Plague.

Rivers run true,

Bury themselves in the earth.

The animals,

Insects blaze out. Keep me close here,

Sweat pressed up against your eyelids,

Round this next curve.

We learn to fight

and make dirt

Taste good. We remember cheeseburgers,

Fuck like grease.

This hollow

Sound in my chest,

This wind that doesn’t come.

Jenna, when was the last time I thought

About you.

Today I got yelled at by a passing dog

And a policeman. I gave the dog

A look of contempt and the policeman

A bouquet of pinwheels.

I wanted to be dirty,

So I stole a car that was naked

And left its torn leather seats

Outside of town, staring out over the hills.

If your head was a lamp,

It would only go one click

Before it broke.

I have a jar full of secrets

I can’t tell anyone

But I can tell how much you suffer for them

And it makes me want to step inside

and spread you around.

Honestly,

I’d like less of me in this world,

Less of me fallen like saltwater taffy over telephone lines,

exploded bubble gum and feathers.

Count backwards from five thousand

until the ceiling turns the face of your mother

into ten mangy dogs

but still you can't sleep.

At 3:45 in the morning

Your toaster oven knows you

better than the girl sleeping upstairs.

But this slice of pizza don’t know shit.

dump dead deer in

red dirt ditch.

wait for sound of

engine slowing to park.

take me home.

i am bitter cold.

Philadelphia left me 
With a pill box in my pocket 
And Chinese Laundromat smell 
In my hair.

Yahima said, “Wind brings waves!”

So I tossed my electric heater in the fish tank.

The fish survived,
But what happened to us?

You’re probably snoring your way to Jersey,

Or somewhere less exciting 
Than my bedroom.

My humming bedroom--

Where the sparks blaze 
And the fish dance.

The clock is ticking.

The noise should be constant. It should

hit the beat all the time. But

it’s tick, tick, tick. Then tick, tick – tick. Suddenly

your heartbeat no longer lines up.

You feel as though you’re dying by the second

or half second.

It really depends on when that tick happens.

Feeling death or thoughts of dying

is what we do after 40.

We balance whether this cheeseburger is worth

that extra 30 minutes it’s probably taking.

It is, by the way.

In my last 30 minutes,

I will be remembering all the great food I’ve had

and forgotten meals

consumed in front of the television.

People, in life, encourage humility.

They tell you to be humble in sports,

it’s only a game.

They tell you to be humble to your family,

they are the ones who love you

whether or not you’ll ever improve.

Be humble before God,

because…

Well I am not really sure and also

fuck that.

When I die,

I want people to be so shocked

that they shut down

like a soldier who developed PTSD

as a child.

When I die, I want there

to be a service so grand

that people wished they could have had an invite.

When I die,

I want it to create a hole so big

that physics can’t fill it.

I want everything I’ve written

to be read again.

To children.

Even the fuck words.

Because you should only trust

people who curse.

I want my stuff

to have a presence on eBay.

I want a fireworks ceremony

so I can scare

the shit

out of my cats, one last time.

I want to be the character

that everyone is pissed is gone the next season.

I want a memorial bench

so now I can support you.

I know I haven’t always.

When all we are given is

a murderous teacher

named time…

When all we have is

what we leave behind.

It shouldn’t surprise you

that I want some immortality.

As much as I can get.

Who’s selling it?

Where can I buy it?

You want to be loved in life.

I want to be loved eternally.

I want you to remember me,

smiling.

Then laughing so hard

that I make zero noise.

I want you to remember how blue

my eyes were

when the sun finally came out.

I want that clock

to hit the seconds

like it’s supposed to.

Every. Single. Time.

My heart doesn’t like the spaces.

Mixer in the afternoon

alright, on my third

but outside the Sun is frying

everything in its touch

everything regarding the city suffers

a famous, commercial writer once said

never place your desk in front of a window

sitting here now in the early afternoon

frontal lobe joggled just enough

head change

ice at the bottom of a glass

sings as sweetly as Simone with

the right timing

watching the tip of the mountain

burn from my window while I write

take advice from no one

if it goes against your gut

ignore and avoid kept men

with soft hands

in weak imitation of the greats

ignore their cries for attention

and self-promotion

while they use age as a gauge for

wisdom while their

wives fold their clothes for them

in the next room

which overlooks a tiled den

and a gorgeous yard

ignore the bullshit

to simply survive is not enough

while outside the mountain burns

and your words hit the page

with force

the reward is doing it

the reward is in the lift of heart

those of us who have made a living off

the writing will tell you it’s

a long and brutal fucker of a climb

but a climb with each second worth

more than a life

avoid the circles of trash, stench, and low-flying resilience

aspire to money for contentment

but be driven by neither

accept to banish

abolish to embrace

don’t place faith in

the existence of things you

cannot see

but place it in things

you know must be there

laugh at the sorrow

while the sorrow eats you

and outside the mountain burns

and sheds rocks like tears

the Sun disfigures dream

the life of us gripped

in the fist

of our own surrender

of fear

but spiked with moments

of unfathomable joy

of moments combined

in memory

that becomes our fortress and gate

our Mars and Pompeii

our sunlight, Liszt, and metal

our poets, singers, thespians, and

criminals of war

all the love inside

trapped but burning

beneath all the anger, waiting

beneath the unfathomed greatness

built in

moment to moment

the buzz gripping the mind

the time running out in this poem

before I start sounding like one of them

and feeling the oddly warm comfort

when you become what you despise

sitting here in the early afternoon

the dead men on my shelves

the dead women on my shelves

the dead-eye stare of a mountain

on fire

weeping across the desert west to

California

where I know beauty

must be waiting

while I sit here writing

ugly in desert

officially drunk

while the mountain burns

and laughs

at my stupid

fucking

face.