For You

Hold me until all
This harsh wind stops blowing
And we can just be.

Audience

With headphones on
I can hear your breath
They don't much stop the noises in the room, I'll admit
Because I cannot bring myself to choose a song
More beautiful than the in-and-out rhythm
Of your deep sleep breathe

I am cozy next to that rhythm
As I uncover sectioned off, members-only
Truths to you
About who you are about to start loving
About the boy-ish swerve my manhood keeps taking
And the manly way I brave my everyday
But those truths can wait
And slowly appear
As you pull the sheets over your head
And the curtain up on my life
The different actors
In different roles
All cast as myself
Will put on a show
But just know
That I will be sitting next to you in the audience
Too afraid to ask
"Well, what do you think?"

Your breath is rough and manly
Like your beard that leaves my neck raw from deep kisses
There is nothing boyish about the lover under
Sheets
Beside me
But there are gentle exhales filled with need
And dreams
And questions
While I might not have all the answers
I will be here
Beside you
And your arms
And your chest
And your worst
And your best
Showing you what I know
And resting as your pillow

Together

We have forgotten
What was fought in
Case you were wondering yes
To your question
My generation has forgotten
What was fought in
The 80s by our people
All the needles
Are forgotten
But we must stop them
From what got them
Confused about the truth
Of what AIDS looks like
What it does to a life
Because so many young gays
Take way
Like...way
More than one pill a day
For pains
They aren't having
So to them grabbing
One more for health, hell
Might as well
Bare ride that tight
Ass all night
Because somewhere they were told
In the voices of cold
Enemies of us
All we do us fuck
And shoot up
Thats life for us
Thats what were told
And we hold
Onto those views
Fathers warn you to stay
Away from those gays
Lord knows one day
They'll try and fuck you
But fathers never take
Back what they say
When some day
His son says he's gay
They mostly stay
silent, away
we fear the mistake
We've just made
Because maybe
Father spoke the truth
Ten years in the future
And a boys now a man
Trying to plan
His life with a man
But don't think he can
Because he's supposed to be a slut
And sluts don't wear condoms
And nor does the truth
It speaks to you
From the past
From the fast
Times of the 80s
Where our people crashed
Into each other and dissolved
My peers aren't involved
In their story
Don't realize the glory
Of a life without the shock
Of loss after loss
While each of the best
People met death
And you wait for your own
They feel so alone
Not knowing the home
That used to be our community
They have no more unity
Aside from one common thing
Not what you'd think
Not gay
But the way
They behave
As a result of what someone they loved told them
About them
About us
The truth they need to hear
Is clear
We stand united and accept them in
To a group all the better because of them
And we care that they stay
Even if they
Dont want to play
In some naughty way
There's more to us than
What only one man
Can do with one man
It's what we can do
As a group
And what we can prevent
With a sense
That's unified
And fight
Together
Which is a word
Seldom heard
But needed.

Gift

Cover me in your soft, foreign tongue
Cover every inch of this American boy
With tales of what you have learned to be the truth
As the truth in another language
Teach me how your vowels hold themselves
Against the howling rise and fall of your meter
Allow me a chance to hear the song of your language
Free of lecture or explanation
I am at the mercy of your speech
Left, pleasantly and content
In a mysterious soundscape
I will trust that
You have no intentions of insults
That your words are flattering
Or honest
I rest, with pleasure
In the modern exotic landscape
Of your speech
I ask only that you whisper softly
Everything I need to know
But you cannot say in English
What cant you tell me in my native tongue?
What about you has to be said in words I don’t understand?
If you find that there are baggages
Secrets
Issues
My fresh and tender heart cannot bear the weight of
Do not deny me honesty
Rather
Place your gifts, wrapped
At the doorstep of my forehead
My earlobes
My Adam’s apple
My lips
And leave the unwrapping
To me

Male

Abortion? 
I won't ever know
A child in my stomach

But I do know the gestation
Of a mystery
And that miscarriage
Over and over again
Of never realizing motherhood
But realizing 
It is not
For me
To say

How Wonderful

How wonderful
That you're finally paying attention
Now that I've started
Treating you like shit
But 
I would
Could
Never keep this going
For your sake
Nor for mine. 
And your much anticipated
Attention
Is shrouded all the more
In tragedy
Because of it's means
Now I know, certainly
That you'll never know
How wonderful...

