Merry Christmas Allison

I started writing a Christmas poem a few moments ago.
For my sister. It's all she asked for.
What kind of teenager only wants a poem?
Not me at sixteen. I wanted more

Drum stuff. I wanted to go out on dates.
I wanted to go to college. I wanted to mess
up and make mistakes. I had so many questions.

What are your questions? Where are the answers?
The big secret (that isn't a secret at all) is that there is no plan.
You get to choose the answers when you are ready.
Just like I have chosen not to rhyme or meter this poem.

I have been storming my brain to find
the right moment of my sixteen year old history to rewind,
but I've come up with nothing but dust in my mind.
nothing too poetic, nothing sublime.

Instead lets imagine a christmas in ten years
where we'll still all be together bring holiday "cheers!"

You will be twenty six and I will be thirty two
this same house and the same people we always knew.

We open gifts and eat breakfast, the same as today
we smile and hug and laugh, the same old way

See the thing about christmas is
that even when all is done
we will all still be happy
with each other, everyone.

Imagine that day in twenty eighteen,
where you say nothing and I know what you mean.

Exactly ten years from now. We will still be the same.
Six years apart in age, with everything to gain.

You will be done with college
and be in the real world.
I will be grown up for sure,
maybe with a little boy or girl.

So now that the poem is over,
and our trip into the future is done.
Your gift, I have given for Christmas,
I pray, "Bless us Every One."

Thanksgiving Dinner

We have two men.
Both are young.
Both working.
but forget one, because he is foreground.

Let's talk about Man B.
He woke up at 6 am to start cooking.
he has everything timed out just right.
and cooks seraphically.

The potatoes simmer as the quiche bubbles
and cheese soup pops, cornbread and buttered
green beans. It's noon. He sweats.
The Hams and Turkey dribble and hiss.

At 4 o'clock, the warm food waiting heatlamp's grace
glints the twenty shining plates
and gravy boats swim center table.
All of the food weights on the marble top to be eaten.

He sits at the head looking down eighteen empty spaces
to see the other head, with nothing but plates clean places.
Making modest selection of Sweet Potato pie and Zucchini quiche
with all the meats meeting gravy boat's docking fleets.

Wine from the soup leftover in his glass. The grace
of the table where the food won't last. He dodges the ghosts of future's
christmas present and past. He licks the plate clean and drinks all of his glass.
Winding down before the children go play in the grass.

But there are no children. Nothing but a sink,
full of pots and dishes. "How about another drink,
to wash down these wishes."


Words that reverberate on table and chairs.
He dances with nothing and no one, no heirs.
A young man, but old; he loses his hairs.
To poker games against himself.

Just silly gambling, with no money and no one.
But they are real. Real games.
enough to bet some hair over.
These two men. gambling alone together.
over nothing.

One finished his work, and ate alone.
the other might have the ghosts come back
to eat his meal and read his words.
but they are still nothing but ghosts.

and he cooks alone. Waiting for the cheese soup bubble to pop.

Deals on Electronics

You have two gay men
wearing suits that shine
and shimmer walking from
a bus full of students

I knew that they kicked them out of the bus
not the driver but the
passengers
on the way to a formal dance

I see them leaving and I just know
so I walk in the bus
and I give the guy an earfull
who made them leave

He tells me about his uncle and father and how he
hates them. How he is black and they are
white. How he hates them.
These men aren't perverts, they are just men.

I say "Thought becomes your words,
words become your actions,
action become your habits,
habits become character."

He sulks on the floor
and I see cut scenes to his
uncle and father in my mind.
But why can't we all dance I ask.

I wake at 11:38am
and walk and sit
and turn on the wizzing machine
and look at how much external harddrives cost

cute dog; small cage

we have a Condition
you and I
we are small little things
spinning in circles
from left to right
over our right shoulder

we feel the shadow behind us
when we read or when we write
but we do not
not do not
keep still

we spin over and over
in our wake/sleep
toss/turn
gloss/learn
floss/earn

now the mind
it churns
from left to right
in happiness and fright
a binary tracked flight

I roll my eyes
from left to right
re re reading
the page

I am picking at the plastic siding
I am clawing at the walls
I sniff and creek and push and pick
The wholes are getting small

wake my brother, wake my friend
and see what you can learn
the cage gets me sleepless turning
breathing the dust from my urn.

