Poems

maybe god is a two-lane highway in western nevada, flanked by snow capped mountains where the high desert valley swallows you whole in an endless expanse. i wonder if people who live elsewhere have ever met this god but i suppose they have their own enveloping spaces. i sat next to the straightest road i’ve ever seen and slowly shrank into those everlasting arms and it wasn’t salvation or damnation like i was taught as a child but something else entirely—a cold indifference and a simple reminder.

the desert is not endless miles of sand and heat waves like i was shown in school. instead rocks and brush stretch monochromatically as far as the sandstone mountains slowly eating the horizon. and i can’t fathom the struggle it takes one of those plants to find water in a land where everything is conditioned for dryness and thirst. life barely hangs on. surely they know it’s only a matter of time as the winter grows warmer and warmer each year. even so, roots strain for whatever can be found, and today that is enough. a line of joshua trees silhouette a purple sky. 

a decade in, we reintroduced our bodies in a hotel outside sacramento, exploring the various ways this year reformed and reshaped us—our survival instinct. 

i’m learning that no one in my life is ever required to love me.

You were named after a character from my favorite movie  

And I thought I lost you in the attic of the house off Hulen 

where Chase slept on our couch 

and Dylan painted paintings in the dining room

And after that we had to move

because I left you with David when I went to Uganda 

and you had to chew through your food bag 

because he was too busy praying to remember that you exist

And I hope you bit him hard and left a little scar  

You were tough as shit 

until you found the sunspot on the kitchen floor 

and it took you out like the night my dad left and I stayed at Haley’s 

hoping to be baptized new in chlorine and cigarettes 

You were so wild at night 

we had to confine you to the guest room so we could sleep  

And I guess that’s a shitty thing to do 

but what choice did we have at our age

It’s funny how we remember

Like the time we went to the movies 

and a stray crawled through the hole in the floor of the house on Hemphill 

You put up a fight but didn’t stand much of a chance 

And I broke down hard because I thought it was the end  

But you were tough as shit 

And soft as my grandmother’s powder brush 

that always rested on the same corner of her vanity 

near antique crystal bottles of perfume—she smelled like cinnamon to me 

I sat so many nights reading in a rocking chair 

passed down from my mother while you spread across my lap like the ocean  

You had a way of keeping the lonesome at bay  

At least for a little while 

I sing to him that rests below

-Alfred Lord Tennyson

I.

Not all poems are about death and the loneliness of existence,

At least I don’t think they are.

Because I’ve looked down on a valley of granite

And was silenced.

Not all poems are therapy for a soul broken by time and expectations,

At least I don’t think they are.

Because I’ve sunk my head in a glacier fed river

And felt infinity in my smallness.

Sometimes honesty is more important than hope.

Scott said there’s life beyond the one we already know,

Then he floated away from us forever.

And I pray to a god I don’t believe exists 

He found at least as much as he gave.

Not all poems are about death. 

II.

And I listened to that one song about the dream at least fifty times in a row tonight And each time the air was pulled from my lungs like thread from the edge of an old sweater relegated to the moths and the back of the closet And I imagine the sweater as relieved after too many seasons holding you tight against the bitter winter winds that pierce through everything built to withstand it like the ants that crawl from an unknown and unseen dimension across my kitchen counter every morning impervious to tools and traps designed to thwart their forward progress Even now when I sleep I tread with care you sang through an accent so pure and so thick it fills the space in the back of my mouth And it’s been years since you left But I never moved through the invisible barrier between the stage and bar where I held a whiskey in my hand and witnessed your existence Now I can testify to those who missed it And tell them what you told me I can tell them about that life beyond And maybe let them listen to that song about the dream at least fifty times so they too can feel their breathe get pulled like thread Then they will realize there are ghosts all around like we knew as children but laughed off as we collected degrees And sometimes the ghosts of strangers sit next to us late at night when our mind is a mess Cause you are sitting next to me now and I don’t know what else to do but let the back of my mouth fill while the refrain plays over and over I lost count of how many times this song has played but I think I’m drowning And you don’t know me And I only know your songs but think that means we are friends And your absence hurts almost as much as the absence of the ones I once physically held before their bodies gave itself back to the soil And the sweater is almost unraveled now cause I can’t stop pulling like the end is the answer to the splintered tree of a road I’ve stumbled on without even realizing I was walking But this is actually about floating and water and movement of time Cause we’re taught that rivers represent the passage of time And you floated away down a river And I’m not sure if you made it to the sea or if you wanted to get that far But I’ve been in a river and felt the clarity that comes with the current This must be what Jesus felt like everyday as he looked on the crowds that gathered And I know Jesus is just a spanish boy’s name but as a kid I saw ghosts everywhere and believed Jesus was something more And tonight you joined me at my dining room table and interrupted my evening like the time I called my mom at two in the morning because I had a nightmare and needed to go home And like her then you don’t judge me now And maybe I’m too old to be fixated on something like this Like you But there is more than one way to be cut You are still pulling my breathe like the aeroplane pulls tears from my eyes the way I think it once did for you How strange it is to be anything at all One summer in college I pulled wire in triple digit heat and my muscles burned more than my skin No one ever talks about the pain endured by one who pulls So maybe it's there that we close The night is deepening and you are fading into the black Ever smiling And I know tonight when I sleep I’ll tread with care You sang so much about the end 

But not all songs are about death 

III.

The

River

Flows

Still

What

A

Miracle

To

Have

Our

Time

On

Earth

Overlap

To

Recognize

Beauty

When

It

Is

Found

The camellias blossom pink 

like the hue of my partner’s slightly sun-faded red plastic pitcher—

a sharp contrast to the deep green canopy of leaves that blanket 

the untended and untrimmed tree outside my kitchen window. 

