Category: writing

small talk on an elevator.
suddenly we’ve become
engrossed about the weather
and the sports teams
and golf. golf. everyone
plays golf, and they talk
about it like it is
a nuanced game.
i sigh (in my head)
and write poems to no one.

do you remember me,
winding through
labyrinthine hallways
to attend your audition?
it’s okay if you don’t;
a brief speck in a life
met with many faces.
such investment goes
into passing people you
kind of know on the street.
in a mote of time
a thousand calculations
beyond the wisdom of robots
cycles through your head,
and by the time you
come to a conclusion–
it’s too late. they’re gone.
and you keep walking.

gray encroaches on the city,
pelting pavement with rain.
curlicues of fog and steam
from the tops of buildings
intermingle. the city is alive.
i feel the wetness from my jacket
draped over the back of my chair,
my ergonomic chair, my chair
built to enhance my work ability.
socialism within a capitalist
context; provide assistance
to create the best worker,
not the best human.
the landscape is foggy and gray.
perpetual portland. the top
of wells fargo scrapes
the bottom of the clouds.
no finite line between them,
like lovers in tangles.

did you, at all, take this?
did you wrap this around
the beating heart
you flaunt in that flaccid vessel?
when you walk you defy air,
you teeter at the edge
of extremity and cost,
carefully calculating all
calumny you dispense
at the expense of others.
when you take this,
you take all of this.
and everyone wonders
if you’ll ever give it back.

some type of captive undulation,
she in limnal dreamlike capture
cries out a desperate hymn
to the understars. fortuitous,
then, the dismal winsome shadows
wrapped along the walls, pulsing
with life, fluttering like
entrenched eyelids against a brocade
of fine silk, lashes caught
in the undertow.

if i poop–
and poop i shall–
i hope i poop
in chaparral,
for poop on plains
is plainly shitty
and poop on streets
is for the city.
so thus i seek
a shrub or bush,
to hide the poop
dropped from my tush,
and bush or shrub
i hope and pray
hath leaf enough
to wipe away…the poop.

trevor, drenched in turgid drama
drafted terms to buy a llama
with his former girlfriend (note
the “former” in that bit i wrote).
the terms were: one, it must remain
outside in sun or snow or rain,
no matter what it’s disposition
their roommates would be fairly pissed ‘n
stuff; two, a fifty-fifty share
of which of them would have to care
for this enormous beast they bought–
of parentage he hadn’t thought
too far ahead; and three, of course,
for this was nothing like a horse,
they’d shave it every single spring
and use the wool to knit some things
to sell at random marketplaces
turning frowns to smiley faces.
this, his girlfriend did decree
was worth the shit propelled by he
into the fan of dating life.
one llama fixes every strife.