the usual

He walks in and orders the same thing everyday

He expects to be remembered

He expects his name to be a medium coffee with milk and two sugars

He walks in ready to hold court

He has a steady quality

He is handsome in that way your brother might be handsome to you

His best years are behind him, but things are alright now

He thinks things are alright now

She remembers his order this time

Next time who knows

She’s pretty in a that way the unattainable might be pretty to you

Right hand left hand through hair

Uncomfortable pause

He thinks things are alright today

She thinks things are moving slow this morning

They are moving slowly

Almost so slow as to move backward

We expect our orders to be remembered

He expects something of this everyday ritual

She expects a paycheck and something else beyond the steam

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Suck up the extra dirt; it’s a delicacy in these parts

It’d be a waste to let it just sit there

Collecting dust

It’s not like scotch where with time it grows better

It sits there waiting for immediate consumption

It deserves that

Otherwise it does become mud

And dust doesn’t deserve to settle on something we take for granted

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We're soaked with leaves

Soaked in yellow, soaked in twilight

moats and boats

I whisper you in the sand

The tide to crash

The tide to wander

Moats and boats tumble down

Filling and ruining the holes we dug

I whisper you in the dark

I see the giant phantom waves

Tossing moats and boats

so that they tumble down

into the sand we'll dig tomorrow

when light will guide my words to your eyes

sheep

I’m saving all my sleep for when I really need it

I have herded all of my sheep into one place and they wait rather impatiently

Sheep are like that, impatient

They’re kind of dicks if you really were to ask me

I’ve slipped my covers over my head

And I wait for the shadows to play across the orange sky

You know you know you know when you can’t stop your eyes from falling

I’m saving my eyes for the perfect sight

I’m saving my glimpse for something better than a herd of judgmental sheep

I’m saving my sleep for when I am alone

And only sleep can keep me company

ponds

Baited hooks sink to the bottom of the pond

A fish from the river is in these parts

A trout

A something

Always a bigger something from some bigger pond

It is unfair when that bigger pond is an ocean

On this side of the pond we know what’s up and down

And on that side they know the difference between right and wrong

For instance, they know that to drop explosives into a pond is a wrong way to kill the fish

And over on this side, we know that the explosives make the bits of fish flesh fly up to the sky and down to ground

But we try to cooperate

We try to honor the bridges that connect us

We bait our hooks and we look to east and to the west

All the others just look ahead

At least on both sides of that great pond we have the sense to look through all sides of the compass

i'd call it overcast

In broad daylight

It looks like dust is falling from the sky

Explosions of dirt, though moist to the touch

I guess dirt can be moist too

Then it's mud

The skies darken and it rains mud

high time

It's pretty pathetic to show up like this every day

Face painted white

I rush it, I can't handle the interaction

I can stare at the spots of rouge on the wall

They're my blush

my color

It's high time I change my complexion, I have the time for it now

I rush the entrance fearing that I'm late,

which I'm not

I never am

you know you know

You know you've begun to slip when you wear your sweatpants out of the house

At the time of the decision, it seems like a harmless idea

a good idea

The elastic waistband becomes so enticing

But once you submit to the alluring song of an elastic waistband, you know you've begun to slip

You know you've begun to slip when you piss into an empty beer bottle rather than walk the 5 feet it is to the bathroom

At the time, your body sends the impulse, and custom dictates that you react accordingly

But the beer bottles are nearby and are standing as sentinels- they talk to you, like when they commanded you to drink them, they politely ask you to fill them. You oblige

You know you've begun to slip when you listen to the callings of an empty beer bottle

You know you've begun to slip when staying awake is easier than falling asleep

It's easier to continually wallow and worry than to put your burdens to rest

Weightlessness, is that the answer

Weightlessness, maybe

as you lean back

slip your feet under the covers

you turn your face into the pillow

you've begun to slip,

you've febreezed your pillow case instead of washing it

It's been three weeks since you showered

You know you've begun to slip when you rub dish soap under your arms because you've run out of deodorant

At least you haven't slipped so far as to use organic deodorant

Thank god. Thank god you've only just begun to slip.

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It has made an angry sound

I don't think that I can soothe it

It's made of a metal I don't quite understand

New things confuse me until they become too old for me to worry about

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Marble sweet, easy to cut and quick to judge

Taking the form of somebody

Some tetris shape

Ivory smokey, tougher to bend and ready to break

Some extinct animal is rolling in its grave of distant memory

Maple rich, painful to draw and excruciating to paint

raised skin and bleeding moments

It won't be easy to forget

I fear, it'll stay permanent

priced right

I left it on the porch

I didn't want her to see it

She would never appreciate its splendor or its glory

She is one of the many un-enlightened

Now I must find a place to hide it

So that she can't judge my newest investment

One can't put a price on paint-by-number art

Especially when it's a paint-by-number Virgin Mary

day 3

10 or 9

still beats 0

but zero marked the calendar at twenty-four

still awake, numbers don't wait for the sun to rise

miracle eyes

It's an ocean

To dream and hold you in my arms

We sleep apart

Dream awake, and hold, hold

I'm wide awake and it's an ocean

Your miracle eyes hold so much space

Eyes minding their own business read a future

Through glass and fields of corn

We stay and dance

I'm just a plane Jane

I wait for the summer stories

tales of fountains and skinned knees

Beneath the bed I know all the tricks, I know all of your tricks

I count your teeth as the fire destroys our ceiling

Curling smoke, drifting away

A medicine eye, a critical eye, I close my eyes

Close

What lines!

I've stopped handwriting

I've broken up with the lines and curls of my pen strokes

I was too enamored with its curves

I actually wrote so that someone would find my book and comment, "what handwriting"

I cared so much for the strokes and its look that the words meant nothing

The words always seem to mean nothing when I look back and read them

But at least this way I can blame the technology that lets me throw my words up into some cloud and they travel from one device to another

I can say something is lost when the words travel so much

At least now I don't have to commit my hand to some new word

I can delete and delete to my heart's content

And I can blame technology for taking the meaning out of the word

Because it sure as hell can't be my fault

I'm fucked

Wooohoooo

Woooohoooo

I'll be a little redundant and say it again.

Woooooooohoooooooo

SO

What is this?

I really don't know

I wanted to create a blog and share some thoughts but primarily some writing

I'm trying my hand at poetry

Or rather, I have been for a while but now I am trying to muster the nerve to share it

So here I try

I hope you enjoy and if not, that's fine too because at the end of the day words are words

So, words words words words

Thanks so much

N