Zombie Zoo

Imagine being swept along by an invisible hand,

By the flushed flesh of your own urges,

By the hordes of others who would be just like you,

By the hordes of others whom you would be just like,

To the perfect place for so many to congregate

To a bacchanal feast of all that's tempting to the senses,

Consuming whatever you feel, whatever you will, at will,

Consuming whatever you feel, whatever you will, without will.

If you can still read this, there may be hope for you.

An Army of Fools

An army of fools in service of a queen

Who does not rest and does not breathe

Descend as a living panopoly

To pillage in lines orderly.

'Tis a terribly fascinating thing to see,

But there's one thing about it that haunts my sleep:

That used to be me.

Maladjustment

I was watching football.

I was tossing a baseball.

I was listening to music,

and of course I was writing.

I was revealing a dark truth–

To myself–for the first time.

My last five minutes

Just flashed before my eyes.

Your Diamond Smile

Your diamond smile,

Ageless and unfading,

Dazzles when unhidden.

You are judicious

With that display piece.

You could sell tickets.

The way the sunshine

Called to earth by your smile

Plays off your verdant eyes

and the black forest of your hair

(Which your finger takes

On a roller-coaster ride to nowhere)

Is unintentional.

It cannot be interpreted

As a sign.

Truthsayer

The art of comedy began with the jester,

A daredevil whose act went two feet in the air,

Speaking truth to power, and surviving,

But what do they call the sort of person

Who just speaks truth to everyone,

and only for his amusement?

Why I Write, part x+225: To Disappear

I can write anything I want.

I can write anything I want.

Some will praise it, take the excuse

To explain the advanced poetics I employed.

Some will lament it, wax sympathetic as they

Point to distant, biographical pains behind.

Some will point to it as a Freudian excuse

For any rout, reverse, or regret from my past.

Some will point to it and say, “nonsense.”

This will happen any time I write,

No matter what I write.

This will happen every time I write.

This is what happens when anyone writes,

Because everyone who reads is a writer,

and if everyone is a writer,

Then there are no writers at all,

and all we can read is our own minds,

With fair-to-middling comprehension skills,

But hardly a hint of understanding.

I can write anything I want,

Any time I want

To disappear into your mind.

Enjoy!

Two Great Tastes

I remember dancing to the one's beat

In the basement of Club Hell,

If only to get out of the heat.

The other played the soundtrack to my youth.

I never did mind the complex chords,

Because the lyrics sang the truth.

Never let your disparate favorites

Sign to the same label.

Hear how they collaborate

As they're best unable,

The half-songs they sing

About two different things.

I don't know what kind of music

They're trying to make,

But it's definitely not peanut butter cups.

Is Inspiring Inaction a Form of Leadership?

Why do today

What can be done tomorrow?

If you can't quit while you're a head,

Quit before you're tired.

Don't put in your two cents,

and it's two pennies saved,

While one minute saved

Is like cheating death itself.

Low-hanging fruit taste just the same.

Higher branches are for the birds.

Unrepentant

I'm sorry I upset you,

and that's all I can say

I could hide,

But that's just a slow-motion lie.

I could leave,

at least if you're tired of me.

I'd apologize,

But this is part of who I am.

I wouldn't change it if I thought I could.

It's been ages since I tried.

DMZ

I suppose he wonders why

I don't even acknowledge it,

Why I won't meet him halfway

Or send him away in defeat,

Or perhaps the already suspects

That I need that kind of drama

Like a fish needs a bicycle.

I suppose she expects me

To do everything, to be everything,

To swoop in, sweep her off her feet,

That whole fairytalestorybook bit,

But that's not my kind of relationship.

I'm not looking for a princess,

Just a friend.

Princess Charmin

I'm not sure when she stopped telling me

What she thought I wanted to hear,

Only to begin telling me everything

She wanted to hear herself say.

She tells me that it's real this time,

That she would never leave me,

That she could never hurt me,

That she was a different person back then.

(Oh sure, only once, and never again.)

She tells me that if she won the lottery,

and anything in the world was within her means

She would choose only me.

She is thirty years old, and still plays make-believe.

Cabin Fever

If I got any more sick,

I would actually admit

That I'm congested,

and not just stuck in my head

Without my headphones

Unable to think out past

The tip of my nose

Or hear anything beyond

The waterfall roar on the sides of my face,

and I wouldn't have come to this place.

The Road Less Trifled

It was not his words,

Nor his way with words.

It was not what he said,

But his way of saying,

and his way of saying little.

