11/52

Continuation on the Names

Before they stepped out onto the main stage of the killing floor
gladiators at the Colosseum had to nervously wait in the wings
behind a metal gate maybe
barfing on the toned calves of the man in front of them
while a lion ripped the whistling guts out of a familiar stomach
Still, some of them kept their humor, and managed to carve penises
and yo' momma jokes into the walls
Yes, "VIND", for victory, was common, and maybe if the character were an honest man
an inspirational quote about hope or carping a diem were tolerable
but I'd imagine the most popular guy in the gladiator locker room
was the guy who had the best one liner about
how much the emperor liked the smell of his own farts
or sucked about playing his fiddle

Archaeologists have also found messages in viking caves
scaling unstable ladders on creaky mud slicked floors
they deciphered the runes for things like
"Sven was here" or
"Johannes climbed this"

It would seem we were made to leave our mark some how

but what of the wishing well?
What of the wishes that echoed down and back from the water
just once
never to be heard again
how now their corpses are piles of shiny coins lost in the pitch black

What of the the stars in the sky?
How each one must have been someone's first
someone's wishing star
how the sky's soft but merciless dark is too vast for an echo

How so many of us may have tried
only never to have been heard of at all

10/52

Took a scalpel to this, but not's changed much. We're doing  a big show in June, and I think this is one one I want to polish up for it, but I'm worried it feels a little too sentimental. You've seen it before, and I won't post it here again, but I did put some polish on it, and it's been a while, so I'd still like your feed back.

As a child, the basement was a death sentence.

Filled with innumerable phantoms lurking in the moldy dark

A urine colored fluorescent tube

Tossing sickly manila light in

Fits of maniacal laughter

across the eager tongues of the handsaw

The growling stomach of our water heater

Possessed with the tortured souls

Of innocent children it probably burned to steam our showers

The dusty rocking chair where sat

The headless ghost of a Confederate soldier

The box of holiday decorations

Where an evil clown was probably just waiting to erupt out of

And stab you in the eye with the Christmas Tree Star

To do laundry, you had to brave the descent

My only choice was to

frantically dump however much the fuck detergent

I  had the guts to pour into the machine

while some dark shadow mopped its cold tongue across the back of my neck

till I freaked out and punted the washing machine closed

Launched into a dead sprint up the stairs

Into the quiet light of the kitchen

That haven for refugees

from the cursed chasm

Wherein slept the half empty paint cans

And the spawn of Satan himself

And it was so silly

Being afraid of things I knew were not there

I am walking through the neighborhoods

That I abandoned

After it was decided that you and I were a terrible “we”.

Here lurk vicious figments

Hanging knives in my throat

Like tombstones for all the names I would call you by

I am riding my buses home

staring into an empty window

But feeling the weight

Of a second head asleep on my shoulder

I am shutting the alarm clock off

Reaching over the empty half of a mattress

Where sleeps a patient ghost

In cafes, and movie rooms

In bars, and restaurants

On street corners where good-bye lived

At bus stops, my front door where it was always

Your knuckles rapping

Anywhere I buried kisses

In the soft fire of you

Those places are now dance floors for phantoms

Twirling shipwrecks

Empty bellies growling song requests at the band leaders

So, here we go I swing like flunked outta ballerina school

I race cliff divers into the haunted dark

My heart wants to sprint out of

the basement in my chest

Into the light of my mouth

But my throat keeps slamming the door shut

So it lives there now

And it so funny being afraid of things that are not there

An old love that’s not even a memory

It’s just this fun idea

Like a city you could never fly to

Like I got plane tickets to Atlantis
Like I got an express trip to the year 2009

– I’m gonna get out at the stop where we kissed

the door frame of the kitchen

and everyone at the party got mad at us for blocking the way to the beer

It is a scientific fact

There are a small number of stars that are dead

Who are just reaching us now

But there are sailors that still navigate the path home that way

There are still the hopeful that wish on that flickering light

Pinning hope on Apollo’s dead horses

There are still people trekking through dark neighborhoods

Staring at all those dead stars

Like it were safety at the top of the steps

9/52

Added some stuff to the field notes on the midnights poem. I feel like this is the final shape of it, but I'm not sure if I want to trim or tighten or expand before I trim some fat. I think I'll expand it as much as I can and then end up with something shorter than what's in front of me now, because I like the length, but I don't like it feeling so thin.

Field notes on the Midnights

Of course, at first, it was the oceans they came from
Quiet colossuses with whale bone guts
they had plastic bags for scales

What songs were the ones for summoning?
What were the spells to awaken them?
Where did they grow in their slumbering?
and how could we lure them to sleep?

Spoiler alert: We couldn't.
They lived with us now
in every background
soft and lolling mountains
casting deep shadows across every window in our cities

In Korea, the Midnight is a crane
who glides in slow laps around the borders
we know it lays nuclear eggs but we don't know when
it will land to lay them
so we do our best to live
and teach classes and smile
and should the egg hatch tomorrow
then I will be glad to have learned enough of the language
to say I am sorry

In America the Midnights are hooded horses
or snapping turtles the size of armored wagons
They are slug kings pressings themselves out of oil lines
They are coyotes pissing in desert water

It’s not like you wake up choking
but picture a weighted fishing lure hooked on the throat of your heart
Picture a man backhanding a porcupine
picture a swan dive frozen before splashing into cacti patches
Picture the sand in your car after a drive to the beach
how you might find some grains in your living room later
and think it came from the hem of your pants
Picture living in the bottom of an hour glass
Each grain, another midnight
each grain, its own little horror

8/52

Sean been telling me to put something out there
my name on the cover of a book
or the bottom of a publication I keep
signing my name at the end of emails to my mother
like I were kindly applying for a job she keeps
asking me about my name on a plane ticket I have
a fear about not existing anywhere
I am not
            I know
people have climbed mountains to tie their flag to the peak
there is a flag on the moon there is
proof positive that they are there I am sure
there is someone carving their name in a heart on a tree that is
one among thousands in the forest
and even though they will come back to cross out the name there will be
a record of a love that once was

7/52

I drank so much the room
became a black moss lathered
across the soft dark forest of night
And having no sense of me
my body did its favorite thing
which was, of course, to make the worst decision
that still felt good