A Broken Leg in Eagle Grove

i'm stuck here
watching crappy television
and laughing when she laughs

sometimes
because i don't want her
to laugh alone

sometimes
i like dumb jokes

also
because
it reminds me that
she loves me

mostly
because
it reminds me that
i love her

love
no matter how broken
no matter how broken a leg
no matter how broken a heart
is never a bad place to be

My Last Text to Bradley

I hope,
so dearly,
that a couple miserable dudes like us
can find a few more moments of joy out of
this life.

If we suffer,
and survive,
we probably will.

There's no guarantee,
but that is where
"hope"
at its weakest
is also at its strongest.

You just need a little.












https://youtu.be/bfNX_hpHVsI

Vamp of Approval

she prowled
slowly into the club
with her teeth showing
and walked around the dancefloor

long black hair
fell on her shoulders
like dirt onto a coffin

what gets buried
will unbury itself
when it gets hungry

long black eyes
fell on my weak demeanor
like a desperate hunter seeking easy prey

what gets bled to death
comes back to life
when it gets hungry

partly
because i prefer the night

partly
because i want to live forever

mostly
because i am lonely and insecure

i approached her
with my neck exposed
hoping she would want a bite

lies made with sugar
nectar of belief systems
please, pass me the salt

painting herself slave
she holds the chains like brushes
to master an art

Welcome

there's never a moment of my life
that i don't just feel like i'm visiting

whether
that's because i'm a bastard
who grew up not knowing baseball
or someone with undiagnosed mental health issues
who should probably not prescribe his own meds
or a space alien
who got amnesia when his ship crashed
or a poet
who grew up in Fort Dodge

maybe all those things

but i always feel like i'm visiting

it's only when i try to get away
that i kinda feel welcome

Romanticizing the Knife

this time
i'm only gonna
hold it by the handle

i have enough scars on my hands
that i should know better

but the blade
is so goddamn pretty

Love Song for a Party Starter

i'm so glad that you came back to me

i was so scared
that you would forget about me

i was waiting here
all of this time

i kept hoping
out of the corners of my eyes
wistful, convivial glances

as if there will always be a party where
i'm not looking

Muy Poquito

i know more English
than i do Spanish

i am
at least
The
dark
master
of Post-Buk American
poems

but
what little i know
i speak with the hope
to learn

Portability

Escaped from the zoo
 i walked the streets
   thinking suddenly
"I" was free

but i was never free

"I" was only carrying
my cell around

a backpack of restrictions

a traveling jail

a portable prison

fashion statement

alone
and
gold
don't go together

never dress up
for a date with the tap water

i only feel lost
when i try to follow maps
i go where i go

teeth marks on the mic
battles of conversation
tank division tongue

God is Bad

there is no god in my poems
unless i am writing metaphor
or simile

and even then
they're never the good guys

trust me
you don't want me to
believe

Slow-motion

it is not only a film technique

every
   drunk
is an executive producer

every
   pothead
is an avant-garde director

every
   didn't-make-it singer
is the lead actress

but a lifestyle
is
   a
     hard
        typecast

how fast when pain drives

i only meant it at first

foot vs. the gas

Still Can Still - (written by pixelatedbrain and dannyprice)

Long as you
 can still
function as a human,
I say
do what you want

As long as you
 can still
function doing what you
want
i say
keep pretending to be human.

it melts everywhere
madness of snows, and vodkas
romance blooms in cold

Alcohol

sometimes 

when the whale devours the shrimp

the shrimp feels like he's part of something 

who is not a robot?

i don't fear
the computer
writing a better
poem

i expect it and i even kind of like it

maybe some computers of the future
will be weird
 too

 at least a few

 and if i am trying to do anything
 it is just a beat those future poet computers to a few lines

The Fish

as life keeps going
Old Man and the Sea
keeps seeming more like a memory
and not just a book i read

The Hey Never Gabba

hey
i liked tom petty

i liked bowie
lou reed
prince

they were all great
for different times
and drugs

but
drunk or sober
whenever musicians die
i always just miss The Ramones

d$ On Writing About Writing

The writer
who writes about writing
writes about nothing

   unless
I suppose
writing is the only thing
they have to live for

in which case
I guess they're writing about everything

Rock N' Roll

depression and anxiety are
so
last month

it's October
time for skeleton-print socks
and Glenn Danzig albums

trick, or treating through graveyards
for the candies of insanity

monster-mashing in the morgue
trying to find a dance partner
that can follow a lead

and obligatory repeat plays
of an overrated
9 minutes+
goth drum circle
about a man that played Dracula

'tis the season to be careless
fearless

be the monster
instead of afraid of it

and come November
when they're running you out of town
with torches
just
remember . . .

they're more afraid of you than you are
of them

Don't Turn Into a Vampire, Yet . . .

i want you to see this
it is when light surrounds the dark

the Eclipse line-up

the sun plays drums
and the moon swipes the voc-mic

tHe SuN PlAYS DrUMS?

well
not very good

Topical Poem

i hate
writing anything that dates
itself
to a
current event

i'm happy to read them
but i have never considered
myself to be a topical writer

Trump is a piece of shit
but i don't want to waste a metaphor
to tell you that

Black Lives Matter
but that's a strong enough phrase on its own
without me craftily adding poetics to it

but
alas
i have to write about a current event

and i've already spent more time
writing about writing about it
than about it

i don't like writing about writing
either

so i am breaking two routines
here

the shooting in Las Vegas
is gut-punching
heart-punching
soul-punching

it's a foul example
of a foul truth

we love
we write
we hold doors open for the elderly

we do nice shit
a lot of nice shit
all day
most days

and i can't stop thinking about the last time
the shooter in Las Vegas held the door open
for an older person

the feeling in his heart
holding that door
a small thing that we all do
just to feel like we're part of it together

and juxtaposing that idea
to him busting out that hotel window
and feeling like he wasn't part of it anymore

it sickens me
and it saddens me

my heart breaks for the destroyed

my heart breaks for the destroyed
first

but
just like Columbine
or the postals
i grieve for the destroyer
too

i'm not saying i should
i'm not saying you should
i'm not saying anybody should

i'm just saying that i do

5 Card Life

we are always
 a blackjack species
  no matter how often
   we see in chess pieces

in the bones of Poe
my fingernails turned to black
digging for a verse

used in a haiku
she felt abstract, but exotic
eighteenth syllable

If My Kiss Tastes Like a Tree

splinters of wood
when handling beams
would sliver into the fingertips

i always felt them
but only a few hurt enough to pull out

the rest
i left
in there

my
fingers
my
flesh
grew around them
and now they're so deep
i don't notice
or if i do
barely

it's no longer as if i formed around them
but with them

i am the splinter
and the splinter is me

that is how each of her kisses
was

so now
when you kiss me
and ask if i've been gnawing on a branch
i don't understand

i'm so used to it
it seems natural

memories in dust

love is just a thing she sweeps

jilted broom bristles