emits a heavy air of deadpan

LETRIC COLLECTIVE//TUGBOAT READING//ETC

auto-correct

hold my arms down
move your face towards my face
for the first time

say get in my room

say the room is always
or where is that everything look
when i decided to say

get in the pool

suddenly at 70 you just melt
you ancient hill billy
plains ranger flying a dirt boat

my shouts are your melting away
wash off the dust of nebraska
find worthless gold in a heaven place

how wet is your salty mouth
how thin is your entire body
will you just disolve if i wrap myself around you

waffles

i inhale the sun and then sun and more

make my words syrup or melting sugar or tree poems

miss my friends

miss myself sometimes

forget to breathe and forget to eat and forget to sleep

air or anything was space and distance

let you know things, the worst things i've done

that i remember

what i'll eat in bed

what i buy at the store at 3am

who i'm talking to about who i want to talk to

not knowing what i'm saying when i sleep

some masculine energy or lady moon beam

shock therapy for my deluded-self

trying to pretend i am the happiest mortal alive

or that this moment

is all there is

there is no satisfaction in killing things or writing poems
with out the heart in it
or with out knowing what i know i want

waffles poem

tides poem

& if my goodnights werent late enough
& if my hellos werent soon enough
& if my goodbyes werent loud enough

the best way to say i miss you
never sounds right

but the moon is closer to me now

ATL

my south speak got beat out by travel
hiding out in fielded corn crop

but i can still learn how to lie honestly
from civil war memorials

or battlefields or working in the sun
where your entire body hardens in bake

but my poet hands or boy touch
wont bruise any leg and elsewhere

and know the rain hasn't stopped falling
since the last time i saw you

my drawling walk and slow eyes
touching my fingers to your sleeping fingers

wanting to see you every morning
with your hair down and nothing else

by normal i mean living

i meant to write something about honesty
like i honestly don't get it
like i'm always telling the truth
because i'm not
sometimes i say things to cover up what i meant to say
i think everyone does that
or i don't know what everyone does
i only know what i do
people won't tell me how to live
maybe they'll tell me when i'm older
like when i've been dead for a million years
someone might say to me out loud
what it really means to be me
because they will know
with all that time to think about it

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING

i can wait for this poem to be it's being

or i can write a poem every night in my void

but i have already become too meta, or become nothing

kyle asked me what i wanted to do, and i said be in love

which isn't really what i meant but im sure he understands

my words mean absolutely nothing

it's vomit, or if i said ralphing would you understand

i said hey i like jack spicer too

but then you murdered me with your car, just ran my ass over

lets start talking about my ass

i rarely want to have sex with anyone

i have never been realistic

i used to call it making love but that was before i ever fucked

like a break up fuck, like the goddamn Bering Strait

i walk across land bridges only

wouldn't trust a man made bridge if it was built by demigod men

one day there will be no sun

it will just keep getting bigger and bigger like the bones in my face

the sun is a hole in my chest

or my lungs are filling up with water

so i suck fire down my throat, i call these blow jobs

i will hire millionaires to clean out my throat

i will hire millionaires to walk my dog

i will hire millionares to listen to me tell them sad stories

that are really just poems about how i miss my dog

this poem is exactly the same length as a poem paul wrote

unless you measure the spaces between each sound

then mine might be empty as a galaxy

bows and arrows

with american money i swing my candy filled pockets
at the horrible crying fits i make myself
eager for the excitement you bring to the table
ground water drowning
all the people who drown in drunk driving swims
or if i even feel anything when somebody dies
like when i day dream of my fathers dying
i could be honest or i am only truth things
but the worst thing i have ever done was staying
on the great plains
saying that i can heal my wandering chest brain
or im sorry i ever threatened to leave you
nebraska
where the goddamn dust makes people
shout at moon
wondering why their bodies are shifting
wondering where their parents went when they died
saying im sorry i cant stop the birds from flying
or i dont even know how to use my body
i dont know how to say things i think i mean
my timing is off
to a bad start
my knuckle gaps to knuckles and more gaps
can i say nothing
does the wind blowing and the wind and the wind
chasing my empty stomach
or my empty hands
or full of my shoulders tough meat
chewing it for months still wont break the skin

brooklyn poem

move my arm around your no waist
waste the breath of my kiss speak
speak at you like my inner you
she as an i thing
the fix of my longing
send nude pics of my clothed nakedness
flap my arms wild
like the cowboy me
or the time that im here like a new guy
or the 99 other guys who crush my crushing
say lady i build castles for your eye reading
write poems about what you want out of me
like this standing
like this walking through the worlds earth
taking apart my arm parts
to hold you longer than time goes
or kiss you like a love goes
or going away for the no shower
telling you i dont clean up after my dying
or dying like i can see you again
or seeing you
which makes me dream
dreaming about being something
like my eyes at your eyes

oh hi

why do my arms weigh as much as giant arms
carry you baby doll
say silly names like baby doll
carry over any body of water
i swim like a dog like an idiot dog
with my heavy arms sinking as they flap around

