new poem

Year Of The Reaper

Last September, you jumped
the rafters after
leaving Lorna's with a
tongue of cinder, dark sockets, and
pockets full of tranquilizers.

Outside the emporium, I
cleared quarts with Justin until
your memory scissored me
to the floor, where I
commanded you to come back.

Later, I required medication,
and so the days fell
through me while
death built an engine quietly
in my body.

The Almighty, I learned, is
only a perverted vigilante, a
stranger listening through the door,
rallying vultures when he decides
to knock.

new poem

I Remember (Brainard Tribute)

Mostly, I remember drinking
myself bloody, falling
from the flatbed as you sped
off to another county.

I remember a flock
of tweakers approaching me,
then waking up in the grass
where lost pets drag themselves.

I remember you
through smudgy glasses
and a skull full of vices,
too pinned to leave Palmetto.

Do you remember me
looking younger last year?

I remember nothing.
Last year was a woman
quietly leaving the room
as I passed out.

I remember the first time
I took drugs was when
a deranged orthodontist named
Phyllis fed them to me.

I don't remember
third grade as much as
the doctor says I should,
but I remember

a girl named Sara,
whose anemia made her
bruised legs look like
those of a Dalmatian.

I remember shitting
myself at golf lessons.

new poem

Thought Brigade

we started off
quietly enough
but outside
there was too
much stuff so
later that evening
we went back inside
where something
strong in a cup
stitched us
up

new poem

Poem About Sleeping

yesterday
some hours
fell through
me before
night sank
its

(en)
gin
(e)

deep in
my body.

new poem

Poem

by then,
we’d become strangers
in person, in a flood
of cold light we
fell through the
prism, stoned, in need
of attenti

on. off

the ledge of the
island they found
us drowning before
returning

to lunch. in a two year
total we’d become
visibl

y older, y
ou’d risen to
the median, though

I never saw you

as you were:

fucked up,
puking pills
in your parents' backyard.

new poem

Justin's Way Home

my life is
weird, real,
and riddled with too
much time alone,
walking home
through dead palms,
pockets of
contraband, eyes
pinned, I passed
your house then
passed out on
the golf course,
woken by strangers,
my friend's mother,
fuck! well, whatever,
when Annie calls
I'm full of fog,
still crashing,
tracing a wild dosage,
some lost hours
delivered me to
Kevin's Acid Cave
before my face split
into small pyramids
and wandered
away, deranged
in the slow summer air.

new poem

Left Of Shamrock

came to
the window, colder, earlier
there were others with
certified colors, pamphlets
of local knowledge,
turned left, transported by
bus, bullets through
the lobby, from the ledge
they watched us
incinerate the evidence, you
were tired, fingers over
the electric fence,
frightened, four clicks
from the warehouse district,
jumped the guard rail,
fire from the quarters, two
miles left, stomach
full of capsules, skinned my
knee nearby, ears
stationed to constant ringing,
and sirens calling from
somewhere else.

new poem

Melina

dropped their flashlights, morning
happened, slunk out the van,
your tiny hand, scabbed, tracked,
limply clutching your
mother’s silver flask, shaken awake,
we fled the Emporium,
blacked out in Naples, blood on
your sneakers, pockets
full of Crystal, night turned
red, you let go of him, lost
through weirder subdivisions,
stucco dens of
pill-snatching pre-teens, your
brothers and sisters, your
pin-eyed minions, found you
again near the church,
eyes all wrong,
pulled you up, brushed your
skull, moved on,
cut through Sorrento Woods
into the Campus, hid under
the bleachers until
they saw us, ran far through
unfamiliar pastures, ran for
hours, woke up, tied up,
locked in the neighbor’s
shed, saw you
near, smiling,
and something heavy
was lifted.