it's not my fault, i tried to call.

our lives together, alone

"our lives together, alone"

we are blurs in between moments of neon light.

our drinks sweat alcohol out onto our hands &
we pat each others' shoulders. one of us seduces women
as our mouths swallow more pills in an attempt to find some
semblance of life amongst the mundane lives of fathers,
brothers, children, and wives.

it is easy to mistake the coke for snow, the pills for candy.
they are & we are the children.

we are brothers,
we are brothers,
we are brothers.

one fucks we all fuck
that's the way it's been,
the way it'll always be.

every piece of ass is a different piece of ass but
results in the same kind of metaphysical & carnally
despotic & empirical release.

we are bloodhounds.

we walk between each other, we speak words on top of words just to make sense of every broken thing in our lives. the moment
we realize our lives are not our own, that our lives don't love us, that we are all fucked; fucked in the same way is the moment we stop and melt.

we melt. we melt. we melt.

so i look to the brother on my left & the one on my right & the one in front of me. we depart. days from now, the coffeemaker drips thick black awakeness into a pot in the most simple of manners the most clockwork, the most who the fuck cares because every morning i wake up & don't care don't care don't care. i am dead inside. so are my brothers.

the people i know i watch die as they grow old and i remain in my unending youth, my forty something mind that laughs when an old person falls or when i fuck another man's wife or when i sit in the bath and think of infidelity.

i laugh. we are brothers. we carry the burden of manhood.

why bother concerning ourselves with present adventures when living comes more gracefully from nostalgia, from letters, from polaroids. the humming of the vacuum cleaner bludgeons my skull. it is perverse. i shave and cut my throat.

if i would've pressed deeper and held a knife i would be dead.

i cry in the mirror. nobody hears. everything is silent.
when i am alone, i am alone.

when i am with my brothers we carry each other. i say to myself:
i melt, i melt, i melt, i melt with you.

on fatherhood

"on fatherhood"

have we spoke about death and dying?

the subject speaks the way autumn leaves fall-

cold and inviting. i notice our child

run through our house

and i shudder as autumn cools

around my feet and hands.

my son the fortune teller: he reads my hands

blue eyes locked to my grey, dying

eyes. my heart beats and my oatmeal cools

i look to the window as he traces my palm, "fall" i note,

& shudder. i house

my fear as i turn to my child:

"thomas, my son, my child

my fate isn't marked in the lines of my hands

nor is my worth represented by our house.

i have more to do than be afraid dying."

my hands fall

& there is silence, ice cools

my heart. gaia's third season cools

the earth, before nature creates its fourth child-

December's white terror. after the orange and yellow fall

leaves are collected by my son's hands

as a means to protect what has been so busy dying.

his tiny relics crumble on the floors of our house

thomas craves to house

something deeper than Earth's yearly cools.

he claims that i am dying

i tell him, "my child, my child,

you have read my hands.

but it takes more than breeze to make your father fall."

though how can i tell him when i may fall?

i gave him and my wife a house

that i worked for with my worn, weathered hands

and then my alarm cools,

i remember he is only a child

and i tell myself that dying

does not mean to fall, but to let the soul cool.

i built my house & gave my child

the proper hands & the proper notion of dying.

"did you say you were afraid of dying?

well i ain't lived a single day without you."

talking songs and singing words

"talking songs and singing words"

guys & dolls our simple days are drying up,

nowhere to go in our nowhere towns

we'll break up and we'll break down, but no one listens to the sound

maybe this is wishful thinking, maybe we're just bound to keep sinking

nowhere to go in our nowhere towns

we end up living the songs and books we love

maybe this is wishful thinking, maybe we're just bound to keep sinking

"love will ruin your mind" mom said to me on the back porch

we end up living the songs and books we love

wishing on eye lashes & slipping each other the tongue

"love will ruin your mind" mom said to me on the back porch

maybe these are the last songs we should sing

wishing on eye lashes & slipping each other the tongue

condemned to take home the hearts we'll never keep

maybe these are the last songs we should sing

we're just tired of walking past girls & boys we used to love

condemned to take home the hearts we'll never keep

is this all the love we could ever reap?

we're just tired of walking past girls & boys we used to love

we keep hoping, keep dreaming, keep loving.

drifting thing?

deify

"deify"

mirrors & stars hang above as he gasps his first

breath.