like wilderness

jog long legs toward the sunned sky
follow deer thing with the most beautiful antlers

vanish into the cement by jaw to jaw
to see what i can find inside of your you

teach me how to skin a fish
teach me how to survive city winters

there is no stopping in my mind
steady breathing into the long distance

i can hide in a cave for months
surviving off the fat in my brain

bread


forget your bird feathers here flyer
fly me a moon landing, make beautiful bruises
or when idaho was the moon
new york the space ship city

i'm going to call you a darling
where the huge smiles you make can talk
looking for a hiding spot for my happy-scared eyes
to rest on any of you

challenge me to find what it takes
to scrape by for more time
like this me next to you time
like this awake and sleep time

i will tell you the worst things ive done
i will be the best idiot
i will walk face first into mountains
i will feel this way because i want to
i will kiss you again

GOLD VOLVO

my god is a demigod
a lukewarm piss i take out of my body
to wash off all the cold piss or hot piss

i got stuck on ground water
or trying to tell the entire state of Idaho
i am a fisherman from the great plains
the great fucking plains

flip the bird
at old ladies who cant drive
write a poem about perfect teeth
or fly like these gold teeth
or collect these shark teeth

sometimes i think about how im dying
and wonder how im dying like this
with my hand down my entire throat
massaging guts

with my soft hands
feeling the cement chips
embedded in my lovely wound
or my happy-scared grin the size of everything

just so you know

i am a boring universe
i am the wind, wind, and the wind blowing
i am inside of myself
i am afraid of everyone
i am in love with storming
i walk away from pain
i am the epitome of dollface
i am the river receding
i am the dirt thirsting
i am the pit of my own pitness
i am watching fireworks
i love driving cars
i am the grass, grass, and the grass growing
i am afraid of the no you
i speak to my hearts health
i am the river flooding
i am the absorbing dirt
i keep quiet in poems
i am going to die
i am the no pain
i will tell you how your glow
makes my chest become a million things
that will never exist

poem thing

i'm struggling to understand my own existence
in the poem, where there is no poem

metal wall, pressing my face against it
to feel the cold move from no skin to skin

teeth become magnetized to what should be said
in the poem, where there is no poem

and questions are mouth moves i don't understand
because my tongue parts won’t stop talking

things fall from things thinging, and scared me
in the poem, where there is no poem

then lightning, then thunder
wind, wind, and the storm forming

thoughts on the night when there is no storm
in the poem, where there is no poem

the three longest rivers on earth

the Mississippi river is long but very poor--
a road of mud that floods & worships Abraham’s 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.



mind poem

plummet comes to mind
or the inevitable rhyming of mind
my attempts to impress
with diving
and fine dining
or acting like I’m a brilliant actor

the time i said nothing instead of singing
for a king and i audition
when i could speak French in Mississippi
and beat my dad at chess
or jogging jog like a jogger does
at all hours of the night

hold me under a Canadian ocean
i will time a century by just walking it
slow like children can
because they can
with enough cat tranquilizers
to make ten cats sleep for awhile

utility

we take our flashlights with us
to the bathroom
when we pee

not because we’re scared—
are you

a question i should have asked
before blind walking into pitched squalor

bladder full
oh this madness

we being children
we being poor


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
with you smiling at me and my body.

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

sweater poem

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

kind of pricey

did i tell you i haven't showered today
did i tell you how happy-scared i am

your face looking at my face
becoming a face of it

read you Christmas poems at the back bar
in one hundred degree heat

the liquor makes me sing more
makes me less of a secret

or maybe i'll chain smoke for breakfast
stand where ever you want to see me

heaven
for Iowa

a small box the size of Iowa
but let’s not mix the gods
w/ baseball

there is no gay marriage in heaven
because there is no heaven
there is only Iowa

Iowa
for heaven

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

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 of walking
so on & a great distance that i can push back
behind your ear

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

a letter
written with small bumps only on my arm
often confused with your arms

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.
hidden by limited vision, & there
people are

& then a reality filled w/ real things such as
people eat, or
can i see pictures of your ugly foot 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—soft

maybe more of a man w/ man hands than i want to be
measured by the silence
between the air-conditioning 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 hungry over your collar bone

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.

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


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

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

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.


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 wouldn’t
eat
my mother.