D.C. Gays

Ask me
To forgive
Your ignorance 
Your materialistic puppy dog capitalisms
Your immaturity
Your insignificance
Your rancid asshole arrogance
To forgive
And ask you for 
Your heart. 
I dare you. 

Right Here

I am waiting right here
Right
Fucking
Here
Until you
Whoever
Get your lazy lover ass
Over here
And pursue me
I'm tired 
You 
Pursue 
Me
Court me
Ask for me
Expect me
Accept the surprise of me
Appreciate me with my clothes on
The lights off
In a different room
I am in no sort of hurry
I'll wait
Right
Here. 

Day 10

How can I possibly
Stay atop my addiction
When I'm wearing his
Clothes instead of my own.

My Rope

The tugboat should be my safety
The tugboat should be my safety
The tugboat should be my safety
Where is it taking me? 
Ignoring my anchor? 
Silent it pulls
Me through
Heavy dark morning wake
I was
Happy at the harbor
So quiet, so sure of itself
While, again
Again
It pulls me without consideration
But I'm still too tired
This early in the morning
To even fight
And so I cut
My rope
Goodbye
Tugboat. 

Miss You

You can cry if it makes you feel better
But I wish it were on my shoulders
Remember just behind your eyelids
Is a world of fairies 
And kings 
And queens
And time
That time
Keeps moving and walks foreword 
Shaking sound trees
Creating trust-fall circles
And pushing foreword with romantic
Playful text
I remember seeing you there
Atop a bird's nest
Crawling on seat-backs
Ripping my clothes off
And laughing your way through thick smoke
And forest soundscapes
Come back
Meet me here
We'll praise the sun salutations
And play
Play behind your eyes
When they stop crying 
And you meet me
In a Midsummer 
Night's Dream.

Storms

(For Tom Pace)


I plan to meet him on my porch during storms when someday he is gone.



We'll drink coffee at night and watch the West stay wild in the sky.



I'll throw my arm around his shoulders and together we'll write redneck haikus - each of them ending in "I suppose" or "Well, anyway."



And one day when I'm gone, we will slowly rock on the same swing, on the same porch, under the same lightning. And there will be no time. And our storms won't have to end.

As I Watch You Slowly

Just how necessary are my polite apologies? 
My jaw is tired from keeping the peace
And some days I'm just not sorry. 

You have no idea how to leave
Your daddy in the bedroom 
And there just isn't a place for him 
In the living room.

As I watch you slowly 
Take off you're disrespect for me
Because you're a gentleman, right? 

I have learned the 
Thick throbbing uncut 
Hard way 
That it isn't just a vagina
That makes you a whore
I am a whore because I am entered
You are young and viral 
Because you enter 
It is he who enters
That is free
Not me. 

Pace

I can either yell at the moon
Every night
For always being
Out of reach
Or
I can enjoy the view. 

Sarah (Something)

I sit

Watching 

Holding something tight in my folded

Laced fingers

Holding a prayer, perhaps

Most likely

But also something silent and explosive

I listen through the window

To a world that cackles

And scoffs

Until it is hoarse

At the idea that somehow

There is still a chance for something classic

And beautiful

To exist

Not something tacky or vintage

Not something clichéd or overdone

But something precious and timeless

Sits graciously with patience

Inside my praying hands

And I hold my fingers loose

So as not to 

Crush it

Memorize

Some of the places
In your eyes
Look like they've never stopped crying
And I don't want to stop them
From crying anymore
I want to stand next to you
And let you choose to
Bury your eyes in my bony shoulders
While my shirt gets warm with the tears
And deep gulps for air
I want to look, reassuring to
Some of the places
In your eyes
That shine a light so harsh with joy
That I smile when you are crying
And remind you how much better you feel
After a good, deep sob.
There are plenty of places to laugh
And reasons to cry
In this world
But I've only been to
Some of those places
And if only you would join me
I would ask only to laugh in your light
And wear your tears on my shoulders.