It said a lot.

He had an air about him

(and he displaced a lot of it),

The air of a man rarely trifled with,

So I trifled,

and it has made all the difference.

So Was Red

I didn't really kill you,

So I didn't really go to prison.

I just lived the next year

Someplace I hated even more

Than remembering–or forgetting,

Though I didn't do the whole year,

Or a whole lot of living.

Still, you and the time are both gone.

Both of us are free.

Brooks Was Here

I am locked away behind brain-bars

With mindset for a warden,

With habits for guards,

and like everyone, I have my days.

I, too, have a longing for escape.

I imagine that I could somehow run away

To normal, where anyone can hide,

and then I realize

That the only place worse than inside

Is outside.

Sometimes/Tonight

Sometimes, facebook is a slog,

But tonight, I'm liking pictures of dogs.

They always say that time flies,

But tonight it has slowed to my pleasure,

The better to develop and write,

and it seems that God made sure

The heat went out with the light.

Tonight is a good night.

Faith

In her youth, she was a gymnast;

She wanted to fly, and that was the closest.

I could plagiarize, and she'd excuse me

As a fine eye for finding found poetry.

She's the only person I know who thinks

That skunks are lovely and noses stink.

I couldn't stay with her

Because she believed it would work.

Lost

You know how to put one word behind the other,

Bragging that momentum made a molehill of your mother.

You can tell me to finesse that flamingo flam, fabulous,

Because we don't need to make sense to anyone but us.

The rest of them can get on with their gam-gumming gait,

But for me, you may have to translate.

A Time to Rend, a Time to Sew

The future racing in to meet us

Was always going to defeat us.

To each, the other will be gone,

To each ourselves will soon move on,

To break up, and yet not to break.

My heart now tastes of lemonade.

I think less about why my future is lonely,

and more about you, my limited-time-only.

I rejoice to have known this woman I know.

It's unthinkable that she will be mine tomorrow,

and never again.

It Isn't Better Not To Know

I don't know what it is about you.

I may never know what it is about you.

I don't know why you do this to me.

I will never know what you've done to me.

I don't know how this started.

I can never know why it will end.

I have read jailbreak blitzes.

I have read middle screens.

I cannot read you.

I have come out the other side

Of the party's dark tunnel,

The meat grinder and the half ton of trouble,

All of it to run into you, the shining light

On the front of a locomotive.

Transitions

I am unprepared.

I was never one to take notes.

I'm bad with transitions.

I could say it's the writing,

That a novel of introductions,

A novel of conclusions a year

Is all that a man has in him,

But I'm just bad with transitions.

Change and I are at odds.

The universe and I are at odds.

It's why I write in the first place.

Can't Stop

Because I could not stop for Love,

She kindly stopped for me.

The carriage held but just ourselves,

Quite inconveniently,

No room for hobbies, older friends,

Or reasonable doubts

Until the carriage had to stop

and let me jump right out.

Adolescent Escapism • Concentrated Strength • 100% Pure • Dilute Before Consuming

People live plotlines all over my brain,

Protagonists, antagonists, characters minor and main:

Outer space aliens and their earthly contacts,

Lovebirds with their lovers, teens and parents to match,

So many pairings. There are detectives and perps,

Coaches and teachers, lawyers and lawyers,

Legions of mages and demon hunters,

and fictional football teams, down to the punters.

The stories I tell in my head are embarrassing,

But the breadth of the stories in my head is astonishing.

Summer in Montana, Pt. 8: The Hot Ones Are Always Crazy

Today, I met another hot one.

I saw it darken,

and I heard it talk about its feelings,

But it refused to start crying.

Never trust a thunderstorm warning.

Minutiae of Belief

My first novel hacked a path for all those after

Because I believed in the character.

The second time, I believed in the story–I've lived it.

Now, I write because I believe the message in it.

Perhaps, in this novel, or the next, or the next

I will gain the experience to believe in the process,

and perhaps after writing many more,

I may even learn to believe in the author.

Happily Never After

Relationships are like razor blades or cubes of ice.

They are best when they are new,

While everything is still interesting,

Before thought enters into it.

The first overthinking is the beginning

Of the end of raw, fond rememberings.

I don't want to say you've grown dull,

and I can't say that you melted me at all,

But I would never let you pull me

Into slippery ever after.

Unjust Words, Just Words

I have heard the words other people use,

But I have no illusions about the things we do,

Or, rather, the things I have done to you,

All of the things I'd still prob'ly do.

I'm cloudier about the fact that you still care for me today.

