamn thing
if you want to win the pennant
and my poetry
does

midwest-voodoo-physics
never ending
sky
not so much the bison
both can be killed to borderline extinction
i
drive faster the further rows grow
between potter/dix
in back country pan-handles where
rain is only a whitewashed
wall never seeming
to fill up dry bed
who can sleep

there is no wind break
& the howling is
mistaken for hungry coyotes
nipping at your feet all
because there are no more
bison to kill

poem
1.

do
i go at it all wrong; on

deck
for the swinging game

more clobber
out of my bones arm--

cast
the throwing of small

boulders or
am i
poet

2.

poet
am i

falling to pieces in my
pieces falling

zone. so girl
turns to stone

inside of my baby
my baby groans

can i
find a small boy named i
& home

light & shadows

a partially blind man
ran into me
on my smoke break at work
carrying a camcorder
he said:
i am taking a video of the city
for friends & family to see
in my left eye
i can see light & shadows
that's how i do it

iowa
for heaven

stretch across a belly flat
or
could i say it in a much more boring way
drive slow
so you do not miss
the largest truck stop in the world
with enough parking space
for the entire state
to park
their semis

heaven
for iowa

a small box the size of iowa
but lets not mix the twain
w/ baseball

there is no gay marriage in heaven
because
there is no heaven
it is called iowa

just blocks
for jon

& so the morning remarks
hello

do i still smoke cigarettes
am i still me, snake

sunshine on the plains is forever

said cedar was a good smellin' wood
the best
other asks
what are those

i do not like detroit
for playoffs

so i cried after
reggie millers last game

does anyone really
laugh like that cackle you got
&
do you know how good
john starks
actually was

file the parts you know
about kidhood
@ madison square garden
or any place you saw on a television set

do we know that these are people
that i am writing a poem
about real people

sand.gravel.limestone

II.

i am jealous of the desert
w/ small you

see
there are no stars
over chicago

take places apart
to make
small distances you can hide behind
a cactus
leaves

no matter how much the temperature changes
at night

when bats fly over a desert
to kiss nectar
& move on

to another desert.

sand.gravel.limestone
IV.

crumble the mountain

is it easier to hear dynamite

does the bridge swing

can i ask small favors

put each arm around my

detachable neck

i feel

a shiver through

sand.gravel.limestone
III.

measure the unreal
by those who are not real
emptying eye parts or
i can
pretend not to feel
galaxies forming in the pit of my pitness
& other dark floating
where you can't see
me
does that make sense
see,
there is this machine
there are always these machines
that can carry
voice
or the physical parts
together in my
thought

sand.gravel.limestone

I.

a part of me is not appart of me
voice to lung or wrong tube
a singer & dance

queen annes lace or
do you know all the wild flowers in iowa
the way i know all
the wild flowers in iowa after i see them.

my cell phone does not work well
in the centers of cities
in the centers of cities
you can buy cell phones for cheap

somehow i walked back into
wicker park w/o you

& texted: everything you say to me
makes me smiley.

hello mountain

to trace you
warmer part of the chest skin
feels
my remembering where i brush
my beard
the slopes of your profile
our identical hands

sweater poem

i bought this sweater
because i
fell in love with you
it cost me 70$
& does not even keep me warm
unless i wear it
in the summer.

kansas city poem
for claire

you light up the plains you
scan the great plains--

saw good ol' boy become
& then the kissing word

moves to the softer animals from sea
priced by the moist

you can gum these soft sea monsters
for dollars & the cost or

i could save
all my money
from the open furnace

untitled
for title

in silence the silence finds
it's noise
or my voice is made by teeth
& the flesh i bite
calling the sound gnashing &
raspberry spit/split
the lickity of traveling so far
when my throat can vibrate
i say "simple"
in that way
how i feel
how the crater in my torso
actually feels
vibrating into message of--
that i can't translate
in any real word
so i pretend your ears, painfully
soft
grating into the build of my skeleton
yes
the whole thing
can hear

poem
for face

dont know her or knew her for
just half a day
the way the unknown curls around
a straight part of head hair
then the bending
where you did not know could bend
say money does this
or the kissing words that hold
around the nothing known
until you realize what it is
keeping you up late at night
trying to bring her closer
w/ words only
feel her face form in language
say this is chin
& put your thumb over it
to see again.

part of a poem

see the language of you, danc--
ing word or
fuzzy mumble i
can hear the approach
under arch
born the mississippi quarter
my kansas side of kansas city
moves

poem

the words are hard
sometimes.

nothing is
coming to mind.

i would like to write a poem
today, or

tomorrow,
even yesterday would have been nice

but
i
suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

a famous statue

hide the light from your
light eyes

shade sun on a guest bed i
remove your legs to walk w/

or run along your handsome prancers.
forget direction

on your no-moss thigh,
mars sleeps on us at the same

time the gaps of when i
think your face & still--
you are.

tonights the night
for z.s.

look at us fuddy duddies
talkin bout some love stuff

grow a beard why dont ya
just run off

into the desert-- she say
that furs for hangin on

weaving our faces into
a woman or

parking your car on my lawn
in the morning
we are.

you &
for guest room

telling me don't be so silly
w/ my boy hands. hold--

maybe more of a man w/ man hands
than i want to be

be yours in an instant measured
by the silent minutes

between when the airconditioning unit
clicks on

carry over water
for you

or do i know what i'm doing, with it
said

i know why fog is here.
you're

softest when the rain hasn't stopped
& a small line

can be curved into something
easily held

so my mouth runs over your
collar bone
still.

