Saturday, November 19, 2011

posterity

war is
an insecurity men
fight to
get laid
Canada is for
pussies pizza
is a vegetable
think of all the broken
condom babies
that will drink the
Atlantic's oil
through a straw
and pick tomato paste
straight from the vine

michigan

we could
break bottles and stand
on pavement, frozen
wiping pink noses
exhaling frost
and pulling our collars higher

but we are
warm and
nursing bottles
lying in beds
with headphones and
1,574 miles apart instead

Some Much-Needed Perspective

don't be fooled
the Pacific is tiny
and sky above it?
hardly a fraction of that

yet how vast, beyond measure,
the space contained
in a single
half-remembered
bedroom

in summer when your hair was long
we picked our way over rocks and tide-pools
a long walk, without speaking
while Stock Seagull Noise #37
played on repeat

The girl is investigating the contents of her life 1/x

The girl woke up with no memory
A twin bed, a milkcrate supporting a lamp, a small electronic device with a brilliant screen, a thin silver rectangular electronic box connected to a white umbilical cord connected to a special place in the wall
The walls are a dark shade of brown
The place behind her eyes aches.

She is naked and standing, trying to think.
Trying to think of her name.

doll face

below a billboard with Jesus
spreading his hands wide,
a woman stands with her legs spread

her skull is achingly
delicate, pushing through
loose skin the way strangers
push through crowds

“you wanna fuck” she
asks no one in particular
it’s a tired refrain
the choir’s out to lunch
this afternoon

below the billboard that
reads “JESUS IS WATCHING YOU”
she smokes a cigarette,
her face all lines and sag
and loose stuffing

“what the fuck are you
looking at,” she asks the sky.
well you can
dismantle all these things
break them down to
schematics and isometrics

you can pretend they tell you something
stare at them professionally
straighten your collar and
try to feel comfortable

you can go home
hang your tie on the doorknob
submerge yourself in darkness
and listen to songs in e minor

in the end
hypotheticals still crawl under your skin
and the sun sets
at 5 p.m.
i'm losing days
forgetting the way a calender functions
i wander into the living room
eyes wide
and let my grandparents stare at me
until i say
'oh, oh, oh
i forgot what i came here for'

memory loss

They say it can never leave you
but I forgot which key is the bike key
and stood staring at my silver key ring
surfboard attached
it's the black one
having difficulty informing jesus
that the amount of gaga he listens to
is problematic