LOOKED LIKE LAUGHING

yel-oh-ish

Tue, 21 May 2013 02:28:00 -0400

i imagine several fleeting trances,
tipping over from stirrings to an
openness—then a net. translucent shards
at my feet, momentum vibrating…
there is a place to breathe,
to morph & caverns filled with black-hole ink.

a perpetual dusk sprayed across
eyesight; blue-gray, needle shots
of surging coral & smoldering white.
a dance of light begins, yawns
increase as etchings fade to bubbling.

rubbing yr face, wrecked of weeks, paired with
beach-brushed toes & Almost-a-Dog Mountain
pipe-dreams—now, golden dollops mix into
early morning traffic & differing syllables…
sitting high, at peace, in a northwestern
canopy is that dude. he’s always been there.

packing heat at the pearly gates

Wed, 15 May 2013 14:32:03 -0400

a woman is a weapon a man will use to kill himself

so grit yr teeth and cock one back
let fly the buckshot into yr oreish heart

light the fuse deep in the mine of yr chest

feel the pressure of an ocean swelling
happily capsizing all in its path

(and this means you
means me)

pull the trigger
spark the wick

go ahead
drown

just remember to smile

that’s all peter wants to see

unchecked sap

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:11:00 -0400

if it were possible
to correct the course
of time, i’d make it so
i was born early enough
to die before eddie van halen
so that he may melt faces
during the celebration
of my death.

otherwise,
we commit everything else
to the books and let these
messy moments live where they lie
and we’ll keep my father’s balled fists
and let exist my mother’s infinite sadness,
so pleased and thankful for these cards
and the chance to play the game
in which our numbers fell from the shuffle
and landed adjacent in the deck-

and with any more luck,
eddie van halen will long
be dead before they
toss us in the graves
and begin to forget.

new canaan 2

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 11:46:30 -0400

your father wears a hat like me,
your sister lives her teenage dream,
i take a sandwich to the game room
i flip the channels like i am home.

the patio furniture sleeping in the yard
is thankful that we resurrected it from
the basement around lunchtime today and
it is spring so it can breathe something
clean and once far-away now present, now
completely surrounding.

these are the magnificent stones
of your foundation, shaped smoothly
and so obviously correct.

then the “look”.

and the four-poster you were made in
is not made for making it
but we’ve used the guest before
so we use the guest once more

and outside all of the bonus-list
of perks so non-los-angeles:
platoons of plumes and trees, the wake
of the star-lit swaying lake

whisper happy murmurs and
contain their silent fervor
and wink me through the window
saying simply “let us thank you

for bringing back the baked
and rocking california quakes
to knock the ancient sediments
of sleeping south connecticut.”

another night I spend

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 23:00:41 -0400

rubbing tights against my heels;
a perfect square of carpet, a couple
of feet wide and another few long
the industrial grade threads beneath
my soles, with my left hand on my stomach
and the right on the neck, the cheek, the hair,
a jerk
motion
and a fistful

my eyelids feel heavy
and Otis’ croons echo
against the four by four,
the molasses seep through
my door, take the US-29, head
south down US-1 — it’s good
sometimes to go slow, y’know

I dance alone
but I dance for you

shall I paint you a feeling? sure, honey:
dip these toes in those Zuni dyes
and write you more poems,
accompanied by the crackles
on the vinyl
and the grooves
of the dress zipper
coming undone
other nights I have sounded the trumpet
but not even the brass will part these lips

no limit records

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:59:00 -0400

some mornings i am the beast
with a thousand opening day
baseball cracks and i called
each and every one of them
over the fountains over the five
freeway splashing in the pond
of anaheim.

on my side of the street it’s mexicans
and in magdalena’s neighborhood
there are more, with trucks in the lawn
and speakers hissing fiesta like my
loud cuss-mouthed family some of them
even have roosters and i want one too.

just north of me they get their groceries
by delivery and two blocks east they brunch
till their jaws fall off on sunset the fashionista
with no time in an army jacket that is not her
father’s and gladiator shoes that have never
been in a fight i think

i want to live different lives and
i want to be a white rapper i don’t give a shit,
i’d tell macklemore and ryan lewis
to suck my dick and i wouldn’t care about swag
stoned sitting with a grin and a modello can in my hand
wishing i had whatever elvis costello had
batting sun rays off my face and twisting
spliff ends into whatever i want to be
dreaming of shooting a winning three
buzzed but not beaten.

pertinent impatience

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 17:00:40 -0400

please come
fiber-fuck me
into patchwork
that breathes

wants
fulfilled

and say
i am a seed
surfing winds
bathed in an
easy breeze

yes
spring and springs
coiled into my feet,
honey i’ve got a future
cascading in moon beams-

each second a fresh cut
into the flesh of what
will burn me by exposure
and i will suck sun from
the sky and fissure gasps
from the crust with silver
stars speckling the ground
like faded cans of modelo
laughing at the past in
lush overgrown grass.