carry over water
for the other side

but you don't look where you're going
& pass

greener is only temporary, as green can be
for the garden or

just a damn lucky--
going to just turn around

& walk back towards the greenless
things

that we can talk about
when we talk
about

carry over water
for water

& then there is a reality
filled w/ real things

people eat, or
can i see pictures of you

before they changed it.
walking on

hand pads for the feet to rest,
i could walk like this for days

next
to
you.

stand-by
for claire

a whim & the fog
rolls, i can say what the fog is. where

smart cats keep breeding
w/o consequence, then love--

knew the sun
would return even when there is no sun

or if it took months becoming more months
so on &

a great distance
that i can push back
behind your ear.

for eyes

dare the rain to
to touch us

with house taps--
scare the dog.

a letter
written with small bumps only

you will read to me words like
hung, & hair lip, push me

back against the wall & i
watch your mouth
move

twenty six
for twenty eight

reached some peak
or at least

thought i touched it.
know my hand is now

your hand,
lost in the land of your

hand parts. connect
to other places

hidden by my limited vision--
& there
people are

west
for west

tell me again--
you are the reason i

move-- freaky fast
when it can be to easy to stay here:

comfort.
gotta get outta this

zone, feel the goddamn dry heat
flush against skin

stretched over the bones
of what lived
here.

for keeps

muddy river, here's that sad face you got.
long baby, reach in to your mouth

with a full arm of sweet things--
im sorry you.

a kiss is. pull away from your wings for
just a fly

know the seasons come when you won't
want this much

when a time like this walks in
to your life
& takes you home.

2010

space you can fill up
with your

lovely noise,
we can lap the humidity

here in nebraska, a gift,
the whole state

from each growth of feed
meant to keep

the fat cows here,
so everyone can eat them,
even other fat cows.

thousands of years

a good look stung
what ever me could be found

pick up the pitter--
or one thing a world has,

patience.
her horns of joshua

enter my jericho-bones,
say

harlot boy
come down to the creek
& see.

no title
for greg

the cancer i write
grows up like a poem

alive it seems, or
everything has happened

he screams at the frozen
pond, head crossed

by several other pond people
who ballance

their child feet
on
water.

for walker

we walk down the street
to become better goers,

im sure you know.
a tuft of fur

glows over
where i want your back--

my hands wrapped;
position

the soft parts where
my teeth
will taste.

on the way

still there's the wander--
stretch your neck

to neck
where she stretches to find

some understandable trait
of connect--

friction in move;
a great distance by any means.

find the spot
where
she knows what you are saying.

for creator

put together new animals
from scratch/no scratchy

is the beard too much
for nature, i mother i

guess i'd better
surprise you w/ bright colored furs

on all the animals i make;
they will be

tiny as this poem
w/ strange smiles all over
their bodies.

be like, etc.

want the ghost of it, is muffle
speak through me spectre

gone from the sh-shaking
my hand did not, seem

touch the face of her, face her
from all angles

passing through
is quick & painless

except for the young ones
who still
live here.

nude poem

that is when you lie
to yourself

about what you forgot to do
before all these people you know

were naked
even in the absence of liquor

even in the absence of god
as if it ever were

that easy to be naked
in front of anyone
when you really loved them.

for friends

& the whisky is there
for your friends

because your friends are there
to kiss you

when the ones who ought, are not.
when the raspberry burn

on your face
feels like a fight you don't remember

but you remember everything
about the kiss
or the one you ought.

saint

boy i, a
catch

me before i, too-
where the eyebrow might not, or

you touch it
when nobody is looking

which is a task
but then

i lean in & don't kiss you
which is
a much harder task.

waiting for mcdonalds to open.


lonely is a loud
way

but the curious is just opening



got the word down somewhere or
got it

rather not know
say no it's not known

invent the rumble bars on the interstate shoulder
on your shoulder it seems



different
.

searching homes for the right
home

meant to go by highway
when the winter sneaks around wisconsin

scared to find the neighbors--
greener on the roof

poem
for paul

do
i go at it all wrong; on

deck
for the swinging game

more clobber
out of my bones arm--

cast
the throwing of small

boulders or
am i
poet

poem
for kyle

poet
am i

falling to pieces in my
pieces falling

zone. so girl
turns to stone

inside of my baby
my baby groans

can i
find a small boy named i
& home

trip, a

& you can sound with your mouth
sounds, i

can't take my--
his eyes fit strange in their eye holes

wish i had seen
or wish i had

wrists for you
to cover with long sleeves

or laugh
about how i can see you
sooner

home

on deck
for the swinging game

clay bits break down
into smaller clay bits

ground grates by the cleats
bone wrap tar babe

gonna find me that sweet spot
dosing on the cube

but these diamonds
are gravy
for the tree i carry.

mud

forget about the another--
other, touch where the callous hide

her elbows
ice ball, no not a snow ball

like clay, for making
the best of/of a situation

say this, yell yell mad
ha, no

do-
n't be
ridiculous

i got myself a job-job, dear
getting into your swimming pools

bake your skin hot springs
to be your friend's brown--

don't mention it.
your dirt field is all over

the mountain babies
say now

you are a mountain baby
just like
her baby was.

an enormous closet

there's enough space, moons etc.
you landing on me

no i said,
are you landing on me

when the truth of something is
an untruth

how do you?
believe in the endless void,

&
that i can make it
there.

