Once I was an Arrow and Things Happened for a Reason, Now I'm Here.

Poetry set 2008

TV-DVDs
It’s nice when friends loan you TV-DVDs
because they are like getting
a chunk of time well spent
doing nothing

and when your done
you get to talk to them, your friends,
about what you did
and it sounds like
so much.


Crispness
Some mornings
when the last thing you want is to be bothered
unbelievably good things arrive

like a bottle of whiskey
distilled on your birth year
and sent to you from the future
aged one million years.



Once I Was An Arrow And Everything Happened For A Reason. Now I'm Here.
I jerk soda in front of a large silver mirror
behind a large wooden bar
that I wipe down from time to time
and nod to the customers from time to time
what'll you have buddy?
and the conversation
I control

they come in suits and dresses
to catch trains
they discuss the handling of things with conviction

they think they're better
I think I'm better

sometimes there are glimmers
but it doesn't matter

we're all too busy passing time
waiting for nothing

you know?



Sleet
It's still cold and you hate me a bit and I hate me a bit too and it's good to at finally agree on something and you loan me your scarf and I wait outside for the pizza guy and I think about how nothing's cute anymore and I complain to the pizza guy about the cold and he complains to me about the parking and then I go back upstairs and only watch as we both do the same exact goddam thing.



Two Onions
And in the morning I try to drink more coffee to make things better and in the fridge I open it looking for something to pull me out and I crack a beer and I've got a warm mug in one hand and a cold can in the other and now both my hands are too full do anything so I turn on the tv with my right ringfinger and remember you're still sleeping so I turn it down and it angers me to turn it down and not because I don’t like being considerate but because it reminds me of last night and the night before that and the one before that and how there is a major problem compounding and how I feel too weak to fix it, yet strong enough to avoid it, so I think that all is lost and I shouldn't even try now.  So I sip my beer and coffee and it makes me laugh when I think about what I must look like sitting naked with my two drinks and I want to run in and share it with you. But there are these layers between us that I cannot cut through, like we are both trapped inside two giant onions and we can't free ourselves without crying for no good reason.



Cocoon
Okay,
Okay?
Ok.




The Change
Awake
alone no not alone
and through the trees above,
Level 2.




Save As...
I never intended to write a poem
about the importance of the tangable and the intangable
but

this morning, before work,
I was looking at pictures of
train depos in rural France
on Flickr dot com

a random contact asked me to join their photo group
for some specific type of orange colored steam train

and
that's how I ended up looking at these pictures
of French depos
in my underwear in a cold apartment
before work
with Rachel asleep in the other room

and I thought
you can spend your whole life doing nothing
and you can spend your life doing something yet
it still feels like nothing

and maybe that's why God and sex are so popular
but I don't know

I just kept clicking on the pictures
and saving them to my computer.



Deal With It
First Sergeant said
when you’re up Shit’s Creek
build a bridge
and get the fuck over it
life ain’t lemonade
or some shit.



Fabric And Feelings
There are machines
you'll never know

like when I was in basic training
near the end
feeling proud and
feeling lost
like I had at the beginning
but better

and I looked down from the hill
at the dozens of barracks on base
the buses were just coming in
delivering the new recruits
still in their civilian clothes
picked out from stores
in their hometown

and I thought about the mixture of people
and places
fabric and feelings

and how
there must be a mathematical equation
to explain all of this

but there isn't

at least not on Google.



The Cracks Let The Light In, The Light Grows The Flowers, And The Flowers Are What We Eat
We walk together under the cables and lights
the summer's ease has been replaced with
snow
and you tell me
that this time of year
we deserve our dissatisfaction
or something like that

so we stay inside
online
searching for and finding exquisite mediocrity
not laughing not learning
just going hmmmm and
raising the bar
wondering why we're still bored
 
and so the only teamwork we can muster now
is scouring craigslist
hoping that someone out there needs an abstract painter
or a poet
or something like that
for some transformative reason, a new hope, a light, a dream

but they don't, nor ever will,
rofl.