We Are Not In A Bar

But if this were a Contemporary American Poem
There would be a bird or a ghost
Passing through you like music through a stained
Glass window or a newspaper
Through the street.

No, it would definitely be a bird,
A hummingbird to be exact
And you would be cupping it
Like it was the last snowflake

And its heart would be beating
or not beating.

But this is not a Contemporary American Poem.
There is definitely not a bird,
And if there were, it would definitely not be a
Hummingbird. And there is
Not a ghost.

You thought there was a
ghost, But it was

Just R-Kelly's Memoir, Soulacoaster
Which is like a ghost because
They are both transparent.

No, this is not a Contemporary
American Poem. This is a party.
And you're here, and you're enjoying yourself.

wearing the same pair of underwear for 48 hours

aloneness is something

to be held close to the chest

and cradled: the only prayer

i've ever known. my housemates

have all flown back to their families.
i must be the last november goose 

left in iowa and i like

things to be just so:

ceilings and joints sounding of settling in unison, 

peeing with the door open, salsa and tortilla

 chips for thanksgiving dinner

junta

writing a poem now because later I will be drunk and hopefully the last thing on my mind will be poems and how they need to be written.

I read a book that told me to start writing short sentences in order to become a better writer but I don't have any short sentences yet.
I am stringing together a long complex idea and I do
n't know where it begins and where it ends yet, there are some shaky
transitions. There are some grandiose, triple-letter score words in there
that I really have no business using. There Is The Pretentious Usage of Capitalization
and lots of excess modifiers, conjunctions, and other words that I don't know how to label.

tonight I am going to drink wine and probably say things that are half-calculated half-geniune
I will hope to sound smart, well-read, politically moderate, and highly independent given my socially embedded gender/sex/sexuality. I will hope not to spill any wine on my white shirt.
I Will Be Thankful for The Things and Feelings That I Have and Try Not to Cry So Much.

watching every wes anderson movie I remember
when owen tried to kill himself

when he did it I wonder if
his brother's acting came to mind

did he think of how romantic it seemed on screen

or how there is nothing beautiful about
carefully composing it
when there are no cameras

turkey day musings

it is interesting to
be a different person to everyone I meet
my mother's daughter is not
my father's daughter and
the girl so serious in class is
also the one who shrieks like a
child in her bedroom
and the feminist is also
the woman who helps cook thanksgiving dinner
clucking like a hen
sometimes the steamy image in the post-shower mirror
sometimes the disembodied thoughts of no one
--

every time I brush my teeth my gums bleed
maybe I am trying too hard

i am in my house of dawn
molten light streaming across
the arches of my feet
a thick, curved hip

i have seen myself as
the queen of wands
trapped in the hard amber
savoring the weight of a staff

at my right,
the stag is large
heavy in his own crowned way
shaking off the dew of every morning after

what i touch
turns to sour wood
liquid sap running slow
filling up every insect that dares to

slip inside

talkin 'bout my generation

watching people age
age comfortably
in arm chairs
god I hope
to never be comfortable
in my life
I hope my creaking bones
move as constantly as
my anxious heart

trailer

a driveway island
blankets and propane
stolen sparkling in the fridge
amy winehouse and a certain
peculiar odor leaking from vents
the closet bathroom, a good place
to hide the thanksgiving turkey, yeah?

"that's beyond the scope of my
project"--watch the philosophy TA's
little mice hands scrabble her glasses

back up her nose when you ask her
questions for which she doesn't have
an answer. make it a game to research

philosophers she probably hasn't studied
just for the satisfaction of her easy
mechanical reaction, her sick little palsied

blink, the "that's beyond the scope of
my project" and then the round glasses--
like Sisyphus' boulder, you watch them

again and again slip back to base and wonder
what kind of masochism it implies that she
hasn't gotten contacts already

like visiting a zoo you only feel bad once -- warn me in colorful flowers placed on my windowsill 

slowly gluing some thing back together, a specifically meaningful action seems so  

unbelievable in the face of what i understand - are animals specifically more aware of certain information? 

how many times you stubbed your toe today vs how many people smiled at you today 

unfortunately that's enough reason for why you always fake leaving

i finally heard a one direction song
and i don't get it
i just don't
get it

and since moving to a city
i have been able to find music
in the sounds of buses stopping
and swerving around other motorists

there is a song in putting your life
into a grumpy bus driver's hands
and the notes all sound garbled through
the speaker

teAARRGEESSSSs
and university
next stop