The Things I Would Do to Help You

If you were never coming home again
I would hire someone to help find you
a sweet song form to sing while you
were out there not coming home again.
I would look for clues in the trees
watch how their branches moved
and examine the animals climbing up
or down the tree for signs of despair.
I would soothe the uninvited guests
walking in the courtyard with stories
of my adventures in Paris and stuff like that.
I would send you an email outlining my new
positive approach to life which involves
coffee and photos of puppies and jelly.
I would tell you to stay away from Ikea
if you're feeling the least bit shaky
about your own reality. But mostly
I would help you with the idea of
simply being lazy and letting it all hang out
for a few hours every day that you're here
with me facing the music. Good luck!
I'll be thinking of you.

Good Morning

Over

You will know me when I arrive there
a lot of the people will be glad
they will realize just how much I do for them
because I will have a certain type of sparkle
it will all just be over, and believe me
that is found in the people. There will be people
or the big shit - or, for that matter, the in between shit
there at the place I arrive that will understand
just how goddamn valuable I am to the people
and that every single day of my life
I do what I can for the people, even the
people that remember any of the little shit
people that would rather not have me
and that will be that and no one
doing anything at all for them.
It will fuck their minds but they will be glad,
believe me.

Tonight

Tonight I will shake your hand into butter
curve around you until you're maple
climb the soft pieces of you with spikes
insert a vibrating dial and conjure you
in living goop. I will slip my hand
under your belt and lose a wisdom tooth
make a necklace of it and hang it around
your neck. My gift of light will soothe
your sore throat and all the institutes of longing
will permeate the landscape with medicinal
cloud formations that disperse calming
solutions of tingle water and kink spray.
I will secrete a secret mud that enhances
your ability to thrust your hips into mine
on a bed that is so wet we could swim in it.
You are smooth and redolent as ivory rubbed with amber
in a bank vault locked away until the next batch
of lovers make a messy situation gleam again.

Patti Smith - Birdland

I mean really, has there ever been a better song?

Your Capacity

It's pretty clear all the lozenges
that once soothed the brain
the insertion of some medical oil
your little container of pills
in a promised place, say the rim
of a hoop in a gym with some load
punking the court into tips. That
breath you feel on your neck is the
next guy tragically reclined in your pathetic
quarters making faces at the gems. I'm all
for you and your capacity for horror.
No really, I am. I get it.

Ratatat - Grape Juice City

Joy

Life From Jane's Backyard

Terrific Sunday Poem

What would be terrific and awesome
would be if the morning opened
with a sense of purpose as in a light
making the book brighter and the words
somehow make sense in a new way
that is both refreshing and liberating
which makes all the people communicate
through lights and gestures.

Flowers

People carry flowers into burning houses
your intentions seem clear all the time
just look at the pink burst into flames.
All the sleepy features of Sunday things
on your breath in such a way that I am here
to wrap meat in when I need you to do that.
Settle the score with your neighbors
bring flares and limp with no one but you.
The memory of all you all the time now even when the racket
even when the warmth of your organs excites
people now heaving and labored how silly
to remember my hand on your belly
that stuff I am trying to forget everything
that made no sense then and even less now.
A thigh with thick muscles pierced
above me late into the night. Limbs strewn
by a chopstick no closer to this than you.
No one jumps to attention when you enter
on the floor, damp and curled the pages
on acid or fungus in your brain, your mind.
I'm not down with the room because
there is no room for you. The sad way you fill
your days and still no one comes home to you
no one holds you up to the light in such a way
that you feel observed by a third party-you have
to pay someone for that and that's cool.
Make your gas blankets and let the drawings serve as
reminders I'll never step on those flowers
with you again- not for nothing oh just go away.

What I'll Be Doing This Morning

The Brooklyn Half Marathon!

Everything Will Be O.K.

Where You'll Find Me This Friday Night

May 21, Friday ~ 7:00 p.m.

Melissa Buzzeo
Hugh Behm-Steinberg
Todd Colby
Christie Ann Reynolds
Jared Stanley
Rachel Zolf

~

Goodbye Blue Monday

1087 Broadway
(corner of Dodworth St)
Brooklyn, NY 11221-3013 (718) 453-6343

J M Z trains to Myrtle Ave
or J train to Kosciusko St

~

Hosted by Amy King and Ana Božičević

LINK

Soft Opening

I grab at my chin a lot
like a buoy cardinals make
dorky noises not birdsong
the breath I saw in winter
is still there like a caption balloon
only the mosquitos see it now
and are drawn to my mouth
not for the words or the gas I emit
but for the lips these lips
have kissed jealous mosquitos
anyway raw honey coconut oil
and some grainy bread in the morning
I'm off my rocker with simplicity
standing up when I want to stand up
and just poking my hands in
my pockets when I want to act
naturally I love you so much.

Sleep

It's what sleep won't do
that makes the bed
fold over
like a feather taco
and the animal
or two
in it
tumble
into spoon glimmer
all the sleep
you can eat
isn't enough
to make a meal
oh rest is just so
yesterday.

Sleigh Bells - Rill Rill

Everybody Leaves

Heartache sits thick in my mouth
a wide truck garbled in marshmallows
navigating a dead terrarium
stung into submission you can't hold
a body in thin air a coyote falling from
a cliff reaches out and then poof
a city can be taken apart and put
back together again so certain
blocks are closer to others so a hand
reaching for your own is simply
not there and you better snap out of it
and go out and get some work done
because the day looks pretty absurd
and gorgeous you sleepyhead
everybody leaves you just forgot.

