[the-sleepy-poet]

i go for a walk and slip my mask up behind a couple at the intersection i swing out to the bike lane a man jogs in place on the opposite sidewalk without a mask through Cheviot Hills i nod to a woman who looks like my old high school principal as she gets her mail in front of a very nice house, i take a photo of a newspaper on the ground that says OUR NATIONAL TRAGEDY LAID BARE against the backdrop of a boarded up storefront with the word MATTER on it at the golf course i hear an unfinished mashup i made of Talk Dirty and D.A.N.C.E. some things they’ll think you funny for like wanting to dance i think i would think us both funny for that as the sidewalk rolls underneath me a sign arrives saying i assume all risk of stray golfballs and they come at me like a flock of seagulls to the ocean it’s important to dream small and pursue little joys listen to music you like and  take photos of things that will be gone tomorrow and write poems about things that are gone now otherwise you assume the risk of a mothwing life   just look what i’ve made with my fingertips! some rap makes me think of when i tried to be a rapping comedian and my father said “...my son the rapper…” and we laughed in the basement and i wanted someone to ask me about my music and still do Thievery Corporation reminds me of a bad date i’m sorry conversation is easier than touching i don’t remember how to touch people but when Funky Cold Medina comes on i forget about that and tighten my ponytail as i surf the crosswalk and all eyes are on me and and a montage of my small life whirls like a propeller  in the cloudy sky 

[the-sleepy-poet]

prose is the way but there are times you can’t explain it the black cat of your walls inching closer to your neck and the ominous TV eating the room and the whiskey brighter than the sun and more orange than an orange spiders crawling up your legs and the knotting hair in your throat there are times it defies the electric disco pistons and you can only hear it in the tongue of a stranger and the sponge of another weekend wringing out on Sunday the bells are red and soft and wet and in the starlight of your grandmother’s eyes it’s impossible to explain the blue hunger and the purple madness and parading ants in your bedroom i don’t want to be another mark on the California sky like a ding in the backstop a foul ball moving like a moth to the screen my heart drools to my fingers and i spit the gold, the gold the bright orange gold onto Mary Oliver’s poems so perfect from 60 edits and a girl asks me to see a poem and i say sure and she says have you seen Sex and the City, i like the way Carrie writes and i say the walls are chainsaws! singing chainsaws! and i don’t send her the poem and we never speak again to my right, the winding whiskey  and to my left the baseball bat and the shades and the pillows and the infinite days i will never see

[the-sleepy-poet]

listening to Vance Joy Mess is Mine and my bare feet standing in the dead air toes wiggling and pools of sweat forming at the midsole. i can smell my armpits it’s Sunday and the coffee is still half-drunk and i can feel my eyes in my throat. do you know? the weights lie there and say, you haven’t shown me anything in days. i have no rebuttal. the showboating tray table does a backbend over my lap and the chrome black TV me combs his hair back with his hand do you like walking in the rain? what a mess, what a mess, 90 degrees and sweat forming at the midsole and under the thighs, a semi-dream of golden angels with pelican wings landing on my serifs and telling jokes it comes in high and shoots out heavy under the glass light napping in the heat of day the coffee is full-drunk and the keys are my friends

[the-sleepy-poet]

sitting here, 1045PM in the dark, the light of the TV gets everything gently and i want a glass of gin but don’t have one there’s purple streaks all across the white screen and no gray i’m not poor and i never was and i’ve never swallowed a limb i’ve had a good life it’s so hot i’m sweating with the door shut the dog sits out there gnawing his plastic bone i gnaw mine and i think of the time i went in a chat room and everyone wanted to have sex and it was mostly men and i said i’m a man and i’m not trying to get laid i’m in Greece in a basement and the world is like a black tube of soundlessness i told myself if i got going with this thing on my lap, i would be able to get through more than just one poem maybe i was right. maybe i’m just in a basement in Greece or a bedroom in Los Angeles waiting on the word, the word, of someone other than myself as the window holds open like an airplane hangar and the cars rush through and the moon perches high on the tip of the world with glass on its lips and glass in its eyes

[the-sleepy-poet]

sitting at the table alone, hearing the fork clank the plate chewing the steak medium rare swallowing the orzo with burnt butter you left me and i’m here alone and the dog is under the table and the butter knife scratches the plate and there’s butter in my mustache i sip the red drink and the Saturday night coming  Saturday night and the sun pulling away from the window and the towering appliances in here cast shadows like clouds  my slouching body like a dying tree i chew the steak on the right side of my mouth there is a squishing in my brain and a car rushes by like a bird KRRSHHHHHHhhhhhhh and it’s gone to say this mess is poetry would be hard and bold but it’s true

[the-sleepy-poet]

Standing here at 828 trying to get the words right. Waiting for them, waiting. The gentle breeze comes in from Venice and fireworks go off. I sip the tequila-Coke beside me. I hear the murmurs of neighbors. There is chaos everywhere, but not here. The generators don’t even hum. The dog lies downstairs on the wood to escape the heat, the palms raise their arms to catch the breeze to escape the heat, I have my sleeves rolled up to escape the heat, on the patio at 830PM to escape the heat. Bugs buzz and chirp in the fresh moonlight. My hands glow and the words follow. They’re not right but they’re here on time.

