POEM A DAY 2019

Like Pâté, I guess

You have made of me
charcuterie
my little heart cured
in the smoke of you

Snow outside Zahav

The joy on your face
Transcended
the cocktails and the hummus
the drink spilled on my boots
and other various faux pas
we thought we left in high school
The complications of this situation
the false starts and creative endings.
The joy on your face
when the snow started falling
was its own miracle
boundless in its presence,
its here-now-with-you-ness.
Mouth open in wonder,
your eyes wide and glowing,
dusted with the reflection
of the sparkle stuff outside

Fuck if I know

In the middle of the web
at the edge of this life
we've built a house
Let's paint the house silver
Let it reflect the sunsets
tearing up the skies
over the receding tide

So now what?

Red Wall

Tell me about virtue
Tell me about wisdom and the right thing to do
I'm growing afraid
That questions are the only constant
I was told that renting
Shouldn't stop you from designing a room
The exact way you want it to be
You never know
If you'll stay in the rental for years and years
Or leave the house you bought
After a year and a half
So paint the wall red now
You can always paint it back
You can always eat your security deposit
You can't plan for what hasn't happened yet
This was interior design advice
From a Mormon Mommy Blogger
She said don't let certain impermanence
Keep you from loving your space
She also told me
Via the comment section
That I should change my surname to Popemiller
So grain of salt, I guess
I asked my friend if we should have kids
She said I wouldn't like her answer
She said if she had to do it again
She wouldn't
She said she wouldn't trade her son for the world
She said it was hard and expensive and she questioned constantly
That she was doing it all wrong
She said she loved the way he smells like dirty little boy
I didn't not like her answer
I also didn't not like
waking up to 17 drunk texts from another life

Haiku cheat

Your hands get smaller
When dipped in the molten wax
Of my memory
of hers

Go Eagles

You are listening to the recap
Of last night's football game
On the high frequency speakers
Of your cell phone
You are sitting next to me
At the coffee shop
And I can hear talk of tight ends
Over the You've Got Mail soundtrack
Which, yeah, is a weird choice
For the coffee shop to pipe in
It would seem that
They are on a You've Got Mail kick
They were playing it yesterday, too
And, yeah, the high frequency voices
Of the straight women on the other banquette
Are also grating and terrible
But that's not the point
The point is, Sir, I hate you.

Ancora

-
​I had forgotten
How exquisitely painful
Desire like this could be
Your teeth sunk
Deep into my shoulder
And the gnawing need
For more
​The fraying tether
Is brittle rubber
Breaking around the
Metal chain core
That explains my eyes
Still holding
After all this time
Your eyes like
Chestnuts roasting
Per me, era fuoco
You taught me not to wilt ​​
In the face of flames

Air around here

_

All the particles
Of sweat or skin
Left on my hands
Form a fog of you
A mist collecting
In my tangled hair
I love the smell
Of the air around here

Lawrenceville

When I was unemployed

I lost my ability to parallel park

I don't know I just kept fucking it up

I hope you saw my perfect cut

Between the cars on Butler Ave

As a phoenix dance

I choreographed for you.

The Witcher

I've never loved you more than this moment
Imagining you cruising for boys
Your eyes green and clear
Surveying the field of emotionless encounters
Just to fill the time
Your predator intrigues me
I'd like to watch you let him off leash
I promise I don't think I'll mind.

When we decide to stay in
We're under the airplane blanket
Offered to me by an Icelandic attendant
When she had nothing else to cover my sadness
While I watched my father shake and stare
Into the middle distance of Row 1 Seat C
I'm watching you play video games
Wishing you were doing it differently
Knowing I couldn't do it any better.

Pop Punk Powerhouses playlist

So few joys outweigh
Thrashing around the den to
2000s pop punk

Sometimes all I want
Is to drive thru Allentown
Blasting We the Kings

It's embarrassing
I'm not going to pretend
That it's any good

Middle school was weird
Plaid skirts and sex in the pews
Remember that time

Peter Grodziak
The junior who played Jesus
In Living Stations

Said he wanted to
Fuck my brain out or something
I would have let him

I feel trapped again
And I'm angry about it
And I guess that's why

Blink 182
Has reached deep inside my soul
And found my Anthem

We felt so lonely
Those so few years we were told
To wait and wonder

40 Dogs

Halfway through the song
I realize that you live there
In the passage from chorus to second verse
All your joy and discovery
All your disappointments and failed attempts
You spinning me at my wedding
Your burning heart looking for fuel in a forest that was always too damp for you
I'm not sure you ever transitioned to the colored part
Like in the Wizard of Oz movie
I'm afraid of how similar we are.
I'm afraid of you dying still wanting
I'm afraid of you dying still lying
Talking yourself into happiness
I'm afraid of you dying.
We know you spend your 4AMs crying
Alone in the living room

Stubble

I was not expecting you
Here, today
Or ever
But here you are
Clearly ready to see me
To see my face in rawness
Shocked and unprepared
I’m embarrassed about my hair
I was not expecting you
To push it behind my ear
Run your finger down my spine
Or open that door
I’m teetering on the threshold
Gripping the frame
I must seem like a painting un-matted
Bleeding off the edges
Or a novel with too many endings
Badly in need of editing
But who has time to do that work?
Who has the energy when there are
So many enthralling stories to tell?
I was not expecting you
To fill this notebook
I would have shaved if I were expecting you.

Alexandrins

Meet me tonight in a place that doesn't matter
Beneath the fog forgotten by curious winds
Shielded by knee-high weeds where no one needs to mow
Under the four-leaf clover of the overpass
Or along the chain link infinity at the
Water treatment plant where we can see forever
How can you forget that view of endless nothing
Maybe by the drought-stricken spring of Pilger Ruh
A half mile hike off of PA 501
Let me take you there so we can rest like pilgrims
Meet me in a place they won’t think to look at all
Speak to me in words they can’t bother to translate
Dans la friche urbaine nous devenons des fauves
Et je t’aurais et tu m’aurais et je t’aurais
Words that don’t matter to anyone in this sea
Let us float away on the knowledge that nothing

Virgo

I keep staring at the horoscope
Hoping to pull meaning from the vagaries
Wide open for interpretation
Brushing my hand through
The meadow grasses of what could it mean
It seems
We caught different insects in the field
My grasshopper saw the world expanding beneath
Its leap airborne unknown
Your sweet steady ant made new pathways in
Its home grounded comfort
“A tree with many flowering branches”
Well that could mean goddamn anything
I realized as we smiled at each other
Presenting our bugs
A convincing entomology of what we each want
How do we devotedly stay the course
When this meadow path forks
And we forget to check the stars
In each other’s eyes
This horoscope
Promises deep-seated future messages
So I keep glancing at the phone
Hoping to see you texted back
Because that is a clear sign and
Because loving you is so, so easy.