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

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 unmovable buck,
hip tall boots
grabbing at river darts

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


beard poem

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 loneliness

or the spit
on my hands

to grip the grip tighter
to nail it

to leave my face
at home.


station

so you faked the sad parts, my arms
cry big boat-
load the shoulder, making turn
after turn, after

you notice my lack of ampersands
and teeth
the venom kind, kind of like
poetry is not.

sand on the cement for slip
controlled behavior
in the lost pit of Midwest territories

cabin fever'd and
name yourself log-hands

cry, and cry until your brain fizz'z
interlock
knuckle bones
mention to me more about this secret
world you got


drive after we

your phone thing walk-
talkies to my phone thing,

using phone words
hey, and um

breathing, but the shoes don't get used
or the snow works like rain on them

finding plants with names
pretend we know

i wait for your pillow to say
face, you are lovely

or i just whisper this in a poem
about the interstate hours

be dead air for awhile
pretend we know that too

hear sounds others make
bathing and washing off travel

go home
maybe, for the speed in my ankle turn

let it be anywhere
back in a small room with a smaller bed

feel occupation

is what you said or to feel
as if its fur on me
and sounds like rain drops or
all these boys,
always a boy there
grabbing little marshmallow-hands
at a nip,
or things that sparkle,
singular as you
nest at the end of a bar, fully clothed
just
make it work,
the boy says sometime later on
as if words will do

on the slope of Nebraska

in me, Nebraska
shaped the way i see you
just waking on your front side

write you a letter
in my mind
say, i saw you once and remember it

cross the Missouri River again
i always look down
to see what is floating

every thought, you think
i could pretend
not to know what i knew of you

mist, over sand hills
where the cranes
make it back

all this silly travel,
talking about our day jobs
listening to the same sounds

your chin i think,
where the Indian caves are

there to go

i bought you a waterbed said
it was not an ocean
but i still surf

when i was naked
you smiled

i still am
laying naked on the driveway

i wished for a window to sneak away with my smoking
or all sky
for my space travel

find
moons everywhere

slow walk apocalypse

holding a body—
sometimes i am an asshole

the eye’s slits
cum in the clean jeans

trapped by environment
look like a baby

whole lives
ahead of us like ground water

drown your body rubbed soft
red at the nubs or trying lungs

even with a second body,
in case there is no one tomorrow

quiet you, quit--
squint at the sun. say sun.

i’m not dancing, i'm blind,
i’m not ready for the swing--

deck me,
break all my fine china

digging a hole through earth
to china, easy does

the other side, the other
Chinese lives, where.

so the body
keeps growing

does it shit,
we wait to see--

or ass, or bottom
of a beautiful barrel, apples

slice things with knives
ask why i always carry knives

“there are a lot of stabbings
in Grand Island.”

so scary, so wounds cut,
chop noise from cat alley

the sun is increasing in size
night slowly, paw.

am i right,
can you see the dust settle

watch the echo,
bouncing space debris off

past lovers, a fuck
reflections of people you think

talk to yourself
with this new body you found

looking alone with her
wrapped around you.

forgot the words, or
only remembered poems

about falling space dust
ricocheting off some body

turning over and over in your awake
sleep, pretty when you

no, snoring is love,
no this unattractive pile is love

my love, dark as space between
another sun

dust on emptiness, you
you, and the grass growing

under the snow
the beard with all twigs

being afraid of people leaving
or wanting to

lost in a world like china,
not unlike the attractive middle of Nebraska

the arms don’t know their chest
well, imploding

she thinks it’s useless to talk to them
but still talks to them.

nature poem

laugh at the thought of my voice being sunshine
or picture me gentle
holding baby animals in my uncoarse arm ends
wearing the darkest sunglasses ever made
wishing everyone was doing that

self medicate

this isn't easy
the constant shock of shock therapy

your lake face
bright rash red scale

the picture still smiles when you go crazy
it's the water watering

the grass, grass, and the grass growing
take a look at my hands they aren't melting

they aren't fake
you can sell me your happy waves

your moon
controlling my ocean

damn tide even shaping my eyes, which way
i never knew the wind

would carry the clippings
turning brown quickly without water

hiding the lights from dimming
electrocution is not an idea forming.

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

mind poem

plummet comes to mind
or the inevitable rhyming of mind
my attempts to impress
with diving
and fine dining
or acting like im a brilliant actor

the time i said nothing instead of singing
for a king and i audition
when i could speak french in mississippi
and beat my dad at chess
or jogging jog like a jogger does
at all hours of the night

hold me under a Canadian ocean
i will time a century by just walking it
slow like children can
because they can
with enough cat tranquilizers
to make ten cats sleep for awhile

kind of pricey

did i tell you i haven't showered today
did i tell you how happy-scared i am

your face looking at my face
becoming a face of it

read you christmas poems at the back bar
in one hundred degree heat

the liquor makes me sing more
makes me less of a secret

or maybe i'll chain smoke for breakfast
stand where ever you want to see me

nature poem

laugh at the thought of my voice being sunshine
or picture me gentle
holding baby animals in my uncoarse arm ends
wearing the darkest sunglasses ever made
wishing everyone was doing that

so i black me out or i mean to you
the sex or the roll over in bed

my new father

hold your breath like trees from south of iowa
my arms are huggers
the way i can river it out of you
killing a family of european drunks
you cant survive the great plains without work ethic
or a grain of drive
a sin of loving more than whats in front of you
your fat or your son who doesnt know who you are
as if love was something worth pain
or my no breathing was a prayer
that the obese ghosts
could hold me down in the flooding missouri
and my skin tastes new in their teeth

