Unplug Your Amygdala—

Think like water. Which is to say not think. Anti-Think. Like flow like froth like like like… Think like running just to run to get there fast but not caring where “there” is because there isn’t here even though the word is based on and encompasses. There is a new here and if you need to be anywhere but here, you may as well be dead. Noise-ing just to fill the silence—innate ripp(l)ing out of. Is a river ever a river ever the same one you stepped in two weeks from Tuesday? Can’t recall, but I guess it wouldn’t matter. My limbic system is in limbo—hence the name I guess. Think like transparent. Like open. Like if I ever see you again I wouldn’t see wouldn’t even be the same river as when you stepped into me two weeks from Tuesday.

Laundry

how you?

i… well—

i get better.
not fully, but getting.

awkwardly clothespinned
and out to dry
scarecrow limbs
stuffed with such breakable material…
(to my core, easily combustible)
as long as i hang here,
my rickets upon rickets upon—
          crack.

i make the sound of a giraffe.
or a turtle.
the potentiality of a squawk—
          a feeble warble,
          attempt at emotion.
i can not what (forceful) speech is.

i'm just a –
with a small rootless flower of love growing
in the far left corner of the circle…
if you were smart, you'd cut and run but
i want you to get so far under my skin you could lick my heart.

and This is the stretching for you, I think.
This is the pulling the tightness out.
it's uncomfortable.
and hurts a little.
but it gets easier
because i relax into it.

once i am used to the ebb and flow, i won't be so… ish.
it's been so long since I sailed on anything
i've almost forgotten how

A Study of Time

What is chronology? A
function of memory—
Things appear in order
but only because a
mind accesses the pieces
(fragments) in a certain
Way.

Time is permanent—?
that moment last Tuesday
when we went for coffee
and you told me how
you wished we were just
slivers of Greater(ness)
breaking through the plane
into the 3 dimensions we
know and being actively
part of the creation as its
being created watching the
meaning steam out of the
pressure cooker of your
strung-out mind.

But the touching—
how can we
get from the fingertips
dipped into the paraffin wax
of the 3 dimensions to the
Body that’s bigger (11
dimensions, so to speak.
Because that’s what “makes
the equations work”):
Fingers to shoulder and around
inside and up through veins
—show me into
your body my body out of body together.
Break me til I bleed out light
and stretch so hard I tear.
Know me outside too.
Show me the place
where 2 people come
together outside time.
And love me there:

Touch here is more intimate when
It’s in a place that’s unknown

and fragile.

i want to kiss you
even though we both
have morning breath.

i want to wake up
missing a sock,
dried tears from nightmares
in the edges of my eyes,

and still have you
tell me i'm pretty.


i want to fear pretty.

i want to fear pretty.

I want to drink coffee


A person told me once
that smeared eyeliner
is a sign of a successful night,
even if all you did was
eat ice cream and watch bad television.

but now eyeliner comes in tubes

called 'unstoppable' 

and 'waterproof'...

          life-proof, essentially.

i will never have

a successful night again, it seems

but i want to

I think holding onto the past
is like holding onto that guy
you met drunk at a bar
but took you home instead
          and 'home' symbolically
          is the side of an abandoned warehouse
          so no one would catch you fucking.
          Since, of course, being seen is
          The Worst Thing Ever
          and being 'together'
          only works if no one knows about it
after your sex fogged up the windows
and made the icy January night
warm with new thoughts, like
          maybe someone else needs
          touch like I do. And matter is
          more than just mass and space
          when you share it with someone...

what if we could stay warm?
What if I didn't have to change?

But then the warmth goes away
and the tendrils of Winter
claw at the windows and doors
and sneak in through the cracks
you thought you sealed
with stray socks and blankets...
          then he kicks you out
          and tells you
          'you're on your own now'

but I know one day
you'll build another fire
somewhere.

i get jealous
of people
who seem to have their lives
together.

but then i remember
there are different types
of accomplishment.

