La Dispute

Drivers out on the bridge Slowing down as they go through a lane shift Wires snap Concrete gives Metal twisting and Everything tumbling At the end of the work day Stuck in traffic don’t feel when the road sways Underneath Concrete gives Metal twisti...

So here goes, 
One last letter now. One last attempt to Make sense. Who have I been writing to? I'm not sure anymore. What have I Been trying to accomplish? It's a mystery, I guess. Self-made secrecy. Things get cloudy and now all these stories and
The stru...

Night fell on me writing this and I ran out of paper so I crossed the name Out at the top of the page. Not sure why I'm even writing this. But I guess It feels right. It sort of feels like I have to–like an exorcism.
I Guess that makes me sound crazy but th...

Everybody wants a reason for everything. 
It's so much easier with Someone or something to blame. 

I've always struggled at the Root of the problem. 
Has it been absence or my constant lack of Defense? 

I've never spent a lot on finding a remedy. I guess...


Third time writing you a letter, getting darker. I'm getting worse And worse. 

I had a reason for the writing, but trying to Exorcise my demons didn't work. To try to rid me of the worry and to purge You out of wonder for the future and the hurt. I wrote...

pick up the phone. (blessed be the thief, disguised in skin, and blessed are the fingers that gesture him in.) paint the receiver to the side of the fake, lying at the bottom of the staircase. broken elbows, and your coming through the window. and...

So now tell me how your story goes. Have you ever suffered? 
If so, Did you get better or have you never quite recovered from it? 
Did You find your lover laying in your bedroom with another and then
Did You let it hover over you and everything else well af...

You still cross my mind from time to time. And I mostly smile. Still so set on finding out where we went wrong and why So I retrace our every step with an unsure pen, trying to figure out what my head thinks, but my head just ain't what it used to be. And...

Oh, we could blame it on our hands They lifted the drink to our mouths so we drank it Or we could blame it on our bodies They say, we like the way we feel when we get touched You've got your fingers snared in my veins I think it's time you pulled them out And...

Scene from a highway in the desert, I let the car drift some, Eye your uncomfortable pose and profile, The postures of long drives. Shifting numb and sore parts When you can no longer sit them. Foot on the dash, foot on the dash, X hours or so from som...

She forced a smile, said, "Boy, come kiss my mouth—I'll set you free. You know that hope you're holding to? It looks an awful lot like fear. Now, you're so quick to fall on failure, and so quick to raise your voice, like, 'If I can't find a mistake to blame, w...

An outcry, 
To lost dreams and sense of wonder
To the streets That raised him. Say, 
"Goodbye" to the hope for the home he'd been Holding. 
Say, "Goodbye" and "Be gone" and "Be great."
To the Friends who left when they still could, 
For the ones who chose t...

I heard the old man's voice break, stutter once then stop it. I Heard
A sentence started confidently halted by the sudden absence of A word. Stumbled and he sputtered trying to find it back, something once so Simple gone now. 
When he finally gave up told m...

1978 - San Diego: I'd just come out the other side of a relationship that blew up I was angry, and disillusioned, and ultimately self-destructive. I'd lost everything I believed in I was as utterly, completely alone as I've ever been. So I began going on wal...

It was out on the highway. It was warmer than blood. It was spaces and basements. Faces brimming with love. It was nightfall to daybreak. Finding a new way It was falling asleep at the wheel while awake. It was wasting away; delay the promise of heartache,...

Morning after snowstorm Stand in the silence Almost feel reborn all alone on the street It’s a certain sort of stillness when the quiet surrounds you The only sound your shovel on concrete I remember those piles from the snow plows always seemed much big...

(oh crashing airplane, where were you the day she left?) underneath the laughs there lies a need that nobody is getting. and an honesty that doesn't stretch far enough to show us all how much this will mean to us, my dear. and when we're old we'll tell o...

Out where the stones lay like bones by the ocean Out where the waves crash contempt on the land Someone was trembling for fear of the tempest Somebody silently reached for their hand Said, understand that if you're cold I'll keep you warm And besides, there's...

I knew it was far too late to walk out on the lake then Halfway to the middle thawed I wasn’t doing all that great Had I cut my hair short? Had I grown my beard out long? Had I gone to school or…? Why do all my plans fall through? There’s a leak in th...

Sure, I know that you are tired of hearing about it But most repeat the same theme over and over again, It's as if they were trying to refine what seems so strange And off and important to them. It's done by everybody Because each must work out what is before...

