( It’s always a little too early to be this fucked up, and other poems about THAT.)

It’s always a little too early for me to be

untying my bootlaces

or feeding the cat

or waking up not next to you (again.)

It’s never the right time to be silently rebelling against whomever

or making a political shout about your discriminations towards my kinda folk

It’s ALWAYS the wrong time in space to be saying

“I love you” or “When’s the next time that I’ll see you?”

While I wait around all night for the right moment, (it never comes)

It’s always a little too early for me to be

chewing on that whisky straw or

wondering how it is I drank eight beers in two hours (maybe less)

and it’s always the worst time

to wake up alone again, or think about that time I lost you, or the time when I hadn’t yet-

It is,

just always,

a slight incorrect dial on the wall clock to say all that

or stop you in the street

or quit my liqouring

( cause, babe, time ain’t nothing but trouble, and I got enough already so…

why don’t you lay on next to me and we’ll set time right,

and none of this, will be an issue, anymore.)

A Small and Sad Dream I Had On The Way To The Laundry Room

“What’s wrong?”

I approached her quietly, with a near whisper, seeing that in her state, she could be easily startled, and I wished not to disarm her from what little confident she had stored within her. Her hands were shaking, a rattling in her voice, she was weeping, and not weeping, simultaneously.

“I think I am in danger.”

Expressionless, as unsure as I was to the situation, I put my hand on hers.

“What kind of danger?”

“The worst kind of danger there is.”

“And what is that?” My face now must have held some sort of emotion. The pain she felt seemed genuine, but also reserved and distant.

“Like I said, the worst kind of danger there is. There’s nothing worse than the danger of the heart.”

“How do you mean?”

“Love.” She said. Her eyes caught something for a moment.

“But, love is beautiful.”

“Yes, it’s true. And, the danger is not within absence of beauty. Nonetheless, the worst danger there is, is the act of being in love.”

I wanted her to explain, to tell me why she swallowed bullets and stones, or felt so far from the happiness I often assumed came along with love. She told me the happiness, the beauty, and the danger, were all in one. That there is no where to run from love, there is no recourse, or regret, and that despite any apprehension, things are always to take their course in love. I didn’t understand it then, until only today, when someone asked me when I felt most afraid, and the only answer I could muster, seemed, “The greatest danger in all the world is love.”

I should make some statement such as:

I AM writing something everyday. It’s not poems. Which I guess, isn’t exactly what the project for the month was, but I am writing daily, therefore, I’m mostly doing what I said I would do, and you just can’t access it because, ya know, shit’s personal.

ALSO: Burnt Toast readings have MOVED to Tuesdays at The Speakeasy (unnamed wooden door near Cosmo’s on the hill.) Sign up: 7:30, Readings at 8.

0 and .50

slow cars

move through brooklyn

like a broken ballet

yells, busses, mostly quiet

its 9:30pm

nothing decides if it is sleeping or awake

0. and .75

Sit amongst the sparrows-

be a king.

Again. Just because.

THE BRIDGE:

Allow one foot
underwater
the other
above the ground
you find the balance
but
dislocate the sound.

86 POEMS, NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM RIGHT

i try,
daily
for every poem
to reverberate correctly
but each word is
slop

i can not explain this
-that’s okay

I didn’t try much anyways.

“Girl, you’re about as pretty as a mule sawed in half with a hatchet.”

I said this, and she turned around, walking out the door, like they always do.

(I guess you could say this happens often.)

Jan. 5, Jonny Says:

Jonny says:

“Nah,

You’ll give up halfway”

You see,

it goes in and out

like the sun rises and falls

and you know that

sometimes it just not there

and i

chin deep in whatever i’m in

knows that

it rises and falls

because I’m the queen of that

but i don’t care,

at least

because it is

a way to bring monsters from sleep

or redeem the angels from

from their park lit benches

where they wait around

like god missed another appointment,

while waiting for Mary to dress her hair,

but maybe it’s not about any of that

maybe it’s just the challenge

of making myself speak again.

Jan. 5, Midnight Poem

sometimes you think it’s an old broken down radiator

but really

it’s your bones

make strange noises

uncontrollably

for no reason

whatsoever

except that you

(probably) went too far again.

January 4

Allow me to explain to you a perfect day,

as we awake under bare trees

in a warm field,

with magpie and birds whistle overhead

your hand clasped in mine,

our cheeks but barely touching

the quiet moment succeeds us

and we are taken by it

a swift wind blows

and I take your hand,

changing its angle as we slowly rise

unto the grass and under the tree see ties

of branches we once knew

when they were children

and point our feet in the direction

towards the old Ferris Wheel,

its’ sticks in a marsh only not too far from here

across the bridge

and to the left

through cats-tails and cottonwoods

it’s great base near covered in the sightly muck

it is

one foot up

another

then

into the abandoned auditors chair,

softly whistling and humming

as we imagine it’s movements,

high above this terrain

and into the places we can not normally reach on tip-toe or ladder.

We await the security guards arrival

uniformed and ready for battle

but he is nowhere to be seen.

(It has been five years since he last returned

and the wood has spoiled

and the nails rusted

and the ship, un-moving.)

We pretend of the countries we can see

from this great height

the symphonies we can witness

or the plays

waiting to be written in the clouds

(they are stationed there

until the moment it is they should arrive.)

The moon starts to make its appearance

and the sun retracts its rise

you mutter softly that it is we must have just awoken

to see the middle of the afternoon,

and draw your lips near as subtle as the wind

we’d seen before

and like a whisper you say to me,

” I think perhaps it is  that I will call you mine.”

and the moon grows

and the Ferris wheel creaks

and the birds make a quiet song

where the mice and owl

sign a treatise

and it is there you called me yours

and as perfectly as anything could be designed

a soft whistle occurred

and the trees hummed

and we sat so beautifully

in something like silence,

or maybe, even, just a romance defined.

January 3

The train leaves the station,

but never derails.

The conductor is never far from it,

even in sleep,

he dreams constantly of its

noise, its hum, or the wind on his back through the window

as he speeds across the landscape

of what just might be called love.