liprim


not every man wants to live
on a flying carpet
be the dirty dude
or drink dollar coffee with sugar brain
on the teeth
click clack at your talk bones
to me
you can't be a poet without your gun

i have plenty of spears

water displacement 40th attempt

melt my face to the ocean floor
with ocean lava, tell them
my father is dead almost
i love everyone who touches me
get the fucking axe for these tree poems
cut the jokes from my chop
i can zen in my pants while you grind me
meat from my knees
but i want you to know
my arms are your arms
knuckles to where there are no knuckles
or this stupid water displacement
that i keep trying

water displacement 40th attempt

my quack won't echo no matter how many times i quack
or i'm crying like a baby boy, do you see my wet face
rigid cheeks of me making a new me
trying to get rid of the person everyone sees

i swallow gum
one day my stomach will stretch into it's own baby
or i spit down my throat to dilute the blood draining
not quite a pint daily

filter the water through napkins
that i grab handfulls of at local restaurants
so i can hydrate without the fear
of what ever i should be afraid of in old pipes

i am a small thing and only getting smaller
if you can see past the dying body filling itself with insulation
and realize that the words i say
mean nothing other than what i have failed to do

spaceman

no i am not sweatting because
i'm a goddamn coward
it's one hundred degrees in the shade
i could surf this moisture
straight to outerspace
then i would die in some horrible way

dead animals

here i am to die as an old man
if i am lucky
shave my head out of balding embarrassment
i'll have to start tanning

then again i might kick the bucket sooner
let my hair grow where it can
show people my naked body more often

you do this to break me down and it works
every time.

krzyzewski

i fall in love with everyone who touches me
yes i just had a baby
but these are my babies

what i don't say is understanding
or just the lack of interest in actually having something
unless you have recently touched me

my skin remembers the body inside of it
the lonely part
or the part that notices things that cake

because the weight of living
really is just the vapor of dying
letting go of your self by cell slough

kind of like this baby
or this hot lady
or my sun burn from being lazy

the cream won't always smooth you
tongue pulled through the hole in your throat
talking into a microphone

yes i just had a baby, these
are my babies
or the girl down the street had a baby
i'm not sure who the father is
i told my neighbors i am illegal
but they still won't let me leave the united states

what the dead do

firm is handshake, packed earth around
brush it on your clean jeans
dont try to scare me w/ old flood stories
cant swim
but i've been growing my locks well
finding new ways to use an ass-jaw
when i see him
i'll let my father know what it feels like

coriander nipple ocean sunset.

hey girl jogger where did you get your
desire to jog
how wet is the ocean
or the small of your back
my licked eye-balls

have you ever won a free cruise
oh wait
did i see you on that free cruise
to barbados
were you that girl who wouldn't stop jogging

black hole

controls out of my factor
pen and paper haves
my wrists are horse knees too
i love you times infinity
clay nipples for the shaping
the way you mountain over pacific
and ocean
and i wish my legs were arms
and i cant see you with my hands
pinching at sex like a chore
my sweeping or hiding everything under a bed
where gods cannot see
a lead mattress with stains from a body
from when the roof leaked or the cat died
or when i swam into you etc.

age of aging

i don't know who speaks in a mouthing
a minor radiation storm
the heat reaching three thousand degrees on my face
and hands
shhh
there is hidden water under the earth
or in camels, which are amazing

i cannot fly up

feel the sun expanding, does it
scar my pale neckline,
can i even forget that i am baking
or see the person
that has been here for over a number of years
and counting

you say we are normal
that the flames on our faces are normal
my lips and muscles and sex drive decay in front of me
in a normal way

damned if i'm damned
if i don't, still damned i guess
feel myself trying to hold onto my self as if i can die
before im thirty
or if this death of mine would really matter to me
the frightening thought of who i am losing who i am

tells god to die
am i
going to test my own nothing.

baby cat

its hard to trick yourself or to quit smoking
down in the death of my own ass
the pits all deep
im like haha
i killed him
dropping my draws in front of myself
a mirror after showers after we wash off my stink
you say lets fuck
or can i even be a baby boy
i cried the other night because i changed
so much that i miss what you miss of me
screaming drunk at hell
with garbage dangling around my neck
my ass
hanging out of my mouth

do i need this

feel small
take a page out of perfect murders
guess you could make 20k a head
like that
i think im going to buy a pair of tennisshoes
man
i have to live like im poor like
god will fuck me
or i will be too spaced out and afraid
to see all this shit
peoples feelings are always a severed head
please do not shake
look away from the crying man

seldom in my brain cavity
for luck
handing out cigarettes to meth heads
outside the super c
i will make these plans
take them to court
and sue the hell out of them

maybe i'll eat cheese and kill lavos
maybe i'll mix all the juices in my fridge to make a mega juice
maybe i'll get stoned and leave you a voice mail
maybe i'll change the channel when Leno is on
maybe i'll say nice things about you
maybe i'll say you're a lunatic
maybe i'll say i'm a lunatic
maybe i am