pushing down her skirt

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 19:32:28 -0400

it is the day after st. patrick’s
which in l.a. is celebrated
in muted forest greens
and only a slight increase
in vehicular horn sections,

no streamers clinging to the concrete
just the jesus man in new adidas
arms outstretched and singing a psalm
in front of an overpriced overwrought bar
named after hemingway, which we couldn’t
be paid to go to, another forced, dead relic
of a bygone era for tourism bucks

sandwiched between forty two thousand
murals of marilyn and fourteen hundred
statues of the same woman in the same pose
indicating that this is the golden city of golden dreams
and also in here you can buy wigs and vintage
dresses and souvenirs that will ache your tear ducts.

i dreamt of camilla last night but this time
in a mexican restaurant folding tortillas over
rolled clouds that never rained but forced
unseeable pressures along the all of hollywood
with a head pressed to a car window
watching dirty kickflippers and seething shouters
wail along the desert curbs and hold themselves
up for one more golden sunrise asking the dust
for their money back.

Bouncin' Two Balls Between the Floor and Ceiling with Changin' Rhythms

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 02:58:22 -0500

fingers fused,
sandwiched between
full body quakes,
short, tight inhales,
rocking in place
as wiry tendons hum.
the ball does not rest,
colliding, colliding,
drips of sound
collect and pulse.

dark earnest clothes
and ivory walls that
stretch entire mountains.
eyes dart, trustworthy hair
sagging, opals of sweat
cling at the ends. alert,
tuning in for the second
ball, banging, smacking.
rhythms merge, pink
plastic echoes haunt.

a performance, a
cerebral exploit taped.
one character,
written for many, reported
by a man, windswept
from a conceptual strut,
shaking, trembling,
waiting for it all to end.

Hal

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 22:52:39 -0500

a tough, leg-swinging kind of man.
remembered for how many yards he gained,
what a neat car, too late to wake up.
too broke to take a bus West, a titan.
bare-chested on a Kansas afternoon.
flags danced, harmonies rang
from high noon until they purred to
disappearing giggles. children,
teenagers in the front seat of cars. whiskey
breath and a bum. an honorable
blue cloaked male who drove in
yellow, left tire marks. midnight
gears, the train roared with a kiss.
a name fluttered into view.
push & pull, only the sounds
of grey touching white until morning.

holy matrimony batman, pt. 1

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 19:09:05 -0500

went on thinking about a wedding, unabashed;
envisioned the tangled branches of the willows
bidding an entrance to a few lucky humans —
strangers and friends merry and one all the same.
lit candles in mason jars, beach glass I brought
and filled my own pockets with, and green bottles,
and aluminum beer cans and hard cider and Perrier,
so form alternates function, so each flame lives on.
always thought about eloping, tramp on the hot
pavement out in the arid desert, maybe Tucson,
maybe baby Chaco Canyon in one of them kivas,
growing thumbs and hoofing it on foot, because
we’re in love! stupidly, with no heed for tomorrow
but perfectly thrilled for the rest of our days.
alone, we walk the black trail to the white summit,
the aisle to kingdom come, dressed in hiking boots
underneath all the tulle, the happily tattered train.
some people have gotten married in much less,
and others with more money thrown to the hounds.

archaeology

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 17:35:14 -0500

there’ve been a thousand
sharp Santa Anas like these
dusting optimism and blowing
mountains of loss into my
cracking, worried face.

but i can pause winds and
freeze frames and flex
exponentially; brushing
shoulders with the super-men
with you unfurling maps
inside my humming chest.

for you are the rosetta stone of me;
you are the key to everything i mean.

every 1's a winner

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 15:25:00 -0500

who ever said it
was a damned liar

life is tough
and filled with nails
sticking out of wooded planks
the ones used to build
boardwalks not yet stepped
by laissez-faire bare nines
with three-week chipped polish

life
is tough
as miniskirts
(and what’s under them)
just out of reach
floating anaerobically
in the warm sunlight
of a february happy hour
while you slaved away
like the d was silent

FOR WHAT

america depends on winning
less
and less
everyday

so i accommodate
the turning tides
by remaining mute
while showing
my dimples
to the
unsuspecting
suspects

life is tough

it’s best to carry
a knife on you
at all times
(who knows
when you’ll need to slice
an apple
to feed another
mouth
let alone
yours)

pep talk

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 21:00:50 -0500

oh you lazy fuck
your friends are dying
or’ve left you behind
stay in the house
eat all the groceries
you bought in one sitting
eat all the grums in
your crumbum skull
and squawk.

it’s tuesday
and awful again
saint san vicente isn’t
the same soft man
he used to be.

