Day 8: Haiku about Today

When I let loose the
tears, the cops let me go with
only a warning

Tonight is semi-
finals for the DC/B
slam team, so be there

Haven't done laundry
in 3 weeks--stopped by Target
to buy clean undies.

Day 7: Was Yesterday, So Here's a Haiku about Yesterday

I sat on my ass
finished reading Jungle Book
watched the film Becket

Day 5: Cop Out 1 with an Old Poem

Laramie

For the four months you were here
you say Laramie’s houses remind you of Maryland.

It must be a cool town
their arid chimneys giving smokes freely like hitchhiker cigarettes in the desert

The fires inside would combine with the memory of a man
making love to his wife in front of the fire and their idiot dog, too
days before he steps out their door the last time.

These are what your latest words have given me
dry electronic snaps setting lazy forest fires in Arizona
after you visited Wyoming
creating memories of people that don’t exist.

Like the times when I forget that you do exist.

When can I question the things you said to me Arizonan?

You are reaching across thousands of miles of satellites and wires
wanting to kiss my neck and lay with me before you left Maryland.

All I can think now is that the last night you were here
I would have let you in my bed
and sleep on my pillows
and cover our clothes
and all your wandering with my blankets
and throughout the sleeping night
push and coerce you back to Tempe
to visiting Laramie
and in a few days, you would inevitably be there.

You would be hiking in the hills
I would see a year and a half later
where fires burn
and men make love to their wives
in front of flames and idiot canines
but smoke doesn’t stick in its dry air like
I thought it would.

And neither does your memory.

So I’ll climb a region-specific adobe roof with a blanket in hand.

I will spread it like a picnic over the edge of the wind
because it’s irreverent and random just like you.

On its inevitable way down
I’ll think I’ll capture you under it
sleeping so quiet
I won’t even know you’re there.

Day 2: Haiku

how is it you can
be forgiven if you can't
even spell penence?

uneasy lies the
head that wears the dentist's crown
priced at a thousand

i thought you needed
hot wax on your genitals
to burn with desire

Day 1: Sestina

Newly written, unedited and tweaked, a little rough around the edges. If you think anything about it, let me know.


So that you know the way, I will light a Candle
In the window and prepare a glass of Milk
In hopes of soothing you before you sleep. The Moon
Will be my guardian as you approach like Lava,
Slow, like an austere waltz, a soulless Dance.
Though you want to hurt me, I will wait for you, Still.

You come by land and the day is incredibly still,
Like the moments we take in breath to blow out a Candle.
You leave me breathless as you approach in a wavering Dance
After the eruption. You are a mess of spilled Milk
To me and I can’t sacrifice any more whiskey to stop your Lava
From flowing, from destroying this life I built under our Moon.

I could taunt you, brandish my a-- and show you a paler Moon,
But we are beyond childish theatrics, I hope, and you stand Still
Under my balcony, where I stand defiant as you eat like Lava
Eats, all-consuming my airs of superiority like a Candle
Eats air to burn. But you really want to Milk
This for all it’s worth, and I watch the heat of your anger Dance

Like death would if you even knew the rhythm of life. Dance,
Fool, work your p------ and moaning for all the Moon
People to see, for they won’t give a s---, drinking their Milk,
Building stronger bones than you have yourself. Still
You curse me like a hollow-boned bird, a feeble Candle
Trying to stay alight in a hurricane. The Lava

You burn is not true, it is a wasteful Lava
That knows not how to grow life after burning its Dance
Against the ocean of my resolve, dying like a Roman Candle
Drowned. It is the nature of your temper, I tell you, Moon
As our witness, that nothing will grow from what you have razed. Still,
You may enter the house you failed to destroy, drink this Milk

And sleep. Dream of rivers and chocolate Milk
Flowing from brown cows and I’ll watch your Lava
Cool from your furrowed brow. I am still
Your mother last I checked and I won’t forget this Dance
Of words we had under full harvest Moon.
I will always keep one burning for land, one Candle

For you to follow find your way back home. The candle’s milk
Waxing on the sill, white flowing like the moon’s own lava
Were it really alive to erupt, to watch us from far away, dancing so still.