beginings of things

i will let you go
to start
say what weapons you are, tongue

deliver the bulb from your colorless chop
let it ooze from an opening

the more i make sex sounds
i laugh at the smell of suction

why dont i just go where ever
propose to anyone i love
some sad one

why not slide out the bathroom window
get the fuck away

start smoking

gaps

there is so much time to be june as a porch-swing
leave the days where the days go

where there was water
sunk the egyptians or swallowed the earth

but my mouth is wide open with words
to buzz away with its' bits

confronted by what i say i see
or the eyes, where they were forgetting space

vague shadows from sun behind moon
when your finger points to a godless sea

or a line from each knuckle
lining somewhere with no knuckles

Yamalok

the sirens that wake me up or keep me up, slowing
are for you
no matter where they are heading

haunt me longer than any city you stay in
remember new york is also a city
or hearding buffalo

without effort you may rope me or
tangle your own toes
looking calf

how is the swimming around your island
did you collect shark teeth
the way i used to collect shark teeth

sore throat

tired of the telling me
my fear of cold water
a snake

let me leap
legs unbreakable
from chugging the tit

mark my oval pucker
around something more giving
stand out on the edge of a tall thing

there are no bridges worth that life of yours
calm the hungry birds
maybe they will share

my jaws stretched swollen
from bone forming
wake up spitting blood for a few minutes

I'm going to need that hand
your promises
make me laugh out loud at tornadoes

can the wind, wind, and the wind
hear me
over all this expensive wind

cabbage

im designating you as my ulcer
no I don't know what you
is
my gun is never loaded
dont let my enemies know
the earth isnt dying right
it should be wild
full of crazy shit
the gods haven't sprung on us yet
like thinking crazy
imaging my voice as strong enough
my actions
could save someone
like the pain as a person
hole in my gut
i'm leaking all over you
my stupid drooling
name calling it sugar pie
or how else am i supposed to remember

too much negative

balance

trap air in your mouth

is a space

like any other empty

galaxy

there is no air to need

alley fight

wander off to a red carpet
tape decks pulled outta yer car

by thieves
are we still stealin' it
the heat or the air or the water

resources, my ace
my sleeve

show the hands
i will take my gloves off


and fight you like a
god

parrot squawk

you forgot how poisonous you are
skag, feeding off my pit

my pitness
call the head a seperate neck top
falling off at the skull bone

shake your hair from the scalping
sharp knife fit hand glide

scrape, or gum the brain skin
with your soft mouth
of no fangs,

mouth words at me with sound
as if i give a damn
what i hear

hide

peek at the crazy in me
and run for the great plains
the belly of my body
naked under piles of dead nakeds
or my darkness
or my underground
bitter cherry dirt
squish the pulp out of the head
make the earth think
with my insides
i will never see the sun
or die here, i mean
i will never see me die here.

mathematics

shaking in your no boots
carry water to the ocean

increase the size of the air
ask paul how tall a celebrity is

like i wonder how tall nick cage is
or i wonder how tall yao ming is
or i wonder

why
she ran away

to the ocean
with all these buckets of water

and i wonder
where she gets all of this water

polluting the salt soup
killing all the fish with purity

or whatever you call it,
go tell it

on the mountain
where there are no mountains

like nebraska
or like anything in my mind

shut-up-i'm-talking
about romance, about it being all quiet

about my nerves fucking up everything i do
about hating the sex of it

thats the truth
i'm going to white out my back brain

places where i remember places
like going there

like a car crash that i remember
because i told the story so many fucking times

i'm bored of that story
and the mountains i tell it on

but here i can see
taking water from one ocean

to fill up another ocean
is stupid.

neurolux

talk zombie at me ahyaya, cut the shit out of this
tooth melon. i'm going to eliminate the gods of us

banging fist face against table mirrors
as if you couldn't see the fuck you give

pray i don't eat the whole arm and shoulder
chuck your chuck up, tall boy

how tall is anyone with their eyes up
at the rim

where your gums are bleeding
and your jaw hangs by the last of your skin

numb
for mikey

feel the weight of your self on yourself
seriousness of limb loss
your milk is feeding every body
regrow
your accent
hair falling from ground to head
deeper than your the point
making a birth seem more important
than the fuck
that created you
beam for me with your light
take your tongue out of your mouth
leave your home at home
listen with your no ears

letter

i'm not forgetting you
or any other way you say it

i have put you in the back of my mind is all
where most things go to die

hopefully you are
ok there.

sincerely,

much

arms stretch long in pictures of arms
keep hand out towards your face
or read what the mouth is saying

the mouth is saying, sweetheart
please,

or at least that is what i see:
the tree shapes, the nipple
bark.

i cannot let you become me,
not even for a short while
sliding beneath skin

moving my hands.