I Might Have Heard a Moa

a moa is a flightless bird,
very breast (so then feelings
and heart) heavy.
interesting, that.

documentation of extinction-
level events is strange
because it just smiles, nods,
and gives passing glances at the life
and times of a thing and maybe,
if you're lucky,
an insight into why it died:

i feel sorry about a lot of things
like that time i almost killed you
when i was driving too fast and
the road was wet and
we hit a puddle
barely skidding to a stop.

i didn't throw out my arm to stop you from flying forward.
i guess i didn't care as much as i thought
          or maybe i trust the engineering of the car to keep you alive
          instead of my flimsy arm.

i feel sorry about the fact that this
is a really self centered poem:
almost every sentence starts with I.

but tonight,
jaundiced veins track
double lines on the pavement;
fog oozing from the edges
of the night, clouding the world
with the thunder in my eyes.

the glossy shhhhhhhhhhhhh
of tires on pavement
turns my brain to
static,
and in the ringing of my ears
i might have heard a moa.

i love
the goosebumps you get
when we lay together
and my fingertips follow
the rivulets of sweat
on your skin.

i think to myself
that it spells love
in braille.

i had the biggest crush on my poetry professor in college. i always tried to impress him but it never went the way i planned.

some of the best moments in class were when he looked me dead in the eyes and my heart stopped. he didn't give a lot of compliments, but he honestly could have told me my work was complete shit and i still would have loved him.

he nominated me for a poetry prize and i about died. i didn't win, but i entered proudly.

i wish i knew how to talk to him

like somehow if i could have told him how much i (did and still do) admire him then i might have

closure, but

memorizing the lyrics
to that song
          (i don't get pangs anymore--
i sing along. i know every word.
          you promised me we'd fuck with
that song on repeat)
wasn't as easy as
memorizing your body

my tongue folded
over your cock
but i guess
you fucked the words
way back into my throat,
stuck them there with
jets of semen(t).
at that point i was never easy
to understand... always
forgetting words, and then
clogged vocal chords.

when my dad
mentioned golf,
all i could think about
was when you and i played
nintendo golf, stoned.

he said something about
reading the green
and i pictured
the neon lines
and arrows
of the video game,
telling me how and where
to shoot.

i wish that
i could play life
like you played me
like the video games
when we were stoned
and didn't see the world
as it was,
but as the best version
of itself.

i can hear you
snoring in the next room
and i feel
guilty
for fucking you.

i will probably
fall asleep
on this couch
          's arm(rest?)
and not you(rs).

i will never
taste dreams
on your tongue
upon first waking.

The table in the back
near the drink machines
and the bathrooms
was made for a person
like me.

I don't know why
they put two chairs
at this table
(it's only large enough
for a drink and a laptop
anyway)
when they know
i'm going to be sitting
alone.

The other chair
just gets stolen
by larger parties
anyway. 

          And they don't even use words.
They just raise an eyebrow
at me alone with my computer
and I nod.
The awkward proportions
of the table once the appendage
has been so rudely excised

makes me feel
even more
          vulnerable.

I'm used to it though.
I gave up on “my other half”
a long time ago.

when you come home,
i'll turn you inside out
like the way i
peel
my tights off and
spread my legs
to get out of them.

you'll attach your skin
to mine
magnetically
(fuckin' magnets how do they work?!)
and we'll giggle about
my north meeting your south.

i will mark you
like a bad first draft:
gouging your most
tender places and
relishing in your screams.

and when you go out,
you'll wear my scent
stitched into your flesh
haphazardly and oozing
and your internal bleeding
will show the world
who owns you.

what's with me
posting first drafts
and calling them Art??
(like i have
any claim at all
to that word)

i think
it's a brutal (re)appropriation
of that word
to call what i do
art,
but
i still do it.

if i wasn't on a watchlist, i am now

if you want to
commit a crime,
be sure of
one thing:
who is(n't) around.

if no one is around,
no one will know.

if people are around,
no one will act.

last august i learned
that probable impossibility
was the aristotelian way
to measure the success of an idea.

this august, (somewhere
different
around the sun) i learned
that loving someone
was okay,
but only if you left out some
vowels because that made it less
intimidating,
and that by not saying
that word
and substituting
i want your words
tattooed on my body
somewhere close to my heart,
the message was just as
(probably impossibly)
clear.

whenever i try to write,
i get frustrated
because nothing i say
seems to be what i want
or how i intend.

kind of like if
hemingway and bukowski
had a child.
and named it me.

my sentences are short
and my words are simple.

but i think
i can make
something(s)
work.

why i will never smoke in the car again...and then proceeded to do so two hours later.

i was driving on i40 today. having a cigarette while driving isn't new to me; having a cigarette while driving on the highway isn't new to me. i usually squeeze the last remaining tobacco out the window and throw the filter into a bottle i keep in the console so i don't litter.

not today.

i went to squeeze the last remaining tobacco out the window...and it came back and hit my neck. i freaked out and went to brush it off me and out the window--

but it went down my shirt.

      damn it.

