On Dwarves

Curiously, furiously, he strikes the earth,
    getting what's inside.
furiously, curiously, he keeps on going.

a fairy tale from the American heartland

on midnight walks in the flatlands,
each routine crack in the sidewalk
becomes another crack in an oracle bone
each hooded figure behind you a wolf.

when you begin to breathe heavy
you sit on the stoops of strangers
and toss sticks, watch hungrily for
the concrete squares where they fall.
you feel like a child again and

light a cigarette, twine smoke signals
around the necks of streetlamps.
your future rises with your breath.

run on home, girl with scraped knees;
don't you know that
rain on pavement glints like teeth

acid

man taken off sailboat by coast guard
he had ripped all his sails off with a long knife
he thought they were ghosts
hands to choke

he

there is

a part of me

who would love to be Dorothy Parker

and live lonely

flip idly through memories of ex-husbands

suffer in the absence of love

but insanity

represents itself in different ways to me

knocks on my door and speaks to me through my

friend's voice

[there are no rules to this game]

lazy morning poem (at night)

the morning is a cigarette in my mouth,

the hum of a leaf blower in the distance,

a pretty white bird on the mailbox.

Final Crisis of Capitalism

seems to me the end is not such a big deal
empires, like hem-lines, are known
to rise and fall

where the trail crossed an old railroad track
nothing distinguished the true path from the false ones
(if such a thing exists)
but don't ask me
I've been lost for a while now myself

in her bones the West remembers something
but of course it's only later, from my window,
that I notice the full moon
reflected in Monterrey bay

Jagota

The radiators don't hum loudly enough here to keep me warm, but it's just one more hour;
one more hour of standing in front of Spain and Japan and Hungary
and whicheverplace bratty-orange-chav-girl is from,
with her talon nails
and bleach
and diamonds jammed in her teeth, and her Adidas shellsuit, and oh hell why did it have to be
Adidas.
Adidas when I'm supposed to be thinking about The Future Perfect tense.

I wonder if she knows that thing about the two violins,
however it went, that thing about the two violins.
She looks the sort of girl who might loudly exclaim "I can't stand poetry, yah?"
So I guess we weren't meant to be and anyway
she has that job waiting for her back in Poland or Czech or
wherever.
And my future is a long train ride with too few drinks coupons, to help plant the saddest little tree in the world.

As long as I can have more bubbles
with windows open open containers and Cat Stevens
life might not be as
Carelessly Cold
as my college education wants to let on
and as this smashes my self assurance against
the window that got me here in the first place
I still suspect that some things do come for
Free.

the faulty machine that is my brain
has started confusing strangers smiles
with a chimp's retracted lips

'don't look at me
i'll fuck you up'

swim poem 2/x

swim likes to spend the big bucks
applies for the big bucks online
2 envelopes in the mail
later 2 emails

swim likes to walk to the mall
put on a hoodie
walk away from the mall

swim likes to pee in his own personal shower
sweet sweat soapy swim stank--shrunken & shy




(p.s. guys, I think I'm obsessed with bodily...fluids. Help.)