doug obama

let me tell you a joke about the brother you don't have
it will start out smooth and get painful quick

say you saw him in the womb
before you decided to eat everything in your view

big black eyes
cut through cement

your teeth don't, in fact none of your face
will ever survive.

craig t. nelson

the weekend counts as one night,
sometimes
this dumb guy forgets what he eats, or is

late for work is always the end
some other guy gets the promotion
gets to be president
or god

i like the way you think in the underbelly
kicking the walls
of your mother

hey lets not get ahead of ourselves
wading in the kiddie pool
years ago

jobs

rolling kids for soda change outside the dairy queen

moon

brought into this world to be a boring
venom is the hawks case
and there will be no sign of her here
which the spot has passed
the attention placed on your moon finger
am i lost
again staring at star skies
the same way anyone would in the galaxy
being scared
being tired
being dead
is the pit of my pitness
pressed up against the inside of your metal you
cold shaded body
leaning toward warmth

poem thing

i'm struggling to understand my own existence
in the poem, where there is no poem

a wall there, pressing my face against it
to feel the cold move from metal into skin,

teeth become magnatized to what should be said
in the poem, where there is no poem

and questions are just words i don't understand
because my mouth parts wont stop talking--

things fall from things thinging, and scared me
in the poem, where there is no poem

then lightning, then thunder
wind, wind, and the storm forming

thoughts on the night when there is no storm
in the poem, where there is no poem

2k11
for 2k10

this isn't your big feet
this isn't you running
this isn't your wet hair
this isn't about your feelings
this isn't about how fat i feel
this isn't me talking to my dad
this isn't ready for that
this isn't going to be deleted
this isn't going to win
this isn't stacks of green backs
this isn't nap time
this isn't your ears when i kiss them
this isn't you punching me in the mouth
this isn't leaving a message
this isn't cool anymore
this isn't commentary on your old underwear
this isn't a disease
this isn't your bedroom body
this isn't the blood in my mouth
this isn't a fuck up
this isn't clean cut or business casual
this isn't the rest of my life
this isn't your neurosis
this isn't the neurolux
this isn't Hemingways grave
this isn't me crying at thanksgiving
this isn't funny
this isn't another acid trip
this isn't going to change without effort
this isn't zen
this isn't Sway with MTV news
this isn't going anywhere
this isn't San Francisco
this isn't a big deal to you
this isn't even a poem

killebrew

hammerin' at yer throat
call bull
pin ears back at the dirt
your about to tear up,

wind, wind, and the wind blowing
eases the exit

i like to do dishes, i guess
for fun
and pound rocks over walls with a stick
with those arms
you stole from your grandad
the strongest man in the union army

way back when
you stood on deck
with your whole life ahead of you

car smoke
for paul

and when i say punch it
punch it,
make me push the damn thing up a mountain,
say anything is a mountain.

i'm not heavy but i'm sinking into solid
rocks.
toss me another cigarette so i can quit that too.

i didn't even mark up my arms with all the glass shards
from the windshield.
then i forgot you didn't actually run me over.

forgot that i'm alive,
and can tell you stories about the times
when i needed just one punch to keep me in line,
nothing too serious.

bird

swallow as the seas



split by dam or be damned in it



chug salt rock



for the plague someone prayed for



it



pillars you



lost by the story ingraved



the pushing back of your soft organs



the ocean



rolls, a tumor fatter than sky



crawling even



with its waves



pressed between all other fish

no one hears me when i talk
talk

self medicate

this isn't easy
the constant shock of shock therapy
your lake face
bright rash red scale
the picture still smiles when you go crazy
it's the water watering
the grass, grass, and the grass growing
take a look at my hands they aren't melting
they aren't fake
you can sell me your happy waves
your moon
controling my ocean
damn tide even shaping my eyes, which way
i never knew the wind
would carry the clippings
turning brown quickly without water
hiding the lights from dimming
electrocution is not an idea forming.

tar poem

spit blood every morning like
any man
my bones are too big
for this no bones about it
town,
i will drag my tongue across your knife
let the stars
fall from god and all his lofty shit.

spit tar

smile when i am naked
i cannot stand all your drooling
you and your control

of the ocean

though it is only wet space
liquified by my constant pummelling
skin surfing on sweat
that chokes out light from hot gas,

your pain in the ass
is not what im looking for
i tried to find the access of grinning

teeth are something i can say
feel the bones grinding
feel my spray on your face.

this isn't easy
the constant shock of shock therapy
your lake face
bright rash red scale

nectar

i forget to drink water,
you scoot, take your little wagon,
sometimes in the desert

shouting the dirty mouth,
bats fly over cactus to cactus
with these death parts between,

lucid dreams, or am i see-ing this for real.

i am a sucker,
blood honey, the whole nine,
bathe in stretched out rays

black spots left after scrubbing
decay is a tooth, tooth, tooth
smile.