a lakes

my jean shorts cut for summer
& poetry for weapons, ha

you distance are a beauti--
ful bitch of a son,

god, i would like that.
more of a motion--

back stroke or just float there
all damn pretty

the water i mean,
you know, when it
ripples

softer

maybe grass isn't a garden here,
greener in the roll-around

but my isn'ts just go sometimes
at the walking you walk, or

grass seems greener on my pant's knees--
sleep/wake, cold rooftop gardens.

away from the mouth you command
the night to carve a poem into us:

the stars you said
would be there
& my hands--

wind wind & wind
for the late greg kuzma

& the grass growing, smells like grass
or you watch it

take individual pieces from the dead
buried

watch the dead lift themselves up
floating to the top of the

world.
they are babies.

we will keep them in zoos
& no-one
will save them.

hey girl

you are the baby in the barn
your fingers nubbed

from feeding too much sugar
to those damn horses

nay! are my arms not long enough
to love; you

cave in my face
the hoof with metal lips

dripping milk down your throat
with the tip
of my nipple is wine.

my africa

the birth was a miracle,
the baby was a

miracle baby--
tall as a man straight out;

my baby has flag poles for legs, mom says,
waving its bright teeth

at the planets you think are stars--
a jealous heaven.

his arms, are beautiful trees throwing
figs at gibbons
who can no longer climb his white body.

on a bus

the quickness is not what scares me it's
i am your moon landing--

trapped next to rotation,
we stop &

wait, & wait some more
wondering where the polish tourists

ran off to.
or how someone would suddenly decide

hey,
lets go to
utah.

mississippi

poke your beard into
the rivers breast

a thin baby splips
out of here, all pig

no grease, just mud
for miles, is all you see

walking on a thick current
feeling the drown come

where the catfish
are
waiting.

an enormous closet

i don't care if you ever see
my naked body

w/ the tip of your tongue,
smell the dirt & dead skin in my finger nails

when i forget to take
good care

make the most of the empty sound
that sits between what i assume is you

& then there is me
sitting in a room
no bigger than your stomach.

tree poem

DO KIDS WHO LIVE IN NEIGHBOR HOODS
WITH OLD TREES

DRIVE THEIR MUSTANGS
AROUND NEWER NEIGHBORHOODS

THAT HAVE YOUNG TREES &
THROW INSULTS AT THE KIDS IN THESE NEIGHBORHOODS

LIKE HEY!
NICE BABY TREES!

EVEN IF THE OTHER KIDS ARE DRIVING
MUCH NICER CARS
LIKE A GOLD ROLLS ROYCE

trees

WHEN A TREE SINGS THE NATIONAL ANTHEM
OF TREES

IN A FOREST OF TREES
DO

THE OTHER TREES HEAR HIM/HER
W/ THEIR TREE EARS

& WOULD
THEY ALL LOAD LEAF BULLETS INTO THEIR TREE RIFLES

TO FIGHT ME
WHEN I SWING MY MAN AXE
AT THEIR ELDERLY.

the week before i saw the last airbender 3D IMAX


the important part is what i say
when i don't even know

they call that faith
in the south

which they call the bible belt
which holds

up florida
which kind of looks like a flaccid penis

if you think that way or if
you haven't seen the last airbender
3D IMAX yet.

an enormous closet



look at the extremes, say:
i am an extremely normal person

or say an exit sentence like
don't go.

think of the power you might have
when you make requests

as if you can sprout plants
out of

the rib of my brother
by saying two words when
you mean to say three

an enormous closet

name a river after yourself because you
found it

& this tree next to another tree
starts to close in until you axe them

put a coin in your pocket w. several other
coins to let

bums hear you jingle
while you lie to them about what you have

when the truth is
there's so much
you won't give.

an enormous closet

be a real sneaky--
sneak the new jc penney catalog

into your room.
at this point in your life

you have never had
your own bed, but

this is your room, & it has
a room inside of it

where you can look at women
in their matching underwear
with a flashlight.

the bed i have fits
& i thought it wouldn't

nothing else can

an enormous closet

well i echo but won't write that--
that david bowie

t-shirt might fit
if i was actually you

if i was actually you
in the dark

where i might be afraid.
i might be afraid

of the dark
where nothing will find you,
where nothing will find.

an enormous closet

saw what you thought was me
portioning out the arm i use less

but the shadows are tricky even
in tight spaces, maybe

that's your arm
you see

& then a her-arm you thought
wasn't either of ours, much

less to do w/ why i make
believe
there is time to blink to.

karate
for mikey

why don't you just wear a hat
that matches your other hats you have

carve a wooden
figurine

out of spruce or something
more spruced

ask me again why i dont just
chop down

all of these
legs w/ my
karate.

poem

sticking is what i'm not good at
remember

me as a line
goes on much longer than i'd like

to see
words that draw out the

taste of
what you do taste like

oh yeah
this is why
i wanted to say:

punches

crazy where you put yourself, question
the dots you find

around your perfect skin
sitting

or does it stand where the young boys see
more to learn

than the books we can give them
packing up our saids and does

for the older boys
who know where to
look

bomb it

cumbersome face, rough you
up

scratch my scalp like a dog
until my ears

want to hug each other
always naked

touch me nude, a fat baby
my eyes stay blue--

up, where your hands hold
excited
to wrap around my it.

sp ce
for kyle

your skin grows back,
but those curls you got to stick with

cut your arm real bad or
be safe on your fence sits

peaceful is the car-ride
talk speak to the wind-boys--

your arm is my arm,
long & grabbing for my arms

you don't surf
to get away from
surfing.