Come In

If you think you might
Be moving away from me
Soon
If my body is more than a few breathing inches
From yours
When we lay together
If our wide-eyed, bewildered
Chance meeting
A passionate one
And then two
Night stand
Was just that
A night stand
Holding no more than condoms and lube
Please tell me now.
I can pick myself up from disappointment
And walk forward with intrigue
But I cannot live in mystery.
You do not know me, but
Wondering if I am loved
Tends to be a theme
In my life
And you have no idea
How terrible the consequences
Really are
I beg you
Know me
So I don't have to know
Again that anxious
Questioning.

All the Time

When I think about Love
I think about You
But
I don't think about Love
All the time.

They Tell Me of Saints

All I know
Is that if I can't be with you
I will spend the rest of my life looking
For someone who looks
Sounds
Behaves
As you do
And if god put you on this earth
A straight man
And I a gay man
In some cruel joke
It means no less that I am yours
But only that I will spend
My days and nights beside you
In love
And friendship
And never kissing you
Not knowing you in my arms
Never touching you
In that way
Will be my penance
And I will die a martyr
But they tell me of saints
Martyrdom is a must
And so I will die
Saint Pace
The Patron Saint of Peace
Because I cannot stop smiling

Preposition

I want to be over it
And above it
And beyond it
I’ve been trying to scale it
Swim through it
Rebuild it
And task-force my way through it
But the reality is I just can’t keep going
If I don’t know that, one day, I’ll be done
I keep wondering what
Tactics I should use
What leadership I need to possess
What think-tanks I need to assemble
To finish this
However
Every time I begin I am instantly halted
By the inability to tell myself that there will be
An eventuality
I want so badly to be beyond this
Around it
Through it
On the other side of this
I want so badly to
Taste life as it was
And as it will be once again
But even better for all the struggle
And chaos of this journey
I want to know what a golden sunset will look like
Dripping down between the hills on the other side of this
But there are no promises made to me
To let me know that anytime soon
I will write about something
I will begin something
Create something
Start something
Finish something
Instead
All I’m given
Are to-do lists
Listed one through
One billion
Every bullet point the same:
Go Through This
Work Your Way Through This
Make It Through
Survive
Hold On
Get Better
Be Better
I’m exhausted at the idea of stagnation
And too tired to realized how exhausted
I really am.

Timelessness

Don't you dare give me immortality
I am a poet
And without my brief time
Coming with a deadline
I can see nothing
A poet is her generations property
And timelessness has given up her child
To the cause
To live forever would be to knock
The words out of me
With a certain blow to the stomach
And I would rather die 
Than to know this world through 
Any other eyes. 

Jeremy Pace Allen Ginsberg Poetry Project

5 Poems

I Want A Man I Can Take A Shower With - Video

If I Were a Straight Man - Video

Some Fuckin' Choice - Video

I Said Let Go - Video

Eclipse

They left me in the dark
But I am the moon
They lose.
And as I looked to
The shadowed dirt
Of the shattered earth
They took away my sidewalk where they gave me shade
And the rough terrain
Cancels my escape
By pushing me to lanes
The more I try to stay
Where I'm good and safe
The hotter it is getting.

What's The T?

They look the same
From far away
Trans and gay
But still you say
That's not me
You shoot yourself in the foot
Just trying to put
Yourself first
Display the worst
Of the other side's fight
Trying to break free
Of the T
But GLB
Can never say 'we'
Are family
When we treat
Our kin
Like some sort of sin
That's what they've said to us
And all of a sudden
Stonewall is null and void
While we try to employ
Our deepest deny
Of the the first brick's flight
Thrown at Stonewall
From the hand that we call
A freak
From the hand of a queen
Dressed in drag
It's a fact
Worth remembering
And we are in her court
Try and move forth
Without her voice
And you'll fall flat
Just spinning your wheels
People, we need heels
To get ourselves from this mud
And be it Trans or AIDS
This is our blood
We must love
Ourselves before we can move
To a new
Day
Without these mistakes
So below us
This is a fight for love
Every kind we can get
And when it comes to the T
We cannot forget.

