July 18th (on a Wednesday)

Did you know that every year
Of my life, my birthday falls on
A Wednesday? Just my day, can
You believe that!

Billy Collins wrote one poem
With a date in the title and
It's the exact day my sister
Came here, out of mom

Isn't it odd that we use
The numbers from our birthday
As our passwords or security codes,
That's not very secret.

If you want to hack my sister
And her information, you might
Need to start studying Collins
Or learn how to lie like I do.

Nike Dunks, Reebok Pumps

In truth, I've accepted that
After this life, our moment
In the sun, there is eternal darkness

And not just the ghosts in the closet
Or the quiet between previews in the
Movie theater, I mean really nothing at all,

And it took me half my life to figure this out,
But I would be redeemed if I got it in my last
Breath, "there is nothing next, just death" I say.

So if hell awaits once this is printed, and these
Words are the seal of my fate, know I didn't go
Down swinging or singing, but just existing and then not.

The death of Ben Keith

Neil young and ben
And I sat around a fire
And smoked a joint just
Last year

The conversation wasn't
Great but we knew, while
Peering into the fire, wading
In the flames

That this was by far the
Best joint any of us had
Ever had, and that's sure
As shit saying something.

Three sisters (triplets) of Los Angeles

Three, there
Who have never met
One under, one over, one through

And I'll tell you
They look the same
But they never knew who was who.

The third street promenade
Walking one, she's over
With those shoes, Jimmy choos

The second floor underground
Parking structure teller, she sleeps
In her jeep, dinner of charleston chews

The first in her family to
Graduate high school, she's
Got a scholarship too, the future's anew

So walk tall with your heals
And your wheels and your
4.2. Los Angeles is proud of the sisters

That it never knew.

December 26th

Boxes folded at
The seams, untaped
Cardboard labels torn

The paper, printed
With colors crumpled
Clumped in the corner

Behind the blinking
Plastic tree, whose
Hayday, his day came

And went like a bird
Or the smoldering ashes
Cooing little pops of mourning

Like an almost forgotten
Birthday, a cake bought
In haste, a one-man song.

Imagine an Albatross

Imagine an Albatross
Flying toward Alcatraz
looking down like a bomber
on the pier, harbor;
its guileless eyes float
caught in morning fog.
He hangs - grey on grey -
still above the bay
lining the street hidden below.

Freedom's flying cousin of the sea
Moving miles more toward Tokyo,
Nagasaki; looking down on me
and us like mice, the
Navy Man gliding solo
like Lindbergh with half a
sandwich in his lap;
Consumed by destination.

Modern Mexico

2 seats in front on this flight
to Boston,
sits a boy in his father's lap
looking at me smiling
as we speak, he beams right
through my seat onto this
magazine scrap. to be folded - captured,
brought here for you.

Fiction

I'm 15
I rest on my bed
In my parent's old
Ranch house,

I throw the basketball
Up toward the ceiling
While resting on my back
Like a chest pass against

Gravity. My coach said to
Try and get the ball as close
To the ceiling as possible without
It touching, without getting ceiling

In my eyes. The leather ball
Slides off my fingers like a reverse
Yoyo, spinning back onto my bed.
I set it beside me on the pillow and

Try to imagine that it's you,
And you're still alive, even
After three years, after the
Accident, but I just pick up

Your head and throw it toward
The white popcorn ceiling,
Toward roof, sky, heaven
To forget your weightless face.

Fishing

Idaho
Winter river
Black rubber boots
Nervous air cut calm
Cloads mirror fish, shadows

Ebony eyes, spine
Hands holding eggshells
Swinging wrist lifts in and out
The surface bushed by whipping fly;
A hawk hounds heavy overhead, waiting

For a misstep, a single silver
Sliver, around an underwater rock
Up high enough to hook his claws in,
And the rhythm of that river rings right
Round my resting reel, to feel the first fling

That first fast fetching, with hours in the cold
Your heart, an icicle resting, will all so quickly fold
And spool up all the flaccid line,
Once you feel the connection
The squeeze, that thrill.