[the-sleepy-poet]

During his years in politics, Sandburg wrote poetry only in spare moments and primarily because Paula urged him to. It was she who submitted what he wrote to magazines. Her belief in his gifts was not shaken by the repeated rejection slips.

Introduction, Carl Sandburg, Selected Poems 

[the-sleepy-poet]

I still had a woman, a woman I cared for. Such magic is not to be taken casually. I looked at her hair and her face as we drove back home. I stole glances when I felt she was not looking.

Charles Bukowski, In and Out and Over 

[the-sleepy-poet]

i have joined THE LEGIONS i have waved the white flag i have set the white flag on fire i have typed the last period  like an oil drum in the forge i have split my  words  with dashes and commas  i have written on tits but i was too late  i have danced on lightbulbs barefoot and i have hired and fired been hired and fired  i have learned statistics for no good reason  i have read the impossible reading  i have done the impossible work and  i have fished for  roaches in midnight kitchens and  i never stood a chance on the  end of a line my ankles rest on another  and my ass burns against the carpet and outside death sweeps through LA as  explosions explode and windows crash  every battle a big battle  every war a small war  lights out everywhere but the bathroom it bleeds toward me and i toward it 

[the-sleepy-poet]

i was on the roof standing in the sun with my jersey on and my long beard and longer hair and you were on the other coast going north Virginia Beach to New York your extensions were gone because they kept pulling your hair out and you had pepper spray ready for rioters and boogeymen

[the-sleepy-poet]

the monsters don’t have mirrors and the tragedies repeat  and the sea is made of more than water fire and flesh and fury too 

[the-sleepy-poet]

the nickname lightning bugs  should’ve gone to cockroaches for their speed they are more than pests they are phantoms every shadow is a cockroach and every light breeze on my leg when they come you won’t know  and they will never leave they will find you through the pipes and through the cracks  and they will feed on your dead skin at night  and they will crawl to your ass  through the toilet  and they will eat your food  and their carcasses will pile  in the freezer cockroaches are not afraid of  death  because death leaves them be in the shower i blinked and there it was and i blinked again and it  was gone and i blinked a third time and it was trying to climb the wet tub wall and so i shot it with the shower head and the thing slid down into a small pool that had formed at the other end of the tub and i kept shooting it  the water rained down and the  thing was pelted over and over and when i thought it was drowned i moved the showerhead back to  my neck and though its brown  body floated there some moments the legs began to kick and move and grip  and again it climbed  and again i shot the thing down and tried to drown it still death refused to take the roach the third time i let the thing climb out of there and up the wall and out of sight  a dog would’ve surrendered   a human would’ve given its  luxurious life and the cockroach has only the  pipes to return to  the night to roam  and yet the cockroach with the  will and the courage   endurance to survive a cockroach is a lightning bug  for its speed and bottled power ants can lift many times their weight  and caterpillars trade their  legs for wings  but the cockroach is the most  perfect beast  breathing expanding   beneath you now  waiting 

[the-sleepy-poet]

All this -- was for you, old woman. I wanted to write a poem that you would understand. For what good is it to me if you can't understand it?

William Carlos Williams, January Morning

[the-sleepy-poet]

I read all the books by D.H. And they led to others. To H.D. the poetess. And Huxley, the youngest of the Huxleys, Lawrence's friend. It all came rushing at me. One book led to the next. Dos Passos came along. Not too good, really, but good enough. His trilogy, about the USA, took longer than a day to read. Dreiser didn't work for me. Sherwood Anderson did. And then along came Hemingway. What a thrill! He knew how to lay down a line. It was joy. Words weren't dull, words were things that could make your mind hum. If you read them and let yourself feel the magic, you could live without pain, with hope, no matter what happened to you.

Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye 

[the-sleepy-poet]

i don’t know how but little shreds of gold chain  still find their way to my floor and to the patio where the sun bounces off them as lightning corpses or pocket watches in caskets i bend over and look but not as  close after all  who would i give my shining  treasures to?

[the-sleepy-poet]

Practice, that's all it took. All a guy needed was a chance. Somebody was always controlling who got a chance and who didn't.

Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

[the-sleepy-poet]

I walked around the library looking for books. I pulled them off the shelves one by one. But they were all tricks. They were very dull. There were pages and pages of words that didn't say anything. Or if they did say something they took too long to say it and by the time they said it you already were too tired to have it matter at all. I tried book after book. Surely, out of all those books, there was one.

Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye