Broken Radiator Sideways

televangelism for fun and profit
my brother put a Bible in the bathroom
so i guess i can read the book of Job
the next time i'm taking a shit.

i'm watching the vietnam war on cable, they put it on there
the whole thing in between the channel
with the mother daughter design team and the portuguese priest
with the lazy eye
this couch just gets deeper and deeper next to
the boarded window with its sub zero no-nights
all the fish died in your
neglected aquarium
this is through no fault of your wind struck
system of bird pipes

courtesy notice:

there is a time.

there will be a time
where you will be expected to
say things
particular
things

they will have to be repeated.

these things
that you said

will say

will never be loud enough
to escape questioning
low voice on the present pillow
road balance without the alcohol edge
general hardship is viewed through the
loose green velvet of stadium seating
bent pins and apologies (never straightened or said)
which hand holds the more important message?
(left) (right)
it's one of those notebook nights

you're not allowed to love piles of dirt and dust

don't try.

(second favorite thing)
changing weather has killed
our kid-simple crickets
south towards the sun there's an ocean
full of old men on boats
snorting cocaine
who have figured all of this out
there is a five minute difference
between meaningless and midnight
bottlecaps in your watch pocket
and playing games on too-small makeshift tables
walking the wrong way in both directions
we could give up and drink
in the weak woods of suburbia
burst open trashbag animals
speedfeet that feel like moving
like movement
the only thing we must remember
right is the foot that drives
to get anywhere,everywhere,nowhere
we could go
or did we miss our chance?

call if you need me
call, call if you
call if you need
me

the words are the last thing to leave you
qualifier
junk drawer psyche
apology

perfected fingerprints on the metal suggestion
five step fire prevention

we do not leave our friends to burn alive in long buildings
mental health care facilities
a circle with nothing at the center
the broken wires scream
a violin
repeat

a little house of lines and white
living on the pages
no walls
sleep under the desk
or in drawers
pieces

the orange light evenings of industry
no more star at the corner
but noises to fill the space
float in or fall out
small and heavy
not crushed
but fucked up

pro-palestinian israeli tv show
these days allow us to drink at the least appropriate opportunities
bringing back the events too vague to remember i
realize i don't know exactly what january i'm talking about

if any of this even existed for me yet

these cards that don't say anything are making me
a slow
sweet
crazy
the cards i get and the cards i don't send
have to stop

have to stop looking around the room
trying to figure out what comes next

hair moves
in backwards patterns against the arm-curve
estuaries

the grindstone finds its place amongst my golf scores
and junkie directions
volcanic ash in an envelope
scooped off the hood of a car two states away

dogs
make
more
sense
than
people

we knew something was burning from the change in the weather it was the dark clouds without a drop of rain and we walked up that hill and down that hill to the school warehouse we didn't know existed until it was half gone we could sit and watch because people don't care what kids do as long as they are quiet and out of the way we looked because there is nothing on tv for us on winter break afternoons and christmas just makes the days longer and you do a lot of crazy things to pass the time half-sledding on hills without snow in cardboard boxes or trying to sleep the sun down but it didn't work because back then our bodies knew better than we did we watched also because we did not yet know which drugs were the right ones to take the building burned through all these thoughts that had yet to cross my mind and i learned that you can drive a car right over a fire hose when it is running and nothing happens because it's too much all at once we had to walk back up and down eventually for dinner and the rain did come except it was burnt something black and brittle like old paper we came out and put it in plastic sandwich bags and then into the closet that never had a working door sure we would have it forever but no one knows where that paper is

a poem i never showed to anyone
fell apart in the years of my back pocket

that fire was all oil and old rags

i refuse to believe we were born this insane
lying on a bed of folded clothes and frames
(in this room the light is always off)
i can't remember if there is a window or
whether you boarded it up drunk one early morning
you shower and i sleep lightly under a makeshift pillow
upon waking your house is very large and hollow
those vertigo stairs are too many perspectives at once
my eyes can't find you and my mouth refuses to speak
when i am locked in modern million dollar museums
so i walk back past the unused chess set and
the debatable existence of that grandfather clock
back on that bed to sweat myself asleep thinking of
the fake plants your parents own and don't care for
(your father sees everything as an investment)
children shouldn't hear the things we say
or know too much about our sad and violent lives
it makes them lose things they can't get back
curled up into twin balls on blue blankets we dream
and hope not to roll off on paint covered floors
(the telltale trails of red animal pawprints)
sleeping in a skirt is childhood summer acceptable
i'm never there for the most important birthdays
and it's not likely that i ever will be
always somewhere else sharing secrets with strangers
they don't know enough to judge me like they should
through early morning distance we discuss sexandmurder
how even madmen can say things that make too much sense
mull them over in the stoned out fourth floor waiting room
in late night empty the building is a nightmare mirror
(back to telling time in a room without windows)
lying down, something always over my eyes, i know she's right

