Day 32: Apology

Apology

Finally I have realized that I am terrible
at so much, really,
but especially building things
from a box, the chords of wooden boards,
ziptied & untouched,
strewn throughout the house;

dancing is a weakness of mine,
so are bowling & darts,
any bar game really, any game
where you flirt between shots,
where you can balance a beer
in one hand;

this isn't something new,
but it is something new I've learned,
another gift given to someone else.

Day 31: Turing Test

Turing Test

I am possessed
by a phone booth
having failed so often
to write down
even the messages
on the pad by the phone
in this room, empty
except for the phone
& a table for the paper,
exactly how could I pass
for anyone but a man
alone and forgetful
in an empty room,
sleeping in the corner
& waiting
for the phone to ring.

Day 30: Comedian

Comedian 

Joanne practices on me first,
before she goes up there to face
the wall of lights and beyond
what must be people.
I could never stand there
& read the phone book
if even one person was witness
working through the two drink
minimum. One day she calls me up
to ask, I don't know why,
if a joke she's written works.
I have no idea if it works,
only that a joke should be a machine
made of words that goes off
in your head. A bomb is a kind
of machine, sure, or an engine,
& the joke is called thunder: you see,
two children live in a house alone
& every night they sit together
at the head of the dining room table,
drinking from the same cup.
They speak in low tones, a language
I don't understand. It is only years later
the younger brother wonders where
their parents went or why the kitchen
is always full. The funny part
comes next, but I've forgotten
and I'm not telling it right, not at all.

Day 29: Trying Cocaine

Trying Cocaine 

I was tempted, I admit it, to write,
Trying Drugs, instead; better be precise,
A reminds me; M reminds me, no one
calls it blow anymore, no one writes what

it's like, that last moment before you can
tell your parents you'd never, suddenly
you have & the room vibrates, is bound by
the vibration, how could it ever be

otherwise? In every moment, I feel
unchanged from every other moment, but
in truth every atom in my body
will leave me this year & it's a relief

that my body is a stranger, a thing
I can float above, its heart beat too fast.

Day 28: The Illustrated Night Parade of a Hundred Demons

The Illustrated Night Parade of a Hundred Demons
Ten demons sit at a table, playing
cards, gossiping & drinking with empty
plates strewn across the table. They all run
hot, frankly, there's a fight every evening

& this is probably going to be
a scary one. You see, Mastema cheats
& in twenty minutes Varuna will
catch him at his devil's work. The cards are

on their backs again & the waitress walks
by, dodging those lecherous looks, almost
as if they are not ashamed, but they are
awake, hissing in the dark, these are songs,

that sound slurred and unsteady, drinking songs,
well, almost songs, sung by inhuman tongues

Day 27:Consistent and Inconsistent Equations

Consistent and Inconsistent Equations

An estimated 5500 languages
coalesce out in the great web

& in each one at least one fight,
at least one couple fighting

in the apartment upstairs, heavy
footsteps like footprints falling

through the roof & music so loud
we can hear the words, unmuffled,

at least one child singing to herself
to ward off demons in the dark.

The great web hangs heavy with dew
against the slatboard sky,

vibrating sky, full of man made songs,
sung in one voice.

Day 26: Poem Written in the Wings of My Own Wake

Poem Written in the Wings of My Own Wake

Who wouldn't prefer
to be remembered

for something kind
he did, anything really

selfless or the way
he sang or shot a basketball,

it almost doesn't matter what.
I can't think of one person

who lived his whole life
without pissing off some

coworkers, friends, the postman,
the neighbors. Dearly departed,

think of the man
who buried him, who marked

his grave. Both go home & sing
their children to sleep & wake

to one fewer sun left in their lives.

Day 25: Renatus Harris

Renatus Harris

What does it mean
to make machines

that compel a
chapel full of

bored children &
wives to stand &

sing, lungs full &
eyes wide. This, too,

is art, how he
carves the wood, he

shapes pipes & keys:
these teeth, the lungs,

the heart. Nesting
dolls, inside this

one, another
artist at his

bench, shaping what
I imagine

can not be played,
but still must be

born & die for
the organ to

breathe its breath in
the solemn dark.

