new thing

pecks between cigarettes
bare knees is all
wrapped up in the thought
of being still
listening to animals being wild
body full of liquor
because there is no other way

trying something else

stand still, in the body still
moving
through tall grass
through sand
waves
wind over florida beaches
the gulf of mexico syrups
the spirit i have
feels less like a torch
more like pumping blood
i touch,
living with my eyes closed
only thinking about water
forgetting air.

i forgot the swamps

i can still

hobbles is the family
hurricane andy

wrapping on the roof

egg the front house
car
mouth

things are born in humidity

a million bugs
crawling into your house

never trust the taste

find the ground only gets flatter
the more it floats

the less you can surf around it

bad poem #1,028

someone recently told me it was good that i write so many poems because eventually i might write one good poem. i am fighting that person in my head right now.

man

there is nothing wrong with a man being a man
being

a branch breaks again

into another branch
named twig and twig
truncated tree thing

leaves it
for the ground to swallow

not afraid of the wind
or the death of anyone it knew,
love

or it moves on
grows up

any small thing becomes a smaller thing
quotes infinity
tells the body stories of immortality

death in senses
feeling the rain
feeling the rain stop

door

i can
not move
through
a wall
i can
stand still

second printing

you soon find
where the cicada is singing
in it's own skin

cling to my thighs like tree trunks
i bend toward the sun
for nothing

know the importance of who you
are fucking
is not there

know nothing
breathe
the air, see it

do you believe gravity
is waiting
for you to forget.

SHARK MEAT

shiny city thing of concrete
moves like bait
fresh un-killed


fill the ocean with carcas chunks

make all the beautiful slant faced feeders
come


little hands pick through blasted planet parts
who moves mountains
the way the magma rolls

fill my bucket w shark teeth
thinking i will write several poems about this
when it's time

trace fingers through the jelly-fish
on the beach
feel the alien sting child skin

just hoping
to be part of something
the way
sand is a part of the moon

some good things to be said for 2k11


a face far from pavement
sky lit

fat liver
paul quit drinking

lost some things
like my father

the taste
of rust

glass

scattered space out of it
felt the sliver
in your foot
felt the window inside of your body

look,
i am surfing silver
streaks across
the blue shiva
or colorless water as running

shed the shards out
pissing cubes of crystal
from my open mouth.

glass

dune-sea lop the head
of mountain
of tall rocky jut
lava
swell
as i am forming
peak
through the looking

sand-see the weight lifting
out of my brain cage
building
see-thru walls
thin as the atmosphere

cracks from my chirping
cicada singing
exoskeleton was never heavy
just
is gravity
just is.

glass

throw magma stones
sand-dune i am watching the shift
float each grain wave

rolling huh,
foamy ground.

my shark teeth tuned
better than my chainsaw poem
mouth as it eats

my memory
my respect for where i 'came from'

collecting my own jaw
off the beaches of nebraska

watch it move
the way my dream girl moves

sweep sea, boom
underwater, or underneath an ocean.

surfing waves

my body screams cicadas
wave as it smooths to beach
length is my longing

hold head under water until
it breathes

she is a sea lion
walking rocks
as the hurt is made
believe

or crash
as in the noise it makes
when my body feels the weight of galaxy

buffalo poem

lift the ocean high as it can
use your body
using as a hobby
just a bump
back hump
humping from behind
land river, underwater water
underground hell windows
i throw magma rocks
i fill my pockets with sulfer stones
keep hitting my skull
on my brain roof
chew through the scalp on my saw tooth
keep the money in a pile on my dirt floor
keep forgetting how rich i am
with this small fortune
sod house
pile of dung to burn
all the land i have pissed on
to be mine
to call it my plot
in life
or figure out the meaning
of mass murder
murdering a mass
each furry skin gap
melting under the prairie
so new grass can grow