Super Supreme

The Fall - Blindness (From Peel Session)

Lou Reed - The Blue Mask

Poem for Today

I would like to build you something
as bold and unnecessary as a bridge
in something dark and current reflecting not
cotton but sugar. I would like to lean
into you and stuff you full of fabulous
fish from deep water all resinous and detached
like a new career as a woodwind player
just seems absurd at this stage of my life.
I would like to prepare a bed with great care
only the times we live in but the position
and the cotton. The sheets would be crisp and pale
blue and the scent of amber would waft about
on my hand when it curls around yours
the innards of each pillow. I would like to
but in a good way. I would like to dress up
charm your pants off leap into the air
and hang there above you like a rose
and you would find that funny laughing so hard
made of flesh lilting at the thought of landing
on you. I would like to make these tiny forts
from napkins on the table and put my hand inside
one of them like my hand could wear a hat.
Time sort of won't stop and things seem fucked
that the day literally shakes and makes me nervous
that I can breathe hard for hours at a time
that my life is not a mess.

Marianne Vitale's Sculpture!

Todd Colby Reading at the Lungfull Release Party/April 2010

From Jane, In Toronto

Tuesday Poem #1

Blink thump bass deep plunk
all lit with keys dipped in chrome
lips haunt tips go blue in light
go straw fence in a state of tone
my flavor amber lemon hour
my deep set kiss 7th avenue.

No Sweaters (Sometimes)

Let me take a walk in your country
make those cardinals dart around
on the branches of that ginkgo tree
in your country
all the trucks run silently
and the kids speak in their indoor voices
men and women float around
like they're in a Chagall painting
in your country gravity
is optional and the people
all look like they are not moody
or prone to exhaustion
or fevered pitches of any kind at all
in your country people find the time
to do nothing at all
sitting around and breathing
from the belly is a virtue
in your country there are beets
and herring and avocados and no
one remembers to cry because they
are meditating because they are all about
the present and what it means to them
no sweaters are allowed in your country (sometimes)
because it's always pleasantly warm with a slight breeze
I'm going to put my feet up and chill out
in your country maybe take a vacation
and forget about making a living
and paying the rent and stuff like that
I think I could live in your country
do you think I could live in your country?

Friday Poem

Slow down time by thinking about it.
Olympic swimmers practice swimming
in pools full of gelatin (for resistance).
My response is galvanic and halting.
Hasbro is a toy manufacturer imprinted
on our collective DNA. A feeling that the weather
is agreeable, shiny, dry, with a slight breeze.
Beethoven is on the radio accented by the highway
humming in that swishy urban way. Nothing
seems convoluted or heavy right now.
The DJ speaks haltingly, barely able
to complete her sentences. I hope she hasn't
had a stroke on the air. Items on the silver
shelf: an angel, a boxer, a baby, a metal letter "J."
Whatever else I could be doing:
I'm doing it.

A Song My Mother Taught Me

Still Life With Todd

Enclosure

Most of my missions were harrowing like
licking the edge of a cup until my tongue bled.
It was a Spring full of wonder and charged
with a sense of grief masked by May's
languid charm. I built window boxes
that sat bloated with color and bees
on a window ledge near the B.Q.E.
I fancied myself cultured and secure
but that changed when people more cultured and secure
than me made their presence known
in notes scrawled on foil and taped to the door
leading into my apartment. I was churning inside
from all the rutting and declined opening
any sort of nervous boon to their existence
or mine, which were trembling and delirious.
From time to time I pushed my face against the glass
until I felt my own pulse in my cheek.
I fancied gashes there and real bone that
added shape to my face protruding from the wound
but I also saw what was up with the vibe
of the creatures who made my life easier
with their non-spasms and steadfastness.
I am on my way to someplace vast and satisfying
but I feel so useless and redundant. Other than
providing information services, I also design buildings
that make people want to dance in them
or on them or in front of them. I would like
to dance with you for a few years and then
I would like to let go of you and just watch
you fade away like a pop song being turned
down on a car radio so you can whisper something
to me about going away and what it really means.
Hello, my name is Todd.

Way to Go!

Turning on the radio at dawn and hearing
some woman talking about someone getting back
from a trip to Japan or something. It could be
my birthday but I have another month and 8 days
to go before that happens. There, the raw honey
is seeping from the jar around the edge
but I won't lick it, even when I live alone.
And then what else? A cheap ass Verizon
phone I had to buy for a hundred bucks
because my old one went on the fritz,
as they say. I'm having a difficult time staying
on budget with all of these unexpected
expenses of late. I'm really into a certain type
of perfectly ripened banana in the morning.
In Paris I might be eating something more
international for breakfast. Sitting at my desk
I feel all I'm a writer and I'm writing.
Right now there might be two or three of my friends
that are also awake doing something constructive
like organizing things are thinking things through.
Not taking a proper vacation for 16 years
is just so not good. I look at my shampoo in
the shower and wonder what sort of man lives
here and then I remember I live here and that's
my stuff in the closet too. I can talk about vitamins
if you'd like sometime. I have all of these colored pens
that I need to make a few drawings with and post here.
It's a good sign that the sky is changing colors
at the edge of the horizon, it means there is
going to be a another day to get things done.

Dawn

I might lift something up
like my hands above my head
and clap them so I can celebrate
you getting out of bed
look at me standing over you clapping
because dawn is almost here
and the streetlights look
like they are fading even as
they shine I am lifting my heart
up too or is that the coffee
cupping the vessel of my joy
all ruby-tinted and cropped
pegging me for a doofus
when all I want is a pair of feet
with your body attached to them
moving next to mine.

Purple Flowers

Last night I watched
an award winning movie
just to be able to say "I saw it"
someday at a party someone
will ask me "did you see it?"
and I won't be able to remember
whether I saw the movie or not
but I did once see you standing
in a field of purple flowers
making wavy things happen
when you smiled at me
that I remember