“Art is its own excuse, and it's either Art or it's something else. It's either a poem or a piece of cheese.” Bukowski, On Writing
This stretches back a very long time in my life.
portrait of a divorcè
my father’s chest is white now
the same white snow rests on a dying tree
and weighs its branches to its sides
in a reflection under golden columns
eating cereal from a tupperware
untitled IX
i saw a prophet the other morning,
a blind man on the street corner,
his arms draped and lifted
over his white eyes
like dirty sneakers.
i asked him what he saw,
and he said nothing.
the poem ends here.
twenty five
there are
behind me
men walking
for a million miles
on the ceiling
of grass the
sun is a puddle
my feet dip into
i stand on the
sky
it’s quiet
here
a fall poem in the fall
would be very easy to write.
stained glass by light,
fleeting sun on warmed skin-
but (what meets my pen is this):
the sun has stopped
bleeding & all that’s left
are the black pines underwater
are the falling, fallen charring bodies
of oak of spruce of birch & branch careening
their leaves comets of embers
under a sunset shot-through
XV
in a meadow behind the church
i ran to the swimming hole and back
joined the congregation of stone-skippers
and their purebred mutts
oxymoronic and naive
the leaves swayed to the breeze
swam naked in the streams
from dad
Hey buddy I stole two tacos for
you. They're in the microwave. I
also stole a cookie. It's not in the
microwave. The tacos are not great.
But they were stolen with love.
To whom it may concern
There is a river
That I am a part of
Of blood and black
Water in my chest
Mingling with the chemicals
That swallow the horizon
My head makes the noise
Of crickets, the hum of
Eternity. The
Earth will eat me
There is a poison under
My veins that cries for air
And drowns on my insides
Burns holes in my belly button
Burrows in obsidian voids
I know it will
Only hurt for
A minute.
The short way
Home. White-hot
Eternity unfurls its fingers
And knows my name.
a love letter regarding oranges
one day, the world will run out of sapphic metaphors involving fruit.
and when that day comes, i will be here,
waiting for you, with nothing left but rinds, peels,
and teeth stained darkly with pulp.
i’ll have tucked away every last slice of an orange behind my teeth
to preserve our love neatly between my lips
and when you part them sweetly
you’ll find, gently stowed, a clementine-
found on a summer’s bench
left behind by a pair of lovers
on the way to hold one another
waiting for the sunset.