It makes it worse and better, both, that you will go away.

Take Two and Call Me in the Morning

In the black no man's account belongs.

Every record's red with wrongs.

Regret's the soul's sole cure for sin,

So take it twice, for everything.

Regret is head-turned-back hindsight–

Emotional, thus no more right

Than backing into a telephone pole,

and haste like that will bruise the soul.

Time heals, but teaches lessons, too.

Regret can be thus used, as a tool,

A map to life's best neighborhoods.

Moderation's almost always good.

It shouldn't hinder, block your eyes.

Just keep it near you as a guide.

Death Imitates Life

The movies play dramatic songs,

Send doomed characters out righting wrongs.

In life, such things are rarely seen–

No warning, time, or energy.

As life went, most times, death will go.

Fate conducts no rallentandos,

So live a life you're proud to leave,

If nostalgia-bound-regretfully.

Go Back, Pt. 2

To get dressed in the morning or strip off day's lie,

To talk to my brother, seek laughs or advice,

To look over what my folks would say I shouldn't have bought,

When I wanted to do things without getting caught,

When I had something private to say on the phone,

When I was just sick of being anything other than alone,

All moments of need led to one destination.

My room was my library, lair and vacation.

Go Back, Pt. 1

The world (for western academics) turns

From springtime leavings to fall returns

When students must go back to school,

and I half-wish I was going, too,

Back to friends and classrooms safe

Where real life sits outside and waits.

What's keeping me away from them?

Fear they won't be the same again.

Pull Away

I have never preached forever. This is why I don't believe.

It was natural I'd push and you would pull away from me.

I try not to think so much on your affection for me waning

and more about the time with friends I'll shortly be regaining,

But living all my favorite memories foreshadowed, in reverse,

Should leave me where I started. This somehow left me worse.

Extradovial Biological Entities

Bacteria might live their lives in dog's bowls, drains, or doves,

Worlds that fit inside the pocket of a baseball glove,

With a universe of life outside they cannot hope to see,

So why shouldn't we?

Almost

Today, I almost slipped again.

I almost screwed everything up.

I almost said something I almost mean.

I almost made the biggest mistake of life.

Today was almost utterly horrific.

Sometimes the most comforting thing in the world

Is the fact that “almost” doesn't count.

What Have We Done?

We did what we do best.

We did what came to mind.

We did what came naturally.

We did what we thought was best.

We did what we had to do.

We did it the easy way.

What have we done?

What Have We Here?

I have my orders;

I have my reasons,

and I have my ways.

But I have ideas of my own.

I have a mind of my own;

I have my work cut out for me.

Life Advice That Also Applies to Card Games Three Quarters of the Time

To cure a life that's less than art,

Romantics say, lead with the heart.

That's no good way to be a man.

It's too squishy for a batt'ring ram.

It isn't to be done for show.

The heart's all blood and veins, you know,

and not a thing folks want to see–

A mess, best left for poetry.

Cadillacs and Funny Hats

Poetry is the thing that marks me out.

It is my Cadillac and other peoples' discomfort,

My pride and other peoples' shame.

I can throw it around, and play silly games.

I can throw it right into someone's face.

Poetry is a lot of things to a lot of people,

But to me, it's mainly my funny hat.

On Attraction

She has eyes of a color

So rarely seen in nature.

She has a smile.

Oh, she does smile

When she's not so conversational–

Her vocabulary is sensational,

Because she reads all the right books,

and I swear it's not all about the looks,

But whatever lizard lives inside me

Reaches up from below

and wags a finger back and forth.

He says no.

I want to like you, but I don't.

Keep Me Waiting

I never said there's anything wrong

With keeping me waiting.

Modern life is close to becoming

Just a series of lines we acquiesce to standing it,

But now that I'm openly wondering

How long I will continue acquiescing,

You tell me.

How patient can you afford to be?

Eyes Meet

Sometimes eyes meet at an intersection

(Hopefully not literally; that tends to be

Sort of a train-wreck, but with cars),

Passing so fast that they don't so much meet

As coincide,

Which is not as bad as when they linger too long.

That makes me want to cover my eyes.

Sometimes, there really is no meeting.

One turns away too early, and the other too late,

and sometimes, it seems just right,

and it seems like more have met than just eyes,

But no matter how it happens, I always wonder

“What was she thinking?”

Matilda

A first bear is a confusing thing.

When you find it twenty years later,

And it almost fits in the palm of your hand.

The first bear is for the time

When it doesn't look much smaller than you.