early mornin' stoned pimp

pulling off
the limb parts
equal to a whole life
ahead of
a jack spicer poem
american bad ass
my ass
too
as long as a war lasts
me and my running away
what i'm thinking about when i'm thinking about
wet hills
mush made the bump
dripping into my brain vein
so i can high
so i can melt the candy into my skull
tap the top off
lose weight on a wim
a vomit bone
viral birth zone
my crying about my lucky life
born so far from hell
born so far from another solar system
what are you thinking
the pressure around my eyes
explodes through digging the bulbs
out of my light
raw roughing the leather
listening to people talk makes me sick
listening to medicine work
listening to lost fumes
leaving the needle holes in my pricking skin
where i map a distance
the space is a zero heart
the kissing words are wasted in poetry
or awful self beat downs
where i make jokes
about my awkward pain pool
or explain to my friends

SHORT TREE POEM
for walker

i guess i'm not dead right now
i guess what i can do right now
move to vietnam right now
and run
out of new york city or into the middle of new york city
you did, i can see the trees
in all these tree poems
as the edge
even if i was never edge
or never so close to the edge
to be pushed in the first place

cry me, susquehanna

falling from 10k feet is just falling
there's no lurch in the stomach
it's just
that you know you should be falling

no roller coaster
not like being a ground man
living for a living
with 10k lbs of exoskeleton on your back

walking up a hill in enola pennsylvania

KID ROCK

i have half a mouth
half a chest brain
and all chest brain
always bleeding
as nothing
the value of suffering
just numbers added
just times tables my dad
made me learn
that a father can be weightless
even laying fat as the earth
or the moon on it's side
or the side of my face
that faces away
from everyone
i am afraid
i am a dying thing
i am a thing
i thing
wanting to be drugged
wanting to be wanted
just watch me
watch the end of my story
listen to me read a poem
about jack spicer
saying
i give a damn
or a dam just stops things
my mind
runs faster than a fat mind
my mind
runs the river through
my mind says
write it
and she tells me nope
and tupac tells me to stick my chest out
tupac tells me
death is not the worst thing
or even is a thing
or even is is
kissing word is
love is
never hating anyone
never moving your mouth
never not nothing
breathing
chest out and chest in
broken ribs
are just an excuse
broken face is just a hiding
broken family is just a
broken dam
broken heart is giving up
so i am smiles
so i am a friend
so i am justin ryan fyfe
so i am this many years
and this many years
and this many whole parts
this whole life ahead of me
call you
to say hi
to say of what i say i say
the honest line
or just a mapped out
toldjaso
i am not trying
to save you
i am
not rhyming
i am
not whisper or promising anything
i am not a perfect jump shot
but i
swoosh

KID ROCK

i do not have a mind
of it's own
of it's tree poem
of it's teeth home
or a home
or round the bases
on a diamond yacht
or a jet ski made of solid gold
or a
my mind runs
faster than fat minds
flat lines
the dead plains
up and up and up
called surfing
called i can't bring myself to call you
to say i gave up
to say of what i say i say
the honest line
or just a mapped out
toldjaso
i am not trying
i am not walking away
i am not a perfect jump shot
swoosh
and other soft sounds

steve frank lloyd write house harrisburg penn treading water platte river tortured toads millions of toads
and all us mother fuckers went sky diving in the pokonos
puddle jumper couldnt fly a thousand miles with a doctor eho hrld the record for most sky divrs
jumped off at 5k and i was supposed to jump off at 10k feet
it was so loud
just walked down thr hill
into thr river
an i didnt even care at all
i just threw my self out
get thr fuck off my lawn
normally the rain hits you coming down
it was nailing me as i was coming down
not like a roller coaster not in the pit of your stomach
yourr falling and you know you should be
the most dead silence you could ever imagine
im ok
im alright

hooves

wont be anything
not a racer
not a long hearted ship looker
shipped out to space oceans
or a star cluster
or a body muster
to say just what anyone would say
these things like words
you see say poems
are just poems
and poems do nothing
poems sit here and say back
there is nothing to say again
just a gaping galaxy
just a tiny boy slowly dying
soon to be smaller parts
that no longer resemble anything other than dust

cow girl

take it for the ugly saids
like i'd gut you with a pitchfork
or i'd be so in love with the wrong person