slip, slip,

maybe i am a piece of your face
when you remember me; a small boy under

these skins & beard, a devil hugging every inch;
feeling much like water

cooling whatever loneliness i can find.
i'm smiling sometimes

is what you don't see. helpless
to what you miss about

when i told you how i feel
or the other times
that i said anything.

vandal

can hear bugs drop from the window
thudding against the floor in the dark

my blood under naked leg seems delicious but
they don't want that--

left teeth marks on my neck i made up
where the sex really is

exciting like my hands can be
wandering through your rows

breaking off milkweed plants
along the canal
until we get to the iron bridge.

deer

the apples in my palms don't float, or
i'm just a bad swimmer kid.

dark colors make you a shiny bit,
spider arms lay down a long stick

dangle over me with my mouth; open
dream you'd just let me go

stand on the other side of the river
without any clothes on; sailing.

maybe keep my pants up
because knees look funny
when they buck.

did you hear what im saying
im never leaving space
i said im never leaving space
do you want my car
you can have my car
i have no need for a car because
i am never leaving space

-paul

a poem for paul

put a clean shirt on
make plans to give a damn

does it sound funny when i say
fuck-machine,

or when the window is wide open
a crater, or a whistle gap that you

whistle through,
about the leg pumping you can do

with all of these
fuck-machines
that i told you about.

the replacement for your top beams make
a good support,

the old top beams can be reused

panhandle

smell nebraska under my shirt
where your hands reach, am i

a field is a place to work
you can make things live w/

those hands.
step off into a darker part of the state

that doesn't keep track
of how many people it takes to live here

keep moving in that direction
towards something, maybe
a mountain.

long branch

but i didn't watch the tornado break,
or the van with all those antenna on it--

you said i could last,
but different points on my skin are starting to

rub off.
friends from high school come by to remember me,

& that's nice too.
but the shaking of where the joints

take up &
are thrown into the next county
makes me realize what comes next.

dance

taste the coin in the vein, someone
said you could change out the useless

parts for parts you can see from down the block,
the inward curve

of your rib & hip
where my head fits perfectly into

& can smell where you might have been
the past few days

wandering
around in the wooded areas or
where ever you go with your light steps.

invention

edge of the chair cuts off circulation in your legs
these are my legs that get puffy with blood in them

when you walk it feels funny, numb parts hurt
& that doesn't make any sense

needles dig past your teeth into those
pink gums

you can smile now
the easy part has already been done

& you know
when they touch your face to make freckles
i get weak.

soft parts

write down oh my gods in a sequence
like, oh my god more than one god

you used to call, or what name you
used to say was me, say me again

i forgot that i love you is all, is in it--
invite me down to your apartment for

a kiss; what we want is awful
or what we want is all for the friendship,

so i kiss you
& write words on your hip
about why i remember things.

oregon

so the trees aren't enough to soothe
your forgetfulness of my color-

fullness. a rain grab bag of sorts
outs my joking demeanor

or how i wryly draw a pretty face
like yours out of my arm

gray is what you called it,
but i'm telling you

there were
bright yellows
wrapped around me.

lumber

press the bark against words still
in your neck; rough the feathers or

sweat smear on roughneck leathers
to find a softer word for bark

& listen to the wrong tree make
sounds of barking up it. then

soft birds fall onto a bed of feathers
when your speaking became an axe

with out asking if it was the wrong tree
or thinking to check
for birds in it.

gambling with effort

a apple chin, an apple us mash
the ferment sister pair, or does it slice the seed

you chew them easily as if your molars
dig,

beneath the tree that lays, i sleep about your name--
walk down the row when sun rain comes

for the friends you thought you hid, your naked parts;
maybe clay is a shapeless; mole it--

or the fatty part of your upper leg
that leaves the imprint,
& my jeans.

out of--

& i spelled that wrong
& i can call you any time in the a.m.

even if it mutes dawn, or an age & i
crave the warm rain & i

know the neck of you & i
map out each one & i fret the rock formations

& i smell the gaps of us
& i put my cheek next to the silhouette on the wall

or i--
make up words about you,
& i say:

glow

witness incision for the turn, or
were those your lips i sought,

listen to the cattle mew
for any electric fence, spiral necking

to see you
pour other drinks in the pink lemon--

read novels about evolving mothmen
& hear the dust land on

your bare feet
that shine in the sun-light
of my beard.

off shore; oh

followed the filling out of your
parts, notice the depth around grin craters

convex to the hollow hands, where round things
roll off when the window is open,

because the mold is growing black
& needs to be dried out, so it rains--

take you behind the backyard tree
to say:

i will pick up the dust of your bones
with my finger
tips.

hairy ass

the speed of my ambulance to your
ambulance takes time,

but i wasn't even alive for a long time
before i became, say ambulance.

hey, where did your teeth go,
don't worry, these things grow back; happen.

or locked in that cabin, maybe what it was,
thinking about the height of us,

strapped down to the bed covered in sweat,
while those tan people
laughed at things.

turn

polished broad, rub the soft parts of my feet
along your neck, hey grape ape,

maybe your apple will be; say we try this
again; maybe your apple will be apples.

know that when i might have kissed you,
small hairs on your wrist

the color of dust
stand up, dancing in the dark corner

of whatever room
we might have been in for
whatever reason.

arizona

brace yourself from the teeth; smiling
when the magic actually works, on us

forget to blink or eat the wind, bye bye
pass us through each pore, out one

body made of fleshy greens & in
the other,

carve the butter from fat baby arms,
fat lady arms break off in water,

but when all these movements
move
you,

i want to write another poem,
but i have to go to sleep.