so there i am driving on i40, flailing around trying to stop the burning tobacco from staying too long on any one part of my skin but it fell down my back and i tried to squish it with the fabric of my shirt but that didn't work and i'm trying to stay in my lane and then it fell down to the waistband of my pants and i'm freaking out hoping that the cloth seats don't catch on fire and OH MY GOD WHY WON'T IT STOP BURNING I REALLY CAN'T DEAL WITH THIS RIGHT NOW--

      and then it was over. just like that. the burning stopped.

i ran my hands over my neck and back and the seat and only felt skin and cloth. huh. i guess it just burnt itself out...

i placed the filter in the bottle just like i always do. and i turned on the radio pretending that i totally didn't just have a moment where i was seriously teetering on the edge of Emergency.



i'm just glad no cars were around; i'm just glad no one saw.

when i took algebra
in the seventh grade,
we had to do projects
on the order of operations.

daniel made a song
and i thought it was clever.
so i told him i had a crush on him
and we "dated" for a month or two.

when i came to college,
a one night stand asked
if i liked the red hot chili peppers.
i said of course so he picked up
the guitar. it sounded familiar...
daniel's song!
i asked the title.
he scoffed and said
under the bridge.

he should have failed that project.

Window Pain

There is a man

with a window

for a face.

He is perturbed;

it troubles him

because

he can’t see out

but any(every)one can see in.

The rotten hair curtains

hang down—frame his edges—

but do not offer any protection.

they are lacerated

beyond repair:

worms of death and decay

have torn each into each.

Each day he feels

the uniqueness of

the people who pass him—

but no consent.

His cracked countenance

gives no indication

that it hurts or

that he actively resists

the daily rape from the passerby.

But each day he

spreads into nothing

spreads into nothing.

He grows weak.

staring, staring—

there is no closure.

When you took me that day

underneath the boundless crystal sky,

the lutescent sun that could never burn

as fiercely or hotly as our lust,

and the delicate fingers of the clouds

that wished (in vain) to reach with intention

the way our fingers reached toward each other,

we left patches of flattened grass

in the shape of our love in that meadow.

I went back the next day

and they were gone.

functional organs

in medieval times,
people believed that
all your feelings were stored
in your liver.

in the present day,
i drink because
i'm happy and
i deserve to celebrate.

i think these two
are connected
somehow.

if i ever tell you
i love you with all my liver,
i mean it.
and if i say that my drinking
is carving you a bigger place
to sit, then i mean that too.

livers can regrow themselves.
so too, my spirits.

oranges are tumors.
morbid.
pick, drain, and drink.

i think
what i liked best
about meeting you
twice a month
in a seedy motel 6
in a tiny town off i81
is that you never called me
a(ny) name
i couldn't live up to.

summer is a good time
for sitting outside
listening to cicadas
and wondering about ants.

do they get confused
if they get on a bus
by accident
and end up far away
from their home?

does an ant feel
scared does an ant feel
loss does an ant
worry about the future
because he hasn't found a job yet
and he can't afford to live--

probably not.
what does he know
he's just an ant

If Medusa Had a Lover

i.

Fuck me with your eyes

shut—too dangerous to risk them open.

See me like (stevie) wonder-ment:

pleasure braille coating my skin.

Read me like wanting, fold and unfold

me so many times that my dents get dents

and I become unreadable. But you’ll

remember my patterns, even if my skin doesn’t.

“Dangerous” is pejorative, but I’ve been told

I’m bad for you like cigarettes

and local news. Side Effects may include

dry mouth, constipation, and limited mobility.

ii.

I knew there could be a look of Death

but I thought I had control. So when it

snuck up behind my eyes four days ago

and implanted itself into your slurpy flesh,

my insides snaked and my hair gurgled…

Three days ago you groaned

getting out of bed, like

your limbs were heavy.

I said I was sorry, that I didn’t

mean it mean-like. But that doesn’t

change I felt you start

building up. solid.

Two days ago I reached

for you as you walked in,

but you looked at me quizzically…

like who are you and what have you done

with my lover? Retaliation?

(sharp intake of breath: hisssssss.)

Or just a side effect of the slow

crumbling?

Yesterday I tried to give you

a massage like maybe

that would ease the tension

            between us.

But you said press harder

harder love, I can’t feel you.

But I had no more strength to give.

Today I feel your

arteries harden.

your eyes are dying

into a concrete—

            Chimerism at its finest.

iii.

I’ve heard it said that revenge is best

served cold, so now I only eat ice and sleep

without blankets.

I bought a hand mirror, but when I got home

the cold was so serrated that the glass

cracked before I could.

I can’t remember what you said

that made me so mad—

            I can’t feel anything anymore either.

I will never forget

the temperature of the air

on that day. Or that you

didn’t have a beard

when I was expecting you would.

