escaping by the river

i was hoping that
A
(index raising),
the water would be warm,
B
(middle accompanying),
i wouldn't be alone,
C
(bare ring lifting),
He'd screw me 'til I'm born,
D
(pinky fighting odds),
sound would travel faster,
and E
(thumb dumbly pouting),
you'd want my whole disaster.

escaping by the river
always proves to be
a tricky time of sifting
through the mysteries
of what my hair confuses
when delivering the day,
but underneath my skin
you're never far away.

it's too late for time travel

baby fish in a grandfather sea
swimming blind in a grandmother dream
tyrannosaurus love
in a department store haze
backwards to mars
in a space age train

i will crack the door; chilling
i will crack the door, babe

what do you think about time travel?
don't you think its much too late?
what do you think about the end of the world?
do you think its worth the wait?

smooth cider eyed bugs
on a boiling lawn
pirates of the night
waking up at dawn
child-like hands on a grandfather clock
sea worthy bones secured to a dock

i will crack the door; chilling
i will crack the door, babe

august answers questions

land near me
soon
seethe my ground
boiling dirt
make the traveling dust
in august, no
july
a full force aroma
with feet placed obviously
close
clearly graves will be wept
from the death
in your
wake
waves painting outward
colors from the
hems
of jeans
so stunningly attached to hips
electronic white paper
balled crumbled
sent

here and there

if only pangaea could help us communicate in person
instead of the ocean,
i think think think
think i would drive from here to there
for there would connect to anywhere

purpose is diluted in the for instance sentence.
for instance, blank.
for instance, movement
without sound
is no longer round.

oh, how this day needs a verb!
(conserve),
but my chest is running thin
as i call upon a grin
to hide what bursts within.

seeping bloody mess,
i thought that ended yesterday.
am i to be like this
forever and eternity?
someone just said yes.

deliver and repress (fingers plug the holes in me)
but not when i'm sailing
across the grass
from rocky here
to velvet there.

full pocket syndrome (tictoc)

In three weeks, my brother and I will be on the road - sleeping in the jetta, maybe staying in a cheap motel once every several nights to recharge our batteries (literally), driving thousands of miles, eating the oregon coast, grand canyoning, reading dickinson in montana, napping on the L in chicago, spitting off the space needle, hiking in the tetons, and learning how to drink coffee. I am planning on sending postcards from the highway, and I plan on taking cool pictures like the one shown here. I plan to live on water from a nalgene the whole time (no convenience store gatorade), and I plan on swimming in the san francisco bay. I plan on growing a mustache, and I plan on driving up hwy one to bob dylan's music. I plan on eating lots of fruit snacks, and I don't plan on ever wearing shoes or a shirt unless I have to. Will and I are going to spend as little money possible without stealing anything except for girls' hearts. I am going to have the best 21st birthday party ever somewhere in the middle of arizona. I am going to consider the interstate rest area my home away from home. I am going to wonder where time goes when I am sitting in a cold, metal, humanities desk in the fall.

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there are so many tictoc
clocks everywhere telling people
what toctic time it is for
tictic instance five toc minutes toc
past six tic

Spring is not regulated and does
not get out of order nor do
its hands a little jerking move
over numbers slowly

we do not
wind it up it has no weights
springs wheels inside of
its slender self no indeed dear
nothing of the kind.

(So,when kiss Spring comes
we'll kiss each kiss other on kiss the kiss
lips because tic clocks toc don't make
a toctic difference
to kisskiss you and to
kiss me)

-e.e. cummings
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a romantic collaboration: the cradle and the grave

there are so many days where i keep my eyes closed,
and pray i might be blind,
that to open them would reveal nothing more
than blackness bright in an ignorant mind,
but you live in the darkness behind the lid
and in the popping limb-light between the lash,
where you haunt with swirling catastrophes
as you tiptoe through my thoughts.
somewhere amid the waters of youth and dying day,
one will let a fancy frolic forward,
and lift them up on wings of wind -
the unexplained anomaly of young hope
reaching into the silent noise of
future life.
be careful with that lovliness, dear
it is deadly, yet
you wield it so exquisitely and forbid my eyes to glance
thats why i wish that i was blind,
so i wouldn't have to see
or comtemplate your stomach ache
and my heart's sore vacancy.

i wish i was ugly

i wish that i was ugly
buzzin like a chain smoker
messin round the down under
throw away the beard trimmer
i never want to yawn
or try a slice of typical
avoiding the unusual
just talkin on the cellular
i wish that i could lose
whatever sense i thought i had
pukin up the comfort trash
push my eyes til all goes black
i wish that i would die
to all the world's calamity
money, success: insanity
i'm pretty sure there's more in me

what we all have in common

plain are the lips that catch the tears
that run from her eyes for her tongue to savor.
she tucks her boys in after all these years,
southern oak leaves now their delicate covers.

the evening before they read Berry aloud
in a swing on the porch till the dusklight subdued,
but tonight they lie shiv'ring in their cradle of ground,
any feeling of hope she solemnly eschews.

so much so that she joins them in the dust and the earth
and crawls under her blanket of southern oak leaves,
she's closing her eyes on the faces she birthed-
the keen sword of grief, quietly sheathed.