get ugly behind the wheel
spin your brain tires a 70 miles per hour
or some big math number

get uglier the less i drink gin
tell her my mouth is not as dry as scotts bluff
but she calls the lies out

feel ugly because i am a human being
or naked or fat and hairy
or smile with a shattered face

say beautiful
you darling gold rope head
living in the unsurfable ocean

say fair, or it is
even with all the impossible equations
i keep trying to solve after dumbing myself

say nothing

this is where i start deleting things

i hate losing
even the air from under an arm past wing
past

is the gin drip fixed over my neck mouth
top jaw pulled back at hinge
pull back

lift the
switch
on

when it's dark i can be ok
when i am alone i am alone again
when i walk by walkers walking

bye
was what i meant to kiss you again
figured i might never get that chance

or make some silly movie moment
the dumb things that type off in my mind
paul said i am insane

or some part of me breaks off
falls into water
the sun makes it grow into a new this

cow-girl

my mouth is shut like a smart boy
my tingle tongue moves back and forth like sway
hips how
much will you pay to walk around my mansion
when i am dead, thirty-five-dollars
who knows
what madness looks like even if it wasn't her face
all drugged on grabby hands
wants to be wants ons
on the mirror or on any flat glass surface
for me to grind and snort
i am writing a poem in snow with my piss
i am melting prescription pain killers with my pain
laying on my side so my fat liver can fucking work
sleeping for the rest of your poem
or what i am telling you
is
how stand-still are you standing still
how is this not happening
a creative mad man
a swivel hip jive
a dick in the barn bed
rooster says get the fuck up off your flat stomach
fill those guts with guts to tell the honest lines
like i miss you always
even on satalite feeds from hawaii or where ever brooklyn is at
i cant say
i've been roaming so long
ducking the shots from east to west train riders
or native peace loving war lords
or the big scary oily birds
or the thick syrupy oily words
your life is a disaster
each skin thing a dying
each line on your hand and foot a knife spot
each heart i create another heart is needed to replace
a sinking chest feeling
a brain in the center of my brain body
how desperate is the travel
the stretch of arm to arm
to arm
to great big smiling city
to eyes in my mind of this lady's lakes
to my swimming like a dumb dog
to my surfing into outterspace
to the space between two people
to the space between two poems
to the space between two mouth moves
to the space between space
between space

virginity poem

i could write a thousand poems about the smell of violins
i could vroom vroom drunk on an icy street at 2 am
i could die any day now

what a mouth full
what a full of symbols
bleed
yeah thats what happens
maybe you had sex with a
maybe you faked it

i was raped by a girl from myspace in san antonio
thats real
that happens
she thought it was consentual because i had a boner

but sometimes boners happen for no reason at all
sometimes you cant control anything
sometimes youre in love

i am not watching dune but i wish i was

these pain pills and sleep aid and gin
are all keeping me
are all a crystal skull
part of
the reason
my motor skills are fading
the fog
rolls
i know

i may be animal right now

maybe your gravy is suffocating
blah the chest brain or nerve king
cactus ass jumps you out of the safety seat
cant just learn a new language
cant just travel
my feet are slow as my minds words
eyes duck foot
eyes blue as fuck
remember to spit the blood out into a working sink
genuinely thinking
steven baldwin got his break at 29
in the usual suspects
the wu tang walked around for ten years or some number
i could have played the lead in speed
i could have ran the fast lanes of new york city
i could have made a million dollars by now
the hair of all my body is long as i wait
my sigh is an easy way to read
my poems are just a love jog
or a long talk
or cancer awareness
and i get all stupid like this guy i used to live with
who is dying of cancer
just telling this one line story
about the year he was stoned
about telling me to go after things
about not wasting my life in lincoln nebraska
or anywhere else

cowgirl

im not as evil as my evil self can be
or put on a show for me to me
or me as top shelf liquor in me

you make me want to
write a poem

can i have all this air that i grab
straw and piles of needles

my arms might bleed for a day or two
but the thinners im taking
will make everything leak easily

