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.