2011
12.30
This extra twenty pounds
is my brain getting bigger
everyday—things you can’t know
in your small-boned frame. Slim
is not a word you would use
to describe me, though I can fake
waif on call, like a doll
with three answers for everything:
“Yes,” “I will,” and “It’s my fault.”
I take off my shirt and you say
my breasts are much larger
than you imagined. Just imagine
if you could open my skull,
what a heap would fall
in your lap and anchor you
there till I was done talking.
Boulders of rebel thought
weighing you down, an avalanche
of fantastic reason that could
bury you alive.
Truth is not this heavy,
but the seeking of truth
is like a grand piano on the back
of a stooge, wavering, balancing,
moving forward with pain
and awkward gestures
in a comedy of elephants.
Even I am laughing as I stumble,
my neck quivering beneath
the ever-growing load
of day-old wisdom.
And therein lies the beauty
of this big brain o’ mine.
No hat can contain it,
no beast can tame it.
It is fat with acceptance,
bulging with desire,
refusing narrow spaces,
the walls of skin and bone.
2011
12.27
It’s no longer your ex-lovers
but body parts that carry the conversation.
It’s not the drunkard
who never worked a day in his life
but the varicose veins in your left leg,
the chest pain that hits you
every time you climb stairs.
You sit in your kitchen holding court
with your cronies still living,
the good times you shared
plopped into the ash-tray with the ash,
while your arthritis
goes knee to aching knee with theirs.
It’s no longer Peter the Rat
but old age, the grizzly bear.
Andy left years ago,
taking his rusty utility van with him.
But the persistent headaches moved in
and they won’t ever leave.
Once you complained about
the lack of kisses.
Now it’s the army of pill bottles
at attention on the side table.
There’s a pill for everything
that ails you.
And for everyone that ails you,
there’s the past.
2011
12.24
He was the younger brother
sometimes we would worry about him
and the things we would find in his bedroom
or in his Internet browser history
and just say to ourselves
‘why not just delete your browser history’
he used to talk about how the moon and the sun were binary opposites
we never said anything
but like
bro,
the moon means nothing to the sun
who cares
just a bunch of cosmic-ass bullshit
2011
12.21
Stirring noodles in the pot
I imagine them
to be worms
just as hard as I can.
Dirty hot earthworms
sexing it up
in a mini Jacuzzi – hey
check us out for a nature
special – worms
hard at play
lifestyles of the rich
and invertebrate.
But they’re
really only noodles.
Just noodles
sexing it up
in a pot of boiling water
with a great big pinch
of salt.
2011
12.18
torn paper, floating in the water
bits
like dead bodies dancing with the current
ghosts journeying through the tide
like angels creeping through the sky
as dust motes drifting
white dresses swishing
blown and pulled by forces unseen
font on wet paper means very little
its purpose tumbles downward, drowning
Forgotten. Lost.
sinking, sinking
until I can’t remember what I had read
anymore
torn paper, floating in the water
bits
like dead bodies dancing with the current
ghosts journeying through the tide
like angels creeping through the sky
as dust motes drifting
white dresses swishing
blown and pulled by forces unseen
font on wet paper means very little
its purpose tumbles downward, drowning
Forgotten. Lost.
sinking, sinking
until I can’t remember what I had read
anymore