Honor Roll

I'm on a roll tonight.
the fire is hot, so I strike.
But I'm writing not striking
to fill up the kite.

the air,
so soft
and the smell
like wet as-fault

slip on it and break
the tension in the softness
of the air

the gutter smiles
the weeds bloom and smolder
and the manhole cover
is clean for once,
Listening to it's own voice.

"I desperatly wanted to grow up
to be like those covers in Mexico
that look like the Rebel Alliance symbol
from Star Wars. Man, I loved Star Wars
in high school, why didn't I get to do that.
Now I'm a freakin government employee, for christ
sake."

Oh you shine today
Manhole cover
and know that your grandkids will
love what you have done!

Rain

slipultatlickspak

pla

plimpbalicklist ta

schepl

tick

taspitacta

.

taturicks


cricketas

..

pumblchockstea

.



dadapalents

we got the lights

Flash Flash
Blink Blink
We got the lights

Flash Blink
Flash Blink
Stars in the nights

Flash Flash Blink
Blink
white, blue and Red

Flash
Blink Flash Blink
Bring out your dead

[America, the Canon for shooting flaming newspapers over the worlds head, where they can make out some of the text, but the burning ash falls in place of knowledge. We have made some mistakes, America and I. You called our bluff, and we didn't have the cards, so we are trying to draw in the right hand, with a crayon, America and I. We will soon be outside being held at the arms, leaning forward, spitting blood, punched in the mouth. We have been talking too much, and we will be caught without the cards. and the world is depending on these cards, which we used to think was a game, but now everyone is getting punched. I am even getting punched. Look what you have done, America and I, look at yourself. What have you done to me, America and I, this is all your fault. You silly creature, you powerful puppet with no master, you bastard. America and I, you bastard.]

Who is my audience?

the rain on the Spain Plain
brings a drab little mac habit
that can't be broken spells
I can tell, can opener thought limits
though I can quit it. I knwo my problem
doesn;t come from progress run.
Sun, earth, mother, birth, woot
from cause to detect
from clue to effect
i suppose my spinning hardrive wheels
bring
chills. Now child of the woot mother with the
broken spell, tell me the limited open thought
the getaway stop and haunt.

stop.

when I write stop.

you stop. when I read stop.

I stop.

Silence

shhhh. It's quiet.
in this space of learning
where nothing moves
and books decay to dust
with dust and decay
cold and hushed
and shushed
and quiet.
the creaking spines
the knowing shelves
that flick the filthy specks
off the mind.
walk in breathe walk out
walk in

breathe

walkout

take out your card and officially walk out
walk out and hold your breathe

walking in
and breathing
and out of breathe

creaks and cracks and white soot
the dry scalp cracks and reveals
the red and jello and living
that nothing in this space is

not beating, not breathing

silence

explode

to the rhythms and rhymes of the turpentines
I have a feeling that I am sealing
and I know nothing but something that's everything
put me down upon my knees
lord let me go from yea hands
Im in trouble
singing.... you are.

now I have nver used so many periods or elipses in a poem
as I just had before
and I hope the police of poetry will knock at more door
amd I speaking or are you reading
have i made a mistake
I will never be spectacular because i don't let myself
I don't get my work done early and I don't go over the top
but I'm smart
and some how I'm an American
I'm the second hardest working and the second smartest.
I think i will be the second chair for the rest of my life
I think I will;l be wishing I could be you forever
I know that I won't reach my potential ever.
i will never pit out food work, because I don't push myself
i doubt. I can't compare.
i just want to be the best at something. Like my dad.
Imagine being the child of an Olympian.
what does that leave you?
when you have the fat pushing over your jeans
where can I go.
to the class room.
to another country.
to the grave.
home.
whats so wrong with being me.
I don't think I have a choice but to be a part of the massproduction.
I am the production
I am produced. why are you?
who is the producer. I am a franchise.
i am fading out.