while you still can

you see
one red

and then you start to see

them all

breathe:

cool in

then a sigh

narcotic

  (confusion

  (convenient

habit

start to feel yr heart

on other than high alert:

horse-drawn Havana

calling out the names:

tiny fruit

red fish

sweet coffee

poured by ancient women

in a tiny window

back in the U.S. you

     (gotta laugh

dream room in a real house

what to keep inside

I guess nothing heavy

chapbooks and linens

dried fruit

and myself in this moment

washed out of plans

I am really airy

being a Libra

taking pictures and posting

trying to float above

jaws offered

as I've noticed

from this past catastrophe

anything that seems to save me

takes me

if it seems to save me

it takes me

opt instead to float above

I decide

where to sleep for now at home

Diminishing Returns

A flattened shopping experience feels like a symptom of
malignant narcissism.
I'm just trying to make small adjustments now,
I've got to be careful of rationalisations
they are the pathology, overspilling.

So one week I think I'm being haunted by home,
that a JD Sports will open round the corner,
be shuttered by autumn,
another and I think well, whatever informs my opinion
is just a constellation
and so my friends and where they live,
are a constellation and getting where they be
is of little consequence,
the arrival shall bleed off annoyance.

But diminished returns I keep referring to:
when the narcissist is borough bought
and sold on the town tale
to interpolate-

-that being surrounded is enough,
an elevation

but in the end dominion isn't
improvement, right?
If it's just a wrench to something familiar
if I accept JD
if I'm not running from the fire sale
I have diminished the return,
ready for the new wave
to churn the scatter,
toss out the cockles,
to wash us over.

Nu yu

Each spring I hopefully begin my to-do lists
which always includes some variation of

"have herb garden,
in kitchen?
in window box?"

The ghosts of mint and basil plants past
do not hover over me when I buy a new crop
at the farmer's market.

I want to try again and again
to remember to do something with care
to grow my thumb green
to be the version of myself
that pops up in fantasies
over and over again.

Last day on earth

Every cell in my body has a
last day on earth
then maybe floats somewhere else
past the smog
and ozone layer
and burns up
lovingly
out there somewhere

carbon love

ok so we know
it all begins with
one, two, three (that’s you)
four etc (others too)

one: held aloft above the rushing
trout stream, birds chirp, bicep
warm: my nose shoulder torso forehead
all fit there

one b, one c, one d, one e
this is how they say it goes

one f, one g…
teacher, shrink, friend, actor,
actual lover here and there

i know the theory.
here’s what i see:

i see my wish to stop
and let the copies copy
one after another onto
your body, your words
your aspect

let them come layer
like dirt becomes rock
heavier and heavier
solid solid solid

though you are a
rainbow
and can never
be mined

Front & Centre

Stepping behind this

grabbing its wrist and pulling its own punch

if I squint, or if steeped in coffee

and redding out a sphere encloses

perhaps this looks like

look at me

it's historic grandstanding

I haven't seen anything like it.

I'm in the seventh year here

and yes I'm from a place

where events are

knots on a 

cat o' nine tails

may as well be a

cat o' no tails.

The cat of, where?

History is not better served as the lego of facts.

And this is my observation here,

the endless hope that those knots

could be slid off like in a magic trick

scooped into a pile

vs the childish impulse

to start flicking them at those

still writing,

still perfecting their pen grip.