& beneath constellations the sounds

of blood rushing through his

veins lay out a grid;

a network intricately woven

from bits of stardust & dying

light. newborn ears can hear the stars collapse

only to form another & another. temporal darkness

convulses and he breathes it deep into his lungs. a

new life bloomed to swallow blackness and

to break light into millions of pieces. & with

open eyes he forces the Sun from his

chest. silently conscious; only to disappear into

pale moonlight.

forget sadness forget what you are forget never

his brilliant stare troubles us

all.

n/a

am i beautiful?

am i useable?

it's killing time again.

drink my warmth

"drink my warmth"

i tell her that i am

in and out of luminance

in and out of darkness.

demure in the gloomlights

she lay her hand atop mine. eyes transfixed on my own

and spoke: "how unreliable a narrator you are."

her palm is warm on

the roof of my digits. she touched my hand i wondered

if she knew it was i who found her that night.

her, a precious thing.

her, a precocious thing.

& she'll smile the way she tends to smile; through

perfectly constructed teeth only to speak with a soft voice that somehow

drifts through the caverns of my skull so simply.

simply.

simply.

why must you be so visceral?

sun worship

"sun worship"

come on down down down

down so we can die together. quietly

your limber legs travel from darkened door

to a bed lit by moon.

i play the role of stargazer;

intrinsically linking marks on your body

as constellations.

my hand braces your arching spine

as your eyes search for the fire in the sky:

there is only night. we are disposable.

we cannot find our monolith our

obsession our God.

a lapse of control; two human bodies that

wretch & desire. erratically conspiring: the sky is dauntless

& meek

leaving us to follow one another thoughtlessly, heart & soul.

and thus we are torn as the sky is high and

we are low.

ash falls from the sky, foreshadowing our demise &

we've seen it before in fables and lore.

n/a

Non posso fingere che ciò che voglio e quello che ho bisogno non sono la stessa cosa.

chariots

"chariots"

my hand rested on your cheek; tiny capillaries

became circuits of fever. i recalled an old philosophy:

what's good for you is

good for me. your frame is one of nature's grand designs.

time after time it is apparent that

seasons change

slowly.

& i watched the trees as their leaves fell only to drag

themselves slowly across the cold wet dirt. there were

still secrets,

still words,

left unspoken. our crowns were fashioned in autumn leaves

& misshapen

branches. season after season, we remained

slaves to one another.

n/a

what hands used to mean

what letters used to mean

what love used to mean

holy trinity

"holy trinity"

she says, "there is bliss in emptiness." naturally i feel

as though i am vanishing; that

i was born in her

thoughts. she touched her body the way sunshine lay

itself across a child's cheek. her skin showed varying

gradients of

loss. her, simply sublime in her despair. and my pursuit of

her happiness that had been disappointing and elusive. my

eyes held the bits of light as

she asked an overwhelming question: "will what once was ever

happen again?" i gave her the sketch of our dream house and

shut my eyes. i have spent so much time away from home.

ascribed to malice

"ascribed to malice"

your eyes represented a universe without

light. i exhaled as your fingers traced

the brim of an antique wine glass. you felt

distant, though i was equally as shallow.

you & i; miles apart for months that turned to

years.

so you placed your hand on my cheek &

you ran fingers through my hair.

i inhaled that old familiar smell.

then we fell victim to fate's fetters.

n/a

thinking of you.

we're going to live

"we're going to live"

to call it flirting with death is naive.

i caress her bony hip as it presses into

mine. this

heaven is your hell. maybe she laughs

differently with you & perhaps you lie

less to her. but

i keep coming back for more. her red lips

pressed to my lips and my lips pressed kisses

onto her bony hips; her smooth legs kick away blankets

& i

smile. & i smile knowing you're in

an airport lounge smoking cigarettes one after one

being miserable

as usual. & you might think that the plane you're about to

board is an escape well it isn't. the distance will only worsen

the pain &

i finish kissing her. i need a moment to catch my breath.

queen

"queen"

her tongue rolls and i am left with a

lullaby. though

i saw the poison on her lips and i

touched her.

the pressure of my fingers created

a vastness rather, a

sorrow.

the truest confession? i am her

slave. my heart is spring flowers

and her body is the

winter.

our smiles were exchanged in slow motion; i had been

captivated by the isolation of

lightness. the rest was as cold and inviting

as a first snow;

we became the footprints we had left behind.

fr mchll

"fr mchll"

frightened

yet identifying the

indiscernible she said,

"love will save us."

i tell her that my hands are

merely instruments of the

weather.

her painted nails wipe away tears

though i'm sure

her fingers were crossed.

it seems my ampersands, commas, and reflective

metaphors remain

tired attempts at explaining

the way a bird sings.

update.

hold onto the people you love.

n/a

i'm just not doing this anymore.