scab

just notice with your thumbs
the tightest muscle
the blood rimming your tongue

how strong a womans back is
your job
is to anticipate

bought the plot
ready to say
ready

asking a man how you lost all that weight
eating
him

carve the dried part away
from something healthy
watch the puss milk

hearing the wobble in your voice
makes me
forget what you look like.

beard poem

walked past this blind girl
into the street

saw her once at the coffee shop in my office building
she turned and said
you have a beard

it was true, but i really didn't know what to say back
so i just smiled
but didn't know if she saw that too.

theres blood in my mouth a lot these days.
stars say im going to be dead soon.

i might shave tomorrow.
actually i will,
flower arrangement on my jaw--

drunk guys always yell at me
they see my beard too,
it reminds them of other people who have beards.

i told you the time my face was ripped off
you didn't know what to say either
so i just

politics

the name change confused me
she spells it like,
my president. or like,
the earthly image of venus as a woman
as a star
when my birth is closer to other stars
or why they tell me things are looking up--

gonna make more money this month.
she said
she was hurt,
long before the first Bush adminstration
as a joke.

my life
is in sequence by decades
out of line on the 4th year.

where was i
when i had my whole life ahead of me,
on my death bed,
in my dreams. even dying now.

zebra

throat the moon
shine cherries outta Tenn.

breathe fire, like a Dragon
push from the south diaphragm

my chakra bent drunk on mountains
makes you sorta squiggle

legs kick up
makes it sorta hard to go

hug

say where the bed goes, my smoking
indoors, windows open
damn humid inside

sweatty, or the bodies that don't stay there
telling them to shift around,
lake

swim, the fish that don't travel
miniature sharks
livng in a puddle.

when i'm older i will drink less,
maybe i will be able
to walk.

never odd or even

saw these
half the way in water is sunk

how strong must i be
to break the moon,

or a butt
sticking out of it's pants.

will you tell me
that this isn't fucked up.

earth day

sing a funeral, in your brain
random is.

death in a god will make you.
fake money, or faker anything to agonize,

wish for them back
the shadows of comfort

or standing there naked
quiet

wait for everything to notice
you exist.

your dad dies too

nothing strange happens
just laying there naked in the lawn
where the dog burries its shit.
come to conclusions.
think how normal it might be
to never speak to him again.
maybe still love him.
not sure.
you write a poem about it.
you call it a poem for your father,
remind yourself when he told you
the dog was hit by a truck
because maybe
he thought you would hate him
for telling the truth.

for ACK

a beaten filthy golve
flexes best around a pop-fly
swinging branches
pointing them out to distance
these are the jokes
call the sun big sun
call a girl anything
holding cigarettes in our left hand
waiting for the next sizzle
not at all like love, Jack
unless you know where it comes
from.
and noses to water
the motion of moon waves.
why would you scream at me
pain vomit,
why is the death of us so important

salt

im sporting the smell of your breath
i lick my own neck
with my pants down to my ankles
my body
floats on water.

morning

remember the deaths of.
that is not
where the hurt is.

watch the coffee drip.
you
don't touch it, yet.

i'm calling you to leave
a message.
please don't call back.

take away the hands.
soft
is a weakness.

forget to lock the door.
someone
is home. that you don't know them
is what makes it.

april

trim my nails for me, the toes
i'm moving to get away from you
all to silence myself.
i told you the sun would expand
came out of nowhere, there was nothing
hanging heat in the sky,
not enough water in the ocean
to put out a star,
too much chaos banging
from beneath us.
i told you i wouldn't bake,
told you i would save someone.
but there are too many, too many
ways to save myself.
my love will hold me accountable for hate
or the violence inside of me
that i cannot show.
blasting drums beneath the face of earth
you do not have to hate me
to hate me.
my smile does not mean i am alive.

breakfast

feelings of top heavy-ness, i steal
the chill bending over for spring

and isn't it odd?

monotony of mortal feeling
it was my love, my love, burning

centered around your form
there is always a shadow there is always
the face side.

throw yourself at someone who shows no interest
isn't it odd?

the difference is what we don't remember.
difference in monotony
this is your brain on mortality
this is your brain
livin'

end of the world

ambling, river walk hey lady
does the angelic flutter into dark
and rainbow trout
hides the hook hooked under a roundish face
ray of light, oh god
the gays!
ambling lazy street walk
the weather makes you
talk, a life like tornado
i am the moon ripping the waves of pain in your metal jaws
i am a songbird singing
i am the wind and the wind and the wind blowing
storms of jupiter into your mouth
Woman
sideways eyes on a snake gargling hiss at the black spots on its face,
the inevitable swollen sun
you are the watered lawn
you are the grass growing
Woman fosil, sinner of freedom
pressing the green against me
moon never sways
the lonely endless midwest
surfing to galaxies.

autobiography

wants to be
brutal too,
hammerhead shark-like
where the eyes are at,
burried under ocean.


doesn't remember the great compromise
ing it, make the sounds
leap off a do, or i
movement brush
forget what is covered up.


