may i lean on you
with this wave weary
hull of mine
and watch the water
slap anonymous at your feet
stone strong
that stretch to where
my anchor won’t reach
as you speak over me
with your
bright brave speech?
[read more]

O, Father of my soul
this day, beneath my feet
and outside of myself
lay firmly a foundation
upon which I may stand

O, Father, in other words
tell me who I am

i have brought my head
against this wood
again
and in my brain
white flashing
and then
wood grain
patterns on my skin
my hot burning skin
[read more]

I think I’ll drive through Boston now
that my trip is over
and try to remember
that a broken heart
is a perfectly good reason
to stop early at a yellow light
and miss my flight
[read more]

before me
stretched like
dried leather
the days of my
pitiful existence
lay long with a
loathing posture
[read more]

“So what did you guys think about this Elizabeth?”  Ken leaned forward from the back seat.  From driver, Jason, to passenger, me, his head shuffled.  Back and forth.  Back and forth.  “You guys think I made a good impression?”  I could feel his knee twitching the on back of my seat.  Elizabeth is my good friend.  She is beautiful.  She is fabulous.  And she is gay.  I decided to escalate Ken’s obsession.  I tell him this.  Oh my god, Ken says.  He falls back against the seat.  “Don’t tell me that.  Now she’s even hotter.”  [read more]

Welcome to my life. Your name? Nice to meet you. Please, have a seat. Comfortable? Good. Wouldn’t have it any other way. Now, before we begin, I want you to know you are welcome to leave at any moment. Is that clear? You’ll see why in just a minute. Okay, shall we? Here is how I will fuck up your life. [read more]

she has a button on her lip
right here where the divot meets the tip
it closes up her pretty face
and it’s mysteriously kept in place
sewn by a thin leathery strip

Tall or short. It doesn’t matter anymore.  I look up the trunk of a tree whose roots rend the sidewalk.  There is a bright orange strip painted across the break.  Blood draws down the wedge on my upper lip.  That little furrow God dug when he made me.  The little valley where snot gathers in the winter.  The tree looms large over me like a cathedral.  I can see my breath cloud as it rises in the sky.  It twists into shapes and ideas then disappears as quickly as it came.  Skinny or fat.  It’s all the same.

I poked the blood with my tongue.  It is cold.  My nose stings.  I am the invisible space between the framing and the drywall.  The parts of a home we never see.  The parts that take up a third of our lives.  The parts that count as square footage but don’t exist.  The parts that surround us but never make an impact.  Good or bad.  There is no line anymore.

Blood on my hand now.  The cathedral-tree diminishing in the background as I walk away.  I don’t know where I am going.  Can a compass ever be sated?  Can North ever be found?  In my chest, always twitching towards something.  Fatherless and numb.  Death will be the closest I come to home again.  Heaven or hell.  It doesn’t matter anymore.  I am an orphan.

hot before rich we
snuggle with caffeine
during our dark delicious
mornings.  electricity
through us and the
ceramic warmth feels
like books filled with
thoughts of orange
into brown.  O coffee
you are our lover.

here is a grown man, naked as can be
with gentle eyes asking what do I see
but my words clot
saying more than not
and I know the naked in this bathroom is me
[read more]

our Blood of Life may here you birth
tears and smiles, our Joy of earth
O joy delight, our joy tonight
please our Joy, give birth a light
and strength for tears for future be
our soul of bitterness here concede
and strength of joy for long suffering
the life of precious ones now recovering
and precious life deepen as it may
flesh with blood and bone this day
O giver of life, O joy demure
Joy for us, our Joy a cure
we pray this eve and of hope we sing
O giver of life, please our child bring

across the bridge on Morisson
the city is drunk, I dream of home
people are crowding into a train
until their faces look and then they change
Home is a place I’ve never been
[read more]

O, Reverie
may I finger the ink on your hip
I asked back when
and you laughed but then
with a purse in your lip
you pulled your waist around
and I saw what I wanted to kiss
[read more]