I Said Let Go

There was a country song on
When I was a young
Boy that, like many do-it-yourself bullshit pop-up McSongs are
On the radio today
Was a list of what the average, everyday
Common man goes through
In his (and I mean his, not hers, mind you)
Long lived life
When lived just right
The chorus declared
From the town square
That you gotta ‘get you some’
Then they’d tell you the what
First money, then love, then babies…then done
Like many other people in this country, and time
I was raised below a line
The poverty kind
The lovely lower class
Watching middle class asses
Sit on my glass
Ceiling and pass
Giant plates of food
Past
Our grasping hands to
Each other
As a boy I’d take in
The bottom of their chins
As they’d shit again
On what was given
To them
And looked with longing to
The next glass they knew
The one that gave view
Of the upper crusted puppets
Controlled, but free
I was told I had to get me some money
But unlike the rest
Of this generation’s best
I said fuck
Money
And I’ll say it again
FUCK MONEY
And if there are those that agree
That were born free
To say it with me
The freedom to see
Wrapped in a box with holes and slashes
Called lower class
But actually a fantastic
Gift. Then say it with me
Fuck. Money.
And if I hear
Out here
In the city I live
Another song
With this
Insistence
That I chase more bills
And get more thrills
From big oil spills
And more credit card bills
Then I swear I will
Rip every radio from the walls
Until there’s no noise at all
But the penniless artist
On the corner with guitar
Waiting for his call
From the companies that started
This whole fucking case
In the first place
Every twenty something
Needs to be free
Of this bullshit noise
Of dollars and coins
And just live on a dime
Free Ninety Nine
And no tax
But that
Wasn’t all I was told
I had to get, hold
Onto
Part two
I was told to get love
Had to get me some
But the love of doves from above
Wrapped in charms and arms
Bullshit cheap rhymes
Bored my mind
And made my eyes
Dry
And bleed
I have always needed
Something more than that gnat
That flies around splat
And hits you in the eye
While you blink and you cry
And your lids
Bring it
To what it wanted all along
A sad country song,
And a death from a blink
Before you could think
How gross
The whole
Process really was
Fuck love
The ‘gotta have it’ just cuz
Kind at least
Don’t bother me
With your bullying
Insistence I scorn
A life lived alone
For any period of time
When I
Alone, am just fine
With my own set of rhymes
Much better than lovey doves
From above
But instead from below
From a place I know
To be real and alone
And while I know
I will love as I go
I will never feel bad
For flying solo
Just cuz they said so
And since I’m on a roll
There’s one more part of me
That felt the sting
From these
The part three
Gotta get you some…babies
No
I
Don’t
And neither do you
Ever traveled to India?
I’m guessing Mr. country song hasn’t yet, have ya?
Well let me tell you firsthand what I was lucky to see
Lucky said meaning luckily
I am me
A queer and so I don’t have to submit
To the bullshit pressure to make more kids
A woman’s got enough
Shit that is tough
To have to live with
Without being forced to make more kids
They can also grow
Ideas that will show
You things you’d never know
You didn’t even know
So
If you wanna chillax
Take a step back
And say ‘Damn there’s a lot of us’
You can trust
That I’ll be on your side
Keeping your mind
Clear
Of fear
That you’re missing your chance
Because you’re giving one too
The chance to
The earth to finally breathe
Taking gulps from the gulfs
Covered deep in debris
And it’s just the way
I see myself play
A role in this place
But mother earth gives more every time we take
Keeps sending more queers into this place
To take care of kids who don’t have a space
To play
And call their own
And you can fight it if you want
But we’re a place to call home
And all the while songs tell boys like me
That I’m somehow wrong for existing
But I’m finished with songs from that country
And it seems since the start they were finished with me
But so long as we sing
As loud and bring
Our selves to the ring
If this is a fight you gotta miss
Its worth TiVoing
And so long as I live
I will not let this
Musical attack
Keep coming back
To stop dead in our tracks
Anyone else like me
Who doesn’t see
Why we all must be
Exactly
The same. Enough to write in a song
Just three minutes long
And loud enough to hold
A hand over throats
And squeeze them closed
I promise to go
To the source and stand bold
From a voice that rings cold
And tell them so
I said let go.
I said
Let go.

