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,