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mot juste

it’s a glorious search, a tremendous
endeavor!—the countless folded dictionary
pages; the endless thesaurus tabs, thumbed
and bruised; the cross-outs and arrows and
pairs of parentheses; the possibilities…

the gray hairs and sleepless nights;
the hollow treasure chest eyes—

what takes moments to read
can take hours to write,
a humiliating hunt,
an indefatigable journey—
for the elixir, the sermon;
for the perfect word in the
perfect place, placed perfectly

we are bound by language,
it controls our every thought
(see Sapir-Whorf hypothesis)
but when you find it—oh my!
when that word is finally found,
after all your struggle and strife—
fitting like a key in a lock,
a dress on a bride,
like your hand in mine—
the ultimate reward may be for
you and only you, but oh!
how it pays off just the same—

how your soul belts melodies,
tones of golden freedom,
compositions—no,
symphonies!—of fulfilled soul

and when you come to find the word
you fought for and found—that
combination of letters signifying
an agreed upon meaning—only exists in
another language, when that assembly
of symbols representing an understood
concept epitomizes itself,
it’s even better—

it’s better than better, even—
it’s extravagant!—
even if that word is actually two words,
even if only to remind you nothing’s perfect;
that perfection doesn’t exist—
but irony sure as shit does.

(please excuse my French)

Change

I used to have a desk
I’d throw change on
until it cluttered
the whole thing—
dominating
eating it whole—
with no place to write

it grew and grew
bigger and bigger
larger and larger—
a huge coppersilver monster
with a bad case of the Mondays—
piling up
mountainous
spilling off the sides
in metallic waterfalls

the more coins that congregated
the more worthless it became
so finally
one day
I gathered them all up—
I separated them by value
chip chip chipping away
at the ones stuck to the top
from spilt beer and
wine and liquor
over the years

I rolled them up and
I turned them in for cash
and with that cash
I bought a new desk

now things
make a lot more sense
I use it a lot more
and I never let a single cent
touch its surface.

Abigail

we met late in the night after
years without correspondence on
a moonlit beach bordering
the eastern shore of Lake Erie

I almost didn’t make it, I almost
didn’t come, but her name had come up
recently, and she had called, so
I hit the liquor store just before
the neons punched the clock, figuring
why not? it’s still summer, right?
I’m still young, and I drove off
southward through the warm dark
full up on fuel and thoughts, in
debt with agencies and expectations

somewhere between an hour
and an hour and a half later
I arrived, I parked by a
rundown little diner,
questionable to the naked
eye if it were still in
operation, which illuminated
one of my many lovelorn
desire-drenched dreams from
a lifetime past or future
of owning a place just like it
in the middle of a nowhere
just like that, living above
where we serve greasy food all
day and cheap booze all night
with a girl who might be
just like her…

a friend of mine met me and led me
up and back and over and down
to a beach where a few people
sat around a fire and she lay
on a blanket, laughing

I walked through the sand in socks
and shoes with rum in a brown paper
bag thinking I should have worn
different footwear and judging by
the haggard viscosity of the
remaining crew I should have
shown up much earlier but, alas!
there we were!

before I knew it she was pulling me
down, she was soft and her hands were
curious so I answered their questions
and I asked some back, we lay down
in the sand and posed greater hypotheses
to which the folks around us decided they
wanted no part in controls and variables,
they were in no condition for research
of any type, leaving us alone to sort out
the data and draw conclusions
however we saw fit

her and I had a brief past (we
weren’t there to study history)
mostly of platonic friendship,
a few times of something more,
but it was never the right time
nor place nor person among other
obstacles pitfalls cliffhangs
and roadblocks that are ohsocommon
and ohsonecessary in so many areas
of our so-called lives

the moonlight cut through everything
and made it clear—so, so clear—

and though she had always been
an attractive girl, she was never as
downright ravishing as she was that
night on the beach, wearing
the moon as makeup and the
sand as lingerie, the waves
rolling in so soft to crash,
so soft and crashing, washing away
everything everything everything
and taking me away with it

she straddled me and said
things like: “if I like it,
I take it” and “you’ve always
been such a babe” and “I want
you to think of every girl
who’s ever done you wrong”

I looked up at her and said
things like: “how would you
like to waste the next two years
of your life?” and “how much
did you drink?” and “we’re not
gonna take this too far” as
the moon revealed a girl I had
never seen before and the sand
jumped in and the waves had their say

I told her how nice it was,
how I was really enjoying myself,
trying my best to take it all in
for all that it was for as long
as it was because it was a once
in a lifetime moment we were
sharing and it was for
us and only us and that’s
pretty special if you ask me;
a big part of what life’s about—!

we passed out on the sand
by the waves below the moon
with each other and when we
awoke it was dark and chilly
so we beat feet up to the cottage
and found a bed, sand a small dog
tagging along, moon a teen voyeur
peeking through blinds, waves
a lover’s melody whispering
sweet nothings sounding more
and more like lullabies…

waking up it was gone, all of it:
the moonlight, muscled out by
the sun’s rays; the waves
as we departed—hers and mine
and the lake’s; the sand
when I got home, clean and smooth
down the drain, back from
whence it came

whatever that night was was never meant
to be figured out or defined or continued,
I knew these things in the moment
although I extended my hand afterward—

it seemed only right the enchantment—
the sparkle, the glisten,
the glow—melt away
to ill-driven motives and
thoughtlessness on her end,
open-minded desperation on mine,
as she dropped her clues that
she wasn’t into me, and I
needed not a monocle to decipher
those hints and back off

two weeks later she was dating
a different guy; it made sense:
I wasn’t ready to give her a
relationship, they seemed a fair
fit, and the cogs of courtship must
have already been churning on that
one during the night which we
shared our abbreviated vacation
from everything and everything

hey—no harm, no foul!