Sheep go to heaven

What if I tell you to
Listen, to put your ear
To the ground right next

To mine. To look me in the
Eyes with the dirt on your
Cheek and to laugh,

"How did you get me down here,
Jason?" you ask.
Then I say

You're not here at all,
You are in your home
In Pasadena or the library

In Vancouver trying to dig
Out a quotation for your
Midterm paper, well quote this:

No matter how you slice it
All you've ever done in your life
Is listen to what everyone else says
Is right or wrong or new or different
But it ain't shit, none of it
And you are gonna die
No matter what
It could be in 70 years or
Tonight, and the sooner
You accept that, and I mean
Really fucking swallow it
The sooner you will give away
Your slice of cake or eat
The whole goddamn thing,
But no matter what, then
You'll know what
You're made of.

Just listen close
To the worms whittling
Away at these words.

writing while driving

Atlantic blvd on the
60 freeway heading west
With gospel on the radio

I hit the yellow line
To my left and
Look up and the

White trucks red
Lights in front,
I'm waiting to

See heaven with you
Now I bet you are
Looking down at me

For risking my life
For this silly poem,
Well isn't that it

What its all about?

My House Plant Has Died

Many people, when they go out of
Town on vacation, leave children
Or pets with friends, relatives,
And if
You're lucky; both.

I left my fern with my inlaws,
Though I'm not married,
And while I was away
They put him in the window,
And he died.

They buried him behind the house
Near the large orange tree, beyond
That rusted swing set with no swings.
There he made six more ferns that
Will go onto eventually kill the orange.

I quietly hope the fern will fall in love
With that orange tree, making sweet and
happy saplings, little green bushes to put in the
Window that produce massive citrus fruit,
Fruit that could roll right on the lunchtime table

And down into your lap.

The Wait

Leaning my laptop
On my chest while
I type laying down,

It's old battery pulses
Heat over my heart
For hours, changing

Its tepid rhythm,
Microwaving it into
Digital stanzas

Melting down the flesh
Valves and corridors into
Plastic pumps, vacuumed

Ventricules moving molten
metal, twitches of fiberoptic
Nervous pulses pressing

the underside of these
Very keys, this binary text,
These robotic shapes

On the black and white screen,
Showing pixels of Julie Andrews
Waist high in weeds, singing. Smiling.

Farts

Jesus Dude
That's so gross
Dear Lordy-Lord!

how could you?
here!
Oh My Goodness Gracious.

What? Ohh... ahhh.
yuck. ick. gakk.
bleck. blarg.

man, what the HECK!
come on, really.
WHY!?!

I can't believe this.
that's just vile
rude, crude and completely

utterly indubitably
socially un-ac-ceptable.
(hilarious sweet-heart,

just hilarious)

Fake Dessert in the Desert (*Inside Your Museum*)

Am I
babbling
well?

A babbling
well in the
July hot hot

hot enough to
melt your sunglasses
right onto your nose

known for a slick
tongued tantrum
tantricly numb

trickling hung
done, hum-drum
hanged hands touch

much more melted
than a milk-chocolate
malt mess made

with wet wax,
its lid is stuck-in
so that it's all part

of onesingleunit
like fake vomit
a smattering

non-mattering
party trick,
a trickle that's

non-stick, like
this babbling
well; well-babbled.

Camus (and a Breakfast Burrito)

I
think
my life is

of
great
importance

but
I
also think

it
is
meaningless

Quiet

Such invountary pain
Around the dinner table
New monsters and elephants
Wait hovering over the glasses
And dishes

Why don't men understand
What to say when?

Now I'm off writing and hiding
And you are in the kitchen
Washing dishes louder and closing
Cupboards like chest beating

Cut and cold,
Asking us without asking
Us for
Forgivness