Wednesday, May 31, 2017

45

I’m tired of the 45

in my mouth
in our thoughts
metal element of hate
invading the phone calls from Aunt Wendy who asks, “how’s ‘em earthquakes?”

The cold 45 in the steamed-up locker room
hefty and heavy           heaving heralded hatred          with rhetoric of
           
            this is America’s gun.
my mouth is still fucking trying to spit this 45 out

                        I’d pay to find the body of a 45 in my backyard.
I can see it now
            the barrel fired too much and turned
orange and hot and grabbed whatever it wanted by the pu—

I still love you, 45—that took something from my tongue.


After The Beatrice Letters by Lemony Snicket

After The Beatrice Letters by Lemony Snicket


I will love you as long as the grass leaves stains on a white t-shirt, as long as kids love to play in the dirt, and as long as their t-shirts are grass stained. As long as dogs will stick their nose out the window of a car and as long as cars have windows, and for as long as windows love for dogs to stick out their noses. As long as roots seek out water and as long as water runs to roots. As long as the ocean has a grain of salt and as long as waves keep moving sand, and as long as salt and sand are subject to the movement of waves. I will love you for as long as the sun melts the snow, as long as the snow is cold, as long as the cold makes you shiver, and for as long as the sun that melts the snow warms your back. I will love you for as long as the Robin symbols Spring, and as long as the birds sing. I will love you as a book loves a reader, and as a pen loves a hand, and as a hand loves to spread the pen ink. I will love you as courage loves a hero, as water loves sailors, and as vengeance loves a tragedy. I will love you as war loves husbands, sons, brothers, and daughters. I will love you as Mars loves mysteries, as humans love calamity, and as Mars loves creating calamity with mysteries like love.  

Cliche

Be Careful What You Wish For (A Cliché)

It’d be easy if I could write about you
your blonde twisted hairs tied—pulled up and never cut—24 years of split ends
                                                Dare you succumb to a virgin cut? You did with him.

Easier to write to you
Get lost in our written world of deceiving ink—
Every time I hear this song I think about dancing with you. I think it's bc we both, to a specific extent, hate our lives equally and there's a particular dance that matches that level of hate.

I think I’m lost in dancing with you—in some imaginary wedding
where I wipe a tear from your face and you tell me I always knew it was you.


I can’t listen to music without seeing you—
                        you harmonize with the high octave coos of Bon Iver.
I want to write about war—how it tears up the mind—how it destroys the ability to hear fireworks             without hearing Marv scream tell my mom I love her.
                        But those screams faintly die and I—
picture
 your sea green eyes exploding into Sinatra blue
just before you burst into your cackling laugh.
                        Oh, damn your eyes


Keep me on your long line                 I’ll keep tugging from the backburner

Escalation of Force

Escalation of Force

We never marched into trenches made of mud-soaked ridden rot and rats
            woodbones of ziggedzagged mice, lice, and glory—No Man’s Land           
advancing across cratered terrain with hundreds       thousands        of hatesweat killing
machinemen. Trudging trench knives sharpened with wetted stones. Waiting to feel the crunch and pop between the 2nd and 3rd rib bones.

One bomb is too much to live through—millions shift to shadows stenciled in cement
                        grasped in the knuckles of                  God doesn’t do justice.

We write of war in the essence of its struggle
Like waking up to bodies                   dead and hollowed and not,                don’t let the inner war of oneself
to live—
to fight the good wavy struggle of life. Don’t let that fight die.


The guns blasting into the                   night    guiding us down like a biplane,
ripple-holed and spu spu sputtering down
            Our selfie banners       still marquee   showing allegiance to ourselves, to our flag.

Be my brother and take this gun out of my mouth. Be my lover—
soul>body
           
We kicked doors down and said get the fuck on the ground with a .556 barrel thump to the chest              exit wounds pumping blood between our gloved fingers  they took a break         when Doc called it, and I could have taken my camera and focused on his face—

            but I looked at his shoes, thrown on sandals
probably just out to catch a ride home…. and we yelled
Ogaf!

we shined lasers                      we shout, shove, show, shot to warn, shot to kill.