to achieve sainthood
i subsist entirely on
guacamole

Tick tock tick tock

My house is full
of girls watching shows
about child birth
and weddings
and more child birth
and talking about who got engaged today
and looking through wedding magazines
and sighing at rings
and pretty dresses.

I sit in the next room
pretending to be uninterested
but I really want to crawl
under my bed
bitter
and
terrified.

i don't feel like a poem today

i feel like a bike locked to
a gas meter and like tinted
windows and an eclipse

scooter didn't say anything
interesting last night

I got blackout drunk last night

my head is throbbing
I am making spaghettios
I wish I wasn't alone all the time.

sex in a church parking lot

a light on in somebody's office
upstairs, but
our windows are fogged

I say to whoever is watching
--this was the darkest place we could find

and wonder why I don't pray more
often
at ten on a Thursday night

the hope is in the Proles

I am constantly ensuring myself that

I love the common man

(a fanfare for him in fact)

but then the commonman opens his mouth

in human geography

and we become forced internal migrants

Cold Front

A cold front blew in
today
My feet began to protest
my perpetual use of flip flops.

On the way back from Sarasota
we pulled over to look
at the stars
and our peculiar, wild laughter
echoed across the countryside
the air hung like one enormous stone
and for a moment we forgot
our tropical prison.

Chris Cravey keeps having heart attacks
and I run around
screaming death death death

There are no comfortable chairs in the hospital
I'll keep my vigil in the bathroom
next to numerous buttons
'help' says one

i'll press it
staring at my urine

As long as they keep me in a dry place,
i'll last as long as the mummified cat on tv.

potential energy

with his life savings, everything
he invented an engine

it was beautiful, efficient
each day he polished it
'till it gleamed on its throne
pressed his ear to chrome
the perfect hum of pistons
so powerful with nothing to push

with his last breath
he wished he had been
a big picture person

Wisdom From My Hairdresser

She says,

"I'm turning 50 tomorrow,

Chris"

I tell her age doesn't matter,

and when she laughs

the ink teardrops around her eyes

disappear in wrinkles

forged by 49 years of living

in this desert.

She says, no,

what matters

is aging.

I know
I know
that chewing your nails
is not good for you
It's a bad habit and I have so many

I lay my hands on the bar
palms down and Orlando laughs
and slurs

"Even your nails are so white"