Hundreds of buds in all the various stages of their natural cycle—

a clarion call to a world trapped inside the confines of their homes. 

The season has changed without notice, 

nature moves unheeded by the stoppage of man’s machinations— 

ground suddenly to a halt by those invisible forces and fears, 

forever haunting our evolutionary track from caves to penthouse saferooms. 

The grey rain falls lovingly on the delicate pink petals, 

swerving unseen through the flower’s folds—

tracing an ancient path called life. 

I wash the dishes in the sink and watch 

a yellow finch flitter down from my unnamed neighbor’s roof—

undaunted and undeterred by the spring rain.

And I remember my childhood neighbor Nadine pulling vegetables from 

the black soil of her backyard as fresh laundry hung on a line 

near the barbed wire fence between her property and the 

green cow pasture beyond. Tom, her husband, works 

silently on his truck in their oil stained driveway 

while white dandelion fluff floats on a warm 

breeze through the humid air over the 

sandbox my father built, past our 

red roses along the chain 

linked fence and off 

into the endless 

dazzling blue 

summer 

sky.

the summer i gave up flying

i drove across these western states

and figured i could be a long-haul trucker

when everything finally falls apart

like the ash that flutters across my windshield

from the rolling clouds of smoke

that swallows the midday sun like

the comforter on my bed when i was fourteen

and couldn’t find the will to move after that

first friday night transition from childhood into

something else not quite adulthood but a 

version of a story i was sold by everyone and

everything around me, accented by the canadian

whiskey that still burned in my belly

the summer the tear gas choked us out of our city

i drove across these western states

and slept too many nights in my car

on some forest road in an unknown named wilderness

that flowed into another in an endless blur of

pine trees and mountain lakes and mosquitos as

my lungs exhale pepper spray and inhale fire

because lightning is an indiscriminate terror

but those paid to protect and serve 

attack with purpose and precision

and somewhere in colorado i saw the tail of a comet 

singe our night sky for the first time in seven thousand years

and the marajuana hovered above our heads like

incense in church and mixed with the cloud of stars 

and planets i’m told is the milky way

and i thought that i’m supposed to be settled

by forty but i don’t know how people buy houses

or breathe suburban air and car exhaust

with our feet in an alpine lake in california

we talked about returning here to spread the ashes 

of whichever one of us dies first and later

we watched a lightning storm over the sierras

and marveled at its power and beauty and horror 

then in the morning we woke choking thousands of 

miles away from home at the end of a summer when

i drove across these western states

chased by smoke

maybe when i finally do get home i can be 

the kind of guy that says fuck the police

and means it

but for now i’m just running from 

the heat

there are so many ways to burn

once we played a show

in a record store

with a band named after

a porn star.

their singer repeatedly declared

he was more punk

than the rest of us

fuckers.

at the end of their set

he proved it

by macing himself

in the face,

collapsing on the floor

in a ball of mucus and tears and screams.

his band stepped over

his writhing body

to join the rest of us

outside smoking cigarettes

in the crisp december air.

As the final 

glimmer of sunlight 

held tight 

to the horizon, 

sucking out

every last moment 

from the day, 

we settled down 

on the couch with 

our wine 

and weed 

and bag of popcorn 

to watch a movie. 

And for those few hours, 

nestled under 

the blanket 

with our dogs, 

I forgot 

what day it was 

and how long 

we’d been 

in this house. 

And for those few hours 

I forgot how many 

more days it would 

be before 

we could go 

out to eat 

or wander aim-

lessly through 

the shops downtown. 

And for those few hours 

I forgot 

the panic 

and fear 

and responsibility 

that lay 

on my doorstep. 

And for those few hours 

it could have been 

any old night 

in the past 

ten years where 

we settled in-

to each other and 

a life we built 

without noticing. 

And for those few hours, everything was nice. 

Hamlet said 

all life is suffering controlled by the whims and wills 

of luck and the mysterious force of fate—slings and arrows. 

I want to feel that Ophelia was wronged 

and the true tragedy of the play lies with her flowers 

floating on the water under the willows and moonlit winter sky—native and indued. 

Her madness comes too quick though, 

consumed entirely by the larger than life figure worthy of the title— 

his name in everyone’s mouth. 

The petulant child screaming for attention 

the melodramatic teenager crying for unrequited love 

the white man speaking too loudly on his cell phone in the store 

the drunk at the bar reciting the same nonsensical story to strangers— 

all assaults on our peace. 

Before the end though, we understand—come what may. 

Some believe our ancestors watch over us long after they’ve shuffled off this mortal coil. 

They say we can pray to them and they will guide us 

offer us aid, direction, comfort, wisdom. 

I grew up with my grandmother—banana bread and lukewarm milk. 

For the first nineteen years of my life she was a permanent fixture 

a never changing north star—bear hugs and back scratches. 

Then cancer ate the parts that made her a woman and now, 

now I’ve spent more years of my life without her. 

Last night in winter air I swear I saw her float across the deck with my breath—a ghost. 

And I remembered what Hamlet rightly said 

—the readiness is all— 

and my ancestors watch and wait 

for the reward of their life bequeathed to a future predicated on 

luck and 

fate and 

the loudest voice in the room. 

And Ophelia weeps still for her father but more for her own loss— 

innocence stolen for the sake of a hero’s journey. 

My grandmother baked banana bread and held my head in her lap 

as the willows outside the window swayed in the winter wind 

weeping with a child unable to give a voice to his pain.