ear to the earth

the bones are buried several feet deep
but put your ear to the earth
you can hear them speaking,
slow, and muted tones
suffering does not pass into the air but is absorbed
deeds are never truly done,
you can taste them in the soil
acrid, but a part of you now
spit, if you want.

shipyards

itis dark outside
and i am too drunk and i cannot
stop thinking about my dad
everytime i pass the shipyard i think about
 the countless hours in which he told me
the provenance and
ownership of all of the boats back several decades and i cannot
remember any of them and it
makes me feel guilty but most of all it makes me think of him and
it is as though i can hear the restless motion of the sea water against the
hulls,
i could hear it, earlier tonight, at the beach the tide was hungry for
the rocks,
and part of me wished that i could throw myself into the timeless pulse,
excoriate these feelings and begin anew
abraded and free.

dancing

my first thought
    after i hopped up,
    picked up the broken halves of my
        bicycle
and stumbled to the curb, sat on the
    wet grass, looked at my
        bloody side
was not
thank god
    i am alive
or
    holy shit
or
any kind of visceral
        terror or
exhilaration
but
   was just
that i was going to be late,
getting to your house
and that
    we would probably not
        go dancing,
and that this was,
really,
sort of sad.

Sauna

a
white house with
huge views and attached garage
two
cars
apple tree in the back
yard and my brother and i fighting
in the basement

we had chickens
for a few months
our coop had no roof
and they would
fly out the top and
tear up the yard
my mother was so
frustrated

so frustrated my
father in his office in the basement
with adjacent sauna that we
(i don't think)
never used
watching his life fall apart and
market forces ate my
college fund and his
retirement

poor planning that
house was poor planning a
fiscal disaster but
i french kissed a girl for the
first time in the doorway of my
room and from my window
the mountains were fucking
fantastic snow capped and
magnificent

when i moved in my best friend and i we
would build legos and have
sleepovers we still called them that
when
i moved out we had moved on to
wandering in the night
i remember
once talking to a policeman a block from the
house on the corner with a mouth full of
mushrooms i had eaten the whole bag and i
chewed frantically
the bitter taste spreading through my mouth to
(i remember feeling like)
my brain

after we moved out but before the house sold my
friends and i we all went there and
walked through the empty house and
sat in the barren livingroom downstairs and
smoked so much weed a proper
paean to financial ruin
life plans dissipating like
so much smoke

Birds

birds wake me up always,
birds and sunlight no matter
how much alcohol or how
little sleep.
i'd rather wake up with you
than anywhere else even
on this tiny couch
cramped and fetal.
your breath smells like cigarettes and
we both smell like sweat and
probably booze and
i want to kiss you anyway on the lips
but don't.
you shudder and shift,
relax and snore and
i hold you tighter and
drift half to sleep,
kiss your neck
soft.