justifications

you are a little bit of nothing at all.
i am overrun with distractions.
we are for the most part an invention,
nothing but attractively ordered cells.
irrational, and inexplicable, and
inherently false. so there.

watered down.

sometimes i wish i didn't have yr eyes
so i would know i didn't need them
once and for all.
sometimes i wish for dissolution:
cats' knees and fishes' tongues and
bags bigger than the gnawing cavern
of my appetite. these nights of
wet shoulders, pierced perspicacities,
the way it tastes when you lose yr umbrella.
"it" being all the circumvention
i can swallow, "it" being
that overexertion, and those
loose, easy hips. he says i've got
cheeks like no one else, but all i can think about
is how nervous i get when she sees me
staring.



november critical mass:

the big queasy.

stuck out my tongue and i
tasted the sun.
detroit's always sounded like armageddon
to me, so i guess by contrast this place
is a gumdrop - here, at least,
time's moving slowly; here, at least,
the broken houses and cracked grins
can wrap me up in a banana peel embrace
while that fiddler just keeps on playing
magic spell tunes.

tell me that you love me, she says
i need to tell you something; tell me
that you love me.
and everyone's shifting in their seats and everyone
is waiting for calamity. catastrophic
plastic chairs, & frogs
raining from the sky.
absinthe green and fire engine red and
it's all made in kentucky these days.
his disappointed eyebrows.
you know how it goes.
round and round and backwards baseball caps.
do not accept packages from strangers.
venus contracting, let me
take care of yr project. you wonder
why i called, and i wonder
how many lovers' voices i have to hear in one day
before i start to get queasy (all these hearts
i've swallowed are threatening to stick in my throat)
did i ever tell you about that dream?
i hope not, cuz i don't think you'd understand.
i'd just like to be invisible, basking
in the glow of yr warm hands and long limbs,
yr fairy eyes and tangled hair,
slow smiles to make me shiver.

all of you, and all of me, and what's wrong
in the end, with multiplicity?
both coasts are so far away. i see
yr feet jumping up and down behind that airplane
but it's no call for alarm, just a reminder
of all the reasons we close our eyes
when we kiss.

i hate new orleans.

this was supposed to be my vacation without temptations; my two day foray into family space where i never choose to linger; my brief reluctant return to a city i've always found too polarized, too dirty to interest me. so why do i eye the help wanted signs in the windows, why do i smile picturing myself in each house for rent? maybe this time there's a wealth of magical characters drifting into each encounter, and maybe this time, after chicago, everyone is so friendly. maybe this time i've found the right coffee shop full of dirty carnies, and maybe i'm walking so i don't look like a tourist. and maybe with my bike-biased eyes these flat streets are a-calling, so beautiful, so possible, so tempting. dammit, for once this was supposed to be a trip i could return from without regrets and what-ifs. i hate new orleans. no, really.

films about portland.

we spin legs on pedals till one breaks off, and then we limp a little further still. and to tell the truth we forget all about you till the phone rings, but that's not enough to shove you back to the front of this long line of regressors, list of tasks in hand, grinning like fools each time. and it's not enough to force a geography onto this humdrum pulse of mine, but it's enough to make me reconsider. poor broken piles of parts and gears on the living room floor. rainy wet streets and bridges and rivers and all those dresses i used to wear. yr doppelganger walked into my bakery today, fairy eyes and hobo hat and a spine that made me shiver. the stale scent of chain-smokers and the slow creep of yr smile. we are turning into ghosts and reflecting onto everyone but ourselves. i'm turning my back on all these whispers and working real hard for concrete projections instead.




sadie hawkins race:

this is not something

i usually do.

dreaming of a collision & i wake just in time to find myself smashed amidst a static confrontation of voices and curtains and strange bedsheets beneath my cheek, something secret solitary drip drip dripping into my veins, bright lights bleeding into my eyes till i shut them off for the blissfully ignorant embrace of imaginary demolishments instead.

i smell like a rosebush. no, not that part: the ground beneath, warm & earthy & more alive. my hand blooming bruises and my thigh fading dusky purple. i'm high on this ache in my sides and this fever in my eyes; i'm tracing the contours of the way you used to stride across the room, before you slipped into a shuffling pout to match all the rest.

it's rising and it's rising and it's rising, and soon these walls will start crawling. you say let's play hooky and we will enjoy the fall. i don't want to choose just one, that's all i have to say.

fall down.

and i could write a library about cities but i think i'd rather have just one book about how it feels to know only like five people and to be calm and quiet all the time. (sometimes.) cuz you know how we love these giant sprawling contexts and the feel of asphalt spinning under our feet, but i wonder if our whiskey-soaked salutations do more than stick us in line sometimes. what about dirt and grass and sitting still? what about rows of dull (so real) houses with cracking paint and crooked doors and beautiful rainy streets? the scenery blurs anyway when life's such a rush, such a trip. i want to fall backwards and stare at the stars with room to wiggle my toes, with no commitments (no parties!). really mostly i just want to take off these poor tattered shoes for once, ever at all, even when i sleep.

halloweenie