(i thought california
would be different)

it’s easy to say
just don’t get like this
just don’t ever stitch
the shade-

that’s the thing i learned
everything is pretty easy
when you just say it.

moviematically

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 16:56:12 -0500

NORA, twenty-one, never home anymore —
now congregates in hotels with her true love,
asks questions when the trusty bible isn’t
in the drawer in the night table on her side
of the bed, the right one, and she says,
the rolling paper, we forgot the rolling paper

so FITZ tears a piece of zephaniah, ch. 1, v. 14,
she sits on his thigh, more bump on her bone
than the last time they met, but it is so great —
someone’s ridges fill someone else’s hollows
and together they are the teeth on a clenched
zipper, or the adhesive on a week-old toy story
bandage a five-year-old refuses to strip off

they keep goofing up, it’s only ever fun this way
she keeps laughing, then hollerin’, cryin’ O lord
do you think housekeeping will knock, says she
and says he, they only will if we have to go,
hoping she’ll anchor her lips on his gristly cheek
but she gives more, clasps her four limbs with his

who knew light could seem so cold, when that
toothpaste hue is emitted from the overhead
lamp in the kitchenette, NORA wonders, but she
pauses serious thought again and cracks, making
a platypus mouth and sticking her thumbs out
like sissy hankshaw, and FITZ, how could he resist
this thing they made theirs, so real, tried and true

Thuggin' It

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 15:32:00 -0500

Please enjoy this poem submitted to us by Ikay

Life never goes as planned so I’m thuggin’ it,

Police shot my cousin right where he stand cause he was thuggin’ it,

The world don’t care if I live or die so I’m thuggin’ it,

The cops caught me hustling and my own mother took the stand and testify that I was thuggin’ it,

Lots of cold nights on cold corners with hopes of getting warmer when you’re thuggin’ it,

Death is always close by, friends ain’t really friends, a new start could be the end when you’re thuggin’ it,

You can spend your entire life confined to a jail cell staring at concrete walls instead of stars just because you was thuggin’ it,

Your own kids will say that you have no heart and that they cannot recognize who you are just because you was thuggin’ it,

The rich is getting richer, the poor is getting poorer, the constitution is designed so that the only way for you to acquire wealth is for you to be thuggin’ it,

George W. Bush was thuggin’ it, Bin Laden was thuggin’ it, even Pope Benedict the XIV himself is thuggin’ it,

Make the best of every situation, 22 years of struggling and I grew impatient so I’m thuggin’ it,

Life’s all about taking risks, ain’t no genie to grant me a wish so I’m thuggin’ it,

I thug it so my kids don’t have to grow up thuggin’ it,

Just searching for a better way, my soul is weary, eyes are teary cause I’m tired of thuggin’ it,

The world don’t care about the have nots, they judge us cause we’re poor,

They shot my brother’s brain out on the floor, claimed he was thuggin’ it,

I say he was just trying to survive,

We need hope, we need a better way, just show us that the upper society do value our lives.

spaces

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 16:12:06 -0500

i got cut in daylight
it was a sunday
and the air undulated a hum.

i know a guy
who works 40 plus
a week
sixty nasty minutes
both ways in traffic
he comes home in a drag
but then he lives because
he’s making it work.

he should be
the fucking poet.

what business do i have
sucking salty air in the
cut-rate glory days
of my wasted youth
in the spaces of my life
forever surfing couches
shaking beer cans
struck dumb and
reeling from love
praying foolishly
that the lakeshow
will make a comeback.

backyard rocketry

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 15:26:18 -0500

a lightning pole stretches its metal bone
into humid emptiness like a blonde sunbathing
in harker heights texas where she is waiting to be
struck dumb with electricity or loneliness.

my father curses his cut hands and folds his
denim shorts compounding interest rates in
his crooked skull praying for rain and when
it comes how he will holler.

i knew a perfumist through sheets and she
talked with smiles and stares and in her
eternal quiet i heard sophisticated notes
my nose would never know boiling inches
below her muted glow.

come fast you strike of light!
come get me straight to the quick!
come ignite the powder kegs in our
soft foot steps and spread our expansions
across the smiling fucking sky!

i have a dumb face but it sees us
in fabrics and i can puke pretty
and find your searching hand in mine-

we can drink the beer
from my father’s breath
and wait for the rain.

reality check

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 15:47:49 -0500

we have dolphins
posing as tuna,
being purchased like slaves
at auction.

not to mention sweatpants
playing the part of jeans,
amongst an ensemble of pallets,
underneath a halide-lit glow
of a discount retail club theater.

o denim!
you conquerer of destinies;
you equalizer of genders;
you thing of the past;
now, a dream assembled
off continent.

only the pigs remain
(claiming to be
in the octopus family)
to be served daily
in exchange
for the ability
to peregrinate
from birth to death
and back.

sure and silent,
i watch nostalgia set in
with the cold breath
of the drifting santa anas
as i put my levi’s on
two legs at once
and manifest a quiet validation
for today.

I am cracks.

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 16:32:03 -0500

On the way to the bank
could I hear the city
want, could I hear the
open hearts sing pedestrian
fulfillments.

I am a map and my map
is cracks-
I am a flawed dad
waiting to be had.

Pin pointless medals to
my bare chest and make
room for strange smiles
to home in my wounds.

You couldn’t pass me
without pasting
your equal waiting
into my irrigated terrain.

I am cracks
and these human winds
smooth me like trowels.

I am cracks and I couldn’t help it-
I am cracks and I couldn’t want to change it.