POETRY

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
—Rita Dove
Snow Falls from Branches

Should have found a job by now; should have slept in the night;
should have boiled old coffee before noon.

things they won’t tell you but should:

love is a soggy tea stain on a grocery receipt

beach
On Undressing a Color / On Undressing a Girl

I imagine that undressing a color, though, would be so much like peeling a memory away from the grey and the white matter of your brain.

Several someones

a folksome, gruesome opera
of gauze and malcontent.

Dear Deer in the Compost Pile

I tap at the alphabet while a single deer
taps at the dirt beyond the brush
on the far side of the tree line.

Landscape with Ash

You are strange, my mother said, dwelling on the past.

First

Long after midnight, we’re talking about our first time

robertson quay

how does an afternoon turn
on its axis?

oh Manifesto

The collective
failure
of ethical standards

REVENGE SCENE

Okay, picture this: We’re in an elevator. The elevator shuts down. It doesn’t matter where we’re going, only that we’re alone.

“Artifact,” as Translated from Gluberhöff’s Lexicon

Any still figure at mid-late evening, when the long shadows make even crumbs appear arranged like furniture.

woman at bar
After She Told Me You Pushed Her Down the Stairs

Empty vessels
make the most sound, I think,
as you rip the fairy lights off the handrail.

Aging Punks

Every so often, they add a tattoo
in honor of some long-forgotten love.

The Man

the man is stayed bent over the canvas
of my sofa. the man is me the man is him
self and I bring down the whip…

You can’t make them love you, no matter how artfully you betray yourself

Try not to see your own predicament in every fucking thing.

Ode To the Dove Pt. VI (Avrom Sutzkever)

Yes I am guilty, I’m guilty. A sin was desirable then.
Bring the dancer back to the stalks.

3:17 AM as Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks

Part of being a good sad person
is always painting the shadows
in the right direction and knowing
what sorrow to art with.

appetites

you quit wearing pants
loaf around your yard
in hole-nipped panties

The love of my life moved from portland to new england

He has stories that I am not in
anymore. It’s healed this way.