how fast were you going
was it your fault
your parents are only other people
your bones are only human bones

that you want some thing or some one
to be here next to you
does not concern the chaos

my neck line is a disaster i'm telling you
through a poem
to think about sitting on top of me
looking at how small of a boy i am beneath you

but its just a poem
and the lines are bouncing around on unsurfable waves

the words are spilling out of my arm holes
seeping past chest skin ribs and man breast fat
say ugly say evil

say

the only thing easy is not existing
the only thing simple is to have an animal brain
the only thing i know is my body is falling apart

the arms and ribs and chest brain and legs and cock
and ass and feet running and nip and tongue
and taste and ear and poem and holes in all of it

cannot learn
the way my mind slowly turns over
like a cork in tide
or some space ape shot out of a cannon

so i wont ask you to heal me
just pretend for awhile
that something i say makes sense

go green

knock the wind outta the entire town
rib bones only protect the chest brain from physical attacks
like falling
but falling is another story

did i tell you the one where i almost went
to where the ocean of sky scaping peaks
makes you gravy

did i tell you i only shower when i might see you
years into the future i hope they can dig me out
from beneath all the soil

have i told you the one where my mind surfs
through space on a surfboard
looking for the perfect wave

but there is nothing out there but space dust
the farther and farther i move
at a consant speed of normalcy

waiting to find an easier way
to suffocate in the abyss or blacked out back-brain
of so much greener grass on the greenest planet
in the known universe

FACEBOOK FRIEND 22
kick down a door for me
be a dead eye
carry over water
be a brother
wash the piss off of the floor
eat anything
eat everything
grow & grow & never stop
your heart
the size of rockies
the size of a galaxy
filled with space treasure
mapped out in the eyes of your friends
that will always know who you are

facebook friend 22

kick down a door for me
be a dead eye
carry me over water
be a brother
wash the piss off of the floor

letter

feel ugly for some reason
for unshowered and sober
the wishes you planned are just muddied
up from the drop dead
lady you stun me again and again
it's like pieces of ice or nuclear winter
or the perfect gin and tonic
makes me silly
makes me write poems in my sleep

paul clark

i don't speak like an orgasm
as if i could orgasm every 30 seconds
until it's boring
until i tell you what is in my poem
or that i'm writing a poem

flake bone feels like broken bone
feels like someone is constantly surprising me with hits
radio singles
my raps about life are full of explicit lyrics
like fuck and stuff

i hope i can lift you over my head
i hope barack obama can change america
i hope i count for something
i hope i can hold out for awhile without sounding sad
i hope floats

because i don't swim good
even in the shallow well of midwest ground water
where all i have to do is be in there
and not breathe
and not give a fuck about breathing

TEETH

teeth are graphed
replaced with no teeth
filling your smile with gold teeth
and collecting shark teeth
the way i used to collect shark teeth
on the beaches of florida
my first swim
my first kiss by a jelly fish
the jelly is easy
it just sugars down your throat
tastes sweet
when you want sweet shit
or giving one
or eating shark meat with shark teeth
remember to cook these dead things
like this expensive sushi
like this standing still
in your eyes
my teeth sneak
my teeth gather in sand
my teeth were knocked out of my skull
so all i eat is jelly fish
raw jelly
replicates my insides
or what i call a belly
of whale
or scary things
the size of whales
sliding around in the water
you don't see any of them
only hear the teeth clacking

home run

hello handsome broad
back back back
tan the mits
tug my long hair
reach deep into my stomach
to remove the cherry seeds planted there
oaken arms sun bleached
fall lady
or i literally fall
have fallen for this ball park figure
this standing snow
you absorbing dirt filled with rain
you glowing lady
confusing the sun of how sweaty it is
or tastes air thick in my mouth
makes the atmosphere surfable
until your lungs stop

