Downmarket Drugs For Upmarket Thieves

I open my eyes and unfurl
like a flag against the base-blue skies of middling winter.

Hose, straw, forty dollars, ripped maroon puffy vest,
girl asleep on basement sofa, and 6 stops to make before home.

Don’t stop. Don’t turn off the stereo.
I dream about making amazing conversation and laughing lightly,

but I’m here, pushing the cold force of my massive middle.
Sit in the doorway and listen for people.

I’ll be out in a minute, don’t talk.

In Quietness, Frogmen Make Tender The Deep

We don’t know anything about the oceans.
I can believe in multi-headed things again
and be thankful.

I can trust that the universe of acorns, saturated ruderals, and hurled curses near
the water’s edge sank and have blossomed on the seafloor, sprouted forests
slick spouts of mud-swelled gardens, and lost conversations. You can’t prove I’m wrong.

Like a lot of life, the human component in this is minimal. Water is immortal. Sand and rock are subducted into the earth at ocean-logged cracks, hiding the crimes of the surface. What’s true is less important than what’s believed. Oceans taught us this.

Are there deeply lit joys down there, benthic anglerfish? Are there seeds of hurricanes
and arcs, alien of origin, and all of my old coats,
piled in a stack? Do thermal vents whisper crisply one thousand miles away?

I understand that you have hopes, trench dweller,
and small victories, and fast moving currents to content with. The millionfish playground of my moroseness is swimming.

Head South Bomb

I sit ticking, burned and waiting for an excursion.

There cannot be space enough created
fast enough for my proper de-rooting, for my send-shimmering
abscission. For a proto-holy mistake taken running away. Get
out of my flamed face—sit back and spin south as I certain
jerk away from this heatless seat.

We’ve waited for a long time to find out
something about children or a lesson about
the lager spinning world
or a notice about the soul—and I don’tcaredon’tcaredon’tcare.
I’d handover all treasure for a small space in a hot place,

a parade of faces that go blank seconds from when I gottoo drunken
fell around the place. These are dicing games, with no handholding
and no waking up next to oneanother, and onetwofew towels,
and allwet allover the floor.
Don’t forgive the sun that hangs with fleshly breath/is wildly popular.

Read me close and blow me like a fuse,
hold hard to your homestead before I shoot off
bang
bang
bang
and you’re bombed.

Sick Behind School And I Saved Her

In the tenth grade I found you hanging on to the bumper
of some girl’s car, with a flexing back and vomit all on you.

We were sweet to each other despite the circumstance. I took
your pinkies into my pinkies and made a promise with our heads

close together. There was music all over the place, that’s what
most people remember, but we felt, we said, like very small

round dots in the middle of a perfectly white page. Every other
sentence started with she, and, with noise like paint-dripped

over a picture book, I can now only recount what was shown
in the corners. Birds flying and calling mystery. A mangley veined

leaf and surrounding greenery. Etc. Still clear are the cuffs
of your very long jeans worn hard, the dirty words you uttered

into the back of a tire, and your bottom lip dropping soft as a promise
when I made it laugh.

Fillip Is Resilent Again

His doughy hand’s back pushed into
Babycheek until it’s red. “Fill,
you can come out now.”
But the sulk is too good
and when he closes his eyes
against the sun in the window
he can see blotchy beaches under
his lids
and hear the ocean.

32

One ear is crap
which makes the other gold. I’ve got near disastrous
hearing balance. She can’t say
right?
from the kitchen but I don’t ask again. We’re not tired
of that, too much, but hitting hoarse early.
A bright side might be graveling up
like John Lee Hooker
or learning how to listen hard.

I could hear the spiders knitting in the front
room if they had shit to say.

Years follow on like little ducks swimming
and nip hear near my head. I could say
that I missed seeing that last beyond the other,
but there’s no mistaking the murmur.

Sansers Convention: Welcome Sansers

Immoderately, the Sansers
wept for themselves.

They drenched the rugs
They lapsed into fit in the ballroom
They convulsed at the sight of the catering tables
They quizzed oneanother to disastrous result
They unmelted all of the ice in the ice bowl
They sent away the bellman with grey looks and no tip
They chided the children into peeking around the unused backdoor
They elected a master of ceremonies who behaved like a hooligan

A ruined scarf and a stained tie for each
man and woman. We hotel guests were shaken,
bound in our beds
with the thermal
rouse that made its way
over the pipes and through
the walls
into each chamber. Seemed to moisten paper borders
near every cornice, devalue
our own sounds, as self-serving and trifling.

Every man’s brain is a hidey-hole when the storm starts to rise. A safe spot to lie when systems shut down, when the notthink is everywhere and our eyes can’t stay closed, when hardheads like the Sansers are poised to strike. Me? I return to the back bedroom of my stepdad’s now shuttered apartment, with blankets heavier than my body covering, and sour wine rushing in from the kitchen, and tiny blinking lights everywhere.

Don’t forget this.
The message came rolling out,
slurred wave of noise supporting it like a stiff
peak crowning a bowl of meringue, not to forget. It’s difficult
to feel this way with the bottomless chambermaid running through
the hall calling “Get out! The pipes are burst!”

Sansers broke a compact with the management and stunk up the place we trusted with our sleep, with our prone and naked bodies. They bribed our hurt feelings with a loving cupful of hundred dollar bills. They salved tiny agonies with warm gesturing and meaty handshakes. They heard nothing and continued on like louts for the age.

Hi Top Hawaii

A literal soda fountain bubbles over greens and blues
that aren’t replaceable by the rain. She is covered
by water
barely awake (again, literal)
and subtracting from my memories of lesser flesh
almost in the instant I see her.

My head, and brains are a sucking house hororshow
replacing tropix hot smells
with frozen dirt and scuffed
sorrowful shoes I wore in the sixth grade.

She is a hard point in my mind, though
keeping me. Rotating rainbows, soft-to-the-touch
and arched backed. Wet, fluorescent,
running timed brakebeats under the sun of don’t remember.