February 2012
44 posts
jellyfish
She told me what a jellyfish felt like.
Like something fallen out of the sky,
something made malleable
by the planets spinning around it.
Warm, glowing, and wet.
And I breathed into her
so that she could live underwater or outer space,
because her heart is a traveling song,
carrying me in the passenger seat.
While she drives,
I’m look up at the stars,
and try to pick out the jellyfish.
I could learn how to play the tambourine. Barefoot in the summer, standing in a river, pants rolled up. Let me play songs for you, while the minnows kiss our ankles with their bodies. You are the house I can sleep in. The rooms inside of you breathe like wind chimes. Tell me what the birds keep singin’ about. Catch some rain with me, let it pour into the spaces between ourselves until we are a...
“She kissed as if she, alone, could forge the signature of the sun.”
– Saul Williams
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Pulling my fingers through her hair
I feel like something beautiful
though I can only play two songs
on the bouzouki.
Her eyes start to close.
She can take the day with her.
I’ll lay here beside her,
humming until I’m sleepy.
While the little birds inside me
nest within her tangles.
fisherman
he has a tattoo of a fishhook
it rests on his wrist
said the moon gave it to him
catch and release
he lives alone
spending the days
turning paper into pictures
the nights he prays
watches television
and listens for insomniac birds
he used to have a boat
one his father built out of a tree
it stayed on his roof
and he lay in it some nights
the rivers inside of him rushing
towards his kettle bottom...
the stars
before the stars came down
people feared the worst
the cities were evacuated
houses were nothing but boxes
a lot of people sought churches
heads down
eyes closed
this was supposed to be the end
but when they finally came down
from the far ends of space
they came down at night
they came softly
landed in lawns and streets
making hardly any sounds as they hit
little glowing spheres
turning...
strawberries
I dipped strawberries in a bowl of sugar.
The juice trickled down,
looked like blood on a face full of moonlight.
I gorged myself on them,
staining my lips with their insides
until my stomach hurt. I felt sick.
I wondered if the sun ever felt like that.
Its belly too full,
round with something sweet.
the birds
he found small birds one night laying in the street broken and bleeding they breathed like comets he brushed the sky off their feathers whistled to them while they slept they stayed in his bed beside him too tired to make a mess he fed them bread in the morning the smell got them to sing again then one night he carried them up to the roof sat all the birds around him he told them stories about...
we stood on the beach
I was diggin’ for whalebone
not anything big
just a small piece of something
to hold on to
and feel like part of something bigger
she looked out at the waves
the night made ‘em look restless
she put a seashell in my hand
when i held it to my ear
i heard her breathing
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Bread
I’m trying to be kinder. Practice kindness. Tell the truth, not only to get honest responses in return, but to let the sugar of truth stick to my tongue. To avoid cynicism and negativity in any form. Distance myself from those who practice cynicism and negativity. Distance myself from those who would bring me down, via cynicism, negativity, self-loathing, etc, As well as those who bring question...
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Like Handshakes
My buddy Jamie’s band, Like Handshakes will be releasing their first album, “Tongues” on February 18th. So I’m suggesting y’all take your narrow behinds on over to their bandcamp page and have a listen. If you like it, pre-order it. If you like it and can’t afford the quite minuscule amount of money it costs to pre-order it, then beg for the money, sell some...
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gravel
on a stump down the road
a little man stands
an old man
he has dust on his knees
his pants are corduroy
and he wears a dark blue vest
made of night sky fabric
his hands look like bark
there are wrinkles of prayer
on his face and
his beard is rabbit cloud
he sings about the devil sometimes
and one time he told me
about his billy goat
how the goat eats everything
has a beard like an axe swing
and...
monkey bars
The dirt settled in my hand the same as sugar. I had to know the taste of it. On the playground after school waiting for ma to come pick me up. I dug in the dirt, enjoying the feel of sand running over my hands. I buried them like secrets or gold and avoided touching my eyes.
I let caterpillars walk across my fingers. I liked how their entire body was a furry green mustache. And how they would...
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I watched him gut a fish
pulling the skin back like a page in an old book
his rough fingers turned delicate
i liked how the fish’s eye looked like a marble
not made for playing in the dirt
but for holding and looking through
blood got onto the table outside while
the radio in the yard
talked about a football game
i threw rocks in the pond
the ripples looked like grandma’s hands.
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i sat next to the creek
while the sun bled through me. I pretended my name was Tuesday and I was a thief. I stole feathers from the ground. The heavy ones, full of magic. Skinny ghosts walked by. They ate cricket string. I could only hear their chewing.
I fell asleep out there. Dreamt about a lighthouse. It was evening. Going up to the top I felt like a cigarette. I grew tired with sweat. At the top of the lighthouse...
All I dreamed last night
was Space Jam. I just watched Space Jam in my sleep. Nice.
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hideaway
I was in a wooden boat. In the boat were pieces of paper, all of them were crumpled or creased, like little scraps of moon. All of them were blank.
I was in the ocean. It was night. The water was a square dance. It linked its elbows around the boat. I tapped my boot to its fiddle skin.
I was alone there. I thought about plates of plums and tiny birds balanced around the edges of the plates,...
We took turns throwing rocks at the empty church’s windows. The two of us trying to get higher than the other. The stained glass shattering made the empty building sound like a ghost. I felt like a wheat field. My body was harvest. We were rough handfuls of dust. Birds flew overhead. Dark freckles of sky. I tried counting them, but they were too far to touch.
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January 2012
115 posts
there were dogs in the street eating snow
We talked about trapeze artists. How they catch one another on the cusp of a breath. All for the show. Eager eyes pointed up. They live by getting lifted and taking advantage of direction. I asked if you’d ever be one. You said no. You were too afraid of heights. I asked you why you were afraid. You told me you were afraid of falling. I told you I was afraid of failing. But that if you would...
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peaches
1.
i’ve been eatin’ peaches
lots of ‘em, the color of monarchs
bleeding their juice into me
floating down my riverthroat
hoping the fuzz will make me soft
softer than the smallest birds
2.
the south is a gleaming backbone
a brown porch where i can rest
3.
i hold on to the peach seeds
tree root stones, flowering hearts
i plant them deep under my ribcage
when this heart o’ mine gets skinny
my...