What a Poem Means

A world demanding meaning alternates between cynicism and starry eyes.

See, all a detail must do
is matter to be written down.

And all a detail must do to mean
is to occur,

What good is paper now?

I’ve got a list of adjectives, but you’re the poem.
Your eyes an image, your hands the parallels,
your mouth the irony, your actions so loud.

Steady as a repetition, boldness your surprise-

If only he’d screamed, cried, or lamented

I’m suddenly disturbed by the awareness that
everybody feels
sadness.

I’m suddenly feeling unsettled about

Intimacy

Be near,
close to me as I scrawl.

Hear

You never croak, but you roar like a frog.
You bark an extended note, though you never howl.

You write her love songs, drunk on ale.
Buzzed on tea, I ink the sound down.

‘S’alright. My pen’s as neutered
as I always said it was.

And my love’s as strong as you strike
those chords

over, and over, and over again. Sway side to side.

I see the curves that your hips don’t make, Man.

Room 307’s First December Dusk

Scrapes and scuttles above my bed
but beneath the record player crooning
carols for the sliders and shufflers
to grate and whoosh to-

Do tree and garland rise in the upstairs room?
Or does the furniture scoot to perfect
disorganization?
And that, for feet to twirl and sway-
for the first or hundredth time?

With arms open as wide as the hearts

My feelings towards you confuse me,

My feelings towards you confuse me,
or at least they would
if I ever bothered to think about them.

I don’t.

On Being an Ideas Person

After a month of nearly falling off the bottom of the earth,
Ma placed me in my bed, where I woke imagining
feeling wide-eyed, refreshed, wondrous of where I was-
jumping off the bed, landing in flexible splat as impossible
as the dogs I used to try to draw were ugly.

I didn’t really know how dogs’ heads or human bodies worked,
but I wanted a Lisa Frank retriever and my butt to be in the air,

Gifts (To All the Ones I’ve Left Behind)

You are in my heart, annoyingly-

a shadow,
a remnant,
a ghost I cannot truly grasp,
a crevice nothing else will fit inside.

So I write poetry,

Writer’s Block

My head is blank
empty

vacant
up for grabs

up for sale
if you’re evil