EDIT 8/30/11: NOT DEAD, fuck wordpress. back to posting here.

dancing fingers

"dancing fingers"

everything was hands on.

they came with glasses of cheap wine.

she (a singer) lay across my piano

to confess all of her greatest

conquests.

i was struck.

perhaps by

her voice; a river in time

where flowers would grow & bloom

then wither

near a snow-covered creek

i was positive that her soul resembled a

white pine coffin:

a wordless chamber where the Sun couldn't

reach & where the bleached wood purified her

(hardly) admirable life.

but i recalled her smile &

there was something pure in that.

stitch the seams

"stitch the seams"

i'd call it serendipity but that seems

brash and

impulsive. my capillaries warm at the thought.

designer

"designer"

i ran my fingers through her hair

slowly.

she sighed and rolled over, deeper into our

sheets.

"our sheets", the phrase always made me uneasy.

trite suburban

bullshit. later that day we

drank with the neighbors.

thoughtless pseudo-swingers, yellow-bellied

or maybe just stupid.

she cornered me in the kitchen rather, shoved me

against a cabinet and said:

"treat others as you want to be treated."

i smirked and took a drink.

"what others?" i responded.

some words

hopefully you find something you enjoy in here. if not, i appreciate you at least taking a peak.

yrs,

-j

my name is ivy

"my name is ivy"

i lit my cigarette and exhaled

slowly. with my lips and tongue tasting of

carcinogenchemicals i grinned and stepped from

my porch.

my old man shoes clicked and thudded on the

displaced sidewalks and lonesome

streets.

this street.

this street where i saw her stumbling home from

wherever her legs and feet took her.

this street.

where i took a drag of my cigarette and tossed the rest into

a puddle.

i exhaled the smoke, licked my lips, and tasted the

chemicals.

when she crossed my path i swore she smiled through her

disheveled brunette hair and glossy

eyes.

but you can never tell with encounters at 3 a.m.

pillow talk

"pillow talk"

"i can hardly live by my own advice" i tell her as

she looks into my

eyes.

this moment, a centerpiece of honesty, interpreted as

trite misanthropy.

my heart falls through the roof.

surrounded by shards of

old wood & broken glass

that form a makeshift constellation. her fingernails

trace my cheek and i

exhale.

i've said enough.

clothes on, different image

"clothes on, different image"

i found his notes in her

pocket.

i lingered on every word until it

hurt.

it felt like wispy fall air.

maybe she loved me

then or maybe i was lost in the way her nails

dug into my skin.

days later i'm sitting at the end of a bar fantasizing

about having a house and a

car.

a suburban desperado;

with nothing to claim for his own.

until someone surrenders

"until someone surrenders"

the sunlight hits my cheek

and i

roll deeper into my sheets. i wake

smelling golden

hair

and

smirk at two peoples' tangled

limbs.

words ring in my head:

"it's only a bargain if you want it."

head on my chest

"head on my chest"

i can just tell you what i know.

some nights i hear my door rock back and forth, imagine a knock &

check the eyehole,

then realize there is no one.

i keep on with my

night.

i roll my own cigarettes

"i roll my own cigarettes"

i walk in (eyes closed)

and

smell you from across the room

through cigarette

smoke.