I hugged you out of nervousness—

            what is etiquette?!

The word surprise ricocheted

in my stomach, pretending it was

butterflies.

If I could have known then

what I know now, I wouldn’t

hesitate—

            but when has love

            ever made a person smarter?

Now I just go

and sit in a house I don’t believe in

and do work in the same room

as another human, share a bed

with him to spite myself.

Maybe I’ll write about this

for insincerity.

but then why does laughing put us in stitches?

I never understood why
cutting a loose thread
hanging from a fabric
makes it stop unraveling.
It doesn’t seem right that
not securing
the problem area
makes it all end. fine.

The thing about closure

within un-closure

is that making a new something

that won’t (shut)

even though the open-ness—
is attractive

is truly frightening.
Exposure always is.

I want the unraveling
the coming undone(!)
          the urgency, necessity—

exciting.

and they are doomed to repeat it

You smell like

fakeness and lies.

Where have you been?

            “no place”

oh. alright.

Your nose…

            it isn’t right!

Why is it above your eye?

            “you’re seeing things

            it’s the drugs again”

sure. that’s it. easy.

Your voice is much too

yellow. So happy for

causing so much pain…

            “I have no idea

            what you’re talking about”

i guess you never do.

That kiss is sour—no.

            bitter.

It’s never been this way before.

Who you are anymore?

            “i’m just me”

I’m having déjà vu

and I don’t know why…

            “repeat that?”

exactly.

Spidery eyelashes open and shut, but not like a danger. like a beckoning. The tendrils of my gaze wind lazily toward you, asking gently. When you don't look away, they intensify; you've shown them that it's safe to root. Their fingernails gouge your corneas--ripping you open--forcing themselves deep into your mind, rods and cones be damned. "Please?" flows from my lips; the timbre of my voice scratching the itch in your brain you never knew you had. "I'll do anything" licks your neck, oozes down your spine. The ether of my breath is intoxicating; not like a numbing but like tingles. An inch from your face-- the heat in the air smells like kissing, but not yet-- I feel your heat rising, bubbling awareness as every nerve ending awakens at my sound. "Pour it into me"-- my inky breath dissolves your last remnants of strength...

pathetic

someone told me
that emerson once said
            writing is easy. all you have to do is
            sit at a typewriter and bleed.

I tried that,
but it didn't work.

I just got re(a)d all over.

About a Boy

I picked him a flower

(I wanted to see his reaction.

It would speak volumes.)

He smiled and 

I remember liking the way that flower looked

perched in his glasses,

and the way the pollen

coated the side of his frames,

like spewing reproductive fluids

was on the corner of his brain

but not the center.

I guess it makes sense now

that the flower was a buttercup;

something about yellow meaning happiness

and happiness being with him

even though he wasn’t big on

words. But as much as he hid

I knew a tenderness was there

for me to thread the needle

of his compass and direct him

back to my safety, sew up

the gashes trauma tore in triplicate.

If I run fast enough,

my feelings can’t catch me,

But he always can.

Rule 34

I think, therefore porn.

            (because that’s what

            the rule states, you know:

if it exists, there is porn of it)

which is why there are so many

office trysts, I think.

people must have been watching

too much boss/secretary porn.

and that’s why bisexual is a

fetish—the pretty little unicorn

giggling as she teases fake from

between the legs of one and

receives lies (in the ass, of course,

because it’s filthy) from the other.

           oh hell—

that must mean god doesn’t exist…

I’ve never seen porn where Jesus comes

(ha) down off the cross and has a threesome

with His Father and the Holy Ghost.

maybe they’d throw a vagina

in there to make it more

interesting, tryin’ to race

to see who could fuck it first but

JOKE’S ON YOU THEY’RE ALL THE SAME!

            shit like that’s all the same…

But there isn’t porn of me… fuck.

L'appel du Vide

I could write a poem

about the way her nose crinkles

when it presses against the sheets—

but a physicist told me that things

don’t actually touch,

they just have electromagnetic

interaction.

It’s a little unsettling

to think of the people you love

as only atoms and that void,

like maybe all you ever really love

is nothing.

But even though she is mostly nothing

and sometimes something, I am

still insanely vertigo(ne).

It’s that primal anomaly:

when confronted with an infinite

Nothing,

all a person yearns to

hungers and thirsts for

lusts after can’t resist the temptation to

jump in.

And if she is mostly nothing

And if I am mostly nothing

And if I look on her and need nothing, then

the next time I see her, I’ll beg:

Let me dive into your dark places.

Let me taste the gap between your

atoms. I can fill your spaces.