know it

maybe drink more water than empty belly,
let you touch my thighs like he does,

carve the history of a wild tree,
lady i could name all of these forests

with my sharper teeth, choice for the sex
or i didn't know what kind of boy i would be

before my girl hands said, ya know
maybe we could be manly man hands

& i took a hammer
to mend
them.

gumming a cold thing

& then you read a poem
because or, because not enough of a reason,

don't get it,
but you like it so, you love this man,

cute in the teeth,
or those jaws talk funny-- speak,

but it peaks in the right places,
feels good on my fingers, lickin'

& you read the poem he writes, right?
well enough
to get it. turning out to be--

lessons

a beach or where i stay for ever,
you say that might be a long time--

it's cold but the gull seems to like it,
pelican, im loose for the perfect world

or i could be smart, i sound like a smart
person, find yourself obese in a bathing suit,

because it stretches, the pockets look like--
bigger pockets, pools of pockets & empty

the way drowning victims
think they can do anything
the day before.

farming

it is important, can we agree to do--
making a point to, point to do.

walk & walk, say things like:
i am tired of all this silly walking,

maybe i could just sit, live sitting,
make a living out of all this ground,

play for awhile in your dirty, get dirty,
feel the darker dirt thick in the nails,

& then someone tells you
that you smell good,
like growing things.

cat poem

by the way your small girl legs skinny through
an awkward short or two, sand covered

a beast for each cat you name, slay one
or notice why the pope is framed above us.

i could spend more time watching you from behind
in small rooms, or feel a sunburn cool,

because i laugh when you say: swear words--
fly my plane across africa again, & again.

would risk my ankles
to see you,
in my driveway.

shotgun

dangerous names i say, hello lady
or by the way i was with, with it

greener but it smells olive drab,
taste the small tomato later, when

we aloped in southern indiana
by a statue of military savants, i joked

about the laws that we could break,
smoking things before we say

words like, for sick &
i bet
you never saw me again.

angeles

small sexless boy thing dangles in sun beams, you
look at stars & feel silly for an open mouth on you.

why the 'comes out's don't sound angelic; a bathrobe
meant to be tied, blue but darker blue when wet,

or white skin looks fat when you fold, pretty like
groove the small blonde hairs together to fur it.

send telepathic e-mails to the brain accounts
of simple minded hunter-gatherer types, maybe laugh &

let the message kindle
while you take jerk-motion steps
through the air.

more of a mother figure,
another finger,
bad ass mother,
figure.
more of a bad ass,
than a mother figure.

take your tight braids; unbraid into manly manes.

open

take out the bones to skull
them; make your naked parts feel nude.

do not deliberately watch-- nipple hang
inches above the cloudy bath water,

notice your neck curl around my wrist or
so the blood stays, room temperature palm

rough from the working & dead when it digits.
count the times: heel was a signal,

leave the sock on when i sex you.
i am going to say that again,
when--

snow

an arm of tree shadow dangle
bird peck through seed of skin

bent over autumn sky wing deep
thick curly beard for the knowing

but in the know breaks each twig
scare off the mother so we dine

blue jay face pecks the shell free
making a feast of neighbors babies

or the new moon says things like
i forgot
your name, bite then.

falcon

old folky baby, talk this way, humming
when you're naked, let me see you shine.

heave the dead brush through the air,
a pick up truck full of things we picked up.

tell the kids you put too much sugar in their drinks,
ask them how old they are on their birthday.

so the broke neck turns finally caught you
by the hems of your sewed pants elastics.

know that the leather seat is skin
or that it sticks to you the way
my words cannot.

rose

maybe i'm sorry, or maybe it's too late
baby,

can i just coach you this time, can i just say
hey let me in,

maybe i bet too much on me,
or maybe i forgot to bet too much on me, me

keep questions in the question box
or who is next in the question box, to box

maybe i should just be liked & thanked for being
too sure of a sure thing, or
maybe i was just too damn good in the first place.

ate ate

going to eat the spit off the spit
going to watch you slide slowly down
going to take bigger bites of your big thighs
going let all thats left swim around

born in three places to tell you yours
a heart & your home, they go together

& so on

i'm not really sure if i can die in this box
the smell of christmas trees or fake trees

my angry hands or dot in the center of my hands
hands me the passing on of many other dots

send me the check in the mail, or send me to hell
in a hand basket made of my hands &--

so i'll sing you a good song
or i'll see a sad song

because i don't have any good ideas,
because those things don't pay for themselves,

or you know what you got for xmas
because you asked for it specifically

season

my father was always poor & is,
or is always. as am i. she says

that i am boyish, refering to my hands.
my poor hands. i wonder how long i will remain:

boyish, or if i can come to terms with--
my grandfather, or his father was once

boyish as well, in the face or with no hair
in places that boys are sometimes surprised

to find things suddenly appear
the way turkeys jump out of tall grass
when you shoot at them with your hands.

arms poem

my arm is a part of my fathers arm
so on, they are all partially arms.

all arms are partially your arms
which is why, or why we are at arms.

the length of an arm at arms length
measures distance from my arm to my other arm.

my arm, partial in arm, connects
to the other part of my arm on my arm.

they work this way in unison
one arm around your waist, the other too,
while we dance slowly, listening to nothing.

bike poem

your lips, or i told you to see those
lips of yours, rolling on bicycle wheels.

