pANDEMIC eCCENTRIC
I hope things never go back to how they were. That normal wasn’t normal. Lost to digitized history seemed to be leisure with gravity, interstitial tranquility. The accuracy of vacancy. Nilness.
I want to lose track of days and check the time only to be surprised at the lateness of the hour. Dusk looming, innocent as a satellite.
The Hard Way
Costco and the Apocalypse
We are all connected . . .
Highlights from My Love Life
My first high school steady
was a computer geek.
I read sci-fi novels
and corrected his college essay.
We tried bondage and anal.
I'm lucky his interest in me
wasn't confined to the cranial.
Sailors Grow Weary of the Wind
Therapists get tired of listening
Sailors grow weary of the wind
Parents are exhausted by their children
Losers become bored with trying to win.
crazy trails to you
The Sound of Clanging and Indoor Soccer Games
There’s far too much noise
and I can’t tell if it’s coming from the neighbors upstairs
or just the usual clanging in my head.
I don’t hear the clanging as often or as loudly as I used to.
I suppose that’s a good thing.
But right now, with the baby put down, the puppy mellow and asleep on the warm mountain of clean clothes on the couch, and the wife off visiting a friend, the familiar clanging is as loud as it once was.
And I feel like a bachelor.
That means now is the perfect time to clean.
Holding My Son as We’re Violently Burned to Death
But, son, I was not lying when I said I’d do anything to protect you.
Anything to keep you safe.
Sometimes that meant watching you put yourself in harm’s way.
Life is pointless without risk.
Sometimes it meant watching you get your heart broken
or hearing your bones break from the bleacher seats on the sidelines.
Harm and hurt, you see, are unfortunately, required of us.
The Universe demands it.
They are two of the many ways we learn and become stronger, better people.
Or so I always tried to be better
and I hope that I instilled that desire in you.
Cabin Fever Blues
Staying inside
Itchy skin
Don't feel like watching the news
Don't feel like love
More trouble than it's worth
Haven't shaved my legs in a month
Cause really who gives a fuck
I am a (Hu)Man of Items Not Action
I use a weighted blanket and melatonin chews to get a good night’s rest instead of going to bed earlier and committing to a bedtime wind down routine.
I use a bidet instead of learning the proper way to wipe my ass clean.
I use a juicer to lose weight instead of balancing my diet and exercising more.
S&M Santa Claus
I Don't Wanna Be Right
If loving you is wrong…
I’m dirty in a way no shower can ever wash off
What’s an Mp3 Again?
We had finished lunch at Arby’s.
Then took me to his place, which was his parents’.
A lovely home decorated in northeastern Americana
heavy on the light houses.
His bedroom looked like the bedroom of a twenty-year-old
who lived with his parents
and attended a university a fifteen-minute drive away.
Ten minutes longer than his commute to high school.
My Best Drinking Buddies Have Joined AA
My best drinking buddies have joined AA,
given up the bottle, sobered up, gotten on the wagon
without falling off.
searching for something better, searching for somewhere to belong
They run away to escape a life in which it was beaten into them that they were nothing, less than nothing, and then they are taken in by the streets, where the last of their humanity is ripped from them.
Daylight Saving Time
I ask you — or anybody—
Why does it have to take 10 to make 1?
And even more puzzling —
Why bother?
I Don’t Forgive and I Don’t Forget
First time
I give benefit of the doubt
Taiga
There’s a reason why the flames lick higher and higher…
Weeping in the Dentist's Chair — Four Poems Featuring Teeth
In either case you’re pretty lucky. Your ache is not as bad as the ache-ache-bleed-bleed of some others who need constant medicine and other means to help ease and regulate the symptoms.
God Makes an Omelet
Morning has broken.
First me, then you, then the country
strewn left and right, spoiled
Anxiety is the thing that’s ripped our country apart. It has divided us, caused us to fear and hate those who think and live differently than us, and even caused us to hate those who only slightly disagree with us. It has led to panic and overreaction. And I worry that American Anxiety is only going to exacerbate the social and political divide in this country to the point that there is no coming back.