my father, on the eve of his birth, 57 years to the day

whiskey drunk, we stumble onto the dock and watch the sea crawl toward us on its belly, somehow whispering and screaming at the same time.  he speaks as though he is a forest burning down.  i am mostly silent.  he says "a birthday is just another day."  i think "i am glad you were born."

flowerpot

my eyelids are turning into raindrops.  wash me with sandpaper and put me to sleep.  the nights are football field long, and i find myself in the middle of them, walking.  

never talk to strangers

as i am walking down the street, there is a man in a third floor window.  i look up and smile.  he says: "what the fuck are you looking at, dude?"  i keep walking.  people are good, deep down.

obituary

i hope they say i was a crazy sumbitch who never listened to anybody, but loved people like the way mountains speak, and was one hellof a dancer.

for rosie, a run-on sentence

the sky bursting with light, a forest burning down, the rain like a sigh, planes writing in the blue, ten thousand daffodils, a single letter in the mailbox, watermelon, driving all night, sleeping under the oak, all that laughter that went un-laughed, swimming in the river, the way summer feels inside my skin, how every tiny little piece of me scrunches up and buzzes like my body is a radio playing classic rock at top volume and i am running as fast as my lungs will take me and it's the way the ocean feels, touching so much at once, and it is blink, breathe, kiss and all those little pieces strung together, and me trying to stretch myself bigger to contain it all, to fall on my knees, to be planted in the soil, it is tiny explosions in my chest and sea turtles in my belly, and i don't think i can take it, like the stitches holding it all together will come undone, and my chest is a hot air balloon, and it is just so much, and i think i am a falling bridge, but there are arms to catch me, and somehow i am picked up and polished and it all looks different and i lay my head on a pillow and just like that, i am new again.

i like the sound your voice makes, i like the way you feel.  yes.

a quilt shaped like your hands

telephone poles are a city's way of trying to touch the sky.  the artery is thick, it moves like traffic, there are snakes in the blood, the ceiling inside the vein is painted like apples, it makes a sound similar to gravel.  what i am trying to do is make sense.  there will be twin ghosts sleeping inside my feet tonight.  at the edge of heaven, there are thirteen children playing a game that seems like the burning dreams of a forest that holds shadows inside its wood.  they sit in a circle all day long, as trains go by.  the ground they sit upon is feverish.  there is a swirling.  mockingbirds watch them.  their laughter rings like gravity.  they will never stop.

a couch on the freeway

when it plays, you will hear it.  the molecules that make up your body will spin.  the room will turn into a hurricane of walls around you.  there are archers with flaming arrows behind the 7-11.  the leather armchair in the front room has turned into a time machine again.  when you lay down in your bed, your body keeps catching on fire.  a black lincoln continental is selling acorns from suicide doors.  i don't trust it.  the porch light in my chest has a burned out bulb.  we are born with gravity ringing in our ears.  what can i say about the night?  your wrist tastes like flying.  your collar bone feels like silence.  the streets have filled up with gasoline.  all it would take is a single match.