Poetry

Some poems from my new favorite poet:

Glass Box
You know, it's the old glass box at the-
At the gas station,
Where you're using those little things
Trying to pick up the prize,
And you can't find it.
It's-
And it's all these arms are going down in there,
And so you keep dropping it
And picking it up again and moving it,
But-
Some of you are probably to young to remember those-
Those glass boxes,
But-
But they used to have them
At all the gas stations
When I was a kid.

A Confession
Once in a while,
I'm standing here, doing something.
And I think,
"What in the world am I doing here?"
It's a big surprise.

The Situation
Things will not be necessarily continuous.
The fact that they are something other than perfectly continuous
Ought not to be characterized as a pause.
There will be some things that people will see.
There will be some things that people won't see.
And life goes on.

Happenings
You're going to be told lots of things.
You get told things every day that don't happen.
It doesn't seem to bother people, they don't -
It's printed in the press.
The world thinks all these things happen.
They never happened.
Everyone's so eager to get the story
Before in fact the story's there
That the world is constantly being fed
Things that haven't happened.
All I can tell you is,
It hasn't happened.
It's going to happen.

Don't do the easy thing (for Andrew)

It's easier to go on a second date
even if the mask she wears is not an umpire's
but a crust like dried milk at the bottom of
an old mug of coffee.

It's easier to use a finger,
to prod gently and carefully,
to explore within the bounds so that you leave things
just as they were before.

Don't let "Uncle" Bill make mayonnaise.

Use your fist again and again.
Leave your mark.
String a thin wire across Norfolk Ave. and knock the gang of hippies into
a moaning pile of long, knitted hair, spokes, and tie dye.

Crumble his cookies under the heel of your biking shoe. Then blog about it.

On laughter

Laughter for the sake of laughing
as a recognition of something true
because there's nothing else to do
at a sleeping friend
because something is unexpected
at the wicked
to express satisfaction
as ironic appreciation
at someone else's unenviable situation
because someone is self deprecating
as a recognition of a lie
because the bad guy got what he deserved
when something rhymes
to make "slaughter"
as a reaction to silence
because there's a gun pointing at you (at your own unenviable situation)
at irreverence
when someone makes a pun
because of a euphemism
because of a dysphemism
out of uncorked joy
in Santa's belly
when you change the words of a song
"Oh baby, Stu got what I need."
at nicknames
at fake news items
at unadulterated shamelessness
sardonically
sadistically
masachistically
until you cry
until your stomach folds
until you pee a little down your leg
so that you fall over in your chair
so that you roll on the floor
so that you shake your head
with applause
with hiccups
when tickled
out of nerves
out of tact
out of sympathy
out of respect
because everyone else is laughing
at funerals
at weddings
at christenings
at a bar mitzvah
with an accent
because your hair sits funny on your head today
because something is so disgusting you don't know what else to do
at a private joke with someone else who isn't there
when something reminds you of someone you love
when you remember something you'd nearly forgotten
because your apartment is so small
because your cake fell on the floor
because you almost fell but you were walking alone
in small giggles
in harrumphs
in champagne bubbles
in wrinkled raisins
in large boulders
with your head tilted back
out of your nose
through your teeth
from under your tongue

With your toes stretched out, your face in your elbow, your fingers in your hair, clenched in your seat, seething and roiling and flooding out of your mouth and all over the floor

Tim Requires Urging

With the eyes of a sleepwalker, you gamboled through life
red-cheeked and
amazed by the greens, the yellows, and the
dog that may or may not have
been in your bathtub.

Sometimes you looked into the mirror and
you were amazed at what you found there,
turning your face this way
made it look like it
was not your
own.

But no matter, because tender silken threads had been woven
to keep you tentatively linked
to your compatriots,
whom you called whenever you needed
and with your cold phone resting
against your hot cheek
you whiled away the night, twisted upon your futon,
abstracting fake promises under
the fluorescent lights
as opera echoed in your ribcage and rattled your teeth.

Behind those teeth rested a wad that you chewed
and
chewed until it tasted like rust and old glass
and
you let the juice drip out of your mouth
and
onto the nearest friend.

But now these are merely the memories and shadows of antics you once embraced and you rarely call your friend to muse about the world, the future, and the merits of peeing on the wall.
Feeling the loss,
ravel up your threads around a spool,
let yourself be stretched to another coast,
where lobsters roam
and click their little pinchers at your red, red, cheeks-

where you might again open your eyes wide
and look out of the corners,
where you might dance
and flip your black
thatched hair
and float upon the smoke, in the nebulous night, with your friends,

leaving cigarette boxes filled with drunken
starlight in your
wake.

Inviting Asad to a Party

We live in an age that is not your age -

you feel separate and misunderstood.

Wandering haplessly, planning revolutions -

pipe dream distractions leaking
from your pores.

Often blamed and often mistreated,

you feel like a boil on the cheekbone of society.
If only, instead of trying to
lance you with their arbitrary judgements -
to poke you with their sterilized
needles of oppression
and doubt -

if only these seditious irrelevancies
would let you be, let you do as you
want, let you
snap your pictures and your fingers and curl your toes
in a nest of yarn.

So loose yourself from the shackles
of what is "right",

what is "responsible", "respected",

"considerate".

Make your own clothesline and hang on it clothes of your own design.

No duds of any era can swing with you,
run those checkered sneakers under the heel of your red red car,
wrap your scarf around your neck,
and cross the road with your
ipod in hand,
held high because it is from the heavens that you seek
your divine
inspiration and
a static-free
experience.


And when you are done with the lion, the witch, AND the wardrobe,

pack your life into the trunk of a new maroon sedan

with softer seats and a more voluptuous figure,
slink across the bridge from Brooklyn
to the diamond-soled streets of
Manhattan isle,
pick up your friends with a large magnet,
and let their dueling polarities
amuse you as
you speed due East, towards the foreign hills and plains of Massachusetts.

There,
welcome your subject back
from his travels,
imbibe vigorously,
fill your face with smoke like a glass of fire,
and then soporifically expound
on the merits of
our times.

So it begs the question

Do we feel them like a skin beneath our skin, clotting our eyes
and curling our fingers and toes,

the quilted rice fields of hat-flecked green,

a curl of oil in a puddle
shining with the mottled colors
of a mood ring - snaking
like smoke
from the corners of your mouth - from between your teeth -
both in and out your nose,

an empty parking space,

the bruise on the palid underbelly
of my arm - a slow soft seepage of purple with
a halo of mucus yellow,

dying flies buzzing lazily as they struggle against
a frozen window pane until
she sucks them up into the gut of her vacuum cleaner

to die twitching in the dark?