I don't know how long mine was my favorite toy,

Because I don't remember a time

When it was a relevant part of my life.

The musical movement still works,

It just doesn't sing to me anymore.

Keep Your Friends Close...

This world is full of whimsical woe,

Like the flying needles to stick me while I mow,

Two and a half kingdoms of life than can fly,

and quarter-ton steel sculptures that will eat you alive.

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough,

Owing to my lack of trust.

Delay, Deny, Evade and Avoid

Delay, deny, evade and avoid

Are my motto, and also my rules.

Delay, deny, evade and avoid

Will get me through the day.

Delay, deny, evade and avoid

Gets you out of more work than to

Concede, confess, expose and accept,

and who knows what else you might get to do

While you delay, deny, evade and avoid?

Conservative Playcalling vs. the Quick-Kick

I've watched the clock

Spin my workday

In endless concentric circles.

I've marked time to the end

Of many an elective class.

I've gone into halftime

With a four-touchdown lead,

and run the clock out to the end,

But never before had I chosen

To run out the clock on a relationship.

The Corner of My Eye

I was walking by the river,

and you caught the corner of my eye.

You apologized all the way to the hospital,

Because you're a better woman

Than you are a fisherwoman,

and together we learned

That the quickest way to a man's heart

Is through his bloodstream.

The Dangers of Using Conventions On a Poet, Pt. 2

Watch yourself. You can't just sit around

Staring at yourself in the mirror all day.

Enjoy your chair while it lasts,

Because pretty soon, you'll be out on your butt.

You gotta grab the bull by the horns,

Because if you mess with the bull, you'll get 'em.

One Foot Out the Door

With one foot out the door,

I make sure you're behind me,

That you're still there with me,

Leaving to stay together,

In a rush to make new memories

So that we have something to share,

Or something to take with us.

But What About the Woman Wearing It?

The hat is two sizes too big for her haircut.

I don't know what color it used to be,

But now it's a light shade of fallingapart,

The little I can see between patches and buttons

Which hold it together and speak for it:

“12th Annual Farm Festival,”

“PETA: People Eating Tasty Animals,”

“Mean people suck,”

“Bush/Voldemort '08,”

“:)”

It lost all its seams to be falling apart at.

It is better than new.

Lame Walking Dream

I walked from task to task with no memory.

It was better than work, but a lame walking dream,

and now it's time to clean off a long day's grime,

The stains and the stubble of twelve hours' time.

I stand at the sink, half awake or still dreaming.

It doesn't seem like my hands doing the cleaning.

This thing could be sublime, and it might just be weird,

But that guy in the mirror would look better with a beard.

(F)utility

I am waking up and rushing away,

Off to mark time 'til the end of my day.

I'm working, just to make money, just to spend it,

and borrowing more–there's not enough to lend it.

I am pushed, pulled, and put off, harried and dismissed.

I am the workforce, wondering if this is all there is.

Not Even Boyfriend Material

Promising forever, to have and to hold

Always struck me as boring and old.

I promise that I will never say the words

“Don't look up.” I'll stare in another direction

Until you start staring the same way.

I promise you'll ask “what are you staring at?” a lot.

I promise that I will not bring my chainsaw

Inside your house or apartment.

I promise I will never put money first,

Second, or under anybody's mattress.

I promise that I will never read your mail.

Sometimes, I may choose to read mine.

I promise to tell every joke I make

Until I know that you heard it.

I promise to keep my eye on the ball;

I promise to keep my head in the game;

I promise to keep my hands to myself,

At least when I'm playing non-contact sports.

I promise that if you rank a day's two weirdest questions,

That I will have asked both of them.

I promise that I will forget things,

But I'll probably forgot I told you so.

Colorblind

I used to tell people that I was colorblind.

I won't say our backgrounds are no different; that's not right,

But people around me always talk about people as black and white,

While in my experience, they may be dark or may be light,

But they are always brown, just samedifferent enough to delight.

Just Don't Over-Oil It

In the wrong hands, it is soft and smooth.

In better hands, it feels like a notebook

An old one, the cover soaked in butter,

Knowledge and natural smoothness,

What I once thought love would be,

What I wish I could be.

In the right hands, it only feels like nirvana,

Universal truth.

...But Horsehide Does Not Smell White

Leather even smells brown,

Bashfully, perhaps, but big,

Not like the dirt, the earth,

Which is everywhere beneath us

and hardly smells brown at all.

It's a Different Fashion Statement If You Wear Them Out Yourself

Someone told me the jeans I wear look pretty good.