brutally
wises you over
with the glance of unshaded eye
sockets,
owl turning neck of her.


expanding sun, roast
makes the conscious beat
of what we can live,
ing it,
again, and then some.

slow walk apocalypse

holding a body—
sometimes i am an asshole

the eye’s slits
cum in the clean jeans

trapped by environment
look like a baby

whole lives
ahead of us--

your body rubbed soft
red at the nubs,

even with a second body,
in case there is no one tomorrow

quiet you, quit--
squint at the sun. say sun.

i’m not dancing, i'm blind,
i’m not ready for the swing--

deck me,
break all my fine china

digging a hole through earth
to china, easy does

the other side, the other
chinese lives, where.

so the body
keeps growing

does it shit,
we wait to see--

or ass, or bottom
of a beautiful barrel, apples

slice things with knives
ask why i always carry knives

“there are a lot of stabbings
in Grand Island.”

so scary, so wounds cut,
chop noise from cat alley

the sun is increasing in size
night slowly, paw.

am i right,
can you see the dust settle

watch the echo,
bouncing space debris off

past lovers, a fuck
reflections of people you think

talk to yourself
with this new body you found

looking alone with her
wrapped around you.

forgot the words, or
only remembered poems

about falling space dust
ricocheting off some body

turning over and over in your awake
sleep, pretty when you

no, snoring is love,
no this unattractive pile is love

my love, dark as space between
another sun

dust on emptiness, you
you, and the grass growing

under the snow
the beard with all twigs

being afraid of people leaving
or wanting to

lost in a world like china,
not unlike the attractive middle of nebraska

the arms don’t know their chest
well, imploding

she thinks it’s useless to talk to them
but still talks to them.

heavy

born on a lazy river
forget to drink water sometimes
losing the weight

i've gone on long
like my old lady says
sounds like catfish in here

land poem

O! ocean, humiliating in it's prairie
empty as space
no one is a poem; to read

greener than red sight, don't
yell at me when i'm
driving

this dirt
means i am working hard
on me

maybe the poem is aimless
enough
to find 3rd base with your chest
down to it

banana poem

so i was walking with this banana in my pocket that i was going to eat for lunch
and i kept wondering if people would say hey
is that a banana in your pocket or are you happy to see me
you know, as it goes
and i wouldn't know what to say if i WAS happy to see them
the either or, black or white
as if this banana in my pocket
causes me to hate everyone.

slope

remembering how young i am
eases the fear of existence

or what i am
supposed to know when i am older

wasn't meant to swallow that much
nutmeg,
wasn't meant to be so cute

poor isn't what i would dream,
sort of space travel
w/ beautiful women

where we

i was never more separate
than free, zone
off what i want to need

who i am, roll
down the window a crack

wind says whistle

jump while running
jump while standing

stand still
when the shit is scared out of,

i am sorry i loved you
i am sorry i lied
i am sure

about something,
my heart
never caught up with my aging.

there to go

i bought you a waterbed said
it was not an ocean
but i still surf

when i was naked
you smiled

i still am
laying down on that driveway
acting

i wished for a window to sneak
or all sky
for my space travel

find
moons everywhere

wall

happy was,
a hope is easy, sing
to say every thing is;

my love,
dust on what holds
wounds of repeated head-banging,
the wall

is white

happy birthday

here is your fancy death
skin drapes the bones

where did your nakedness go
full of the fat intake

laughing
was never worth it

when you realize how stupid it sounds
being in a universe.

where was your nakedness
grass blades break
under any foot push,

sprinkler bath, you make me
eat tree leaves.

i owe so much.
my underground looks
the way
i am hardly aging,

wet and sliding
across everything

woman

the fur touches
thought they were fair
at foresting
mushroom growth, or eat everything

gone
my fire hands, hot like coffee
a real
ball park figure
of a woman

smokes
closed windows before
never saw anything out there
i liked.

likes, like he likes
his coffee, as hot
as humanly bearable

takes his religion
to public parks
and is good at foresting

brass tacks

showing you/ your best hands
look like a mirror or all your hands
trophy wife gets old
legs fall off at my bites.

buy shoes again, waste of it
all the walking,
a room carpeted in greenbacks,

sweat your chops for midwest summer
job,

feed off/ the dying
you laugh at me when i come in fear
say, how are you.
answers fall from outterspace.

jesus

make me feel august as a car drives
get it just standing next to the bus
by all the other busses

i used to say that i have read
all the lord of the rings

but i never have.

there is only one city named Iowa City,
where i am from.

people say, jesus a lot. here.

kyle, i know, is out west where he's from.
i have no patience to head west. jesus.
he said, girls are a headache for sure.

i drink normal coffee drinks
and name them things.
like god would if he drank normal coffee.

when i wake up,
or i said the only things that get me going
are women and coffee.

she takes too
long.

over here under the colored light,
we pretend things are always.

i speak about drugs,
or tell people my father almost died.

inside i am almost me,
and growing some.