Day 24: Grapefruit

Grapefruit

Eventually they'll have feet
& given enough time, a language

of their own. What leg or spine
sprouting from the peel, time lapse,

the centuries flipped past and discarded.
What if this is just the beginning of the age

of the grapefruit. Here: maybe the first
entry because no one knows

which way the tree will branch
until the tree has grown too large

to uproot. Look at what the grapefruit
has become, all its progress

& invention sprouting at the leaf
a robot fruit plucked by a robot hand

Day 23: Unrated

Unrated
I know this one by heart,
the late night familiar
faces--that were so young--
blue light filling the dark
room, the cat sleeping on
my lap. The problem is
not memory, it is 
inhalation, it is
punctuation, the lines
I know altered in ways the
network can not air, the
quotations forgotten
& almost remembered.

Day 22: Going Broke

Going Broke

I've been fired twice before, given
a cardboard box & told to get lost.
It's like that all around I gather,
whenever a middle manager
stops working weekends or a grocer 
steals cash from the till. This feels nothing
like cleaning out an office, taking
down pictures, plants, anything really
that's not nailed down or beige. How can
I put it? When a man builds a boat
from scratch, chops all the wood, measuring
each plank & board, & finally he
lashes himself to the mast, feels the
sail billowing, trusts his creation
to carry him to harbor, & when
he sees the first lights of the promised
city at last, feels the ocean at
his ankles merciless & rising.

Day 21: Modern Love

Modern Love

You only need to know
one thing about buying
an oversized bear from
the supermarket on
a whim: it's absurd
to find somewhere in your
one bedroom to put it.

Day 20: Even an Amazing Animal Must Die

Even an Amazing Animal Must Die

I used
to run 
in my
youth, my
lungs a
billows
that did
not fill
or close.

But then
I grew
past the
age when
my legs
began
to shake
& my
heart beat
strangely
at the
coming
footsteps
of men
from the
other
village.

I beg
you, please
do not
tell them
that I
fear all
things that
once I
did not
fear, please
know what
I was
& not
what I've
become.

Day 19: Flat Earth

Flat Earth

This globe is a lie, this city much
larger & the sun not a star at all
but a constant point without a name.
How do I know what is real & what
the world invented? I'll tell the truth:
before today only exists as memories
passed back from memories of
memories. Each copy retaining
less of what's original, this life, this bad
movie where  no one remembers
except what they are told, & I don't trust
what I'm told. The world as unknowable
as snow falling inside this globe.

Day 18: A Bribe

A Bribe

The summer before I started 7th grade,
I sat across from my mother,
the kitchen table between us,

watched her write on
some scrap, fold it crosswise,
& slide it to me. Carefully

I ran my fingers across
the fold & pretended
to consider. She wanted

me to take French, almost
her native tounge, so badly that
she offered 200$, all

the money I could imagine, & more
than I had ever held in one hand.
So I took French of course

& I think she imagined
us speaking to one another
over dinner, sharing secrets

while my father chewed his pasta
dumbly, my sister already in her room,
but five years later I could hardly

conjugate a verb & now I know
nothing of it. Those words & grammar
spent without a return.

Day 17: Thin Plot Premise

Thin Plot Premise

She thinks 'we are all living
in a simulation' is as absurd

as 'we are all dead
and the world is just

a fever dream', complete
with roses, music on the radio,

every board game ever made,
rain, steak houses, & the pain of

running your fastest mile
& I must admit it's a comfort

to think of every awful thing
I've ever said, the people I've hurt

needlessly will be wiped away
by an alien hand, which I imagine

must have scales and webbing
but might look like my own.

Day 16: Gambling for a Living

Gambling for a Living 

My great-grandfather could fix things,
put his bare hands to a wooden fence

or length of pipe. I can't even put
a swedish dresser together

without cursing
the slabs of wood sacattered

across the living room floor. In fifteen
minutes I'm going to play

for a million dollars and I'm naked,
hungover in the dark,

no handmade furniture in the house,
my closet full of broken boards.

