FUCK GOLF (for George Carlin)

Let's put on our polo shirts and ankle socks and go golfing.

Let's stand around on the beautiful expanse of green to hit a miniature dimpled ball around.

Let's admire the majestic beauty of the manicured, irrigated and chemically treated lawns.

Let's look out as if we're purveyors of some beautiful kingdom that's sprawled out special--just for us.

Let's feel the soft spongy green swallow up our shockingly white sneakers that children made somewhere.

Let's be bold and ironic and wear ridiculously patterned outfits and outrageous hats that don't even match.

Let's buzz around on a golf cart to properly survey our kingdom and surreptitiously swig on alcohol in cans.

Let's listen to the crack of the iron on that little ball to properly feel powerful and sporty and elite and alive.

All I Really Wanna Do

All I would really like to do right now 

is eat an ice cream cone under an umbrella 

in a thunderstorm, but it's not even raining, 

I'm too full from dinner, and you don't like 

going out in public.

A Consumer's Plea

Please --

No more things.

No more gifts.
No more HGTV.
No more food wrapped in packages.
No more appliances.
No more tools.
No more shelves.
No more books
              Or papers
              Or typefaces.

Please let us not mark
our appreciation
with dumb money in a bow.

Please let us not box
our past, piles upon piles,
in dusty attics and basements full of cobwebs.

Please let us not fill
our minds 
with the shit and things of this silly place.

A Prayer

I pray for a time when poets are no longer necessary.

Buried Deep

You've been dead for 16 years now
nearly half my life
and I still have one of your shirts
a striped polo 
buried amongst clothes in my closet 
that are either too small 
or too bulky 
or splattered in paint.

Your shirt has seen
paint, mortar, sawdust
and my sweat
but somehow 
it's still your shirt.

Now the collar has become itchy
and makes my neck and mind burn
with thoughts of your death:

your car parked
on the side of a deserted
tree-lined highway
your head flooding
with love and betrayal
as you fumble blindly 
for the shotgun in your trunk.

When we heard the news
your sister and I walked for hours
and then sat on a curb
eating homemade vanilla cupcakes with sprinkles 
that our friend's mother always
had stockpiled in the freezer.

Your shirt 
with its itchy hot collar
still lays folded
on a shelf in my closet
buried deep.

Summer

Summers are for living.

Sidewalks are warm.

Trees are lush.

Moments are too bright and fast for words.

Poetry Lives

I don't remember 
meeting you 
the first time
but this time
you brought a poem 
for my mom
on her birthday.

You both sat quietly
while I stood there
bowed head
paper in hand
eyes recognizing words
that could be my own.

When I looked up 
(my eyes swirling
with hope and wonder and love)
you smiled and said,
"I made that copy for you."

Every Other Today

Today I remembered to forget you.
Memories of you once whole, now erased.
Forever.

Today I denounced should.
Fantasies of obligation shrugged away.
Forever.

Today I stepped outside of time.
Impressions of now made loose and present.
Forever.

*********************************************

Today I felt a numb haziness.
Something beyond the powers of caffeine.

Today I felt sedated and compulsive.
The sum of boredom and madness.

Today I felt warm and lonely.
An estimation of humanity and distance.

*********************************************

Today there will be no whispering.

Today there will be no sidelong glances.

Today all judgements will be withheld.

Today all thoughts will be dispelled.

Today and every other today will quake

And rise like a phoenix in your outstretched hands.

*********************************************

Wood Paneling Makes Me Sentimental

Memories return in strange snippets:

The industrial buckle and zipper from my childhood ski boots, stuffed nylon bodies of cabbage patch kid dolls, the web-toed girl at the sleepover party, American strawberry soda and individually wrapped fruit-filled pies, algae-filled ponds and giant cones of ice cream, thrashing about in muddy creeks, mismatched socks, inner tubes speeding down snow-covered hills…

Dreams flood back in similar ways:

Lost skeleton keys in shag carpeting, rickety suspension bridges, black rabid dogs with sleek shiny fur, ghosts of dead grandparents, over-sized above ground pools, barrels of guns, washroom stalls, siblings I never had…

I like the stuff that dreams and memories are made of –

Real and unreal,

Floating in the ether of consciousness,

Making us whole, making us human.

Alphabetical Recommendations: Music (II)

Air
Blonde Redhead
Coltrane (Alice & John)
Dead Meadow
Elevator
Fucked Up
Girls
Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions
Iron & Wine
Julie Doiron
Kid Koala
LCD Soundsystem
Marine Girls
Neutral Milk Hotel
Organ (The)
Pavement
Queen
Raveonettes (The)
Suicide
Tobacco
Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Vanilla Fudge
Washed Out
XX (The)
Youth Lagoon
Zombies (The)

Alphabetical Recommendations: Music (I)

Aphex Twin
Black Moth Super Rainbow
Can
Deerhoof
Erase Errata
Frightened Rabbit
Grinderman
Heartless Bastards
Iggy Pop
Joy Division
Kinski
Liars
Morrissey
New Order
Oneida
Parquet Courts
Quasi
Radiohead
Spiritualized
Thee Oh Sees
Uilab
Vaselines
Wolf Parade
Xiu xiu
Yo La Tengo
Zeena Parkins

Now there are years

Upon our first meeting

The glances were stolen

Quick and furtively

Because our images

Were like that of the sun:

Overwhelming warmth and blindness,

Too much and not enough.