(close to cathartic.)

tonight, we sink deeper into corners

lit with miserable light and rooms

that smell like cheap beer.

i'm too tired to spoil your night,

so i'll chain smoke until the sun

rises.

you stumble out heels in hand,

i walk you home.

muse 1

"muse 1"

i

run and run and run

so please don't follow.

we are freight trains waiting to

collide in a private oblivion.

if you're losing sleep over me

then relive every moment that shined.

and if not

be winged.

n/a

i want nothing.

all i hear are sounds.

all i see is color.

n/a

sometimes i wake up hoping everyone realizes what they've done to the world, to people, and to themselves.

and then i hope they forgive themselves and try to fix their misdoings. life is too short to stay at a loss.

n/a

deep complacency.

please pass.

yrs & yrs

"yrs & yrs"

summer is lacking july's blissful cannonades. fireworks

in darkness have lost their

meaning. when the night comes our hearts burst as

geysers do; louder than indoor

voices.

though the days are hot there is no urgency

in the way we speak.

i'll spend my days

studying the holes in the

clouds while you're rewiring and

rebuilding your deepest

traits.

"through life"

we are so beloved. you's and i's

flickering together and

apart through

life. callous words drowned in the echoes of

the past and

glimmers of futures.

ghostly projections so

astral and so inviting just

stringing us along. our hands clasped in imaginary

bonds accented by whispered promises

and still, we are so beloved.

middle west

"middle west"

you're the bird perched on my clavicle

curious & hesitant.

are you watching closely?

juliet, i'm just an old storm crow.

make do

"make do"

i could taste smoke.

the smoke of my father's cigarette is still in my lungs.

or that's what i told myself, over and

over.

so i found comfort in painting lakes, comfort in the blue

and green and grey.

what does the water ask of us?

the answer is the opposite of flying; exile from

fiction.

redeemer

"redeemer"

raised hair that falls to your shoulders

summons a fire drill of blood within me. i admit,

your voice that puts scratches down my

back.

my mind draws circles over and over, a clear

representation that i have

no concept of how to start over.

what do the corners of our room ask of us?

we try to remember that we were once enveloped in

down blankets but instead

experience a deep emptiness like silent reading.

don't feel proud, it's just fate after all.

fall in love

"fall in love"

i hope you are placing your memories of

me in wrought iron picture

frames. us posing with comedic gestures or

simple kisses on the

cheek.

sculpting in the

dark; hopeful and unclear.

admittedly, i was a moth to a flame,

bound to burn eventually and

it's a real shame.

n/a

Between cigarettes and whiskey I get so fucking sick and tired. My lack of will is a little bit disconcerting and I'm not exactly proud of the way I've been living. Maybe it's best to leave out my heart and begin again rather than to write sour rhetoric.

n/a

I remember the goosebumps on your legs and the way the sun hit your freckles in the park. There were hints of green in the dead grass and hits of color in the cold moist ground.

n/a

I used to walk down the alleys and think of all the people who got off the immigrant boats and set foot in our little port town. I wondered if they'd walk down this same alley one day and see the stars the way I saw them when I was walking with my hands in my pockets. I believe alleys are the veins of the city. Tiny stone paved capillaries.

n/a

There is a lack of cigarette smoke and evil in the dark alleys and lamp-lit piers of Massachusetts.

n/a

I can remember when Dad passed away. I remember going into town and drinking with his friends and explaining to my mother why I couldn't come home. She couldn't seem to say anything that would make me feel any better. Before she left she asked me what I intended on doing with my life, if I was just going to stay here and waste away.

I told her I thought about jumping a train and heading to New York and enlisting in the Army. Even now I'm not sure if it was the alcohol or a conscious decision to join up. Her pale blue eyes filled with salty wet and she walked on out of that bar. I went back to drinking. Guess it doesn't really matter if the glass is half empty or half full when you've got a full bottle sittin' across from you.

When I got home later that night I stumbled through the front door. I stopped to admire the white paint peeling from the wall and pressed my fingers against the wood hidden underneath. I can remember that texture even now and I always thought of it when I was clenching my rifle over seas. Those old familiar grooves. I could hear my brother breathing as I walked past our room. He lay under a single blanket on the same bed we slept in when we were kids. Should've said goodbye then. Instead I grabbed up some paper and a pencil and sat at the old oak kitchen table and began to write my farewell.

I still regret that night.

n/a

My heart used to sink when I'd see her.

Mom coming in the doors with a single brown paper bag of groceries. Her white knuckles clenched so tightly around a day's worth of food that we'd stretch for a week if we had to. Always figured it to be funny that her hair had some grey streaks in it 'cause she was still so young. She used to call them ghost threads and put her hair in front of her face. She'd chase us around and try to make funny faces and noises to scare us. My brother and I would run and hide in the closet and laugh.

