Not Out Loud

I say what’s on my mind
but not out loud;
I write it down

(Miss)

She doesn’t rhyme
she flows free

she isn’t metered
she is not a device

she is the greatest poem
I ever wrote

out of my skull
she is inside

she is not an image
she is a state of mind

she is not contained
or caged or framed

she is self-sustained
the most brilliant string of words

I ever read
& carelessly misquoted

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After Life

Parents are gods, yet
my son asks me about the afterlife
and I don’t have the answer

Snow Dick Vandal

Every time it snows enough to stick
someone draws dicks
on all the cars parked along 13th
in Cap Hill
big cartoonish dicks
with balls
some ejaculating onto hearts
others just staring

I walk by smirking
wondering who is this Snow Dick Vandal
glad I don’t have one
stretched across my windshield

Stale

Bored of all this
waking
& working
consuming
& paying bills

all this
talking
& searching
drinking
& taking pills

fucking
is pretty
much the only
thing that feels
fresh

& music
no matter what
is stale
there’s
always music

to fall back on
when bored
when even
fucking’s
far from mind

Hyphen

My life’s work —
a hyphen between
two book ends

(upon her shelf)

When at Standstill

She

reminds

me

to take sips of water
to breathe deep in my lungs
to watch the crosswalk
to be anything at all

she reminds me

to wake up
& not stay up too late

to take up
all that belongs to me
to fight for
what it means to me

to swallow
& to suck it up

to be unlike the other ones

to keep my head up
to buy new work clothes
to show up at all
is half the fuckin battle

but. she. reminds. me.

to compromise
to pick my battles
unhatched
to not count my apples

she tells me to be quiet
when need for silence
she tells me to speak up
when throat is sore

to put the lid down
to count my blessings

she

goddamn

reminds me

she is the better part
& the only part
worth keeping

she know that that is a lie
she knows the ugly parts
of me

she know how to dissect me
& how to put me back together

she reminds me
how to set back in motion
when
at
standstill

Not Alone

We must walk thru this fire together.

Dumbfounded

I wish I had the answers
for life’s hard questions
but I don’t know shit
I just freeze up
clam up
put my hands up
I don’t know what to say
to console you
to comfort you
I don’t know a goddamn thing
I just keep on living
keep on breathing

I know not what we are doing here

What We Are Living For

Mind before body
body before mind
both dependent upon
both useless without the other

which will be the first to go?
which will be the first to know

struck down in sound mind
kept alive far gone (for far too long)

either way a loss
what is it we are living for?