Help Wanted

There are no job openings

for benevolent dictators,

so I went on Monster

and made one.

            I got 400,000 views

            but no replies.

Then I posted an ad

for a violent dictator.

The only reply was

from “Anonymous”—

            an image of a

            melting armadillo.

And I knew he was The One.

I sent an email

requesting an interview.

He said look around;

            I am everywhere.

Lost and ____

I do not want to be¹

a female impersonator:²

the part is sick of representing the whole.³

“Who are you anyway?”⁴

took a little tabula rasa with her caffeine—⁵

me, as ever, gone⁶

to be beautiful…enough for someone to want.⁷

Can you make a double negative of⁸

our physicality…?⁹

It is important not to be fooled¹⁰

[by] a heretic’s mirror for the true story¹¹

no matter how many pages you eat,¹²

but it’s also true that you can’t really know until it’s¹³

one of many dull aches.¹⁴

The process wobbles wildly and accelerates.¹⁵

there is no need for this—¹⁶

[a] body of flaws¹⁷

disguises the¹⁸

shapes the shapelessness was taking back.¹⁹

a world of bone seen through to!²⁰

continue: we’ll discover where you sweat.²¹

We sleep together in the dark—²²

(default position,²³

trying to become one creature)²⁴

it disguises the kissing and makes us less sad—²⁵

but confuse²⁶

equal opportunity²⁷

with love.²⁸

does it follow that the sleep of monsters produces reason?²⁹

a boy just like you took me out to see them³⁰

and he wanders among strangers all he wants³¹

marking a stillness we can’t keep,³²

finding all of the stops.³³

There are moments in our lives which, threaded, give us heaven³⁴

Unbodied!³⁵

because we never existed inside time,³⁶

its pale and inconclusive utterances—³⁷

Are you still there for me in that dark?³⁸

Empty rooms love the dark,³⁹

made you glad for beauty like that, casual and intense—⁴⁰

the more-than-you-bargained-for surprise of it⁴¹

most delicate of manias,⁴²

until the sound of the cataracts grows.⁴³

The key to tranquility is⁴⁴

—rule of the mad—⁴⁵

(to yell is the rule here)⁴⁶

Any simple problem can be made insoluble;⁴⁷

water seeks its own level.⁴⁸

Attention wanes,⁴⁹

even in a fish tank.⁵⁰

1 Carson, “Stanzas, Sections, Seductions”

2 Carson, “Stanzas, Sections, Seductions”

3 Armantrout, “Own”

4 Armantrout, “Wannabe”

5 CD Wright, “One with Others”

6 Carson, “Despite Her Pain, Another Day”

7 Armantrout, “Later”

8 Carson, “Totality: the Colour of Eclipse”

9 Carson, “Decreation”

10 Carson, “Decreation”

11 Carson, “Decreation”

12 Carson, “Decreation”

13 Armantrout, “On Your Way”

14 Armantrout, “Minimum Sum”

15 Hass, “Misery and Splendor”

16 Hass, “Late Spring”

17 Graham, “Two Paintings by Gustav Klimt”

18 Carson, “The Day Antonioni Came to the Asylum”

19 Graham, “What the End is For”

20 Graham, “San Sepolcro”

21 Carson, “Aria of Last Cherries”

22 Armantrout, “The Light”

23 Armantrout, “Just”

24 Hass, “Misery and Splendor”

25 Carson, “The Day Antonioni Came to the Asylum”

26 Armantrout, “The Light”

27 CD Wright, “One with Others”

28 Armantrout, “The Light”

29 CD Wright, “One with Others”

30 Graham, “What the End is For”

31 Hass, “The Apple Trees at Olema”

32 Graham, “Over and Over Stitch”

33 Graham, “San Sepolchro”

34 Graham, “Over and Over Stitch”

35 Graham, “What the End is For”

36 Hass, “Then Time”

37 Graham, “Over and Over Stitch”

38 Graham, “What the End is For”

39 CD Wright, “One with Others”

40 Hass, “Spring Rain”

41 Hass, “On Squaw Peak”

42 Graham, “Over and Over Stitch”

43 Graham, “What the End is For”

44 CD Wright, “One with Others”

45 Carson, “The Day Antonioni Came to the Asylum”

46 Carson, “The Day Antonioni Came to the Asylum”

47 CD Wright, “One with Others”

48 CD Wright, “One with Others”

49 Armantrout, “Poem”

50 CD Wright, “One with Others”

Under Pressure

The First Post.

...so much pressure. 

Welcome friends, and friends I haven't met yet! :)   

I'm glad to have you here. I hope you find what you're looking for.