Funny what you think of after a collapse While lying in the dirt the first thing that comes back is never quite what you’d have guessed And if you could have, you probably would’ve said you’d check if all your limbs were intact still and then try to get out...

There was once a great kingdom, and its great king had a beautiful daughter who passed her days in solitude, weaving garments for the pleasure of her father. One day, while she was sitting beside the great river, peering across, she saw a handsome young she...

(Crows, wipe the blood from the end of your claws. Said the vulture Lets gather like storms for the war. Crows, as the night turns its skin into coal, Dark as corpses but cluttered with gold. They will label you thieves, wolves, and whores but you are not...

Like a shadow on a shadow, a phantom in a filmstrip, 
Faint glimmer Of the past trapped in mother's old slides. 
Sits still in the Apartment while sifting through some pictures
Of the child that he Once was and the sense of hope they framed. 
"It's a shame,...

we move by instinct, darling let our hands be hatchets, let us wander blindly, swinging madly in a forest made of flesh. we move by instinct, darling let our eyes like lepers drive the doubters from our homes and into the bottom of the sea. and we spea...

I say a drink might help me sleep, I say I don’t sleep much at all these days, I say it’s cold, Besides, I’m broken. Hard as earth the love of the past, The worth of the world has frozen Still. Like the sheet of ice collecting on the windshield of my car...

There are bridges over rivers There are moments of collapse There are drivers with their feet on the glass You can kick but you can’t get out There is history in the rooms of the house After dinner Do the dishes Mother hums The coffeemaker hisses on t...

Like any morning of my junior year I stumble in the classroom late but this Day I see
Faces, I feel an air like a funeral, like a wake, as I sit Down. 
My teacher speaking, somewhat somberly, but still confident And calm. 
Part eulogy, her speech, and part...

Another shooting on the southeast side. This a drive-by, mid-day, Outside of the bus stop, by Fuller and Franklin. Or near there. Not far from the park. About a block from where the other shooting was last Month. Or was it last week? Shots were fired fr...

My precious wife, I am in shambles I am crumbling, I am Was it something I did Bid the tide to climb so high that it ripped our shore up I can fix it, I swear If you trust me I am old and I am rusting but I care I care My precious wife, we made a promise Pled...

"I've come here as a man in shambles—worn out from begging on my knees. Please, I'm just trying to keep my family together. Now, when you saw you're lover wore a ring around her finger, why didn't you stop? I have half a mind to make you hurt, to make you b...

i recall once on the church steps, when I moved to kiss your chest, how we paid such close attention to each sweet and stuttered breath, I should’ve stopped to paint our picture, captured honest pure affection, just to document the difference between...

I know that someday you'll be sleeping, Darling, likely dreaming off the pain. I hope you'll hear me in the streetlight's humming, softly breathing out your name. I know that even with the seams stitched tightly, darling scars will remain. I say we scrape th...

Yesterday alone I laid everything out on the carpet Books, kitchen things, objects With specific purpose or none Arranged them sideways in a grid On the floor there, unmoored Out of context and then considered it First the whole picture, then everything...

In the last quarter of the twentieth century much of the world sat on the edge of an increasingly expensive theater seat waiting for something momentous to occur. Christian aficionados of the Second Coming scenario were convinced that, after two thousand ye...

both butterflies and dragonflies have wings like when you sing i swear you hit two different notes but they don't harmonize as clean as when you speak there is a rhythm in the scraping of your tongue along your teeth that comes across as well as hell inside...

They stored their passion in the creases in the corners of their mouths, Every angle of light from the open window washed their aged faces out. "Should we feel guilty?" they said, "Should we feel guilty for this sin? Lord, did we kill a man and woman just...

I’ve been watching a slow thaw come around. I’ve been waiting in the cold and hazy blue. I’ve been driving alone out to the edge of town. I’ve been thinking too much of you. Last snowfall left splinters and some winters never end; neither wane nor wear. A...

"Up, M'Lady--Pack your things, this place is not your home. Nor was it ever, sever every tie, tonight we ride. Tonight we ride." "And how we've trembled at the way that time's assembled little fires of desire in the tundra of our skin. So, do yourself a lit...

I let the car drift some Eye your uncomfortable pose in profile The postures of long drives That endless cycling of your numb and near sleeping parts And you lean much harder than you need when the road curves Swerve through traffic and the cracks in the...

i'm reading over your shoulders, it says it in every line, in ever curve and crack. it says it in every detail of your face, unmistakably apparent in this dull light. tracing a separate letter, forming a separate word. twisting together to build the same...