We weren't scared though.

I think she did it to keep herself from being the scared one. When Dad wasn't at the mines he was at home breaking glasses in the kitchen. I'd hear Mom cry and scream and cover my little brother's ears and wrap the couple blankets we had around us in our single bed. He'd always call her a worthless mistake and then hours later cry and beg for someone to save us.

I think those times are what scared Mom the most.

note: the past few entries and (more than likely) the coming ones are just me fleshing out some potential short story. none of it is even close to finalized or fully formed. deal with the vagueness, the simplicity, whatever, for however long.

n/a

So I sat in the wet grass thinking about the life we could've lived. Your mother's old curtains draped around our bedroom windows. My father's war medals sitting in some lightly dusted display case in our closet. Your closet, really, since I don't have much to wear.

My bony fingers slide across the grooves at the top of the wet whiskey bottle.

I remember when you and I ran to the pier to watch the boats sail into the horizon. "Red in the morning, sailor's warning" you'd always say. "Red at night, sailor's delight" I'd always respond. Hold hands and talk down the sunset and move along.

I remember when my skin held color.

I put the glass to my pale blue lips and then sang your favorite song.

n/a

I can't stand the sight of your stone.

I climb over cemetery gates and drink 'til I'm gone. I grieve and I grieve. My withering frame turns in the - rain and a funeral passes my way. It's so wet and so quiet. There is no God in my heart. The falling rain makes my head hurt. I try hiding under my coat but I just end up praying for death.

It's quiet when the pain comes.

n/a

A cigarette in my mouth. Lighter to cigarette. My five dollar fifty-three cent addiction. I let the cigarette smoke burn my eyes with wispy fingers until I wince. Fingers from my right hand to itch my eye. Let the smoke burn them again. Itch. Burn. Itch. Burn.

My cathartic six minutes and thirty-seven seconds.

I'm laughing.

n/a

I think we all need to sit down and embrace our dark side every once and a while.

n/a

I love that I'm alive and feeling normal again. Like the wind is at my back and the Sun hangs overhead all the time. Spring Break is only 6 weeks away, Summer is 12. I can't wait to ride bikes, be at the beach, and hang out with everyone who's ever mattered.

Hey negativity, I'll see you never.

blueberry coffee

"blueberry coffee"

across the room you're changing

clothes.

i watched you from the corner of my

eye. kind of

on purpose.

curious eyes behind honest

hands.

there are words for this.

n/a

Everything changes for the best.

If you don't believe it, well, that's your call.

no more money to burn

"no more money to burn"

your hands fall upon a calendar to

designate

holidays. darling, this is sleeping weather.

so i wait in bed for another air strike

called love. meanwhile, trees keep growing in

dreamland.

n/a

What you write isn't me and it isn't you.

i know a place

"i know a place"

i see friend's faces in moments of writer's block.

they speak simple sentences about the emptiness of money and

the way snow comes when it is needed the most.

a living room filled with cigarettesmokescent

reminds me of the way our warm indecisive blood

scared us into corners and the way golden lamplight attaches

to our clasped hands.

by morning we were no different than smoke

captured in crinkled water bottles.

note: "Heaven is whenever we can get together."

-collaboration with Vince Bauters

concealing

"concealing"

are hearts always pinched?

your terms, vocabulary, and body

are intricate

bits of intimate moments

and i know them well.

men do nothing but talk in your stories.

toy soldiers make for poor company

or so i've heard.

the mystery
was that we never trusted the author
but participated
in the

conflict.

note: Understanding where someone has been and where they're from is perhaps the most endearing concept two people can share be it relationally, physically, emotionally, or simply small talk tales of travels and experience. This briefly touches on that idea.

-collaboration with Vince Bauters

stone lion bench

"stone lion bench"

i'm dying to get old.

old, old-fashioned, with you.

tired of slipping into unmarked

graves

so fate will cut me one last

break,

to become who i once was.

there are no hands around my neck

but my fingers are still

shaking.

hand in hand

"hand in hand"

walked home through golden

rain. crossed the street and i'm

back where i started. she's worse off without

me.

if there was a cure i'm sure i'd

have found it.

but i remembered that you were always more comfortable

with cold feet.

(first draft of previous poem)