i tend to tend to those lips
but did i mention or mean to, mean

a partial description of your parting lips
around these partially parted parts

a gear crank costs me so much money
did i tell you that, to those lips

for your bike part to be a part, partially
to part with my lips, i call mine
because i have stolen them from your face.

birthday

molest an idea of your creation, bone in his chests chest--
just because i gnaw on your bones
does not mean there was once meat here.

i expect there to be far more provisions in my next lifes life--
if i remember your name then, i will kiss the word
where ever i see it.

i am too far in to what i am going to die for; my death,
a small place on your neck to rest in.
& sheppards were warned i would be there--

so that i might comfortably die again,
smoother than the entrance,
or why i begin to find mirrors to remember me,

changing more frequently than this slow earth
despite hearing constantly when it will die, & when it was born.
but it sits in the sunlight for millions of years
while we effortlessly move up & down by the moon.

whistle

did you know me as sampson
the locks between scissor/ appalachian*

sting the knees, or kiss me where i hurt,
your ache gave to me; a random gravel--

lesson from who you never, less
sweet on the after, catch home in a shipswind.

at least the last length i feel, at-last
you measure. a bow in my off hand for the hunt.

i'm gonna go spit in y'r eye
for an eye,
i'm gonna eat the rest of y'r--
i'm gonna papa bear,
i'm gonna mama bear,
i'm gonna baby you through jr high.
i'm gonna file for a tax extension,
i'm gonna delete that email
about penis extension,
i'm gonna.
i'm gonna put this ring around your
rosie,
i'm gonna sing you
a song to sing,
i'm gonna leave the oven on,
i'm gonna tell you when to turn,

nod

you call it thin ankles in trees
bend the branch or, trunk to heel,

i sleep with my arm around your--
measuring the eyes by eyes, see.

you might notice that i am indifferent
unless i am intoxicated, or in love.

my bed on this side or, your bed over there;
i can see you with my eyes closed.

you mention there is this point, that
becomes another & so on, talking,
while your hands move about.

word of mouth

old bones in the morning, creek run
tells a finger, scratch sleep from y'r beard

never let the water; never let it
grow the swelling wood ten times, larger

tooth & bloated tongue, you need that drink
to keep saying what you hope--

watch your scalp run out, by
the torrent of hand-grabs, a flea

marked by the gravy, no that's deeper
takes your baby & names it godawful
to keep the music turned down enough.

wipe

going to mug your smug mug.

hardest part of hittin' them,
make the spider spin my speak

dig shallow holes for the seeds
mark them with hand broke twig'

i can ride a horse,
i learned how in my dreams.

description

so where your seem sews so
i neck the hip of your hip-bone

a rhythm bud nipple unnipped
for a suckle or suckling nub.

at a glance to the spot i spotted
mouth over, over the place

stress over each hair follicle
drug over the nerves in my teeth

fire escape

pleasantly reminded of the meat on your bones,
i take swelled bites of the nodding neck.

you call me, say wanderer in farmer form,
always aware of my chaucered tone.

abbreviated speech from the speaking teeth,
lick my wounds with a silent tongue.

i grab for white powder, or the novacaine hose,
filter whats left in the urn down a drain.

there are no more homes where i used to be born
somwhere upstream i made a wrong turn
& your rocks gashed the bottom of my boat.

a date

i caught you helpless in the chair or
i saw you naked on your porch or
i made you breakfast or
i washed your back with a sponge or
i showed you where the attic was or
i bit your finger tips or
i took you home before dark or

bird

put a hawk by your teeth while he knew
where to wear you,
rich for the feather,
caw you mother, say your name.

red tail chicken comes down from
the sky,
snatch up your day
in it's basket.

lowering the level of the lights

savior

i try to exist, to burn these eyebrows,
edit where you were born, or
how tall are the bones in your arms.

skin is a fur hide, shady dealers
lend me their ears--

a man is there,
he watches with the light on
as you take off your dress,
& this is why he says he loves you.

postcard with a picture of some random
art museum.
i hate when i know these things.

poems

digest you from the neck up to the upper neck,
maybe see what i can see when i'm seeing you.

write poems about people i am no longer in love with,
write poems, & poems about you.

a poem about turkeys

marred in the arms where they mar,
take these turkeys to market.

take these turkeys by the arm,
they don't know where the brass comes--

sure i have two eyes to eye them
or i, two eyes to spare

seldom my shoulders support the earth,
or the globe i lay on supports the air.

these turkeys will know where i met them,
or in the next life where we meet,
remember i met them there.

thus marking the dawn of the video game age

tutsi a hutu, sans black face on tutu.
burundi too soon they will shake you for money
so many got caught, lit up on my birthday.

absurdity in death, a jest

we move because we are going, too
much distance for a vast universe

expands between your mouth &
the thing that makes your mouth--

move down a line for years, say
these are years in definite.

i am partial, because my mother or
my father can screw.

going somewhere with this,
i will always be going somewhere,
with this.

story

a story you call a poem where there are gods
in one hand, but nothing in the other.

we clap a lot to encourage, look at these
apes, slapping their right to left. how smart

are we to notice. my aunt knows our president
is a muslim because it matters to her. she's scared.

but this poem isn't about my scared aunt.
it's about numerous gods who tell us things in our sleep.

fuzz

smell my skin to keep from
vomiting. weaker than i say i am.

your heads a numb one, but your
fingers will find where to go.

we come to

i owe you, oh me oh
heard that before.

a womans voice is it
keeps a devil near.