The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, Spring-cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; Then on ladders and steps and chairs, With a brush and a pail of whitewash; Till he had dust in his throats and eyes, And splashes of wh...

the lion isn't sacred when not sleeping near the lamb, it is evil when it eats unless it's feeding from the damned, all the children painted diagrams of god upon their hands, hoping somewhere on this shaking earth they could find a place to stand. it's a...

The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, Whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor. Nothing is...

Stained-glass and the choir sing out that strong and ceaseless Chorus here. 
So sweet the voices, sweep like leaves into the street. 
On Eastern, a celebration carried on for God and hope and Refuge
To keep each other, life; give shelter from the storm. And...

If I could play back every moment to you now Spent lovesick and swollen on Mornings mincing garlic on the counter by the sink If I could hit the instant replay on only every good day Would any of it catch you by surprise? When you say, "something is miss...

I think I saw you in my sleep, darling, I think I saw you in my dreams you were Stitching up the seams on every broken promise That your body couldn't keep. I think I saw you in my sleep. I thought I heard the door open, oh no, I thought I heard the door open...

Sunday Morning still laid innocent in sheets, barely half asleep. Sunday Morning I was dreaming I was turning from a busy street into a parking lot. Sunday Morning broke and dragged me out of bed, slightly less asleep. Sunday Morning I was warming all...

I promised Colin I’d keep writing, and That’s the only promise I’ve kept, but I have no regrets. Like, Your empty mailbox? It doesn’t bother me. Not at all. And I promised you I’d come visit soon. Guess I should’ve made the trip, but Money’s tight as rope and...

Now speak of anger, forget all the fears you've kept about love and sex and death and faith, erased, or swinging sweet from around her neck and between her breasts. Let every lonely body finally break its fear of flesh and say, "How strange it must've b...

There were shadows in the bedroom Where the light got thrown by the lamp on the nightstand On your mother’s side, after midnight, still You can see it all You can see it all And the closet in the corner On the far back shelf with the keepsakes, she hid...

I felt your sickness brush against my arm as I walked by you - heard your voice but couldn't tell that it was you. And, slowly, watched your sickness slip away into a place that I'd once feared but I was not afraid this time So I gave chase and found it, final...

After sundown, before sleeping, I am the worst of me. I am a mess of these Old themes and the murmur of half-dreams whisper seductively and Stage scenes. It's fear fiction, these visions, caught somewhere between delusion and Prophesy. What I haven't don...

don't call this an art project. this is science, this is progress. and don't pretend these are heartfelt words, we are children dressed as surgeons but disturbed by the sight of our scars. and now we carry scalpels to trace the scarring resting somewhere...

I spoke too soon, it seems, for you made a home in my dreams. While I slept you kept running yourself through my head, Like, "I won't be dead yet." I said, "You don't understand. We had no control. They stole it; love's been so unfair to me." "But see, boy, th...

We will kneel down in the reeds beside the water We will float two paper boats down slowly in The river spiderwebs the map like breaking glass like here might shatter Send us scattering like seeds into the wind From the cattails bursting, slamming on our s...

It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me. I was a child and she was a child, In that prin...

oh, you've a pretty mouth, leave your lips to linger on my skin and kiss me one last time i will roll off your tongue like a whisper in the winter sleeping in the sutures of the city's skin make yourself remember me in cold and concrete. when will you r...

Walked into find you sitting in your kitchen, softly singing, “Someone carry me away.” If there’s always someone leaving. Will we ever stop believing that the winter fits us perfectly? Isn’t someone always coming? Once the summers up and running Won’t you f...

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond any experience, your eyes have their silence: in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which i cannot touch because they are too near your slightest look easily will unclose me though i have cl...

It's perfectly ok, I'm afraid, too. 

At times I've shouted out, unprovoked, At the world and you just to see if the people around me react Sometimes I think they're all acting Times I'm scared that I'm acting, too Like, my movements or stage directions? Was that a change in topic or a beat i...

Where a bookshelf goes or a throw rug How you shape any common space And the language you make out of looks and names All the motions of ordinary love All the weight it can hold when you say one name All the motions of ordinary love They grow and change...

You in the living room You on a Tuesday afternoon A breeze seen when the curtains move You by the window with both feet up on the couch Where you sit and you read and I watch you From the office the sunlight frames your silhouette I think of lighting f...

What will I find? 
Some sacred thing to help me handle the tragedy? 
Or did I once–Did I have it and lose it? No one should ever have to walk through the fire alone. 
No one Should ever have to brave that storm. No, 
Everybody needs someone or Something....