a wishful biography

there’s a tiny dictionary on my desk
Zippo dimensioned but thicker.
pg. 303 is my favourite:

in-sub-or’di-nate refusing to obey
in-sub-stan’tial slight; not real
in’su-lar of or like an island
in’su-late cut off from surroundings; surround (wire, etc ) with non-conducting material
in-su’per-a-ble that cannot be overcome or passed over
in-sur’gent rebel
in-sur-rec’tion rising in open resistance to authority
in-tan’gi-ble (-tanj-) that cannot be touched or grasped by the mind
in’te-ger (-tej-) whole number
in’te-gral of or necessary to a whole

in western movies or novels
the cowboys used pages of the bible or
dictionaries as paper to roll their cigarettes
something about the texture
or pliability.

they can’t have 303. ride on tex.

although they probably wouldn’t want it
it’s too small.

is there something wrong?

of course there’s something wrong
I’m still here and I shouldn’t be, not
that you and I didn’t have a connection,
we did, sure we did, and when I say
there’s something wrong I don’t mean
anything’s your fault, of course it’s
not, if anything, it’s me, I’m the one
to blame.
and not to say what you and I did was
wrong, of course not, nature is nature,
you can’t argue with biology, or chemistry
or whatever, I don’t know, I was never
good at science, the rules seemed too strict
or something, but maybe I was looking at
it with the wrong attitude, going into it
with negativity instead of an open mind,
science I mean, not you and I, what you
and I have is romance, true romance in the
dictionary sense, it defies science and when
I said it was my fault all I meant is it was my
fault that we are doomed for a love worthy of
Shakespeare, and I swear I’ll stay until morning
to see if I was right.

eulogy

I’d like to be remembered
but not be remembered as I am.
does that make sense?
make something up
something with sharks and alligators and
women who are double jointed and such.
not that the sharks and alligators and
double jointed women
have to cohabitate.
I’m not a tyrant
just a little strange.
not that double jointed women
who live with alligators and
sharks are strange. I am.
I thought I made that clear.
are you saying I can’t make
a lucid point?
I’m the poet, motherfucker,
maybe you’re the one with the problem?
can’t understand a simple sentence.
but it’s my funeral
let’s not fight.
let us bow our heads
and remember the poet
who walked this temporary earth
with alligators and sharks and
double jointed women.
amen.

originally published in MILK, #1

elective surgery

the past is presently
giftwrapped like a pair

of homemade socks from
the aunt you never liked

you know what she did to
your uncle? you do, and

memory is better excised
like a polyp in your colon

before it turns cancerous.

the first part is the part that counts

I had this dream where you found out
you had cancer and one day to live.
the doctor was certain it was cancer,
the symptoms were conclusive: you had
a slight headache and small fever.
if it was a big headache and a raging
fever it would’ve been something else,
something harmless. but the symptoms
don’t lie, he said. he said I’m sorry. one
day is all you have. don’t waste it.

that one day was spent happily without
sadness and without the feeling that
something was hanging over us, sharp
and weighted.

and then you were gone.

you left without display, just folded into
yourself, like a card table. and I began to
wail. then I woke up and was glad it was
only a dream and fell back to sleep and
back into wailing again without interruption
and then awake again. this happened a few
times, until the wailing became forced like it
was disconnected from the meaning. like
an actor on the 102nd performance of it.

and although the thought of my stage
crying over your death makes me uneasy,
makes me unsure of things, raises questions
of me as a caring human being, I know how
you view dreams like this, I know the weight
you put on interpretations and meanings, I
know how you can be, so I think it’s important
that you don’t put much thought into this and
try not to overanalyze and remember that you
are not really dead and when you do die I
promise to cry like I mean it.

originally published in MILK, #1

Laurence

didn’t like to be called
Laurence. it was Laurie.

to everyone except this
one girl. she called him Laurence.

and it made the rest of us
nervous, because you just don’t.

but no, he was ok with it, maybe liked
it some, and she knew he liked it some.

he seemed to like it, or maybe he was too
busy staring holes in her shirt to notice.

and maybe she letting him stare holes into her
shirt made him choose not to notice.

but it didn’t matter after this one day, this
fight between them, unfair in a way.

unfair, not that he was bigger and stronger
and louder and uglier.

but unfair that she watched him be bigger and
and stronger and louder and uglier.

and then unloaded with this: Yeah? well
Laurie’s a fucking girls name.

see? unfair. but in the quiet and the noise
and the quiet that followed, nature returned

to its unfair balance.