and even if that night is
nothing but a nebulous escapade
to her, it did mean something
to me, and I’m glad it’s strong enough
to stand on its own two after
its premature boot from the womb,
because we probably never could
have topped it anyway…

though it sure as hell
would have been fun to try

Artist w/o an Outlet

and he can’t say shit
as much as he speaks
            and puts forth,
it goes unheard
when spitting venom

brain overactive
living in a misery of
            his own creation
waiting until it dies or
            he kills it

refusing pills and therapy
searching for a better
                        way

boiling down the masses
staring down a black hole
playing “look away/peek-a-boo/
                        who blinks first”
            with eternity
a losing battle
he’s all geared up for

sitting in squalor
dollars hollering at him
he just won’t take

it’s an awkward puzzle
a profound ambiguity
shattered glass and
a mirror broken into
a zillion pieces
showing what they spent
10 billion on James Webb
to see

that which he could have
            shown
the whole
time…

just as soon as he gets
up, gets
down,
and learns how to
            tie his shoes.

Ominous Sarcophagus

and i’m the one inside
dusty with decay of my own doing
a rotting symbol of something
that once was great, or at least
felt he was, and felt
that others felt so too,
and that they followed suit

naked, devoid of all light, eyes
crusted shut for centuries,
barely breathing hot dry air
(like someone shoved a blow dryer
down your throat, deep into
your lungs), mouth tasting
of pennies, body smelling like
leaves, but the heart—however
gruesome-slow—never stopped!

                        …not completely

and when the scholars who make
no dollars finally found the tomb,
discovered the crypt, they were
careful to crack open the coffin
cautiously, ambivalent to if
they should even do so, only
to reveal—oh, my!—it was
empty the whole time.

Superstition (or just leave?)

they’ve nine legs
and they’ve never
swallowed back—

let ’em ride let ’em
rock let ’em
roll until their souls
are full

—OR—

stand them up on stakes
while their wives are
bleeding, burn them
while they hang as
the jury watches on;
desecrate their people,
erase their history,
put their bullets in them
that they swear are fair

…or just leave.

Haphazardous Road Maps, Rt. 66 ed. (Pt. VI)

freckles on pickled pears
prickly by nature
fractured at birth

lying in wait by
the winds of the
Western seas

easily, snipped ripe
and sniped early,
low ’n slow for

the taking, but
no!—you’ll
have a seizure

trying to seize these
as these are not
yours—no, they
are not yours—

like peach plums
oranges, apples to
apples, dust to
dust (let it rot
let it rot)

but don’t talk
back! …just
listen…

because smoke sells
and this smoke smells
of something you
cannot tell,

and just like my
brother said, like my
father said, like my
aunt says, like my
Love understands
(more than I can ever say
times tenfold, and tenfold
exponentially forever after
that—!) like what
I mean to say is:

it’s not what you say,
fine gentlemen and ladies
and lasses and assholes
and calligraphers and
here-to-fors and ever-afters
and sooth-sayers and
truth-sayers and in-betweeners
and neithers and rare-spare-parters
and odds-n-enders and even-starters
and well-to-dos and well-to-donts
and what-might-you-have-yous and
what-have-you-nots, and whatnot—

to all who’ve wished
upon a star, who’ve
believed in fairy tales
and fables, who’ve drank the dogs’
piss from the dogs’ bowl,
who’ve bathed in moonlight
and basked in the afterglow
(reverberated off their own
cerebellum, stone-faced
without Medusa, Moai on
their own accord),
who’ve bowled three strikes
in a row on Thanksgiving
with no witnesses, given
thanks due to the forgotten
gods and goddesses,
to the filth and fine
powders and fabrics
they manage to manufacture—

to those who sleep
but don’t dream,
to those who
dream but don’t sleep—
to those who do
neither, and fucking
do it well!—
recount the ones
who called when
you couldn’t answer,
recall the myth in
the midst of your
madness, remember
to spit in the wind
and swallow hard
while it gleams on your
face and drips down
your jowls—

because it’s not what
you say, it’s how you
say it (and now you
say it)—

and I’d repurpose
that cunt plug for a bald
man’s scalp, trade that
tampon for Richard’s
cranium, if you catch my
wave, baby—if you have
a metaphysical surfboard,
to ride my exquisite
Northern drift.

Doctor, Doctor! Emergency! Please—Can You Help!?

            A man walks into a doctor’s office. The man’s been the doctor’s patient for years. His reason for the appointment?

            “I’ve got this small bump on the back of my neck, doc. It’s been there as long as I can remember, though often I forget about it, because it’s not painful, and it doesn’t itch. It can’t be popped. But when I feel it—in the shower or something—and think about it, it bothers me. Can you remove it?”

            “That’s just a natural part of your skin,” says the doctor. “It’s never hurt you and it never will.”

            The man sauntered about, dancing around the point passively, figuring his presence would have been assertive enough. He couldn’t seem to get his doctor to see it his way. It was bothersome.

            “I assure you,” said the doctor, “you’re going to be fine.” The man had no choice but to agree, to comply and to leave.

            Once he was gone the doctor thought to himself: it’s not enough to just be ok anymore. People want to be newborns again. No—people want to be born again. They want to be perfect. They want to be robots. But what do they need?

            He thought for a short while. No more than a minute or two. It was obvious:

            He quit.