where did all the people come from?
they are concentrating in this time
like an evolutionary blood clot
I wonder who is picking the scab
and if we are healing

a kayak
no, two kayaks (you need one too)
my school loans paid off
Celtic knot amethyst earrings
a red Honda Shadow 750
the back bedroom remodeled with cathedral ceilings
a back deck with hot tub
a romantic weekend in a cabin by the ocean
wireless earbuds with phenomenal base

I’m sorry but this is kind of easy and
I’m just getting started...

The bits I see
Are not a reality
Just made up stories
Dumb heart candy

It’s nice to no longer feel that I owe you
But I could’ve afforded so much more

I’ve decided to marry you
no, I mean, I’m ending it
I’m ending it, we’re through
wait... hello?

you may think I love Game of Thrones
but I’ve never seen it
my dragons and castles are very different

my insides are shaking
vibrating at the speed of terror
I can’t breath
when will it stop

I would like to be alone forever today
would you like to join me?

it’s a beautiful night here
but the moon doesn’t know it
he can’t see behind the thick curtain
and he won’t come out tonight
we miss you moon
you’re the only thing missing
from this star crossed
Sisyphean night

to understand where something begins and ends
you need to understand object permanence
but that's what a lot of people are missing

my sleepy candle lit porch
is a wonderful place
to smoke cigarettes
drink whiskey
watch the moon
and flatter myself
while listening to crickets

please
tell me
what is poetry

there’s something wrong with my phone
a weird broken light
I need to send it away to be fixed
some people would go crazy over this
but I don’t mind
I have the kind of resolve that comes from
years
of unreasonable discipline

I will call her my girlfriend
since it is really me she is in love with
your obsession
with me

my poetic license was called into question due to a recent incident on the poetry highway
but the cops showed up and cleared me
they determined it was the other guy’s fault

I’ve experienced so much love and tenderness
in my life
my heart often feels bursting with gratitude
for all the loves
so much so
that I sometimes wonder if I’m not dying
because it feels like the culmination of something

but maybe that’s just the deepening intensity
of life

if I ever saw him again
things might be different
but I don’t expect I will
so it is what it is

I like your pretty new car
I wish it didn’t take you so far
away
everyday I wish on a star
that you would stay close in my har
t

everything is dark today
my thoughts
my heart
my clothes
the sky
everything

as I mortar these last few bricks in place
my last view of you is the same
as my first

I press my hand to my rib cage
feel my heart’s persistent throb
it seems so small and vulnerable
this tiny gentle creature
pressing softly against my fingers
each pulse almost a question
is this right?
should I be here?
was this an invitation?
meant for me?
yet it continues
steady and uncertain
faithful and dumb
altruistic and alone
thank you little heart
you efforts are not forgotten

I pull up the covers
turn down the light
and hold the poems gently
through the lonely dream filled night

I’m a sieve
I feel everyone
her, him, you, him, her
it’s hard to parse
which one is me
am I one?

in the tiny reflection
of my shiny tub spout
my ******* look
archaically aboriginal
comically distorted
and I wonder if all mirrors aren’t a bit like that

all you need to do is be yourself
and laugh at my jokes
well
not all of them
I don’t want you to hyperventilate

all the hellos and goodbyes
boil down to a rainy Sunday
with piano music
and hot chocolate

I am a lonely watering can hanging in a dark shed
I have a flower pattern outside
and cobwebs inside

she called me Casey
very cute
I think I made a new identity

scientists are the real gurus of poetry
a scientist came up with the term
“transient luminous event”
as a technical term

that person is my new muse

whatever you overindulged in
over the past 4 days
we forgive you
please don’t **** us

humanity is making its way
doggedly
up the ***** of Maslow’s hierarchy

do you want me to shoot you in the foot?
oh, you already did?
(grimaces) I was going to use blanks

he couldn’t stop
and he wouldn’t start
nothing could prevent him from not doing it

my mother was an actress
a musician
a director
a dramatic histrionic childish personality
but she made a very nice cameo appearance in my life

when we finally came together
a tornado of fire appeared in the sky
it came for us

life is on his terms only
he is not built to share

don’t lay around waiting for the vultures
they’re not coming

life is recursive
much like my poetry

I want to give my dangerous innocence
to your eyes
twist your desire
to my darkness
turn you into my favorite monster
and let you off your leash

I’m trapped in the sky again
floating, untethered
my lungs are hot air balloons
my chest is bursting
grab the trailing rope, quick
before I get away

we’re all surrounded constantly by things we don’t know or understand
there’s nothing at all you can do
except keep going
pretending you do

he’s been trying to convince me
for so long
I have borderline personality disorder
I may as well believe it
still
neither of my therapists agree

I dreamed I was at a massive train station
but there were too many trains
and I didn’t know which one to take
I couldn’t see the numbers on the trains
or read the schedule
or remember what the map said
then I started crying
so I walked

I traced your lines so many times
you are engraved in my brain
I’m just not sure what the message is

I don’t believe in god
do you?
though I can go on all day about Siva,
even Vishnu or Brahma
if I had to practice any religion
it would be Kasmir Saivism
Abhinavagupta ascended way better than Jesus
and he took all his followers with him, great guy

Krishnas are my absolute favorite devotees
I could chant Hare Hare all day long
and the food is phenomenal
though my money is on Kali to kick your *** if needed

the Sufis are the most beautiful and poetic
I can whirl as ecstatically as any dervish and
Rumi, the quintessential lover, was my inspiration
25 years ago, long before he was cool
I can prove it, I have out of print editions

African Orishas are mysterious and fascinating
I did my final thesis on Umbanda
(in 1997, were you even born?)
a syncretic blend of spirit possession and spiritualism
a lovely shade of brown practiced primarily in Brazil
created culturally by African slaves mixed with European colonizers
with the indigenous  just trying keep their heads above the Catholicism

and, of course, we all have to respect
the Native American wisdom,
Wolf has always been my friend
in every sweat, she was with me

I should pay further respects
across the centuries I have been Egyptian,
Celtic, Greek
a keeper of arcane knowledge
for a small collection of mystic peoples

but in this time
my religion is science fiction
physics, neuroscience
my prophets are Tesla,
Philip K ****, David Bohm

while I give Teresa of Avila, Francis of Assisi and even
Thomas Aquinas
my deepest regards
there’s nothing bores me more
in my insatiable quest for truth and
insight into the human condition
than your tedious Christian god

the mesosphere, it seems, is a mystery
and it’s been right there beneath our noses
well, the noses of our satellites at least
the poor mesosphere
the middle child of atmospheric investigation
it’s not that we don’t care, middle child
we really really do
it’s just, you’re so **** hard to read!
I wonder what the corresponding metaphoric mental state is
could there be a layer of my consciousness
hiding there in plain site
and I just don’t have the technical expertise to probe it?
I bet there is
I bet it’s where the aliens are

at times I feel very convinced
by my convictions
other times I just feel
convicted

I wrote you lots more poems
with all the same feelings

the earth will consume our hubris
and every part of us attached to it

a very unstable astrological arrangement is afoot
it’s a good thing
he locks the doors now