what is a planet?
well
it's a place
where things
happen for awhile
until they don't
it's pretty sad
sitting on a roof
w/ you Jeff–
arguing about what is
suicide & what isn't
suicide
we were just splitting hairs
i think
i think it's very easy
to cope w/ pain
when pain is pretty
& clear cut
i was driving
w/ Sujung
when i revealed
to her
my desire to wear heels
she seemed horrified
& asked "why?"
& i said i thought
"it would be funny"
but what i really think
is how sexy i'd look
in women's clothes
if i wasn't fat
which is what i am
i am so many things
when i was drunk
tonight
i kept wanting
to talk about
how i gave
a panhandler
named Jerry
an $8 breakfast
from Burger King
the truth is
i'm still drunk
& that's fine
because this is
the last great poem
i'll ever write
i'm on a roll
right now
& i won't let
yr feeble poetics
interrupt me
in a poem
'you' could be anyone
the person i love most
to eat Burger King
breakfast with
for instance
& at this instant
my brain is giving up on me
which is why
i lit
another cigarette
i love lights:
like my street lamp
which flickers on
& off
but usually
feels broken
or the stars
the stars i told James i love
before he destroyed
a golf cart
or even
those new environmental light bulbs
that are filled w/ mercury
& take too long
to turn on
& when i say on
i mean on
i'm eager to write about Orpheus
because i want to sing in hell
i'm eager to write about Karl Marx
because on my death bed
i want to know
how hungry the future isn't
for me
i'm certain my ribs
would taste delicious
if i was fatter
& i'm certain i'll never finish
this poem
if i don't finish
it now
& i'm not staring
at my flickering street lamp
unless my street lamp
is shorthand for me
& everything:
the poem
the cigarette
the universe
isn't it pathetic
to use the word 'universe'?

THREE SHORT TREES

theres nothing funny about never dying
or laugh, haha
at all my ghost friends telling ghost jokes
my phone dies, or my best friend dies
and by dying i mean completely disapear
or just words that mean nothing
i'm really only honest when i've been drinking
when you can actually see what i say
or i let you know
how sweet my throat tastes even when it's burning
but my friends don't ask me to
get the fuck up
that's the difference between jesus and christ
or the staggering demi-god
when i walk up to say kissing words
that leave me sweating in the summer sweaters
covered in my own salt lake
preserving the guts i just massaged
i wanted to let you
run my ass over in one of your heroin rages
with your cummy pants all torn up
with your lips on lips on lips
but kyle is hanging by a thread
and i never learned how to untie knots
and i never learned to swim correctly
and i never learned how to not fall in love with everyone who touches me
their fingerprints are all over my back and thighs
small blue hands, or flour marks and sugar glass
that cuts where you don't see it cuts
small little x's all over my chest brain
but it doesn't make a sound
it just barks up the wrong trees
never knowing the difference between trees

ci-ga-ri{joh}s. cigarillos. cigarettes.

keeping the cool in blood things
remember to hold in the pinching lungs

jump out a window without looking
i mean, you know it's the first floor

you're not that drunk
in fact you're good at this liquor game

run me over
ask me to bum you a cigarette before this dying

letting your body go
because it's just a dirt boat
you're only the the smokey mountains

weather poem

cost of fog has risen in the past few fog covers
maybe why you can't see my reaction to your invisibility

in a matter of minutes all the wind blowing
tore up the breeding cats and people trees

carrying unseen unheard bat crackling yard bombs
out, out and away from home

maybe it's her swing, swing and stay alive swinging
that keeps the ball park figure

keeps the dizzy buzz in my chest brain
that shakes from the roaring fog

i'ts just a low cloud the umpire barks
it's just a past time.