there will always be things about which to weep

your broken collection of coffee mugs
i've been searching around my mind
looking for words i haven't used before
i didn't find anything of interest
a knife at the bottom
of a dried up well
boxes of ammo falling into the ocean
useless, the damp click of misfire
little bodies in unopened plastic boxes
and a guitar with rusty strings
the measuring tape comes uncoiled and
suddenly my carpet is covered in numbers
bought a new shirt, threw a nickel that
missed its mark, landed hard
on the thin glass of my career
breaking nothing
up the secret stairs is a room
filled with abstract technology
black plastic sheep
trophy toys for the children
every one of them has a homing signal
we're making a map, the migratory patterns
of playtime, our system stretches weblike
on the framework of preadolescence
crumpled remains of your homemade blanket
scissors and stupid questions
the only thing sitting in this chair
has taught me: being blank
isn't better than anything

celebrity moms
burnt, but
not out of it
farther
loopless
looking for a
coke habit
maybe
a cold glass of water
the fan rumbles in front
of the tree too small
for black birds

tell me the truth about clean cut blonde boys

about
pulp seed from
pulled
hairs

you cannot replant those roots
(no matter what those tv doctors tell you)

years worth of wasted time
is what we have from our
dead-eye lottery daydreams

i have my excuses planned in advance
for the day that the slits
don't let light through the windows
i practiced in the back room

living through jars of garbage
i have determined which words
are the most important
if only i could tell you
without them turning into
puddle pictures
on the floor

it's time to let go of things
that can't be given away

broken homes
there's a quiet fire
to this roadtrip flare burn
we're screaming chinese profanity
from the bottom
of our lung buckets
washing emptiness from the
corners of cheap
gasoline street signs
fall with me into the river
into the restaurant
following orders
through the back rooms
(we ate outside)
the machine is making noises
in the laundry room at midnight
beeping fast like
all our brains put together
thinking that sound leaks
ghosts in the graveyard
that we kill with dream guns
the reason you're afraid
in abandoned buildings is
the cross-wire feeling of rejection
it's what the doctors told me
in the chalkboard office
they took my sting heart
and i looked at their globe
all the countries fell onebyone
into the ocean

hands on
the dogs are killing each other
down by the lakes, again
two pools of water between
a hill
there are men
whose job it is
to move the liquid from one
to the other
they do this by yelling loudly in spanish
and digging empty graves
with a backhoe
i see this from my place
on the dangerous end of the ladder
covered with
hot air from an attic hole
watching the unknown owner
come and leave, come and leave
time passes quickly in pieces
that multiply through addition
i remember a book i never read
and one i would have suggested
in return
neither of which
are particularly important
anymore
just thoughts that
pass through the places
between my feet and the ground

these things that we notice
the library wants their book back
the one that
i already gave them
evidence of work
fills up my fingernails
and wears rough hands
that know more about
stillness
than
motion
all the kids are taking pictures
with that statue-man
whose face they don't recognize;
they've got all these tragic friends
maybe we shouldn't know about
everything is about sound, lately
fly buzz fluorescents and
the birds living underneath
our metal stairs
they sing indiscriminately
not knowing the difference
between night and day
the old man picking through the garbage
says they've found a home
that's really no home at all
he tells me i should
write something about real people
i'm thinking his alcoholic mother
or runaway father
who owns an all night diner
near Sarasota
they came together like christmas
killing love up close
she said he was too honest
when he lied
(their birds didn't sing at all)
sometimes it's better
to get the story backwards

we'll all forget to exhale
what happened to all of those things we used to keep inside?