Earning

I'm flying with wings
That were given to me
By a couple that thought
That they'd forgotten
My birthday
I'm flapping as fast
As my back muscles
Will allow
And I don't know how
But I'm East bound
And dead set
I will get
To my home
The place that I know
I'm supposed to be
I gave myself freedom
This 4th of July
To get up off my
Ass and just try
Fly
And hover
Throw off the covers
To hell with the sheets
Stop this damned sleep
Walking circle and leap
And they gave it to me
The chance to see
How lucky I am
My family
They will never say what
They need to but
I'll accept anyway
And silently say
"I know. It's okay.
I forgive you."
But not for your sake
Because its not about them anymore
Before I'm 24
I will live to be
Totally free
Totally me
At 23
The loneliness I felt
Alone by myself
Turned into time
I used to find
Every part of me
That was potentially
Going to write a poem
And act
And make friends
Open doors
Ask for more
And make ends
My dad once threw
Me straight into
The deep end of a pool
And those ripples still move
As waves into
The shores of worlds
Away from my home
And I ride them alone
But now never lonely
Because of that which was born
Among the corn fields
Staring at walls
Wishing to be called
Talented, special, good
Hoping mom would
Spend the same time
And money on my
Life she did my
Father's demise
And that the smoke that would rise
From his Marlboro's eye
Would stifle his cries
For attention
Most parent's always hope
One day they'll slowly
Stop being able to help with your homework
They hope you'll be too smart
And, bless their hearts
But mine couldn't wait
For the day
That we could tell them
Exactly when
They were acting like kids
And needed to begin
Changing their ways
And stop misbehaving
They hoped to raise
Little parents one day
But I'd hoped as a kid
That they'd ever begin
Supporting me first
My god was I thirsty
In that salt water sea
Where dad left me
But now I'm afloat
Hell, now I'm a-fly
And as I look down on them from the sky
I cry
Freshwater tears and give them a drink
Some time to think
An image of me
Not letting my past
Dictate my actions
Anymore, and watching me grow
In what I've known
To be a real home
Within myself, and people I chose
To actually know
The real version of me
Born of the sea
And earning his keep
Gliding, sweetly
As they whisper 'wow'
At seeing me plow
Through the clouds
And forgive them.

Ode to Morning Birds

I hear you.
And although its never the same song
Twice
I always listen.
Goodnight.

Cause

Why would a sagging mattress keep
The conversation in such a nagging time

As to press cold and sobering
Against my comfort slumber?

There is not a man there who shields
The winter breeze blasting from a fan

I put the fan in front of my face
I cannot fall asleep alone

If your Indian summer arms cannot solution
I will not as well surrender the winter'ed cause

I will curl tight into a ball and press
My arms into the chest that chose to leave summer behind.

Moon (Part One and Two)

MORE TO COME!!!!

Moon



I.

When I got here
Things were falling from limbs with
A pacified, tried and true breeze
To a place of warm, wishful thinking
I got here arriving at a solace
Of relief just after America’s
Violent segue, metamorphosis
Overwhelming
When finally breaths were exhaled
I arrived with such a setting sun
And an awakening of visions
Lit only by the electric luminescent
Insistence of entitled, surface-value
Ethno-centrism
Lit only in the shadows by
The honest to god moonlight
I arrived, watching the ideas
That our rambling television sets
Tell us what we are doing
As the Rodney King police force
Rang sirens in our ill-lit streets


The afternoon before my arrival
Saw the birth of a million sock
Stuff gagging ex-indie-viduals
Who’d ‘learned their lesson’
Wanted to chill out at the mall
And recently developed the ability to turn off
The left over dope still shaking
From their once lifted in exaltation
Now firmly clutching a 9 to 5
Roundabout by the briefcase handed
Hands
I watched as slowly the next
Generation, my generation
Tip toed with smiles through
The Rube Goldberg mousetrap
Candied land they were born into
And leapt towards a crucial decision


They had either to hump furiously for cheese
Promised to them on the loudspeakers
Booming in the cage
Or hold tight, eat their hunger pains
And clasp their ears while screaming
Watched the sun set on a chapter
Of tensions fought out on a field of black and white
Void of grey
The television screaming
WAR IS OVER
In a different red banner every night
Made with blood each time
Watched the relief sigh its way through the suburbs
Before turning into a crackpipe scream in the city
I was settling into a world finally acquainted to its lovely
Things to which time could now be devoted
Seeing as our troubles were gone
People found it harder to see
When I was first meeting them

II.