new bruise

moon your bruise craters dusted by the dead of space
mountain of words to hold you
at a distance

swallow each sunlight breathing my left side
is far away
i cannot see you from this center of america

the curve of pupil and iris and the white sands
the untitled feeling i put in said things
about why i waited so long to land

as if my rockets weren't powered by human math
or magic
or the new shiny thing replacing my thud thud thud

my sun, sun and my sun growing
my spoiling oxygen
my thundering chest brain

BADGER

it was't the rotting chest wall or saving food too many months
that made him drunk
he was fine swallowing moon beams and sun beams
on his own
he was known for crying in public
or removing his lower jaw at the hinge
so he could swallow his own self
after acting quote unquote a fool
her lower jaw never seemed to move
it was all in the lips
slowly pulling away from snow capped mountains
the way you eventually see them as you get closer to colorado
or call her colorado
or call her new york city
or call her back
because you're too high on hydrocodone to realize your phone is ringing
or your skull is ringing from high speed collisions
and that chest brain of yours went splat
against its rib-skull

so i think for once with a real mind
get so nervous even when you're not around
want to make sure i think the right things
want to make sure i can dance to any song
in any club
in the entire universe
like sisqo's famous thong song
or any remix of the thong song
even total silence
while i pop and lock my jaw
leg in
leg in
torso in
arm, arm
neck and head
me inside of me
talking quietly about what i miss
about not being chewed
up
up and away

FOR PAUL AND THE PEOPLE WHO TOUCH HIS CHEST


i begin to understand why i love you before my brain quits working
i don't like nicknames
but she can call me whatever she wants
she can call me paul or ira or karate as long as she leans up
& kisses me again
or is she or is she or is she
the pronouns are fucked up here
i'll say i miss ellie pegler
i'll say there are a cool million drunks in this bar
or these dogs just beg the same
i'll say i can't even say
or that i remember details of everything
the way she paused
or i'm running away by just being here
but i'm laying on the floor awake all night the way my dad used to
my ribs are broken
i think my chestbrain leaped out
my heart read a book abt running
my life is almost a romcom but it's just funny
the way my nerves fuck up everything i do
like wearing socks in my boat shoes the last night i saw her
or letting it rain
but when she touched my chest
i hit the spacebar a few times
can't even say that grin or that devil or that beautiful lady
sings songs in my liver
builds mountains of poems for surfing up purposes
i never finished that short story about that room i wasn't in
i never finish anything
except poems
i can't even quit quitting
or begin to quit without picking up another nose candy
or blow my chest brains out with car parts
he ran me over man
i guess that's karma
i guess i said i deserve this crushing
but i can't sleep now i'm just sitting here writing a poem
with entourage season one playing
but it's not even playing it's just the menu
& that's what i mean
that's why i almost moved to brooklyn w/o thinking
because if i think
a big white jeep will crush my rib cage
if i think
i'll miss small moments with you
if i think the universe becomes enormous
& i might forget where you are
i might not see you again for a very long time
i might start writing nothings to bury my knees in mud
or think i need to be more silly
or think i need to rap more explicitly
or think 239 twitter followers aren't enough
or think these pills won't last the weekend
or drinking might actually make me sad
or you leaving and me staying is scary
or that i love everyone who touches me
i never meant the body
in all my poems with all these bodies
i never meant it literally
i mean it

one thousand one hundred eighty-five

have i told you what i haven't done
like my surfing to a galaxy
or showering on weekends

my miles map is an enemy
but i ignore most numbers
adding on adding and times tables

check the calendar for time left
check facebook
check myself before i wreck myself

does my moving make me easier to follow
see me always on the great plains
shoot at me from your thundering steel worm

FACEBOOK FRIEND 21

georgia is just georgia
where the midnight trains go
or somewhere a person is leaving to
moving time
i say i know this time
as if i know this time is counting
or think i can handle it
and maybe i can
this time
maybe i can wait for the next train
& after the next train
& endless
until the last train
then let it just leave. i am done.
& think that i've done something
put my ear down to the tracks
how far is this travel
how far do my words go
i'm yelling right now
wondering if you can hear me

facebook friend 20

fall in love with candy in your pockets
or like like everything about liking

it's ok
carry these wine bottles and drink all this wine

purple teeth doesn't mean you are part of a face
slap it around to remind yourself of sleeping awake

eyes wide at the feathers on these birds
colors you have never seen before

doesn't mean they can't fly
as long as they take off these heavy pants

yank out the belt whipping
tell them their skinny legs are full of meat

bite at the young calf
let your teeth tell the difference between living