i put the pen
next to the empty pill bottle
while you sleep-breathe like
childhood winter
he's a madman trainwreck
in this quiet boxset sunshine
the world is too small
to write things worth remembering
but it's significantly psychological
for our purposes
i met a girl who apologized for crying
and i didn't know why
she wasn't doing it wrong
from what I could tell
they weren't red tears falling upwards
we couldn't catch the kids
who robbed our backyard birthday party
they held hands and ran faster
than our lack of surprise
later they'll fuck,
and so what, right?
love stopped having anything to do with them
a long time ago
the police report is all truth
told to people who don't matter
through
coffee tables and apologies
they gave me paper
to help in answering questions
so i drew a crooked landscape instead
and put it where the window should be
do you have anything to say on your behalf?
yes
i have this note you can
put up in your work coffin cubicle
to remind you that you're
not yet as dead
not yet
as they are

lacuna
story
not really, but who knows anything about the
static crinkle of contact
about the problem
with finding the ending first
you used to write beautiful words
back in the day
when you didn't care whether or not
you wrote beautiful words
or anything at all
and pictures too, before heaviness
not the weight itself really, downward momentum, or
the slow spun gravity
that's nothing new to this kid
more how it sits
uncertainly off center
the conclusion reached
there's no good way to say anything, anymore
nothing changes for us
we just have to talk without expectations
of terminus
everything fell through a hole
in the state-of-the-art
purification system
nowhere
burns hungry flames
and us without those
fire safety classes because you thought
it would be better to smoke on the escape
and talk about a god that never existed
(you were right)
sometimes people are only
the memories that flow between
stolen bottles, dollars and distance
silver linings with their curse killing abilities
saved doesn't come close to covering this
we all might need a new language
or lessons in fixing
the faulty designs of ancestors
changing directions, hints of surreal pink
in black space still warmth
we can't shake this change in the weather
wind that rips away muffled voices
break is over, or just beginning
either way my pack is empty
and the air is wearing thin in patches
halo-tight around my head
so inside, where i'll open the window
and close my eyes while life spreads loosely
around the edges

mediocre explosions in orange (or orangish)
you should have ended that sentence
two words early,
even though they fit together
puzzlenice, perfect
indeed, a certain ring
yes, a ring, what they had
though everything does, to me
ring, that is
especially silence
and that
indeterminate area
not night or day
but dim-bright in between
watching shadows
or shade
from the library
(fifth floor window)
leaning forward and reading
thoughts like god showed me
not really, but
it makes the girls smile
the little ones most of all
they don't know not to, yet
no one has taught them
to save it for something
that might never come
i won't tell
if you won't

also, upside down bottles
let's make this quick
i only have
single digit minutes
and maybe not even that
i keep stepping on my
little magnetic chess set
because the floor is not a good place
for things such as that
all the black squares
are blood red
and it took a long time
to put all the pieces back in order
(i've stepped on it three or four times)
once i pushed all of the pawns
onto the back row
usurping the knights/rooks/bishops
it seemed like none of them
quite knew what do with themselves
suddenly thrust
into positions of immense power
i moved them back to the front lines
perhaps they like dying faster deaths

Lock (ampersand) Key
there's not much to do in this
pre-Christmas desolation
the sun has risen on
landscapes of dirty dishwater
it's a day made for
putting unimportant things in order
there must be a sequence for this
we just need the right numbers
we need
false bravado followed by
mid-morning naps
permeated in every direction
by rebellious silence
a day where
the music is never loud enough
everything is losing its edge
a jaded junkie of a morning
strange vibrations from
unexpected places
hugging the walls like
wayward hairs in the shower
not knowing which is worse
hanging on, drying out, or
the short trip through the drain
aurora coriolis, my favored fraud
a day in which
we replay childhood memories
but only ones that never happened
all those kids you wish you grew up with
retreating further inward, not noticing that
the birds are all flying blind
south is a dream they forgot upon waking
lost, like us, no concept of home
the only difference
is wings

Thousands of Miles Out of Everything
Her glove compartment is full of out-of-state parking tickets. They're all from the two months she spent driving aimlessly around the country. Didn't know where she was going, couldn't get there fast enough. There was something about her that made the police officers (young, horny, male, without exception) unable to let her off with a warning. They eyes maybe, lost but not helpless, just somewhere else. Or the mouth, smiling at the wrong times. Maybe it's as simple as fear and control. They saw something they couldn't have, didn't know how to contain. Little pieces of paper instilling false authority. She never did pay any of them. Perhaps she figured that nobody would bother looking for her. The car was unremarkable and it carried itself as such. Like with most things, she had no attachment to it. If it had died she would have walked away with it sitting on the median. Only pausing a second to grab the worn atlas from the passenger seat. She traveled without music, but not silence. She couldn't stand the thought of missing something important. As if the world might pick any moment to tell her a story. At home bills piled up and plants died and things gathered layers of dust. No one called, but that didn't matter. She threw the phone off of the roof the day before she left. She watched it fall quietly. It landed loud in a tangled mess of twisted plastic. No one noticed except the stray cats in its back alley graveyard. The bell bounced away, mediocre elegy. She took a camera, but no pictures. Afraid of memories she couldn't keep. Only ate at diners with window seating. She couldn't stand to be at the counter, painful small talk and smaller people. She would eat sometimes, or just order and let it sit, drink glass after glass of water. She tipped enough not too be memorable either way. Mainly she just looked at things. Let them pass through her eyes and put them away, somewhere. Mountainsdesertsplainscitiestownsnothing. She slept in the car, always. Couldn't stand the idea of sleeping one night stands, waking up dirty, surrounded by closing in exotic objects. Returned home to mail, deaths, dust, silence. Happy, in her own way. Comforted by the lack of welcome. She smiled, and slept in her bed like a stranger.