walk through-- streets
your cape flows, over

here are the pennies,
cigarette butts still smoke

when the tickle hurts more
& we end with all these things,
we begin with much less.

math

write a poem for two hours every morning,
writing non-poems for years or so.

smoke several cigarettes every day & don't die,
but smoke several cigarettes every day.

i told you when you leave, this is a distance,
but when you leave, i leave without length.

measure the thickness of your skin by a pinch
which might wake you up despite a thickness.

expand the time when i exist & you know me
or is it the expansion of my belly & thighs
that meet you here to divide ourselves.

it gets cold at night

leave the window open
all night
so the mold in the ceiling doesn't kill you,
wake up, & there is a spider bite here,
here,
there is one under your armpit.

where were you when i bled out of my mouth
or spent an entire july shaving my beard

where did your words go at night
the way i would kiss air with my tongue

when did my face or my hand on your leg
become

big girls

okay so i stretch myself too thin
because i'm fatter than i used to be.

the paper route i know, skinny
or i am going to deliver.

run over each mail box on this side of town
because nobody is there to see, me.

feel her hips getting bigger as you eat them
tell her you take big bites.

it's a sin to love you from behind, but
i will take you
down to where i know my words still ring.

ours before

run my hand up your no-moss thigh
a skirt goes, or am i revealing you.

tickle the notes white against soot
but you're darker every day, i see.

the problems of breathing go in & out
but you still continue to do this, don't you,

possibilities of words stream from the naked
void, this takes away what we thought we had.

going over you again, realize that i missed a spot
which is nothing new to you
when the boys dream of making you into something.

beale st.

laughter so you do this, so you do this,
or this.

give the homeless man a dollar or more
because you know who he is & his isness.

ride your bike w/ your friends down to memphis,
get into barroom brawls you won't remember anyway.

make it easy on her, i'll take this one w/ that or,
i am going to need more time to decide.

you're not afraid of drowning these days, you're
just worried you won't be able to swim in the blues;
listen to the river pick up speed as it leaves mud behind.

oh, profile

i refrain from complementing you on a daily basis
because i am a flirt

when there is skin, or more skin
i will tell you & then i wont tell you at all

a neck wrapped around my arm
while i step on pine-cones the size of my head.

sherry on a hill

yasafuka tells me i'm changing
say, the parts were welded correctly

but the people i work next to say,
i need to shower more frequently.

their parts were not welded correctly
& are toys; say cheap labor--

i've always enjoyed the view of nebraska river valleys
looking down at them,

say: that is where i want to be burried,
& i want to say the hurt i feel
when i think about how real that is.

the three longest rivers on earth

the mississippi river is long but very poor--
a road of mud that floods & worships abrahams god.

the amazon river is long & full of sharp things--
spends half the year still while small birds walk across.

the nile is a long river & goes past some pyramids
that were built by aliens several thousands of years ago.

because we are something like the way
that we speak to friends

but you dont keep staring,
when it's too early to call late; talk

if you could be the familiar--
knew you or knew who you were,

i would let you press the apples in your hands
to my eyes when you're sad

i'll whisper you to a smallish creature
like me.
and it will sound something like this.

house of, etc.

my range of movement is restricted
by your shoulder in my shoulder,

i am eating this formerly frozen food
that i have recently unfrozen to eat.

the temptations of being eager for this,
& then you avoid telling people things.

naked is not necessarily an advantage
to doing what we do to change a view.

you come to a room in your own house
that you don't remember being there,
& paint it w/ colors that already are.

What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music. - s.k.

drying off afterwards

the sounds that it makes
or wondering when it is it, she
had to admit, was something.

looks down a mile to the next cross country
sees the ugly in everybody

knows the chin the hip the tooth-smell of rotting
flees for the next town in a fit of coughing

glares at the plain the hideous and gaudy

royal
for betty ann

my mom goesby her fathers name
because my fathers names not hers

flower, a

she gave me a flower she
is the only person i can think of who has

but i lost it, or forgot it, then found it later
either way it died at some point.

chop

where i break
tail & run or
off w/ that--
my ache, my executioner, to be
more accurate
it was not you, not you, not you etc.
grass where you are
still sticking to my feet, bare foot
to the intentions of letting you love me
or when i can pay you back

for thumbs

if i had time to help at all
could i grow something in your garden

drink the water from the well,
watch the broccoli flower in the morning

shoo the rabbit, sing the robin,
wash my hands when it's time to kiss the basil

check the time before the sun goes down
i'll see her around this neck of april.

knuckles

i bend you because i have to or
i love you or this won't go anywhere
so i tell you
i love you
& i almost mean i am still here
so i am telling you i am still here
so i might tell you
i'm not leaving.

fresh fruit

gobble going gets tough
or where i leave my skin to skin

in the sun's weather weathered,
leather under where i sun my shaded self

selfish to hide. breeze i can find
seldom despite a shiftless hole--

horizon i noticed, the trees are no trees,
but the trees are still planted.

i grab you by this neck, & this neck
so they tell you the neck is detachable.

not to say

your back to carry the birds nest
made by cardigan for desert nights.

close off where you age
or where you know it shows to--

rain spitting where you tell it to spit
because the clouds are always your clouds

even when sun sneaks a snicker.

it off

nicks in your hands pads
pick out the gravel bits

too

tethered to what i am tethered to,
or what you were about to say.