Time wears on and passions transform

But now there are years

In a wink, nod, brush of the hand:

A renewal in every exchange.

Flashing grins transcend intimacy,

Lips on skin trace eternity,

And peeling paint and cracked concrete

And cat’s fur and flower petals

And crocheted blankets and antique lamps

Continually sing synchronicity.

I Love You

Can’t

Should

Did

Again, again, and again.

Drug prayer

Angel hair

Coming down the stairs.

Solitude

Sanctuary

Can’t escape myself.

Attitude

Alienate

Gimme mental health.

Glass heart alibi

Cat purr lullaby

Truck stop butterfly

Again, again and again.

Donny's Lament

Time to get my goddamn shit together.

Shit's gonna hit the fan.

I'm late for my growing season.

Gotta get off the grid, man.

I don't need no piece of paper to say I can drive.

Like hell I'm giving that truck away...

It's gonna be my home!

I can't stand this shit:

Cutting grass, paying the hydro bill, Wheel of Fortune, cupcakes

Fuck.

Suburban Spring

cats in windows
dogs inside of houses barking
curtains drawn and hanging neatly

distant roars of lawnmowers
aromas of freshly cut grass and grilling meat
the urgent joys of playing children on the wind

square patches of green
brilliantly coloured flowers in pots
miniature trees, ornamental grass, concrete animals

a swish of a car like a soft wave
the zippy whir of a floating bicycle
perfunctory nods of passer-bys

sunlit leaves sparkle and rustle gently
cars sit with sad purpose in driveways
spider web cracks split ashphalt

lawn chairs wait empty on porches
sprinklers flit endlessly
lines of siding, mortar, and shingles mark infinity

as I continue to look 
for the phantom cluck of a single bird
beckoning, warm, and lost.

Perspective

Most of the time

a gentle washing

is all one needs

to cleanse and

make float away

all the nastiness

of the day.

Myths

You really can't say that myths aren't true

Because they are most likely the truest of all things

Ancient narratives that pulse through your mind and tongue

An almost animal understanding always already there.

Greatness?

The goal is pursuit.

Be the chaser.

Harness the warm human magic

And make life possess you

With such raw intensity

That the business of the day  

Simply and gently falls away.

It’s so difficult to be interesting these days.

The greatest parties have the saddest hosts.

Mrs. Dalloway:

Buy the flowers for yourself.

Gatsby:

You are the pursued and the pursuing,

But so busy and tired.

I will keep wondering

most painfully

about greatness

and what makes it so.

Alone = All one

Metal trees

Subtle breeze.

Metal teachers

Deep freeze.

Metal heart

Perfect chart.

Metal offspring

Falls apart.

Music seeps through a suburban screen door, 
a concrete step is cracked, dirty and ready, 
paint peels, blades trim
flashes of blue flicker through chinks in the curtains:  
life inside.

I like the sound of pencil on paper

Harsh but fluid, urgent, intimate.

The letters stretch and anchor

Thoughts, moments, memories, you.

I like the sound of fingers clicking keys

An officious frenzy:  important, immediate, imperial.

He said he would kill his parents if he could fuck John Lennon.

Crooked teeth teacher

Rookie heathen preacher

I took you for a keeper

Delusion ran deeper.

Those goddamn champagne gangsters sure did a number on you.

Drunk on status
The saddest
Bullshit apparatus
Of ironic immersions
And corporate conversions.

Take it free and easy while you can,

But if it’s too easy, too much of the time

Then it probably doesn’t count.

Straight out leech

Sad angry freak

Carrier of the weak

Mild meek streak --

     Please

Rattle and seek.

Rattle and seek.

Rattle and seek:

    For peace.

Yesterday

Yesterday two bombs went off at the Boston Marathon.

Yesterday I annoyed my mother and disappointed my father.

Yesterday dust gathered in the corners.

Yesterday pictures of dead girls flashed on newscasts.

Yesterday I took deep breaths of fresh Spring air.

Yesterday we hooked up a satellite.

Yesterday my niece complained of sadness.

Yesterday I smiled at a room full of strangers.

Yesterday we sat silently in a room.

Yesterday my Nan thought her sleeping friend was dead.

Yesterday a dog walked through a field with me.

Yesterday I learned that cuttlefish are born motherless.

Yesterday glaucoma took away a friend’s driver’s license.

Yesterday we hugged in front of the kitchen window.