musée

we drift in and out.

the lumineers.

Nov-18-24

on the precipice of doom.

in my mind we sit on the stoop
always quiet and comfortable and together
peer across the precipice between our worlds - his i’ll join eventually
and mine which he could no longer stand.
we sit inside the weight of all that i cannot know
in all that he's missed since
and we wonder of one another's dooms.
i try to find a verb for his - wanted? felt? did?
he finds he is not envious of the complexities of mine.

in my world i move to sit on the roof, circle "the precipice of doom" on a sheet of paper
i think of the way the cortisol flood must feel so similar between someone focusing the scope of their gun and someone waiting for the perfect moment to grab a person before they jump -
the way a trigger and a shirt tail can somehow feel the same in the body.

are we already there, on the precipice of doom?
if not individually certainly collectively,
what's another inch.
a frog allows itself to be boiled, slowly.
there are no poems
only things that are real that find a way to remind us of ourselves.

i think about how jumping and shooting another person are in fact two different ways of killing yourself.
how pulling someone back saves you both.
we are already there.
another inch is everything.

Oct-31-24

haikyou v.

strength as a soft smile.
“i shall not disparage you.
i love you, now go.”

Oct-18-24

turnpike.

just beyond the runaway truck ramp
ROUTE 80, NEXT LEFT illuminates beneath my headlights,
a shoestring road 
stretching taught between the tin cans of our hometowns.

all i can see
is the brightly lit booth in the distance,
signs detailing price-per-mile,
toll tag readers flashing against the moonlight,
everything trying to warn me: 

honey, 
driving down this road is gunna cost you.

Oct-14-24

portrait of the artist’s wife in a salon     pavle paja jovanović      1919

Oct-12-24

at her.

   poison     comes from an old french word meaning magic potion
   venom     comes from an old french word meaning 
    poison

such is the fantastically etymillogical treasure map tucked under my arm;
where moments ago i was a poet, seeking precision,
now i am headlamped, machete thrashing, tracing some legend's circular roots.
Diana Jones and the Synonymous Sisters.

i find them 
peering silent through the mist of history
         the misery
         and mystery. 
aphrodite stands with her hand on the shoulder of her twin,
venus,
this goddess of love,
name soured, spat,
gone from injecting veins with the addled haze of lust
to now
the adder; a dark curse, a death knell. 
in a way i'd always known i'd find some 'her' here;
XX marks the spot.
feminine wiles 
         to guile 
         to guilt.


in The Dictionary of Fine Distinctions
a page clarifies
      poison     is when you bite it
      venom     is when it bites you

and oh how i cycle 
through all the things men never needed be afraid of 
they simply needed to let be.

Aug-25-24

love:

v. laying cornerstones with express intent; an anchoring, a leap, a prostration, an overture; the lifetime build of an infinitigon

Jun-09-24
and maybe all this is the party

lorde.

Jun-05-24
live, testimony that your warmth is one of many; be, a promise that there are still others.

Jun-03-24
much ado about nothing.

a friend hands you a novel,
feels you slipping between her fingers, tries to stuff them with pages instead.
months later you think you confess feeling there’s nothing
to latch onto. she hums into the sweeping familiar;
that feeling of balancing on the fulcrum of stagnation,
having to watch the tension in your own lifeline slacken.

you part ways, coast between your coasts
and when the waves soak your socks,
realize the ocean is as much a blockade as it is an expanse.
set sail, it mocks. you’ve run out of road after all.

you return home, pluck around. no lead singles emerge.
it’s all b-sides, filler, weeks later you can’t make out your own notes –
was it over/through, or overthrew?

even sacred rituals are suddenly colored by the unanswerable –
on your daily listen, a debate – ‘does bracing worsen injury?’
studies claim ‘debunked’ but there’s an edge in the voices of those EMTs.
relaxed muscles bend to chaos;
to harden against the unstoppable could only cause more pain, right?

you think,
this is why they peered with curiosity into the Jonestown dixie cups.
this is what sent Columbus into the pitch black with kerosene lamps and sails made of linen.
this is what happens when the only breaks in thinking about what you cannot live without
are filled with weighing what you may be able to live with.

so you try.
to relax. to remember those lyrics. to chart that course.
you assemble a swath of available new years,
set your polaroid camera on display,
a decorated comrade in enforcing that some shit takes time to develop.
you think of your younger self: how many identical fears you still share,
how starry eyed and slackjawed they look.
at you.

you finish your friend’s novel
mostly out of stubbornness, but still. it feels good.
enough that the next time you pass the store down the street
you wander in,
philosophy, poetry; man’s search for meaning tied in an alphabetical bow.
between them, you pass Shakespeare. the shopkeeper has taped cardstock to the shelf,
a handwritten fact for passersby to enjoy:

“generally speaking
the more complex the plot
the more likely the play is to be categorized as a comedy.”

May-14-24