Nobody
with nobody, and we
don't have answers to
these questions, or we
have ones that aren't
good enough, which is
even worse, sometimes
this time
we're burning up in this winter
weather too fast, nothing
to protect this skin
nobody, twinkle for the
third time, by now we're
old pros at things like
knowing the difference
between night wind
and fast cars alone
on the road, smelling
snow in old clothes
making people bleed
oh, and games, we're good
at games, card and
board especially, but
we'll branch out for
the right price
a good night's sleep
and no sad dreams, just nothing
nobody

Unsettled
a name written in (my) red ink hand
too perfectly straight for darkness
remembered hollow points and shitty
french manicures, homely kindness
acid, decay, and time that passes
more slowly than you thought it would
trying to fix things that maybe can't be fixed
maybe shouldn't be, in the dark (again)
unstable ground and bookshelf of blurs
stars blink out with lefty loosey
only witness to the fall of burnt cherry
ancient battle under sea told on shoulders
draping down arms and those words on the page
have a slow burn through the paper and envelope
until they're just a pile of words in
my mind mailbox, i have to string together
the thoughts among falling black feather collection
though never from any animal i've heard of
just lie down in bathmat bedroom and tell stories
of interstate family dysfunction and i'll shake
and talk about movies that none of us will
remember in the morning, so just keep smiling
and kindly wipe away my crocodiles, they have
a habit of collecting in the corners, so i have
trouble telling what's real and what isn't
maybe tomorrow i'll know the answer

my sundial keeps breaking down
i'd like to return this stopwatch
no, i know that it's a
very fine stopwatch and it never
skipped a second
but you see, that's the problem
the stopwatch keeps going at this
pace that's dictated by quartz, or
cadmium or nickel, or zinc, or fucking
radium, i don't know, whatever
they use to run watches, nowadays
but, like i said, the problem is
that this stopwatch keeps going
and i can't keep up with it anywhere
i'm slowing down and it's still
racing, frantically, towards
something and i don't know what it
is and moreover i'm scared that i
don't know what it is
but the watch isn't scared, and it
makes me mad that this little piece
of plastic, and steel and
quartzornickelorzinc or whatever
is braver than i am
plus, it's filling up with this
time stuff all these seconds
and minutes and hours and years
and i don't know what they're
made of and i don't know where
they're coming from and i certainly
don't know where they're going
it's all just a little too
much for me to handle right now
so i'd like to return it and
get something that's not so
ambitious that's not so determined
and that can sit with me when i
need to take a rest and can be afraid
with me when i am afraid and who won't
run off towards where ever the fuck
this stopwatch thinks it's going
so i want to return it and get this
snow globe instead because it will start
when i start it and it knows how to
take a rest and i know what it's made from
and where the stuff inside it comes from
and where it is going and it will never
run out inside of its perfect little world
it will never run out
all i need to do is shake it
and there it goes
again

the first five things i see
these are the times where the words should just come pouring out of me
but they don't
it's just a large stone room with a faucet and i just watch it drip drip drip
and i am too concerned with how things look when i write them, and it's a weakness
a weakness that i can't afford
so maybe every once and a while i should just let things
rush out without thinking about them so much
but i don't and it doesn't really matter anyway
i suppose it doesn't really matter and
right now i can't even stop thinking
you can never stop
and i run out of steam, think of my eyes
those constantly tired
eyes
and how they require a kind of sleep that i don't know
how to give them
would this look better on a typewriter?
would this feel better on a typewriter?
would this look better in the sky?
would this feel like the sky?
no, i guess it wouldn't
lines that are too wide, stretch to far and i don't want to follow them
so i won't
when did we let everything get so dirty and clumsy and stupid?
i know that it's always been that way
but for the sake of argument
indulge me
why is it that nobody ever asks,
"is this the middle?"
we might all be a lot better off
if we concentrated on finding the center
but we won't
and i don't care
in a good way
it's so perfect
being imperfect
i love it
this way

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