It's my argument that they probably should.

They work hard and play hard: no fussing, no whining.

They don't dent or scratch, like a human's bed lining.

Ten years treated so tough you can't say that it's love,

'Til they fit like my own past, like a good baseball glove.

(The best of both are near unwearable right off the shelf.)

It's still a fashion statement if you wear them out yourself.

Do What You Want

You can do what you want and refuse what you don't,

and I'm free to argue, to ask why you won't.

This is no proposition enstringèd, no date.

It's just an excuse to relax, stay out late,

Somehow separate this from your six other days.

You'd do best to get out, since you can't get away.

You see all of the drawbacks, and none of the rewards,

Or maybe I'm just bored.

Love, Factually

Love is about a person's flaws.

Love is like having a superpower

That is actually a dangerous disadvantage.

Love is about disregarding rational thought

While making permanent plans.

Love is having a ready-made excuse to relapse into self-hatred

After doing anything interesting or impulsive.

Love is about compromise, forged by quiet desperation.

(According to the Gospel of House,)

“I love her, therefore I let her keep her socks on.

If that's what love is about, I don't want anything to do with it.”

...And Spit In The Other

I wish I remembered our how-to-be-friends.

I wish I could just randomly see you again.

I wish I remembered where I remember you from.

I wish I had more to say to you.

                                                Guess I'm done. 

When I Was

I remember when I was intense,

Rather than indifferent.

I remember when I was prolific,

Rather than pedantic.

I remember when I was prodigal,

Rather than pedestrian.

I remember when I was fun,

Rather than forgettable.

I remember when I was creative,

Rather than coasting.

I remember when I was hoping,

Rather than moping.

I remember when I was hungry,

Rather than gluttonous.

I remember when I was rounded,

Rather than rounding.

I remember when I was gallant,

Rather than galling.

I remember when I was someone

Rather than nobody.

Those days had their moments.

When You Were

I remember when you were eccentric,

Rather than ecclectic.

I remember when you were inquisitive,

Rather than an inquisitor.

I remember when you were spontaneous

Rather than sensible.

I remember when you were sarcastic,

Rather than enthusiastic.

I remember when you were interestingly unconventional,

Rather than interested in the mundane.

I remember when you were cute

As a habit, rather than an occasion.

I remember when you were fresh,

Rather than frozen.

I remember when you were mine,

Rather than his.

Those days had their moments.

Liar, Liar

Lies are not the sovereign territory of words,

Nor are pants the only habitat of fire.

Indeed, I can feel my whole face burning

As I exert all of my strength

Endeavoring to smile like I mean it

In an attempt to laugh like I used to,

Testing the depths of my depression

and failing.

Awkward Situation IV: Recipes for Mixing Metaphors

My pen bleeds, and in lieu of pain

Cries that all the world's a page.

So, most unplagued by inspiration,

Instead, I'm sickened with frustration,

Which, having youth dilute with age,

Grasps at substitutes for rage.

To be paralyzed by punctuation

Makes an awkward situation.

Words Fail Him

I am the writer whose words fail him,
Socially illiterate in many situations.
I would give you a handful of mine,
But they always slip through my fingers
To dissolve in a volume of wasted time,
and I seem to have been born without a filter.

13 inches – Superior design – full grain leather

I do not, as the rule, use the word “love,”

But in this case, a cow gave its life

(and did not save its hide),

Several strangers in the Philippines gave their time,

and an unlikely row of sewing machines

Gave needles and whirrs and an overworked wheeze,

and now, when we play rough, you sound like perfection.

You're just (in)animate enough for a connection.

Thin Red Line, Pt. 1

There is no thin red line between love and hate.

There would have to be a canyon, not a groove.

Well, actually, there's two,

Because friendship is the undersea vent

Between silence and agreement,

and enmity is the vast, dry expanse

Between unreasonable and indifferent.

A Pack of Pretty Lies

They told me I would never be the same,
and I don't think this is what they meant,
Because most days, I forget how to be different.

They told me that this would get easier,
But it only takes longer to recognize
When I look at something, and see her.

They told me that time heals all wounds,
But I don't think I've gotten any better.
It's just that no one plays our song anymore.

I Am Bender. Please Insert Girder.

Science is slowly sliding to the conclusion

That free will is nothing more than an illusion,

and I suppose that I might agree with them.

Every time I kind of want to do something against my nature,

My brain goes into vapor-lock, and I just kinda sit there.

After about the first twenty minutes,

It starts to get slightly less hilarious.