Day 15: Shrine

Shrine 

The hammers hung on the workbench wall
each have a ribbon tied to them,
& who knows why or what

each color means. I would not try
to learn his system, his sacred things
measured out just so for a reason

I never want to know. The first room
I remember sneaking into, I passed
a crack in the door just big enough

for me to slide through.  God's work,
he'd tell me every morning
before he descended, leaving me

to eat cold cereal & listen to him work.
These, his devotions,
I watched from the stairway, unseen.

Day 14: Victory

Victory 

The small victories are great too, 

like loving another person enough,

just enough, to let them 

paint your toenails. No flip flops 

for a month, she tells me this 

is our secret. I agree. I change 

in the corner of the locker room, 

keep my socks on the whole time. 

She doesn't know that I would kill 

a snake for her, that this is not 

the greatest measure of devotion 

I would give her. She does not 

know & I would not interrupt 

as she fans my wet nails dry. 

Day 13: Without Supermarkets

Without Supermarkets 

would I grow a garden? 

Would I plant root vegetables 

& ward off pests or neighbors? 

I have never worked a day in the dirt, 

hate the labor, the waiting, 

the constant overfull laundry:

grass stains, blood stains etc. 

This is no desert, no 

landfill; we have a Whole Foods 

3 blocks over, for Christ's sake! 

I know my neighbors, trade them 

BBQ recipes for gossip. My grass 

grows with hardly any work at all, 

true, not a real garden 

exactly, & no toads left to imagine. 

Day 12: Mediocrity

Mediocrity 

"You know, like anything can be great, anything can be great... if a guy knows. If he knows what he's doing and why and if he can make it come off."
-"Fast" Eddie Felson, The Hustler

Ever thought you were good 

at dancing or bowling 

or anything else, only to meet 

the first person 

to make you feel how 

small you are? 

Well: Take heart. 

Almost no one is great

at even one thing 

that they love. Beyond 

belief that you might love

cooking or sports or cards

or another person,

but every dart league 

in the valley is full, 

this year the dance 

classes overflow with 

left feet, these grooves

just impossible. 

Day 11: Genealogy

Genealogy 

This is the tree I hung from
upside down, my legs, a hook--

which was second hand--
for my body, which was also

second hand. My father loved
to tell me about the marathon

he ran & how he stopped
ten minutes from the end

for a cigarette break. This is how
I fell in love for the first time

with my body. The first time
I ran a mile, I didn't wonder

at my legs split below me
like that, how I hovered like that,

something borrowed & pinned up
on the original sky.

Day 10: Our Only Reward is Joy

Our Only Reward is Joy  

My cat dashes out the door, first
feigning right then at full sprint,
between my legs. An indoor cat,
I curse after him, but this is a dance
we've danced before. The stairway
extends into the courtyard, &
the concrete must be an ocean
to him. Because he stops there,
impossible to stop like that, so
suddenly every time & won't step
across. Have you ever edged up
to the end of a dock, looked out
on the thoughtless sea & how large
you are compared to it, who can not
look back on it's own annihilation?

Day 9: First Love

First Love

Not many left here 

were still alive when

my mother plunged 

half her body into 

our above ground pool 

& pulled 

me up by the heel. 

Yet people here still 

call me the boy 

who would not drown, 

though I am old & she, 

dead. Strange that 

I remember so little 

of the previous year 

but I do know the exact 

shade of lipstick she 

wore, how 

she scolded me, &

weeks later, when 

they tore down the pool,

the panels falling away 

like an orange, 

how the yard smelled 

of chlorine for weeks. 

It seemed a swing set 

rose overnight 

there, a flower 

garden sprouting 

alongside, flush 

with what bloomed 

where I would 

not perish. 

Day 8: Why Writing is Harder than Poker

Why Writing is Harder than Poker 

Because this is just a matching game,
and most of the time it's boring,
the same few faces staring
at the faces staring back at them.

