Remembering The Summer And The Fall That Followed

The art in the woods
The person that I accidentally thought was 37
The roof in the sun.

My stupid black skirt
My broken pin
That I cared about what I looked like
That you're gone.

St. Marks

Last time I was in this church, you were alive
And I sat next to my teacher, who cried
And two women were united
in love
By a priest and a poet,
and the words of a poet gone.

Oh, we watched from the rafters
as the city streamed in,
and a host swept the floor
of flowers
The arranged congregation
preparing to sing,

We gathered our hands

with our hearts

in our chests,
We observed what it means
to belong.

dance

i think that revelry and enjoyment can mask a lot of things.
when the balloons fell
they covered the technology
that hardened them
the analog was then exposed

the substances were mainly in the other corner
from the speakers that doubled as your stage that are preserved with care

in our corner the stage could be exposed

the resourcefulness of a community
whose dance can double as a platform
whose scenery descends
and crashes waiting

...erupting the slow build
the open buffet
three kinds of drink,
endless formations
...exposed to heaven

Leeds (Extended)

I was a collapsed barn
All you saw were the wisps of bent hay
Floating around my temples
signal flares for a pacified angel

My eyeballs
turned patient in their sockets
summer, sulking
While sentimental gossips poked them back ahead
Exacting straws, needled from firm dirt that lifting cracks
Shaggy roots that crumble padded
suffocating in the laboring sun
to possibly be drenched again and run into the river
pointing and deliberate
The grasses wept
From another point of view,
it all looked soft

Crickets are another man's silence
The barn boards have old nails in them
so put your shoes on
The treasure is only plastic from the seventies
The emerald is only a wet stone

Programming

The loud voice
The promises
Cold carpet, bad coffee
Packeted
emoji Functional
Meet at night and at 5:30
push to
Metadata, bad boundaries

I fly to fairy plays
and queer rainbows that are real
courtyards

Say her name.

Gather scripted
Gated elevators
Custom command
Revise
Cry

Leeds

I was a collapsed barn
All you saw were the wisps of bent hay
Floating around my temples
making it hard to see

My patient eyeballs turned
that summer, sulking afternoon
While sentimental gossips poked them back ahead

Exacting straws, pointing and deliberate
From another point of view, it all looked soft.

Crickets are another man's silence
The barn boards have old nails in them, so put your shoes on
The treasure is only plastic from the seventies
The emerald is only a wet stone

Artist Criticism

It fails to qualify
A conversation you control
You. Really.
Show yourself
Show me what qualifies you
Let me see you touch it.

Fulton AM

I wonder what happened to the old man
Who left his blue cup at the corner
Lone, with a penny and a nickle in it

YrotsihgniviL

I Must Have Written This In The Summer, Now It's Spring

there was a layer on everything
a green choppy layer
buzzing,
irritating,
licky layer on the inner border
blurring the film permanently
that encases my eye

sticky layer little living nibs stick
and everything is frizzy,
mucky,
buzzing
flying in your mouth

I. Relay Circa '96

There was a room called the BearCave
that was notoriously hard to infiltrate.
Any time one of us got in,
We'd swiftly get kicked out.
At a certain point I realized
Everyone in the channel had either -cub- or -bear- in their name.
So
I updated my name to FishBear
and got in the group,
and I was allowed to stay.

Once there,

I realized
Everyone in the group was either a Cub or a Bear-
And generally,
The Cubs and Bears were trying to find each other
To have sex with each other
And generally,
The Bears seemed to be men, and the Cubs seemed to be boys.
From what I could tell
And I was a curious boy.
And I took this information
and told my friends.

Free Breakfast In Every School

Nothing is alone or separate
We create such imaginations together
Never alone.
Need bleeds
Into music playing white-faced in a tux
Cello piped over a beige rainbow on a roving stair
The dogs are innocent is weaponized
The backpack is subject to interpretation to random search
Fuck our justifications for greed

One Year

I'm smearing my tears all over the handrail
From patting the area under my earth eyes

On a rumbling

The green fields remind me of a love
My green love to your gray

The pink ribbon
in her bible companion
Matches the pink ribbon
in my isn't-yellow hair

The West Wind Warm Is The East Wind Warm

I am lightning rounding my relationships,

soot and tar
and resin

splaying web spider combing like a harp

bleached out beams, I extend myself_

almost balanced, almost caressed, almost cared for

almost covered in an almost quilt

burning our throats with being together

out on the porch in the cover of dark and sad,

in view of a midnight city.

almost exterminating ourselves

clinging to our almost visionary toppling almost safety

We gave out gratitude to the reeds and they returned it

We floated to earth 

with Sun dipping freely behind her mountains 

they cradled us in the fog that cleared

Between beams, everything was blazing pink or shadow

We were animals too,

the soft land glowing as we floated down

I returned to something built

With more waves and air

Vaster, taking up more space

More singed from being close

With more ashes to offer

I am running into someone I love’s best friend

I am breathing out smoke and talking about class

I am sinking into the couch being told to keep going, make art, sing, and find the ones who matter

I apply rosewood oil and vetiver daily

My ballerina is outer and wholly messy

I am growing out my hair

Stay in this garden

Sink and rise among the lovers

Keep going, make art, sing, and find the ones who matter

Burn your throats with the being together of being

Leave between midnights in our beaming city

And walk down our quiet street, home.

The Challenge

Youth is the early time
The before
The first

The diamond
Sparkling and inviting
Smooth.

The faces are drawn towards
The diamond

Towards the faces
On the other side

The diamond cuts glass.

Nerve endings burrow

The faces become of another time after
The glass

Cuts
The face

Burrow
The diamond

Towards
The faces

Diamond becomes the Glass.

Asphalt

This  
           ratty gray sweater

Another
                 soggy gray square

Patient electors
                             Pliable pacifists
                                                            Missed crowns.

The peach colored mother looks out from foggy glass
                                                                                 while
Repeating babies churn behind,

          Dipping and bobbing
                                                         Squinting
Yawning
                  bundled ligaments
                                                     Sifting,
          startling,

                                  birthing in that

      Black sea.

Ringing In

I'm only a machine,
A man
As they used to say
She's spilling from their lips
Like live cultures

My lips don't bend
Anymore
From the chemicals
Only
She's spilling from their testimonials
Lips lick declarations
Signed to the church door
Up
Where left and right are offered

I find freedom It
makes me
Heave bright futures
Currency weave blankets
Drip live cultures
Suck my own tubes
I
Find
My
Self asking for thoughts, you realize
I am a man?