For Everly

This doom silt is a blockage that won't sit still
the words come as shafts of light
lit up on lips through morning blinds
each stain a reminder of some bird shot in mid-flight
or that people made love here or desired to be enveloped
in the comfortable hope of companionship here.
Ill-at-ease in a skin suit that is tarnished and frayed.
There is only one way out but that seems too complicated
too final, too doused with remorse to remain viable.
This is a real situation for the most benign of clowns.
What's past is past while the labor of forgetting is more
than all the field hands lift spirits to feed mouths
with rain-soaked strawberries. I've hummed your name in far fields,
I've pressed my nose to the same flowers,
I've licked chocolate from your fingers.
I'm not one of them or even half of them
the sadness of my labor sweeps away all the joy that came before
this day, it's conclusion so sullied by emotion, where it crests
or blooms but is not forgotten. I'm trying.

I Love Plywood

Weekend Top 10

1) Theatre du Soleil - Les Ephemeres
2) Narody Stary - Kalkwerk
3) Bear Naked Chocolate Granola
4) Winner's Salad with Johanna
5) Watermelon on 7th Avenue
6) Sitting by the pond in Prospect Park with JT
7) Lunch at S'nice with JT
8) Tapering for my 6th Ironman on July 26th
9) The butterfly in Central Park
10) "No Look" drawings on the 5 train with Cara & Johanna

Patti Smith - Horses & Hey Joe

Thursday Night

Love is Funny (for JT)

Love is funny
not precious on a doily
so I laugh at it
because a heart can get broken
pulverized shattered into fragments
I am protected from that risk
on my silver bike
all steel and plastic and skin
I buck up taxi fuck
me with your fender
I am all speed and light
and the cement truck
whizzing past my hip
can kiss my ass in Brooklyn
there are rules to break not bones.
Oh, stroller mom pausing in the road
I know what to do: zoom
right past you silently.
It is Thursday
which happens to be my Friday
and you can all just take a walk
I am spending the air in my lungs
on love so there isn't any left
when I go down for good
you should read a poem
and get it on and let me know
that you love me too
by lobbing it just so.

I'm so dirty now that I'm broken

Listen

Give the Lion a Rest

It might take a year of rest
to incur doubt the seed in the middle
of green fat a body with trouble
that shakes the soap into the drain.

The robust awash a saddle
some basin to fill with plum wine
and a fork to stick in a thick set
vibrant and shiny you planted a tree.

So live in it thin meadow with milkweed
scooping the insides out of a doll a layer
of dill the tug of germs escapes the couple
on the floor a demand or a rug.

Venting comes in breaths then an opening
lit up to make bent what stood straight a gash
in the tent and then again a slit
opened up the question the solids.

Seep inside you fill your belly with
winners salad spice looms aches asleep
your arm asleep your dry dreams
cast a wide net in the smart class a likeness.

A humming bird or a bear I really need
to take extra care I just wonder if there were
a number assigned to each day how many
if we were counting down to something a figure.

Because I Was Alive Then

Think of a place and then go there
even if it seems harsh people
gathered there might entertain you with
biting your arm or slapping at you
for your successes. They might tell
you things about their moods and how
wallowing in fatigue is just one way
to smother yourself and get
swallowed by the night. They might
expect a lover's hand on your back to greet
them too when they taunt you
with words whispered into your ear
in the dark all the loops of the same scenes
they haven't invented a remedy for.
There is a spool where it touches the lobe
you should just shove it the fuck in
and get out of Dodge on a Schwinn.
In your books all the words are smudged.
Nothing tells you its over everything shines
begin so lets collect your dust
and put it in your dumb show.
You make scenes all the way up 7th Avenue
vomit silver choked up once so breezy and wise
a sassy college kid in crazy sunglasses
signified rebellion to you but
you don't know and you still don't know
so you don't even know where to begin with me.

Riceboy Sleeps

Summer!