When I got to my rightful place among the clouds
Flying so high my eyeballs felt like deserts flinging stinging sand specks
My mouth awaiting a violent relationship with water
My lungs wheezing the smog of a city
Built on the lethargy of youth derailed
The walls of my chest stained from
Pizza sauce and bong water
But nothing prepared me for the
Laws of my sky ride
The clouds of cigarette smoke exhaled from
My father's kingdom of the 60s.
The powerful taboo making the puff motion
More popular than the dick suck
The constant battles fought and bonfires
Built on the grounds of my landscape
Sent up a wave of noise telling me not
To inhale the relieving clouds of optimism
Followed directly and completely by
Those very delicious smoke signals.

Bucket

I am beside myself
But we have nothing to say
What I thought I knew so well

Has crept on paws to meet
With distracting incompletion
I am beside myself

Waiting for him to come join
This lonely pool of wisher's coins
What I thought I knew so well

Has trapped me waiting to expect
What I'm sure I thought would come next
I am beside myself

And soon with a sense of peace
I'll find solace in my bucket seat
What I thought I knew so well

My fingers, shaking, await their cue
The chime to turn to chapter two
I am beside what I thought I knew
So well. I am myself.

K Street

We're always two weeks away
From a place thats so dark
that they

Think that they know so well
Why she would
Choose this hell.

But I know as I
Watch her smoke
Exhale in sighs

That she feels that round
This corner
She'll be found.

I see her take her walk
To cars
And tell them to park.

Its been much more than two weeks
And she feels
That she brought defeat

No one stands outside
With cold sores
In the night

And picks up the knifes
Dropped down
By lonely lives

Thinking with stains
They're cleaning
That they

Ever possessed the teeth
To bite down and hold on
To just two weeks.

Shine

I have seen the greatest minds of my generation
Dumbfounded with shock at a power's outage
Comfortably sacrifice their own.

Listless amid inseams and wanton
Frugal with their sincerities
Crowning heads from dilated inverse

Canals. I have seen the greatest minds of my generation.
I watch them for some things in their steps hoping
There is something unique about their whole to

Impress the deeper of my diamond shine
Coral reefer
Madness. I have seen the greatest minds

Of my generation. I am yet to
See them
Shine.

Too Busy

Since I was a young artist
One of the few fortunate enough
To not simply ignore
The calls and cries of capitalism
That beg the attention of pubescence
But instead, also, to focus
On something else entirely
I have noticed reoccurring themes
Little moments a director
May or may not have purposefully placed
In the biopic of my life
As yet to be determined
By a class of film students
Decades into the future
But either way existing for certain
The most common of these themes
Being the number 23
Its presence among the greatest moments
And I say greatest
From a platform of objectivity
Not better or worse
But greatest
Moments in my life

I have found myself looking for 23
They way I look for love or enlightenment

I find myself learning each time
That love and enlightenment appear
Only when, truly, I am too busy to look for them

He Can See

And though it may sound cold to put it like this
My tears moonwalk back to my eyelids
Cause I get so sick
Of the sickness he gets
From the dirt cheap cigs
That he sticks on his lips
Was a time when his kids
Got a goodnight kiss
Now we men and women
Get frustrated
Every time he flips the lid
Of his hard-pack cigs
Sending sounds
Through the house
Of a coffin hinge
My tears reverse step
Up the cheeks they were wept
Cause I got no concept
Of promises kept
My tears they were wet
Now my face burns red
For addiction that led
To a cancerous spread
And the worst? Picture this
If you can in your head
I feel this way
As I crave
My own cigarette



