February 2012
58 posts
the old man sits at his kitchen table
with hands full of junkyard songs
he walks outside toward a tree stump
older than he is
the head of an ax buried inside
the old man pulls out the ax
as he does so his bones begin to ache
the handle leaves splinters in his skin
tiny teeth
biting their way inside of him
to cut him down
but he just grins at the stump
hurls the ax back down into it
...
1.
She washes her hands slowly.
The water is full of laughing ghosts
headed for somewhere bigger,
with a wider floor,
where every step sounds like an invitation to dance.
When she is done she writes with a leaking ink pen:
“Pitter patter goes the moon.
Scraping salt from its rough hands,
to pour it into me.”
2.
Leaves stick in his hair as he lays.
With his hands behind his head, he listens to...
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like dingledodies
I’m living, brother. I’m breathing in all those ghosts tonight, and boy, do they like to sing. I got a warm belly these days. My heart is learning how to write in cursive, and even though it’s got a short hand, it’s tryin’.
I kept an ocean for you, tucked in my throat, crashing in on itself, waiting for you to come home. Let me sing for you, brother. Please, stick around. Take your shoes off, the...
on the roof of the workshop behind our house
shingles had slid off here and there
it was rough on our palms as we laid back
I pointed to Orion
and told you that late into the night
Orion would play the singing saw to let the crickets sleep
he was a haunting field in the sky
and I know you didn’t believe any of that
but you said the trees
looked like they were listening for something bending
not...
Anonymous asked: I'm in love with your poems. :]
Carrying acorns in the front of my shirt. Some are in my pockets, some in my shoes. A golf cart waiting for me to drive home. When I get to golf cart, the acorns fall out, rolling into the river before I can get them. The ones in my pockets and shoes, crumbled. I sit with my back against the oak tree. I watch an ant hill. The day is going down. A chill in the air sets me to trembling. From where...
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A Finger, Two Dots Then Me
This is Derrick Brown’s poem “A Finger, Two Dots Then Me” that was adapted into a short-film.
This is gorgeous, thoughtful, important, tear-jerking, heart-clapping, and monumentally beautiful.
Please watch it.
I got a poem accepted into Headwaters Journal,...
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The mountains inside of you have been reaching up,
cold fingers pulling at the sun,
but only grabbing handfuls of midnight instead.
For too long they have done this.
They have grown hard. And tired.
But there are feathers on top of your mountains.
Gray feathers. White feathers.
They are waiting for the smallness of your hands to hold onto them.
To carry them to the bottom of your mountain,
and...
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 in outer space,
because her heart is a traveling song,
carrying me in the passenger seat.
While she drives,
I’ll look up at the stars,
and try to pick out the...
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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