apples

i slur my words
because my lack of teeth
replaced with the things i now use as teeth
instead.
or when i was young & don't remember
the side of my head hit cement & damaged my ear drum.
the cartilage in my right ear is smashed to pieces.
the cartilage in my nose is similarly broken,
but for other reasons;
it might still affect the slur in my words
because i cannot breathe through my nose
very well.
several times in any given year,
i have to explain to people why i cannot eat apples,
unless i cut them up into slices
like this.

follow

the dark blotches of skin
just above your hips
where the hormones are working
to keep you in season,

small hairs that grow down the middle
of your chest, around your nipples,
& rabbit trail.

coffea

gone from where i saw you
or is where i saw you there.

staining things on my hands
now stain the pant legs of my pants.

shower when you might come by
i do not shower often.

the soft wet dirt you want
is under the hard dry earth.

you put this seed over here, over here
& cherries grow out of me.

this is not a poem fyi

when i was in grade four--
my sister & i would get rides to school
from my sisters friends sister
who lived on our block,
though it wasn't a true block,
but they lived near by,
& i forget their names, i'm sure
my sister would remember. so
this girl, she was in high school
she would give us rides
in her maroon camaro
& every single morning from the time
she started the car
til the time she dropped us off
we would listen to what if god
was one of us, every single morning. & all
i remember is that car, that song, & the back of her head,
but for some reason, i loved her in some way.

i had this dream that i loved you
in the dream,
but i couldn't say it
so i climbed the black walnut,
that grows in the backyard
of my dream,
to hunt song birds
with my bear hands,
leaping from the high branches
& falling,
because this is what i do.
almost break my knees,
but only break both of my ankles,
crawl for days to where you're at,

dad

i lay on my side for hours,
the way my father would on the living-room floor
while he watched matlock or gunsmoke or
something more grey.
a vessel or maybe a nerve starts twitching
& it bothers me so my toes curl,
i tilt my head to the side where my leaned shoulder
burns.
then my belly sleeps out, a pulling ooze
that buries the differences that were there before
i got older &
he still stays the same.

perc.

hear me, i'm
not here. following the line of flight
along the pacific coast of mexico.
so i am,
not too soon,
that you might take off for this other,
place.
i will tell you to look for me there, i'm still.

haiku 19

separate the thicker parts from what i can
swallow with a spoon
held tight against the rim as the sour cream
pours

comfort food

when i was naked,
you smiled.

long as the platte river &
then some.

there are knees here,
underbelly.

swim for the sand bar,
taste of current.

scores of places hewn from maple nut
that i am surprised to see

this far inland
sturdy as a house.

your eyes

hangman's noose, you glance
lean across what i'm looking at,
touch the harbor around bat-wing,
think the words you wrote
with your feet in the sand, will
reach the sleeping gods you know.

throat

hard on the ears, she says
my voice
enters the room & ignores everyone,
a glass put here then
picked up,
feel the room move to this room,
keep the lips & tongue
so she feels it,
& knows where i put it.

i was hoping i would write a poem tonight, but have nothing. there is absolutely nothing in me to give right now. i figured saying that might make it easier for me to go to sleep.

i was hoping i would write a poem tonight, but have nothing. there is absolutely nothing in me to give right now.

i was hoping i would write a poem tonight, but have nothing. there is absolutely nothing in me to give.

bend

thank your thighs, alright
so i say things like;
your hair isn't curly,
when you wear white socks &
black shoes i keep my thoughts
to myself, put one hand below
your rib cage & still kiss places
of you that look like boys.

neighbor

i break as the east wall
because i have to,
you see this.
the wet leak curves the wood,
so it seems to be a globe,
or some
world i spell with a slang.
& even though you devote
your entire life
to something,
it still leads you
over the edge
& into the next room.

dream

we, linked at the pearls
desperate because we have to be.
you knowing
where you put the keys
when i don't know where the keys
are.
cheating on her,
or i cheat on this one,
because things are easier
when we can both be half way.
the cost of this
drains you from the eyes
where sleep sits
& waits for tomorrow to take.

we moved in

shotgun shells over there by the mound of dirt--
he plays in.
whether you're going here, or
here, or there, it's gravel road for miles. then more dirt.

when humid summer suffocates
drenching you in sweat
you can feel the acrid reek of the sheep farm
a country mile to the east,
as it seeps between the cracks of your leather

half indian boy in the corn field
stepping on fresh manure.
the walls you can hear through, feel
the expanding plain
stretch you from genoa to scottsbluff.

but the whip of wind against white washed walls
is nothing to trouble you
or the pioneer family that drags behind,
because this is a temporary stay,
all of it will pass. all of it.

coast

in the west where you're from
they hold their words
like this
in their mouth
so it rolls around before barely--
tasting,
the taste of it tastes like fresh fruit
grown in their backyards.
the bitter citrus & warm acid
makes me happy,
because i cannot have them.

a poet you should know is

mao zedong. while reading about j.d. salinger i stumbled across the note that catcher in the rye had sold over 65 million copies worldwide and i wondered- what books have sold the most. obviously religious texts such as the bible and qur'an have reportedly sold a shit ton, but i was surprised to see a book of poetry near the top. mao zedong's poetry to be exact, selling a reported 400 million copies. eat that salinger.


heres a sneak peak

I

Mountains!
I whip my swift horse, glued to my saddle.
I turn my head startled,
The sky is three foot three above me!*

II

Mountains!
Like great waves surging in a crashing sea,
Like a thousand stallions
In full gallop in the heat of battle.

III

Mountains!
Piercing the blue of heaven, your barbs unblunted!
The skies would fall
But for your strength supporting.


you can read more here