I give myself time limits
Set aside a few minutes
And like a mother of five
I gotta schedule time
To think about this shit
To feel about this shit
Because I’ll be damned
If this young man
Hasn’t seen this shit before
Knockin’ down doors
Beggin’ everyone I know
Tell me where to go
‘Cause I get so low
I have my face to the street
And all I can see
Is what’s there beneath
So I ration off time
To drift to my
Darkest acknowledgments
Of this:
He has cellular cancer
They cannot cure it.
He has less than a year to live.
And your whole world is about to change
The roles have been made
Up all over again
Now it’s up to him
Say next where to go
A father’s still your father
Cancer or no
And when you light up that smoke
Your heart drops so low
Because that's what he chose
And it’s not supposed
To be the road
You go
And I’ve been here before
My senior fuckin’ year
Small town queers
Just didn’t appear
The be a real
Choice
Too much noise
Over one little queer
Only thing clear
That’s different here
But I fear
Mom and Dad said through tears
The deadline was near
They were movin’ out here
Into the small town sphere
They made it clear
That they had no way
To create
Money that they
Would need to pay
All the bills that were here
So 'We're sorry, dear...
But come with us or stay
Either way
We leave today"
And my senior year
Had just got severe
So I chopped off my balls
Turned off all
The lights so to call
A sleep
From deep
Inside of me
That would graduate early
And not take his walk
And turn to the streets because he was taught
That all you need
Is creativity
And yes indeed
You are a hippy
And between Dad and me
There was nothin’ could be
Sweeter
So I tried to chase free
Until I was to meet
My tail
And well, hell
Sometimes to stand out
I stood so far out
That now I’d found
A different crowd
And they smoke weed and they drink
And everything that I think
Is amazing
But you begin
To descend
And the lines all blend
I woke up mid-bend
Over but then
Stopped asking him
About good intentions
And told him to come pick me up
With mom in the truck
That enough was enough
And that I wanted
To come home
And I began to refuse
What I know I could do
But didn’t have a clue
As to why I would do
When it’s easier to
Not
I stayed in my bed
Every now and then fed
My growling insides
But mostly I
Just slept
I kept
Myself in sheets
Asleep
For nine months
And long story short
I got back on course
And now I move towards
Better days
But there is one thing
Making me think
That this new news
Could cause an abuse
To what I rescued
From the claws
Of a previous depression
And this one strikes a cord
That for me is still sore
Because the vocal cords
That were stored
Down below
Got caught up in cancer
And now I can’t hear him say
“Son it’s bout time I tell you today
I’m sorry that I taught you this way
That a pack a day
Won’t steal you away
From a mind you just got
To satisfy lots
Of dangerous thoughts
Into obey.
I raised you this way
Was raised this way
And inside me was hope that you’d speak someday
From a place that was real
Maybe made a few deals
With the devil for meals
But never revealed
That your fingers were crossed
All along
I took my life and I took my time
Now you seem just fine
But we both know inside
You scream out those rhymes
Until you can find
That place in your mind
Where everything’s fine
And I’m sorry if I
Have helped you decline
Back into a place
You worked hard everyday
To escape
I’m sorry you seek
From everybody
Advice how to beat
This addiction disease
And god knows that I see
What it’s done to me.”
Now he can see
Now
He can see.
When I came up to his knee
Skinny as could be
11 maybe
There was a time
When my father went blind
In his eyes
Said he’d never see again
Said he needed a cane
Cut to present day
He throws glasses away
Because they
Are too much for his eyes
He is just fine
With reading glasses
But now he’s lost his voice
And he’s got no choice
But to see and not speak
And more than ever, to hear
I leave my words at his ears
And turn my crazy shit
Into something sounds like a proud boy of his
With eyes that sit
Inside of a kid
Next to ears that hear
Like it’s
Delicious
And a mind that can say
I made a mistake
Got put the Camels down
Stand up off the ground
Dust off, and look round
And see the world of his
Has changed a bit
And now that its
My time to live
I can tell that it’s…
Been a minute
And time’s up for today
I’ve got to retreat
Spread the tears out for as a long as I need
And pick my place
Like I never was strayed
Get back to going, but I have to say
It might seem odd to ask him to stay
When it’s clearly his time anyway
But as smart as I know I will be someday
For now I get caught lost and I pray
That he’ll be able to bargain himself the days
It takes to convince me it’ll all be okay
I know where I’m headed for now anyway
And I know I can trust myself not to stray
But I’m headed where I’m headed
Because he made me this way

Couplets, Accent/Alliteration, Cinquain Experiment

Original Poem:

Stretching

I miss the colors of your bed sheets wrinkled in the bends of you
Whenever I lounge around on pajama bottom days
I miss the way your torso hands the conversation
Over to your thighs
Whenever I walk miles with heavy backpacks
In directions that are not toward you
I hear you brushing your teeth in my dreams
But I wake to find myself much further from your bathroom
Than across the hall
Still I throw the backpack to the ground
And stretch my legs
Brush my teeth
And slip into bed
Knowing that every once in a while
I will slip perfectly into your complimentary
Curves and bends
Agreeing with your body
And soak up moments to miss


Couplets
I miss the color of your sheets in bends
Of you and me - I cannot see our ends

I miss the way your torso hands the mic
Over to your ever thankful soft thighs

Whenever I walk miles with my heavy
Bags that seem to nowhere near you lead

Whenever I am ‘sleep I hear you brush
Your teeth but wake and run to hallway – rush

I find myself again left all alone
It was a dream and you still are not home


Accentual/Alliterative
I miss the colors of your quilts
I miss the bends defending themselves
Against the onslaught of our skin
I carry backpacks that have
Nothing but forgotten heavy things
All over this never ending map
Realize that I am rarely led towards
You. I am rarely headed
Towards your quilts
And how they bend to receive you.

Cinquain (Crapsey Style)
I watch
The way your sheets
Creep themselves into our
Resting, stress-free silhouettes and
Hold on.

Hush

In response to Kay Ryan’s ‘Theft’


Hush.

We knock
Our thoughts
Against the rocks
Of on-off
Again, on-off
Again shots
At getting caught

But how to unlock?
Do we want to get caught?
Is it that we’ve sought
Something forgotten?
Or is it more of a top
To what has been thought bottomless?

Shelter/The Doors

Shelter

Who will help when headstrong
Winds come whipping through
The prairie, but our prayers?
Who will build a shelter?
Who will tell you when it is time
To tunnel beneath the surface?
If you have pushed me
Like a thick mound of leaves
And topsoil
To the riverbed to be dragged
Away by the current
That is coiled, waiting
To suck me under
With a force that only echoes
The windswept fetches
Sent for you and yours

You have been warned








The Doors


There must be
Billions of us
It seems sitting here
Grinning ear to ear
Waiting just to hear
If the other lost his shit
We are waiting for it
Changing little things
Just before we go
Based solely on the faces
They are making as
They walk out of those doors
But some of us
Are safe
Some of us are
Never going to get a part
And they are
Well aware of that
And so
Are we
And so
Is he
But they still go
Into those doors
And belt out
As loud
As they can
The best they can muster
And we clap
All the louder
Because that’s the only
Place there is
To start.

By Any Means

Poetry is the sound
Of a drip faucet
Sink splash
Eliciting temple-beating annoyances
From your cloud-soft pillow
That might just
Piss you off
Might just make you
Need to piss
Instantly
But is not
By any means
Going away
Until you get up
And fix it.

The Poems I am Going to Write

Oh I know the poems I am going to write

My god the poems

What they will say

What they will discover

The box that I dare not open

Is chock full of parts of me I don't care for

Unpleasant gulps for air on

Awkward crowded Metro rides

When the right song comes onto my earphones

And I fight back tears that tease my eyelashes

Yet never commit to the rolling down my cheeks

And worst

It contains the only harsh truths about life

That I have no exciting interest in

I glare at that box taunting me from across the room with the bare wood floor

With a blinking-out light bulb swinging from a chain

That exists within my head for moments like this

When I am cornered into dealing

With the undeniable

I am not looking with any sort of expectations

Towards the poems I am going to write

I don't hope that they save me

I don't yearn for answers or solace from them

I ask only that they come when I need them

And that I remain afloat amid whatever

Dark and murky waters might very well

Flow forth in gushes from that dark box

I am prepared to walk, surrounded by everything I can grab

That suggests a constant in my life

And as I look with sighs at my wall calendar

I can see the dates of major events and

Even greater poems

Burn themselves into different days of the months

Floating, but never settling

Always calling me to remember the impending

And take stock of the explanations I have harvested and gathered

In the development

So that I can know

What the retrospective analysis

Will sound like.