Day 7: Self Portrait at 9

Self-Portrait at 9

There is something coming for me,
& the terror is that

I cannot name it.
My parents named me, & I

never asked them for
the story, the scraps

they offered me, unbidden,
before bed do not help--

that I would have been an Anne.
Sometimes I wish I was Anne.

I still remember what panic
felt like the first time

I knew that I would die
& my father would die

& it wouldn't happen
at the same time.

The terror is coming for me
& it remains hidden

behind a curtain that does
not move, even in this wind.

Day 6: Theme Park (Fragment)

Theme Park

Mechanical parrots are singing at us again, and we are canoeing
in this lake, which is also mechanical, I guess. I guess
there might be a real family picnicking over the next hill.

But how much of what we cannot see is simply
gears and wires and a music box?
Can these flowers bloom without
the florescent sun?

Day 5: Comfort II

Comfort

You don't have to believe in
every thought you have, do you?

After I am dead,
and my mother is dead,
and my children are dead
or never were, who
will believe in the girl flying
from Egypt, sleepless,
unsettled, halfway to
first snowfall, bridge club,
her partner. This,
the story she tells us, this
girl who can't decide
what to read or how
to turn so to fall asleep.

A blessing:
and that I am the dream
she chose to believe.

Day 4: Comfort

 Comfort

Today is the kind to take comfort
where you can find it, that in the depths
of the sea there are millions of creatures
who will never know why
my mother wept in her pajamas,
November 8th, 2016,
that it's raining in Phoenix and rain
should always be welcomed here,
that the engine of American
Entertainment Products will not come
unhinged, that you probably won't die
because you lost your healthcare,
because you're Arab
and forgot to shave today,
because you pissed off a white man
on twitter or close enough to his property,
and if you do, death is the last great adventure;
you should see it as a gift--And don't listen
to the man in the crowd
whose signboard you cannot make out,
yelling that those comforts are nothing,
that the oceans will rise up against us,
that the rain will rise up against us,
and the dead take no comfort in small things.
Do not listen because in any creation story
there is a world before the world
becomes whole,
and sometimes there are people even,
who do not know theirs is not the world, only
a place to stop a while, rest, and watch
what's coming over the horizon.

Day 3: Hypothetical Love Poem

Hypothetical Love Poem

How many chances have I wasted
at a normal life? And what
would we be then, my love?
I do not weep for the details, my dear,
of you, your coffee, two cream, how
you fold your legs into your arms
and why, I do not know; and how many
mysteries of you I do not know
I do not miss. These constellations
lead me up and down your spine, I might trail
my fingers across, finding a way.
But I do not--And in this other world,
could you find me by another name, by other,
brighter stars, your way lit too well to see.

Day 2: White Guy on Twitter

White Guy on Twitter (Thread)

I've read Infinite Jest & care
about the fate of Roger Federer
& Soccer in America; of course
Astrology is bullshit, of course

girls are crazy, of course
I've never been afraid
to tell you what's on my mind.
Because this is unfiltered, this

is my truth. My parents, both
Protestant, never sat me down
and talked to me about police
brutality & how to avoid it.

Like I said, I've never been afraid
of walking down an abandoned alley
at night, my keys uncertain
in my hands, or anything quite so much

as these past weeks. Because I've never
seen injustice like this before.
I've never been this afraid.
Not like this. Have you?

Day 1: Refugee

Refugee

I can think of reasons to put your child in a boat,
but only one to put your child in a boat alone

and watch the curve of the ocean
swallow what once seemed
so large.

Day 1: Short Intro

"The universe is made of stories, not atoms."
-Muriel Rukeyser

There's a poem I love by Muriel Rukeyser called "Poem White Page White Page Poem", which is about the frustration and beauty of creation. It's a wonderful poem and you should read it when you have a chance. The past 8 years I've been stuck with the frustration and not the beauty. It's not that I don't want to write; it's that writing is hard labor and the labor is painful.

But I want to work now.

Here's my plan, which I'm sure I'll regret in days or hours or minutes. Every day I'm going to write something and put it on this blog. My hope is that this process will keep me accountable to myself and that something good will come of it. Maybe I'll give up in days or hours or minutes, but right now I feel like trying.