side A or B

(four clicks)
the needle scraps and ingrains
visions of kids in Brooklyn
singing about girls.
a vibrating pulse on my hip,
of a love
too patiently young to
ever develop
distracts me while
the room fills with strangers,
hip airheads
lost in denim.
kissing each other
with words they read
in books written for
a different generation.

"do u wanna meet up?"


i find myself
one with
the dullness
of the bass,
though
each note
kicks me
in the chest,
a little harder.
a part of me
is dancing
while a part of
me is gone,
looking around
somewhere where
things get stuck in my head
like her
freckled nose or
a song about it.
sitting on the bed,
everyone just talks about the bigger city.
"ya know,
Ginsberg was that kid once
on the Lower East Side"
writing in the rain,
it's a world away from
getting stoned
in the midwest,
right?

"yeah, maybe some other time..."

playing with the girls across the street

what you are to me is what you have shown me. a brown and black dog, Apocalypse, wearing your old handkerchief, the one you had tied around your leg the night the kids next door moved away, the ones you and your sister traded little purple hair clips and tie-dyed scrunchies with, sitting under the apple tree in the backyard, you both cried for days, all the creases wore out by now. her weathered collar grips the veins in her neck, blocking hidden tunnels you discovered with your friends on the river, the ever-rushing power of experience and knowledge can last one second, yet you can remember the last time you saw a person forever. while we travel through these tunnels casting growing shadows, thoughts in the dark, helpless without a companion to, at the very least, eat with.
sharp, white teeth clamp down like a decaying bridge, falling as perfect puzzle pieces at the bottom of it all. she yawns with her tongue out. neatly trimmed dog nails hang over the back-seat of some mini van or station wagon, or something, screaming through the oldest highways the middle of America has ever known, with punk rock mix tapes splurging from the middle dash. the center of it all.
sitting on her seat belt, she barks when she's upset, whether when reminded of the world's flawless impurities that hide in the dark, usually to kill the human spirit before its twentieth year,
(when it neeeeeds a career,
and the money is dear,
leaving small things to fear,
scared of everything you hear,
coming right up the rear;)
the reality we share
or, the lonesome half-moon sitting on her shoulder, mumbling and drunk with affection; the day i saw you standing in the kitchen where i daily cook and breathe i may have met you, but she is how i know you.

jealousy and the unfriendly eye

acuteness of feeling,
the sharp wind pierces
through my ears,
leaving them as secluded lambs
trying to take their first
steps again.
haven't we heard the words
before?
been told what to do?
there is a sad calm
lurking in the cob webs of our minds,
certain discrepancies we haven't shaken yet.

i love you;
but
jealousy has a unfriendly eye,
hardened and cold
is it this look is created
by the love of a man
that wants to squeeze?
is it love that acts just as a catalyst.

but that can't be the only
flaw among us.

acuteness of feeling,
the sharp noise shakes
short white bones,
left as lost lamb
relearning.
we've heard the empty words spoken,
when being told
what to do, oh
what to do here?
now?

there is a sad calm
settling in the cob webs of our minds,
certain discrepancies we haven't shaken yet.
searching open fields of
golden wheat boys,
grinning with the lustre
of their tightly knit
sock heart.






like the galvanized corners
of their sex lives.
hung out to dry
in a dark room.






///////
"the oldest house i ever seen
stands among a crooked tree,
shattered glass like memories
that filter through infinitely."


jealousy and the unfriendly eye,
hardened and cold.
when is this learned?
is it the love of a man
that squeezes?
the rubber souled
heart of gold,
sitting as the haunted
hammer that swings.


but that can't be the only
flaw among us.