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.